“The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether President Trump’s former national security adviser John R. Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information when he published a memoir this summer, a case that the department opened after it failed to stop the book’s publication this summer, according to three people familiar with the matter. The department has convened a grand jury and subpoenaed for communications records from Simon & Schuster, which published Mr. Bolton’s memoir, ‘The Room Where It Happened,’ a highly unflattering account of his 17 months working in the Trump administration” the New York Times reports.

“The investigation marks a significant escalation in the fraught publication of the book. The Trump administration had sought earlier to stop publication, accusing Mr. Bolton in a lawsuit of moving forward with publication without receiving final notice that a prepublication review to scrub out classified information was complete. The director of national intelligence referred the matter to the Justice Department last month, two of the people said. Mr. Bolton has denied that he published classified information. Representatives for the Justice Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Council declined to comment. Mr. Bolton’s account of his time working for Mr. Trump and his efforts to get the book published set off a furor. He confirmed elements of the Ukraine scheme that prompted impeachment, wrote that the president was willing to intervene in criminal investigations to curry favor with foreign dictators and said he sought China’s help in winning re-election. Mr. Trump has made clear that he wants his former aide prosecuted. He said on Twitter that Mr. Bolton ‘broke the law’ and ‘should be in jail, money seized, for disseminating, for profit, highly Classified information.’ He has also called Mr. Bolton ‘a dope,’ ‘incompetent’ and the book ‘a compilation of lies and made up stories, all intended to make me look bad.'”