The Daily - What John Bolton Knows

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

A firsthand account by John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, directly linked President Trump to a quid pro quo in the Ukraine affair, undercutting a central plank of the defense’s argument. What could that mean for the final phase of the impeachment trial? Guests: Maggie Haberman, who covers the White House and Michael S. Schmidt, who covers national security and federal investigations for The New York Times.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: A Times investigation revealed that Mr. Bolton privately expressed concern to the attorney general last year that the president was effectively granting personal favors to autocratic leaders around the world.Republican senators had been ready to swiftly acquit President Trump. But Mr. Bolton’s revelations in the manuscript of his new book could change the calculus.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, a Times investigation reveals a first-hand account from John Bolton directly linking President Trump to the quid pro quo at the center of the impeachment. Maggie Haberman and Mike Schmidt on what that could mean for the final phase of the impeachment. Maggie Haberman and Mike Schmidt on what that could mean for the final phase of the Senate trial. It's Tuesday, January 28th. Mike, Maggie, remind us when the discussion

of John Bolton as a possible witness in the impeachment process starts. So John Bolton left the White House in early September. Trump said he was fired. Bolton said he resigned. A week later, we learn about the whistleblower's complaint. And at that point, questions start to percolate. Why did Bolton resign and what does he know? And in the coming weeks, as the House impeachment investigators

summon White House officials to answer questions, we start to get different slivers. Bolton's former aide, that's Fiona Hill, testified yesterday before House impeachment investigators. Of Bolton's concerns. Bolton reportedly called Giuliani, President Trump's personal attorney, this, a hand grenade. And preoccupations with what was going on inside the White House. This is something that Fiona Hill said when she was talking about John Bolton,

the former national security advisor. We don't have a full picture, but we're hearing things like Bolton saying. Basically, he said, you go and tell Eisenberg that I am not part of any drug deal that Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Mick Mulvaney are cooking up. I didn't want to participate in this drug deal that these administration officials were doing. The term drug deal here refers to the Ukraine probe that they were trying to initiate. Right. And that was his way of referring to this pressure campaign against Ukraine to start investigations into Democratic rivals. Correct.

So we're learning these different things, but we're not hearing from Bolton. Let me read it one more time. Ambassador Taylor recalls that Mr. Morrison told Ambassador Taylor that I told Mr. Morrison that I conveyed this message to Mr. Yarmouk on September 1st, 2019 in connection with Vice President... And one of the problems with the impeachment investigation... We got six people having four conversations in one sentence, and you just told me this is where you got your clear understanding. Four conversations in one sentence, and you just told me this is where you got your clear understanding.

Was that the House was only really talking to people who were sort of outside the president's inner ring. Ambassador, you weren't on the call, were you? You didn't listen on President Trump's call and President Linsky's call? I did not. You've never talked with Chief of Staff Mulvaney? I never did. You never met the president? That's correct.

This is what I can't believe, and you're their star witness. You're their first witness. A few of the witnesses dealt with the president directly, but many of them were simply relaying what was going on inside the White House. So Bolton becomes an even more tantalizing figure. He's in the center of juicy tidbits coming out of the inquiry. He may be on poor terms with the president. It all seems to make him a perfect witness. He's someone who Republicans trust. He has a long history in the Republican Party.

And we were hearing then that he had these concerns. So what was it that he saw? What was it that he could add? He was in the room with the president. What did the president tell him? So, Maggie, what efforts are made by House impeachment investigators to get Bolton to testify, to get him to just spill the beans? They asked him back in, I believe it was October, to come testify voluntarily. He said no, and he had been ordered by the White House not to take part.

But the House decided not to submit a subpoena to try to force him to testify because— Why not? Because they were concerned that it was going to be a protracted legal battle. They were very consumed with trying to wrap this all up quickly. In hindsight, a lot of Democrats say, at least privately, they think that that was a mistake. They think that they should have actually tried to get him to come there. Right. So he does not end up testifying before the House. No. Bolton never spoke before the House and didn't indicate that he really wanted to at the time. He

just said that he would not cooperate with this request for testimony. So they sent over the articles of impeachment without having a witness like Bolton, somebody who had a direct conversation with the president where the withheld military aid for Ukraine was tied to the president's desires for investigations. to the president's desires for investigations. There were just people who were speculating on motives or had heard things secondhand, but there was no one with a firsthand interaction with the president. Okay, so that brings us to November. Right, and so we get to November, and John Bolton is starting to make noises like, you know,

he has something to say and he's willing to share it, and we learn on November 10th that one place he might be planning to share it is in a book that he's planning to write about his time in the White House. So it was a pretty odd situation. You had House investigators that wanted Bolton to talk, Bolton sort of signaling that he has something to say. sort of signaling that he has something to say, and then the news that he's writing a book that you presume is going to have some Ukraine details in it. So who's going to get to that information? Right. So in this situation, what do you two do as reporters to try to figure out what he knows and maybe what he's put in this book? So the House inquiry is over, but there's all this secrecy around this book.

We knew it was coming. We had heard Simon and Schuster would be putting it out. They wouldn't even confirm that. We were scratching around with people who might know. And as we were trying to do this, Bolton then says on January 6th, after not complying with the House efforts to get him to testify,

he says that he would be willing to testify in the Senate if there is a subpoena. It seemed like he was trying to do a dance where he was trying not to make Senate Republicans angry at him when he's worked with them for years and he sort of needs them to back him as he's embarking on this post-White House life and trying to sell a book, but also trying to look like he was doing the right thing and not just making it about the book. And it was really hard to decipher what his motives were. As reporters, there is nothing that galvanizes us like a high profile public figure in a major story saying, I have important information, but I'm not going to tell you. And he's essentially

out there doing that, putting the bait for reporters to try and get to the bottom of what's in the book. So we did what we normally do when we are handed some kind of bait, which is we continue to try to figure out what was there and what was in it. And whether it would include some damaging information about the president or whether it would include some exculpatory information and would be something that the president's folks could even point to and say it would help him. We just we didn't know, but we kept scratching. Right. If the one great unanswered question was what Bolton knew, then the most obvious thing is to find out what is inside the book. That's right.

And we kept scratching and looking, and then we found out what was in the book, and it was quite damaging to the president. We'll be right back. that seemed to be on a steady and speedy path to certain acquittal has been hit by a seismic shock. Startling new report could upend the impeachment trial. According to the New York Times, former... So what did you learn was actually in this book? The biggest thing that is in there is that Bolton writes about a conversation

that he claims to have had with President Trump in August of 2019, where he pushed the issue of this withheld military aid with the president. And the president suggested he didn't want to end the aid freeze until Ukraine turned over materials that he wanted in connection with investigations into Democrats who he thought had harmed him in 2016. So Bolton is having a conversation, he recounts in this book, with President Trump, in which Bolton says, hey, Mr. President, I want to talk about this financial freeze on military aid to Ukraine,

presumably in the context of Bolton wanting to end it. Bolton pushed this conversation with the president because he, along with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, had been trying to get the president for weeks to end the freeze and turn the aid over, arguing that it was necessary for Ukraine to defend itself against Russia. And so Bolton raised this issue to test where the president was. And the president met him back by saying he didn't want to end this freeze until materials that he wanted were turned over in relation to investigations into Democrats he thought had damaged him.

Wow. Democrats including Joe Biden. Democrats including Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. So Bolton is confirming in this account that President Trump articulated, correct me if I'm wrong, a clear quid pro quo that explained why he was holding up the security aid to Ukraine, that it was in return for Ukraine investigating his Democratic rivals like Joe Biden. And that, of course, is the central claim of the articles of impeachment. And what Bolton seems to be saying here is that that central claim is accurate, and there's now a firsthand account of it

from the mouth of the president himself. But you say confirms. This is the first time that we're hearing anyone say this. Hmm. This is the first time that someone who was in the room who spoke directly to the president says, yeah, the president didn't want to release the money until he got the fruits of the investigations.

Hmm. This is new ground. And it's significant because the president's lawyers have time and time again argued on the Senate floor that there was no connection between security assistance and investigations. That the aid and the investigations were not linked. The pause on security assistance was distinct and unrelated to investigations. So this directly contradicts the way the president's own lawyers talk about the impeachment.

Correct. Or at least it undercuts their main argument, which is that there was not a connection between what the president wanted and releasing this aid. Am I right, Mike and Maggie, that this is as close to a smoking gun as it gets in a case like this? Maybe. But throughout the Trump presidency, we've learned similarly explosive disclosures. And the president has been able to weather them politically.

So, yeah, in a normal time, would the news of the president's most recent national security advisor directly implicating him in a question that is at the center of an impeachment hearing, be a smoking gun? Sure. But Trump has shown an ability to endure things like this that gives me reticence to say, yeah, that's a smoking gun. Because when you say smoking gun, built into that is an assumption that the end would be near. I'm with Mike on that.

I think that we are a ways away from knowing what this means. And as our colleague Peter Baker wrote today, it could end up being like when the Access Hollywood tape came out in 2016 in the campaign. And the big prediction was that this was going to be the end of Donald Trump. This was going to be the end of his campaign. And obviously did not go that way. So we just don't know yet. Well, what has been the reaction to this reporting,

especially in the Senate, where the trial is well underway and where the question of calling witnesses is very much still alive? So we're coming into the home stretch of the trial. And the question of whether Bolton will testify has still not been resolved. Right.

The story comes out, and there's increased pressure on Senate Republicans, those moderate ones, who may be willing to go along with the Democrats. How much does this story move them? And Maggie, what's the answer? So far, we are seeing the same moderates who have said they want witnesses before

still say they want to hear from Bolton. So that's Mitt Romney. Four of you need to say yes. Do you think there are four votes? I think it's increasingly likely that other Republicans will join those of us who think we should hear from John Bolton. And whether there are other witnesses and documents, well, that's another matter.

But I think John Bolton's relevance to our decision has become increasingly clear. Susan Collins of Maine is another person who has said this is another factor that points to why there should be witnesses. But two other possible votes for witnesses. One is Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, another is Lamar Alexander, who the White House is watching very closely to see what he'll do. They have been more circumspect about whether they think our story changes anything. And so far, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is trying to tell everybody to stay cool and just see how this plays out. I mean, there will be people hearing this, hearing that the national security advisor to the president observed him saying something that directly implicates him in this impeachment case.

And we'll ask, why would any deliberative body sworn in as jurors not want to hear from that person? What would be the justification for not hearing from Bolton in this moment? So one thing that has come up from the senators in the last several hours is they're saying if this was so important to hear from Bolton, why didn't the House subpoena him? from Bolton, why didn't the House subpoena him? There is nothing new here that John Bolton didn't know before the House managers rested their case and stopped calling witnesses, and they never chose to call John Bolton. And you're going to hear that, I think, increasingly if you don't see a move toward witnesses. That's going to be an argument the senators are going to point to. You missed your chance. Why are we doing your work for you? That part was in the House.

And at another level, the reason why these senators are not going along with calling Bolton is that Trump doesn't want that to happen. And they have been in lockstep with Trump for most of this. So the justification is keep the president happy. I think the justification is you have a lot of senators who are facing elections in their own states and the base likes Trump. And in some states, like Lamar Alexander's state, they want him to be loyal to Trump. And so those are the concerns that they're measuring is do they let themselves be looked back on in history as turning away from evidence, which some people will say they did, or do they say voters don't really want me casting that vote and they decide to stick with the president's desires? So how has all of this actually landed inside the White House? Well, the White House as a whole wasn't happy about hearing about this.

But for at least some of them, it wasn't a surprise because the White House had been given a draft of this manuscript about three and a half weeks ago from John Bolton for a standard review process to look at classified information and whether there is any in the book. So that means at least some folks in the White House have had a sense of what Bolton would testify to in the impeachment investigation. If he testified. Correct. Wait, so does that mean that the president's lawyers, including those who are currently defending him in the Senate trial, that they knew what John Bolton that is quite contradictory to what Bolton is saying happened in this book. We don't know the extent to which the manuscript or the details about it were circulated.

But what we do know is that in the past several weeks, there has been a concerted effort by the president to stop Bolton from testifying. He's made public statements about this. The problem with John is that it's a national security problem. You know, you can't have somebody who's at national security. And if you think about it, John, he knows some of my thoughts. He knows what I think about leaders. What happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader and it's not very positive

and that I have to deal on behalf of the country? It's going to be very hard. It's going to make the job very hard. He knows other things. And I don't know if we left on the best of terms. I would say probably not, you know. I don't know if we left on the best of terms. I would say probably not, you know.

And so you don't like people testifying when they didn't leave on good terms. And that was due to me, not due to him. And so we'll see what happens. And he has said it privately to AIDS. So my final question is, if John Bolton has something to say, and it feels like he does, and the world wants to hear it, senators want to hear does, and the world wants to hear it. Senators want to hear it. House impeachment managers want to hear it. We all want to hear it. And it feels like he has a kind of obligation to the democratic process to say it. Why doesn't he just find a way to say it? Go on Fox, go on CNN, have a news conference. Why hasn't he

taken any of those opportunities? It's a great question, and there's nothing preventing him from doing so. If he wanted to issue some kind of a statement or say something publicly that didn't, you know, violate executive privilege with the president, he could do that. He has yet to do any of that, and it's not really clear why. But you know what? If John Bolton went on television right now and said everything he would testify to, unless he was subpoenaed to appear at that trial or if the comments for him were put into evidence, then it couldn't be considered by the lawmakers. a trial where evidence is brought forward. And if there is not enough votes to bring that evidence in, then it doesn't matter whether he stands out on the highest point in town and says everything he knows. It only matters whether it's entered into the record in the Senate. Maggie and Mike, thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for having us. On Monday, a lawyer for the White House, Patrick Philbin, tried to tamp down talk of calling Bolton as a witness, saying that calling such a witness would be an effort to, quote, redo the House impeachment inquiry and would set a dangerous precedent for future impeachment trials. The record that the House Democrats collected during that process, Philbin said, shows that the president did nothing wrong. In a tweet, the president denied Bolton's account of their conversation about Ukraine, writing, quote,

If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Monday, as it sought to contain the coronavirus, the Chinese government broadened its quarantine to more than 50 million people and said that it would spend at least $9 billion to stop the outbreak. The U.S. government said it was organizing an evacuation of American citizens out of the citizens out of the epicenter of the illness in Wuhan, and the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson said

it would begin developing a potential vaccine against the virus, joining several government agencies seeking to do the same. As of Monday night, the coronavirus had infected nearly 3,000 people and killed more than 80. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.