Schumer: Lankford’s Bolton Manuscript Proposal ‘Absurd’

During a press conference on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) rejected Sen. James Lankford’s (R-OK) proposal that the Senate read the manuscript of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s book in a classified setting as “an absurd proposal.”

Schumer said, “Now, our Republican colleagues are going to amazing lengths to avoid the truth. So, I heard a proposal that recently came from two Republicans, I think this morning, Lankford and Graham, that we get the manuscript and read it in the SCIF, in secret. How — what an absurd proposal. This is a book. There’s no need for it to be read in the SCIF unless you want to hide something. To what extent are some of our Republican colleagues going to twist themselves in an entire pretzel to avoid the truth? Our view is simple. We want four witnesses, four documents. The Republicans can call who they want. They have the ability. They have the majority. We want these witnesses and these documents because we want the truth.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett