The New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt in particular, have gotten hold of a copy of John Bolton’s book. I am seeing reports on Twitter to expect a Washington Post story in which Bolton and his publisher deny making that book available. What. Ever.
As far as the overall story goes, there is nothing new. Trump was extorting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelinsky to manufacture dirt on Biden and perhaps other candidates. What is new is that he said exactly that to Bolton. And Mike Pompeo knew about the campaign to remove Marie Yovanovich, and so did Mick Mulvaney. I am not surprised about any of this.
Bolton has been holding all this back to make a buck on his book. Great patriot there.
The reaction on Twitter is that now the Senate will have to call witnesses, this changes everything, yatta yatta. Seems to me the story has been clear all along, and the Republicans have managed to stick together in crime. This is just words. There’s something much worse they’re hiding, and the longer they hide it, the more essential it is to continue. Not a single one has any sense of country.
Recipe Exchange: Sunday Pot Roast, Instant Pot and Slow-Cooker Versions
FelonyGovt
I’m afraid this is not going to change anything in the impeachment trial and the Senate still won’t vote for witnesses or evidence. But it certainly seems like additional damaging information is going to continue to leak during the coming months.
Baud
We’ll see what happens. I agree that it doesn’t seem to add much to what we already know, but you can never tell what people’s tipping points are.
Another Scott
Agreed.
Great Patriot and Savior of the Nation™ John Robert Bolton refused to testify before the House and said he would fight any subpoena. Now that it looks like the Senate won’t call him and he might not be able to cash in from all of his inside the White House information, he’s doing what he can to build interest in his book and try to ensure that it will be published.
All hail Great Patriot and Savior of the Nation™ John Robert Bolton.
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
Deep Throat should have cashed in.
SFAW
Outside of Bolton having tapes of Trump and Ivanka (IYKWIMAITYD), what kind of thing would that be? Explicit treason by the Traitor-in-Chief? And what form would that treason take? Offhand, I can’t think of too many behavioral boundaries left for the Liar-in-Chief to violate. [I know, I know: that’s kinda like saying “Nothing can go wrong, now!” But I’m at a bit of a loss.]
SFAW
@Baud:
Unlike the current crew, Mark Felt at least had some sense of patriotism.
Cheryl Rofer
@SFAW: For starters, they’ve all been taking money from Russia.
Another Scott
@SFAW: Well, there was that secret back channel to Russia that Donnie wanted to set up – maybe they actually did create something like that and Vlad has been listening in on the Oval Office and Situation Room since January 2017.
Maybe something like that.
:-/
(I’m only half-kidding.)
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
Not in any conceivable universe could Bolton be cast as savior or hero.
Cheryl Rofer
The White House has had the manuscript for review, so they know what Bolton might testify. But they were there, so they knew that anyway.
Sorry I’m being so cynical about this, Baud. You’re right about tipping points. We’ll see.
CaseyL
What’s worse than what we already know?
The MSM keeps referring to the threats Trump made against Yovanovitch as threats to fire her, when anyone not invested in minimizing Trump’s atrocities recognizes a death threat when they hear it. He’s threatened quite a few other people, including Adam Schiff.
The other shoe to drop will be one of Trump/Giuliani’s hired thugs having already killed someone, or killing someone.
Jager
A republican/lawyer friend of mine, who served 10 years in the Indiana house, has gone to radio silence.
kindness
MoscowMitch isn’t going to call any witnesses. He doesn’t care who is asking for it. He’s going to ride it out Merrick Garland style.
dmsilev
Post story:
Read into that what you will
Edit: And Lucy is holding the football for Charlie Brown. Again:
Aleta
Rep. Don Beyer @RepDonBeyer
Republican Senators are reportedly preparing to reject witnesses because they say privately that holding a fair trial would not benefit themselves politically.
In other words they think evidence could prove Trump’s guilt, so they intend to cover it up.
Shimon Prokupecz @ShimonPro
NY Times: President Trump told Bolton in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript.
This is also significant: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the Rudolph W. Giuliani that the ambassador to Ukraine was corrupt and believed Mr. Giuliani may have been acting on behalf of other clients, Mr. Bolton wrote.
A DOJ Official tells CNN that Bolton during this period called Barr to complain about Rudy Giuliani, telling AG Barr that Giuliani was acting like a secretary of state, and behaving like attorney general, which was causing confusion about official US government policy.
@emptywheel
Unless I’m mistaken, “this period” would precede the time when Barr nevertheless dropped into a meeting where Rudy pitched the case of the Venezuelan funding the Ukraine grift.
Interesting side note: Lev Parnas was right on the money that between him and Bolton they could blow this open. But how did he know that Bolton knew so much?
@RyanLizza
What exactly did Trump’s Senate trial lawyers know about what Bolton wrote in his manuscript and did they say anything to the Senate that contradicted what they knew?
@ScottB_503
This is technical, but lawyers ethically cannot mislead a tribunal. The Senate is a tribunal in this regard. If they knew this info & concealed it, everyone who did that with an active law license should be bar complainted (Anyone can do that.) I may do it myself.
JMG
As Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg has noted, Republican Senators have now made public defenses of Trump that the White House knew in advance were bullshit and had them do it anyway. This has put THEM at political risk. Sooner or later, some abuse victims fight back with intent to kill. I mean, Susan Collins is a spineless loser, but now it’s impossible for her to deny she is. She’s worse off politically sticking with Trump than bailing on him.
Barbara
They are selling their souls for this mobbed up piece of excrement.
JPL
Bolton told Barr about the call and Barr or Bolton lied about the time schedule so there’s that. I doubt that Bolton lied because he’s a note taker
Go after the documents..
Aleta
Who is saying this?
SFAW
@Cheryl Rofer: OK, thanks. A few things:
All that said: although I realize it’s too much to hope for, I hope five (at least) Rethug senators remember their oath of office, and remember for whom they are REALLY supposed to work.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Just think, Saturday was Trump’s chance to set a narrative but it wasn’t the perfect one that The Donald only deserves, so Trump told his lawyers to blow it off. The weekend pause that gave Bolton gets his chance to shiv Trump for firing Bolton and denying Bolton his chance to kill brown people. So tomorrow will be his lawyers doing damage control for both their own foot in the mouth about evidence and now Bolton.
Well played dumb ass Donny.
I wonder when will the right wake up and realize was an incompetent loser Trump really is?
TS (the original)
@Barbara:
Minor correction for you.
Martin
My take is that there’s a group of the GOP that are trying to navigate one of three states:
Everyone has different motivations.
Some fear the damage of the Senate letting him off, and then it comes out in the open. Some fear it happens right before the election damaging everyone in 2020. Guys like Bolton fear outcomes that will affect their payday. Guys like Parnas fear an increasing campaign to cover this up and finds himself in prison like Michael Cohen.
The timing of Bolton’s offers, these leaks, Parnas’ emergence and leaks and so on are not coincidental. They’re all efforts to get the outcome they personally need. This includes Mitt’s knocking down witnesses last week and being open to them today. He’s just working out what’s best for Mitt.
Even the Dems are somewhat playing this game – which is why I think so many flipped so rapidly to impeachment. Put another way, the floodgates are still closed. We’re still getting controlled releases. But when this breaks, holy shit. I’m just praying it’s not in 2025 after Trumps 2nd term.
Martin
@Aleta:
This is why he’s blowing up at NPR reporters. He believes he did everything he could to protect Yovanovitch, but can’t use that information to defend himself because that would require revealing Trumps crimes. He’s stuck, and now its damaging him while Trump gets off.
These people never fucking learn, not even after 5 years of this constant shit.
Yutsano
@Cheryl Rofer: WAY OT: I’m watching the figure skating championships in Europe and a wonderful skater named Kiibus just lit up the ice.
geg6
@Martin:
Yep, this.
Cheryl Rofer
@Aleta: About every third tweet on my Twitter timeline.
Aleta
@Cheryl Rofer: OK. I’ll look there, thanks.
JaySinWA
@Cheryl Rofer: Power of positive thinking. Affirmations. Peer pressure, expected outcomes. I believe the first 2 are codswaddle but the last 2 may well bear fruit. May twitter twaddle turn into something useful.
lgerard
Interesting in that Bolton apparently signed an NDA after his appointment was announced, but before he took office.
Also interesting that while republican politicians cower in fear of trump, people working for him don’t, they just keep leaking and leaking
Aleta
@Cheryl Rofer: I was surprised because I hadn’t seen that opinion at all on the twitter that I look at. That so many people at the top of yr timeline are quite certain that Rs will agree to call witnesses also surprises me. (I still couldn’t find any names by looking at the bottom part of that list, except Amy Fiscus speculating that “this could upend the impeachment witness debate.”) So perhaps this is an example of twitter’s filter bubble effect, for opinions rather than info ? Or else I’m not looking at the right group of political commentators.
Gerard
Bolton is just a disgruntled fired POS. Trump has done nothing wrong only kept promises and created prosperity and jobs O said Trump would need a magic wand to bring back jobs and then laughed, well the laugh is on the corrupt Obama administration and the more info that comes out shows he was not only aware of the Spying on the Trump campaign he was complicit. TRUMP 2020@Cheryl Rofer: