The Trump administration is on the offensive against John Bolton. CNN is reporting, “The White House has issued a formal threat to former national security adviser John Bolton to keep him from publishing his book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” 

  • The letter, dated Jan. 23, claims the book “contains significant amounts of classified information” that could “cause exceptionally grave harm” to U.S. national security.
  • It was signed by Ellen Knight, the National Security Council’s senior director for records, access and information security management.
  • It says that “the manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of the classified information” — and says the White House will be in touch with “additional, more detailed guidance regarding next steps” on how to move forward.

This comes as Donald Trump and his allies launch a personal attack against Bolton. When you read what Trump tweeted, it makes you wonder why Trump ever hired him if he felt this way:

“For a guy who couldn’t get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn’t get approved for anything since, “begged” me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying “Don’t do it, sir,” takes the job, mistakenly says “Libyan Model” on T.V., and..many more mistakes of judgement, gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?”

And Trump’s personal attorney lashed out at Bolton earlier in the day on CBS This Morning:

All this comes as the Senators weigh whether to call Bolton as a witness in the impeachment trial. According to a new Quinnipiac University poll 75% of voters say witnesses should be allowed to testify, with only 20% saying no and 5% undecided.