Federal judge kicks the door open for House impeachment testimony
Yesterday Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced that she’ll be holding a vote this week on a resolution which lays the groundwork for taking the House impeachment inquiry public. House Intel Committee Chairman Adam Schiff then added that the House won’t waste time fighting lengthy court battles with reluctant witnesses. Now it turns out the House may not have to.
Over the weekend, John Bolton’s longtime sidekick Charles Kupperman asked the courts to rule on whether he should comply with the House impeachment inquiry subpoena to testify, or whether he should comply with the Trump White House’s order not to testify. There’s no question how this ruling will go, as Trump has zero legal standing. It was just a matter of whether the fight would get dragged out so long, it wouldn’t end up mattering.
As it turns out, Judge Richard Leon has decided that this process is not going to take very long. He’s holding a hearing this Thursday, citing the “time-sensitive” nature of the case, according to CNN. This will be a near-automatic ruling the House’s favor. More importantly, because Kupperman is the one who took this to court and not Trump, it means Trump will essentially have no basis for getting an appeals court to listen to him.
So if Kupperman is satisfied with the judge’s ruling, he can go ahead and testify within the House’s newly stated impeachment inquiry timeframe. More importantly, John Bolton will likely end up doing whatever Kupperman does. So if the ruling goes the way we all expect it to, Bolton could indeed end up being a key impeachment witness against Donald Trump – and soon.
