Morning Politocadoes!

 

So, John Bolton should testify. Hot Take, I know.

He should testify in the Impeachment Trial. He should have testified before the House during the impeachment hearings. At every possible point, he should have testified. So we all know by now that he had a book deal like so many once and future staffers in the Trump administration, what has since become abundantly clear is that he is deliberately withholding eyewitness accounts from Congress and the public in furtherance of said book deal.

According to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, Bolton strongly implied in a September 23rd phone call that the removal of Marie Yovanovitch was improper. Unprompted, Bolton had urged him to look into the circumstances around her removal. He knew damn well what happened but he didn’t want it to have to cop to it publicly, at least until his book was released.

Though, if he told a Democrat, it stands to reason he told some Republicans too. Is that why they don’t want him to testify?

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/29/eliot-engel-bolton-yovanovitch-improper-108975

This is all operating under the assumption that the trial will get to have witnesses. There’s been some news floating around that Senate Majority Leader Mitch

McConnell doesn’t quite have the votes to block witnesses. But it’s a bit hard to see given how utterly spineless dorks like Romney, Collins, and Murkowski are.

There’s a very real possibility of a tie, and in that moment we’re gonna see just what exactly Chief Justice John Roberts is made of. Under any other normal circumstance, a tiebreaker in the Senate is broken by the Vice President but since this is an impeachment trial any ties are broken by the person presiding over the trial, namely John Roberts. Is he a man of laws or a legal jellyfish who’d prefer to be a fancy lamp in the trial like his mentor William Rehnquist? Let’s find out!

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/29/john-roberts-trump-impeachment-trial-109109

Welcome to Thursday! PLEASE BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. The Mayor McSquirrel Rule is in effect because we’re better than him. If you notice a news item being posted too often, alert a mod so it can be pinned to the top of the thread.