Trump vs. Bolton: legal duel around a critical book on the American president

John Bolton, is due to publish his book "The Room Where It Happened, A White House Memoir" on June 23.

"This is the book Donald Trump doesn't want you to read."

The editor of John Bolton, former adviser to the American president, did not think so well when announcing the release of his work which promises to be explosive for the republican billionaire: the American government launched legal action on Tuesday to try to block it.

The complaint, filed with a federal court, argues that John Bolton did not have his manuscript approved beforehand, and that his work is "clearly in violation of the agreements he signed as a condition of his employment and access to highly classified information. "

According to the Trump administration, the one who held the strategic post of national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019 first agreed to have his text proofread, "stuffed with classified information" that the White House asked him to "remove". But he finally decided unilaterally to announce the publication of the book, "The Room Where It Happened, A White House Memoir", for June 23, without waiting for the end of the proofreading process.

In passing, the government slips into its complaint that the adviser with the famous white mustache had "negotiated" his story "for an amount of about two million dollars".

The release of this highly anticipated book by All-Washington was in fact announced on Friday in a press release from its publisher, Simon & Schuster, who assured that the author had cooperated well with the presidency to amend his initial manuscript taking into account of his "worries".

A precursor to the showdown, the publisher nevertheless took care to invoke the first amendment to the American Constitution, which enshrines freedom of expression.

John Bolton has already recorded a television interview which is to be broadcast on Sunday by the ABC channel.

"Doomed to fail"

Donald Trump had unceremoniously separated from him in September, with the two men citing irreconcilable differences.

So far, only one sentence from the book has been released to the media. And it announces the color.

"I find it difficult to find a single important decision by Trump, during the term of my office, which was not guided by a calculation with a view to his re-election", writes in his memoirs this hawk, considered as a thinker of the sovereignist fringe of the republican camp, hostile to multilateralism and willingly goes to war.

"What Bolton saw stunned him: a president for whom re-election is the only thing that matters, even if it means endangering or weakening the nation," the editor said.

According to this account, the real estate tycoon would have taken decisions liable to dismissal far beyond the only Ukrainian case which resulted in an indictment for "abuse of power", but resulted in his acquittal by the Senate.

The book had already smashed into American political life when passages were leaked to the press in January, in the midst of a dismissal trial.

According to these initial extracts, John Bolton reported in particular a conversation last August during which Donald Trump had explained to him that he did not want to unblock crucial aid to Ukraine until she investigates his democratic opponent Joe Biden - - now a candidate against him for the presidential election of November 3.

It is this alleged market that was at the heart of the trial.

Powerful civil rights organization ACLU said "any attempt by the Trump administration to prevent the publication of John Bolton's book" was "doomed to failure", recalling a Supreme Court decision against Richard Nixon declaring unconstitutional government censorship.

Former member of the National Security Council to former Democratic President Barack Obama, Ned Price accused him on Twitter of the administration of "wanting to bury the evidence of Trump's corruption".