Thread by @TheViewFromLL2

I want to flag an important detail in the Bolton story that I suspect we'll hear more about in the day's come.

What Bolton describes in his book is not the same quid pro quo arrangement described by Sondland, Taylor, Morrison, et al.

Testimony before the House, as well as supporting records from Volker and Giuliani, confirmed the existence of a quid pro quo that involved a WH visit and security assistance in exchange for Ukraine publicly announcing an investigation into Biden and the 2016 election.

But Bolton says that in his mid-August meeting with Trump, Trump described a quid pro quo with Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine "turning over all materials they had about the Russia investigation that related to Mr. Biden and supporters of Mrs. Clinton in Ukraine."

This is striking in a number of respects.

First, it suggests that Trump's conspiracy theories about Ukraine reached a level of batshittery not previously reported on. By August, Trump had come to believe that *Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton were behind the Muller investigation.*

Which, if the President was watching Fox, kind of makes sense in a way. Reporting across Hannity, Tucker, Ingraham, etc., often ran pieces on Ukraine that blurred together vague innuendo about Biden and Yovanovitch and "Ukrainian interference" into a confusing jumble.

And from Bolton's account of the August convo, Trump described a quid pro quo in which he would release the aid not in exchange for a Ukrainian investigation into this conspiracy, but in exchange for Ukraine handing over materials for *a U.S.* investigation into this conspiracy.

Now, the evidence conclusively shows that, through September, Giuliani and Ambassador Sondland continued their attempts to pressure the Ukrainian president into announcing a Biden investigation in Ukraine. That quid pro quo was still on the table.

But Bolton's account adds another layer to Trump's scheme.

Trump wasn't just seeking for Ukraine to announce an investigation. He wanted to use materials from Ukraine (or whatever dubious origin) to have AG Barr launch a domestic investigation into both Biden and Clinton.

At the time, Barr was conducting a "inquiry" into the origins of the Russia investigation, though the DOJ had not yet found a justification to open it as a criminal investigation. The quid pro quo Trump described to Bolton seems aimed at providing assistance to Barr's mission.

After the July 25th call memo was released – which showed Trump urging Zelensky to talk to Barr, telling him, "I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it" – the DOJ was forced to release a statement trying to explain Barr's involvement.

In that statement, the DOJ explicitly acknowledged that the DOJ, via Durham, was investigating Ukraine's role in the Russia investigation, and that the DOJ had received unspecified materials from unspecified Ukrainians who were not government officials.

So, in the next few days, be prepared for the inevitable Republican response to the Bolton revelations: 'Bolton's testimony is about a quid pro quo for materials to help a U.S. investigation, which is a proper public purpose that Pres. Trump had every right to ask Ukraine for.'

This is bogus, of course. Republican Senators will pretend to believe it, and Jim Jordan will do the cable news rounds to talk about how great it is that Trump was engaged in strategic foreign policy to achieve an important U.S. objective: Discovering The Truth of 2016.

But (1) the quid pro quo Bolton describes is, hands down, an impeachable offense, and (2) that ain't the only quid pro quo Bolton knew about.

And on AT LEAST 3 occasions – July 10, Sep 1, and Sep 7 – Bolton was involved in making a paper trail to document the other quid pro quo.