Last summer, George Clooney's Smoke House acquired the big-screen rights to Jonathan Mahler’s thriller “The Challenge,” and now the project has a writer.

Variety today announced Aaron Sorkin will adapt the book, which focuses on the struggle by U.S. Navy lawyer Charles Swift and law professor Neal Katyal to guarantee a fair trial for Salim Hamdan, the bodyguard and driver of Osama bin Laden.

According to the trade, the story won't "debate Hamdan's guilt or innocence but chart the dogged efforts of the two lawyers who sue the president because they feel the U.S. government has broken the law and violated the Constitution."

Clooney is also attached to direct and star as Swift. And why not? He certainly can act if he wants to, and he definitely can direct as well (okay, "Letherheads" stank, but whatever).

Sorkin, creator of "The West Wing," also wrote "Charlie Wilson's War" and "The Trial of the Chicago 7." He is also working on a script about the birth of social networking site Facebook.