“President Trump’s legal defense team and Senate GOP allies are quietly gaming out contingency plans should Democrats win enough votes to force witnesses to testify in the impeachment trial, including an effort to keep former national security adviser John Bolton from the spotlight,” the Washington Post reports.

“One option being discussed would be to move Bolton’s testimony to a classified setting because of national security concerns, ensuring that it is not public.”

“But that proposal, discussed among some Senate Republicans in recent days, is seen as a final tool against Bolton becoming an explosive figure in the trial. First, Republicans involved in the discussions said, would come a fierce battle in the courts.”

“The impeachment organizing resolution from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gives House impeachment managers and President Trump’s legal team 24 hours each to make their opening arguments over two days,” CNN reports.

“The resolution raises the prospect that the trial will have 12-hour days and go late into the night.”

Politico: “That will be followed by 16 total hours of questions and answers, culminating in a four-hour debate and a critical vote over whether to consider witnesses or new information.”

“There is no explicit reference to a motion to dismiss the trial in the resolution.”

A new CNN poll finds 51% of Americans say the Senate should vote to convict President Trump and remove him from office, while 45% disagree.

Also interesting: 69% say that upcoming trial should feature testimony from new witnesses who did not testify in the House impeachment inquiry.

Michael Bloomberg told NBC News that he would reluctantly vote to convict President Trump if he were a senator in the impeachment trial.

Said Bloomberg: “We’d be much better off letting the voters decide who is President in this country.”

But he added: “I’d have to swallow two or three times, but I would say I would vote to convict because there’s so much evidence that he acted inappropriately.”

“Trials have witnesses and documents. Cover-ups don’t.”

— Sen Chuck Schumer (D-NY), on Twitter.

“Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly is close to finalizing a rule that would allow President Trump’s team to move to dismiss the articles of impeachment in the Senate quickly after some evidence has been presented, as a sort of safety valve in case Democrats try to drag out the trial for weeks,” Fox News reports.

Sen. Josh Hawley to Axios: “I am familiar with the resolution as it stood a day or two ago. My understanding is that the resolution will give the president’s team the option to either move to judgment or to move to dismiss at a meaningful time.”

“Trump officials say they feel especially bullish about one key argument against calling additional impeachment witnesses: It could compromise America’s national security,” Axios reports.

“People close to the president say their most compelling argument to persuade nervous Republican senators to vote against calling new witnesses is the claim that they’re protecting national security.”

“They’re banking on it to speed up the trial.”

Associated Press: “No cellphones. No talking. No escape. That’s the reality during the Senate’s impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, which will begin each day with a proclamation: ‘All persons are commanded to keep silence, on pain of imprisonment.’ After that, 100 senators will sit at their desks for hours on end to hear from House prosecutors, Trump’s defense team and possibly a series of witnesses.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said President Trump hopes to have the Senate impeachment trial “behind him” before he delivers the State of the Union address next month, CNN reports.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) told CNN it would be “fine” if Senate Republicans requested Hunter Biden as a witness in the impeachment trial against President Trump in exchange for House Democrats’ requested witnesses.

Said Brown: “I think you bring in — We take the position that we want to hear from the witnesses. I don’t know what Hunter Biden has to do with the phone call the President made.”

He added: “The point is we need witnesses, we need to know who they are with the right to call witnesses, additional witnesses later. But I don’t understand how you come to the American public, make the case that this is a real trial, if there are no witnesses and there is no new evidence.”

“Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is preparing a resolution that would leave room for President Trump’s lawyers to move immediately to dismiss the impeachment charges if they so choose, according to Republican Sen. Josh Hawley,” Axios reports.

“Yes, but: Republican Senate leaders, including McConnell and Roy Blunt, the senior senator from Missouri, have already said members aren’t interested in a vote to dismiss. And it seems unlikely that Trump’s team would push for what would almost certainly be a losing vote — a move that could be seen as a sign of weakness at the outset of the trial.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski told the AP she’s comfortable waiting to decide if more information is needed as part of the Senate’s impeachment trial until after hearing arguments from House managers and attorneys for President Trump and questions from members.

Murkowski said she wants to make sure there’s a process that allows senators to “really hear the case” and ask questions “before we make that determination as to, what more do we need. I don’t know what more we need until I’ve been given the base case.”

The Hill: “Pressure is growing on Senate Republicans to call Lev Parnas, an associate of President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to testify in the impeachment trial.”

“Democrats are opening the door to hearing from Parnas as a witness at the impeachment trial after an explosive round of media interviews and new evidence released by House Democrats, which details Parnas’s role in trying to convince the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.”

“Senate Republicans are discussing speeding up the pace of President Trump’s impeachment trial by using the trial rules to limit the number of days each side has to make opening arguments,” The Hill reports.

“Republicans, according to senators, are discussing giving both Trump’s legal team and House managers 24 hours to present their case, similar to the 1999 proceeding. But unlike the Clinton trial, each side would have to use their time within two days.”

Former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus previewed on Fox News what might be President Trump’s final defense in his impeachment trial:

Sometimes the best defense is the ‘so what’ defense. If everything the Democrats said is true, it’s still not impeachable. If everything Lev Parnas said is true, it’s still not impeachable. That’s what this is about.

Greg Sargent: “The Hannity segment is a fog machine of disinformation and incoherence. But the whole thing is must-watch TV. It features arguments that set up the claim that there’s nothing wrong with anything Trump did. Those will be key to his defense — and to justifying making the trial as much of a coverup as possible.”