Former national security adviser John Bolton said Monday that he will testify in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate if he’s called to the stand.

“Since my testimony is once again at issue, I have had to resolve the serious competing issues as best I could, based on careful consideration and study,” Bolton said. “I have concluded that, if the Senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, I am prepared to testify.”

The former national security adviser is at the center of a multitude of key events in the impeachment inquiry. He would be the most high-profile witness to testify against Trump to date, and his lawyer suggested Bolton has information that hasn’t yet come to light.

Crucially, Bolton has receipts. He’s reportedly prolific note-taker and his documents could prove devastating to a White House swimming through a mountain of evidence Democrats have collected.

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Former national security adviser John Bolton said Monday that he will testify in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate if he’s called to the stand.

“The House has concluded its Constitutional responsibility by adopting Articles of Impeachment related to the Ukraine matter,” Bolton said in a statement. “It now falls to the Senate to fulfill its Constitutional obligation to try impeachments, and it does not appear possible that a final judicial resolution of the still-unanswered Constitutional questions can be obtained before the Senate acts.”

He continued: “Accordingly, since my testimony is once again at issue, I have had to resolve the serious competing issues as best I could, based on careful consideration and study. I have concluded that, if the Senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, I am prepared to testify.”

At the center of Trump’s impeachment are his efforts to strongarm Ukraine into delivering political dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and the 2016 election while withholding vital military aid and a White House meeting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky desperately sought.

The whistleblower complaint that sparked the inquiry described Trump’s behavior as an abuse of power and added that the president tried to use his public office for private gain by soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election.

Congress and the public heard testimony from over a dozen witnesses who appeared after being subpoenaed, and often in direct defiance of the White House’s orders. But all the while, Bolton – who refused to testify – loomed large over the proceedings.

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Last month, the House of Representatives passed two articles of impeachment against Trump. The first charged him with abuse of power and the second with obstruction of Congress.

The former national security adviser refused to testify in the House’s impeachment proceedings because he and his deputy, Charles Kupperman, were waiting for a judge to weigh in on whether he had to abide by the White House’s directive not to testify or if he should comply with Congress’ subpoena for his testimony.

On December 30, a federal judge dismissed Kupperman’s lawsuit and said it was “moot” because House investigators withdrew the subpoena for testimony.

Bolton was front and center in key events that led to the impeachment inquiry

Bolton is at the center of several key events being scrutinized as part of the impeachment inquiry. As the former national security adviser, he would be the most high profile witness to testify against the president.

He attended a July 10 meeting at a White House policy meeting between senior US and Ukrainian officials. Gordon Sondland, the US’s ambassador to the EU, hijacked the meeting when he told the Ukrainians that Trump wanted a “deliverable” – specifically, politically motivated investigations – in exchange for a White House meeting. Bolton immediately cut the meeting short at that point and informed Fiona Hill, who at the time was the National Security Council’s senior director in charge of Russian and Eurasian affairs, to “tell the lawyers” what had happened. According to Hill’s testimony, Bolton ordered her to tell John Eisenberg, the NSC’s chief counsel, that he was not part of “whatever drug deal” Sondland and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, were “cooking up in Ukraine.”

Bolton was staunchly opposed to Trump making the infamous July 25 phone call to Zelensky. Hill and other witnesses have testified that Bolton was against the phone call because he feared the president would use it to air his personal grievances to Zelensky, which is exactly what ended up happening. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the NSC’s top Ukraine expert, prepared a list of talking points for Trump before the phone call. The list touched on key US policy issues with respect to Ukraine. But Vindman testified – and a White House summary showed – that Trump didn’t bring up any of those points and instead used the conversation to pressure Zelensky to investigate the Bidens, Burisma Holdings, and a bogus conspiracy theory about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.



Bolton could be Rudy Giuliani’s worst nightmare

The former national security adviser described Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer who’s spearheaded what witnesses have said was the “irregular channel” of foreign policy in Ukraine, as a “hand grenade.” He was also opposed to the smear campaign Giuliani and Trump carried out against Marie Yovanovitch, who at the time was the US’s ambassador to Ukraine. Hill testified to Congress that Bolton was aghast at Giuliani’s multitude of television appearances, in which he pushed conspiracies about Yovanovitch, the Bidens, and the 2016 election. “We saw him often on television making these statements,” Hill said of Giuliani. “And I had already brought to Ambassador Bolton’s attention the attacks, the smear campaign, against Ambassador Yovanovitch and expressed great regret about how this was unfolding, and in fact, the shameful way in which Ambassador Yovanovitch was being smeared and attacked.” Hill said that when she asked Bolton if they could intervene, he “looked pained, and basically indicated with body language that there was nothing much we could do about it.” “And he then, in the course of that discussion, said that Rudy Giuliani was a hand grenade that was going to blow everyone up,” Hill testified. Asked why Bolton described Giuliani that way, Hill told Congress the former New York mayor was “clearly pushing forward” issues that would “probably come back to haunt us. That’s where we are today.”



Bolton has receipts