Bolton a no-show with impeachment investigators
PENCE AIDE APPEARING AT INQUIRY
Former national security adviser John Bolton failed to show up for an interview with impeachment investigators Thursday, making it unlikely that he will provide any testimony to the House about President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine.
An attorney for Bolton, Charles Cooper, said his client had not received a subpoena. Cooper had previously said Bolton wouldn’t appear without one.
A House intelligence committee official said the panel has no interest in engaging in a drawn-out court fight over a subpoena for Bolton and will simply add the White House’s instructions against testifying as evidence of the president’s obstruction of Congress. The person wasn’t authorized to discuss the situation publicly and was granted anonymity.
Even as Bolton was a no-show, an aide to Vice-President Mike Pence came to the Capitol to speak with impeachment investigators.
Jennifer Williams, a career foreign service officer detailed to Pence’s office from the State Department, was subpoenaed to appear. She is one of several White House aides who were listening in on a July phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in which Trump asked the new leader to investigate Democrats, according to an administration official who requested anonymity to discuss the conversation.
That call is at the centre of the Democrats’ impeachment probe.
Speaking to reporters in New Hampshire, Pence stood by Trump and said if Americans read the administration’s rough transcript of the call they will find “there was no quid pro quo, the president did nothing wrong.”
Pence called the impeachment inquiry a “disgrace.”
Investigators are wrapping up the private interviews as they prepare to start public hearings next week. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff announced Wednesday that three State Department witnesses will appear in two hearings next Wednesday and Friday: top Ukraine diplomat William Taylor, career department official George Kent and Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Yovanovitch was ousted in May on Trump’s orders and Taylor replaced her.