Ex-defense secretary sues over withheld material from Trump era memoir

Mark Esper claims material being improperly held from unvarnished' memoir of dealings with ex-president

The former US defense secretary Mark Esper claims in a lawsuit against the defense department that material is being improperly withheld from him as he seeks to publish an unvarnished and candid memoir" of his time in Donald Trump's cabinet.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Sunday in the US district court in Washington, describes the memoir, A Sacred Oath, as an account of Esper's tenure as army secretary from 2017 to 2019 and his 18 months as defense secretary, which ended when Trump fired him in a tweet just days after the president lost his reelection bid.