Looks like SOMEBODY really wants John Bolton to testify against Donald Trump
Over the weekend, even as former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton was leaking to the media that he was in negotiations to testify before the House impeachment inquiry, Bolton’s longtime sidekick Charles Kupperman was busy asking the courts to rule on whether he should testify.
It wasn’t too difficult to parse what was likely happening here. If Kupperman gets the courts to order him to testify, then it sets the legal precedent that John Bolton also has to testify. Then Bolton gets to show up and testify while being legally insulated by the court order, and Bolton gets to keep street cred with the far right by not having been the one to run to the courts to begin with.
Even as this is playing out, someone just leaked to NBC News that John Bolton knew about Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal far earlier than previously reported. This leak doesn’t impact Donald Trump, as it doesn’t change his timeline. The leak only impacts Bolton, as it reveals that he’s even more of a central witness to the scandal than we thought. All this leak really does is to help generate congressional demand and public demand for Bolton to testify, so that must have been the goal of whoever leaked it.
So who leaked it? We don’t know. Maybe someone in the White House, who wants this scandal fully exposed, is trying to force John Bolton’s hand. Or maybe Bolton leaked this himself, because he’s trying to set himself up as the key witness in all of this. After all, Bolton’s eventual televised testimony against Donald Trump should send sales his upcoming tell-all book through the roof.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report