The Bolton Factor in the Impeachment Trial

cases Bloomberg Law with June Grasso from Bloomberg Radio. President Trump's legal team continued their argument in the Senate impeachment trial against him. Lawyer Ken Starr, whose Independent Council investigation into President Bill Clinton resulted in his impeachment, argued that

impeachment is being used as a political weapon. The Senate, in its wisdom, do well, and its deliberations to guide the nation, in this world's greatest deliberative body, to return to our country's traditions when presidential impeachment was truly a measure of last resort. Joining me is Neil kin Caper, Professor at Georgia State University College of Law. Give me your your general take on the defense. Well, I think they don't have much of a defense to present, and

today's presentations I think really illuminated that. First, just the decision to ignore John Bolton's statements in his book is just completely irresponsible. Those statements are out there and they are direct evidence that the President regarded this whole matter as a quid pro quo. Then they stand up and say there is no evidence of a quid pro quo.

That's true. If you ignore all of the evidence that exists of a quid pro quo, it's just bizarre, and ken stars presentation was galling, requires us to ignore the role he played in impeachment and in politicizing our politics. How important is what people are calling the bombshell information

about John Bolton's book. It's crucially important because there is a mountain of evidence that would lead any fair minded person to believe that President Trump created a quid pro quote, that he was withholding the aid in order to get investigations. But his defenders have said over and over again, there is no direct evidence. No one testified that they directly were told that it was either their presumption, it was

their understanding, but it was never expressly stated. Well, for people who want to hang on to that thin read. Bolton's evidence completely destroys it because the reporting is that he is saying that Trump told him directly that there was a link between releasing the AID and the beginning of those in investigations. Now suppose they called John Bolton to testify, then what it opened the door to more witnesses, because now you have Mick Mulvaney saying that what Bolton

said is not true, and the same Mike Pompeo. So then would you need to call them as well? I don't know about need to. Certainly Mick mulvaney should be called to answer if that's not true. Why first of all, why he said it was true when when he spoke at his press conference um and also to talk about the whole process of how the money came to be held and the way in which and this is something that the office he headed, the Office of Management and Budget,

is deeply involved with. It violated the federal law, the Impoundment Control Act. Reportedly, John Bolton is a copious note taker. Well, I think it bolsters his credibility. And you know, so he has notes and there's nothing that would prevent him bringing those along with him to the Senate they don't appear to be property of the federal government that can be forbidden to him. Um, and those can corroborate the

statements he's making about what the President told him. Let's talk a little bit about some of the points made by the defense, including on Saturday where White House Council Pat Cipolone said, we're here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history. According to what he said, wouldn't any impeachment proceeding be an interference in an election? Any impeachment proceeding against the president? Yes? Um, right,

The President Nixon could have made the same argument. President Clinton could have made the same argument President Johnson. Any president who's being impeached can say it's subverting an election, which is how I got into office. Um. And And the further point that Sippoloni was making is that it would take Donald Trump's name off the ballot this November. Um, that's not necessarily the case. And I'm sure if somehow Donald Trump were convicted, Sipoloni would make the argument that

he should not be UM barred from running. The Senate can impose that punishment, but doesn't have to. Um And has only imposed it twice in history. It is part of the articles seeking to have Donald Trump prohibited from ever holding office again. But I could imagine Republicans in the Senate saying, well, the American people should get their decision um, and we want to do something that's consistent

with democracy, so we won't borrow from the ballot. I've covered many trials and you rarely, if ever see personal attacks on the lawyers who are doing me arguing, whether it's defense attorney or the prosecutor. But in this case, the defense decided to attack Congressman Adam Schiff. How unusual is that and is it appropriate? It would be perfectly appropriate if there were any merit to it. I think

Adam Schiff ran a perfectly fine process. The problem is the President is running out of arguments, and now that he can no longer with a straight face claim that the AID was not linked to investigations, the only thing he has left is to say the process has been unfair, and that requires you to attack Adam Schiff and the process that he ran back in the House of Representatives. Let's turn to Kenneth Star for a moment. He said, we are living in what I think can aptly be

described as the age of impeachment. So we talked about impeachments becoming too common and that impeachments should be bipartisan. What's your take on his approach to this. Well, for him to make that claim is just outlandish. And he is the one who made impeachment weaponized. UM. It would his report, which was designed at every turn of the page, was designed to compel the House of Representatives to impeach President Clinton. Um. And that after an investigation that was

designed to find anything it could. Remember he was appointed to investigate the failed land deal Whitewater. He found nothing. He found nothing. Um. It was only when he could then turn it into President Clinton's personal scandal that he was able to concoct the grounds for impeachment. That's his record, That's what he did. He acknowledged none of that. He also made the demonstrably false claim that the articles of impeachment brought to the Senate showed criminal misconduct beyond a

reasonable doubt. In fact, the articles brought to the Senate did not prove UM. The case against Bill Clinton. If you recall Arlen Spector attempted to vote not proven when when the question was called um, Bill Clinton was not impeached because, in fact, Republicans voted to acquit, specifically because the evidence was lacking. Looking at this in the light of the defense can be seen best. What are they

trying to do here? I think they're trying to emphasize, first of all, that the bar to impeach a sitting president should be very high, and I think everyone should agree with that. And if we were to look at Keen stars oration charitably that that was his claim, um, that bar I think has clearly been met, but that that was his claim. The other claim is that, well, the House managers decided to proceed with the evidence they had before them, and that didn't include John Bolton's book,

and so we shouldn't include it now. Um. That seems to me just wrong. And if if it were to come out this morning that UM, President Trump had actually conspired with Vladimir Putin to rig the election in U it would be preposterous to claim that the Senate could not take that into consideration. The Defense and Republicans keep bringing up, well, if you wanted to call witnesses, if you wanted to call Bolton, why didn't use subpoena him?

What the Democrats response is, well, it would have taken forever. Look at where are subpoena against Don McGann for for White House Council is We're still not even close. But should the Democrats have kept those subpoenas in play while this process was ongoing. I don't think it would have done any good. The problem is precisely the one that you point to um. It takes a very long time to litigate those disputes. It takes years and years to

litigate those disputes. Ken Starr made the point today that sometimes litigation happens very quickly. He going into the famous Pentagon Papers case. That's one case in the more than two hundred year history of the Supreme Court. This litigation was not going to move quickly, and the Don McGann subpoena is a perfect example of how these matters were not being treated with the speed that was given to the Pentagon Papers case. But the other point is the

one that ken Starr also made. He was making the argument that we're already too close to the election for the Senate to subvert the upcoming election in his terms. If the House of Representatives had pursued those subpoenas and litigated them even with incredible dispatch. The earliest they could possibly have been decided would have been this coming summer, and then those arguments would have been made and made with real force, that the election is right around the corner.

Why don't we just leave this to the election into the judgment of the American people. The point in going forward now was twofold, first of all, to maintain a respectable amount of time between the impeachment and the next election. And second of all, it embodies the judgment that it is too dangerous to leave Donald Trump in office because the wrongdoing he's accused of specifically relates to subverting the

integrity of the upcoming election. And so it's too important to move forward and remove from office someone who would use all the powers and trappings of the office for his personal benefit rather than for the public benefit. And so it's we shouldn't have to wait for the d C District Court and the d C Circuit Court and the d C Circuit Court on bonk before the Supreme Court before finally removing someone from office when the case

is already so strong. Neil ken Starr mentioned it today, and we expect to hear more from Alan Dershowitz about crimes being necessary. There has to be a real, stated crime in order to go forward with impeachment. Would the Democrats have been smarter to charge a real crime, so called real crime, let's say extortion. Would they have been smart to do that just to get rid of this argument? Well, I think the problem of that argument is that then

it changes the nature of the preceding. Instead of being a proceeding that focuses on Donald Trump having abused the office in this extortionary way, all of the discussion would be around the legal technicalities of extortion, which may or may not be met, and whether they are or aren't is entirely beside the point. The point is Donald Trump abused his power and abused his office for personal gain and for personal gain in a way that subverts the

upcoming election. That is simply intolerable, whether it fits in the technical boxes of the federal Dorsian Statute or not. And that's the reason that in fact, the impeachment um clauses in the in the Constitution are not drafted to require an actual crime. Let's just say that they decide to allow some witnesses at least to call John Bolton. In the end, there are going to be enough Republicans to call for Trump's moving from office. So then is

it just an exercise and futility to have Bolton testify? Goodness, no, it is crucial to have Bolton testify. And first of all, remember who John Bolton is. He is a conservative and a Republican to his core. He is not a liberal.

He is not part of any deep state. For him to come forward with this testimony is going very much against his interest, against his orientation, against his loyalties, and so the credibility of that evidence is very, very high, and it's important for the public to That's Neil Kincoff, a professor at the Georgia State University College of Law.