Former Senator Heidi Heitkamp Reacts to Bolton Revelation

AMANPOUR:

What do you make of the latest claim? This revelation in the New York times that former national security advisor, John Bolton has delivered a manuscript or did at the end of the year to the white house for approval and in that manuscript, apparently he says that actually the president spoke to him about withholding that very controversial Ukraine military aid. Until, and unless the new Ukrainian president would investigate the Bible.

HEIDI HEITKAMP:
I am no expert on timing, but you know, and I know these things don’t get leaked accidentally. And so it looks over the weekend, like the president’s team is actually making some headway and, and this thing is going to get shut down very early on. And all of a sudden out of nowhere comes this, uh, this leak, which basically says this is what the report says. There’s, there’s also a lot of discussion about whether in fact his testimony under oath would bypass the NSA process that he will have to go through to publish the book. And so you’ve got to put that off to the side and think about his motivations. Think about the motivations of whoever leaked this, which I think are likely coming from the Bolton team. But you also have to look at the fact that John Bolton, as you know from years of reporting with neo-cons is like the chief neo-con. He is not, um, as they portrayed the whistleblower as a democratic operative. He’s not somebody who the president didn’t bring into his administration and entrust with this information. So in terms of his credibility as a witness, the fact that he was in fact a neo-con, a lifelong Republican, and also someone that the president trusted enough to make national security advisor, I think definitely to the argument that he needs to be brought in.

AMANPOUR:
Um, Bolton apparently says, although he hasn’t spoken to New York times, but his people say it’s the white house that leaked it. And I’m the president of course, denies all of this. Um, he has said, I never told John Bolton that the age of Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book. Okay. So be that as it may. What do you make of the dilemma faced if indeed there is one by moderate Republicans?

HEIDI HEITKAMP:
I think it’s going to be very difficult for Cory Gardner for Joanie earns for a number of these folks who have very progressive groups in their state and have in fact turned purple if not blue presidentially for them to go home and say, look, nothing, nothing to see here, especially in light of this revelation. And I think that at the end of the day when, when, when you evaluate or when we’re in foreign audiences evaluate this, you should look at the impeachment as the indictment. There is nothing in American jurisprudence that says when you go to trial, you can only bring witnesses who were in fact, in the grand jury, you bring in everybody who has new evidence or any new evidence that you can present.