New John Bolton leak suggests he really is looking to testify against Donald Trump
When John Bolton announced today that he’s willing to testify under subpoena in Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, it caught a lot of observers off guard. We took it as a sign that Bolton’s lucrative anti-Trump tell all book is finally close enough to its publication date that Bolton is looking to use his testimony to boost preorder sales. Whatever Bolton’s reason, the question all day has been whether he really meant it when he said he’ll testify.
The thing is, John Bolton knows he’s putting himself on the spot by announcing this. If he were looking to not testify, he’d just be keeping quiet about it, and hoping no one subpoenas him. So this isn’t some bait and switch where he’s just going to plead the Fifth. Nor can Bolton give pro-Trump testimony as a reward for Trump’s attack on Iran, as some have suggested, because his former underlings like Fiona Hill and Colonel Vindman have already corroborated the basic facts of what went down. Bolton would be risking going to prison for perjury, and he still wouldn’t be helping Trump any.
Bolton knows full well that by putting this out there today, he’s creating the very real possibility – perhaps even a probability – that he’ll have to go in front of the cameras and destroy Donald Trump. This means Bolton must want to do so, which again brings us back to his upcoming anti-Trump book. But if you want confirmation that Bolton really is looking to testify, consider what he just leaked to the New York Times.
The Times published this sentence today: “Former White House officials and this mean close to Mr. Bolton have indicated that his testimony would most likely be damning to Mr. Trump and put additional pressure on moderate Republicans to consider convicting him.” In newspaper-speak, “people close to Mr. Bolton” means that John Bolton had some people close to him leak this tidbit to the Times on his behalf. In other words, Bolton is now actively advertising his testimony as being the key to Trump’s downfall – and it looks like he really is looking to testify against Trump. Must be one heck of a book.
