WASHINGTON—At the White House on Sunday evening, as the phones started ringing nonstop and emails flooded in, President Trump took aim at the cause of the alarm: John Bolton, his former national security adviser.
Mr. Bolton’s recollection in his forthcoming book—that Mr. Trump had put a hold on Ukraine aid to press Kyiv to open an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden —had just leaked. The information ran counter to a key Trump defense that he had held up the aid because of broad corruption concerns, and it turned up the heat on some Republicans to extend the trial by calling witnesses.
As White House aides scrambled to figure out how to respond, Mr. Trump recalled that Mr. Bolton once told him he wanted to be national security adviser because he worried he couldn’t win the Senate confirmation required for many other senior jobs.
“I should have seen that as a red flag,” Mr. Trump said, according to an aide in the room. “But instead, I did the guy a favor, took him at his word that this was a good fit, and this is what he did to me?”
Mr. Bolton didn’t respond to a request to comment.
For the first time, Republican plans for a quick Senate impeachment trial were under threat of derailment. The White House and GOP leadership in the Senate swung into a political good-cop, bad-cop routine to keep the trial on track for a fast acquittal.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. Ky.), aided by White House liaisons, exercised a behind-the-scenes campaign in the chamber to keep his members from panicking and breaking en masse from Mr. Trump. Mr. McConnell’s office even advised the president’s legal team throughout the process on which arguments were important to be made on the floor to resonate with certain undecided senators.
Mr. Trump stayed largely on the sidelines, heeding advice he had received directly from Mr. McConnell to give fence-sitting Republican senators—who were wary both of crossing the president and appearing browbeaten by him—the space to make their own decisions. But he engaged in some political saber-rattling with tweets about the need for a speedy trial resolution and criticism of Mr. Bolton, which was amplified by conservative allies in the media.
“Once he got over being pissed about this whole thing,” an administration official said, “he could see the wisdom of sitting still and letting the Senate come to its conclusions.”
The strategy didn’t prove immediately effective. In a private meeting at lunchtime Monday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R., Utah) made an impassioned speech to his colleagues about the need to hear from Mr. Bolton.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) floated the possibility of bringing in Mr. Bolton and a witness who would appeal to Mr. Trump.
Mr. McConnell’s message to senators then was to stay calm and be patient. He had framed the handling of the trial as a bigger threat to the party’s Senate majority than to the president, and stressed on Monday that there was plenty of time before senators would have to decide, people familiar with the matter said.
At the White House, Mr. Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the Oval Office, when asked about Mr. Bolton’s allegations, Mr. Trump said: “False.” His lawyers, arguing his case in the Senate, made only brief mention of the issue.
That night, the consequences of crossing Mr. Trump started to come into focus for Republicans. On his primetime Fox News show, Tucker Carlson called Mr. Bolton a snake. Lou Dobbs, a host on Fox Business News, referred to Mr. Bolton as a “tool for the radical” Democrats.
By Tuesday, it was clear to Republicans in the White House and the Senate that Mr. Bolton’s account in his draft manuscript, first reported two days earlier by the New York Times, had to be more forcefully addressed, officials said.
White House officials spoke out against Mr. Bolton, as did Trump allies in the Senate. Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.), who considers Mr. Bolton a close friend, patrolled the Senate hallways gripping a printout of talking points matching those pushed by the White House. Other Republican senators bristled, however, unwilling to make a call on who might not be telling the truth between the president and Mr. Bolton, a prominent and longtime conservative in Washington.
On Tuesday afternoon, all 53 Republican senators gathered in an ornate room near the Capitol Rotunda. Mr. McConnell was clutching a card—apparently a tally of Republican votes on the witness question—marked with “yeses,” “noes” and “maybes.”
He told them the vote count wasn’t where it needed to be, according to people familiar with the meeting, and struck an ominous tone, saying the future of the country and the Constitution were at stake. People close to Mr. McConnell were struck by his intensity. They felt that he had moved the needle.
The lone senator Mr. McConnell wasn’t focused on persuading at the meeting was Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine), who faces a tough re-election fight. She had made it clear to the leader and her GOP colleagues from the beginning that she wanted a vote on witnesses and documents.
Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado, Martha McSally of Arizona and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who face competitive races in the fall as well, also addressed their colleagues in the meeting. Other GOP senators, including Mike Lee of Utah, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, all lawyers, made the legal case against witnesses.
Reports that the GOP had yet to secure the needed votes to prevent witnesses increased the tension and suggested for the first time that Mr. Trump’s trial could prove much longer—and potentially more volatile—than at any time since it began almost two weeks before.
Mr. McConnell kept up his cajoling on Wednesday, repeating his argument that the trial wasn’t just about the president, but about preserving the GOP Senate majority, and the sooner it ended the better. He also said that adding witnesses would bog down the Senate in battles over executive privilege—the right of the president to prevent advisers from sharing some information—when the outcome of the trial wasn’t in doubt.
There were signs that the strategy was starting to tamp the momentum for witnesses. Mr. McConnell met that morning with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who was one of the handful viewed as potentially in favor of calling witnesses. “I’m not going to be discussing the witness situation right now,” she said afterward.
Mr. Toomey, who had earlier floated the idea of calling witnesses for both sides, shifted position, telling reporters he didn’t believe that new witnesses could change the outcome of the trial.
But the vote was “still uncertain” as of Wednesday evening, according to Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the GOP whip.
In the White House, the rapid-response communications team, led by Adam Kennedy, deputy communications director, unearthed video of an interview Mr. Bolton gave to Radio Free Europe in August before he left the national security post in which he described Mr. Trump’s interactions with Ukraine as “very warm and cordial”—suggesting it undermined his book excerpt.
Club for Growth, a conservative group that has aligned itself with Mr. Trump, aired a television ad attacking Mr. Romney for siding with Democrats on the need for more witnesses, and referring to Mr. Bolton as a “spotlight-seeking blowhard.”
By Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Trump strolled the halls of the West Wing. “We’re doing good, I think,” he said in a brief exchange with The Wall Street Journal. When asked about the vote for witnesses, he said: “Whatever it is, it is.”
By Thursday lunchtime, GOP support for witnesses was on a knife edge. With Mr. Romney in favor, Ms. Collins a likely, two other GOP senators—Ms. Murkowski and Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee—became pivotal. With their 53-47 Senate majority, the Republicans could afford three defections, down to a 50-50 Senate vote, figuring Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wouldn’t use his power to intervene to break the tie.
At lunch with his colleagues that day, Mr. McConnell didn’t reveal where the vote tally stood. Mr. Alexander, who is retiring, shook his head when asked afterward if he had made a decision. “There’s been no clear declaration of who’s still stewing on it,” said Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana. “It’s going to be very, very close.”
Mr. McConnell met with Mr. Alexander in the leader’s office at dinnertime on Thursday. He had one tactical advantage in keeping the Tennessee senator onside: a half-century of friendship and Mr. Alexander’s rule of thumb to be upfront with the majority leader about whether he would vote against the party.
In the Senate chamber, Ms. Murkowski asked the White House legal team why the Senate shouldn’t call Mr. Bolton. The lawyers responded that House Democrats could have subpoenaed Mr. Bolton, but chose not to. House Democrats have said that Mr. Trump directed administration officials not to testify before the House.
An hour and a half later, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) had persuaded Ms. Murkowski to reframe the question, in effect asking: Even if Mr. Bolton’s account was accurate, would Mr. Trump’s actions amount to an impeachable offense? Mr. Trump’s lawyers said late Thursday that it wouldn’t be. It was a subtle signal that she might be leaning against the need to hear from Mr. Bolton or other witnesses.
Ms. Collins said Thursday evening that, as expected, she would vote for witnesses. But later Mr. Alexander, while terming Mr. Trump’s actions on Ukraine inappropriate, said he saw no need for witnesses.
On Friday around lunchtime, Ms. Murkowski said she, too, saw no need for witnesses, effectively scotching the prospect. Senators on Friday afternoon narrowly voted 51-49 not to have witnesses, the first impeachment trial in U.S. history to exclude them.
Write to Michael C. Bender at Mike.Bender@wsj.com, Lindsay Wise at lindsay.wise@wsj.com, Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@wsj.com and Rebecca Ballhaus at Rebecca.Ballhaus@wsj.com
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How Republicans Scotched the Idea of Witnesses in Trump’s Impeachment Trial - The Wall Street Journal
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