Now we're getting towards the business end of the warp-speed Senate impeachment trial, in which Republicans have so far barred witnesses from testifying and blocked new evidence from getting an airing. There's nothing like a trial proceeding that purposefully excludes information that could speak to guilt or innocence. The president and his allies are now ramping up their efforts to prevent witnesses from appearing at any point, which will hinge on a Senate vote this week. Mitch McConnell's close ally, John Cornyn, expressed confidence Wednesday morning that Republicans had the votes to suppress witnesses and jam the sham trial through. In this formulation, the president is completely innocent, but his close aides who witnessed his conduct cannot be allowed to testify under oath.

The marquee witness, of course, would be John Bolton, who is thirstily promoting his book at the moment. In surely unrelated news, salacious details about its contents keep leaking out—like, say, his reported claim that Trump told him when he was national security adviser that the $391 million in military aid would be held hostage until Ukraine ratfucked Joe Biden. This is the kind of explicit quid pro quo that even Trump's allies used to say was beyond the pale. Even the Fox & Friends said it would be "off the rails wrong" in September. (Now, as stalwart Trump lackeys, they're lamenting on air—explicitly—that Bolton is making the president's coverup more difficult.) Saying something in a book doesn't make it true, so the best way to get to the bottom of this would be to have Bolton testify under oath, under penalty of perjury, in the Senate trial.

Mr. President—your thoughts.

For a guy who couldn’t get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn’t get approved for anything since, “begged” me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying “Don’t do it, sir,” takes the job, mistakenly says “Libyan Model” on T.V., and......many more mistakes of judgement, gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?

You'll notice this is not the first time that Donald Trump has characterized someone he personally hired as some combination of stupid, incompetent, corrupt, or generally undesirable. Somehow, he does not feel this pattern reflects on him at all, despite the fact that hiring is a core component of presidenting. He called Michael Cohen, his personal lawyer for a decade, "a weak person," "not a very smart person," a "bad lawyer," and "a fraudster." He called Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist (!) in the White House, "Sloppy Steve." He attacked the Federal Reserve chairman he himself appointed, Jerome Powell, for having a "horrendous lack of vision." This is basically the fate awaiting every single Trump appointee, as depicted in an instant-classic New Yorker cartoon. And yet he still finds people to sign up. There's always somebody with even less shame and even less competence who will come aboard.



Normal stuff happening. Spencer Platt Getty Images

The president can wail all he wants about Bolton, who really is a warmonger and a deranged imperialist. But the simple fact is that the president will not allow anyone who was a direct witness to his Ukraine scheme to testify. He wouldn't let Bolton testify. He won't let Chief-of-Staff Mick Mulvaney testify. He won't let Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testify, not that blustery old Pompey would talk either way as he kicks off his 2024 campaign. But surely all these people would say, under penalty of perjury, that the president is just an International Corruption Crusader who saw a Bat Signal in Ukraine? Surely they'd say that, despite the fact that he is running The Great American Heist and boasts a tangled web of foreign business interests that present a constant stream of conflicts-of-interest, he was really concerned about corruption at a Ukrainian energy firm, independent of its connections to his political rival?



You can stop giggling now, partly because, at a rally in Wildwood, New Jersey last night, the president showcased once again that the brain is not doing so good.

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Fox News cut away from Trump's rally immediately after his brain short-circuited pic.twitter.com/0jgKzVLb9E — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 29, 2020

Yes, that is the sound of someone on a hot mic on The Fox News Channel giggling at the president as his mind short-circuits. It was not the only time in the evening that The Presidential Brain experienced technical difficulties.

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Trump's brain misfires when he tries to say the word "witch" pic.twitter.com/RJ6K4bC4f2 — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 29, 2020

We really don't talk enough about the fact that there's long been plenty of evidence the world's most powerful man isn't all there. Some of his foibles—the blatant corruption, the lying, the vicious cruelty—are probably lifetime features. But some share of his renegade nature may well be down to persistent decline in his cognitive faculties, an alarming prospect that very few people in politics or even the national media seem prepared to deal with. Or maybe the only problem is that he just keeps hiring dumb weak lying fraudsters who should never be allowed to testify. At least, that's what he says about them.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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