CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin offered some strong words of caution about the House Democrats’ impeachment strategy of forging ahead without a potentially long, court fight to compel the testimony of Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton: “It’s a big sacrifice to give up those two witnesses.”

Speaking with anchor John Berman, Toobin said he understood the reasoning behind the move — to avoid a drawn-out distraction that could sap the inquiry’s current momentum of near-daily revelations — but still questioned its long-term wisdom.

Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, would be a key witness simply because of his now-infamous acknowledgement of a quid pro quo during his disastrous press conference three weeks ago (which he then clumsily tried to walk back). But Mulvaney’s stature as potential star witness grew even more on Friday after publicly-released testimony on Friday named him as having coordinated the quid pro quo messaging toward Ukraine.

As for Bolton, his own lawyer has dangled the potential testimony of Trump’s former National Security Adviser as having great impact on the impeachment hearings. And other witnesses have testified to Bolton’s disdainful, colorful language of alleged White House misconduct, like “hand grenade,” to describe Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, and “drug deal,” to characterize Giuliani’s quid pro quo attempts.

“I think the Democrats are making a choice here which I don’t know is the right choice,” Toobin warned. “There are two witnesses who could really talk about what [President] Donald Trump himself said about the relationship with Ukraine. Because they are the ones who saw him every day. Remember the Republican defense here is that all these lower-level witnesses are just hearsay. You have Mick Mulvaney the Chief of Staff and John Bolton, the National Security Adviser. And both of them have refused to testify so far. Their legal position is somewhat different, but, in fact, they have said they’re not going to testify absent a court order. As you heard from Congressman [Denny] Heck, they’re not going to court. They are simply think they have enough without these two witnesses. Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. I don’t know. That’s a big sacrifice to give up those two witnesses.”

“It’s timing. You go to court, this is weeks or months,” Berman pointed out.

“It is,” Toobin allowed.

“[Democrats] don’t have weeks or months…in their mind,” Berman said.

“But you could also do two things at once,” Toobin countered. “Maybe it is too slow. And maybe they’re too risky. Maybe they think these witnesses will turn on them. I just think, if you want to know the facts, you would really want to hear from Mulvaney and Bolton.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/2WUkGN2