One of President Trump's defense lawyers said Tuesday that John Bolton's book manuscript that allegedly supports Democrats' impeachment case is "inadmissible" in the president's Senate trial.
"You can't impeach the president on an unsourced allegation," attorney Jay Sekulow told senators. "I want to be clear on this, because there's a ...
Sen. Susan Collins, last seen in high manufactured dudgeon over incivility in Donald Trump's impeachment hearing, seems less concerned over the revelation from former national security adviser John Bolton that Trump did indeed try to extort Ukraine to influence the 2020 election. The reports about Bolton’s upcoming book "strengthen the case" for hearing witnesses, she said, which some analysts are taking as support for calling witnesses. It's not, though; it's Collins holding her finger in the wind.
She needs to be seen as open to calling witnesses because her performance thus far is not playing particularly well back home. The Portland Press Herald published an op-ed over the weekend lambasting her stunt during the House managers’ presentation, in which she sent a sternly worded note to Chief Justice John Roberts saying that Democrats were being mean. "Instead of demanding to see every last shred of evidence of the president's conduct before she voted on whether he is guilty of manipulating America’s foreign policy and national security interests to cheat in an election, she chose to get lost in the weeds" of procedure, editorial page editor Greg Kesich wrote.
Those procedural weeds have nothing to do with getting at the truth, something that Amy Fried, professor of political science at the University of Maine, is writing about at the Bangor Daily News. "In one universe, that of televised ads run by her campaign, Susan Collins is a stalwart independent," Fried writes. "In an alternative universe where Collins was independent, initially she would have vigorously backed the efforts to receive witnesses and documents blocked by the White House."
Collins' Kavanaugh vote should have been a lesson to her about just how shaky her image as an "independent" is back home. Her performance in this impeachment, thus far, is eroding it further. It could end up being her total undoing.
President Trump adds to his list of grievances against Fox News, this time over impeachment coverage. It was once his favorite source of information.
