‘In many ways that feels like the fireman showing up to a burning building once everything’s been destroyed…’
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) Former national security advisor John Bolton is so convinced that President Donald Trump is a threat to the American republic that he decided not to testify during the Democrat-led House impeachment inquiry last year, and instead planned a tell-all gossip book about his time in the White House.
Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, is slated for release next week, despite a brewing legal threat over the disclosure of potentially classified information.
But Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., is seething that the shameless hit-job against the president is “too little too late.”
“In many ways that feels like the fireman showing up to a burning building once everything’s been destroyed and saying, ‘Hey guys, I got this,’” Swalwell said in an interview on Wednesday.
The Bay-area congressman sits on both the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-NY.
Both committees played pivotal roles in the partisan probe surrounding Trump’s alleged abuse of power in asking Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, his likely rival in November’s upcoming presidential election.
Swalwell, himself a presidential hopeful at the time, attempted to distinguish himself as an anti-Trump attack dog during the proceedings but his efforts mostly backfired.
Now, Swalwell is framing Bolton as the key piece in the failed partisan impeachment effort that got away.
“We tried twice,” Swalwell said, referring to attempts to get Bolton to testify. “We tried during the House investigation and also on the Senate side. Chairman Schiff gave him the opportunity to put an affidavit forward, and he refused.”
As Democrats focused most of their energy on extending the investigative leg during the Senate trial rather than proving the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, Trump ultimately was acquitted on both of the House’s specious accusations.
Swalwell complained that Bolton’s testimony could have offered the evidence they needed to oust a duly elected president on shaky claims from a suspicious whistleblower and a deeply flawed, partisan inquiry process.
“He had a real opportunity to save his country,” Swalwell said with unintended irony.
In reality, Bolton said he would fight House Democrats in court if he were subpoenaed.
But even Swalwell believes he’s figured out Bolton’s motivation for his lucrative book deal.
“It seems like purely a way to stay relevant,” he said.