US judge allows release of Bolton’s book

WASHINGTON: A US judge refused on Saturday to block the release of a tell-all book in which President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor describes him as corrupt and incompetent.

With the book already shipped to stores for sale next week, Judge Royce Lambert wrote that John Bolton appeared to have failed to get written White House agreement that his memoir contained nothing classified.

"While Bolton’s unilateral conduct raises grave national security concerns, the government has not established that an injunction is an appropriate remedy," the judge wrote.

The judge said a review of passages that the government contends contain classified material has persuaded him that Bolton "likely jeopardized national security through publication."

The book, entitled "The Room Where it Happened," has been widely shipped to bookstores for publication Tuesday and many of its most damning allegations against Trump have been reported in the media.

It is Bolton’s portrait of 17 months up close with Trump, until he was ousted in September.

The picture -- which Trump characterizes as "fiction" -- is ugly.

According to Bolton, a lifelong Republican who stands firmly on the right of the party, Trump is not "fit for office."

He describes Trump "pleading" with Chinese President Xi Jinping during trade negotiations to boost his chances of re-election this November by buying more US farm products to help Trump win votes in agricultural states.

On Twitter, Trump said Bolton “must pay a very big price for this, as others have before him”. The president also praised the judge, contrived to claim “a big court win” and wrote of his former aide, a foreign policy hawk: “He likes dropping bombs on people, and killing them. Now he will have bombs dropped on him!”

Trump has sought to crack down on national security leakers and repeatedly advocated jail sentences for reporters who use such material.

In an email to the Guardian, Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor, said Trump could now “continue to press the case to prevent Bolton from receiving proceeds from the book’s sale and to force him to disgorge the $2m advance the publisher offered, while the government could criminally prosecute Bolton for violating the (non-disclosure agreement) and jeopardising national security”.