A slew of federal officials, ranging from the director of the F.B.I. to climate scientists, were fired or reassigned during Mr. Trump’s presidency, as part of efforts to punish or silence them, they claimed. Few, particularly those in career positions, like Ms. Knight, have regained their posts.
Peter Strzok, the lead F.B.I. agent on the investigations of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia and Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email account, is suing the federal government to regain his job at the F.B.I. as a top counterintelligence investigator. At the time of Mr. Strzok’s dismissal, Trump administration officials said he had been fired because he had sent text messages that showed a political bias.
Ms. Knight’s disclosure about how the Trump White House handled Mr. Bolton’s book came to light in a lengthy letter sent in September 2020 to the judge who was overseeing a lawsuit brought by the Justice Department trying to recoup the profits from Mr. Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened.”
Her letter backed up claims by Mr. Bolton’s lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, that a criminal investigation of Mr. Bolton and the lawsuit brought against him by the Justice Department had been politically motivated. Ultimately, her disclosure helped lead the Biden Justice Department to drop both matters against Mr. Bolton.
The effort to use Mr. Trump’s powers of classification to silence Mr. Bolton had occurred during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment, Ms. Knight had told the federal judge. Shortly before Mr. Bolton’s book — which portrayed Mr. Trump as corrupt and incompetent — was scheduled to be released, Ms. Knight said that White House lawyers had pressured her to reverse her determination that the manuscript of Mr. Bolton’s book contained no classified information and could be published.