John Bolton Now Says He Is Ready And Willing To Testify If Congress Subpoenas Him
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Thanks for joining us today on INSIDE POLITICS. A very busy day. Don't go anywhere. Brianna Keilar continues our breaking news coverage right now. Have a great afternoon.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: I'm Brianna Keilar live from CNN's Washington headquarters and we begin with breaking news that could tremendously impact negotiations over President Trump's impeachment trial. Trump's former National Security Adviser, John Bolton now says he is ready and willing to testify if Congress subpoenas him. Bolton's name came up during key testimony. The President's former top Russia adviser, Fiona Hill, told Congress that Bolton directed her to talk to National Security lawyers at the White House after becoming aware Rudy Giuliani was spearheading an effort to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son. Bolton also called Giuliani a hand grenade who will blow up -- who will blow everyone up according to Hill and referred to the alleged quid pro quo as a drug deal. Kylie Atwood is live at the State Department. So Kylie, do we know what prompted Bolton's decision to testify?</s>KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: We don't know specifically what led to this statement today, Brianna, but what we are learning, according to a source familiar is that John Bolton tried to reach out to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell before he blasted this statement out on Twitter, essentially, to give the Majority Leader a heads up that he was going to be saying that, yes, if I am subpoenaed, I will provide testimony in the Senate trial. Now, of course, they have not made a decision, a formal decision as to if there will be folks that are coming up and providing testimony, witnesses that are part of this Senate trial. But it is important to note, however, that the White House did not know that this statement was coming and there was no one else up on Capitol Hill who was given a heads up. It was quite a shocking statement to see today, and of course, it comes as Congress is planning to come back and figure out what this Senate trial is going to look like. This is going to be a very key part of that. Now, John Bolton is someone who had faced criticism over the last few months because he did not provide testimony as part of the House Impeachment Inquiry, but he was not subpoenaed by the House. And he was, according to a source familiar, quite curious about that and surprised that he was not subpoenaed because he was dangling out the fact that he knew information about the withholding of aid to Ukraine, that had not been disclosed by other officials who provided testimony. So clearly, he is saying that he is willing to testify. There are a lot of questions about if that will happen and what the legalities will look like if the White House tries to prevent him from providing any of the information he knows. But a source familiar with this statement and his crafting of this statement, essentially says that it speaks for itself, he is willing to provide that testimony. And that is big news today -- Brianna.</s>KEILAR: Yes, it certainly is. Kylie, thank you so much. Now Democrats right now are already pointing to Bolton's willingness to testify as a big boost for them. CNN's Senior Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju joins me now from Capitol Hill. Manu, what are you hearing?</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Democrats believe that the decision by the Speaker Nancy Pelosi to withhold those Articles of Impeachment and not send them over to the Senate has actually worked to their advantage. Now, that is their argument. They're saying that in the interim, time over the last couple of weeks, they have seen some developments and learned some issues from the press about documents suggesting the President's knowledge of the withholding of that Ukraine aid and other matters, as well as now this new significant development of John Bolton saying he is willing to testify before the Senate in a trial. Now, Nancy Pelosi is still unclear when she would send over those Articles of Impeachment. There's expectation on Capitol Hill that it could be any day, but she is not saying yet. And Mitch McConnell is saying he will not start a trial until he gets those Articles of Impeachment. But what I'm hearing from a senior Democratic aide is that they believe that this strategy has had value because it led to this development of John Bolton indicating his willingness to testify. Now, the same aide told me that there's been no advance notice given to the Speaker's office that Bolton would provide this statement. But the question ultimately now is what the next step is moving forward on this testimony. Now, in order to get John Bolton to testify, there needs to be 51 senators in the chamber to vote to compel him to come forward and we know 47 Democrats serve in the chamber, likely all of them would vote to do so. But are there four Republican senators who would agree to go that far? That is still a question. We still have not yet heard from Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader in an official statement about how he plans to pursue things, but expect him largely to say what he's been saying for last couple of weeks. They should begin the trial, have the opening arguments, then they can deal with the witnesses later? The question, Brianna, is if there is not ultimately enough votes to get John Bolton to come forward, if Republicans decide not to compel his testimony, issue him a subpoena, do House Democrats then go forward and issue a subpoena to get him to testify for their chamber?</s>RAJU: Bolton has not said he would testify before the House, but something that he has not said definitively, one way or another whether he would ultimately testify in light of this new statement, and we still don't know whether the House will go that route, ultimately. But at the moment, the question is on the Senate whether the Senate Republicans do and if there are enough votes to compel his testimony, but it is definitely scrambling the calculation on Capitol Hill with John Bolton's very significant statement here -- Brianna.</s>KEILAR: It certainly is. Manu, thank you. Manu Raju live for us from Capitol Hill. And joining me now to discuss is CNN Chief Political Analyst, Gloria Borger and former Federal prosecutor, Joseph Moreno. Okay. So how does this now add, Gloria, to the ammunition that House Democrats are demanding, right? They have ammunition as they demand for witnesses to be called in and they want the Senate to basically have witnesses they didn't have. Does this help?</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, yes, tremendously. As Manu was pointing out, I think there's a lot of pressure now on Mitch McConnell and you never know what Mitch McConnell's going to do and how he is going to react to pressure. But you have had Republicans complaining that the Democratic case against Donald Trump was all hearsay, people who didn't have firsthand information. And Bolton was everywhere, heard everything, is the person who can provide firsthand information about what occurred with Ukraine. He is also somebody who has been testified about as having said, I think it was Fiona Hill, you know, who talked about how he was saying, you know, I don't want to get involved in there -- in the drug deal -- in the Mulvaney and Sondland drug deal. He said, Rudy Giuliani is a grenade that's going to blow everybody up. So they want to hear from him. And I don't see how Mitch McConnell can make the case, well, we want a fair trial in the Senate, while denying somebody who has firsthand information the ability to testify when he says he's willing to do it.</s>KEILAR: What if that does happen though, Joe? I mean, what are the -- what are the levers that House Democrats can perhaps pull? What then?</s>JOSEPH MORENO, FORMER D.O.J. PROSECUTOR: Okay, so House Democrats can still subpoena him now. Just because the President has been impeached doesn't mean they can't effectively reopen that subpoena.</s>BORGER: But he doesn't want to go to the House.</s>MORENO: He doesn't want to go to the House. Okay, so now the Senate. Let's just say that Bolton does get a subpoena, let's say either Mitch McConnell concedes or four Republicans jump ship and vote with the Democrats. Bolton is not saying though, that he would not respect a court order. And what will most definitely happen is that the White House will challenge that subpoena. So we will back where we started. Bolton will say, look, I'm happy to respond to a subpoena if a court tells me to, and we will be in the same boat we were as if the House Democrats had subpoenaed him in the first place.</s>BORGER: And then I think the question is, what if the court says, you have to testify. I think Bolton is aware of issues of privilege, et cetera, et cetera. But, as were other people who testified before the House, but what if the court then speeds up the process and says, well, you do need to.</s>MORENO: That's the ultimate test. It is easy for him to say this now, it's a lot harder for him to defy a court. So I think that either way; we're going to have to see this play out in the courts and then we'll find out if Bolton really will show up and we'll hear from him. And he is essential, there's no doubt about that. Any fair proceeding meant we should have heard from him, if not in the House, definitely in the Senate.</s>KEILAR: Because as you mentioned, what we know just through what Fiona Hill said, right, but there's a lot more we want to know. What else? What other questions would Democrats would really -- any on the up and up investigator want to know from Bolton?</s>BORGER: Well, they really would want to know, what was the actual story about why this aid got held up? And I might caution here that while the Democrats are eager to hear from Bolton, don't forget who John Bolton is. He is a true conservative. He is a conservative on foreign policy. Clearly, the President and he have no love lost, obviously. But this is a difficult situation for John Bolton who wants to have a career after this among conservatives. And so how is John Bolton going to handle testifying this way, in a way that perhaps might put the President in a bad light? I mean, it was sort of the, I quit, you're fired when he left and --</s>KEILAR: That's right.</s>BORGER: And you know, he has lately been praising the President on his moves on Iran.</s>KEILAR: That's right, because he's very hard line on Iran.</s>BORGER: Right.</s>KEILAR: Gloria, thank you so much. Joe, really appreciate it. And now to the crisis that is unfolding between the U.S. and Iran after the targeted strike on a top Iranian General. His family now vowing revenge. Plus, President Trump doubling down on threats to target Iranian cultural sites. That's actually considered a war crime to do so. And Speaker Nancy Pelosi moving to limit the President's authority on Iran and the President fires back. This is CNN's special live coverage.