A former secretary of defense filed a lawsuit over the weekend alleging the Pentagon is unlawfully blocking material from his pending memoir. Mark Esper, who headed the Department of Defense for about 18 months during the Trump administration, says the Pentagon is trying to censor unclassified information. Esper submitted a manuscript to the agency about six months ago and after multiple rounds of review, received back 60 pages on Oct. 7 with at least two words struck from them. The adjustments included removing quotations of former President Donald Trump, who ousted Esper, according to the former official. Esper tried engaging with the Pentagon for around a month to understand why the redactions were made but ultimately was not satisfied and is turning to the courts. “No written explanation was offered to justify the deletions,” Esper told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a Nov. 8 letter, adding that a Pentagon official …