The Senate impeachment trial of President Trump continues with closing arguments. Senators will also debate the articles.
https://www.c-span.org/event/?468864/senate-impeachment-trial-day-12&live
New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / NBC News / CNN / The Guardian / Politico
Wait…there’s going to be more !expletive! hitting the fan for T…just wait. More things hitting at a high rate all the way through to election time. What’s going to break him or will it be full speed ahead, with fake news, fake hoaxes etc?
Republicans voted down a measure to call witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial and are moving to acquittal in a hell-for-leather dash to put the crisis behind them. It’s a doomed errand. With Trump, the next crisis is always just ahead.
Actually, the first “next crisis” has already arrived. The New York Times reported Friday that, in his forthcoming book, former National Security Adviser John Bolton writes that Trump first tried to put the squeeze on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in early May 2019—and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone was a witness in the very room where the plot was hatched. Even as Cipollone argued on the president’s behalf that witnesses were unnecessary, he was plausibly alleged to be a crucial fact witness by another fact witness.
This double-dealing will surely trigger a new battle to compel testimony from Bolton and Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney—and perhaps to discipline Cipollone for unethical legal conduct. During impeachment proceedings, Bolton and Mulvaney defied congressional subpoenas; now there’s yet more urgency to determine what the president’s team of lawyers actually knew at the time they were making Trump’s case before the Senate.*
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Then will come the crisis of the administration’s battle to suppress Bolton’s book.
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Sometime before the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule in consolidated cases about whether Trump can continue to keep secret his tax returns and other business documents.
One case began with a New York State grand-jury subpoena of Trump business documents, to probe whether he broke laws when he allegedly paid hush money to two women during the 2016 campaign. The others involve subpoenas by House committees—Oversight, Financial Services, and Intelligence—of tax returns and banking records.
The multiple subpoenas raise different legal issues, especially because the Financial Services and Intelligence subpoenas were served not on Trump or his organization, but on his accounting firm and two of his banks.
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of some or all of the subpoenas, damaging financial information will tumble into the public domain right as the election season begins in earnest.
…Trump is driving a poorly packed egg cart over stony roads. He holds too many secrets, too ill-concealed, shared with too many people and companies with too little loyalty to him. Michael Cohen’s prison sentence stands as a reminder of the ultimate consequences of loyalty to Trump. Gordon Sondland jumped off before that point, and so, sooner or later, will Mulvaney. Everybody turns on Trump in the end, if only because they can no longer endure the abuse. His party in Congress follows him only so long as he looks like the path to success. If things begin to go south before Election Day, the defections will begin and then accelerate.
NBC reporter, says that Murkowski does agree with Sen Alexander. Will that change her final vote?
CNN Reporter Manu Raju also concurs
That would be an awesome move! Of course, McConnell will swat it down, but it’s all about the headlines and the votes on record by Trump’s Republican enablers. Most Americans probably do not understand at this point that Cipollone was involved in the scheme for which Trump was impeached. This would get the word out. The Republicans took the gloves off long ago – back when Trump asked Russia to help him win in 2016. It’s time for us to take the gloves off, too.
President Donald Trump is denying a new allegation that he coordinated with his top aides earlier than previously known on an effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political opponents — a claim that further entangles Trump’s top impeachment lawyer in the Ukraine investigation.
The New York Times reported earlier Friday that former national security adviser John Bolton claims in his forthcoming book that Trump directed him to ensure that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would meet with Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney.
Bolton reportedly indicated that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House counsel Pat Cipollone — who is spearheading Trump’s defense at the Senate’s ongoing impeachment trial — also attended the early-May 2019 meeting in the Oval Office.
Cross-posting 
Sen Joe Manchin (D-WVA) thinks a vote to censure T would bring about more bi-partisan support. Manchin’s issue is that he tends to go for all things T and this may be a slap on the wrist. Not sure what will happen in the final Impeachment vote. But this is a new wrinkle. Too little too late perhaps.
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), a moderate who is friendly with the White House, on Monday asked his colleagues to consider censuring President Trump as the Senate moves toward votes on impeachment.
“I do believe a bipartisan majority of this body would vote to censure President Trump for his action in this matter. Censure would allow this body to unite across party lines,” Manchin said in a speech on the Senate floor. “His behavior cannot go unchecked by the Senate and censure would allow a bipartisan statement condemning his unacceptable behavior in the strongest terms.”
It is an effort that could put pressure on some Republican senators as they mull whether to reprimand Trump in the coming weeks, even if they vote Wednesday to acquit him on the House’s two articles of impeachment — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Teri Kanefield makes a strong case for censure from the House once the GOP Senate moves to acquit Trump. She points out how it allows Pelosi to keep publishing the evidence of his crimes.
She also notes that the only other president to be censured was the abominable Andrew Jackson, Trump’s personal hero.
Business as usual response from Murkowski…
" I cannot vote to convict. The Constitution provides for impeachment but does not demand it in all instances," Murkowski said from the Senate floor, adding that removing Trump from office would be “the political death penalty.”
Asked by reporters off the Senate floor if she had any advice for Trump, she quipped as the elevator doors closed, “Read the transcript.”
Why do Republicans place the future of victimizers over their victims?
This also relates to the Immigration thread.
Anybody even mildly familiar with Trump’s obsession with revenge could tell you this was coming.
A powerful replaying of Rep Schiff’s speech with imagery of T’s character and friends.
video
And wonder what the timing on getting Bolton to speak might be? Before his book drops maybe, right after?
Nadler says House ‘likely’ to subpoena Bolton
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, one of the House managers in the impeachment trial, **spoke to reporters following a caucus meeting about his
Nadler said he thinks it’s “likely” one of the House committees will subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton, one of the key witnesses Democrats were hoping to call. Bolton was an eyewitness to much of Trump’s conduct on Ukraine and expressed concerns about Rudy Giuliani’s involvement in Ukraine diplomacy.Bolton had said he would testify if subpoenaed but the Senate on Friday killed an effort to hear from new witnesses.
Nadler didn’t give a timeframe for the potential subpoena.
Final arguments from Senators to impeach/not impeach T.
February 05, 2020
Senate Impeachment Trial Vote The impeachement trial of President Trump concludes with votes on the articles. Legislative work is also possible.
and the 1p PST/4p EST vote on Impeachment
Days before the July 2019 call between President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, US officials were still working to expedite the delivery of Javelin anti-tank missiles to the country, according to emails and other internal documents reviewed by CNN.
The new information underscores how the July 18th decision to hold the military aid stunned officials, who had already assessed Ukraine deserved to receive it and were preparing a Javelin missile order as well. The decision reverberated across the government for weeks. Officials grew so concerned over the deferrals by the Office of Management and Budget that they noted the aid was at “serious risk,” and questioned if the move was illegal.
In an email to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who was in his first week on the job, a top Defense official communicated his concern over Trump’s “reported view that the US should cease providing security assistance” to Ukraine and its impact on national security.
Defense officials hoped Esper might be able to persuade the President to drop the hold, and included their rationale in briefing notes provided to him for an August meeting at the White House.
The documents reviewed by CNN – none of which revealed classified information on military operations or sensitive personnel matters – are linked to communications and meetings from July and August last year related to the aid freeze that was at the center of efforts to impeach Trump. The documents paint a broad picture of bureaucrats scrambling to understand and push back against a sudden, unexplained White House directive that disrupted months of careful planning, contradicted Pentagon decisions based on US national security concerns and undermined Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself against Russia.
Drip💧drip💧
Romney is voting to convict. Why does that matter? It pokes gaping holes in the GOP’s “this isn’t bipartisan” argument.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) sealed a place in history Wednesday with his announcement that he will vote to convict President Trump of abuse of power, becoming a rare lone voice in a Republican Party that otherwise has marched in lockstep with the president throughout the impeachment proceedings.
Romney said he will vote against the second article of impeachment, which accused the president of obstruction of Congress. But on the first article, the Utah senator said in a telephone interview that he found the evidence against Trump overwhelming and the arguments by the president’s defense ultimately unconvincing.
“There’s no question that the president asked a foreign power to investigate his political foe,” Romney said ahead of the floor statement he delivered Wednesday. “That he did so for a political purpose, and that he pressured Ukraine to get them to do help or to lead in this effort. My own view is that there’s not much I can think of that would be a more egregious assault on our Constitution than trying to corrupt an election to maintain power. And that’s what the president did.”
Romney is a yes to convict on Abuse of Power but not Obstruction of Congress. 
That’s super random…