As pressure grows to call John Bolton to testify in the Senate Impeachment trial, the New York Times has obtained a draft of the book outline Bolton is writing. It’s obvious Bolton has a story he wants to tell before the Senate votes on witnesses and impeachment. The Times writes:
President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.
The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense.
In the section leaked to the Times, Bolton describes the president’s disparagement of Ukraine and “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani that the ambassador to Ukraine was corrupt and believed Mr. Giuliani may have been acting on behalf of other clients, Mr. Bolton wrote.“
The White House has ordered Bolton and other key White House officials not to cooperate in the impeachment investigation.
Before the Bolton book revelation, the chances of there being enough votes in the Senate to call witnesses were seen as slim.