Nothing to See Here: Revelations from the new book by former National Security Adviser John Bolton have been described as a “bombshell” for the impeachment trial of President Trump. Bolton claims that President Trump bluntly said he was withholding military aid from Ukraine in exchange for an investigation of Vice President Joe Biden.

  That’s the heart of the impeachment charges.

  Reports say the White House knew the contents of the Bolton book since late December, but Senate Republicans were blindsided yesterday.

  Despite leadership plans to call no witnesses and quickly scuttle the case, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney said, “I think it’s increasingly likely that other Republicans will join those of us who think we should hear from John Bolton.” 

  In the trial yesterday, Trump lawyers argued all day about the unfairness of the impeachment process, Nancy Pelosi’s souvenir impeachment pens, and letting the voters decide in November — all of them ignoring the Bolton revelation. Central to their case is the argument that Trump did not commit an actual crime, although that point is debatable.

  Ken Starr, who drove the Bill Clinton impeachment, described a “runaway House.”

  Defense lawyer Pam Bondi went on for 30 minutes about Joe Biden’s dealings with Ukraine as Vice President, and his son Hunter’s admittedly fishy employment as a board member for a Ukraine energy company.  She said, “Multiple house Democrat witnesses, including those from the Department of State, the National Security Council, and others unanimously testified there was a potential appearance of a conflict of interest.”

  But did it amount to corruption, and was it the corruption Trump claimed he was fighting?

   Then celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz provided the kicker, saying, “Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power, or an impeachable offense.”

  The retired Harvard law professor, who once said impeachment does not require a crime, said, the founders “would have explicitly rejected such vague terms as abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.” 

Witness: With some cracks showing in the Republican wall, two law professors and a former congressman wrote in an opinion piece in The NY Times  that Democrats don’t have to wait for the Republicans to allow witnesses; the Chief Justice presiding over the trial has the power to do it. They write that, “The impeachment rules, like all trial systems, put a large thumb on the scale of issuing subpoenas and place that power within the authority of the judge, in this case the chief justice.”

  “Most critically,” they say, “it would take a two-thirds vote — not a majority — of the Senate to overrule that.”

  The President’s defenders have said there are no direct witnesses who have testified that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine for the promise and announcement of an investigation of former Vice President Biden and his son. Bolton, if he is called and allowed to testify, would be that witness.

  Bolton wrote that Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney also had direct knowledge, but Mulvaney’s lawyer issued a statement denying that. “The latest story from The New York Times, coordinated with a book launch, has more to do with publicity than the truth,” Mulvaney’s lawyers wrote. 

In the Fog: Investigators are focusing on heavy fog as the cause of the helicopter crash that killed NBA great Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven other people. Bryant’s pilot had asked flight control for permission to fly under 1,000 feet because of poor visibility. Just before the crash, he reported that he was climbing to avoid a cloud bank.

  Sadly, people who die in accidents with celebrities are often listed anonymously as “also dead.” Those who died Sunday with Bryant were; John Altobelli, a longtime baseball coach at Orange Coast College; his wife, Keri; their daughter Alyssa; Sarah Chester; her daughter Payton; Christina Mauser, a basketball coach; Ara Zobayan, the pilot.

The Bulletin Board: Fire ripped through a boat dock in Scottsboro, Alabama, Monday night, killing eight people, some of them children. Some people lived on boats in the marina. — A second woman testified yesterday that she was sexually assaulted by movie producer Harvey Weinstein, this time in his Manhattan loft. Six women are testifying. — The number of people killed by the coronavirus in China has risen above 100 and the US has issued a warning about travelling to that country. — Britain’s Prince Andrew is refusing to cooperate with the FBI in its investigation of the late sex perv Jeffrey Epstein.

Commatose: As if Britain’s exit from the European Union hasn’t been long and painful enough, the nation is now torn in disagreement over the lack of an Oxford comma on the commemorative Brexit 50 pence coin. 

  The Oxford comma, standard in Britain, is the comma hung on the last word of a series of items before the word “and.” To the shock, horror, and surprise of Oxford comma defenders, the royal mint struck three million coins bearing the slogan “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations.”

  Philip Pullman, author of the novel “His Dark Materials,” tweeted, “The ‘Brexit’ 50p coin is missing an Oxford comma, and should be boycotted by all literate people.” Times Literary Supplement editor Stig Abell wrote that, while it was “not perhaps the only objection” to the Brexit-celebrating coin, “the lack of a comma after ‘prosperity’ is killing me”.

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