The Bolton testimony: Bill Kristol’s startling prediction
Bill Kristol has been a lifelong conservative Republican, a neo-con who as a rightwing gadfly in Washington helped kill Bill and Hillary’s healthcare plan in the 1990s, and was a strong advocate of George W. Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq.
Kristol, for all his conservatism, was not a Trump fan—Trump, after all, was not a Republican–and has in fact been one of Trump’s harshest critics—harsh, that is, by Republican standards. He’s a favorite political commentator on MSNBC. Like his Republican counterpart Steve Schmidt, he takes pleasure in blasting away at a regime he considers corrupt. Kristol’s most recent move vis-à-vis Trump came last month, when he and other Republicans formed an organization called “Republicans for the Rule of Law” demanding that Trump permit the U.S. Senate to call witnesses in the upcoming Impeachment trial.
That was good. But yesterday, Kristol did something even better. In the midst of all this uncertainty about where Impeachment is headed, he made a startling prediction on Twitter:
“What’ll happen: House sends over articles. Senate adopts McConnell’s rules on party line vote, convenes as court of impeachment. House managers make case, show need for witnesses, seek to call them. CJ Roberts agrees. His ruling upheld by 47 Dems + ~ 12 Reps. Bolton testifies.”
If you read my post yesterday, you’ll recall I was feeling despondent: Trump is winning the Impeachment game, I thought…McConnell is beating Pelosi…there won’t be witnesses…etc. Today, I’m more upbeat, and the reason is that Kristol has a pretty good feeling for Washington politics. His radar has often been accurate. So what does his Tweet mean?
Bolton—if you’ve been following this—has been central to the Democratic case for Impeachment. He was Trump’s National Security Advisor—one of the top posts in the administration—until he left that job; whether he was fired or quit is irrelevant. We knew from other sources that Bolton had been frustrated and infuriated by Trump withholding Congressionally-approved aide to Ukraine because Zelensky was dragging his feet about inventing dirt on the Bidens. (Bolton famously was said to have called bagman Giuliani’s involvement in the scheme “a drug deal”).
For weeks, Democrats wondered if they’d be able to get Bolton to testify in the House Impeachment inquiry. During that period, Bolton remained mute. It looked like he wouldn’t…then it looked like he might…no one knew. Then the other day, Bolton, in a statement, cleared the record: He will testify, he said, if subpoenaed.
That was cheerful news to Democrats, although it led to the question of why he hasn’t already been subpoenaed. The ostensible reason the House Democrats haven’t already subpoenaed him was because Pelosi feared that process would take months, and she was anxious to wrap things up by the end of 2019 or early in 2020. As for the Senate, it was unlikely McConnell would allow a Bolton subpoena. Bottom line: No Bolton.
That’s the context of Kristol’s tweet. It’s true that if McConnell has his way, there will be no witnesses—including Bolton. But the wild card is the man who will be presiding as Magistrate over the Trial, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts.
Roberts, like Bolton, is a conservative Republican, but you have to remember that he was the swing Justice responsible for some great Democratic victories: striking down California’s Proposition 8, which declared that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and the Big Enchilada: legalization of gay marriage. Rightwing evangelicals went ballistic after SCOTUS’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges gay marriage ruling; they could hardly believe that a professed Christian like Roberts, who is Catholic, would side with the “homosexuals’…uncleanness [who] dishonor their bodies [and] exchange the truth of God for the lie,” in the immortal words of Franklin Graham. But Roberts did.
Was Roberts stung by Christian criticism of him? We cannot know his innermost thoughts. But now he will be presiding over the Impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. There has been much speculation about whether he’ll be an activist Magistrate or a passive one; we just don’t know at this point.
But Roberts, Kristol predicts, will be an activist Justice. He will uphold a motion (presumably by Senate Democrats) to call witnesses. Republicans will object; there will be a strenuous floor fight, but Roberts will assert his sovereignty over the proceedings (which he has every right to do), putting his own prestige (which is very high) on the line and, in essence, daring Republicans to defy him. Democrats, joined by enough conscientious Republicans to pass the motion, will call Bolton (and possibly others, such as Mulvaney) to testify. Schumer will issue, in the name of the Senate, a subpoena; Republicans will resist it, but the same coalition, presided over by Roberts, will approve it. Bolton will show up, raise his right hand, swear to tell the truth—and the game will be on.
Will Bolton say what we all think? “There was a quid pro quo. Trump extorted or bribed Zelensky.” If he does, it’s a whole new ballgame, and Trump and his enablers need to be very afraid.
