General Politics

By Taylor Bassett - Staff Writer | @bassett_taylor | MadAboutPolitics.com

Yesterday, the DOJ filed a civil lawsuit seeking an injunction to prevent former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton from releasing his tell-all book, The Room Where It Happened (my apologies to Lin-Manuel Miranda for even typing that title out). Here is the lawsuit:



The crux of the DOJ's complaint is that by distributing the book now, Bolton is side-stepping a review process by the National Security Council, which was conducting a pre-publication review of the book to protect against disclosure of classified information Bolton possesses as a result of his employment with the government. In addition to the injunction, the lawsuit seeks to have the court declare that Bolton is in violation of agreements he entered into with the government as a condition of his employment.

The Barr-Bolton dispute touches on some interesting issues.

First, unless you've been living under a rock, you'll recall Bolton's connection to the dramatic conclusion to the Trump-Ukraine impeachment saga. During the Senate trial, Bolton expressed willingness to testify to some of the issues raised in the House investigation. There was debate on this board about whether Bolton would specifically connect Trump's withholding of aid to investigations helpful to his re-election:
Bolton's book is expected to shed light on information related to the Trump-Ukraine scandal, which is potentially damaging to Trump and the Senate Republicans who voted against calling witnesses in the trial, including Bolton.

Bolton's book is also expected to touch on Trump's relationship with Turkey's Recep Erdogan:
As noted in the twitter thread in my linked post, Bill Barr has tried to use the DOJ to prevent prosecutors from the Southern District of New York from indicting the Turkish Halkbank, which according to Bolton's book, was part of a personal favor from Trump to Erdogan. And as I noted in my prior post, Trump's efforts with Erdogan bring to mind the United States' sudden withdrawal from our position alongside the Kurds in Syria after a Trump-Erdogan phone call. We don't yet fully understand what is behind this Trump-Erdogan courtship, but we do know from the recently revealed Roger Stone search warrants that there's been an investigation into Turkey's involvement in Trump's 2016 election; we also know that Trump has properties in Istanbul, and that Trump's national security transition officials Michael Flynn and Bijan Kian were secretly lobbying on behalf of Turkey during the election.

Bolton's perspective on Trump's opaque foreign policy maneuvers is certain to raise even more questions about what motivates Trump. Reportedly, Bolton's book claims that Trump's decisions are strictly motivated by his reelection chances:


This could gain increased significance as we approach November 2020, especially if we see the Trump administration making foreign policy decisions favoring the countries alleged to have offered election assistance in 2016, including Russia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Turkey. Or if we see favorable policies directed at the countries who we believe support his reelection in 2020, which reportedly includes China, and almost certainly includes the aforementioned countries. Is our foreign policy being "sold" to help increase Trump's reelection chances? That is, after all, what impeachment was about: Trump withholding aid to Ukraine, an ally, to the benefit of Russia, an enemy, to improve his reelection odds. If the thesis of Bolton's book is that Trump's modus operandi is to make foreign policy decisions to benefit himself above anything else, that thesis appears to be corroborated by a great deal of public information.

More broadly, the...