Jane Chong: The president can do whatever he wants, which is why he can’t

These are not people the president should want Congress to hear from.

What remains of Trump’s defense is only a question of his intent in doing the things that nobody disputes he did. There is no question that Trump had a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he asked for an announcement of investigations into the Biden family and into a nutty conspiracy theory about Ukrainian possession of a Democratic server from the 2016 election. There is also no question that he froze aid to Ukraine. And there is no question, either, that his administration communicated to the Ukrainians that these two issues were tied—that the aid wouldn’t flow until the investigations were announced.

The questions on which Trump’s defense turns are, first, whether the president meant for these investigations to be targeted efforts to harm political opponents or whether his request reflected earnest anti-corruption concerns on his part; and, second, whether the linkage between aid and investigations reflected Trump’s own wishes and orders or whether it reflected freelancing by underlings.

A handful of witnesses are in a position to speak directly to Trump’s intent—all of whom have refused to testify. Though Trump said recently that Giuliani “wants to go before Congress,” the president’s lawyer has so far failed to show up in front of the House or the Senate. The House has not subpoenaed Pompeo’s testimony, but the Intelligence Committee report on impeachment writes that he “has not produced a single document sought by [Congress] and has not indicated any intent to do so going forward.” Mulvaney has outright defied a subpoena. After Bolton indicated that he wouldn’t comply with a subpoena absent a court order to do so, the House withdrew its demand for his testimony. The same is true of Bolton’s former deputy Charles Kupperman, who took the unusual step of asking the courts to weigh in on whether he had an obligation to comply.

Giuliani, of course, appears to have been in communication with the president about his activities in Ukraine: Trump told the team of administration officials working on Ukraine issues to “talk to Rudy,” several witnesses have testified. Pompeo was listening to the July 25 phone call with Zelensky in which Trump made his demands of Ukraine, was kept in the loop by Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland about Sondland’s efforts to make the quid pro quo materialize, and met with the president about the withholding of aid to Ukraine. And according to the testimony of multiple witnesses, Mulvaney seems to have been directly involved in placing the hold on aid at the president’s request.

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In Bolton’s case, testimony from numerous other witnesses has identified the former national security adviser as uncomfortable with Trump’s efforts on Ukraine—the “drug deal” between Sondland and Mulvaney, as he reportedly called it. The former National Security Council staffer Tim Morrison testified that Bolton directed him to draft a memo encouraging Trump to release the aid to Ukraine, though Bolton ultimately never presented the memo to the president. And Morrison also testified that Bolton met one-on-one with Trump about the withholding of aid. Bolton seems almost uniquely well positioned to speak to Trump’s state of mind on the issue. So, too, is Kupperman, who took over as acting national security adviser after Bolton departed the job on September 10—the day before the White House finally released the aid.