michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

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Today: A Times investigation reveals a firsthand account from John Bolton directly linking President Trump to the quid pro quo at the center of the impeachment. Maggie Haberman and Mike Schmidt on what that could mean for the final phase of the Senate trial. It’s Tuesday, January 28. Mike, Maggie, remind us when the discussion of John Bolton as a possible witness in the impeachment process starts.

michael schmidt

So John Bolton left the White House in early September. Trump said he was fired. Bolton said he resigned. A week later, we learn about the whistleblower’s complaint, and at that point, questions start to percolate. Why did Bolton resign, and what does he know? And in the coming weeks, as the House impeachment investigators summon White House officials to answer questions, we start to get different slivers —

archived recording Bolton’s former aide, that’s Fiona Hill, testified yesterday before House impeachment investigators.

michael schmidt

— of Bolton’s concerns —

archived recording Bolton reportedly called Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney this — “a hand grenade.”

michael schmidt

— and preoccupations with what was going on inside the White House.

archived recording This is something that Fiona Hill said when she was talking about John Bolton, the former national security adviser.

michael schmidt

We don’t have a full picture, but we’re hearing things, like Bolton saying —

archived recording Basically he said, you go and tell Eisenberg that I am not part of any drug deal that Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Mick Mulvaney are cooking up.

michael schmidt

— I didn’t want to participate in this drug deal that these administration officials were doing.

archived recording The term “drug deal” here refers to the Ukraine probe that they were trying to initiate.

michael barbaro

Right, and that was his way of referring to this pressure campaign against Ukraine to start investigations into Democratic rivals.

michael schmidt

Correct. So we’re learning these different things, but we’re not hearing from Bolton.

archived recording Let me read it one more time. “Ambassador Taylor recalls that Mr. Morrison told Ambassador Taylor that I told Mr. Morrison that I conveyed this message to Mr. Yermak on September 1, 2019, in connection with Vice President —”

michael schmidt

And one of the problems with the impeachment investigation —

archived recording We’ve got six people having four conversations in one sentence, and you just told me this is where you got your clear understanding.

michael schmidt

— was that the House was only really talking to people who were sort of outside the president’s inner ring.

archived recording Ambassador, you weren’t on the call, were you? You didn’t listen in on President Trump’s call and President Zelensky’s call? archived recording (william b. taylor jr.) I did not. archived recording You’ve never talked with Chief of Staff Mulvaney? archived recording (william b. taylor jr.) I never did. archived recording You never met the president? archived recording (william b. taylor jr.) That’s correct. archived recording This is what I can’t believe, and you’re their star witness. You’re their first witness.

michael schmidt

A few of the witnesses dealt with the president directly, but many of them were simply relaying what was going on inside the White House.

michael barbaro

So Bolton becomes an even more tantalizing figure. He’s in the center of juicy tidbits coming out of the inquiry. He may be on poor terms with the president. It all seems to make him a perfect witness.

michael schmidt

He’s someone who Republicans trust. He has a long history in the Republican Party, and we were hearing then that he had these concerns. So what was it that he saw? What was it that he could add? He was in the room with the president. What did the president tell him?

michael barbaro

So Maggie, what efforts are made by House impeachment investigators to get Bolton to testify, to get him to just spill the beans?

maggie haberman

They asked him, back in I believe it was October, to come testify voluntarily. He said no, and he had been ordered by the White House not to take part, but the House decided not to submit a subpoena to try to force him to testify, because —

michael barbaro

Why not?

maggie haberman

Because they were concerned that it was going to be a protracted legal battle. They were very consumed with trying to wrap this all up quickly. In hindsight, a lot of Democrats say, at least privately, they think that that was a mistake. They think that they should have actually tried to get him to come there.

michael barbaro

Right. So he does not end up testifying before the House.

maggie haberman

No. Bolton never spoke before the House and didn’t indicate that he really wanted to at the time. He just said that he would not cooperate with this request for testimony. So they sent over the articles of impeachment without having a witness like Bolton, somebody who had a direct conversation with the president, where the withheld military aid for Ukraine was tied to the president’s desires for investigations. There were just people who were speculating on motives or had heard things secondhand, but there was no one with a firsthand interaction with the president.

michael barbaro

O.K. So that brings us to November.

maggie haberman

Right, and so we get to November, and John Bolton is starting to make noises, like he has something to say and he’s willing to share it. And we learn on November 10, that one place he might be planning to share it is in a book that he’s planning to write about his time in the White House.

michael schmidt

So it was a pretty odd situation. You had House investigators that wanted Bolton to talk. Bolton sort of signaling that he has something to say. And then the news that he’s writing a book that you presume is going to have some Ukraine details in it. So who’s going to get to that information?

michael barbaro

Right. So in this situation, what do you two do as reporters to try to figure out what he knows and maybe what he’s put in this book?

maggie haberman

So the House inquiry is over, but there’s all this secrecy around this book. We knew it was coming. We had heard Simon & Schuster would be putting it out. They wouldn’t even confirm that. We were scratching around with people who might know. And as we were trying to do this, Bolton then says, on January 6 — after not complying with the House efforts to get him to testify — he says that he would be willing to testify in the Senate, if there is a subpoena. It seemed like he was trying to do a dance, where he was trying not to make Senate Republicans angry at him, when he’s worked with them for years. And he needs them to back him, as he’s embarking on this post-White House life and trying to sell a book. But also trying to look like he was doing the right thing and not just making it about the book. And it was really hard to decipher what his motives were.

michael schmidt

As reporters, there is nothing that galvanizes us like a high-profile public figure in a major story saying, I have important information, but I’m not going to tell. And he’s essentially out there doing that — putting the bait for reporters to try and get to the bottom of what’s in the book.

maggie haberman

So we did what we normally do when we are handed some kind of bait, which is we continued to try to figure out what was there and what was in it. And whether it would include some damaging information about the president. Or whether it would include some exculpatory information and would be something that the president’s folks could even point to and say it would help him. We just, we didn’t know, but we kept scratching.

michael barbaro

Right. If the one great unanswered question was what Bolton knew, then the most obvious thing is to find out what is inside the book.

maggie haberman

That’s right, and we kept scratching and looking, and then we found out what was in the book, and it was quite damaging to the president.

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michael barbaro

We’ll be right back.

archived recording 1 Brand new reaction this morning from a bombshell New York Times report on John Bolton’s upcoming book. archived recording 2 A trial that seemed to be on a steady and speedy path to certain acquittal has been hit by a seismic shock. archived recording 3 Startling new report could upend the impeachment trial. According to The New York Times, former —

michael barbaro

So what did you learn was actually in this book?

maggie haberman

The biggest thing that is in there is that Bolton writes about a conversation that he claims to have had with President Trump in August of 2019, where he pushed the issue of this withheld military aid with the president. And the president suggested he didn’t want to end the aid freeze until Ukraine turned over materials that he wanted in connection with investigations into Democrats, who he thought had harmed him in 2016.

michael barbaro

So Bolton is having a conversation — he recounts in this book — with President Trump in which Bolton says, hey, Mr. President, I want to talk about this financial freeze on military aid to Ukraine, presumably in the context of Bolton wanting to end it.

maggie haberman

Bolton pushed this conversation with the president, because he, along with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, had been trying to get the president for weeks to end the freeze and turn the aid over, arguing that it was necessary for Ukraine to defend itself against Russia. And so Bolton raised this issue to test where the president was, and the president met him back by saying he didn’t want to end this freeze until materials that he wanted were turned over in relation to investigations into Democrats he thought had damaged him.

michael barbaro

Wow. Democrats, including Joe Biden.

maggie haberman

Democrats, including Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

michael barbaro

So Bolton is confirming in this account that President Trump articulated — correct me if I’m wrong — a clear quid pro quo that explained why he was holding up the security aid to Ukraine. That it was in return for Ukraine investigating his Democratic rivals, like Joe Biden, and that of course is the central claim of the articles of impeachment. And what Bolton seems to be saying here is that that central claim is accurate, and there’s now a firsthand account of it from the mouth of the president himself.

michael schmidt

But you say confirms. This is the first time that we’re hearing anyone say this. This is the first time that someone who was in the room, who spoke directly to the president, says, yeah, the president didn’t want to release the money until he got the fruits of the investigations. This is new ground, and it’s significant, because the president’s lawyers have time and time again argued on the Senate floor —

archived recording (michael purpura) — that there was no connection between security assistance and investigations.

michael schmidt

— that the aid and the investigations were not linked.

archived recording (michael purpura) — the pause on security assistance was distinct and unrelated to investigations.

michael barbaro

So this directly contradicts the way the president’s own lawyers talk about the impeachment.

maggie haberman

Correct, or at least it undercuts their main argument, which is that there was not a connection between what the president wanted and releasing this aid.

michael barbaro

Am I right, Mike and Maggie, that this is as close to a smoking gun as it gets in a case like this?

michael schmidt

Maybe, but throughout the Trump presidency, we’ve learned similarly explosive disclosures, and the president has been able to weather them politically. So yeah, in a normal time, would the news of the president’s most recent national security adviser directly implicating him in a question that is at the center of an impeachment hearing be a smoking gun? Sure, but Trump has shown an ability to endure things like this that gives me reticence to say, yeah, that’s a smoking gun. Because when you say smoking gun, built into that is an assumption that the end would be near.

maggie haberman

I’m with Mike on that. I think that we are a ways away from knowing what this means. And as our colleague Peter Baker wrote today, it could end up being like when the “Access Hollywood” tape came out in 2016 in the campaign. And the big prediction was that this was going to be the end of Donald Trump, this was going to be the end of his campaign, and it obviously did not go that way. So we just don’t know yet.

michael barbaro

Well, what has been the reaction to this reporting, especially in the Senate, where the trial is well underway and where the question of calling witnesses is very much still alive?

michael schmidt

So we’re coming into the home stretch of the trial. And the question of whether Bolton will testify has still not been resolved.

michael barbaro

Right.

michael schmidt

The story comes out, and there’s increased pressure on Senate Republicans, those moderate ones who may be willing to go along with the Democrats. How much does this story move them?

michael barbaro

And Maggie, what’s the answer?

maggie haberman

So far, we are seeing the same moderates who have said they want witnesses before still say they want to hear from Bolton. So that’s Mitt Romney.

archived recording Four of you need to say yes. Do you think there are four votes? archived recording (mitt romney) I think it’s increasingly likely that the other Republicans will join those of us who think we should hear from John Bolton. And whether there are other witnesses and documents, well, that’s another matter. But I think John Bolton’s relevance to our decision has become increasingly clear.

maggie haberman

Susan Collins of Maine is another person who has said this is another factor that points to why there should be witnesses. But two other possible votes for witnesses, one is Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Andother is Lamar Alexander, who the White House is watching very closely to see what he’ll do. They have been more circumspect about whether they think our story changes anything. And so far, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is trying to tell everybody to stay cool and just see how this plays out.

michael barbaro

I mean, there will be people hearing this — hearing that the national security adviser to the president observed him saying something that directly implicates him in this impeachment case — and will ask, why would any deliberative body sworn in as jurors not want to hear from that person? What would be the justification for not hearing from Bolton in this moment?

maggie haberman

So one thing that has come up from the senators in the last several hours is they’re saying, if this was so important to hear from Bolton, why didn’t the House subpoena him?

archived recording (john barrasso) There’s nothing new here that John Bolton didn’t know before the House managers rested their case and stopped calling witnesses, and they never chose to call John Bolton.

maggie haberman

And you’re going to hear that, I think increasingly, if you don’t see a move toward witnesses. That’s going to be an argument that senators are going to point to.

michael barbaro

You missed your chance.

maggie haberman

Why are we doing your work for you? That part was in the House.

michael schmidt

And at another level, the reason why these senators are not going along with calling Bolton is that Trump doesn’t want that to happen. And they have been in lockstep with Trump for most of this.

michael barbaro

So the justification is keep the president happy.

maggie haberman

I think the justification is you have a lot of senators who are facing elections in their own states, and the base likes Trump. And in some states, like Lamar Alexander’s state, they want him to be loyal to Trump. And so those are the concerns that they’re measuring, — is do they let themselves be looked back on in history as turning away from evidence, which some people will say they did. Or do they say, voters don’t really want me casting that vote, and they decide to stick with the president’s desires.

michael barbaro

So how has all of this actually landed inside the White House?

maggie haberman

Well, the White House as a whole wasn’t happy about hearing about this. But for at least some of them, it wasn’t a surprise, because the White House had been given a draft of this manuscript about 3.5 weeks ago from John Bolton for a standard review process to look at classified information and whether there is any in the book.

michael schmidt

So that means at least some folks in the White House have had a sense of what Bolton would testify to in the impeachment investigation.

michael barbaro

If he testified.

maggie haberman

Correct.

michael barbaro

Wait. So does that mean that the president’s lawyers, including those who are currently defending him in the Senate trial, that they knew what John Bolton had written and knew what John Bolton had experienced, and then continued to make a case to the public that is quite contradictory to what Bolton is saying happened in this book?

michael schmidt

We don’t know the extent to which the manuscript, or the details about it, were circulated. But what we do know is that in the past several weeks, there has been a concerted effort by the president to stop Bolton from testifying. He’s made public statements about this.

archived recording (donald trump) The problem with John is that it’s a national security problem. You can’t have somebody who’s at national security. And if you think about it, John, he knows some of my thoughts. He knows what I think about leaders. What happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader and it’s not very positive, and then I have to deal on behalf of the country? It’s going to be very hard. It’s going to make the job very hard. He knows other things, and I don’t know if we left on the best of terms. I would say, probably not. And so you don’t like people testifying when they didn’t leave on good terms. And that was due to me, not due to him. And so we’ll see what happens.

michael schmidt

And he has said it privately to aides.

michael barbaro

So my final question is, if John Bolton has something to say — and it feels like he does — and the world wants to hear it, senators want to hear it, House impeachment managers want to hear it, we all want to hear it. And it feels like he has an obligation to the Democratic process to say it, why doesn’t he just find a way to say it? Go on Fox. Go on CNN. Have a news conference. Why hasn’t he taken any of those opportunities?

maggie haberman

It’s a great question, and there’s nothing preventing him from doing so. If he wanted to issue some kind of a statement or say something publicly that didn’t violate executive privilege with the president, he could do that. He has yet to do any of that, and it’s not really clear why.

michael schmidt

But you know what, if John Bolton went on television right now and said everything he would testify to, unless he was subpoenaed to appear at that trial or if the comments from him were put into evidence, then it couldn’t be considered by the lawmakers. This is a trial, where evidence is brought forward. And if there is not enough votes to bring that evidence in, then it doesn’t matter whether he stands out on the highest point in town and says everything he knows. It only matters whether it’s entered into the record in the Senate.

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michael barbaro

Maggie and Mike, thank you.

maggie haberman

Thank you.

michael schmidt

Thanks for having us.

michael barbaro

On Monday, a lawyer for the White House, Patrick Philbin, tried to tamp down talk of calling Bolton as a witness, saying that calling such a witness would be an effort to, quote, “redo” the House impeachment inquiry and would set a dangerous precedent for future impeachment trials. The record that the House Democrats collected during that process, Philbin said, shows that the president did nothing wrong. In a tweet, the president denied Bolton’s account of their conversation about Ukraine, writing, quote, “If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book.” We’ll be right back.

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michael barbaro