Pentagon officials are considering the possibility of taking legal action against former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette for disclosing information that may be classified in his book "No Easy Day," which describes in first-hand detail the raid that led to the death of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011.
Pentagon press secretary George Little has accused Bissonnette of violating two non-disclosure agreements that the soldier signed in 2007 by not submitting his book for an official security review before passing it on for publication by New York-based publishing house Penguin Group. According to officials, these agreements remain in effect even after Bissonnette left active duty.
Little recently approached Bissonnette, who penned the controversial book under the pseudonym Mark Owens, to ask the former SEAL to stop next week's scheduled official release of the book in a bid to "remedy" the situation, according to reports.
Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson has summarized the "situation" and its possible ramifications for Bissonnette in a letter sent to the author on Thursday.
"I write to formally advise you of your material breech and violation of your agreements, and to inform you that the department is considering pursuing against you, and all those acting in concert with you, all remedies legally available to us in light of this situation," Johnson wrote. "...Copies of the book have apparently already been released. Further public dissemination of your book will aggravate your breech and violation of your agreements."
The Pentagon managed to obtain a pre-release copy of the book, which it says it is currently reviewing to see if it does in fact contain confidential information. If it does, Bissonnette will have violated federal criminal laws due to the non-disclosure agreements he signed, which also obligated him to "never divulge" classified information.
In an author's note for the book, Bissonnette said that all of the material contained within it was derived from unclassified publications and sources. "It is important to me that no classified information is released [so that it] cannot be used by sophisticated enemies as a source of sensitive information to compromise or harm the United States," he wrote.
Bissonnette, who hired a former special operations attorney to review "No Easy Day" for classified information, has deferred comments on the Pentagon's accusations to his publisher, which could not be reached for a statement.