Elizabeth Holmes’s Trial Could Reveal Her Side of Theranos Story

Since Theranos Inc. began to unravel in 2016, the blood-testing company’s founder, Elizabeth Holmes, has sought to tell her side of the story, even pursuing the possibility of a lucrative book deal.

Now, at her coming criminal fraud trial, Ms. Holmes finally will get her best shot to tell it.

After Theranos began imploding five years ago—with federal investigators building cases against her for allegedly misleading investors and patients about the company’s technology—Ms. Holmes remained convinced she had done nothing wrong, people close to her at the time recalled, and wanted a venue to profess her innocence.

In 2016, months after Theranos received its first criminal subpoena, Ms. Holmes pitched a book idea to Bob Barnett, a lawyer and book agent known for landing six-figure-plus advances for the political elite, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting, at Theranos’s Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters, was brokered by the company’s then-general counsel, they said.

Mr. Barnett told Ms. Holmes that there could be a market for her book—but only if she could emerge successfully from the federal investigations, one of the people said. He told her his Washington law firm, Williams & Connolly LLP, could help with her legal troubles, too, the people recall.