NewYork NorthernCalifornia Paris Madrid DC Washington São Paulo London Hong Kong Beijing Tokyo Davis Polk KennethL Wainstein Davis Polk Wardwell LLP 202 962 7141tel 901 15th Street NW ken wainstein@davispolk com Washington DC 20005 September 22 2020 Re United States v John Bolton Jennifer B Dickey Deputy Associate Attorney General U S Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington D C 20530 E Jennifer B Dickey@usdoj gov Charles J Cooper Copper Kirk PLLC Daniel F Van Horn Michael W Kirk Assistant United States Attorney 555 Fourth Street N W Room E4226 Washington D C 20530 Email daniel vanhorn@usdoj gov Cooper Kirk PLLC 1523 New Hampshire Avenue N W Washington D C 20036 Email mkirk@cooperkirk com Michael J Gerardi John D Ohlendorf Trial Attorney United States Department of Justice Civil Division Federal Programs Branch 1100 L Street NW Room 11514 Cooper Kirk PLLC 1523 New Hampshire Avenue N W Washington D C 20036 1523 New Hampshire Avenue NW Washington DC 20036 Email ccooper@cooperkirk com Email johlendorf@cooperkirk com Washington D C 20005 E-mail michael j gerardi@usdoj gov Dear Counsel We represent Ms Ellen Knight the former Senior Director for Records Access and InformationSecurity Managementat the National Security Council NSC who conducted the prepublicationreview of Ambassador John Bolton's book with her staffat the White House We submit this letter at the request of Ms Knight who wishes to offer her assistance September 2020 2 to these proceedings and to detail how that assistance may shed light on the relevant facts of this case A central question in this litigation is the soundness and thoroughness of the prepublication review of Ambassador Bolton's book and whether it overlooked passages that contained classified information whose disclosure would jeopardize our national security Given Judge Lamberth's deep experience with classified information and national security matters we know that he is very well equipped to make the national security assessment necessary to answer that central question Ms Knight feels nonetheless compelled to submit this letter for the following reasons First Ms Knight recognizes that her management of the prepublication review and her interaction with the Legal Office of the NSC “NSC Legal” position her as a central actor in this matter She noted the Court's observation at the TRO hearing as to the absence of a declaration from her as well as the comments by Ambassador Bolton's attorney Charles Cooper about her important role in the litigation Second Ms Knight feels it important that she be heard as this litigation revolves around the government's contention that the prepublication review conducted by her and her staff left substantial amounts of classified national security information in the Bolton manuscript That contention directly challenges the quality of her team's work and therefore calls for a response from Ms Knight Third as a career professional in the field of classified information management Ms Knight is very concerned about the politicization even the perceived politicization of the prepublication review process Once authors start perceiving that 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 unchecked disclosures of sensitive information and the potential for serious damage to our national security Finally and most importantly Ms Knight is concerned about the ongoing litigation over Ambassador Bolton's motion for discovery especially as it relates to his request to explore whether the White House acted in good or bad faith in its handling of the prepublication review She is specifically concerned that the government is positioning the litigation in a We have not coordinatedor communicatedin any way with either party – the government or Ambassador Bolton's legalteam – about the litigationor the substance of this letter We also understandthat the Court has already conductedan in camera reviewof the passages cited by the government in its Motionfor a Temporary RestrainingOrder TRO Inthat context the Court was largely limitedto reviewingthose selected passages and the unchallengeddeclarationsof NSC official Michael Ellis and four presidentially-appointedintelligenceofficials who reviewedpassagesof the manuscriptin isolation and opinedthat they contained classifiedinformation without any insightinto the multi-layeredanalysis and context that led Ms Knightand her staffto determinethat they did not September 22 2020 3 way that will prevent disclosure of information that might be at odds with the narrative it has propoundedsince the initiationofthis litigation In its opposition to AmbassadorBolton's motion the government contends that it is legally irrelevantwhether the White House dealt with Ambassador Bolton in good or bad faith and that there shouldthereforebe no explorationof that issue in discovery or inthe litigation Ifthe governmentprevails with that discoveryargument the Court and ultimatelythe public will be denied a full understanding ofhow the prepublicationreview of Ambassador Bolton's book was conducted Ms Knight recognizes that it is up to the Court to assess what is or is not legally relevant and up to the judicial process to assess whether White House personnel operated in good or bad faith However she wants to ensure that the parties are aware of her knowledge of what took place throughout this prepublication review For these reasons Ms Knight has asked us to submit this letter which will summarize the relevant information that Ms Knight an share Itwill do so in four sections The first section will introduce Ms Knight and her experience in information security management The second will explain the process of prepublication review and how that process differs from a classification review The third will describe how she and her team of career officials conducted the prepublication review of the Bolton manuscript And the final section will lay out the extraordinary actions taken by NSC Legal and the Office of the White House Counsel after Ms Knight notified them that her staff's review was complete and that the manuscript was ready for clearance Ms Knight'sProfessionalBackground Ms Knight has devoted her career to the field of classified information management and she is an expert in government classification policy and practice as provided in Executive Order 13526 and its implementing regulations She holds a Master's degree in Library Science from the University of Maryland School of Information Studies one of the top universities in the nation for this field After starting her career at the National Security Agency she was hired by the National Archives and Records Administration NARA as a declassification review archivist the Nixon Presidential Materials Project where she was responsible for 3 Accordingto this argument the only relevant issue in the litigation is whether Boltonbreached his contractual obligationto wait for and receive a formal clearance letter from the White House before sending his manuscript off for publication Once that breach is demonstrated the government argues it is automatically entitled to Ambassador Bolton'sbook royalties no matter whether the White House demonstratedbad faith in the exercise of its prepublicationresponsibilities 4 This letter proffers facts that Ms Knight would be expected to provide on issues ofpotentialrelevance to this matter and is not intended to waive and does not constitute a waiver of applicable privileges or rights of Ms Knight including but not limited to the attorney -client privilege or the protections ofthe work product doctrine September 2020 4 reviewingPresidentNixon'ssecretly - taped conversationsand conductingresearchto determine whichportions could be declassified In 2010 Ms Knight was hired as a Program Analyst by the Information Security Oversight Office ISOO which is also located within NARA and was later promoted to a Senior Program Analyst in the Classification Management Directorate where she supported the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel ISCAP and the Public Interest Declassification Board and participated in an oversight program to evaluate agency declassification decisions Ms Knight has held a Top Secret security clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information and Q clearance Restricted Data information since 2006 At the NSC she was designated an original classification authority OCA and one of six officials with declassification authority and exercised her OCA and declassification authority throughout the duration of her detail at NSC Throughout her career she has reviewed thousands of records for classification declassification and prepublication review 6 BetweenAugust 2018 and August 2020 Ms Knight served on detail from NARA to the National Security Council at the White House Ms Knight first served as Director for Access Management the unit that provides classification management expertise to the NSC and the Executive Office of the Presidentmore broadly Among her duties as Director was supervising a group of five staff members specifically responsible for conducting prepublication reviews submittedto the NSC InDecember 2019 National Security Advisor Robert O'Brienpromotedher to the positionof Senior Director for Records Access and InformationSecurity Management in which she supervised 14 records and access professionals and continuedto manage the prepublication process Over the course of her time at the NSC her staffcompleted more than 135 prepublicationreview requests totaling over 10 000 pages of reviewed manuscripts 5 Ms Knight served as the Senior Staff Member for the Public Interest Declassification Board PIDB which is a statutorily -created panel of national security experts appointed by the President and Congress with the mandate to maximize public access to the documentary record of significant U S national security decisions and activities Undersigned counsel Ken Wainstein has been a member of the PIDB and has worked with Ms Knight in that capacity since 2013 Ms Knight has consistently performed at the Outstanding review rating while at NARA and the NSC She has been recognized for her leadership in various capacities including for her work on the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel In 2020 she was recognized by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's Office of Civil Liberties Privacy and Transparency for her outstanding work and is a recent recipient of the Archivist's Achievement Award She is currently pursuing a second graduate degree at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy where she is close to completing a Master's degree in Public Management Knight also chaired the Records Access and Information Policy Coordinating Committee an interagency policymaking body that coordinates all federal security policy issues concerning records management security classification declassification information handling and safeguarding and national security clearance September 22 2020 5 II The Prepublication Review Process As a government classification expert Ms Knight is deeply experienced in the use of classification in government agencies and in the prepublication review by which the government reviews the written work of private citizens writing about sensitive matters from their time serving in national security positions in the U S government The significant differences between a prepublication review and an ordinary government classification review are important to understand when considering the actions taken by Ms Knight and her team and those taken by other White House officials in the review of the Boltonmanuscript A classification review is simple and straightforward and is part of the everyday routine in government agencies that produce classified documents Its purpose is solely to identify and protect sensitive information in documents written by government employees and contractors working for the government It entails reviewing a government employee's written work identifying potentially sensitive topics or facts in the substance of that work determining if that information is specified in a classification guide applying the appropriate markings Confidential Secret and Top Secret then imposing the appropriate control handling and dissemination limitations on that information It is the expectation of an official conducting a classification review that the result will likely be a classified document access to which will be restricted by the rules of the government's security classification system A prepublication review by contrast involves reviewing the written work of a private U S citizen Its purpose is two - fold to ensure the protection of government information whose suitability as well as policy matters involving application of the Executive Orders relating to classified information 8 The standards for identifying classified information in government records follow those found in Section 1 of Executive Order 13526 “Classified National Security Information ” Section 1 1 of the Order provides standards for classifying national security information The following conditions must be met for information to be originally classified 1 An Original Classification Authority is classifying the information 2 The information is owned by produced by or for or is under the control of the United States Government 3 The information falls within one or more of the categories of information listed in section 1 4 of the Order such as military plans weapon systems or operations intelligence activities including covert action foreign relations or foreign government information etc and 4 The Original Classification Authority determines that the unauthorized disclosure of the information reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security and the Original Classification Authority is able to identify or describe the expected damage 9 The NSC Prepublication review process is laid out in the internal guidance document Access Procedures Prepublication Review which explains the purpose of the review process details who must submit materials for review and what materials must be submitted and describes how NSC Access Management staff should conduct a prepublication review For example it explains that “ unlike the declassification review of U S Government records in which documents can be declassified in full in part or not at all pre-publication review involves making recommendations to the author for changes to the text to ensure that classified September 22 2020 6 disclosure would damage national security while at the same time supporting that citizen's right to publish all First Amendment-protected information It is therefore designed not to limit the transmission of information but rather to facilitate the private citizen's ability to transmit his thoughts in a way that does not disclose government secrets It is the expectation of an official conducting a prepublication review that the result will be the public release of a document free of any information that could damage national security The prepublicationreview process is therefore much more complex and time -consuming than a classification review It entails reading the draft text to identify information that may be sensitive and then carefully researching the press and public record for any government releases statements reports testimony or presidential tweets that may have officially disclosed that information thereby meaning that it is no longer sensitive or classified in the context of prepublication review It often happens that a prepublicationreviewer flags what was at one time highly-protected sensitive information only to learn that that informationhas been otherwise released through official channels and is now a matter of public knowledge 10 Once that research is completed and any remaining sensitive information is identified the reviewer then works closely with the author to remove sanitize or otherwise obscure enough details or specifics that the author can discuss that information in a way that will not damage national security informationis not released This may be done by suggestingthat the author cite as a source of informationa news article or other open source either in an in-text citationor footnote in place of a potentiallyclassified source Inother cases NSC Access may requirethat entire sentences or topics be removed The NSC as a componentof the Executive Office ofthe President does not have a federal regulationspecific to its NSC prepublicationreview process like those that govern other agencies and departments However the NSC has traditionallybased its practice in part on the guidance providedin the other agencies regulations such as 28 CFR 17 18 Prepublicationreview for the Department of Justice Departmentof Defense Instruction sections 5230 09 and 5230 29 and the prepublicationreview regulationsthat to the agenciesof the IntelligenceCommunity Those regulations lay out the principles upon which prepublicationreview is conductedacross the government includingbythe NSC Access Managementstaff “Material submitted for prepublicationreview will be reviewed solely for the purpose of identifyingand preventingthe disclosureof Sensitive CompartmentedInformationand other classifiedinformation This review will be conducted in an impartial manner withoutregard to whetherthe material is critical of or favorable to the Department No effort will be made to delete embarrassingor critical statements that are unclassified ” 28 CFR 17 18 Like the NSC guidancediscussedabove these regulations similarly emphasizethe need to work with the author to sanitize or obscure sufficient details to allow him or her to discuss a topic without disclosing specific secrets that will compromisenational security see e g 5230 29 which authorizesthe reviewerto condition clearance of a manuscripton recommendedcorrections deletions or additionsthat the reviewerfeels are necessaryto sufficientlyobscure sensitive information 10 The fact of that officialrelease completelychanges the equationfor the prepublicationreview Not only does it render the informationunclassified but the fact that there is a different public source for that informationcan help to obscure and thereby protect the intelligence processes i e sources or methods by which the author may have learned that information September 2020 7 The above-described NSC prepublicationreview process is typically performed entirely within the NSC Access Management directorate and the authority to issue a clearance letter approving publication of a reviewedmanuscript lies with the Directorfor Access Management or the Senior Director for Records Access and Information Security Management This was the case for every prepublicationreview in Ms Knight's experience with the exception of the Bolton manuscript III The Prepublication Review of the Bolton Manuscript Ms Knight can describe in detail how she and her staff conducted the prepublication review and explain the decisions they made as to every part of Ambassador Bolton's book that raised potential classification concerns They noted classification concerns with literally hundreds of the passages in the book and for each passage they went through the above process with Ambassador Bolton and his attorney maintaining thorough notes and records of their analysis The review started with Ambassador Bolton's submission of the manuscript on December 30 2019 Upon the first reading it was apparent to Ms Knight that the manuscript contained voluminous amounts of classified information and that it would take a significant effort to put it into publishable The ensuing review ultimately became the most intensive prepublication review process in recent memory at the NSC CommitmentofStaff Effortand Attention This reviewprocess involved a very significant investment oftime and effort with Ms Knight and her colleague the First Reviewer a classified informationexpert with four years ofexperience as a reviewer for the NSC spending hundreds of hoursover the course of four months reviewingand researching informationfound in the over 500-page manuscript They each spent weeks reading the first iterationofthe manuscript meticulouslyidentifyinginformationthey deemed to be classified meetingto consolidate their findings and then conducting countlesshours of researchto determinewhat informationwas already publicly available Besidesre-reading every chapter numerous times with each round ofedits Ms Knight and her colleague each read through the entirety of the manuscript a total offour times As a last step in the process Ms Knight gave the manuscript to the ActingDirector for Access Management a 20 year classified informationexpert with Original ClassificationAuthority who to that point hadnot been involved inthe Boltonreview He carefully read the manuscript to confirm and he did confirm– that it no longer contained any sensitive or classified information Interaction with Ambassador Bolton and his Attorney This review also involved much more extensive interaction with the author than prepublication reviews typically require Despite Mr Cooper's assurance in his submittal letter that “Ambassador Boltonhas carefully sought to avoid any discussion in the manuscript of sensitive compartmented information “ SCI” and other classified information ” it quickly became apparent that the manuscript was replete September 22 2020 8 with concerning information leading to a four-month process of regular intensive and occasionally spirited consultation between Ambassador Bolton and Ms Knight's team In the course of this process Ms Knight provided Ambassador Bolton with extensive guidance and best practices for writing around classified information held four in-person meetings with Ambassador Bolton lasting a total of 14 hours and spoke with him in ten telephone conversations two of which were hours-long conversations to discuss edits and changes Ms Knight also held three lengthy telephone calls with Mr Cooper and had extensive email correspondence with the author his attorney and his assistant throughout this process Ms Knight and the First Reviewer came to the end of their review process on April 27 when they receivedAmbassador Bolton's response to their last set of necessary changes most of which at this point in the revision simply entailed providing citations At that point Ms night determined that all classification concerns had been addressed and that publication of the manuscript as heavily revised would no information that would cause harm to our national security which conclusion was confirmed by the final read -through of the manuscript by the Acting Director for Access Management Ms Knight then informed Ambassador Bolton that she had no more proposed changes but that the process was still ongoing and that she would reach out to him as soon as she had more information about the issuance of a clearance letter Ms Knight contacted NSC Legal on April 28 2020 to convey her findings and coordinate the finalizing of the prepublication review process which as discussed above was an unusual step for NSC prepublication reviews which normally do not involve other NSC officials in the approval process Given their level of interest in this particular review Ms Knight felt it necessary to advise NSC Legal that she was prepared to clear the manuscript When she did so the Deputy Legal Advisor Sue Bai instructed her to stand by and to take no further action Over the next nine days Ambassador Bolton reached out approximately six times seeking an update on the anticipated clearance letter On each occasion Ms Knight conferred with the Deputy Legal Advisor only to be instructed that they were dealing with other issues and that she should tell Ambassador Boltonthat the process was “ ongoing ” On May 7 she responded to Ambassador Bolton's last inquiry about the clearance letter by stating that “the process was ongoing ” per the direction from NSC Legal She never heard from Ambassador Bolton or his attorney again after that date Interaction with NSC Legal This review entailed an unprecedented amount of interaction between the political appointees in the NSC Legal staff and the career prepublication review staff Unlike every other prepublication review this review had Ms Knight in regular daily contact with the NSC Legal staff often September 22 2020 9 Ms Knight first learned that Ambassador Boltonwould be submitting a manuscript for review from the then -Deputy Legal Advisor Michael Ellis Soon thereafter Mr Cooper sent her the manuscript along with a letter describing his understanding of the process and asserting that his client did not believe the manuscript contained any classified information and that he was only submitting it for prepublicationreview out of an abundance of caution ” After a cursory look at the manuscript Ms Knight contacted NSC Legal to inform Mr Ellis about the outreach from Ambassador Bolton's counsel and to relay her concerns about the amount of classified information she found in the manuscript '1 NSC Legal requested a copy of the manuscript and the working case file on January 6 2020 and then immediatelystarted playing what was in her experience an outsize role inthe review process specifically by overseeingthe correspondence with Mr Cooper and Ambassador Bolton and dictating the timing of that correspondence For example on one occasion when Mr Cooper requestedthat Ms Knight's staffprioritize the Ukraine chapter in the manuscriptfor prepublication review to make it publicly available during the impeachment trial the then-Deputy NSC LegalAdvisor Ellis instructed her to temporarily withhold any response Ms Knight was also regularly instructedby Mr Ellis and later by DeputyLegal Advisor Bai not to use email in her communicationswith NSC Legalabout her interactionswith Mr Cooper and Ambassador Bolton and instead to use the telephone On severaloccasions the political appointees inNSC Legal askedher to read draft correspondence over the telephone rather than sending the drafts over email for their evaluation On another occasion the then Deputy NSC Legal Advisor Ellis expressed NSC concern that others might be able to read the Boltonmanuscript on the records management system and possibly leak its content and he had her ascertain with the informationtechnology staffwhether they could monitor and identify anyonewho accessedand printed the manuscript These interactions with NSC Legal in the course of a prepublication review were unprecedented in her experience She had never previously been asked to take the above described measures and she has never heard that predecessors in her position ever received such instructions in the course of their prepublication reviews IV The WhiteHouse Reaction to Ms Knight'sApprovalof theManuscript Ms Knight'sextraordinary interactionwith NSC Legal continuedafter she notifiedDeputy NSC Legal Advisor Bai on April 28 2020 that she and her team had completedtheir review 11 She also passed on to NSC Legal her concern about the description of the process in Mr Cooper's letter and her observation that the manuscript was likely derived at least in part from notes Ambassador Bolton had in his possession Ifcorrect these notes would be considered classified Presidential records which belong to the U S government and should have been returned to the NSC upon Ambassador Bolton's departure in 2019 Ambassador Bolton later publicly asserted that he destroyed his notes September 2020 10 and that the manu nuscript was ready for clearance That notification set off a chain of events that led to the filing of the instant litigation NSC Unwillingness to Admit the Real Reason for the Clearance Letter Delay Soon after Ms Knight notifiedNSC Legal that the review was complete Ms Bai called to request a copy of the reviewed manuscript which Ms Knight furnished to her Over the following nine days Ms Knight receivednumerous requests from Ambassador Bolton for the clearance letter Each time Ms Knight passed the request along to the NSC Legal staff reminding them that the publication date for Ambassador Bolton's book was June 23 and warning them that Ambassador Bolton and Mr Cooper may be planning toward that publication date When Ms Knight asked why there was a delay in NSC Legal issuing a clearance letter Ms Bai attributed the delay to their focus on the COVID pandemic crisis 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 NSC Warning Letter to Ambassador Bolton and Mr Cooper On June 8 2020 – six weeks after Ms Knight had advised NSC Legal that the manuscript ready for clearance the NSC Legal Advisor John Eisenberg called Knight to his office in the West Wing and asked her to review a letter that he had drafted to Mr Cooper The letter noted recent press reports indicating that Ambassador Bolton intended to publish his manuscript 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 ” That 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 She told Mr Eisenberg that she and her team were confident that the manuscript no longer contained classified information and that she would say the same thing to anyone who asked her about that assertion in the draft letter She then recommended that he amend that sentence Mr Eisenberg responded that her recommendation was “ noted” and ended the meeting without any further explanation Classification Training for MichaelEllis On June 9 Deputy NSC Legal Advisor Bai called Ms Knight with an unexpected request - arrange for Michael Ellis by this point serving as NSC Senior Director for Intelligence Programs and no longer NSC Deputy Legal Advisor to receive Original Classifying Authority OCA training which is required for those serving in a position that is authorized to originally classify information Ms Bai gave no explanation for the training request The Acting Director for Access Management provided that training to Mr Ellis on June 10 12 12 It is worth noting that this training took place after Ellis had already finished the classification review that Ms Knight later learned he conducted between May 2 and June 9 conceded that sequencing In its amended complaint the government that Ellis had actually done his review before receiving the training on how to do September 22 2020 11 Meetings with Justice Department Attorneys On the evening of June 10 Deputy NSC Legal Advisor Bai called Ms Knight and directed her to come into work to attend a meeting in the White House Situation Room When Ms Knight arrived at 5 30 p m she was greeted by Ms Bai and four attorneys from the Justice Department The group then presented her with a letter from Mr Cooper which was Mr Cooper’s response to Mr Eisenberg’s June 8 letter asserting that the manuscript still contained classified information and warning Ambassador Bolton and Mr Cooper not to move forward with publication In his response letter Mr Cooper claimed that Ms Knight had de facto cleared the manuscript on April 27 when she indicated that there were only “some internal process considerations to work through” before issuance of the clearance letter The attorneys from the Justice Department directed Ms Knight to that language and instructed her to explain it to them Despite being caught off balance Ms Knight read Mr Cooper’s letter and calmly explained that she had never told Ambassador Bolton or Mr Cooper that the prepublication process was over and that she had carefully followed NSC Legal’s instructions to tell them that “the process was ongoing” whenever they asked for the clearance letter Although she had discussed with Ambassador Bolton that a formal letter would be forthcoming at the conclusion of the process she provided him no assurance as to the specific timing of its issuance The attorneys then asked Ms Knight a series of questions which clearly indicated they were preparing for litigation For example they asked her how she had communicated with the political appointees in NSC Legal throughout the prepublication process as they wanted to understand whether communications had been in person or by telephone per NSC Legal’s previous instructions They also asked questions suggesting that Ambassador Bolton had acted in bad faith during the prepublication review To those questions Ms Knight explained that Ambassador Bolton had seemingly 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 He had been gruff and demanding and expressed frustration at times during the process 13 but Ms Knight always felt his intention was to cooperate with and complete the review Finally they asked what Ambassador Boltonand Mr Cooper knew about the reason for the delay in granting the clearance of the manuscript This is the moment at which Ms Knight first learned that the delay was not due to competingprioritiesbrought about by the COVID crisis – which is the explanationshe had been given whenever she asked NSC Legal about the review – but suggested that it was immaterial because “ a fter completing the training Mr Ellis reviewed his work and concluded that the information he received in training did not alter his decisions ” 13 In addition at the outset of the review process his attorney made a number of public statementssuggesting that Ms Knight’s team and their review were subject to politicalinfluence which suggestions were completely unfounded September 22 2020 12 the timing of finalizing the process In the course of their conversation the then-Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division at the Justice Department – who made an effort throughout their meetings to treat Ms Knight in a collegial and forthcoming manner – asked her whether Ambassador Bolton and Mr Cooper knew that Michael Ellis had been conducting his own prepublication review of the manuscript Surprised at that news Ms Knight responded that she very much doubted that they knew about that second review especially given that she – the Senior Director for Records Access and Information Security Management at the NSC – knew nothing about it until that very moment She later learned how that second review came about In reviewing the government’s filings in this litigation she learned that National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien had reviewed the manuscript that Ms Knight and her team determined was publishable on April 28 and concluded that that determination was wrong He then instructed Michael Ellis an NSC political appointee with no previous classification authority experience 14 to conduct another review Between May 2 and June 9 Mr Ellis reviewed the manuscript and flagged hundreds of passages that in his opinion were still classified It was presumably that opinion that underlay the NSC Legal Advisor’s assertion in his June 8 letter to Ambassador Bolton that “the current draft manuscript still contains classified material ” It is important to note that between April 28 and June 10 none of these political appointees – not Ambassador O’Brien not Mr Ellis and not Mr Eisenberg – ever raised these classification concerns with Ms Knight and her team or sought to learn about their analysis of the concerning passages Had their concern been to produce a publishable manuscript without classified information they presumably would have asked the experts who had devoted hundreds of person-hours to a painstaking review of every page of the manuscript At a subsequent meeting the DOJ attorneys showed Ms Knight the manuscript with Mr Ellis’s hundreds of marked passages and asked her whether it was possible that she and her team had simply “missed this much classified information ” She firmly responded that that was not possible and she proceeded to explain how Mr Ellis’s re-review of the manuscript was fundamentally flawed The fundamental flaw was that Mr Ellis had done a “classification review” rather than a “prepublication review ” Based on her review of the markings she could tell that Mr Ellis had simply looked for passages that may have been classifiable under the broad categories laid out in the relevant Executive Order EO 13526 and deemed those passages classified 14 Michael Ellis had served as a staffer on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the House of Representatives under then-Chairman Devin Nunes In 2017 he took a politically-appointed position in the NSC Legal Office where he served as Deputy Legal Advisor and Associate White House Council until March 2020 when he was appointed the NSC Senior Director for Intelligence Programs replacing an incumbent who like those who had traditionally served in that position was a career official detailed from the Intelligence Community September 22 2020 13 and unpublishable as though he were doing a classification review of a government record However this manuscript was not a government record it was the First-Amendment protected writings of a private citizen It appeared that Mr Ellis nonetheless never went beyond this basic classification analysis to do an actual prepublication review For example he flagged text involving conversations with foreign heads of state without making any attempt to do what Ms Knight and her team had spent months doing – carefully ensuring that any sensitive details were deleted or sufficiently obscured to permit the account of those conversations to be published without compromising national security He also flagged passages that are clearly Ambassador Bolton’s analysis and or opinion about his personal recollections of events he witnessed violating the basic tenet of prepublication review that a private author is entitled to his or her perspective of an event even if that perspective is slanted or factually incorrect Finally it appeared that Mr Ellis failed to analyze whether the information he marked as classified was still in fact classified and subject to redaction In determining the publishability of information in the manuscript Mr Ellis apparently focused on whether that same information could be found in classified government records If he saw information in the manuscript that was also reflected in a classified government record he appeared to have automatically deemed that information classified Ms Knight and her team by contrast did what is required in a prepublication review and meticulously researched every potentially sensitive data point in the manuscript to determine whether the government had already put that data point into the public domain thereby rendering it publishable regardless of its presence in a classified government document 15 With the benefit of this research and with careful efforts to obscure the sourcing and details in sensitive passages Ms Knight’s team was able to clear substantial amounts of text that Mr Ellis later deemed unpublishable In sum Ms Knight explained to the attorneys Mr Ellis had seemingly taken a flawed approach 15 This can best be illustrated by a hypothetical example of a presidential meeting with a foreign leader The details of such meetings are typically recorded by staff and reduced to meeting memoranda which are routinely classified at the Top Secret level It is routine for such memoranda to recite both the general topics of discussion between the two leaders as well as the specifics of those discussions It is also routine for the President’s press secretary to describe the general discussion topics of such meetings – but not the specifics – when he or she briefs the press about the President’s daily activities Under the rules of prepublication review as dutifully applied by Ms Knight’s team those general topics would be considered unclassified and publishable once they were disclosed by the press secretary despite the fact that they may also be recited in a classified meeting memorandum Of course the specific details that were not publicly disclosed would only be publishable if they satisfy the standard prepublication analytical criteria e g they do not reveal government secrets are details that have already been officially disclosed can be plausibly denied or otherwise obscured in the drafting etc Under Mr Ellis’s approach by contrast the classification level of the meeting memorandum would dictate that both the specific details and the general topics would remain classified and their disclosure a felony offense regardless of any previous disclosure by the press secretary September 22 2020 14 to his re-review and it was that flawed approach – and not the failings of her team’s work – that accounted for the different results of their respective reviews 16 Meeting with the Deputy White House Counsel On Saturday June 13 Ms Knight was called into work for a meeting in the West Wing When she arrived at the NSC Legal office she was greeted by Mr Eisenberg Ms Bai and Patrick Philbin the Deputy Counsel to the President from the White House Counsel’s Office Over the following four hours Mr Philbin questioned Ms Knight about a series of issues For the first hour or so he walked her through the many passages that were marked during Ellis’s re-review and asked her to explain how she and her team could have cleared each passage It was clear to Ms Knight that they were trying to get her to admit that she and her team had missed something or made a mistake which mistake could then be used to support their argument to block publication To their consternation Ms Knight was able to explain the clear and objective reasoning behind her team’s decision-making as to each of the challenged passages Having failed to find fault in her team’s specific determinations they pivoted to an attempt to have her concede that the whole prepublication process is simply a matter of opinion – i e that prepublication determinations are unmoored from objective criteria and that the classified nature of information is simply in the eye of the beholder With that theory they suggested that the differences between her team’s determination that the manuscript was publishable and Mr Ellis’s determination that it was still full of classified information could be chalked up to a simple difference of opinion Ms Knight responded that this was not a difference of opinion but was rather a difference between a prepublication review process conducted with the goal of producing a publishable manuscript and a classification review process conducted with the goal of blocking publication Effort to Force Ms Knight to Sign a Declaration Havingfailed to secure Ms Knight’s concessionthat this could all be chalked up to a difference betweenopinions they changed tack and tried to persuade her to sign a declarationthat purportedto explain her role in the process Over the course of five days and a total of 18 hours of meetings a rotating cast of Justice Department and White House attorneys tried to persuade Ms Knight to sign a declaration they wanted to file with their lawsuit against Ambassador Bolton They made their case for the declaration while Ms Knight voiced her reservations about it Her reservations were primarily with the following points in the draft declaration 16 In explaining the deficiency of his re-review process we do not deny that Ellis brought a new perspective to the manuscript review and may well have detected certain concerns with the text that warranted further analysis However this possibility could not explain the claim that hundreds of passages still contained classified information Nor could it explain the extended delay in clearance of the manuscript as any such concerns could have been addressed – probably in a matter of hours – with a simple call or meeting with Ms Knight and a possible revision of the manuscript No such call or meeting ever took place September 22 2020 15 • The contentionthat this was simply a disagreementbetweenexperts when as discussed above Ms Knight saw this as a contrast betweenan appropriate prepublicationreview and an inappropriateclassificationreview of a private citizen’swork • The suggestion-- without factual basis – that her team’s work was subpar which is a necessary inferenceof the government’sallegationthat she and her team had failed to identify and redact substantialamounts of sensitive informationthat would irreparablyharm the nationalsecurity • The narrative in the declaration that glossed over the irregular aspects of the prepublication review – i e the secretive secondary re-review that 1 was initiated without the knowledge of or participation of the career staff 2 was assigned to a political appointee with little or no relevant classification experience or training 3 was not disclosed to Ms Knight when NSC Legal attributed the clearance delay to the demands of the COVID-19 crisis and 4 was ultimately used to justify the White House effort to block publication of the book • And finally the ultimate conclusion that the manuscript was unpublishable notwithstanding that Ms Knight had addressed the classification concerns that the attorneys raised with her In addition to her substantive concernswith the draft declaration Ms Knight also voiced her concernsabout the fairness and objectivity of the processbeing followed by the White House and Justice Department attorneys She was particularly concerned about the following • Ms Knight repeatedly asked the attorneysto explain their litigationstrategy and how they intendedto use her declaration They refused to give her such information and instead urged her to simply trust them and their assurancesthat they would not throw her and her team “under the bus ” • Ms Knight also repeatedly asked to see Mr Ellis’s declaration and the government’s draft complaint to learn which specific passages Mr Ellis and the government attorneys would argue were still classified They refused to show her Mr Ellis’s declaration indicating to her that they had less interest in resolving the concerns cited in those documents and more interest in using them as a basis for blocking publication 17 17 It is worth notingthat Ms Knightwas never informed of the government’sintent to secure the declarationsof four presidentially-appointedintelligenceofficials for use in the TRO hearing Ms Knightlearned of the existence of those declarations only when the Justice Departmentattorneysfiled them with the TRO and used September 22 2020 16 • Ms Knight asked the attorneys how it could be appropriate that a designedly apolitical process had been commandeered by political appointees for a seemingly political purpose She asked them to explain why they were so insistent on pursuing litigation rather than resolving the potential national security issues through engagement with Ambassador Bolton and her team The attorneys had no answer for her challenges aside from a rote recitation of the government’s legal position that Ambassador Bolton had violated his contractual obligations by failing to wait for written clearance However when Ms Knight speculated that this litigation was happening “because the most powerful man in the world said that it needed to happen ” several registered their agreement with that diagnosis of the situation • Ms Knight asked permission to call the NARA supervisor to whom she reported and have him join and support her throughout these meetings most of which involved Ms Knight being questioned by three to six White House and Justice Department attorneys at a time in a West Wing conference room An official at the Information Security Oversight Office her supervisor is a recognized expert in classification declassification and prepublication review and had actually worked in that capacity in the NSC in the recent past Despite these credentials the NSC lawyers refused her request to have him attend the meeting and ordered her not to share any information with him After five days of meetings in which the attorneys remained unwilling to address her concerns about the draft declaration and the process Ms Knight informed the NSC Legal Advisor that she would not sign the declaration He and his Justice Department colleagues then proceeded with the litigation without any declaration from her That was the last time Ms Knight ever spoke with any member of the NSC Legal staff about the Bolton manuscript or litigation Ms Knight’s Departure from her NSC Position As explained above Ms Knight is a 16-year career federal employee who was detailed from NARA to the NSC staff in August 2018 for a two-year detail and was promoted in December 2019 to the position of Senior Director for Records Access and Information Security Management Prior to Ms Knight’s promotion to Senior Director while detailed to NSC it had been long-standing practice for that Senior Director to be a direct-hire career NSC employee who remained in place through transitions between presidential administrations to ensure continuity of operations among the White House the NSC and NARA on all matters concerning information management them to support their argument that the manuscript still contained classified information Since the declarations were filed under seal Ms Knight has had no opportunity to review them September 22 2020 17 After her promotion to Senior Director Ms Knight was given assurances from all of her relevant NSC supervisors that she would have the option to transition into that direct-hire position at the end of her two-year detail in August 2020 Both the NSC Executive Secretary and the Senior Director for Resource Management told her that they supported her transition to the direct-hire position at the conclusion of her detail The NSC Legal Advisor gave her the same assurance and promised to advocate for this transition with the NSC Chief of Staff who had separately expressed strong support for her direct-hire and even assured her as recently as May 22 that he was working to “muscle some money around” to ensure her transition to the NSC permanent staff Following her refusal on June 16 to sign a declaration concerning the Bolton litigation Ms Knight’s interaction with her leadership and NSC Legal all but ceased until June 22 when she received an automated email advising her that her detail would end in 60 days When she then asked the NSC Executive Secretary about the prospect of a direct hire he consulted with the NSC Chief of Staff and the NSC Legal Advisor who informed him that that was no longer a possibility and that “there is no path forward for Ms Knight at the NSC ” The Executive Secretary expressed his sympathy and also his surprise at the decision in light of his strong impression of Ms Knight as a “professional who did everything by the book ” However he said the decision was “not his to make ” and had already been made by others On August 20 Ms Knight’s detail expired and she returned to NARA Ms Knight has spent her career avoiding the spotlight and has no interest in the public attention that has accompanied this litigation Given that reticence she was initially happy to remain on the sidelines of the litigation With the government’s recent effort to prevent any discovery – which would have the effect of precluding scrutiny of the government’s conduct and motives in the Bolton prepublication review process – she now feels an obligation to tell her account of that process and to help fill in the gaps that have been left in the public narrative to date The foregoing provides a general summary of that account To be clear Ms Knight is not taking sides in the litigation She does not take issue with all the actions of the government attorneys with whom she interacted a number of them conducted themselves with absolute professionalism were understanding of her concerns as a career public servant and were obviously trying their best to operate under very challenging circumstances In fact it appeared to Ms Knight that most if not all of them were being directed to implement a strategy with which they were not entirely comfortable Nor does she align herself with Ambassador Bolton and his decision to write and publish such a book aside from supporting his constitutional right to do so in accordance with the prepublication rules September 22 2020 18 Her interest in this litigation is simply to set the record straight and to help ensure that the important process of prepublication review is not tainted by political concerns To that end she stands ready to provide her account of the Bolton prepublication review and to be of assistance to you and the Court in this important matter Sincerely Kenneth L Wainstein