When the New York Times report on former national security adviser John Bolton broke Sunday night, the White House impeachment team was frantic.
They were immediately bombarded with calls from Republican senators demanding to know more. They met at the White House to triage. And as the night went on, their confidence in denying Democrats witnesses began to dwindle.
At one point, according to multiple people, there were discussions about potentially losing close to a dozen Republicans, when before they had only worried about three or four votes on witnesses.
Trump’s top aides were not feeling good going into yesterday’s arguments. Their main priority was damage control and aides worked overtime in reaching out to senators before 1 p.m. Other attorneys avoided addressing the allegations because they weren’t sure how to deal with it.
Then along came Alan Dershowitz, and his argument that even if what Bolton had written was true, it was not impeachable.
Trump had been complaining that his legal team was boring people, but he was very pleased after Dershowitz, one person said.
This is notable given Trump had been advised against bringing on Dershowitz given his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. And Dershowitz’s friends had cautioned him against getting involved.
Of course it’s still far from clear if witnesses will ultimately be called, and officials acknowledge the pressure has ramped up in recent days because of Bolton’s manuscript.