WASHINGTON — With the approval of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., federal prosecutors are trying to force the author of a book on the C.I.A. to testify at a criminal trial about who leaked information to him about the agency’s effort to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program at the end of the Clinton administration.

The writer, James Risen, a reporter at The New York Times, was served with a subpoena on Monday, ordering him to testify at the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer. Mr. Sterling was charged this year as part of a wider Obama administration crackdown on officials accused of disclosing restricted information to journalists.

The subpoena tells Mr. Risen that “you are commanded” to appear at federal district court in Alexandria, Va., on Sept. 12 to testify in the case. A federal district judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, quashed a similar subpoena to Mr. Risen last year, when prosecutors were trying to persuade a grand jury to indict Mr. Sterling.

Mr. Risen said he would ask the judge to quash the new subpoena, too.

“I am going to fight this subpoena,” he said. “I will always protect my sources, and I think this is a fight about the First Amendment and the freedom of the press.”