Parts of Bolton book based on automatically classified material, former Trump lawyer says

Material in John Bolton’s forthcoming book pertaining to the president’s conversations with a foreign head of state is based on information that is classified in real time, according to security experts.

“Any conversation the president has with a foreign head of state is absolutely classified, from the moment it occurs,” John Dowd, a former Trump legal advisor, told Just the News. “They are not only classified, but are also a privileged conversation, on a number of levels.”

The distinction may factor into Friday’s hearing on whether the former National Security Adviser and his publisher Simon & Schuster are barred from releasing the 592-page book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir."

The Justice Department on Wednesday night filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order, to stop the book from being released as scheduled next week. Excerpts from the book have been provided to the news media.

The application alleges that the book includes classified material.

According to people who have seen advance copies of the book, one portion depicts President Trump asking Chinese President Xi Jinping to buy American agriculture products to help him win farm states in the 2020 election.

Senior White House official Peter Navarro said that the ag-buy request and other anecdotes were untrue. 

They also would be based on classified information, if drawn from private meetings between Trump and Xi, experts said.

“Any of their dealings are classified, if they’re held in a private forum,” Dowd said. “Records of the conversations lose that distinction only when they are declassified.”

Much in the book is drawn from secret material and documents, the Justice Department wrote in its emergency filing.

In its filing, the government argues that Director of National Intelligence John L. Ratcliffe has concluded “that the passages of the manuscript” reviewed by Michael Ellis, deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council, “contain classified national security information” and “if made public, will damage national security.”

In pursuing publication, Bolton “unilaterally has decided to abandon the prepublication review process that he agreed to and instead plans to disseminate classified information as he sees fit in order to profit from his book,” the filing reads.

Bolton has been chastised by leaders of both political parties. The critics include Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who on Thursday accused the former National Security Adviser of putting “royalty over patriotism,” and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who said: “It disappoints me. It looks as though he wants to make money.”  

The emergency hearing is scheduled to be held on Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.