As my colleague Bonchie reported earlier, the New York Times dropped a “bombshell” about what supposedly was in a draft of John Bolton’s new book that supposedly has President Donald Trump saying to Bolton that he wants to withhold aid in exchange for investigations.

There are of course many other questions about this last minute drop just as Republicans are destroying the Democrats’s impeachment case. It’s all about breaking the wall to get in witnesses and damage Trump.

But the basic response is a simple one: no actual quid pro quo was ever asked for, the transcript and President Volodymyr Zelensky confirm that. So whatever was actually said, if anything was, it’s completely irrelevant.

It’s like the constant leftist plaint that Trump wanted to fire Mueller. So?

Bolton’s people have denied having anything to do with the leak of the information, saying they sent the book to the NSC and that the leak might have come out of there. They however specifically said they were not denying the information.

But here are a few coincidences.

The New York Times story is written by Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman. Michael Schmidt is the man who got the Comey leak stories, Maggie Haberman is the one who infamously was named in the Wikileaks emails as the person who would “tee things up” for the Democrats that needed teeing up.

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said the transcript backed up that nothing was done wrong and called it out the timing. She noted not only was this the same publisher Comey used, but “the fact that magically, again, the book ordering preorder link popped up a couple hours after all of this hit.”

The Washington Examiner did an interesting piece a few days ago on how they didn’t think Bolton would be a problem as a witness for Trump because Bolton still wanted to sell his experience to future presidents and it wouldn’t do him any favors if he undercut Trump. So is this an effort to undercut Trump, while laying off blame on the NSC which, lord knows, surely does have a lot of issues?

People are suspicious that despite Bolton’s denial, the timing was all too perfect.

Team John Bolton is attempting to convince you, the potential buyer of his memoir, that he had nothing to do w/ leaks to the press. & oh by the way it was just a shocking coincidence his book's Amazon pg went live simultaneously.

TBH it doesn't seem like he respects you at all.

— Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) January 27, 2020

This wins Twitter tonight https://t.co/mSeRuRQN8S

— Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) January 27, 2020

Mitt Romney and the RINO's were going to push for witnesses, anyway. Now, John Bolton has given them faux justification to make their case. These people are absolutely sickening. Bolton's trying to sell books. The President was concerned about corruption in Ukraine. So what???!!

— 🇺🇸Eric Carmen🇺🇸 (@RealEricCarmen) January 27, 2020

Cornyn: “This looks like a marketing tactic to sell books is what it looks like to me.”

— Erica Werner (@ericawerner) January 27, 2020