House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a new interview Tuesday evening that Democrats may seek to subpoena former White House chief of staff John Kelly as a witness in President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.
Nadler pointed to comments Kelly made Monday in which he said he believes assertions reportedly made by former national security adviser John Bolton in a draft of his upcoming memoir. Nadler said Kelly’s comments may signal he has firsthand knowledge of the conduct at issue in Trump’s trial.
“That would seem to indicate that he has knowledge of what Bolton’s testifying to,” Nadler said during the MSNBC interview on Tuesday, naming Kelly as among those on a shortlist of desired witnesses.
A book manuscript by Bolton reportedly claims Trump personally told him last August that he wanted to continue to withhold military assistance to Ukraine until the country helped with investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats.
At an event in Sarasota, Fla., on Monday, Kelly threw his support behind Bolton.
“If John Bolton says that in the book, I believe John Bolton,” Kelly said at the event, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “Every single time I was with him … he always gave the president the unvarnished truth.”
The Senate is expected to vote this week on the pivotal issue of whether new witnesses and documentary evidence will be admitted at Trump’s Senate trial.