“White House aides improperly intervened to falsely assert that a manuscript by the former national security adviser John R. Bolton contained classified information in an attempt to prevent its contents from becoming public, a lawyer for the career official overseeing the book’s prepublication review said in a letter filed in court on Wednesday. At one point, the aides halted a request from Mr. Bolton to review his account of President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine so he could release that section of the memoir during the impeachment trial, according to the lengthy account of the White House review written by Kenneth L. Wainstein, a lawyer for the official, Ellen Knight.”
“Mr. Wainstein said that his client had determined in April that Mr. Bolton’s book, ‘The Room Where It Happened,’ no longer contained any classified information, but the ‘apolitical process’ was then ‘commandeered by political appointees for a seemingly political purpose’ to go after Mr. Trump’s former aide and that the actions she was asked to take were ‘unprecedented in her experience.’ ‘She had never previously been asked to take the above-described measures, and she has never heard that predecessors in her position ever received such instructions in the course of their prepublication reviews,’ the letter said” – New York Times.