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WASHINGTON – Former White House national security adviser John Bolton is under investigation by the Justice Department after publishing an explosive book that angered President Donald Trump, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
The Times said the department had convened a grand jury to examine whether Bolton illegally published classified information in his book published in June.
He said publisher Simon & Schuster had been cited in communications related to the book, “The Room Where It Happened,” which depicted Bolton’s former boss as reckless and corrupt, and supported the charges Trump was indicted on in December.
After the White House failed to block publication of the book, Trump demanded that Bolton, a veteran hardline diplomat, be investigated.
“Bolton broke the law and has been criticized and reprimanded for doing so, with a really high price to pay,” Trump tweeted on June 20.
“Bankrupt Creepster John Bolton is a criminal who should be in jail, money seized, for spreading highly classified information for profit,” he wrote three days later.
The Justice Department and Simon & Schuster declined to comment. Bolton’s attorney, Charles Cooper, said they were aware of the subpoena reports.
“Ambassador Bolton emphatically rejects any claim that he acted inappropriately, much less criminally, in connection with the publication of his book,” Cooper said in a statement.
NPR public radio also reported on the investigation, adding that Bolton’s literary agent had also been subpoenaed.
A case against Bolton would center on his claim that his manuscript had undergone a national security review prior to publication and claims by critics that he did not complete that review.
Cooper said before publication that it had undergone a line-by-line review and was approved by a senior White House national security official.
The judge who rejected the White House push to block the book, in part because copies were already widely distributed, warned that Bolton had “played with the national security” of the country and exposed himself to civil and criminal liability.
Around the same time, Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency, said he had “identified classified information” in the manuscript in a pre-publication review.
“Compromise of this information could result in the permanent loss of a valuable source of Sigint (signals intelligence) and cause irreparable damage” to US intelligence, Nakasone said, without specifying what information.
National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe also suggested in June that the book contained secrets.
“The type of information classified in these passages is the type of information that foreign adversaries of the United States seek to obtain, at great cost, through covert intelligence gathering,” he said.
The Times said the Justice Department debated whether to open an investigation into Bolton and some argued that Trump’s comments in June would make it look like political retribution.
