Former Pentagon chief is about to give his side of the “nasty” Trump administration

Former Defense Minister Mark Esper is suing the Ministry of Defense, where he once headed Donald Trump, in what he claimed was an unwarranted attempt to suppress portions of his memoirs about the former president. “I am more disappointed that the current administration is violating my First Amendment constitutional rights,” Esper said in a statement. report equal New York Times. “And it’s a pity that the law is the only way right now for me to tell my full story to the American people.” The Pentagon is trying to prevent “important” parts of Esper’s book from being published “under the guise of classification,” according to the report. litigation filed Sunday, which reiterated Esper’s belief that “nothing in the manuscript contains classified information or compromises national security.” Quotations from Trump and others in the meetings, as well as recounted conversations between Trump and Esper, are among parts of the book manuscript the department reportedly asked Esper to remove; Esper also said he has been asked to “not use certain verbs or nouns when describing historical events” and to “remove my views on the actions of other countries”.

Esper — who, in November 2020, joined the list of Trump administration officials shot by tweet—First submit a manuscript for his book, A sacred oath, for review at the end of May. He did so under a pre-publication review process, a standard process that executive branch employees are required to go through before publishing material related to their services and that, according to Times, is “to prevent material that could compromise national security from being made public.” However, when Esper received the manuscript after nearly six months – what he described in the filing as an “unusual” period of time to consider a former Secretary of Defense – much of what the Pentagon had compiled. from about 60 pages of the book. “Was in the public domain; Some have even been published by the DOD,” according to the lawsuit. “Text retained is crucial to telling the key stories discussed in the manuscript,” it said.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge for permission to publish unclassified information in his book, which is scheduled to be published by publisher HarperCollins in May 2022. The Pentagon “has not proven otherwise.” demonstrated the existence of substantial government interests that would make it possible to prohibit the release of unclassified information contained in Secretary Esper’s manuscript,” according to the filing. Furthermore, the lawsuit claims that some of the stories described in Esper’s manuscript were leaked to the mainstream media while the DoD was conducting a review, a move presumably designed to “reduces the impact” of the information Esper will first reveal in his published book. In a statement, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the department was “aware” of Esper’s “concerns” and “as with all such assessments, takes seriously its obligation to balance national security with the author’s narrative desires” but declined comment added “because this matter is currently being litigated.”

Esper is not the first Trump administration official to entangle the government over an intended memoir about their tenure. Trump Justice Department open a criminal investigation and related lawsuit filed against, former National Security Adviser John Bolton through his memoirs, The room where it happened, which contained information that the National Security Council deemed top secret and forced Bolton to remove from the manuscript. Biden’s Justice Department close the door investigation and reduce lawsuit in June. “Secretary Esper is the highest-ranking official to have sued to challenge the transactions,” said Esper’s attorney, Mark Zaid, said in a statement Sunday, according to CNN. “Unlike [Bolton], Secretary Esper is upholding and promoting the rule of law. “

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