WHAR JOHN BOLTON? Impeachment Liveblog, Day 1,265!
Bolton might not technically be there, but if Republican senators feel a tickle on their chins today, that's his mustache.
The impeachment trial continues and everything keeps changing, now that we have all these receipts and scoops from John Bolton's new book President Of Mustache Rides And Also A Client . (May not be real name of book.)
It's getting harder and harder for Republicans to say they don't want to call Bolton as a witness, but they're trying with all their might to find exit ramps. For instance, Senator James Lankford has proposed that maybe they should get a copy of the book so they can all read it by themselves with seer stones in the quiet solitude of a SCIF where no man can find them. Lindsey Graham thinks this idea is great .
Chuck Schumer's response to that is fuck off.
“What an absurd proposal,” @SenSchumer says of allowing senators to view the Bolton manuscript in a SCIF. “There’s… https: //t.co/PcAoKbZNlU
— Andrew Desiderio (@Andrew Desiderio) 1580228611.0
Meanwhile, the White House is under the impression it has a response to that, because the White House is an idiot and also thinks you are an idiot:
I guess that’s why @RepAdamSchiff held all of his sham depositions in a SCIF... https: //t.co/6r5lJGkCo1
— Stephanie Grisham (@Stephanie Grisham) 1580229332.0
Right, because depositions in an initial investigation are the same as reading a pre-release manuscript of a book that's going to be available at your nearest Amazon in a month and a half. This is a good time to remind readers that we should always be graceful toward Stephanie Grisham, considering her history, as it's entirely possible she had Baileys on her Corn Flakes this morning and her brain just wasn't in fightin' shape.
Former chief of staff John Kelly has come out to forcefully say he believes John Bolton, so there's that. Also, if you want a good insight into exactly what game John Bolton is playing here, we recommend Graeme Wood in The Atlantic .
Today is the last day of the TOTAL EXONERATION presentation from Trump's lawyers in their opening statement, and if today is anything like yesterday, with Pam Bondi's uncomfortable lunatic ramblings and Alan Dershowitz showing up wearing his old balls on his sleeve with his panties on the outside of his pants (figuratively!), it is going to be one of the dumbest shitshows ever and you will feel your brain cells die in real time.
Let's do it together!
1: 06:And we're off!
1: 07:We knew it. The Trump lawyers just don't have enough bullshit words to fill their full time -- they have 15 hours left they can use! -- so Mitch McConnell and Pat Cipollone are saying they are planning on being done by dinner. There will be three presentations, all from idiots.
We begin with Pat Philbin, who is still not Regis Philbin, nor is he Regis Philbin's mom.
1: 14:Trump dude Philbin just referred to Alan Dershowitz as "President Dershowitz" and otherwise is doing some dry and boring misreading of the framers' intent and the history of impeachment, WAY TO ROPE US ALL IN AND GET OUR ATTENTION, CHAMP.
1: 17:Philbin is pissed and saying the House did a bill of attainder to Trump, basically implying that they were going to impeach Trump no matter what, with or without a crime, etc. This is bullshit. If anything, the Democrats were very conservative about which crimes they picked to impeach Trump for, since he commits so many per hour.
1: 20:Now Philbin is lying and saying Dems impeached Trump for ignoring all his aides' advice his own administration's stated foreign policy, because tHe pReSiDnet sEts tHe pOlIcY! This is true, and is not why he was impeached. He was impeached for abusing the power of his office for personal political gain, in order to help himself steal an(other) election.
1: 23:Philbin now wants to argue that the White House was not doing a cover-up when they stuffed the records of the Ukraine call on the most highly classified server in the White House, the one that's for things like the bin Laden raid. And to "prove" this, Philbin has some clips of impeachment witnesses being extra diplomatic and saying they are not assuming it was a cover-up, but it was still fucking WEIRD.
1: 26:PHILBIN: Tim Morrison said he was just concerned about leaks! Because if it leaked, people would see Trump committing crimes and then everybody would know Trump does crimes! (Sorry, Philbin did not say that, we just followed his fucked up logic to its natural conclusion in Dipshit Canyon.)
1: 28:PHILBIN: How can there be coverups if Trump released the READ TEH TREACSDJVIFDGJIPT?????
Also it is just fine for Bill Barr's Office of Legal Counsel to singlehandedly change the definition of "shall" and "urgent" in the law that says whistleblower claims must be turned over to Congress, Philbin says.
1: 30:Philbin keeps saying Bill Barr's OLC is "respected," why does he keep saying that? Nothing in Bill Barr's Justice Department For Giving Trump Lapdances And Hiding Trump's Treason is "respected."
1: 31:Trump was just "engaging in foreign relations"! How can you possibly call that an "urgent whistleblower concern"?
Except, you know, when the president is pretty clearly an intelligence asset of our greatest foreign adversary and the president himself is one of the greatest threats to our national security that exists.
1: 34: Here is some background on how Bill Barr's Justice Department did cover-ups for Donald Trump with the whistleblower report. Pat Philbin just said you can't say it's a cover-up if they went to the Justice Department for review, OH LOOK WE JUST DID, GO EAT A FUCK.
Anyway, that is over now, it was lies.
Time for Jay Sekulow to do some queening out, it should be pretty embarrassing.
1: 38:Hahahaha, we are going to do Wingnut Bingo now, get out your cards.
Sekulow says PUT YOURSELF IN DONALD TRUMP'S SHOES (are his feet as little as his hands?) and try to imagine what you would do in his position (not crime probably).
Sekulow says FISA WARRANTS and RUSSIA HOAX and STEELE DOSSIER and PUT YOURSELF IN HIS TINY DIRTY STINKY SLIPPERS!
Imagine how you would feel if you were the stupidest person in the entire world and your oldest son had this face
and imagine they were SPYING ON YOUR CAMPAIGN (not spying, that's not what the IG report found ) and imagine if you didn't know anything about any countries in the world and couldn't find them on maps and did we mention you are stupid, well yeah, you're just the stupidest, and imagine if PETER STRZOK and LISA PAGE and Jay Sekulow can't even SAY what he thinks about them right now, because THEY KNOW WHAT THEY DID, but did you know Robert Mueller DELETED THEIR SEXTS, and anyway, Jay Sekulow says this with the utmost respect, but YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO REMOVE DONALD TRUMP AND FULFILL MIKE PENCE'S WETTEST DREAMS over a RUSSIA HOAX OH WAIT A UKRAINE HOAX OK UM ANYWAY IT IS A HOAX OF SOME KIND?????
Also too, Jay Sekulow needs to now try to stupidly troll Bernie and Elizabeth and Amy Klobs like "Oh don't you wish you were at Iowa Caucus," yeah maybe Jay, but they love America more than you do and are therefore proud to do their Constitutional duty.
Sekulow continues by saying NELLIE OHR and BRUCE OHR and CHRISTOPHER STEELE and DODGY DOSSIER and OMG. OMG. OMG. JAY SEKULOW IS GETTING CLOSE. HE'S GETTING CLOSE. HE'S GETTING CLOSE.
Oh whew , what a relief, Sekulow kept himself from blowing too early.
Anyway, put yourself in Donald Trump's shoes and imagine how much better you would have done literally everything he's ever done.
Look you guys, this is Donald Trump's best lawyer.
1: 49:Jay Sekulow? More like Jay SekuBLOW.
1: 50:Sekulow, huffing and panting, asking if there was a BIDEN-FREE ZONE, where Trump is just not allowed to ask very normal questions about Joe Biden that occur in his normally functioning brain while on the phone with foreign leaders he wants to extort for fake announcements of investigations of Joe Biden in order to help Trump steal an(other) election in 2020?
The following are quotes from Jay Sekulow, trying to say "put yourself in the president's shoes":
PUT YOUR SHOES IN THE
PUT YOUR SHOES IN THE FEET OF THE
Good tries at saying words, Jay Sekulow.
1: 55:SEKULOW: No quid pro quo! ( Yes quid pro quo. ) No pressure! ( Yes pressure. ) Read teh tjaksd;jkjasdipt!! ( READ TEHT RAESAJDJFAIJETP )
Now he is just copying off of Alan Dershowitz's old balls.
And oh, uh oh, he finally just said John Bolton's name! In order to rebut Bolton's claims, Sekulow is using Trump's lie-tweets. Ha, OK, dude.
1: 58:Correction. Sekulow is YELLING TRUMP'S LIE-TWEETS.
1: 59:Jay Sekulow says John Bolton's so-called "evidence" is INADMISSIBLE.
And now we think he is done talking about John Bolton, good try, little buddy.
2: 00:Sekulow says this is just a difference in POLICY . All those impeachment witnesses had one foreign policy, whereas the president's POLICY is to commit crimes to benefit himself personally.
Here, let Fiona Hill explain it for you:
2: 04:Sekulow keeps saying he's not going to go back over their very extensive full-throated defense, which has #factcheck been an absolute joke so far. We agree, please sir, do not dwell on the nonexistent details.
Hey remember how according to Lev Parnas, Jay Sekulow knew about this whole drug deal as it was going down? Remember how he literally got the sign-off to waive conflict from Trump so John Dowd could initially represent Lev Parnas, Rudy's henchman in the drug deal?
Fuck whatever this man is saying, he should be called as a witness.
2: 11:Good lord, what whining is he on about with free exercise of religion and due process? Somebody's Just For Men sounds like it's leaking into his brain.
2: 13:DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! says Jay Sekulow, for reasons we find irrelevant for sharing purposes.
2: 17:Sekulow gets close to saying Bolton's name again, saying MAYBE some things are in SOMEBODY'S book, and yet again says DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!
And Jay Sekulow knows danger, because he experienced that moment before he put whatever that shit in his hair that makes him look like that and presumably heard his hair saying DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!
And that horseshit is, thankfully, over!
Now they are on a break.
2: 45:Pat Cipollone begins his closing by saying they're proven their case, which is not true, but OK.
2: 49:Cipollone, who is supposed to be representing the presidency and not the president personally, plays a bunch of clips of Dems talking during the Clinton impeachment, including Zoe Lofgren, and they are saying a lot of the same things Republicans are saying now.
Which would be a good point if Bill Clinton hadn't been impeached for jizzing and Donald Trump wasn't impeached for selling out our national security and hitting up a foreign country to help him steal an(other) election.
That makes it different.
2: 52:Cipollone wants to "end the era of impeachment for good," so the president he shamefully serves can declare himself king for life, we guess.
And it looks like he rests. Holy shit, they had nothing to say.
So here is where we go from here! Tomorrow begins question-and-answer time, for 16 hours, so that will go all of Wednesday and Thursday. John Roberts will read the questions and the House managers and Trump's lawyers will answer them. Then, presumably they will vote on things like witnesses and documents on Friday.
After today's session, McConnell and the Republicans are going to get in a room together and try to figure out if they can hide from John Bolton's Mustache of Curiosity and Doom.
We are shocked to be closing this liveblog this early, but we guess there will be more 100-hour days in our future, so we'll take it!
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