A former NSC official accuses White House aides of hijacking the review process for Bolton's book and making false claims to block its publication

• A former career official on the National Security Council accused White House aides of falsely claiming that former national security adviser John Bolton's explosive book contains classified information, according to a new court filing.
• The former official, Ellen Knight, alleges that politically appointed aides hijacked the review process to block Bolton from releasing his book, which paints a damning picture of President Donald Trump.
• Knight's lawyer said that she and several other agreed the Trump administration was suing Bolton not because of legitimate national security concerns but "because the most powerful man in the world said it needed to happen."
• Knight said that after she refused to go along with the politically motivated review process or sign a declaration that contained false claims about Bolton's book, she was told she had "no path forward" at the NSC.

A career official who served on the National Security Council has accused White House aides of intervening in the review process for former national security adviser John Bolton's book to falsely claim that it contained classified information, according to a letter the official's lawyer filed in court this week.

The official, Ellen Knight, previously served as the senior director for records access and information security management at the NSC and oversaw the prepublication review process for Bolton's book. Bolton and the White House are in a protracted legal battle over the release of his book and allegations that it contained classified information.

Knight is not involved in the matter and has not been in touch with Bolton or the government. But her lawyer's letter said she felt "compelled" to weigh in for several reasons:

• She is a "central actor in this matter" because of her role in managing the White House's prepublication review and interactions with the NSC's legal office.
• The government contended that she and her staff left "substantial amounts of classified national security information in Bolton's manuscript," which "directly challenges the quality of her team's work, and therefore calls for a response" from Knight.
• She is "very concerned" about the politicization of the prepublication review process because if authors believe their manuscripts are being reviewed "for political considerations, they will lose confidence in the integrity of the process and find ways to publish or release their works without submitting them for review." This could result in the disclosure of sensitive or classified information.
• Most importantly, Knight said, she is concerned the government is "positioning" the legal process surrounding Bolton's book "in a way that will prevent disclosure of information that might be at odds with the narrative it has propounded since the initiation of this litigation."

Knight's lawyer said that after she followed protocol, reviewed Bolton's book, and cleared it for release in April, she had "extraordinary" interactions with the NSC's legal office, which refused to send Bolton a letter confirming his book had been cleared for release.

"At no time was Ms. Knight ever advised that the delay was due to any further review that was being conducted on the Bolton manuscript."

Six weeks after she had cleared the manuscript, Knight was called to review a letter that the NSC's senior lawyer, John Eisenberg, had drafted to send to Bolton's lawyer, Charles Cooper. The letter mentioned media reports that said Bolton intended to publish his book "without final written NSC authorization, and pointed out that the review process was still ongoing. The letter then asserted that 'the current draft manuscript still contains classified material.'"

The last assertion "caught Ms. Knight by surprise, as nobody had ever said so much as one word about any remaining classification concerns since her April 28 request that NSC Legal authorize her to clear the manuscript," the letter from her lawyer said. She then told Eisenberg that she was confident the manuscript did not contain classified information and recommended he "amend" the portion of his letter that said Bolton's book "still contains classified material." Eisenberg "noted" the recommendation and ended the meeting, her lawyer's letter said.

Two days later, on June 10, Knight said she was called into a meeting with the NSC legal office's deputy adviser and four Justice Department lawyers. "The attorneys then asked Ms. Knight a series of questions which clearly indicated they were preparing for litigation," and "they also asked questions suggesting that Ambassador Bolton had acted in bad faith during the prepublication review," the letter said. Knight responded that she believed Bolton had conducted himself "in good faith overall and that she had never seen any indication during their work together that he was trying to circumvent the process."

Knight said that the lawyers then asked what Bolton and his lawyer knew about "the reason for the delay in granting the clearance of the manuscript." At that point, her lawyer said, Knight realized the delay was "not due to competing priorities brought about by the COVID crisis," which was what she had originally been told.

She also learned that Michael Ellis, a political appointee on the NSC who had no experience with classification review, was conducting a second review of Bolton's manuscript at the direction of national security adviser Robert O'Brien. "Between May 2 and June 9, Mr. Ellis reviewed the manuscript and flagged hundreds of passages that, in his opinion, were still classified," the letter said. They included several conversations with foreign heads of state and Bolton's opinion and analysis.

Knight's lawyer added that between her final review on April 28 and the June 10 meeting with DOJ lawyers, "none of these political appointees … ever raised these classification concerns with Ms. Knight and her team or sought to learn about their analysis of the concerning passages."

When the DOJ's lawyers presented her with Ellis' review of the Bolton manuscript and asked her if her team had "missed this much classified information," Knight "firmly responded that that was not possible" and that Ellis' review was "fundamentally flawed," her lawyer's letter said. Specifically, Knight said Ellis had conducted a "classification review" rather than a "prepublication review." The former is a broad term applied to government records — not books — that allows for the redaction of substantially more information.

Three days later, Knight was called into a meeting with the deputy White House counsel, Patrick Philbin, who "walked her through" Ellis' review and asked her to "explain how she and her team could have cleared each passage." Knight recognized that Philbin was trying to get her to admit that her team had "missed something or made a mistake," which the White House could then use to support its litigation against Bolton, the letter said.

Over the next several days, "a rotating cast" of Justice Department and White House lawyers tried to convince Knight to sign a declaration explaining her role in the process and chalking up the discrepancies between her review and Ellis' review to a "difference of opinion." Knight refused to sign the declaration on June 16 because it falsely implied that her team's work was not up to par, the letter said. Knight also believed the discrepancies did not stem from a difference of opinion but existed because her review was an "appropriate prepublication review" while Ellis' was "an inappropriate classification review of a private citizen's work."

Overall, Knight's lawyer said in the letter, Knight suspected that the litigation was taking place "because the most powerful man in the world said it needed to happen." When she voiced that speculation out loud, the letter said, "several registered their agreement with that diagnosis of the situation."

Six days after Knight refused to sign the declaration, she was told her White House detail would end in 60 days. Shortly after, she was told that the NSC chief of staff and legal adviser had determined that "there is no path forward for [Ms. Knight] at the NSC."