January 30, 2020

Suddenly, Questioning of Bolton Looks Unlikely

Why yes, he is.Ryan Rahman/Pacific Press via ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

This is ridiculous. Yesterday the rumor mill said it was all but certain that the Senate would vote to call witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial. Today it’s now all but certain that they won’t. I know that internet time speeds everything up, but this is ridiculous. Nothing happened in the past 24 hours. But hey, Trump sets new precedents for bad behavior every day, so why not set another?

If the Senate chooses to not hear from witnesses, it will be the first time a presidential impeachment trial does not include witnesses. The previous impeachments both included new witnesses who did not testify as part of the House investigation.

There you have it. The Trump Republicans are going beyond even the Radical Republicans and the Gingrich Republicans in their partisan rancor. Why am I not surprised?

For the record, if Republicans stick together and prevent witnesses from testifying, I think it’s because they now realize it could cause real trouble. In the best case (for them), Bolton confirms that Trump tried to extort Ukraine for fake dirt on Joe Biden, but everyone already knows that. If it could be ignored for the past four months, it can be ignored for the next four days. But the worst case is that Bolton says something new that leads to questioning of other witnesses and eventually to something that even Republicans can’t ignore. Even the supposedly moderate Republicans are probably scared to death of that.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate