Lev Parnas just pretty much forced John Bolton’s testimony to happen
Lev Parnas appeared on the Rachel Maddow show tonight and took a blowtorch to just about everyone involved in Donald Trump’s Ukraine extortion scandal. Parnas incriminated Trump, Mike Pence, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pompeo, you name it. Interestingly, while Lev did not incriminate John Bolton, he did lay the groundwork for pretty much forcing Bolton to testify.
Lev Parnas told Maddow that he knows John Bolton was fully aware of that Ukraine extortion scandal while it was going on, because he witnessed Rudy Giuliani and Bolton “butting heads” over how the scheme was playing out. Lev put it this way: “Bolton? 100%. He knows what happened there.”
This doesn’t incriminate John Bolton in the criminal conspiracy, as it’s clear that Bolton was trying to push back against what was going on. But it does firmly establish that Bolton is a material witness. In fact, because Bolton witnessed felonies being committed, it would actually be a crime (“misprision of a felony”) for him not to testify. Of course this may have less to do with the intricacies of the law than it does with public pressure.
Republican Senators are already on the fence about whether they need to call John Bolton as a witness during the impeachment trial, for fear that voters will punish them when they run for reelection, if it’s perceived that they held a sham trial. Now Lev Parnas is on live national television confirming that John Bolton knew what was going on. Public sentiment in favor of Bolton testifying was already very high, and it should climb much higher after this. It’s hard to imagine GOP Senators taking the risk of not calling Bolton to testify after this.
