For years, John Bolton was the left’s boogeyman. Now, he’s the Obi-Wan Kenobi to their Princess Leia: “Help us, John Bolton, you’re our only hope!”

The New York Times published an article that allegedly contains leaks from Bolton’s book manuscript, which supposedly confirms the quid pro quo dreams of the Democrats.

President Donald Trump told his national security adviser he wanted to maintain a freeze on military assistance to Ukraine until it aided political investigations into his Democratic rivals, according to a report in The New York Times on Sunday.”

The newspaper said John Bolton’s description of his exchange with Trump appears in drafts of his forthcoming book. The revelation challenges the defense offered up by Trump and his attorneys in his Senate impeachment trial and raises the stakes as the chamber decided this week whether to seek sworn testimony from Bolton and other witnesses.”

Bolton, who acrimoniously left the White House a day before Trump ultimately released the Ukraine aid on Sept. 11, has already told lawmakers that he is willing to testify, despite the president’s order barring aides from cooperating in the probe.”

This immediately set Chuck Schumer to beating his witness drum.

John Bolton has the evidence.

It’s up to four Senate Republicans to ensure that John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, and the others with direct knowledge of President Trump’s actions testify in the Senate trial.https://t.co/JbazBaYdRU

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 26, 2020

However, Democrats maybe should not be so quick to run with this. First of all, without confirming or denying the report itself, Bolton’s lawyer is plenty angry that anything alleging to be a book excerpt is being published in the media, and denies the claim made by the NYT that Bolton himself had multiple people reading his manuscript.

The Times further reported that Bolton had circulated “drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates” and also “sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.”

Sarah Tinsley, a senior adviser to Bolton, told Fox News he had submitted a hard copy draft of his manuscript to the NSC [National Security Council] several weeks ago for “pre-publication review,” but had not shared it with anyone else. The NSC is the White House’s internal national security and foreign policy arm.”

In a statement obtained by Fox News, Bolton attorney Charles Cooper lamened that the review process had been “corrupted.”

“On December 30, 2019, I submitted, on behalf of Ambassador Bolton, a book manuscript to the National Security Council’s Records Management Division for standard prepublication security review for classified information. As explained in my cover letter to Ellen J. Knight, Senior Director of the Records Management Division, we submitted the manuscript notwithstanding our firm belief that the manuscript contained no information that could reasonably be considered classified and on the assurance that the ‘process of reviewing submitted materials is restricted to those career government officials and employees regularly charged with responsibility for such reviews’ and that the ‘contents of Ambassador Bolton’s manuscript will not be reviewed or otherwise disclosed to any persons not regularly involved in that process.'”

Cooper continued: “A copy of my December 30 letter is attached. It is clear, regrettably, from The New York Times article published today that the prepublication review process has been corrupted and that information has been disclosed by persons other than those properly involved in reviewing the manuscript.”

It’s undeniable that Bolton and Trump had irreconcilable differences over foreign policy, which led to Bolton’s resignation. It’s also undeniable that the Democrats, who flipped out when Bolton was named National Security Advisor, are now begging him to make the Bad Orange Man go away.

Dems and media begging at the feet of John Bolton will never not be funny.

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) January 26, 2020

There is more than one problem with demanding that Bolton be called to testify. First, the Democrats gave up on attempting to subpoena Bolton when they held all the cards in the House. Bolton’s lawyer told the House Democrats that if he was subpoenaed, he would appeal to the court to reconcile their subpoena with Trump’s claim of executive privilege. Knowing that a court ruling would delay their impeachment timetable – whatever that was, given the Pelosi delay – the House Democrats simply gave up. As we have written about before, Democrats in both the House and Senate have been trying to shame and blame Republicans for not letting them turn in their impeachment homework after it was due.

Second, Bolton has indicated that he is willing to testify. Democrats are banking on him saying exactly what the Times is reporting. But what if Bolton gets up there and says, “yes, Trump wanted a full accounting of Hunter Biden’s activity with Burisma, in order to discover if the Obama administration was corrupt in letting Joe Biden handle Ukraine policy.” That puts an entirely different spin on things, doesn’t it? Democrats want Bolton to say that this was all about getting dirt on Joe Biden for the 2020 election. Can they absolutely guarantee that this is what Bolton will say? Remember, Biden bragged about getting Viktor Shokin fired in exchange for a billion dollars in aid – on camera. How can Democrats be sure that whatever Bolton says won’t immediately blow back on them in the form of questions about Biden’s potential corruption?

Joe Biden brags about how he threatened to pull $1 billion in loan guarantees from Ukraine if it didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

The prosecutor, who was fired, was leading a corruption investigation into a company that employed Biden's son, Hunter pic.twitter.com/xZd3vIMbuL

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) September 20, 2019

Finally – if Bolton testifies, Hunter Biden will be supoenaed as a witness. It’s that simple. If you’re not following Senator Ted Cruz’s new podcast, “Verdict,” where he does a half-hour recap of each day of the impeachment trial, you need to be. Not only is Cruz summing up what has happened over hours and hours, but he’s also giving insight to the thoughts of the senators who are having to sit through it. And if Bolton ends up being called as a witness, you can bet your bottom dollar that Hunter Biden will also be called to the hot seat.

Cruz has been open to calling witnesses if there are votes, but this is not going to be like it was in the House. If the Democrats want Bolton to testify, Hunter Biden will be called up. Senator Cruz also has said that Hunter could be compelled to testify, even if he pleads the Fifth, by a granting of immunity. The court would then inform Hunter that he must testify. Is this the can of worms that the Democrats want to open? That’s not even getting into the fact that barely anyone is paying attention to impeachment now, and witnesses would stretch the trial out, which would essentially shut down the campaigns of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Michael Bennet.

At this point in the impeachment trial, it would take a bombshell for President Trump to be removed from office. With this leak to the Times, Democrats are pinning all their hopes and dreams on John Bolton delivering for them, after years of trashing him. Bolton might not agree with Trump about foreign policy, but he’s not stupid. The odds that Bolton says anything more than Fiona Hill did, who worked under him at the National Security Council, is almost certainly zero.

If the Democrats are hoping to use this New York Times story to push for Bolton to be called as a witness to save their impeachment case, I’ll have to pull another, more recent, Star Wars quote on them: “This is not going to go the way you think.”

Also, the Bolton book just went live on Amazon for pre-orders. Amazing coincidence, no?

Featured image: John Bolton (official White House photo by Tia Dufour) on May 1, 2019, cropped, public domain