The stakes over witness testimony at US President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial are rising now that a draft of a book by US former national security adviser John Bolton appears to undercut a key defense argument.
Bolton writes in the forthcoming book that Trump told him that he wanted to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in security aid from Ukraine until it helped him with politically charged investigations, including into a potential Democratic rival, former US vice president Joe Biden.
Trump’s legal team has repeatedly insisted that the president never tied the suspension of military assistance to the country to investigations that he wanted into Biden and his son.
The account immediately gave Democrats new fuel in their pursuit of sworn testimony from Bolton and other witnesses, a question expected to be taken up this week by the Republican-led Senate.
The trial resumed yesterday afternoon with arguments from Trump’s defense team.
Bolton’s account was first reported by the New York Times and confirmed to The Associated Press by a person familiar with the manuscript on the condition of anonymity, The Room Where It Happened; A White House Memoir, ahead of its release on March 17.
When the Times report went online on Sunday night, the seven US House of Representatives Democratic managers immediately called on all senators to insist that Bolton be called as a witness and provide his notes and other relevant documents.
US Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, issued the same call.
Trump denied the claims in a series of tweets early yesterday.
“I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens,” Trump said. “In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book.”
Trump said people could look at transcripts of his telephone call, and statements by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy that there was no pressure for such investigations to get the aid.
Bolton, who acrimoniously left the White House a day before Trump ultimately released the Ukraine aid on Sept. 11 last year, has already told lawmakers that he is willing to testify, despite the president’s order barring aides from cooperating in the probe.
“Americans know that a fair trial must include both the documents and witnesses blocked by the president — that starts with Mr Bolton,” the impeachment managers said in a statement.
First, though, Trump’s legal team will begin laying out its case in depth, turning to several high-profile attorneys to argue against impeachment.
Trump faces two articles of impeachment. One accuses him of abusing his power by asking Ukraine to investigate Biden at the same time that his administration withheld hundreds of millions of dollars from the country. The other alleges that Trump obstructed the US Congress by directing aides to not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.
Once Trump’s team concludes, senators will have 16 hours to ask questions of both the House impeachment prosecutors and the president’s legal team. Their questions must be in writing, and US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who has been presiding over the trial, is to read them aloud.
Then the Senate is to take up the question of whether to consider new witnesses and evidence — a question that could be more politically complicated with the account in Bolton’s book.
Four Republicans would have to break ranks to join Democrats to extend the trial.
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