Democrats aren’t likely to get their way in the Senate now that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says he has the votes to proceed with a Senate impeachment trial without succumbing to Democrats’ demands that additional witnesses be allowed to testify so, it seems, they’re looking to prolong the House impeachment inquiry — even after the Senate trial begins.
According to Fox News’ Chad Pergram, Democrats are toying with the idea of subpoenaing additional witnesses to testify in the House, including former national security advisor John Bolton, even though Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) and Rep. Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) official inquiries have closed.
“Fox is told it’s possible Hse Dems could subpoena Bolton once Senate trial starts. If Bolton appears before Hse, Dems could argue he should be a witness in a Senate trial,” Pergram tweeted Thursday.
Indeed, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told The Hill on Thursday that House Democrats are considering the possibility, but haven’t made up their minds just yet.
“I think that’s an option, but it’s not an option that we’re pursuing at this point in time,” Hoyer said. “We’ll need to see what the Senate’s doing.”
The strategy is obvious: if Bolton says something important in his House testimony, Democrats will use it to argue that Republicans are being unfairly biased towards the White House in not allowing witness testimony in the Senate. Bolton needs to testify, they’ll argue, or the trial won’t be legitimate. Republicans, after all, have argued that, if Democrats thought certain witnesses like Bolton (and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney) were central to the impeachment, they should have been called during the first go-round.
Bolton is being targeted by name because, earlier this week, he told reporters that he would be willing to testify in a Senate hearing if compelled.
“Accordingly, since my testimony is once again at issue, I have had to resolve the serious competing issues as best I could, based on careful consideration and study,” Bolton said in a statement issued Monday. “I have concluded that, if the Senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, I am prepared to testify.”
Partisan activists seized on the statement immediately, demanding that the House call Bolton to testify as soon as possible, regardless of whether the House impeachment inquiry was closed and the articles already voted on. Crooked Media, an outlet run by former Obama Administration officials and longtime Democratic strategists even laid out a course of action for Democrats looking to upend the Senate’s “rigged” impeachment trial.
But not every Democrat wants Bolton to testify. Far-left outlets like Common Dreams have pointed out that there was a reason Schiff didn’t subpoena Bolton or, for that matter, Mulvaney: former Trump Administration officials aren’t likely to provide damning information about the President. It’s more likely they’ll provide exculpatory evidence — and that’s hardly what Democrats need to convince an American public, already souring on the issue of impeachment, that the process was necessary.
Key Democrats said Thursday that they support Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) submitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate now, without any agreement on witnesses. Pelosi responded by declining their invitation.