President Trump on Wednesday hardened his opposition to allowing former national security advisor John Bolton to testify in his Senate impeachment trial, citing national security but adding a note of apprehension: “I don’t know if we left on the best of terms.”
“You don’t like people testifying when they didn’t leave on good terms,” Trump said at a news conference before departing from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “And that was due to me, not him.”
Trump’s comments about Bolton, whom he fired in September, suggested his heightened anxiety as the Senate, for only the third time in history, sat in judgment of an impeached president. Hours after Trump spoke, formal arguments for removing him from office began in the Senate. Rep. Adam B. Schiff of Burbank, the lead impeachment manager for House Democrats, read a quote from Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, to argue that Trump was just the sort of despot the Framers had in mind in drafting the Constitution’s impeachment clause.
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Article URL : https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-01-22/opening-arguments-begin-for-trump-impeachment-trial