US chief justice refuses senator's whistleblower query

WASHINGTON

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts declined Thursday to read a question from Sen. Rand Paul that sought to publicly name the hitherto anonymous intelligence community whistleblower.

During the final day of a question and answer portion of U.S. President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, Roberts took up the card with Paul's question, telling the chamber, "The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted."

Roberts did not say what was in the question, but Paul stormed out of the Senate impeachment hearing where he and the remaining 99 other senators are serving as jurors.

The Kentucky senator then held a news conference in which he said, "I think this is an important question, one that deserves to be asked. It makes no reference to anybody who may or may not be a whistleblower."

But in reading his question, Paul named a House Intelligence Committee staffer and the individual whom some conservative media outlets have named as the person whose complaint brought to light Trump's requests that Ukraine open criminal investigations into leading Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

The whistleblower complaint set off a series of actions that culminated in Trump's impeachment on two articles -- abuse of power and obstruction of Congress -- by the House of Representatives in December.

Paul said he wanted to ask the House managers prosecuting the case and Trump's defense team whether the two individuals "may have worked together to plot impeaching the president before there were formal House impeachment proceedings.

Thursday's session is the final day in which senators are to ask questions of the defense and prosecution, and Friday's session is expected to include a pivotal vote that could either result in Trump's quick acquittal or a more drawn-out impeachment process that would include calling key witnesses Democrats have long sought.

Most pivotally, Trump's former National Security Advisor John Bolton would likely be called if the chamber approves of calling witnesses.

Bolton sent shockwaves through Trump's defense in revelations from a forthcoming book first reported by the New York Times, which obtained draft excerpts, in which Trump's former top national security aide says the president told him in August he wanted to keep hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Ukraine frozen until Kiev declared probes into Biden.

The claim undermines a key pillar of Trump's defense, which maintains the president sought the investigations to help fight corruption, not for his own personal benefit.

But Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz took the argument a step further on Wednesday when he maintained that even if the quid pro quo took place, it could not serve as the basis for Trump's removal from office, arguing "the only thing that would make a 'quid pro quo' unlawful is if the 'quo' were in some way illegal."

“Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest,” Dershowitz said. “And if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”