America's #1 Online Cigar Auction
first, best, biggest!

Last post 3 years ago by Smooth light. 9 replies replies.
Justice Department Begins Criminal Probe Over Bolton Book
rfenst Online
#1 Posted:
Joined: 06-23-2007
Posts: 39,100
WSJ

Mr. Bolton’s bestseller, ‘The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,’ is highly critical of President Trump.

Federal prosecutors issued grand jury subpoenas to former national security adviser John Bolton’s publisher and literary agent on Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, launching a criminal investigation into whether Mr. Bolton mishandled classified information.

The subpoenas, to Simon & Schuster and Javelin, requested all communications with Mr. Bolton, said the people, who declined to be named. Both companies were involved in publishing Mr. Bolton’s bestseller, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” The book, released in June, is highly critical of President Trump and relays stories about Mr. Bolton’s time in government and relationship with the president.

The Justice Department’s use of a grand jury in the inquiry hasn’t previously been reported. The agency previously filed a lawsuit against Mr. Bolton over the book’s publication and has asked the court to set aside Mr. Bolton’s profits from the book.

Mr. Bolton himself didn’t receive any subpoena, one of the people said.

“We are aware of reports that grand jury subpoenas have been issued seeking information concerning the publication of Ambassador Bolton’s recent book,” said Mr. Bolton’s attorney, Charles Cooper. “Ambassador Bolton emphatically rejects any claim that he acted improperly, let alone criminally, in connection with the publication of his book, and he will cooperate fully, as he has throughout, with any official inquiry into his conduct.”

Representatives for Simon & Schuster, which is the book publishing arm of ViacomCBS Inc., declined to comment, and the Justice Department declined to comment. Representatives for Javelin didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The development turns what had been limited to a court battle over the book’s profits into a criminal investigation that raises the possibility that Mr. Bolton could face jail time if he is charged and convicted of a crime.

Mr. Bolton is one of several former administration officials who have written books that recount their time in office under Mr. Trump, including former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and former White House communications adviser Cliff Sims. The president and the White House have been critical of some of those memoirs for painting a harsh portrait of him.

Mr. Trump has dismissed the claims as the exaggerations of a disgruntled ex-employee, and accused Mr. Bolton of lying and of including classified information in the book, suggesting he should be imprisoned. In one June tweet, Mr. Trump said: “Washed up Creepster John Bolton is a lowlife who should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information.”

The Justice Department took particular issue with Mr. Bolton’s book. In a civil suit filed earlier this year in federal court in Washington, it accused Mr. Bolton of not waiting until his manuscript had received signoff from national security reviewers. Such signoff is required of former officials to ensure that they don’t disseminate classified information.

Mr. Bolton responded in that civil suit that one official had cleared the manuscript after months of edits, and that the White House was improperly extending the review process to delay his book because it was embarrassing for Mr. Trump.

In its lawsuit, the Justice Department argued that even though the initial government reviewer of the manuscript, Ellen Knight, the National Security Council’s senior director for records, access, and information security management, had judged the manuscript to be free of classified information in April, other senior officials later determined that version of the manuscript still contained classified passages.

The federal judge overseeing that lawsuit suggested earlier this year that Mr. Bolton may have exposed himself to criminal liability after he examined evidence the Justice Department provided to him under seal, essentially encouraging prosecutors to pursue a criminal inquiry.

Some former prosecutors said the investigation posed novel questions given Mr. Trump’s vocal criticism of Mr. Bolton, potentially giving Mr. Bolton the ability to argue that he was selectively prosecuted. Ms. Knight’s communication to Mr. Bolton telling him his manuscript was free of classified information would also give Mr. Bolton ammunition for his defense and set a high bar for prosecutors to clear, experts said.

“The fact that [Ms. Knight] effectively expresses satisfaction, that is going to be a huge hurdle to overcome,” said James Melendres, a former federal prosecutor who is now in private practice. Even if there is evidence in Mr. Bolton’s emails with the publisher and agent that he knew the manuscript still contained classified information, Mr. Melendres said, “you have to believe you can prove crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” He added that Simon & Schuster and Javelin could potentially fight the subpoenas on First Amendment grounds.

Mr. Bolton’s memoir sold more than 780,000 copies in all formats through its first week on sale in the U.S., according to Simon & Schuster. There are now more than one million hardcover copies in print.

The federal judge overseeing the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Mr. Bolton, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, said in June that Mr. Bolton likely “jeopardized national security” and was persuaded that he had violated his employment contracts that governed his access to classified information when he was Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. But the judge rejected the request to block the book’s distribution given that many of its revelations had already been made public.

The lawsuit remains ongoing. The Justice Department also asked Judge Lamberth to establish a trust to capture Mr. Bolton’s profits from the book, writing in a July motion for summary judgment: “[E]ven if he believed the information was not classified or that the prepublication-review process was consuming too much time, the appropriate course of action under settled law was to initiate a lawsuit against the Government to obtain judicial resolution of these matters, not to unilaterally distribute his book to the entire world.”

Mr. Bolton’s attorneys asked the court to defer ruling on that request until it could receive discovery from the government about the prepublication review process. “The facts in the public record overwhelmingly indicate that the Government violated [the obligation to perform fairly and in good faith] by undertaking and conducting the second, and unprecedented, further prepublication review…for the political purpose of suppressing, or at least delaying until after the 2020 election, the publication of a book that reported facts portraying President Trump in an unfavorable and embarrassing light,” his attorneys wrote in an August filing.

Judge Lamberth hasn’t yet ruled on the requests.

Simon & Schuster is also the publisher of “Rage” by journalist Bob Woodward, which was released on Tuesday and is based on 18 interviews he conducted with Mr. Trump and interviews with participants in and witnesses to the scenarios described in the book. Mr. Trump has called the book a “political hit-job.” The book ranked No. 1 on Amazon’s Top 100 bestseller list on Tuesday.
tonygraz Offline
#2 Posted:
Joined: 08-11-2008
Posts: 20,175
Things like this are expected in dictatorships.
HockeyDad Offline
#3 Posted:
Joined: 09-20-2000
Posts: 46,065
Swamp fight!
HockeyDad Offline
#4 Posted:
Joined: 09-20-2000
Posts: 46,065
tonygraz wrote:
Things like this are expected in dictatorships.


In a dictatorship Bolton gets a bullet in the head. Let’s not over exaggerate!
ZRX1200 Offline
#5 Posted:
Joined: 07-08-2007
Posts: 60,476
Only in the dictatorships Tony approves of.
bgz Offline
#6 Posted:
Joined: 07-29-2014
Posts: 13,023
There's rules to this sh*t... dude bent the rules, got his book out. His message must be worth more than the money in his eyes.

On another note, pretty sure if trump thought he could get away with it, he woulda shot him...

But he didn't.
victor809 Offline
#7 Posted:
Joined: 10-14-2011
Posts: 23,866
bgz wrote:
There's rules to this sh*t... dude bent the rules, got his book out. His message must be worth more than the money in his eyes.

On another note, pretty sure if trump thought he could get away with it, he woulda shot him...

But he didn't.


at this point I'm honestly surprised he doesn't think he can get away with it.

I can guarantee you if he did shoot him, this forum would be full of people "whatabout Clinton!'ing" posting that dumb list of people they're convinced the clintons had killed as justification.
Mr. Jones Offline
#8 Posted:
Joined: 06-12-2005
Posts: 19,359
There are so many "investigations" , inquires, etc...

It's like ...

Nobody will have anytime to live their real normal lives and do their current jobs because they are spending all their money and time COVERING THEIR AZZES FOR WHAT THEY DID FROM 2016 -2020...

It is a real DRAIN ON THE ECONOMY ....
AND....
LIFE IN GENERAL..

MORAL OF THE STORY...

"NEVER ACCEPT A JOB IN WASHINGTON , D.C..."
Smooth light Offline
#9 Posted:
Joined: 06-26-2020
Posts: 3,598
🐊🐊🐊🐊bait

Progressive/liberal did from 08-16... they can't discover out how we got rich, fake news will help. Can you spell "investigationize" 🐊🐊🐊
Users browsing this topic
Guest