What is Donald Trump’s defense team going to do during their impeachment trial arguments now that former national security adviser John Bolton has blown up one of their key contentions? They’ve insisted again and again that no witnesses had heard directly from Trump that Ukraine aid was held up to get investigations of Trump’s political opponents. But now we learn that Bolton’s book says that he had exactly that conversation with Trump—and Bolton has said he would testify under subpoena.
The impeachment trial will resume at 1 PM ET with Trump’s defense team continuing the opening arguments it briefly launched on Saturday, at the time strongly centering that “there are no eyewitness accounts” claim. The Sunday evening report of Bolton’s claim should pose a problem to any defense team. But does this one care enough?
Pat Cipollone, Jay Sekulow, and the rest of Trump’s lawyers have been content to lie and attack. They’re unlikely to change that basic strategy now, whether they continue on as if there was no new information, or acknowledge the reports in order to attack Bolton. But it will be interesting to see if they appear at least a little flustered. If they seem to have had a late night trying to reformulate their case even the slightest bit. If there’s visible flop sweat.
The other question is how Senate Republicans will respond. They’ve been okay with the whole lie-and-attack defense because they want to cover up what Trump did and move on, Republican political power intact. They’ve swallowed the Trump arguments whole, no matter how ridiculous, while feigning deep outrage every time Democrats have suggested that there’s a problem with covering up a president’s efforts to solicit foreign interference to benefit him in an election. Thanks to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s tight restrictions on cameras, we don’t get to see the senators’ reactions. But it sure is going to be interesting to hear from reporters how the atmosphere in the Senate chamber and the demeanor of key senators compare with previous days.
Senate Republicans are reportedly feeling "blindsided" by the revelation from John Bolton's upcoming book that Donald Trump personally told the former national security adviser that he was withholding aid to Ukraine until he got his investigations into Democrats and the Bidens. They want to know who in the White House knew about this and why it was withheld from them, they say. They should be looking closer to home, at their majority leader, Mitch McConnell, if indeed this news came as a total shock to them.
Bolton's lawyer said he provided the manuscript of his book to the White House on Dec. 30. That's two weeks after McConnell promised Sean Hannity on Fox News, "Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with White House Counsel. There will be no difference between the president's position and our position as to how to handle this." Just a few days after that interview, McConnell told reporters, "I'm not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There's not anything judicial about it. […] I would anticipate we will have a largely partisan outcome in the Senate. I'm not impartial about this at all." He also said that it was the House's "duty to investigate" and not the Senate's, and that "we certainly do not need 'jurors' to start brainstorming witness lists for the prosecution."
There is no way that McConnell didn't know what the White House was sitting on with the Bolton manuscript. There is no way that McConnell wasn't acting with the White House to keep this information from his Republican senators. If in fact he did keep it under wraps. If they're blindsided by anything, it's because they thought the White House had done a better job at shutting Bolton up.
Before this evening’s blockbuster John Bolton news, we’d already seen that the level to which Republicans will sink to defend Donald Trump on anything and, literally, everything has no bottom. There seems no cutoff point beyond which now thoroughly-corrupted lawmakers will abandon him; he could sacrifice Mitch McConnell's family to Satan on the steps of the Capitol and senators like Lankford and Cotton would applaud madly at his boldness and explain that this is indeed What Middle America Wanted.
Sen. Tom Cotton went pretty damn low on Face The Nation this morning when asked about Trump’s dismissal of soldiers being flown back to the United States for medical treatment after suffering TBIs, or traumatic brain injuries, in the Iranian strikes responding to Trump’s targeted assassination of a top Iranian military leader. Trump said “they had headaches,” and “but it is not very serious.”
That seemingly glib dismissal of brain injuries as “headaches” caused anger among numerous veteran’s groups, who have demanded Trump apologize. To Sen. Cotton, though, Trump is still-and-always in the right. “He’s not dismissing their injuries, he’s describing their injuries,” he told Face the Nation.
xNEW: @SenTomCotton defends @realdonaldtrump 's comments about soldiers impacted by the Iran strike, says Trump wasn't "dismissing" traumatic brain injuries by calling them "headaches" pic.twitter.com/HH8daFhsIv
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) January 26, 2020
The Veterans of Foreign Wars, for example, disagrees. “TBI is known to cause depression, memory loss, severe headaches, dizziness & fatigue—all injuries that come w/ both short- and long-term effects” said VFW National Commander William Schmitz in a statement.
Cotton had thoughts about impeachment as well. Asked about the release of a new recording in which Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman got a Trump instruction to “take her out” after the trio falsely claimed that anti-corruption U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was “badmouthing” him, Cotton’s only take away from the extended recording was that “badmouthing” sounded like “a pretty sound reason to move an ambassador.” That Trump was getting that advice from Rudy Giuliani and two now-indicted foreign agents, he claimed, was not a problem. See the bar getting lower? Do you think a similar tape coming out featuring, say, any Democrat that Tom Cotton could name would be similarly uninteresting to Tom Cotton?
So there you go. That’s the kind of person the Republican base puts in the Senate these days.
As for Sen. James ‘Young Lindsey’ Lankford, he has been throwing himself in front of whatever cameras he can find to defend Trump, during the trial. He made forays onto multiple networks to hail Our Dear Glorious Tweeting Leader; it’s not clear what administration job he’s angling for, as Trump already has more shoe-shiners than the Trump family has shoes. On MSNBC he got slapped around for lying repeatedly to the viewing audience. On CNN he pivoted to defending Dear Leader’s tweet-grouse complaining that impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff “has not paid the price, yet,” for challenging Dear Leader.
x"I don't think it's a death threat. I don't think he's encouraging a death threat" -- here's @SenatorLankford on CNN defending Trump tweeting that Schiff "has not paid the price" pic.twitter.com/ZdXFptCZVS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 26, 2020
If you need a measure of just how intensively the Lankfords of Republicanism are willing to grovel, this might be a good one: Well I don’t personally interpret Dear Leader’s latest remarks as an actual “death threat” against a sitting congressman, so everything remains fine. All Hail Twitterburp.
The standards of the presidency have fallen very far, in the last three years, and Sen. Lankford would like you to buckle in because, at least according to him, the new lower bound is openly calling for the death of his opponents. Is he there yet? No? Then all praise Dear Leader, who will be vindicated after we vote to conceal all remaining evidence. And if Dear Leader does cross that last line, Sen. James Lankford will defend him still.
Former national security adviser John Bolton has refused House demands that he testify on the events surrounding the freezing of military aid to Ukraine and the efforts by Donald Trump’s allies and administration officials to pressure the Ukrainian government into announcing an investigation into potential Trump election opponent Joe Biden. Bolton is instead writing a book on his tenure.
In the now-circulating manuscript for that unreleased book, reports The New York Times, Bolton writes that Donald Trump personally told him he would continue to freeze the nearly $400 million in aid until Ukrainian officials aided his desired investigations into “Democrats” and “the Bidens.”
Bolton’s manuscript alleges direct involvement in the scheme to falsely smear and remove U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, reports The Times, and Pompeo both knew the claims to be false and suspected Giuliani was “acting on behalf of other clients.” Bolton also says he personally spoke with Trump Attorney General William Barr to inform Barr that Trump had identified him as part of Rudy Giuliani’s efforts on his now-infamous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: Barr’s office had previously denied that he knew about that call until much later.
Importantly, The Times reports that the Trump White House was sent the manuscript for a standard pre-publication administration review in “recent weeks”—meaning Trump, his legal team, and others implicated have known what Bolton would testify to during this period in which they have loudly and angrily insisted that the Senate call no witnesses. If the White House has intentionally delayed or frozen the book’s publication in an attempt to block it until after the conclusion of the Senate impeachment trial, it could constitute yet another act meant to obstruct justice.
Moscow Mitch McConnell has a team working overtime to work the refs, and getting the traditional press to spin out stories about his masterful control of the Senate. Like this one quoting people from his inner sphere, in which he is credited with "educating GOP senators, coordinating with the White House, preaching the importance of party unity and bearing the brunt of Democratic attacks on behalf of his 53 members—some of whom are in close reelection races."
But does he have their backs in fighting attacks from Donald Trump, or is he coordinating that with the White House, too? CBS News reported Thursday night that Republican senators have been warned: “Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike." After all, McConnell has promised that "Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with White House Counsel. There will be no difference between the president's position and our position as to how to handle this." Does that include threatening his fellow senators?
That wasn't just idle talk from McConnell. He had a one-on-one coordinating meeting with Trump, where he promised—again—a quick acquittal. McConnell would happily use the "head on a pike" threat to enforce that.
The third day of Donald Trump's impeachment trial once again featured Republican senators competing with each other to see who could show the most disdain for the idea of their constitutional duty and the oath they took to provide impartial justice. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, apparently felt one-upped by the odious Martha McSally of Arizona in the race to be Trump's favorite woman senator, so she stepped up her game by maligning decorated American combat veteran Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who still serves in uniform and who has been subject to threats of violence since he testified in the House impeachment investigation.
Then there's the ongoing middle-school brat behavior on display for the handful of reporters who are allowed to tell us about it. Which, by the way, Sen. Susan Collins thinks is too many. She wants one whole group of reporters, those sitting in the front row of the gallery where they can actually see what's happening, to be booted—presumably so they don't have a clear view of the Republican senators who are doodling, playing with toys, working on crosswords, chomping gum, and wandering around the chamber and leaving it for long stretches at a time. All in defiance of the rules they swore to follow. And once again, Chief Justice John Roberts might as well have been a potted plant in response.
They all complain that they're not hearing anything new. They're all saying it verbatim, repeatedly and uniformly, almost as if they have nothing new to say. But given that they're also not paying attention, perhaps they're missing the new news.
What they do selectively hear, however, is horribly offensive to their very delicate ears. Collins tattled to Chief Justice Roberts that Rep. Jerry Nadler had suggested that Republicans were abetting a cover-up—that one deeply offended Lisa Murkowski, too.
They were even offended by Rep. Adam Schiff's remarkable closing remarks Thursday night: "Because in America, right matters. Truth matters. If not, no Constitution can protect us. If not, we are lost." Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming was deeply offended on behalf of all his Republican colleagues who had to sit through Schiff's uncomfortable truths, none of which any Republican will really contest—they just think it doesn't matter.
Oh, the humanity. By the way, not a single one of them publicly chastised their colleague Blackburn for her gross attack on Lt. Col. Vindman's patriotism.
Senate Republicans are using Donald Trump’s obstruction of Congress as an excuse for letting him get away with obstruction of Congress and abuse of power. Trump would assert executive privilege to prevent former national security adviser John Bolton from testifying, they say, leading to a long court fight, so … there’s no point in having him testify.
“There will be parts of their testimony, they will be covered by executive privilege and parts that are not. Those have to be litigated. That'll take a couple of months to be able to go through the process,” according to Sen. James Lankford. Enough other Republicans say similar things for it to be a verified talking point, not just an individual concern.
There are so many problems with this. For one thing:
xExecutive privilege cannot be used to prevent a witness who is willing to testify from appearing, and certainly not one who no longer works in government. It’s not a gag order. And witnesses testify on national security all the time.Bolton has a right to testify if he wants to. https://t.co/4FtvPDgtDl
— Rep. Zoe Lofgren (@RepZoeLofgren) January 23, 2020
Okay, actually that was two points: Trump claiming executive privilege to shield himself in an impeachment trial would be unprecedented, and executive privilege is not a gag order on Bolton, who has already said that he would testify under subpoena.
Additionally, Republicans are talking about the courts taking too long. Guess who’s presiding over the impeachment trial? United States Chief Justice John Roberts. Gonna bet that he could short-circuit the court battle on this.
But beyond that, seriously, Republicans? I know your lack of shame knows no bounds, but “He doesn’t want the witnesses to testify so really there’s nothing to be done” would be pathetic if it was sincere. As it is, it’s simply one more piece of evidence of how far Republicans will go to maintain power, embracing the most ridiculous of excuses to avoid making even more details of Trump’s abuses of power public.
As a reminder, large majorities of Americans say the Senate should call witnesses in this impeachment trial, and it would take just four Republican senators to make it happen.