Hello, and welcome to day two of Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, a grand charade in which Republicans will claim to deeply care about the Constitution and rule of law, but not as much as letting a comically corrupt man get away with literally attempting to extort another country for personal gain. Currently at issue is the question of witnesses—Democrats want them to be allowed to testify, given that they know a good deal about Trump’s scheme to pressure Ukraine into digging up dirt on Joe Biden, while the GOP would rather not hear from such individuals, to the point that at least one lawmaker has threatened to go Rambo on any colleagues voting to allow witnesses to be included. Not surprisingly, the White House, from which Republicans take their orders, wants to silence witnesses, which we know because Trump’s legal team has reportedly been “gaming out contingency plans should Democrats win enough votes to force witnesses to testify in the impeachment trial, including an effort to keep former national security adviser John Bolton from the spotlight.” Naturally, that didn’t stop the president from claiming Wednesday that he would just love for the American people to hear from the guy who knows where all his Ukraine bodies are buried, an obvious lie that fact-checkers have presumably already added to his tally.

Speaking to reporters from Davos, Switzerland, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, Trump claimed today that he is all about letting Bolton testify, along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and former energy secretary Rick Perry. “I would rather go the long way. I would rather interview Bolton. I would rather interview a lot of people,” he said despite the White House’s refusal to let any of those people testify during the House’s impeachment inquiry. “I’d love to have Mick go...I’d love to have Mike Pompeo testify,” Trump insisted. Having not fooled anyone, the president then launched into his legal team’s talking points, saying that while he’d be just thrilled to have Bolton tell lawmakers everything he knows, letting him do so would put the country at risk.

“The problem with John is, that it’s a national security problem,” Trump continued. Bolton “knows some of my thoughts, what I think about leaders. What happens if he reveals what I think about a leader and it’s not very positive?” he said. He added that Bolton might also pose a problem because of the circumstances under which the national security adviser left the administration, i.e., he either quit or was fired, depending on whom you ask. “I don’t know if we left on the best of terms,” Trump said. “I would think probably not. You don’t like people testifying when they didn’t leave on good terms, and that was due to me, not due to him.”

Later, during the same impromptu press conference, he said that he watched a little bit of Tuesday’s proceedings and is thus far thrilled about the fact that his legal team has been able to withhold crucial information from Democrats.

Trump said he believed his lawyers were doing well and seemed to allude to the documents the White House has refused to give Congress. “We’re doing very well,” he told reporters. “Honestly, we have all the material; they don’t have the material.”

Yes, he just can’t help himself:

Perhaps that line will come up during today’s proceedings, considering Democrats’ second article of impeachment involves obstruction of Congress. Who’s to say!

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