Bolton must testify in trial
National security adviser John Bolton talks to reporters outside the White House in Washington on May 1, 2019. Credit: AP/Evan Vucci
Things are moving quickly in the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
It started with the House inquiry, when Democrats said a fast pace was needed to stop Trump from staining the 2020 election. Now it’s Senate Republicans, especially Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who have tried to speed the trial, saying nothing in the evidence could derail Trump’s inevitable acquittal.
We said it then and we’ll say it now: Haste is a mistake. There is no more somber proceeding in our democracy than the impeachment of a president. It ought not to be rushed.
The House should have pursued subpoenas of witnesses blocked from testifying by the White House. The Senate must not make the same error. That was true even before the bombshell revelation that former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his upcoming book that Trump told Bolton he was withholding $391 million in military aid from Ukraine until that nation announced it was investigating a political foe, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter.
The impact of this revelation cannot be minimized. It goes to the heart of the Trump team’s defense — that the House case is circumstantial, that there are no witnesses who heard the president describe a quid pro quo, that Trump withheld the aid because he was concerned about corruption in Ukraine. The firsthand disclosure by Bolton demanded a serious response as the trial resumed Monday. Instead, hypocrisy was served.
Trump’s personal lawyer Jay Sekulow said his team doesn’t deal with speculation. Deputy White House counsel Mike Purpura surreally continued to claim there was no quid pro quo. Ken Starr, another Trump private attorney, complained that impeachment has become a weapon wielded against political opponents and should be avoided, ignoring his own role leading the highly political impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Trump tweeted incorrectly that the House did not invite Bolton to testify, and said he never told Bolton there was a quid pro quo, a denial impossible to take at face value given the president’s incessant lies. Some Trump defenders said Bolton’s book does not change the facts of the case, which is demonstrably wrong. The discredited Biden conspiracy theory was reargued by Trump team member Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general who announced she would not act on fraud complaints against Trump University one month after her political action committee accepted a $25,000 donation from Trump.
Other disclosures since the House voted to impeach Trump on Dec. 18 include a Government Accountability Office finding that Trump broke federal law in withholding aid from Ukraine. All of it demands that the Senate call witnesses like Bolton and White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to testify. Not doing so would render the trial a sham and be tantamount to a cover-up. Senators can be sure there will be more revelations.
A few GOP senators seem open to making the call. All 53 should join their Democratic colleagues in voting yes. They should heed the words spoken Monday by Senate chaplain Barry Black, who prayed that they would hear the words “reverberating down the corridors of the centuries: ‘and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’”
Amen. — The editorial board
