John Bolton’s Bet

In respect of John Bolton, we confess we’re of two minds. We will always count him a hero for leading at the United Nations the effort to repeal the General Assembly’s resolution equating Zionism with racism. Yet it’s hard to imagine anyone could be surprised if the investigation under way at the Justice Department turns out to involve Mr. Bolton’s White House memoir. Or, per the New York Post, if there are separate infractions being probed.

The contretemps over Mr. Bolton’s book dates from June, 2020, when in the onrush of the election, the Trump administration went to court to seek an injunction against publication of the volume. A federal judge, the Honorable Royce Lamberth of the United States District Court at Washington D.C., spurned the administration’s request. “With hundreds of thousands of copies around the globe — many in newsrooms — the damage is done,” intoned the judge. 

Judge Lamberth concluded the government had not shown that an injunction would “prevent irreparable injury.” He noted that Mr. Bolton “disputes that his book contains any such classified information” and “emphasizes his months-long compliance” with prepublication review. Mr. Bolton, the judge noted, questioned “the motives of intelligence officers.” The erstwhile National Security Adviser, the judge wrote, could have sought relief in court.

“Instead, he opted out of the review process before its conclusion,” Judge Lamberth wrote. A few words later he explained: “This was Bolton’s bet: If he is right and the book does not contain classified information, he keeps the upside” of publicity and sales. Judge Lamberth noted that if Mr. Bolton “is wrong, he stands to lose his profits from the book deal, exposes himself to criminal liability, and imperils national security. Bolton was wrong.”

The Trump administration submitted to the court classified declarations for the Court’s ex parte review in camera. “Upon reviewing the classified materials, as well as the declarations filed on the public docket,” Judge Lamberth said, “the Court is persuaded that Defendant Bolton likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreement obligations.”

Mr. Bolton, per the court, “was the National Security Advisor to the President. He was entrusted with countless national secrets and privy to countless sensitive dealings.” We reckoned that Mr. Bolton was bound to secrecy by old-fashioned honor. The judge wrote that  Mr. Bolton saw it as a “selling point.” Mr. Bolton “rushed to write an account of his behind-closed-doors experiences,” the judge said. He produced a 500-page manuscript for review.

Not four months later, the court related, Mr. Bolton “pulled the plug on the process” and “sent the still-under-review manuscript to the publisher for printing.” It’s not our intention here to suggest, absent a trial, that Mr. Bolton is guilty or the government blameless. Meantime, the administration — in a default well marked by the Wall Street Journal — yanked Mr. Bolton’s security despite threats on his life from Iran.

It may be, too, that the raid by the FBI on Mr. Bolton’s home and office is a separate matter from the beef with his book. The New York Post is reporting that it’s been told by unnamed FBI officials that Mr. Bolton should face charges for allegedly sending “highly sensitive classified materials through a private server.” They questioned why the Biden administration “shelved the case in the first place,” the Post reported.

While we don’t discount any of this, the biggest issue in the Bolton case is, in our view, the whiff of retribution. Mr. Trump says that it wasn’t he who sicced the FBI on Mr. Bolton, but that he knows how his ex-aide feels. We thought the president was wise to declare that his retribution in his second term would be success — particularly on the economy.  The best legacy he could leave is a Republican Party of the big tent.