Bolton book's bombshell: Trump linked Ukraine aid to the quid pro quo

If they ask, what he'll tell

If Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump's lawyers still want to resist the Democrats' demand to bring in John Bolton as a witness in the impeachment trial, it just got harder for them to explain. Though they still might say no.

A New York Times story published on Sunday evening has details from an unpublished manuscript by Trump's former national security adviser, and it doesn't look good for the defense.

According to Bolton's eyewitness account, Trump told him in August that he wanted to maintain a freeze on $391 million in U.S. security assistance to Ukraine until Kyiv helped with investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. That claim would appear to kick the legs out from under Trump's assertion that the aid and investigations were separate matters, the famous "no quid pro quo."

Over dozens of pages, Bolton described how the Ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he left the White House in September. As he portrays it, other senior officials were more deeply aware and involved in the scheme than they have admitted.

For example, according to Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted U.S. ambassador in Ukraine, was corrupt. Pompeo believed Giuliani may have been acting against her on behalf of his other clients, Bolton wrote.

Bolton also said he went to Attorney General William Barr with his concerns about Giuliani after Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and told Barr that Trump had mentioned him on the call. Barr has said he knew nothing about the call until the whistleblower complaint reached the Justice Department in August.

Also, Bolton wrote, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was present for at least one phone call where Trump and Giuliani discussed Yovanovitch. Mulvaney has told associates he would always step out when Trump spoke with Giuliani to protect their attorney-client privilege.

Name-dropping

Bolton could have titled his book "All the President's Men" if that wasn't already taken. Instead, he went with a Hamiltonian "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," according to an advance-order page on Amazon.

Dems: Will four Republicans step up?

Democrats on Sunday were still uncertain, if not pessimistic, that they could get enough Republicans to agree to their demand for Bolton and other witnesses.

Following the Times' report, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted: "John Bolton has the evidence. It’s up to four Senate Republicans to ensure that John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, and the others with direct knowledge of President Trump’s actions testify in the Senate trial."

Soon after, lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff chimed in: "The President blocked our request for Bolton’s testimony. Now we see why: Bolton directly contradicts the heart of the President’s defense. If the trial is to be fair, Senators must insist that Mr. Bolton be called as a witness, and provide his notes and other documents."

Lately, according to the Times, some White House officials have described Bolton, a player in conservative national security circles since the Reagan administration, as a disgruntled former employee. Axios reports the White House National Security Council has had the manuscript, submitted for prepublication review, for weeks.

Earlier Sunday, the battle over witnesses played out on the political talk show circuit. “I think the country wants a complete picture,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), one of the impeachment managers.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said he would vote against additional witnesses because “House Democrats have had lots of witnesses” during the House hearings, and "they’re upset that their witnesses haven’t said what they want them to say.” For more on the arguments from both sides, see Newsday's story by Laura Figueroa Hernandez and Scott Eidler.

Janison: Deplorably yours

Hillary Clinton's "nobody likes him" slam on Bernie Sanders is a reminder that her invocations of party unity have not been unwavering, writes Newsday's Dan Janison. The comment sounds about as juvenile as something Trump might offer.

The disparagement from Clinton — in a documentary coming out in March and a related interview — extended beyond Sanders to his supporters, including the "culture around him" and "his online Bernie Bros." In this context, the latter remark sounds like an intraparty version of "deplorables," a label that backfired miserably when she applied it in 2016 to Trump supporters.

This was a barb at a whole movement to which she once attempted to cater by adjusting policy positions in midcampaign.

Sanders ascendant

A cascade of polls released over the weekend have Sanders challenging Joe Biden’s front-runner status or running ahead of him in the first two states soon to weigh in, Iowa and New Hampshire, Politico reports.

Biden remained in first in a pair of national polls released Sunday, but Sanders has begun cutting into that lead as well. Elizabeth Warren, Sanders' rival for the left, has slipped well behind in the surveys.

Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang, running farther back, vowed during Sunday talk show appearances to show staying power in the early contests, writes Newsday's Eidler. In Iowa, Pete Buttigieg is contending that he is best positioned to win over disaffected Trump voters.

His dinner with Lev

A tape released Saturday undermines Trump's attempts to discredit Lev Parnas' accounts of presidential involvement in the Ukraine scheme by claiming he doesn't know the Giuliani associate.

Video and audio captured exchanges between Trump and Parnas during an April 2018 dinner at Trump's Washington hotel with a small group of donors. When Parnas, who saw Yovanovitch as an obstacle to his ventures, tells Trump she had disparaged him, he angrily responded: "Get rid of her." He also sought Parnas' opinion on Ukraine's capacity to militarily resist Russia.

Trump sends ill wishes

Trump on Sunday tweeted what appeared to be a veiled threat against Schiff, calling the House Democrats' lead impeachment manager "a CORRUPT POLITICIAN, and probably a very sick man" who "has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!"

He didn't get more specific. Trump has in the past said Schiff should be arrested for treason, which is baseless even if the idea stirs up his base because enmity toward a president is hardly equivalent to becoming an enemy of the country. 

Schiff said of the tweet on NBC's "Meet the Press" that “I think it’s intended to be” a threat. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said it was “ridiculous” for Schiff to claim that Trump was threatening him. But she admitted she hadn’t asked Trump what he meant by the tweet, and she came up with a theory. “I think he means … [Schiff] hasn’t yet paid the price with the voters,” she said on Fox News Channel’s “Media Buzz.”

That interpretation makes little sense, as Schiff represents a safely Democratic district in Los Angeles and its suburbs.

Pompeo's eruption

Emails show NPR's "All Things Considered" co-host Mary Louise Kelly let an aide to Pompeo know ahead of time that she was going to ask Ukraine-related questions during an interview last week, according to emails seen by The New York Times. So she did. And he went ballistic.

After the interview ended, Kelly said she was called into another room where Pompeo berated her. “He asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He used the F-word in that sentence and many others.” She also said he never took his remarks off the record.

Pompeo escalated on Saturday, claiming, "Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice," suggesting she went against ground rules, though the emails indicate otherwise.

On Sunday, Pompeo, who often touts his guidance from evangelical Christianity, put the potty-mouthing on pause and tweeted Scripture: “ ‘Whoever conceals hatred with lying lips and spreads slander is a fool’ -Proverbs 10:18”

Trump also weighed in Sunday, replying “A very good question!" to conservative Fox News host Mark Levin's tweet: “Why does NPR still exist?"

What else is happening:

• Green-energy advocates and companies are frustrated by a hold the Trump administration put on offshore wind-harnessing projects off Long Island and other U.S. waters, reports Newsday's Mark Harrington. Trump has made his loathing of wind turbines plain, and it's unclear whether a review of "potential impacts" will clear the logjam.
• The EPA is dramatically reducing the amount of U.S. waterways that get federal protection under the Clean Water Act, a move opposed by the agency's own science advisers. The decision pleased farmers, builders and mining companies.
• After Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin suggested climate activist Greta Thunberg should keep quiet until she goes to college and studies economics, Mnuchin's wife, Louise Linton, rose to the Swedish teen's defense on Instagram. "We need to drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels. Keep up the fight @gretathunberg," Linton wrote. The post was later deleted without explanation, NBC News reports.
• The Veterans of Foreign Wars, the oldest major U.S. veterans group, called on Trump to apologize for “misguided” remarks minimizing the severity of traumatic brain injuries suffered by U.S. forces in Iraq as the result of an Iranian missile attack. Thirty-four service members have required treatment.
• Yang has clinched a spot at the next Democratic primary debate, in New Hampshire on Feb. 7, by meeting the polling threshold. He failed to qualify for this month's Iowa encounter. Also in, according to Politico, are Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders, Warren and Tom Steyer.
• Republican attorneys general across the country are ready to undercut a progressive presidential agenda if Trump loses in November, Politico reports.