One of the strange comments from former national security adviser John Bolton was that he was willing to testify before the Senate but not the House. Democrats had no knowledge or expectations of what Bolton would say, though his story is now being slowly leaked from excerpts of his manuscript. It prompted speculation from former Florida Republican Rep. David Jolly during an MSNBC discussion Friday.

ADVERTISEMENT

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace explained that she thought the House managers did an exceptional job, but who disgraced the Republicans was Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA).

“I mean, is it possible that John Bolton just didn’t want to sit in front of Devin Nunes, who may be another thug, another Lev Parnas figure in the entire smear campaign?” Wallace asked.

“Yeah, but I think we’re going to find out that Bolton knew some of what Nunes was doing,” said Jolly. “Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to testify. But I’ll tell you, Nicolle, it struck me, the more we talk about John Bolton, and this reporting today from the New York Times, that Bolton was in the room and Bolton knew about this. You know who else was in the room at one point, and learned the same things? The whistleblower. And he went to Congress. You know who else? Lt. Col. Vindman. And he went to Congress. Fiona Hill, went to Congress.”

He went on to say that Bolton has got to do the same because it’s the only way his story can be entered into the record.

When it came to the way the White House ran the impeachment, Jolly explained the political fallout for Senators is going to be brutal whether they go on the record or not.

ADVERTISEMENT

“The president and his team never created room for Republicans on the Hill to be reasonable,” Jolly continued. “And what will be interesting — you know apparently what is driving the delay is Senators want to be able to go on the record. And that happened on the House, they opened the floor up for two days and any member who wanted to speak, they let them speak. So, I think what we’re seeing is, if you didn’t have this delay then the senate record would only be the presentation and the written questions. So, this allows senators to speak It will be telling because we all are gleaning some of the perspectives now from written statements of the senators. Marco Rubio said, just because a president engages in an impeachable behavior doesn’t mean you should remove him from office.”

Jolly went on: “I think [Lisa] Murkowski (R-AK) surprised a lot of people because she said it’s the House’s fault that this process has become so corrupt we can’t prove. Even [Rob] Portman (R-OH) kind of took his ding at the House. So, I think what we’re seeing is some of the initial statements is, nerves are kind of, they’re raw right now.”

“What’s so interesting is that this is arguably the worst case of what Bolton has had to say yet,” said former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance about the revelations released from the Bolton book.

ADVERTISEMENT

Vance also quoted John Kelly’s latest statements saying that it wasn’t a real trial because Senators shirked their duties.

“In addition to shirking their duties, they’re assuming a lot of risk,” she explained. “They don’t know how bad it gets. It may be that at this point, sticking with Donald Trump is worse for your reelection chances than this modest vote to hear from witnesses.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Wallace said that it’s become political suicide for Republicans and that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) set his caucus up to fail.

Watch the comments below: