Trump is trying to block publication of John Bolton's book. What's he scared of?
On Tuesday, the Trump administration asked a federal judge to block publication of John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened, the former national security adviser’s twice-delayed kiss-and-tell memoir of life in the Trump White House. Last week, Simon & Schuster, Bolton’s publisher, announced: “This is the book Donald Trump doesn’t want you to read.”
They got that one right. The book depicts “a president for whom getting re-elected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation”. Let that sink in.
To be sure, the administration’s latest gambit should come as no surprise. Earlier in the year, when the president’s acquittal in the Senate was still fresh and he was blithely ignoring warnings about Covid-19, Trump was also demanding that Bolton be criminally investigated. Hillary Clinton was not alone. For good measure, Trump reportedly called Bolton a “traitor” to whoever would listen.
But beyond personal animus, this is the fight Trump has been itching for. It’s chance to silence his critics.
Two years ago, the president and his minions threatened to block publication of Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff’s scandalous account of the Trump White House, after the Guardian ran excerpts before the book’s drop date. Back then it was simply a brushback pitch, legal theatre of the absurd.
The warning carried no mention of national security. Unsurprising, since Wolff’s book was about Trump’s ecosystem being a cross between the Lord of the Flies meets Gossip Girl – hurt feelings, not state secrets.
Indeed, publisher Henry Holt responded by bringing publication forward by four days. The book, it claimed, was “an extraordinary contribution to our national discourse”, which is highbrow speak for “shove it”.
No lawsuit followed; casualties were minimal. Steve Bannon, another Trump White House refugee, was served with a cease-and-desist letter warning him not to talk to the press.
Heh heh. The word on the street is that Bannon is now phoning in the plays to a beleaguered Trump campaign. This time as a coach from the sidelines, not as a quarterback on the field.
Sadly, the ghosts of the Pentagon Papers are back. Once again, an unmoored administration appears determined to use the courts to muzzle its critics.
During Richard Nixon’s first term, the New York Times and the Washington Post published excerpts of a secret official history of the Vietnam war, which made clear that the US military effort in south-east Asia was doomed to failure. American victory was never going to happen. When Nixon took the oath of office, 40,000 US troops already lay dead; another 20,000 would be killed on his watch.
Then as now, the president raged and the first amendment to the constitution was expected to take a back seat. Nixon and his allies sought to prevent the Post and the Times from telling the truth. Fortunately, the government lost before the US supreme court in a six-to-three decision.
In a concurring and historic opinion, the late Hugo Black opined that a temporary injunction obtained by the government should have been immediately vacated without oral argument. Black wrote: “every moment’s continuance of the injunctions … amounts to a flagrant, indefensible, and continuing violation of the first amendment.”
As for relationship between the press, citizenry and those who govern, the concurrence was equally emphatic: “The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government.”
To be sure, the former Manhattan
real estate developer has never been a fan of free speech and a free press. Craving public mention should not be confused with respecting free expression or the truth.
Years ago, Trump unsuccessfully sued the Times and Tim O’Brien, an investigative reporter, because they had the temerity to question whether he was the billionaire he claimed to be. More recently, Trump’s campaign claim that they were defamed by the Post and the Times for publishing op-eds that concerned possible Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Trump has also called for tougher libel laws, sought to strip CNN’s Jim Acosta of his White House press pass, and treated the murder of Jamal Khashoggi as a non-event.
The blow-up between Trump and Bolton also highlights divisions among conservatives. Trump is no longer everyone’s favorite.
Bolton’s lawyer is Chuck Cooper, a former justice department colleague from the Reagan administration. Cooper also represented Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general, during the Mueller investigation, and Sessions is currently locked in a battle for the Republican nomination for the Alabama Senate seat. Likewise, Bolton’s spokeswoman, Sarah Tinsley, served in the Trump White House and holds Republican credentials dating back to the Reagan years too.
On Monday, Trump accused Bolton of peddling “highly classified information”, and branded The Room Where It Happened “highly inappropriate”. As for Bolton the man, Trump remarked, “Maybe he’s not telling the truth. He’s been known not to tell the truth, a lot.”
Really? Bolton’s the guy who keeps copious notes. And the president? He’s been consistently trailing Joe Biden in the polls. Like the upcoming election, Trump’s legal attack on Bolton will be one for the ages. Justice Black will probably be watching from the great courtroom in the sky.
An attorney in New York, Lloyd Green was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
The blow-up between Trump and Bolton also highlights divisions among conservatives. Trump is no longer everyone’s favorite