The Trump administration filed an emergency application Wednesday to block the release of a memoir by former national security adviser John Bolton.
The application requested the Court for the District of Columbia to hold a hearing on the issue on Friday, several days before the scheduled publication of "The Room Where It Happened" on Monday.
The manuscript "still contains classified information, as confirmed by some of the Government's most senior national-security and intelligence officials," read a memo by the Department of Justice (DOJ) supporting the argument.
"Disclosure of the manuscript will damage the national security of the United States," it continued.
The filing came hours after several U.S. media outlets published stories based on excerpts of Bolton's book.
Simon & Schuster, the book's publisher, called the move "a frivolous, politically motivated exercise in futility."
"Hundreds of thousands of copies of the book have already been distributed around the country and the world," it added.
The DOJ filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to prevent Bolton from publishing the memoir.
The lawsuit also asked the court to declare that Bolton's account of his time as President Donald Trump's third national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019 violated his nondisclosure agreement.
In an interview with Fox News Wednesday night, Trump claimed that Bolton broke the law by disclosing classified information.
"He broke the law. Very simple ... This is highly classified information," Trump said.
The release of Bolton's book has been delayed for months as a result of a prepublication review process.
A foreign policy hawk, Bolton was ousted over disagreements with Trump on a range of issues.
