Even though President Trump now says he will invoke executive privilege to forbid former national security adviser John Bolton from testifying in Trump’s Senate trial, it should be seen as a fruitless gesture. The president has no real way to punish a former aide who chooses to testify, and courts would be unlikely to uphold any penalty he attempts to impose.
Courts repeatedly have done more to limit than to uphold claims of privilege from testimony, especially in the impeachment context. Impeachment and a Senate trial are both constitutionally prescribed actions, the latter being in many ways the rough equivalent of a criminal trial. The caveat is that because the president otherwise enjoys so much power, along with various immunities, an impeachment trial is an action of last resort that amounts to the people’s ultimate check on any presidential abuse of power.
