Breaking: Justice Dept. Opens Criminal Inquiry Into John Bolton's Book (NYT)

[Mike 03]

New York Times
By Katie Benner
Sept. 15, 2020
Updated 11:39 a.m. ET

Investigators are examining whether the former national security adviser illegally disclosed classified information.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether President Trump’s former national security adviser John R. Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information when he published a memoir this summer, a case that the department opened after it failed to stop the book’s publication this summer, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The department has convened a grand jury, which issued a subpoena for communications records from Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Mr. Bolton’s memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.” In the book, Mr. Bolton delivered a highly unflattering account of his 17 months working in the Trump administration.

The investigation is a significant escalation in the fraught publication of the book. The Trump administration had sought to stop its publication, accusing Mr. Bolton in a lawsuit of moving forward with publication without receiving final notice that a prepublication review to scrub out classified information was complete. The director of national intelligence referred the matter to the Justice Department last month, two of the people said. John Demers, the head of the department’s national security division, then opened the criminal investigation, according to a person briefed on the case..

Mr. Bolton has denied that he published classified information. Representatives for the Justice Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Council declined to comment.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/us/politics/john-bolton-book-criminal-investigation.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[spanone]

1. fuck you bill barr

Bolton is now considered the enemy...this is what dictators do, sic their departments of 'justice' to go after political enemies.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Go ahead... eat your own

Soon there won't be any GOP left.

[jcgoldie]

3. banana republicans gonna banana

Bill Barr has no respect for his office.

[DonaldsRump]

4. Well, that's rich

The swamp creatures investigating swamp creatures.

Nothing will come of it when Joe wins if this is purely political. There wouldn't be time for an indictment and trial before January 20, 2021.

On the other hand, it is John Bolton. So, to paraphrase our First Nude, "I really don't care, do u?"

[Spazito]

5. Eating their own...

No sympathy here except for the American taxpayer who, as usual, will be paying the humongous cost of the faux inquiry.

[bigtree]

6. are they purposely trying to boost sales?

...cause that's all this will do is make more people look.

[greenjar_01]

7. They are normalizing authoritarian tactics

The Justice Department has lost any semblance of an independent agency, and is now merely a Gestapo for Trumpism. Disgraceful.

[triron]

18. Nazi Germany here we go all over again. Evil, stupidity and ignorance reign.

[yonder]

8. I thought publication was held up to give some agency (NSA?)

a chance to vet it for those very same classified info issues? Maybe I'm thinking of something else.

[ScratchCat]

10. Yes, three different times

At some point, someone went back and tried to re-classify information that was not classified as sensitive previously.

[yonder]

14. This administration can't even wipe its own ass.

[MaryMagdaline]

9. He cleared it all with the White House

This is done to scare other people into not writing books.

[Stallion]

11. Bolton Might Want to Reconsider Not Voting for Biden

...because I'd just as soon see him rot in jail if Trump is reelected

[MFGsunny]

12. "Eating Their Own" is an essential milestone in draining the sewage AND locking them up.

Putting that one down as a "win" on my GOoPer Fate Bingo card.

[OAITW r.2.0]

13. Hasn't Trump the very same thing? Exposing state secrets?

Obviously, this is nothing but a vandetta on Trump's political enemies. A warning shot to others who will divulge embarrassing details on Trump's behavior.

[ScratchCat]

15. Here is the important part

In an email, the National Security Council’s top official for pre-publication review said she was satisfied with the edits that Mr. Bolton had made to address her concerns about classified information.

But the White House initiated another review without notifying Mr. Bolton(done by a Trump lackey), and the official involved in that review said in an affidavit that he found multiple instances of classified information in the manuscript as part of that process.

Even though Mr. Bolton did not receive a final approval letter from the White House, he told Simon & Schuster to publish anyway.

He was not required to "receive approval from the White House". It was only the NSA who had to clear it. Donald Trump has no legal authority to clear or not clear the book.

Further, what they appear to be trying to argue is that what he revealed to the publisher that wasn't published was classified and he still broke the law. That's not how it works.

[kysrsoze]

16. You had your chance, Bolton, to do this the right way by testifying. Suck it.

[crickets]

19. Pretty much.

If he'd bothered to testify about all of this, classification would not have been an issue any more. He might have boosted book sales through goodwill rather than lost them over spilling all the details, but he and his publisher were too greedy. This is what his greed has brought down on him. Too bad, so sad.

[Norbert]

17. The footsteps you hear are the last of the GW Bush Adm. members walking away from trump

[KY_EnviroGuy]

20. The DOJ is now the DOR (Dept. of Revenge). n/t

KY..........