“My first preference would be to be done with it as soon as possible and not to have any witnesses,” Paul said, making clear that he has no issue with the president of the United States attempting to extort another country for personal benefit. “If they insist on having people like Bolton coming forward, my insistence will be not just one witness. But that the president should be able to call any witnesses that he deems necessary to his defense.” If any of his colleagues get any funny ideas, he added, they’ll be in for a world of pain. If “some Republicans help Democrats get witnesses and there are no witnesses for the president, I think the end result is a revolutionary tide against those people,” Paul said. “I can’t imagine that [Trump] will let it go by if someone votes to bring in witnesses that his administration isn’t interested in.”

This isn’t the first time Paul, who prides himself on being a black sheep in the Republican party, has gone to bat for Trump. In 2017, he hobbled back to Washington to trade Obamacare for tax cuts, and the following year he voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh after pretending his principles would preclude him from doing so, which the president rewarded him for with a special shout-out:

Paul has stuck to his guns in a few rare instances, including when he announced he would vote with Democrats to pass a resolution putting certain checks on Trump’s power to blow up Iran. But when it comes to “presidential harassment,” he’ll be damned if he lets anyone go after his man.

The DOJ is investigating James Comey

This doesn’t sound like some sort of revenge plot against one of the president’s biggest nemeses or anything, God no, nothing like that: