Trump’s order is based on national security and nondisclosure reasons…
The White House has seen the book since December….
An American President CAN label ANYTHING ‘top secret/classified’ at will…
The White House has issued a formal threat to former national security adviser John Bolton to keep him from publishing his book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.
The White House had no comment. Neither Bolton nor a spokesman for the publisher, Simon & Schuster, responded to a request for comment.
The letter comes as President Trump attacks Bolton on Twitter and as Bolton’s lawyer accuses the White House of corrupting the vetting process for Bolton’s book by sharing the contents of the book with those outside the National Security Council’s Records Management Division.
Trump’s tweets attacking Bolton this morning suggested he knew the contents of the manuscript.
Reports from The New York Times suggest that Bolton’s book details a time last August when the President directly linked $391 million in security aid to Ukraine with that country’s government launching investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
The President has repeatedly made unfounded and false claims about Vice President Biden relating to Ukraine….
…
Trump in tweets Wednesday morning labeled Bolton “a guy who couldn’t get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn’t get approved for anything since, ‘begged’ me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying ‘Don’t do it, sir.’ ”
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump….many more mistakes of judgement, gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?
Bolton may not have complained so directly, but Trump seems to have missed the signs of what was to come.
What’s notable about Trump’s outburst is how unprecedented it is. Despite Bolton leaving the White House under less-than-ideal circumstances and disputing Trump’s claims about his departure, Trump has resisted going to war with him — as he has with plenty of others. Even as Bolton loomed as a potential impeachment witness and seemed to lean into criticizing Trump, Trump seemed to opt for a strategy of hopeful appeasement of Bolton, perhaps in hopes that he wouldn’t go there.
The strategy hasn’t worked; Bolton is now going there. In his book, he links Trump directly to a Ukraine quid pro quo, among other big claims….
image…newyorker.com
According to Political Wire Cory Gardner has decided he dies not need to hear from witnesses
Guess someone knows he is going to lose and wants to keep from being called names on his way out.
Coward
ChrisHayes
@chrishayes
Here’s the ugly truth at the core of all of this: the president actually can do whatever he wants – rob, cheat, steal, murder – if he can hold 34 senate votes.