President Donald Trump falsely claimed Monday that House Democrats didn't try to secure testimony from former national security adviser John Bolton as part of their impeachment inquiry, accusing them of being "in too much of a rush."
Trump's assertion comes as Senate Democrats are pushing for Bolton to be subpoenaed for testimony in the president's impeachment trial, which is set to start in earnest Tuesday.
"They didn't want John Bolton and others in the House," Trump tweeted. "They were in too much of a rush. Now they want them all in the Senate. Not supposed to be that way!"
The president also took a factually dubious dig at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who says he will force votes as early as Tuesday on calling witnesses like Bolton for trial testimony if his Republican colleagues refuse to make such a commitment off the bat.
"Cryin' Chuck Schumer is now asking for 'fairness', when he and the Democrat House members worked together to make sure I got ZERO fairness in the House. So, what else is new?" Trump posted, even though he refused an offer from Democrats to participate in the second half of the impeachment inquiry.
House Democrats requested documents and testimony from Bolton as part of their three-month inquiry into the president's pressure campaign for Ukrainian investigations of Joe Biden and other Democratic rivals.
But Trump ordered Bolton and several other former and current administration officials to stonewall any and all House impeachment requests for testimony and records.
Bolton complied with Trump's orders and made it clear to Democrats that he would take them to court if they subpoenaed him, reasoning that a federal judge should decide which party to listen to.
Acknowledging that such a court case would likely drag on for months, Democrats never subpoenaed Bolton before impeaching Trump on Dec. 18 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Since then, Bolton has announced he's willing to testify at Trump's Senate impeachment trial if he's subpoenaed.
Bolton cited his change of heart to a court case involving Charles Kupperman, his former deputy on the White House National Security Council.
Kupperman was subpoenaed in the House impeachment inquiry, but followed Trump's orders and asked a federal judge to decide who he should listen to.
In late December, the judge declared Kupperman's case moot without delivering a final verdict, and Bolton said that was good enough for him to testify in the Senate trial.
Schumer and other Senate Democrats want testimony from Bolton, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and two other White House officials who never testified in the House.
Bolton and Mulvaney have been described in testimony as some of the most important firsthand witnesses of Trump's attempts to pressure Ukraine's president to announce investigations of Biden and a Russia-promoted conspiracy theory about the 2016 election while holding up $391 million in U.S. military aid as leverage.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has yet to unveil his proposed blueprint for a trial. He has previously said he wants to shelve all votes on potentially calling new witnesses until opening arguments are over.
On Sunday, Schumer said he will force votes Tuesday if McConnell follows through on that pledge in his proposal.
"We are going to do it at the beginning on Tuesday if leader McConnell doesn't call for these witnesses in his proposal," Schumer said during a press conference in New York. "Then if they say well let's wait and hear the arguments we'll want a vote after they hear the arguments as well and we will do everything we can to force votes again."
