US Drops Lawsuit Against Former Trump Adviser Bolton’s Book

U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday agreed to drop a lawsuit against John Bolton, who worked in former President Donald Trump’s administration.

A court filing in USA v. Bolton said that prosecutors agreed to the dismissal of the lawsuit, as did lawyers for Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser.

The Trump administration in June 2020 sued Bolton, attempting to stop the publication of a book he penned. Officials asserted the book contained classified information that would compromise national security if allowed to be published without a government review.

Prosecutors also have dropped a grand jury investigation that was related to the book, a lawyer representing Bolton said.

“These actions represent a complete vindication for Ambassador Bolton, and a repudiation of former President Trump’s attempt, under the pretext of protecting classified information, first to suppress the book’s publication and when that failed in court, to penalize the ambassador,” Sarah Tinsley, a spokeswoman for Bolton, told news outlets.

“By ending these proceedings without in any way penalizing Ambassador Bolton or limiting his proceeds from the book, the Department of Justice has tacitly acknowledged that President Trump and his White House officials acted illegitimately,” added Charles Cooper, a lawyer for Bolton.

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A federal judge last year denied the department’s attempt to block publication of the book, but did say that Bolton “gambled with the national security of the United States” by not waiting until the government review of his tome was completed.

“He has exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability,” U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said in his ruling.

Hundreds of thousands of copies of Bolton’s book had already been shipped, undercutting the argument for an injunction.

Trump suggested Bolton should be jailed over the book, accusing him of “disseminating, for profit, highly classified information.”

Bolton, who also worked in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, was ousted in the fall of 2019.

Trump said he asked Bolton for his resignation because both he and others in the administration disagreed strongly with many of his ideas.

Bolton in his resignation note thanked Trump for “having afforded me this opportunity to serve our country.”

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