The former Defense Secretary Mark Esper is suing the Pentagon, claiming that the Biden administration is censoring a “full and unvarnished” accounting of his tenure under Trump in a forthcoming memoir, “A Sacred Oath.”
In a federal lawsuit filed Sunday, Esper said he submitted his memoir to the Defense Department for review and after six months found “my unclassified manuscript arbitrarily redacted without clearly being told why.”
The lawsuit suggests that the redacted material is being withheld under the guise of classification.
“I am more than disappointed the current Administration is infringing on my First Amendment constitutional rights,” Esper said in a statement. “And it is with regret that legal recourse is the only path now available for me to tell my full story to the American people.”
Pentagon chief spokesman John Kirby’s statement:
“As with all such reviews, the department takes seriously its obligation to balance national security with an author’s narrative desire.”