Former National Security Adviser John Bolton brushed off concerns that he should have testified during President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
Bolton addressed the issue during an interview that aired Tuesday with Fox News anchor Bret Baier, saying that he hadn’t felt obligated to assist the Democrats in what he said was a completely partisan impeachment. (RELATED: ‘A Complete And Utter Disaster’: Kayleigh McEnany Holds Nothing Back In Judgment Of John Bolton)
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Baier pointed out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and lead Impeachment Manager Adam Schiff had accused Bolton of putting his own financial profit over his patriotism because, despite the fact that he did not testify, he suggested in his book that there were numerous other avenues they could have pursued with regard to impeachment.
“So Democrats would say why didn’t you step up back then?” Baier asked.
Bolton suggested that the Democrats might be angry with him in part because his book was not kind to them either. “As I lay out in the book, their impeachment strategy was catastrophically wrong,” he explained. “I characterize what they did as impeachment malpractice.”
Bolton went on to say that Democrats had forced Republicans into a highly partisan corner, giving them almost no choice but to push back.
“They were driven by their own political objectives to go after Trump as fast as they could, as narrow as they could, because they were concerned about messing up their own presidential nomination schedule. That’s almost what they said about Donald Trump in Ukraine — misusing the power of government for his own political purposes,” Bolton said.
Baier pointed back to the book, saying that Bolton had alleged Democrats could possibly have impeached Trump on a number of other issues.
“Don’t you feel some responsibility now that you are saying he should be impeached for other things but you never piped up?” Baier pressed.
“I’m not saying he should have been impeached but there was a lot of reprehensible conduct, not all of which was impeachable. The fact was the Democrats were pursuing a strategy that’s clearly going right into a ditch,” Bolton concluded, adding, “I don’t have any obligation to help the Democrats drive into a ditch.”