Trump asked China’s Xi to help him win reelection, according to Bolton book | Hacker News Reader

Trump asked China’s Xi to help him win reelection, according to Bolton book

washingtonpost.com

19 pointssecfirstmd5 comments

I feel like there's some deeper game here that I don't understand, when Bolton (reportedly) says that the President did many things similar to or worse than the Ukraine episode and the impeachment should have pursued them. And then prominent Democrats fire back saying that he refused to testify, so why is he saying this now? I can't tell what anyone's motivations are. Everybody engages in elaborate dances, everybody agrees the President is terrible, but they accomplish nothing.

Bolton's might be to sell copies of a book. Democrats might be to avoid looking bad, to hopefully win the next election.

Somewhere in there, one side or the other (or even both) might care about the truth, or about doing what is good for America. Maybe.

I can understand someone wanting to make money by selling a book. And I can understand someone not wanting to do the heroic thing to save the country if it looked too personally costly. But at some point, it looks from afar like it would have been easier to just take him down, which makes a paranoid mind ask what's really going on and is there hidden protection?

I think if the House had subpoenaed Bolton, he would have refused to show up. This would have opened him up to be sued, but it would have been a long, drawn out process in the courts, which would have prolonged the impeachment proceedings by several months, by which time public opinion on the impeachment proceedings could have become negative.

Totally guessing, but one possibility is that Bolton thought Trump should be gotten rid of, but didn’t want to be the star witness in an impeachment of a Republican president. Especially one which would not result in removal. And now he’s regretting that and trying to rationalise it by blaming someone else.

But honestly ‘you should have pursued these things that no-one, including me, would testify on’ is a weird take.

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