From the newsletter of Heather Cox Richardson:
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Shortly after midnight Sunday, in the wee hours of Monday morning, Trump tweeted: “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. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book.” The tweet was unfortunate, since if Bolton is lying, Trump should want him to testify under oath. Also, tweeting about the issue likely destroys Trump’s chances to protect the conversation under executive privilege. (Instead, the White House has floated the idea of going to court to get a restraining order against Bolton to stop him from speaking. This would tie the issue up in legal fights until the Senate finishes the trial.)
The media chewed over the issue all day today, with New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who broke the story, saying that Republican Senators felt blindsided by the news and wanted to know who had had access to the manuscript. Fox News Channel personality Lou Dobbs called staunch Republican John Bolton “A Tool For The Left,” (which is hilarious, despite the deadly seriousness of all this). Trump supporters, including Representative Mark Meadows (R-NC), one of Trump’s closest allies, warned that Republicans breaking with Trump over impeachment could face “political repercussions.” But while senators do not want to buck Trump, they also don’t want to acquit the president only to have more damning information appear. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Senator James Langford (R-OK) tried to avoid asking for witnesses but still get some security, saying that the Senate should be allowed to see the manuscript.
But the lawyers charged with defending Trump in the Senate today didn’t mention the new information at all until Alan Dershowitz mentioned it tonight only to say that even if Bolton’s accusations were true, they are not an impeachable offense. (Dershowitz is virtually the only constitutional scholar trying to make this argument.) Indeed, Jay Sekulow went so far as to say that “not a single witness” testified that they heard from Trump himself that the aid was linked to investigations… even as a direct witness has offered to testify, but is being blocked.
Clearly Trump’s defenders are not trying to defend him against the charges brought by the House. So what are they doing?