It isn’t hard to understand why so many of President Donald Trump’s defenders are hoping and praying that former National Security Advisor John Bolton will not testify during his impeachment trial. Bolton, according to the New York Times, alleges in his book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir that Trump and his colleagues did have a “quid pro quo” with the Ukrainian government — Ukraine would receive military aid from the U.S., but only if it investigated former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
Axios reporter Alayna Treene examines the fallout from the Bolton bombshell in two separate articles published on Tuesday morning: one on the “domino effect” that Republicans fear if Bolton testifies, the other on the sense of urgency that Bolton is creating among Trump’s impeachment defense team.
Bolton’s book isn’t actually due out until March 17. But a manuscript of the book, Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt reported in the Times over the weekend, was leaked — and in that manuscript, Bolton alleges that Trump linked military aid to Ukraine with an investigation of the Bidens. That “quid pro quo,” House Democrats have been asserting, is an impeachable offense. Continue reading.