John Bolton just made a major and curiously timed move against Donald Trump

| 7:06 pm EST January 26, 2020
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Just a few days from now, the Senate is set to vote on whether to call various witnesses – including John Bolton – to testify in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. It’s still not clear if the necessary four Republican Senators are going to vote to call Bolton, despite Bolton’s recent statement that he’s willing to testify under subpoena. But today Bolton just made a major, and interestingly timed, move.

From the start, Palmer Report has pointed out that John Bolton’s willingness to testify was almost certainly tied to his lucrative upcoming anti-Trump tell all book. The book wasn’t ready for publication, or even for preorder, back when the House was holdings its impeachment hearings in late 2019. So why would Bolton want to waste the marketing opportunity by testifying back then, when he had no product to sell? When Bolton announced a couple weeks ago that he was willing to testify during the Senate trial, we took that as a sign that his book was close to release.

Sure enough, Bolton has just distributed advance copies of his book to his associates, one of whom has predictably told the New York Times about its contents this evening. Among other things, Bolton asserts in his book that Donald Trump did indeed insist on withholding Ukraine aid, until Ukraine announced an election- altering investigation into Joe Biden. We already have widespread confirmation that this is the case. But when it’s coming from a notorious right winger and bona fide Republican darling like John Bolton, it’s a whole different ballgame.

There are only two possibilities for what John Bolton is doing here. One is that he’s leaking the Trump-Ukraine portion of his book because he wants to make sure he gets called to testify in the impeachment trial, so he can use his testimony to drive sales of his book. This would be smart, as it would drive his book sales through the roof. The other possibility is that Bolton doesn’t want to testify, and he’s just totally misreading things by hyping his book today. Even if the Senate doesn’t call him for the trial, it now seems a given that the House will subpoena him to testify sometime after the sham Senate trial finishes.