Nadler Rips Bolton for Accusing House Dems of ‘Impeachment Malpractice’: He’s ‘No One to Talk’ After Refusal to Testify
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler swatted former White House national security adviser John Bolton for panning the handling of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial after refusing to be a part of it when he had the chance.
Nadler joined CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday to talk about how Attorney General William Barr had Geoffrey Berman fired after saying he had “no intention of resigning” after Barr claimed he was stepping down as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. As Nadler remarked on how many investigations the SDNY has conducted in connection to Trump, he was asked for his thoughts on calls for Barr’s impeachment.
His answer:
“No. I don’t think calls for impeachment are premature, any more than the calls for the president’s impeachment were premature. But they are a waste of time at this point because we know we have a corrupt Republican majority in the Senate which will not consider an impeachment no matter what the evidence and no matter what the facts. So we’re instead going to do what we have to do without that.”
After doubling down that Republican senators who voted for Trump’s acquittal were “corrupt against the interest of the country,” Nadler was eventually asked about how Bolton’s new book accuses House Democrats of “impeachment malpractice.” As Tapper noted, Bolton thinks the impeachment trial didn’t go far enough since it didn’t prosecute Trump for his foreign policy transgressions beyond the Ukraine scandal.
“Well, the fact is that the president could’ve been impeached on other grounds too, such as obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation. We chose to try to keep it simple,” Nadler said. “And Bolton who has, as we now know, evidence that he could have offered and refused to offer, is certainly no one to talk.”
Tapper noted that Bolton did offer to testify before the Senate, but Nadler noted that Bolton also “refused to testify before the House…and the Senate of course was never going to call him because the Senate Republicans were not interested in any evidence. As I said, they were corrupt in that respect.”
Nadler went on to say “we’re not interested in Bolton’s testimony” before his committee, explaining that the Senate will stonewall the fallout from that and “this will be a waste of time and effort.”
Watch above, via CNN.
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