Bolton, In Austin, Backs Trump Impeachment Witnesses: Reports

AUSTIN, TX — Former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton — perhaps the most talked-about potential witness in the presidential impeachment trial — spoke out Thursday in Austin in defense of government officials who testified during the U.S. House's inquiry.

Multiple media sources reported Bolton's privately shared views, in which he also decried potential retribution against people wishing to provide testimony. Among those media sources, KXAN detailed how Bolton defended diplomatic and U.S. State Department officials Fiona Hill, Tim Morrison, Alex Vindman, Bill Taylor and Marie Yovanovitch — all of whom testified during the House impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump.

“All of them acted in the best interest of the country as they saw it and consistent to what they thought our policies were,” Bolton reportedly told a luncheon gathering at the Austin Hyatt Regency hotel on Barton Springs Road after delivering a keynote speech, according to KXAN. “The idea that somehow testifying to what you think is true is destructive to the system of government we have — I think, is very nearly the reverse — the exact reverse of the truth,” Bolton reportedly told the gathering.

Related story: Democrats Demand Bolton Testify At Trump's Impeachment Trial

Bolton reportedly was in Austin as a guest of Luther King Capitol Management, a Texas firm providing investment management services to high-net-worth clients, according to its website. Pundits have speculated Bolton likely was a compensated speaker during his Austin stop, with his demand as a speaker heightened after he wrote a yet-to-be released book about his time in the White House, titled "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir."

Bolton emerged as a central figure amid the impeachment trial in the Senate after expressing a willingness to testify if subpoenaed. The Trump administration's national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, Bolton said the president attempted to extract help from the Ukrainian government in undermining a political opponent as a condition for releasing military aid in Ukraine's fight against Russia — a "quid pro quo" scenario that is central to the impeachment charge of abuse of presidential power.

Bolton's potential testimony was made all the more tantalizing with his book's claim that he personally heard Trump order that military aid for Ukraine be withheld unless the foreign government agreed to investigate Hunter Biden — the son of the president's political rival Joe Biden, the former vice president running for the office — during his stint on the board of directors of a Ukranian company. The White House has since sought to prevent Bolton from testifying under the guise of executive privilege.

Bolton is said to have left the gathering in Austin without speaking to reporters.

But the official-turned-author's Texas stop teasing his potential testimony may be moot. Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander late Thursday said he would not vote to allow witnesses and evidence in the Trump impeachment trial — a move that may effectively end the hearings by Friday, given that it may clinch the number of votes needed to block witnesses from testifying.

"I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense,"Alexander said in a prepared statement. "The Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate."

Once viewed as wild card who might favor witnesses to testify in the Senate trial, Alexander added that the American people — not the U.S. Senate — should be the final arbiters in weighing Trump's culpability via their votes later this year.

"The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday," Lamar said. "Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with ‘the consent of the governed,’ not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide.”

Until Alexander revealed his own voting plans in the Senate impeachment hearings, Democrats had been buoyed by comments from his GOP colleague, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who said Thursday she would vote to allow witnesses. But absent another Republican willing to break ranks in allowing witnesses, Democrats still would fall one vote short in being able to call witnesses.

With a 53-47 majority in the Senate, Republicans were poised to acquit Trump on Friday in a move requiring a two-thirds majority.

>>> Read the full story at KXAN

Story by Tony Cantú/Patch staff