pelosi s mind. mcgahn is a stalking horse for mick mulvaney and don mcgahn has no excuse thought to go in. if he gets enough of his book written, which he s trying to do, he s ready to testify. he wants to promote that book and be a star again in the country. but the mcgahn ruling, i think, would give him that opening and my guess is mick mulvaney, who know nows he ll be fired, the same. so again the i don t think we re going to see a second impeachment on obstruction, whether we should or shouldn t legally. but i think this is a stalking horse to get at other witnesses. so go ahead. i was going to say more bolton because he s not currently in the administration. this is an open question even during the course of the impeachment inquiry. would the rulings come in time to open the flood gates for the other people like bolton and charles kupperman but if we re talking about what cory s point
as too much evidence. and so i understand the political imperative. i understand why democrats feel they need to move quickly. i would just prefer to know everything.to and if i can t know everything,i i would prefer to know as much as i could possibly know. and if that means tapping on the brakes slightly, that makes sense.on and oh, by the way, chris, i don t really care if a witness has an r or a d after their name. if they re telling the truth i d like to hear it. and this goes back to argument bolton s attorneys are now making. b and after all some of his deputies have already come before the committee and given h their testimony.he often it s testimony about bolton, about bolton s concerns, about bolton instructing them to go tell the lawyers.lt and, nancy, their lawyer is holding la while the mcgahn ruling has nothing to do with him, but he s a former official who has his subpoena withdrawn, i believe. but presumably a subpoena would fall under the exact same legal
compulsory congressional proce process, no matter how many times the executive branch has asserted as much over the years, even if the president expressly directs such officials noncompliance. she said essentially over 250 years of recorded american history, we ve established that presidents are not kings. so what was remarkable about this ruling, she not only answered the question about whether don mcgahn should show up to respond to this subpoena from the house but also other national security officials and even the president himself. and of course you point out correctly that don mcgahn no longer works for the white house or the administration. this is somebody who is now a former official. what does this now mean, evan, for other officials who you know have refused to testify? i m talking about john bolton or mick mulvaney or other officers, officials like charles kupperman? what about them? well, you know, it s not clear right now because obviously this is a ruling that the j
liberties, although i m sad to say of course what you re going to see is trump and his supporters are then going to trash the judge just like they trash anybody else who tries to impose any kind of limitations on what this president can do. so will this ruling speak to someone like a john bolton, max? well, i don t know that it s going to speak to him directly. again, i think to the point that we were just discussing, i think, you know, ultimately if somebody like john bolton wants to avoid testifying, i suspect he will find a way just by dragging the process out, and democrats have made clear they don t want to hold up the entire impeachment process simply to try to compel testimony from people like bolton. but they should not be hiding behind legalities. what this makes clear is if john bolton is not testifying, it s not because he s not allowed to testify under the law. it s because he has something to hide or because he s waiting to deliver his testimony in return for a $2 mill
able to testify and did testify. did this new ruling now give some cover to those who said, look, i have to. my rock and my hard place has gone away. the judge says we got to do it and mcgahn is a good litmus test for us. i d like to say yes but i have to say no because this ruling was already issued in 2008 by judge john bates who i worked with in ken starr s whitewater independent counsel. and judge bates said in 2008, listen, there is no such thing as immunity for people who work for the president. and in fact, when presidents nixon and president clinton went up to the supreme court challenging subpoenas, they both lost. and so the argument is, listen, if presidents don t have absolute immunity from subpoenas, certainly the advisers, the people that work with the president don t have absolute immunity. this challenge, this claim really was something that was off the edge or on the edge of what is legally even legitimate for a lawyer.