https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/john-boltons-testimony-quid-pro-quo-waste-time-joseph-klein/
The New York Times leaked what President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton allegedly claimed in his forthcoming book about an August 2019 meeting he held with President Trump regarding Ukraine. Bolton is said to have written that President Trump “wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens.” Senate Democrats and a few Republicans such as Senator Mitt Romney would like to hear Bolton’s first-hand testimony. However, it is much ado about nothing. Bolton’s testimony would prove nothing of relevance to the Senate impeachment trial.
One legitimately can be skeptical about the timing of the leak, which happened contemporaneously with the Amazon product page for the book going live. One can argue, as Robert Spencer has done, that Bolton sold the president out because “Trump represents a strong challenge to the foreign policy establishment views that have failed again and again, and of which Bolton is a foremost exponent.” But it does not really matter. Even if, for the purest of reasons, Bolton wants to tell what he knows at the Senate trial about his direct interactions with President Trump concerning the temporary hold on the release of the security assistance, it would not be worth prolonging the Senate trial to hear him.
John Bolton, a long-time neo-conservative hawk, left office following sharp disagreements with President Trump on a variety of foreign policy issues. Keeping security aid to Ukraine flowing without even a temporary pause was just one of those issues that Bolton felt strongly about. Bolton aired his opinions to the president, as he was obliged to do as the presidentially appointed national security adviser. President Trump rejected Bolton’s advice, as the duly elected president is entitled to do.