Trump team wraps impeachment defense with an elephant in the Senate: John Bolton
The fate of key votes in President Trump’s impeachment trial remained uncertain Tuesday as his defense lawyers concluded their arguments and Republicans led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell struggled to muster the votes to bring the trial to a speedy close without calling witnesses.
“Nine months left to go [before the election], the people should judge. We are a republic, we are based on the will of the people — the people should judge,” she said.Still, she indicated that arguments in the trial about Trump’s character and fitness for office had shifted her thinking. “What changed my opinion as this went on,” she said, is a realization that “impeachment isn’t about one offense.
Several Democrats have not ruled out voting for acquittal. But only a few have been considered truly up for grabs because of the strong support for Trump in their states: Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, Doug Jones of Alabama and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. “I’ll make a prediction,” Graham said: There will be “51 Republican votes to call Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, the whistleblower.”In his concluding argument, Sekulow insisted that Trump’s actions toward Ukraine had been fully within his power as president.
Bolton, a combative conservative and a hawk on national security, declined a House invitation to testify but subsequently said he would do so at the Senate trial if subpoenaed. However, the White House issued a blanket order blocking officials and documents, calling the impeachment process illegitimate.
Sen. Rand Paul questioned Bolton’s motivations for wanting to testify, and the timing of the leak. “Democrats have spent a lot of time imagining what the president’s motives are,” Paul said. “Someone ought to spend some time imaging what John Bolton’s motives are other than making millions of dollars to trash the president.”
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