GOP senator who acquitted Trump says Bolton's book doesn't change his mind — because he believed Trump did it anyway

On Wednesday, Washington Post reporter Seung Min Kim asked Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) about the new allegations from former National Security Adviser John Bolton that President Donald Trump interfered in multiple international criminal investigations for personal gain and tried to get the Chinese president to help him win the election. Alexander said that he does not regret voting against allowing Bolton to testify in the Senate impeachment trial.

The reason? Because Alexander already believed Trump was abusing his office this way — he just didn't care.

A huge point of contention in the Senate impeachment trial was whether Republicans would call additional witnesses, with Bolton being one of the most sought after. They refused to do so, claiming that the House impeachment investigators had had a responsibility to call witnesses instead.

Alexander and some of his other Republican colleagues did acknowledge at the time that there was convincing evidence the president tried to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with military aid in return for announcing an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden. However, none of them except Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) believed this constituted a high crime for the purposes of impeachment.