Bolton revelations roil Trump trial, witness push grows

Donald Trump's lawyers, eager to attain his swift acquittal, pushed back forcefully Monday against explosive new allegations from former national security advisor John Bolton, insisting the US president's dealings regarding Ukraine were not impeachable.

The defense also injected Joe Biden and his family directly into the argument for why the president should not be ousted.

At only the third impeachment trial in US history, they stressed that Trump's requests to Ukraine to investigate his potential Democratic White House challenger were motivated by concerns about corruption.

Republicans faced fresh pressure to subpoena Bolton as a firsthand witness at Trump's Senate impeachment trial following new revelations, which could amount to damning evidence about the president's actions.

As Clinton impeachment investigator Ken Starr and Harvard constitutional expert Alan Dershowitz defended the president, three Republican senators indicated they could favor hearing testimony from the 71-year-old Bolton.

According to The New York Times, Bolton, in a draft of his forthcoming book, says Trump told him in August that he wanted to freeze military aid to Ukraine until Kiev helped with investigations of political rivals including Biden, his potential election opponent.

The allegation that Trump withheld the aid for his own political purposes was at the heart of Trump's December impeachment by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Dershowitz argued emphatically that such charges were "unconstitutional grounds" for impeachment.

The 81-year-old also directly sought to neutralize the Bolton developments.

"Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of abuse of power or impeachable offense," Dershowitz said. And he sought to downplay the controversy over Trump's pressure campaign against Kiev.

"Quid pro quo alone is not a basis for abuse of power," Dershowitz added. "It's part of the way foreign policy has been operated by presidents since the beginning of time."
"In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination," Trump added. "If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book."