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Former National Security Advisor John Bolton admitted Wednesday that his testimony in President Donald Trump’s recent impeachment proceedings involving Ukraine would have had no impact on the trial’s outcome even after sections of his upcoming book leaked attempting to convict the president in its final days. “People can argue about what I should have said and what I should have done,” Bolton said at Vanderbilt University Wednesday night during a forum with his predecessor Susan Rice, according to ABC News. “I will bet you a dollar right here and now my testimony would have made no difference to the ultimate...

GAME OVER!

The White House told former national security adviser John Bolton that his manuscript included “significant amounts of classified information,” according to a Jan. 23 letter made public on Jan. 29. Bolton has a book scheduled for a March release; parts of the book were leaked to the media, which published some of the details. The letter was sent to Bolton’s lawyer, Charles Cooper, from Ellen Knight, the senior director for records, access, and information security management for the White House National Security Council. “Based on our preliminary review, the manuscript appears to contain significant amounts of classified information. It also...

Top aides to U.S. President George Bush can be subpoenaed to testify before a congressional committee, a federal court in Washington ruled Thursday. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected White House arguments that former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and current Chief of Staff Josh Bolten have absolute immunity from testifying before Congress. The House Judiciary Committee filed suit after the two, citing executive privilege, refused to testify in the committee's investigation into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. Regarding Miers's claim of absolute immunity, the court wrote, "The (executive branch's) current claim of absolute...

The House Judiciary Committee filed suit Monday to force former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten to provide information about the firing of U.S. attorneys. The lawsuit filed in federal court says Miers is not immune from the obligation to testify and that she and Bolten must identify all documents that are being withheld from Congress. In a statement announcing the lawsuit, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said, "We will not allow the administration to steamroll Congress." Conyers said he is confident the federal courts will agree that the Bush administration's claims...

Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Friday rejected referring the House's contempt citations against two of President Bush's top aides to a federal grand jury. Mukasey says they committed no crime. Mukasey said White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers were right in refusing to provide Congress White House documents or testify about the firings of federal prosecutors. "The department will not bring the congressional contempt citations before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute Mr. Bolten or Ms. Miers," Mukasey wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The House voted two weeks ago...

House Democrats Target Bolten, MiersBy Dan Eggen and Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, January 14, 2008; Page A03 Democratic leaders are preparing to launch the second session of the 110th Congress this week with a partisan shot, hints of conciliation and some serious procrastination. In its first couple of weeks after it returns tomorrow, the House is likely to take up contempt-of-Congress resolutions against White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers for their refusal to appear before Congress for questioning about the 2006 removal of nine U.S. attorneys, Democratic...

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has scheduled a committee vote Thursday on contempt resolutions against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential political guru Karl Rove for failing to respond to subpoenas. Under Judiciary Committee rules, the vote could be postponed for a week, but Leahy said he intends to move the criminal contempt resolutions as soon as possible. Last week, he rejected the White House's executive privilege claim in preventing Rove and Bolten from appearing before his panel, calling it "overbroad, unsubstantiated, and not legally valid," setting the stage for Thursday's showdown. Rove and Bolten...

The House Judiciary Committee, in a straight party-line vote, approved a contempt resolution against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, setting up a constitutional battle between the Bush administration and Congress over executive privilege. After several hours of skirmishing over whether to send a contempt resolution to the House floor, the committee voted by a 22-17 margin to approve the measure. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders will now have to decide if and when to hold a vote by the full House on the resolution. A vote could take...

The United States demanded Wednesday that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan repudiate a speech in which his No. 2 official broke with tradition and accused the United States of undermining the United Nations. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton called the speech by Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown a "very, very grave mistake" that could undermine Annan's own efforts to push through an ambitious agenda of reform at the world body. "I spoke to the secretary-general this morning. I said 'I've known you since 1989 and I'm telling you this is the worst mistake by a senior U.N. official that I have seen...

This report on MSNBC regarding the Minutemen and immigration is much fairer and more balanced than Fox News could ever hope to be. This is an hour long, very in-depth report called, "Crossing the Line."

At the George W. Bush campaign headquarters in Austin, Texas, in 1999, policy director Josh Bolten was a low-key Washingtonian in a building full of brash Texans. He assembled a best-and-brightest team with résumés bristling with brand names like his own--Princeton, Stanford, Goldman Sachs. "He used to brag that he had all these Supreme Court clerks from Harvard working for him," recalled a campaign veteran. Bolten was happy to let others preen in meetings while he waited to make a killer point at the end. He has thrived by showing, very quietly, that he is indispensable. Now as President Bush's...

Joshua B. Bolten, the new White House chief of staff, has raised the possibility of moving Harriet E. Miers from her job as President Bush's counsel as part of a continuing shake-up of the West Wing, an influential Republican with close ties to Mr. Bolten said Thursday. The Republican, who was granted anonymity to talk openly about sensitive internal White House deliberations, said that Mr. Bolten had floated the idea among confidants, but that it was unclear whether he would follow through or if the move would be acceptable to Mr. Bush, who has a longtime personal bond with Ms....

The sudden announcement by Scott McClellan that he is resigning as White House Press Secretary reflected the conclusion by President Bush’s inner circle that visible, dramatic change—something this President has long resisted—is crucial to relaunching the second term and making productive use of his last two and a half years in office. McClellan’s predecessor, Ari Fleischer, told TIME the departure was a selfless recognition by McClellan of the importance of change. "The American people are going to give the President a second look here in his sixth year because he’s engineering these changes," Fleischer said. "That’s helpful. He needs the...

WASHINGTON -- Everybody in Washington's Republican political community was well aware that any changes George W. Bush made in his White House staff would not constitute a shake-up. What nobody expected was that Josh Bolten, in essence a professional bureaucrat, would be promoted to chief of staff. Yet, this selection becomes understandable as a confirmation of Karl Rove's supremacy in the White House.Rove holds the mundane titles of senior adviser to the president and deputy chief of staff, but scarcely anything happens in the Bush administration without his approval. Now he is more influential than ever. Andrew Card, the departing...

    The Rise of BoltenismBy R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Published 3/30/2006 12:09:14 AM WASHINGTON -- Did you catch Senator Harry Reid's reaction to President George W. Bush's replacement of Chief of Staff Andy Card with Budget Director Joshua Bolten? Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, called Bolten a "failure." It could have been worse. He might have inveighed against Bolten's terrible temper. In fact, the Democrats still might sound the alarm over reports of Bolten's terrible temper. Reid called Bolten a failure the same day that the Conference Board's consumer index showed consumer confidence climbing to a near four-year...

Now the question is whether Card wanted to quit his job or whether he needed to. The White House announced Card’s resignation on Tuesday and his replacement, budget director Joshua Bolten. Card first offered his resignation three weeks ago, according to the White House. That was just after the first polls showed just how much the White House was bleeding support after the Dubai ports story. A CBS poll gave Bush a job approval rating of only 34 percent and a personal favorability rating of 29 percent. (NEWSWEEK’s poll later showed the president with a 36-percent approval rating.) Bush won...

Budget Director Joshua Bolten has privately issued an unprecedented challenge to unhappy conservative Republicans in Congress: Go ahead and cut President Bush's domestic budget if you can. We won't oppose you. Bolten addressed GOP lawmakers assembled in Philadelphia just before the budget was released. Conservatives grumbled that Bush's proposed increase in discretionary domestic spending of only one quarter of one percent was bogus, because its reductions in popular programs never will pass Congress.