Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper drops suit over memoir redactions

Feb. 5 (UPI) -- A memoir from the former secretary of defense, Mark Esper, about his time in the Trump administration will move forward after the conclusion of a legal battle attempting to block him from publishing allegedly classified information.

On Friday, Esper dropped a lawsuit he'd filed against the Pentagon over proposed redactions in his manuscript, titled "A Sacred Oath." Esper's lawyer, Mark Zaid, filed a motion for the voluntary dismissal of the case. The document did not include details about the decision.

"The state of the law is clear: the U.S. Government has absolutely no authority to prevent anyone from publishing unclassified information. That is an incontrovertible constitutional right and established by binding precedent," Zaid said in a statement posted to his Twitter on Friday. "Frankly, Secretary Esper has no interest in publishing properly classified information, which he has sworn to and has protected for decades."

Zaid added that Esper's book would include "minimal redactions" that won't materially disturb its flow.

Esper, who served under then-President Donald Trump and was fired shortly after the 2020 election loss, submitted his manuscript to the Department of Defense in May to complete the prepublication review process. The system is meant to stop current and former employees of the executive branch from sharing classified information that could compromise national security if made public.

In November, Esper filed a suit accusing the agency of improperly blocking more than 50 pages of his book. He claimed the disruption "absolutely gutted substantive content" and amounted to an infringement on his First Amendment rights.

"Significant text is being improperly withheld from publication in Secretary Esper's manuscript under the guise of classification," the suit stated. "The withheld text is crucial to telling important stories discussed in the manuscript."

According to Esper, some of the redactions "asked me to not quote former President Trump and others in meetings, to not describe conversations between the former president and me, and to not use certain verbs or nouns when describing historical events."

"I was also asked to delete my views on the actions of other countries, on conversations I held with foreign officials, and regarding international events that have been widely reported," Esper continued in the court filing. "Many items were already in the public domain; some were even published by D.O.D."

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton is another former Trump staffer to take issue with the prepublication review system. In 2020, he filed a suit accusing the White House of acting in bad faith and improperly politicizing the process -- publication of his book, "The Room Where it Happened," was delayed by several months.

"A Sacred Oath" is scheduled to be published in May.