Told you so
Once the Republican Senate made its decision not to allow any witnesses to testify against Donald Trump in his sham impeachment trial, Palmer Report pointed out that this meant Bolton would all but certainly end up soon testifying to the House instead. Sure enough, it turns out that’s what is indeed happening.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler is telling CNN today that the House will “likely” subpoena John Bolton to publicly testify before the committee. He’s not providing the specific date yet. But today’s timing is interesting. On the same day that the Senate is preparing to acquit Trump without even holding a real trial, House is officially letting it be known that it’s calling the crucial witness that the Senate refused to call. It also sends an unmistakable signal that the House is just getting started in exposing Trump’s crimes.
This raises the question of why the House didn’t subpoena John Bolton to testify back when it was holding House impeachment hearings. In hindsight it’s pretty obvious that Bolton wasn’t willing to testify back then, and that subpoenaing him would merely have resulted in a months-long court battle that would have stalled out the impeachment process. But now that Bolton’s new book is available for preorder, he’s clearly going to want to promote it – and testifying on television is a huge free marketing opportunity.
Donald Trump will surely announce that he’s going to magically “block” John Bolton from testifying to the House, but that’s not a real thing. Trump can ask the court for an emergency injunction preventing Bolton from testifying, but no judge will go for it, and Bolton will testify on whatever date he’s supposed to. Trump has only succeeded in preventing witnesses from testifying who didn’t want to testify to begin with. Bolton clearly wants to testify, meaning Trump can’t stop him. We told you this was coming.
