Republican Judiciary member says Mulvaney and Bolton 'absolutely' should testify — immediately backtracks on the basis of 'executive privilege'

Donald Trump is refusing to send lawyers to upcoming impeachment hearings after weeks of claiming the impeachment process is unfair because he's not getting his say. One Republican Judiciary Committee member says the White House needs to show up.

Republican Rep. Tom McClintock of California appeared on ABC's This Week Sunday and said that acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton should testify. That's whether or not federal courts rule that the White House can't squelch subpoenas and they are compelled to testify. "And in fact, yeah," McClintock said, "it would be to the President's advantage to have them testify now."

As if suddenly aware that he might have stepped in it big time with the White House, he added, "But of course he has to weigh that against the enormous catastrophic damage that would do to the doctrine of executive privilege that assures that when policy is being developed within the administration, those discussions are unfettered, are candid, are thinking outside of the box. […] That’s why the doctrine of executive privilege exists." Uh huh. Attempting to recover, he went on: "I think more information is better than less in every aspect of an inquiry and the adversarial process is very important to test what's true and what's not."

As if his—or any other Republican’s—vote in committee is uncertain; as if he's going to actually consider the evidence presented.