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Former National Security Adviser John Bolton mercilessly criticizes President Donald Trump in his new book but writes that he had a White House ally in the vice president.

From China and Russia to Syria and Venezuela, Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence wanted to take hard lines against oppressive regimes while Trump sought to cut deals and appease totalitarian leaders, Bolton says in his memoir scheduled for release Tuesday.

“As Vice President, Pence maintained the strong views on national security that he’d had during his years in the House of Representatives, and I regarded him as a consistent ally,” Bolton wrote in “The Room Where it Happened: A White House Memoir.”

Bolton argued for keeping Pence on the 2020 ticket when Trump asked if he should replace him with Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador.

Bolton called it a bad idea to jettison someone so loyal without a guarantee that it would pay off at the ballot box.

“That seemed to be Trump’s thinking as well,” he wrote.

Pence's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

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A tell-all book about President Donald Trump’s family written by his niece has been temporarily blocked by a New York judge after a lawsuit claimed disclosures in the manuscript violated a 20-year-old secrecy agreement.

A temporary restraining order against Mary Trump and her publisher, Simon & Schuster, was issued Tuesday by Justice Hal Greenwald in Poughkeepsie, New York. Mary Trump was ordered to explain by July 10 why the judge shouldn’t issue a longer-lasting injunction against the book sought by the president’s brother, Robert Trump, who filed the lawsuit.

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A federal grand jury has issued criminal subpoenas to a publishing company and a literary agency in connection with a book by former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, NPR has confirmed.

The move signals the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation surrounding the publication of Bolton's book The Room Where It Happened after an unsuccessful effort to block it from being published in June.

Hundreds of thousands of copies of the book had already been distributed, and Judge Royce Lamberth concluded at the time that the emergency request from the Trump administration had come too late.

But in his 10-page ruling, Lamberth issued a warning to Bolton, writing that he "has gambled with the national security of the United States. He has exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability" for possibly disclosing national security secrets.

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Bolton's attorney, Charles Cooper, has accused the government of slow-walking the review of the book before it was published. In a statement to NPR on Tuesday, Cooper said Bolton denies any wrongdoing.

"We are aware of reports that grand jury subpoenas have been issued seeking information concerning the publication of Ambassador Bolton's recent book. Ambassador Bolton emphatically rejects any claim that he acted improperly, let alone criminally, in connection with the publication of his book, and he will cooperate fully, as he has throughout, with any official inquiry into his conduct," the statement said.