Watch Live Impeachment Trial: Trump Lawyers Present Case After Bolton Bombshell
Washington, D.C. – Stay Connected To Fm News 101 KXL for the latest on the Impeachment Trial of President Donald J. Trump. Proceedings will begin at 10am this morning with Mr. Trump’s lawyers resuming their presentations.
As President Trump’s attorneys prepare to resume defense arguments in the Senate impeachment trial Monday afternoon, new revelations about the president’s attempts to pressure Ukraine could throw a wrench in Republicans’ plans to vote on acquittal as early as this week.
The president denied Bolton’s account in a late-night tweet, saying he never told Bolton the aid was tied to investigations.
Democrats who have been pushing the Senate to vote to allow witnesses in the president’s trial immediately seized on the report to urge Republican senators to join them in supporting a subpoena for Bolton, who has said he’s willing to testify. A vote on whether to consider new witnesses is likely to come later in the week, after the president’s legal team finishes presenting its arguments and following a period of written questions.
Trump denies telling Bolton aid was tied to investigations
The president denied Bolton’s accusations in a series of late-night tweets, claiming he never told Bolton about a connection between the aid and
“I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination,” the president wrote. “If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book.”
Schumer accuses White House of “massive cover-up”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused the White House of orchestrating a “massive cover-up” and called on four Republicans to join Democrats to support calling new witnesses in the Senate trial.
“The @NYTimes report suggests multiple top Trump Admin officials knew the facts and deliberately misled Congress and the American people,” Schumer tweeted. “A massive White House cover-up. All we need is four Republican Senators to get the truth.”
Schumer has demanded Bolton’s testimony in the Senate trial for weeks, and led an unsuccessful effort on the first day of the trial to issue subpoenas for evidence and testimony from Bolton and other administration officials.
Bolton’s lawyer blames White House for “corrupted” review process
Hours after The Times reported the details of Bolton’s manuscript, his attorney implied the White House of being the source of the revelations.
“It is clear, regrettably, from The New York Times article published today that the prepublication review process has been corrupted and that information has been disclosed by persons other than those properly involved in reviewing the manuscript,” attorney Charles Cooper said in a statement.
Cooper released a letter dated December 30, 2019, to a White House official regarding prepublication review of the manuscript. Cooper wrote that Bolton “carefully sought to avoid any discussion in the manuscript” of classified information, and asked the White House to expedite the review process given the “highly time sensitive” publication schedule.
Cooper noted in the letter his client’s expectation that access to the manuscript would be “restricted to those career government officials and employees regularly charged with responsibility for such reviews.”