mattis's speech writer in the forthcoming book entitled "holding the line, inside trump's pentagon with secretary mattis." mattis said he wasn't going to follow through with the president's demands. quote, this will be done by book legally and ethicalically. in a statement general mattis said he does not intend to read the book and said mr. snodgrass was a junior staff who took notes in some meetings. he was appointed to a position of trust at the department of defense and surreptitiously taking notes without authorization for a self-promoting personal project is a clear violation of that trust. he may receive a few brief moments of attention for this book, but those moments will be outweighed by the fact that to get them he surrendered his honor. trump has taken aim at amazon's ceo jeff bezos as well as "the washington post" which he owns for his coverage of the administration. philip reeker testified