Opening arguments in President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial are set to begin on Tuesday, and the day before, Trump dug further into his untethered from reality antagonism of all those who dare to oppose him. He claimed that House investigators hadn’t even called his former national security adviser John Bolton to testify, which in his argument, means they failed to do their due diligence and are inappropriately muddling the Senate by seeking his testimony there. But in reality, as House Intelligence Committee chairman and impeachment case manager Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) pointed out — investigators did try and have Bolton testify, and Trump blocked it.
In direct response to the president, Schiff posted the statement on Twitter:
‘No, Mr. President, we did ask John Bolton to testify. You ordered him not to, and blocked others, like Mick Mulvaney. All Americans know what a fair trial includes documents and witnesses. What are you hiding?’
Well — if the evidence that’s emerged so far is any indication, he’s hiding even more incrimination in the already publicly outlined scheme to bribe Ukraine into investigating his domestic political opponents like the Bidens.
No, Mr. President, we did ask John Bolton to testify. You ordered him not to, and blocked others, like Mick Mulvaney.
All Americans know what a fair trial includes documents and witnesses.
What are you hiding? https://t.co/XIMPtZa74O
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 20, 2020
In willful complete ignorance of the actual reality of the situation, Trump had tweeted:
‘They didn’t want John Bolton and others in the House. They were in too much of a rush. Now they want them all in the Senate. Not supposed to be that way!’
Again — he’s just making stuff up here. It’s like he’s throwing things at the wall to see what might stick. Even if Democrats in the House had never even uttered Bolton’s name once, every single impeachment trial that the Senate has ever held up to this point has featured witness testimony. And the testimony that Democrats are presently after is crucial, too — Bolton, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and others have firsthand knowledge of the president’s Ukraine bribery plot, and the president has blocked all of them from testifying.
Democrats aren’t the ones meddling with the system — Donald Trump is, and so far, it’s unclear whether enough Republican Senators are willing to break from the party line and support calling witnesses in the Senate. At least a few of them are crucial to get a majority.
Check out Twitter’s response to Schiff…
