Good job Mick Mulvaney, you just pissed off John Bolton
Over the weekend, Mick Mulvaney tried to join a court case over whether John Bolton’s longtime sidekick Charles Kupperman should testify to the House impeachment inquiry. At the time, we took it as a lame brained attempt on the part of Trump and Mulvaney at confusing the issue of whether Bolton should testify. Now it looks like Bolton and Kupperman agree with us.
The House and Kupperman have each filed their opposition to Mick Mulvaney’s attempt at inserting himself as a plaintiff in the Kupperman court case, according to Politico. This makes sense. The House has already withdrawn the Kupperman subpoena, citing a desire to move ahead with impeachment rather than wait for him. We think Mulvaney is only trying to insert himself into the case in the hope of prompting the judge to rule that he and Kupperman don’t have to testify.
John Bolton has already said through his attorney that he’s planning to see how a different judge rules in a separate court battle over whether Don McGahn must testify, and then use that as guidance. If Mulvaney had a legitimate above-board reason for wanting a court resolution on his own subpoena, he’d have just joined the McGahn case.
In any case, the real upshot here is that John Bolton and Charles Kupperman share the same attorney in this matter. Kupperman’s opposition in court to Mick Mulvaney’s stunt means that Bolton also opposes the stunt, which tells us that Mulvaney has succeeded in pissing off Bolton. That can only serve to increase Bolton’s desire to testify.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report