John Bolton has a whole new problem

| 6:00 pm EST December 31, 2019
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Considering that Donald Trump has already been impeached, the ongoing legal battles over House impeachment testimony have become more than a bit convoluted. For instance, last month a judge ruled that Don McGahn must testify, thus establishing the precedent that all current and former White House officials must testify. But McGahn filed an appeal in order to stall for time, and he never did testify.

Things took another turn for the complicated on Monday when a judge threw out a suit filed by John Bolton’s longtime sidekick Charles Kupperman, citing the fact that the House is no longer actively seeking Kupperman’s testimony. So this is a win for Kupperman and Bolton, right? The judge didn’t rule that they have to testify. But the judge didn’t make any determination on whether White House officials must testify, and instead threw out the case on the basis that it’s no longer being contested.

This means that the only ruling on the books is the one from last month, when the other judge established the precedent that the likes of McGahn, Kupperman, and Bolton must testify. If Bolton was looking to hide behind the fact that he and Kupperman still had an ongoing court case, that’s now gone. Or as legal expert Neal Katyal put it on MSNBC, “Bolton now has no rock to hide behind.”

We don’t know where this goes from here. As of now, no one is even asking John Bolton to testify. But if Nancy Pelosi manages to pressure the Republican Senate into calling someone like Bolton as an impeachment trial witness, or if the House ends up bringing additional articles of impeachment in the new year and decides to subpoena Bolton as part of it, Bolton is now on far shakier legal ground if he tries to argue that he doesn’t have to comply. Bolton has a problem here, and while we don’t know if or when it’ll come to a head, it clearly isn’t going away.