This archive report was first published on 20 June 2020.
On June 20, 2020, a federal judge was set to weigh the Trump administration's eleventh-hour attempt to stop the publication of John Bolton's book, The Room Where It Happened. The administration had escalated its efforts by asking for a restraining order and injunction against Mr. Bolton, citing classified information in the manuscript.
The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the First Amendment only rarely permits the government to gag speech, raising constitutional alarms in this case. A group of news organizations, including The New York Times, submitted a 'friend of the court' brief arguing that such 'prior restraint' on publication would be unconstitutional.
At a hearing, Judge Royce Lamberth suggested that he may be inclined to agree with the administration's request, stating, 'The horse, as we used to say in Texas, seems to be out of the barn.'
However, the judge also had to consider other matters, including the government's request to seize Mr. Bolton's $2 million advance. Mr. Bolton's lawyer, Charles Cooper, argued that his client had lived up to his obligations under the agreements he signed, making numerous changes at the request of Ellen Knight, the National Security Council's senior director for prepublication review.
