Wait, what’s going on with John Bolton’s testimony?

| 10:03 pm EST November 4, 2019
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Earlier this evening, BuzzFeed appeared to confirm that John Bolton will show up and testify to the House impeachment inquiry on Thursday – which would be utterly devastating for Donald Trump. But then Axios asserted that Bolton is not planning to testify. So what’s really going on?

It all started when a BuzzFeed reporter tweeted “Former National Security Advisor John Bolton will testify as part of the impeachment probe this Thursday, per an official working on the inquiry.” This was apparently based on the official schedule released by the House. Axios then tweeted this: “Bolton has no plans to testify, and nothing in his posture has changed, per source with direct knowledge. The committee can put him on the schedule but people shouldn’t get too excited about that.”

You can make of that whatever you want. But here’s the thing: a few days ago, John Bolton’s attorney announced that he would not “voluntarily” testify, but that he would “accept” a subpoena to testify. In other words, he wants to testify, but he wants to be seen as being forced to do it – ostensibly so he can keep up appearances with the far right, who wouldn’t be thrilled at the sight of Bolton rushing to help the Democrats.

So it sounds like the House just has to subpoena John Bolton, and he’ll show up and testify on Thursday. Because no subpoena has been issued yet, Bolton’s team is pushing back against any reporting that he’s agreed to testify. That’s our best interpretation of what’s going on with Bolton tonight.