President Donald Trump is once again attempting to interfere with the publication of a book that he believes is critical of him. On June 16, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in an effort to block the June 23 release of The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, a book by John R. Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser. It is being published by Simon & Schuster. In 2018, lawyers for Trump threatened legal action against publishers in an attempt to suppress Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the White House (Macmillan) and Omarosa Manigault Newman’s Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House (Simon & Schuster). They claimed that Wolff’s book was libelous, while Omarosa’s contained “disparaging” statements.
“President Trump is once again trying to deprive the American people of their First Amendment right to read a book that is critical of him,” Christopher Finan, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), said. “The only difference this time is the president’s claim that the book contains classified information.”
Bolton insists that all classified information was removed from his book during a government secrecy review.