The House impeachment inquiry doesn’t need this guy to take Trump down

| 11:29 am EDT October 28, 2019
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Over the weekend, former Deputy National Security Adviser Charles Kupperman asked the courts to rule on whether he should abide by the House impeachment inquiry’s subpoena to show up and testify, or whether he should abide by the White House’s order not to testify. Because he was scheduled to testify today, and the courts haven’t spoken yet, he didn’t show up today.

Here’s the thing: Kupperman’s testimony would be helpful to the impeachment inquiry, and if the courts expeditiously tell him that he should testify, then he will. But they don’t need him. They already have nine witnesses (or eight and a half, depending on what Sondland’s story might be at any given moment) who have all said some variation of the same thing. These witnesses come from various posts within the executive branch. Some of them still work for Trump. And they’ve all said he’s guilty.

Based on the timing, we doubt Kupperman is trying to avoid testifying. He’s a sidekick to John Bolton, and he made this move at the same time Bolton started leaking to the media that he was negotiating to testify. The most plausible explanation would be that Bolton wants to testify, but he wants to make sure he doesn’t end up on the wrong end of some sham DOJ prosecution for daring to testify, so he’s having Kupperman get the courts to rule that testifying is legally required. That ruling would then apply to Bolton as well.

But again, the House impeachment inquiry doesn’t need Kupperman, or for that matter Bolton. The nine witnesses they have are just a start. There will be plenty more over the next couple weeks. The trend is that the witnesses keep having higher ranking job titles, which applies pressure to those in Trump’s inner circle. It’ll only take one of them to flip on Trump in an effort to avoid future prosecution, and it’s game over. In the meantime, the impeachment train keeps chugging on unabated.