John Bolton's Book on Donald Trump Leaks Online

The highly anticipated “The Room Where It Happened” memoir from John Bolton, former National Security Advisor, was released today. Though, some got it a bit earlier and for free. As noted by Politico, leaks of Bolton’s book surfaced all over the internet over the past few days, including a full PDF of it. 

“We are working assiduously to take down these clearly illegal instances of copyright infringement,” Simon & Schuster, the publishing company said.

Not surprisingly, this spread over to Reddit not long after.

Leaks for movie/TV scripts and music have been discussed ad nauseam. Particularly, during the final two seasons of Game of Thrones, when leaks appeared in social media mentions. It’s less common for books, but it’s been a while since a book was released with this much pre-sale hype.

This past weekend, a federal judge ruled that Simon & Schuster could publish the book despite the Trump administration’s contention that it would compromise national security. Bolton said on Sunday, in a sitdown interview with ABC, it didn't contain classified information.

“Well, there are subjects -- and -- this is obviously an issue of controversy now that involve classified information that I don't talk about," Bolton told Martha Raddatz. "And, you know, if I had put classified information in the book, it might've been 500 pages longer. But I had plenty to talk about without dealing with classified information. I'm glad Soleimani's dead. I wish it had happened earlier.”

It also created controversy as Bolton did not testify during President Donald Trump's House impeachment hearings last year. Some have accused Bolton of waiting to profit off his information. He denied it's about profit.

"It has nothing to do with making a profit," Bolton said Sunday. "It has everything to do with making sure that the constitutional responsibilities that are accorded the different branches of government are carried out the right way. This is a very difficult issue, and the Democrats committed impeachment malpractice. They don't like to hear that. But that's the fact."

Even with the leaks, I’m expecting Bolton and Simon & Schuster will be quite satisfied with the first week sales.