Category: JohnBolton

Spoiler alert: Senate Republicans are screwed no matter what they do

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Senate Republicans seem to have finally gamed out the witness situation in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump at least a couple months past the actual vote—and they are in deep doo doo, to use a technical turn of phrase. Whether or not former national security adviser John Bolton appears as a witness in the Senate trial, his account is going to come out in book form mere months from now. As my colleague Mark Sumner writes, that's exactly why Senate Republicans are newly trying to sell the fantastical reasoning that Bolton's account doesn't matter one way or other, no matter what he ultimately says. That way, whether Americans get Bolton's account through testimony now or through his prose months from now, Senate Republicans can dismiss it as irrelevant to the matter of Trump’s removal from office. Again, this is an otherworldly take in which Trump is king and above the law, and Republicans completely shred the Constitution and everything it stands for in support of the most incompetent and corrupt president America has ever seen.

Now, as a practical matter, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn't currently have the votes to quash Bolton’s testimony, as he has said. But why end the bluff now? First, so that the White House and other Trump cultists can apply maximal pressure to the Republicans who are potentially poised to make the rest of the GOP caucus look horrible by voting in favor of the only intellectually honest thing to do—hear from witnesses. McConnell's other concern is that he's up for reelection back home, where he's deeply unpopular, and he doesn't want to be caught solely holding the bag for losing this critical vote.

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All that said, anything can happen over the next couple of days of questioning in the Senate trial, which, it's worth remembering, will be curated by McConnell and will not be an organic process by any means. Nonetheless, perhaps more information à la another Bolton excerpt or a Lev Parnas interview will drop, completely roiling the GOP caucus. Or not. Although Utah Sen. Mitt Romney continues to say he wants to hear from witnesses, perhaps Trump's maximal pressure campaign will squelch the Romney faction, leaving only Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (for process reasons) and Maine Sen. Susan Collins (for electoral reasons) to vote with Romney. That would leave the witness faction one vote shy of the four Republican votes necessary.

Whatever happens, my personal belief is that Senate Republicans will either fall short of what's needed to call witnesses or end up with more than four votes. No one wants to be tagged as being the "fourth vote," but if it starts to become clear in hushed conversations that the votes are there, then the witness faction will likely pick up several more votes rather than just one. People such as Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman are potential additions, more for legacy reasons than anything else. And perhaps a vulnerable Republican such as North Carolina's Thom Tillis will join Collins in determining that a no vote on witnesses would be nearly impossible to defend. But again, outside of Collins, most vulnerable Republican Senators (e.g., Tillis, McSally, Gardner) appear to have determined that hugging Trump is the only way to win reelection (or perhaps lose but still have a future in GOP circles). In any case, my guess would be that the witness vote either falls short or draws four-plus support, depending on what happens between now and Friday.

Now for a couple of side notes: Don't fall for any of this ridiculous "witness trade" talk. Not only would it be stupid for Democrats to welcome a materially irrelevant witness like Hunter Biden in order to hear from Bolton, but the whole concept of a trade is a red herring. If Republicans have the votes to call Hunter Biden or Adam Schiff, they could and can do it. They have enough people in their caucus to authorize those witnesses without getting Democrats to sign off on it. So just let them stew in their juices over that. Democrats should remain focused on Bolton. And, as Schiff pointed out Tuesday, if they want a 1-for-1 trade, let them call someone relevant, such as acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who has contradicted Bolton's account.

Finally, let's remember where this entire inquiry started—it was deemed a plank walk for Democrats at the outset when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi first announced it last fall. But she has played it masterfully, threading the needles of duty, oath of office, and public opinion all the way through. House Democrats managed to execute an inquiry that was seen as fair and has convinced a majority of the public that Trump should be removed from office, according to a preponderance of polling over the last month. Senate Republicans, at the moment, are now on the wrong side of the polling no matter what they do—whether they vote for witnesses and then acquit or forgo witnesses altogether and then acquit. Frankly, forgoing witnesses is their worst option, as a national consensus has emerged that witness testimony must be heard. If Senate Republicans choose to ignore some 70% of the population, they will pay the price at the ballot box in November. However, if they vote for witnesses, it opens a Pandora's box and McConnell loses control of the process. Win-win for Democrats. 

Ultimately, regardless of what Senate Republicans do, House Democrats still have the final play. If they aren't satisfied with the process the GOP-led Senate has undertaken, Pelosi and Schiff now have more reason than ever to subpoena Bolton's testimony. No one can be 100% sure of what Bolton would say under oath, but House Democrats still have the opportunity to have the final say on what the public hears when Senate Republicans conclude their sham trial. That's pretty damn close to a checkmate in terms of congressional chess-playing. 

White House reportedly issues ‘formal threat’ to block John Bolton from publishing book

Posted on by Laura Clawson

The Trump White House is trying to stop former national security adviser John Bolton’s book from being published, CNN is reporting. The “formal threat” comes in the form of a letter, CNN’s sources say, but none of the parties involved—the White House, Bolton himself, or his publisher, Simon & Schuster—commented.

As Karen Tumulty tweeted, get ready for the advertising campaign dubbing this “the book the White House doesn’t want you to read,” but what the United States needs is not Bolton’s book, it’s Bolton’s testimony.

Bolton is a warmonger with blood on his hands and decades of faithful service to the Republican cause. But here, he has information the country needs to hear, not by giving him money for a book but under oath in the impeachment trial. The White House threat is not, most likely, about the book itself, either. It’s about sending a message to Republican senators not to vote to hear him, and to make regular people think of him as tainted.

The White House needs to discredit Bolton somehow, with polls showing big majorities in support of witnesses at the impeachment trial. Putting a cloud over him separate from the Senate vote on witnesses is the first move. There will be more—but all the people watching the White House campaign against Bolton need to remember that it’s not about him. It’s about what he witnessed Donald Trump saying and doing during his time as Trump’s close adviser.

Update:

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John Bolton is a warmongering jackass who just happens to have information vital to the nation

Posted on by Mark Sumner

No Democrat likes John Bolton. The guy is an everywhere-hawk whose answer to issues of bombing, civilian deaths, and torture are more, so? and sure. That he has evidence relevant to the impeachment of Donald Trump does not rescind his lifelong achievement award for being a warmongering jackass.

When The New York Times reports that Bolton’s world has “turned upside down” on a wave of Democratic support, it’s being about as accurate in its analysis as Trump’s defense team is. Yeah, Republicans have discovered a serious hate for a man they’ve been standing up as the foreign policy expert for two decades. That doesn’t make him a friend to Democrats. He’s not even “the enemy of my enemy,” because on 99.95% of all topics, Bolton hangs out somewhere in the shadows to the far right of even Trump. Democrats don’t want Bolton; they just want the truth.

If the wholesale abandonment of everything even resembling principle in order to embrace Donald Trump had not already made it clear that Republicans would turn on John Bolton … well, they’re doing it. The same characters who pushed Bolton for the U.N. and even touted him as a possible presidential contender are lining up to say that he’s an idiot who never should have been allowed near a whiteboard. Because that’s what they do.

Bolton wasn’t forced on Trump as some kind of consolation prize for the sad armchair warriors of the world. He sprang back into the White House from the launching pad of Fox News, where his familiar mustache waggled regularly from the Fox & Friends couch or from Hannity’s split screen. For two decades, Bolton has been the go-to guy for pounding Democrats in the one area where, incredibly enough, polls show the Republican Party has had a regular advantage over Democrats: national security. If it moved, Bolton was ready to bomb it. Also if it didn’t move.

This isn’t a new thing for Bolton. In his twenties, Bolton was a Vietnam War supporter—a position he proudly upheld from the safe ranks of a stateside National Guard assignment. He was a minor, but enthusiastic, player in Iran-Contra. He was a key figure behind the “Axis of Evil” idea that made half the planet legitimate targets for U.S. weapons, and didn’t just support bombing Iraq over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, but also championed the idea of smashing up nations because they had the potential to develop WMDs. Bolton generated friction in the George W. Bush administration because he came down to the right of Dick Cheney and was accused of using his U.N. role to actively sabotage peace negotiations. That Iran has been the target of Bolton’s unbroken desire for let’s-see-it-burn makes it just one of many.

For extra irony, Bolton was also the chief author of the Reagan administration’s broad defense of executive privilege in covering up the deals made in securing the role of United States chief justice for William Rehnquist. Even during the impeachment proceedings, Bolton has made it clear that he has nothing but disdain for Congress, for the Democratic Party, for House leadership, and for the public. 

There is not one #$@$ing reason for any Democrat to like John Bolton. And none do. 

It’s just that Bolton is a fact witness in an impeachment case. He has already said that he has direct evidence of Donald Trump’s motivation in withholding military assistance to Ukraine. He may have equally vital evidence regarding Trump’s actions in other matters in which he has placed personal gain above national security. He has made it clear that he will provide this evidence if asked.

Democrats don’t have to like John Bolton. They just have to like having the facts. 

America has spoken: A fair impeachment hearing requires relevant witnesses

Posted on by Joan McCarter

As Senate Republicans try to figure out a way to deal with the impeachment witness issue, perhaps how the American public—the people they represent—can help clarify. Because what they say, even among Republican voters, is that you can't have a trial without witnesses. They've been saying that since before the John Bolton bombshell that he has firsthand knowledge that Trump did the abuse of power. Let's just go through the numbers of voters saying witnesses should testify:

Quinnipiac (1/28): 75% overall; 49% of Republicans, and 75% of independents Quinnipiac (1/13): On whether Bolton specifically should testify—66% say yes; 39% of Republicans, 71% of independents Monmouth, (1/21): 80% support witnesses (not broken down clearly by party) Reuters, (1/22): 72% want witnesses, including 69% of Republicans CNN, (1/20): 69% want new witnesses, including 48% of Republicans AP/NORC (1/22): 68% want witnesses; including 36% Republicans ABC-WaPo 71 (1/24): 66% overall; 45% of Republicans, 65% of independents

Again, the majority of these are from before the Bolton bombshell, including a poll released from Navigator research Tuesday that had 82% of voters wanting to hear specifically from Bolton. That included 70% of Republicans, a number that would undoubtedly decline now that they know what Bolton would like say. Trials are supposed to have witnesses, that's fundamental to our system of justice. Everyone knows that. Without relevant witnesses, it's a cover up. Everyone knows that, including Senate Republicans however much they'll argue otherwise.

Trump and McConnell push hard to cement impeachment cover-up

Posted on by Laura Clawson

The Trump White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell planned an impeachment trial cover-up, and they’re not about to let former national security adviser John Bolton mess that up. The plan was to call no witnesses and have Senate Republicans vote to acquit Trump as quickly as possible. That plan took a hit when reports came out that Bolton’s upcoming book described Trump telling him that he was holding up military aid to Ukraine in a demand for investigations into his political rivals—but that just means McConnell and Trump will have to work a little harder to keep the cover-up in place.

When McConnell told Senate Republicans, in a private meeting, that he didn’t have the votes locked down to block witnesses in the trial, it wasn’t an admission of defeat. It was, sources told The New York Times, ”a pointed signal that it was time for rank-and-file senators to fall in line.”

Similarly, the White House is telling Republicans that allowing witnesses “could drag things out for months” and be “tough on all incumbents up for reelection,” a “Republican close to the White House” told Politico. Nice Senate seat you’ve got. Shame if anything messed that up.

Sen. John Cornyn told The Washington Post’s Robert Costa that he was “pretty confident” Republicans would keep the trial from including witnesses. (You know, keep it from being even an imitation of a fair trial.)

According to Sen. Kevin Cramer, “Some people are sincerely exploring all the avenues.” Some people. Others, not so much. And virtually every Republican in the Senate is under strong pressure to stop exploring and definitely stop being sincere—virtually every, and not every-every, only because Sen. Susan Collins gets a pass on appearing to vote against McConnell once he knows he already has the votes he needs locked down.

Republicans do not want the American people to know the truth, and they’ll do whatever they can to keep that from happening.

Trump is seriously frightened of man who begged him for a job and tried to start ‘World War VI’

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Technically, pogonophobia is the fear of beards. There doesn’t seem to be a term that applies strictly to the fear of a prickly upper-lip infestation that looks as if it should come with six-guns and a rabbit obsession. So maybe Boltonophobia will have to do. 

This strange affliction has spread almost overnight across the Republican Party, with an incidence rate that appears to approach 100%. But if there’s one person who represents the index case for breaking into sweat at the view of a mustache, it’s Donald Trump. Trump may be more popular than Lincoln in the polls that occur only inside his head, but support for seeing former national security adviser John Bolton spill what he knows about Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine is overwhelmingly popular in the real world. So of course Trump is responding by spraying his fear all over Twitter.

Trump’s renewed assault on John Bolton, that coffee boy who I hardly knew and who was never that smart anyway, began on Tuesday afternoon and was still going on Wednesday morning. According to Trump, Bolton is a guy who “begged” him for a job, which Trump gave him out of pity, despite warnings from others. Then Bolton immediately made a series of mistakes and overstatements that would have led the United States into “World War VI.” Actually, Trump said “World War Six,” though Trump should surely have had sufficient WrestleMania experience to pick up a few Roman numerals by now.

Anyway, Trump immediately fired Bolton for his warmongering and rank incompetence. Where “immediately” is a year and a half later.

Trump also makes a compelling argument that Bolton failed to complain that anything was wrong at the time. Which would be somewhat more convincing had not the newspapers at the time been filled with stories of Bolton-Trump blowouts at the White House. And if half of those who testified in Trump’s House impeachment had not name-dropped the national security adviser. Sure, Bolton described the scheme in Ukraine as a “drug deal,” and, okay, he told more than one of those who reported to him to inform the lawyers about what was going on, and maybe he kicked Trump’s ambassador to the E.U. out of his office for trying to execute on extortion … but that doesn’t mean he complained.

Then Trump makes his ultimate complaint about Bolton: The manuscript that Bolton has submitted to his publisher is “nasty and untrue.” At the same time, it is “all classified and national security.” It might seem like it would be impossible for a book to be both an untrue personal attack and chock-full of classified national security information. But apparently Bolton is supertalented that way.

And very, very scary. Is it too soon for another It remake?

The numbers keep adding up against McConnell’s cover-up trial: 75% of voters want witnesses

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Senate Republicans are skating on pretty darned thin political ice, and Moscow Mitch McConnell is whipping them into the danger area in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. Here’s the latest from Quinnipiac which finds that 75% of voters want the Senate to hear witnesses. "There may be heated debate among lawmakers about whether witnesses should testify at the impeachment trial of President Trump, but it's a different story outside the Beltway. Three-quarters of American voters say witnesses should be allowed to testify, and that includes nearly half of Republican voters," said Quinnipiac University Poll Analyst Mary Snow in the polling memo.

That includes includes 49% of Republicans, 95% of Democrats, and 75% of independents. What’s more, 53% of voters say Trump is lying about his actions in Ukraine, compared to 40% who say he’s being truthful (the cult remains). For those “independent” senators like Susan Collins, here’s a number: 53% of independents say Trump is lying. Among all voters, 54% say he abused his power, 52% say he obstructed Congress, and 47% say he should be removed. Oh, and 57% say they are paying a lot of attention to the proceedings. That’s got to be shaking up some Senate Republican offices right now.

Let's add to the pressure. Please give $1 to our nominee fund to help Democrats and end McConnell's career as majority leader.  

New poll: 82% of voters say Bolton must testify in impeachment trial

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Donald Trump's lawyers and Senate enablers are doing their damnedest to pretend that former national security adviser John Bolton is just some guy making stuff up in "An unpublished manuscript, that some reporters, maybe, have some idea what it said. If you want to call that evidence." They might want to rethink that considering new polling from Navigator research showing that a whopping 82% of registered voters think Bolton should testify at the impeachment hearing.

What's more, and this is something, that question was included in a poll in the field last week, before the report from Bolton's leaked manuscript which says flat-out that Trump withheld aid to Ukraine for his own political gain. From the toplines of the poll, respondents were asked "If John Bolton has firsthand knowledge of Donald Trump's actions relating to Ukraine and investigating Joe Biden, how important is it for John Bolton to testify in the Senate impeachment trial?" A total of 82% say yes—56% say it's very important and 26% say it's somewhat important to hear from him. That includes 70% of Republicans, with 33% saying it's very important and 37% somewhat important.

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More leaks show Bolton’s book skewers Trump on his fondness for dictators

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Even as Alan Dershowitz was wrapping up a day in which Trump’s legal team operated on the pretense that contents from John Bolton’s upcoming book had not been leaked over the weekend, The New York Times released more material from the manuscript. The primary subject of the new material was not Trump’s efforts to extort Ukraine, but some of his connections to other foreign governments, including those of Turkey and China, where Trump appeared to be placing a personal relationship—or personal benefits—above national concerns.

The most interesting point from the just-reported pages might not be so much what as who. Because it was not only John Bolton who expressed concern about Trump’s willingness to nod along with dictators. Also worried by Trump’s actions was the man who has been Trump’s primary enabler: Attorney General William Barr.

While Bolton was fretting that Trump was weakening national security policies toward Turkey and China to maintain his personal relationships with Tayyip Erdoğan and cake-buddy Xi Jinping, Barr had other concerns. The issues with both Turkey and China were the subjects of independent investigations by the FBI and the Department of Justice. But Trump was directly putting his fingers all over the issues involved in those investigations. That appears to include having had conversations with both Erdoğan and Xi in which he may have passed along information on the status of the investigations.

Even before his election, Trump had a fondness for dictators. Since he has occupied the White House, that unbridled power has become the model for how he does business, and for what he looks for in a “peer.” Erdoğan, Xi, Mohammed bin Salman, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, and Rodrigo Duterte come in for almost unlimited praise for their “toughness,” even when that toughness is expressed in mass murder. On the other hand, more democratic leaders of traditional allies—from Canada to European countries—have come in for constant attacks by Trump. Apparently even senior officials in Trump’s White House are less than thrilled with his willingness to embrace dictators and swoon over those whose policies are far from democratic ideals. Trump’s actions have also interfered in investigations targeting financial institutions involved in money laundering and evading international sanctions.

As The Washington Post reports, each release of information from Bolton’s book is turning up the heat in D.C. While this certainly isn’t the first book in which a former member of the Trump White House details the deep dysfunction and struggle to patch over Trump’s latest disasters, Bolton’s long history within the Republican Party is giving this manuscript extra impact. That impact is multiplied a thousandfold by the timing of the leak during Trump’s impeachment.

According to the Post, the connection between Ukraine funds and the desired investigation into a political rival isn’t a quick hit in the manuscript, but part of over a dozen pages devoted to Bolton’s involvement in the Ukraine scheme. The Post also notes a lot of friction that existed between Trump’s staff of personally loyal toadies and Bolton as a representative of old-school Republican conservatives. Bolton was looked on from the beginning not as an agent of the deep state, but as an agent of the traditional right—and there was no love lost between Bolton and Trump, or Bolton and Trump’s closest supporters.

What both the manuscript and White House reports indicate is that Bolton “was regularly appalled” by Trump’s actions and statements. So appalled that he was willing to tell anyone—after he left the administration and signed a seven-figure contract.

Impeachment witnesses are ‘increasingly likely,’ but top Republicans are still pushing cover-up

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Republican sources are telling reporters that the news about former national security adviser John Bolton’s book makes it more likely that witnesses will be called at Donald Trump’s impeachment trial—but the dam hasn’t exactly broken wide open, and top Senate Republicans are still fighting to keep the cover-up intact.

“I think it’s increasingly likely that other Republicans will join those of us who think we should hear from John Bolton,” Sen. Mitt Romney said Monday. Sen. Susan Collins said the revelations that Bolton’s book manuscript recounts Trump saying that yes, he was holding up military aid to Ukraine until the country dug for dirt on his political opponents, “strengthen the case for witnesses and have prompted a number of conversations among my colleagues.” But no Republican senators previously opposed to calling witnesses has come forward to say they’ve changed their minds.

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—who reportedly feels blindsided by the Bolton news getting out at this juncture and released a statement saying he “did not have any advance notice” that this was coming—is not any more open to witnesses. Senate Majority Whip John Thune told reporters that “I don’t think that anything that he’s going to say changes the fact...I think people kind of know what the fact pattern is.” Despite all those times Republicans complained that there were no firsthand witnesses who heard directly from Trump that he was holding up the Ukraine aid to get an investigation of a political opponent, the emergence of a witness who could provide exactly that testimony changes nothing.

And in Thune’s telling, calling Bolton would just kind of be a big hassle. “If you start calling him, then the Democrats are going to want to call Mulvaney and want to call Pompeo ... and our guys are going to want to start calling witnesses on the other side to illuminate their case,” he said, continuing “And I think that gets us into this endless cycle and this drags on for weeks and months in the middle of a presidential election where people are already voting. My view is the fact pattern is what it is. I don’t think it’s going to change.” 

Oh. The fact pattern is what it is? So basically, all that talk of how Democrats hadn’t adequately made the case that Donald Trump withheld congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine because he wanted the country to interfere in the 2020 elections was just more Republican lies. It’s hard to draw any other conclusion from the fact that the number two Republican in the Senate says hearing from a firsthand witness who’s a longtime Republican official wouldn’t add any facts.

Some Republicans are operating with a little less bluster and bravado, though they’re still looking to cut a favorable deal. Sen. Pat Toomey wants a trade: one relevant witness to what Trump did for one irrelevant Republican witness with which to attack the very Democrats Trump was trying to attack all along. Sen. Lindsey Graham has a proposal to make it look like Republicans took Bolton seriously without actually allowing the public to hear what he has to say. And so on. 

There may be some cracks in the unified Republican determination for a cover-up, but there are just as many Senate Republicans frantically slapping spackle onto those cracks.