Federal judge strikes down the Trump Justice Department's last-ditch effort to stop John Bolton from releasing his explosive book

• A federal judge on Saturday denied the Trump administration's request to stop the publication of former national security adviser John Bolton's upcoming memoir about the White House.
• "Defendant Bolton has gambled with the national security of the United States. He has exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability. But these facts do not control the motion before the Court," US District Judge Royce Lamberth wrote.
• But Lamberth added that Bolton is still likely to lose his case and that the Justice Department could get all the proceeds from his book sales because he violated nondisclosure agreements.
• The Justice Department sued Bolton earlier this week, alleging that he breached his contract and that his book compromises national security because it contains classified information.
• Bolton's book offers an inside look at his rocky tenure as President Trump's third national security adviser and paints a damning picture of Trump's authoritarian instincts and knowledge of foreign policy.

A federal judge on Saturday struck down the Trump administration's last-ditch effort to stop former national security adviser John Bolton from publishing his explosive book.

The Justice Department sued Bolton on Tuesday to block the release, alleging that Bolton breached his contract and that the book could compromise national security because it contains classified information.

"While Bolton's unilateral conduct raises grave national security concerns, the government has not established that an injunction is an appropriate remedy," US District Judge Royce Lamberth said in his ruling Saturday.

He continued: "Defendant Bolton has gambled with the national security of the United States. He has exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability. But these facts do not control the motion before the Court. The government has failed to establish that an injunction will prevent irreparable harm."

The book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," is set to be released on June 23, and Bolton has already taped an interview with ABC News to promote it. Business Insider and multiple other media outlets have obtained copies of the book and published excerpts from it.

"The horse is already out of the barn," Lamberth wrote in his opinion. That said, he added that the Justice Department's argument that it should get all the proceeds from Bolton's book because he violated his nondisclosure agreements does have merit.

Bolton's "unilateral fast-tracking carried the benefit of publicity and sales, and the cost of substantial risk exposure," Lamberth wrote. "This was Bolton's bet: If he is right and the book does not contain classified information, he keeps the upside mentioned above; but if he is wrong, he stands to lose his profits from the book deal, exposes himself to criminal liability, and imperils national security. Bolton was wrong."

Trump responded to the court decision in a tweet Saturday, writing, "Obviously, with the book already given out and leaked to many people and the media, nothing the highly respected Judge could have done about stopping it."

But he added the judge's opinion that the DOJ could probably collect proceeds of the book and Bolton likely violated national security was a "BIG COURT WIN."

On Monday, President Donald Trump had warned of "legal consequences" against Bolton if he releases his book and claimed, falsely, that all conversations with the president are classified.

"I will consider every conversation with me as president highly classified," he said. "So that would mean that if he wrote a book and if the book gets out, he's broken the law. That's called criminal liability. That's a big thing."

The Trump administration's lawsuit against Bolton accuses him of breaking his contract by backing out of the National Security Council's ongoing vetting process to determine whether Bolton's book contains classified information that needs to be redacted or edited down.

The NSC "quickly identified significant quantities of classified information that it asked Defendant to remove," the complaint said. "An iterative process between NSC Staff and Defendant then began, as required by the binding agreements he signed, with changes to the book and other information being securely passed between Defendant and NSC staff. Soon, though, Defendant apparently became dissatisfied at the pace of NSC's review."

It alleged that instead of waiting for the process to conclude, Bolton "decided to take matters into his own hands."

On June 7, "without Defendant giving any prior notice to the NSC, press reports revealed that Defendant and his publisher had resolved to release the book on June 23, without completing the pre-publication review process," the lawsuit said.

Bolton countered by saying the Trump administration is trying to stifle free speech by moving to block his book from being released.

"It is difficult to conceive of speech that is closer to the core of the First Amendment than speech concerning presidential actions in office, including actions at the heart of the president's impeachment," Bolton said in his filing asking the judge to dismiss the lawsuit. "It is difficult to conceive of a greater attack on the First Amendment than the suppression of that speech in the service of a reelection campaign."

Bolton's book offers an inside look at events that took place during his rocky tenure as Trump's third national security adviser. He also details several episodes that paint a damaging picture of Trump's command of foreign policy and national security.

Here are some of the most shocking claims the former national security adviser made in his book:

• Trump didn't know the UK is a nuclear power and once asked if Finland was part of Russia.
• Trump once pleaded with Chinese President Xi Jinping for China to purchase US agricultural goods to boost his election chances in states that have a large agricultural sector.
• He thought it would be "cool" to invade Venezuela because he believes the country is "really part of the United States."
• Trump called journalists "scumbags" and said they should be "executed."
• He supported Xi Jinping's decision to build concentration camps in China for Uighur Muslims. "According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do," Bolton wrote.