The publisher of a controversial book about US President Donald Trump's White House has responded to demands to "cease and desist" publication by moving the release date to four days earlier than planned.
"Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by Michael Wolff, will be published on Friday 5 January, rather than Tuesday 9 January, publishers Henry Holt and Company said.
The decision was confirmed by author Mr Wolff, who tweeted: "Here we go. You can buy it (and read it) tomorrow. Thank you, Mr President."
Earlier, Mr Trump threatened his former chief strategist Steve Bannon with legal action over "defamatory" statements about Mr Trump's son and son-in-law over a meeting with Russians during the 2016 US presidential campaign.
Mr Trump cut ties with Mr Bannon yesterday, saying his former adviser had "lost his mind" in a blistering statement issued after reports of disparaging comments by Mr Bannon in the forthcoming book.
In the book, Mr Bannon was quoted as describing a June 2016 meeting with a group of Russians at Trump Tower in New York as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic".
The meeting, held after the Russians promised damaging information on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, was attended by Donald Trump Jr, Mr Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, who was Mr Trump's campaign manager at the time.
Lawyers for the president sent a cease-and-desist letter to Mr Bannon yesterday.
They said in the letter that Mr Bannon had breached an agreement by communicating with Mr Wolff about Mr Trump, his family and the campaign and made disparaging remarks about Mr Trump and his family.
Charles Harder, Mr Trump's personal lawyer, said he also will seek to block the publication of the book.
He said legal action is "imminent" against Mr Bannon.
A legal notice to Mr Wolff and publisher Henry Holt said Mr Trump's lawyers were pursuing possible charges including libel.
The White House has said no personal devices, including mobile phones, would be allowed in the West Wing beginning next week for security purposes.
The moves followed the Bannon split but had been considered for some time.
Mr Trump had relied heavily on Mr Bannon, chairman of the right-wing Breitbart News website, for advice in the months leading up to his upset victory in the November 2016 election.
He then gave Mr Bannon a strategic role in the White House, where he became a divisive figure before being fired in August.
Mr Bannon returned to Breitbart and continued to talk with Mr Trump.
Mr Trump's statement also diminished Mr Bannon's role in the election victory and accused him of leaking to the media.
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White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders heaped scorn on Mr Bannon and the book at a press briefing.
She said Breitbart News should consider firing Mr Bannon and attempted to cast doubt on Mr Wolff's accuracy.
Ms Sanders called the book "some trash" that came from "an author that no one had ever heard of until today".
"This book is mistake after mistake after mistake," she said.
Key excerpts from 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House'
2016 campaign: losing is winning
"As the campaign came to an end, Trump himself was sanguine. His ultimate goal, after all, had never been to win. ... 'This is bigger than I ever dreamed of,' he told (former Fox Newschief Roger) Ailes a week before the election. 'I don’t think about losing, because it isn’t losing. We’ve totally won’."
"Once he lost, Trump would be both insanely famous and a martyr to Crooked Hillary. His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared would be international celebrities. Steve Bannon would become the de facto head of the tea-party movement. Kellyanne Conway would be a cable-news star. Melania Trump, who had been assured by her husband that he wouldn’t become president, could return to inconspicuously lunching. Losing would work out for everybody. Losing was winning."
"After Melania Trump was inconsolable that the New York Post obtained outtakes from a nude photo shoot done early in her modelling career, Mr Trump told her they would sue.
"But he was unaccustomedly contrite, too. Just a little longer, he told her. It would all be over in November. He offered his wife a solemn guarantee: there was simply no way he would win."
Election Day
"Shortly after 8pm on Election Night, when the unexpected trend - Trump might actually win - seemed confirmed, Don Jr. told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears - and not of joy."
"(Kellyanne) Conway, the campaigns manager, was in a remarkably buoyant mood, considering she was about to experience a resounding, if not cataclysmic, defeat. ... Now she briefed some of the television producers and anchors whom she had been carefully courting since joining the Trump campaign and with whom she had been actively interviewing in the last few weeks, hoping to land a permanent on-air job after the election.
After the victory
"Balancing risk against reward, both Jared (Kushner) and Ivanka decided to accept roles in the West Wing over the advice of almost everyone they knew. It was a joint decision by the couple, and, in some sense, a joint job.
"Between themselves, the two had made an earnest deal: If sometime in the future the opportunity arose, she'd be the one to run for president. The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton; it would be Ivanka Trump."
Bannon on June 2016 Trump Tower Russia meeting
"The chance that Don Jr did not walk these jumos up to this father's office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero."
"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor - with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers."
"Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately."
