John Bolton can gather evidence on the classification process and judge the rules



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The court case over whether the federal government can take Bolton’s book-related product will continue.

Bolton argues that he had no intention of revealing classified information and believed the Trump administration had classified information about the president after the book went through nearly all the necessary approval steps. The approver of the book Bolton worked with backed up his narrative of the process, saying through his lawyer that Trump’s allies were seeking to protect the president.

DC District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled on Thursday that the collection of evidence from Bolton would be tightly controlled in his court. He will be able to seek evidence from junior officials at first and will need to get the judge’s approval before proceeding.

“Bolton can only make a discovery on his claims that President Trump or senior White House officials acted in bad faith by intentionally delaying the pre-publication review and attempting to unduly influence classification decisions.” , wrote Lamberth.

Bolton’s book – a major detrimental moment for Trump politically during an election year – is one of the episodes that has also drawn significant criticism of the Trump administration’s politicization of the intelligence community and the Justice Department.

Former NSC official accuses White House of trying to block Bolton's book to satisfy Trump

Former Attorney General William Barr had approved a White House request to take legal action to stop the publication of Bolton’s book, an extraordinary decision days before its release.

In keeping with his hands-on approach outside of his political circle, Barr sent Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to discuss with department attorneys how they should file a lawsuit against Bolton, according to a person familiar with the treatment. of the case. Lawyers said an attempt to stop the publication of Bolton’s book was unfortunate. Their concerns were ignored and Barr approved the lawsuit, the person said. This part of the trial, aimed at stopping publication, failed because the book was already in the hands of the booksellers.

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