White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley pushed back Tuesday on former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s recent statement involving censorship of his forthcoming book.
Bolton, making his first public comments since the conclusion of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial said Monday at Duke University that he hopes his book is “not suppressed.”
“This is an effort to write history,” he added. “We’ll have to see what comes out of the censorship.” (RELATED: Trump Flatly Denies Report He Asked Bolton To Set Up Meeting For Giuliani In Ukraine)
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Gidley responded to Bolton’s claim on Tuesday in a statement calling the idea “ridiculous.”
“No one is trying to censor Ambassador Bolton’s book,” he wrote. “The NSC is simply conducting its normal procedure by career officials to ensure sensitive, top-secret, classified material does not appear in the book.”
Gidley added that “if any such information actually because (sic) public, that could be a serious threat to national security and jeopardize the safety of American citizens at home and abroad.”
The Trump administration had previously sent Bolton, his publisher, and his literary representatives a letter reminding him not to publish classified information. A transcript of the book was reviewed by National Security Council staff, as is customary for published works from former White House personnel.