Trump Lawyers Ignore John Bolton Bombshell In Senate Trial
WASHINGTON ― The bombshell revelation that former national security adviser John Bolton has written a book essentially confirming the Democrats’ case against President Donald Trump went curiously unaddressed by the president’s lawyers on Monday in the Senate impeachment trial.
Bolton’s book alleges that Trump tied the release of congressionally approved Ukraine aid to the Ukrainians’ announcing investigations of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, The New York Times reported on Sunday. The report caught Senate Republicans by surprise and upped the pressure for them to allow witnesses ― Bolton included ― to be heard and other evidence to be presented in the trial.
Following the Times story, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said it was “increasingly likely” that at least four Republicans would join Democratic senators in passing a motion to subpoena Bolton.
But Trump’s lawyers conspicuously avoided referring to Bolton during Monday’s arguments. Instead, they kept insisting there was no connection between the security assistance to Ukraine and any investigation desired by Trump, contrary to Bolton’s reported account and the testimony of more than a dozen diplomats last fall.
“We deal with transcript evidence. We deal with publicly available information. We do not deal with speculation, allegations that are not based on evidentiary standards,” said Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal attorneys, in a brief allusion to the Times story.
Only Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, a member of Trump’s defense team, referred to the Bolton allegations, albeit in passing. He did so late in the evening in the middle of a one-hour lecture on why abuse of power isn’t an impeachable offense ― a theory contradicted by many experts, including Attorney General William Barr.
“Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense. That is clear...
