John Bolton should be allowed to testify before the U.S. Senate.
Whatever one’s views about the impeachment itself, it should be pretty clear that somebody who is willing to testify and has more knowledge of what happened on Ukraine than any other person to have testified previously on the matter should be heard.
When the impeachment process was in the House, one of the primary arguments that Republicans made was that the accusations against President Trump were based on “hearsay.” This isn’t quite accurate. The transcript the White House released of Trump’s call showed the president talking up all the help the United States has provided Ukraine before asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Democratic National Committee server and Joe and Hunter Biden. There was also evidence in the form of texts and witness testimony suggesting that the Trump administration first dangled a White House visit in front of Ukraine and then withheld aid to try and get Ukraine at least to announce the investigation publicly.
That said, Republicans were correct that a big weakness in the case against Trump is that much of the witness testimony came from officials that, while working on Ukraine policy, were at least one layer removed from Trump. The closest Democrats got was U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland. Sondland, who had been in contact with Trump, testified that he believed that aid was being held up to pressure Ukraine into publicly announcing investigations and casually communicated this to a Zelensky aide. But Sondland emphasized that he didn’t hear this directly from Trump — only that this was a logical conclusion he drew based on the aid holdup combined with Trump’s interest in the investigations.
As national security adviser, however, Bolton was in a much better position to know what was going on. Both Fiona Hill and her successor, Tim Morrison, indicated that Bolton was unhappy about the withholding of aid and instructed them to alert lawyers about various interactions between Trump officials and the Ukrainians. Hill said Bolton abruptly ended a meeting with Ukrainians after Sondland mentioned investigations and told her to go to the National Security Council counsel and communicate that Bolton is “not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and [acting White House chief of staff Mick] Mulvaney are cooking up.”
It would be critically important to the public’s understanding of the Ukraine saga to learn from Bolton himself what he meant by the comment, what his concerns were, and what he knew of Trump’s position on the Ukraine aid.
There are several reasons why Republicans are reluctant to allow Bolton to testify. Various process arguments have been made about the lack of witnesses at the Clinton impeachment trial and the fact that House Democrats could have called Bolton and other witnesses but chose to rush through impeachment instead. Allowing Bolton to testify would, under this view, be rewarding Democrats’ shenanigans and allowing them to have it both ways. I agree that Democrats should not have rushed impeachment and that they should have fought to compel witness testimony. But when the impeachment proceedings were underway in the House, Bolton’s position was that he would testify if a court broke the impasse between the legislative and executive branch and ruled that he could testify. Now, he’s arguing that he’s willing to testify before the Senate without waiting for the courts to weigh in. That’s an important distinction.
In reality, Republicans are likely worried about introducing a late wild card into the impeachment process. As things stand, impeachment has been largely a bust for Democrats, having not won over voters who did not already object to Trump. The president’s approval ratings have been essentially unchanged since the Ukraine story broke in September, despite months of wall-to-wall coverage. Barring anything unexpected, Republicans will be able to acquit Trump within a few weeks and move on with reason to believe the Ukraine story will be largely forgotten by November. It’s not at all clear that Bolton’s testimony would be harmful to Trump. He’s also spent decades in the conservative movement and isn’t likely to want to burn all of his bridges by offering bombshell testimony that would take down a sitting president who has near-universal approval within the Republican Party. However, Republicans are likely reluctant to introduce an unknown when it feels as if they’re otherwise home free.
The bottom line, however, is that in Bolton, there is a willing witness who has direct knowledge of a story that has been the subject of public debate for months and that involves the serious question of removing a president from office. The Senate should let him be heard.
