Trump trashes Bolton as impeachment moves into question-answer phase
U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is shifting to questions from senators, a pivotal juncture as Republicans lack the votes to block witnesses and face a potential setback in their hope of ending the trial with a quick acquittal.
After Trump’s defence team rested Tuesday with a plea to «end now,» Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell privately told senators he doesn’t yet have the votes to brush back Democratic demands for witnesses now that revelations from John Bolton, the former Trump national security adviser, have roiled the trial.
Bolton, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2005-06, writes in a forthcoming book that Trump told him he wanted to withhold military aid from Ukraine until it helped with investigations into Democratic rival Joe Biden. That assertion, if true, would undercut a key defence argument and go to the heart of one of the two articles of impeachment against the president.
«The details from Ambassador Bolton get to the very heart of the first article of impeachment,» Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer argued at his Wednesday morning news conference.
Mick Mulvaney, both Trump’s chief of staff and the director of the Office of Management and Budget, is «a more important witness, probably, than Bolton,» added Schumer.
Lev Parnas, an indicted close associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, showed up on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning with his lawyer Joseph Bundy and said he, too, «would love to» testify under oath before the Senate impeachment trial.
«Between me and John Bolton, we’d put the dots together,» said Parnas, who wears an ankle bracelet as part of his bail conditions.
On the subject of Bolton, Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said on Tuesday, he «probably has something to offer us» as a witness.
Trump disagreed in a tweet Wednesday in which he complained that Bolton, after he was fired, «goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security.»
The president had tweeted shortly after midnight about his former adviser, asking why Bolton didn’t complain «about this ‘nonsense’ a long time ago, when he was very publicly terminated.» Bolton left the White House last September and says he offered his resignation.
Trump has previously lashed out at once trusted advisers that have left the White House, such as Rex Tillerson, James Mattis and H.R. McMaster, but this time the stakes are much higher for the president.
WATCH: Will Bolton be blocked from testifying?
In an interview Wednesday on CBS This Morning, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani — at the centre of the Ukraine controversy — called Bolton a «backstabber.»
The uncertainty about witnesses arises before crucial votes on the issue, scheduled for as early as Friday. In a Senate split 53-47 in favour of Republicans, at least four Republican senators must join all Democrats to reach the 51 votes required to call witnesses, decide whom to call or do nearly anything else in the trial. Several Republicans apparently are ready to join Democrats in calling witnesses.
The two days set aside for questions, Wednesday and Thursday, also allow each side more time to win over any undecided senators pondering the witness issue. In the meantime, all will have the opportunity to grill both the House Democrats prosecuting the case and the Republican president’s defence team.
Held to submitting written questions to be read by Chief Justice John Roberts, senators are expected to dig into the big themes of the trial — among them whether what Trump did or may have done rises to the level of «high crimes and misdemeanours» — as well as pointed and partisan attacks on each side’s case.
Schumer pans Republican manuscript ideas
Trump faces charges from Democrats that he abused his power like no other president, jeopardizing U.S.-Ukraine relations by using the military aid as leverage while the vulnerable ally battled Russia. Democrats say Trump then obstructed their probe in a way that threatens the nation’s three-branch system of checks and balances.
The president’s legal team tried to lock up its case Tuesday and convince Republican senators that the president was right to ask Ukraine for investigations of Biden and his son Hunter and was well within his power to block the aid. They said he was not bound to abide by the congressional investigation.
Trump attorney Jay Sekulow addressed the Bolton controversy head-on in closing arguments by dismissing the former national security adviser’s manuscript as «inadmissible.» Attorney Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard scholar, said earlier that even if Bolton’s story is true the actions don’t rise to an impeachable offence.
Schumer on Wednesday called Sekulow’s view of the trial «downright Kafkaesque.»
Senate Republicans spent considerable time in private discussing how to deal with Bolton’s manuscript without extending the proceedings or jeopardizing the president’s expected acquittal. That effort lost steam as Democrats showed no interest, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying, «We’re not bargaining with them.»
Republican senators were warned that if they agree to call Bolton or try to access his manuscript, the White House will block him, likely sparking a weeks-long court battle over executive privilege and national security.
Nonetheless, Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine appeared to be backed by others in the move to seek more testimony.
Some Republicans including Sen. Pat Toomey want reciprocity — bringing in Bolton or another Democratic witness in exchange for one from the GOP side. Some Republicans want to hear from Biden and his son, who was on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company, for over two years when his father was vice-president. Neither Biden has ever been linked to any corrupt activity
Those swaps, though, seem likely to fail as most Republican senators don’t want to call Bolton and most Democrats would rather avoid dragging the Bidens further into the impeachment proceedings. The Bidens were a focus of defence arguments though no evidence of wrongdoing has emerged.
«I don’t know that the manuscript would make any difference in the outcome of the trial,» said Republican Roy Blunt of Missouri. And some Republicans said they simply don’t trust Bolton’s word. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky called Bolton «disgruntled»‘ and seeking to make money off his time at the White house.
But John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, told an audience in Sarasota, Fla., that he believes Bolton.
WATCH: Alan Dershowitz on Bolton’s revelations
White House officials privately acknowledge that they are essentially powerless to block the book’s publication but could sue after the fact if they believe it violated the confidentiality agreement Bolton signed.
Trump and his lawyers have argued repeatedly that Democrats are using impeachment to try to undo the results of the last presidential election and drive Trump from office.
Democrats, meanwhile, say Trump’s refusal to allow administration officials to testify only reinforces that the White House is hiding evidence. The White House has had Bolton’s manuscript for about a month, according to a letter from Bolton’s attorney.
