Former White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, says that the Senate should hear from witnesses at President Trump’s impeachment trial, and he believes ex-national security adviser John R. Bolton’s reported version of the truth about Ukraine.
During a lecture in Sarasota, Florida, Mr. Kelly said Mr. Bolton, who is coming out with a book — a draft of which was leaked to the New York Times — is trustworthy.
“Every single time I was with him … he always gave the president the unvarnished truth,” Mr. Kelly said of Mr. Bolton on Monday night, according to press sources.
The Times alleges that Mr. Bolton has written in his manuscript, that the president told him he did not want to release military aid to Ukraine, until the country investigated former Vice President Joseph R. Biden and his son, Hunter.
Mr. Kelly, a retired Marine general who left the White House just over a year ago, said of the controversy, “If John Bolton says that in the book I believe John Bolton. John’s an honest guy. He’s a man of integrity and great character, so we’ll see what happens.”
The former chief of staff, who believes Mr. Trump wouldn’t have been impeached if he had stayed in his White House job, said most Americans want to “hear the whole story” from witnesses during the impeachment trial.
“So I think if there are people that could contribute to this, either [prove the president’s] innocence or guilt, I think they should be heard,” Mr. Kelly said. “I think some of the conversations seem to me to be very inappropriate but I wasn’t there. But there are people that were there that ought to be heard from.”
Bolton’s Manuscript Is Inadmissible
Meanwhile, as the controversy about Mr. Bolton’s book is heating up, Trump’s defense team – who wrapped up presenting their case on Tuesday, said that they believe that the manuscript would be inadmissible as evidence.
“You can’t impeach the president on an unsourced allegation,” attorney Jay Sekulow told senators. “I want to be clear on this, because there’s a lot of speculation out there.”
He said that the president and other top administration officials have been forced to respond “to an unpublished manuscript that maybe some reporters have an idea of maybe what it says.”
Sekulow continued, “If you want to call that evidence, I don’t know what you call that, I call it inadmissible.”