CENTER OF THE STORM
SENATE FEUDS OVER BOLTON
John Bolton loomed large over President Trump’s impeachment trial Wednesday, as Democrats argued at length for the need to call the former national security adviser as a witness while the White House threatened to sue him if he publishes a tell-all book about the Ukraine scandal.
Entering one of the trial’s final phases, senators on both sides of the aisle peppered Trump’s legal team and the Democratic impeachment managers with questions about Bolton, whose forthcoming book landed at the center of the historic proceeding after excerpts were leaked earlier this week.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, the lead impeachment manager, said it’s Bolton’s testimony — not his book — that’s material.
“You need to hear from [Trump’s] former national security adviser … Don’t wait for the book, don’t wait until March 17, when it is in black and white to find out the answer to your question,” Schiff (D-Calif.) said after three moderate Republican senators asked whether Trump acted in the nation’s interest or his own by withholding U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
The GOP trio that posed the question — Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — have said they’re strongly considering giving a thumbs-up Friday when the chamber takes a long-awaited vote on whether to call more witnesses or head straight to a vote on removing the president from office.
Before Friday’s high-stakes vote, senators will return for another eight-hour question-andanswer session Thursday. Chief Justice John Roberts, who presides over the trial, reads all questions aloud, since senators are barred by arcane impeachment rules from speaking.
As senators posed questions about Bolton, Trump’s National Security Council officials threatened legal action against him over his yet-to-be-released book.
“Based on our preliminary review, the manuscript appears to contain significant amounts of classified information,” an NSC official wrote in a ceaseand-desist letter to Bolton’s attorney that was made public Wednesday. “The manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information.”
Bolton’s attorney, Chuck Cooper, had sent the book manuscript to the NSC for a standard review in late December. Cooper did not return a request for comment.
In another twist, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) revealed earlier Wednesday that Bolton urged him in September to look into Trump’s
controversial axing of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch — one of many key episodes in the impeachment scandal.
“Bolton strongly implied that something improper had occurred around her removal as our top diplomat in Kiev,” Engel said in a statement.
Although Trump legally had the right to fire Yovanovitch, the tipoff, which Bolton gave after being fired by Trump, marks yet another sign that the ex-national security honcho may sit on crucial information.
Ultimately, Democrats need at least four Republicans to break ranks Friday to meet the 51-vote threshold needed to keep the dream of calling Bolton as a witness alive.
The prospects of that happening appeared to be improving Tuesday night, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) privately told party brass that he doesn’t have the votes to ensure a witness-free trial, according to sources.
The cracks in the Republican Party line have emerged since the leaked Bolton manuscript detailed an August conversation in which Trump allegedly told his former national security chief that he wanted to keep holding up $391 million in military aid to Ukraine until the country committed to announcing investigations of Democratic rival Joe Biden and debunked right-wing claims about the 2016 election.
The bombshell, which contradicts a key portion of Trump’s defense, has prompted the president’s team to launch a multipronged anti-Bolton effort.
Back in the Senate chamber, Trump’s top personal counsel, Jay Sekulow, warned Republican senators against voting in favor of witnesses like Bolton because that could result in a protracted trial.
“It should certainly not be that the House managers get John Bolton and the president’s lawyers get no witness,” Sekulow said.
Trump, meanwhile, unleashed a vicious stream of tweets berating his hawkish exnational security adviser as a warmongering blowhard.
“If I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book,” the president posted.
Trump’s side would press to call Joe and Hunter Biden, the CIA whistleblower and an obscure Democratic National Committee staffer as witnesses — requests that Democrats call bizarre, as they’re based on the very unsubstantiated theories that the president was impeached for asking Ukraine to investigate.
“It’s irrelevant. It’s a distraction,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.
In addition to the Bolton battle, Trump’s legal team and the impeachment managers got into heated arguments as senators asked technical questions about what constitutes an impeachable offense.
Controversial Harvard University Prof. Alan Dershowitz, one of the newest additions to Trump’s team, went out on a limb as he effectively argued a president can do anything to get himself reelected as long as he considers his reelection to be “in the public interest.”
“If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” Dershowitz said.
Dershowitz then spoke from Trump’s point of view to drive home his dubious point.
“A complex middle case is: ‘I want to be elected. I think I’m a great president. I think I’m the greatest president there ever was, and if I’m not elected the national interests will suffer greatly.’ That cannot be an impeachable offense,” Dershowitz said.
Democrats were flabbergasted.
“I thought his argument was beyond absurd,” New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said during a break in the trial. “I thought he made absolutely no sense because he essentially said that if President Trump believed his election is for the good of the American people, he could do whatever he wants.”
If the Senate approves the measure to consider more evidence Friday, additional votes are expected on specific witnesses and records to subpoena. In addition to Bolton, Democrats want to call acting Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, White House budget official Michael Duffey and senior Mulvaney adviser Robert Blair.
Barring the unforeseen, Trump is ultimately expected to be acquitted by the Senate, as two-thirds of the Republicancontrolled chamber must vote to convict for the president to be removed from office.