U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth on Saturday ruled that former national security adviser John Bolton can proceed with publishing his tell-all book, "The Room Where It Happened." The White House attempted to prevent Bolton's book from being released because of national security concerns.
Judge Lamberth said that "while Bolton's unilateral conduct raises grave national security concerns, the government has not established that an injunction is an appropriate remedy," The Hill reported.
One of the issues the judge took into account was the fact that Bolton went through with publishing the book without the National Security Council determining there was no sensitive or classified information in the manuscript. It's a common process that takes place when high-ranking officials decide to write books and "tell-alls" about their experience.
The other issue Lamberth had to take into account: the Department of Justice challenged the book's publication after thousands of copies of the book had been shipped throughout the country.
"The horse, as we used to say in Texas, seems to be out of the barn," Lamberth said. "It certainly looks difficult to me about what I can do about those books all over the country."
The book talks about the 18 months Bolton worked for the Trump administration. While the book isn't officially scheduled to be released until Tuesday, copies of the manuscript have been floating throughout Washington over the last few days.
According to Bolton's publisher, Simon & Schuster, 200,000 copies of the book have been printed and shipped to retailers throughout the nation," POLITICO reported.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated with additional information.
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