The Hill: “Senate Republicans are taking the House impeachment proceedings against President Trump more seriously as damaging revelations against the president mount and the possibility of a quick dismissal of the charges shrinks.”

Politico: “As he juggles legislative priorities like funding the government and passing a new North American trade deal, Trump can’t get his mind off Democrats’ efforts to oust him from the White House. He’s been courting his congressional allies with golf, a World Series game and frequent phone calls — all to develop an echo chamber of support from his allies in Congress.”

“But the White House is largely leaving the prickly task of managing the Senate Republican Conference to McConnell. Though much of the pair’s contact is concealed even from aides, people familiar with the conversations say they speak all the time — and there’s been an uptick in recent weeks as the impeachment threat grows more serious.”

“You can judge a person by the friends they have. You can judge a candidate for president by the enemies they have.”

— Sen. Bernie Sanders, in a CNBC interview.

A new USA Today/Suffolk University Poll finds Americans are split about whether President Trump should be convicted by the Senate in an impeachment trial and removed from office: 46% in favor and 47% against.

Key takeaway: “Having close to half of registered voters support his eviction from the White House is politically perilous territory for any president, of course.”

Charles Sykes: “By now it should have dawned on you that there is no escape. You are going to have to render a verdict not just on Donald’s Trump’s policies, but on his personal conduct. For just the third time in U.S. history, the Senate will hold a trial on the impeachment and removal of a president.”

“You’ll have to vote up or down and your decision will have consequences that will linger long past this election cycle. The situation is already grim.”

“But it is all about to get worse: the evidence, the venue and the president’s conduct. There may be more smoking guns, the trial will be televised, and based on the past few weeks, Trump is likely to be more unhinged than ever.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) “will not co-sponsor a Senate resolution that calls on Democrats to hold a vote to formalize their impeachment probe,” Politico reports.

“The measure, introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) last week, has support from 50 of the 53 Senate Republicans. It also asks that the House provide President Trump ‘due process’ and give House Republicans subpoena power.”

Former Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC), a one-time Capitol Hill intern who went on to become North Carolina’s first Democratic female U.S. senator, died Monday at her Greensboro home, the Charlotte Observer reports.

She was 66.

Washington Post: “Republican senators are lost and adrift as the impeachment inquiry enters its second month, navigating the grave threat to President Trump largely in the dark, frustrated by the absence of a credible case to defend his conduct and anxious about the historic reckoning that likely awaits them.”

“Recent days have delivered the most damaging testimony yet about Trump and his advisers commandeering Ukraine policy for the president’s personal political goals, which his allies on Capitol Hill sought to undermine by storming the deposition room and condemning the inquiry as secretive and corrupt.”

New York Times: “If it’s possible to be both deeply troubled and having a blast at the same time, that is Mr. Romney in this strange iteration of his public life. In a sense, he has been gifted by Mr. Trump with a kind of late-career relevance that he might not have otherwise enjoyed.”

“It’s not a benefit he expected, or even asked for. Mr. Romney had to content himself at first with critiquing from the gallery of Republican elders: In a 2016 speech he said, ‘Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud,’ as Mr. Trump was in the process of rolling to the Republican nomination.”

“Since then, events have conspired to return Mr. Romney back into the dirty coliseum of politics.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tweeted that 50 Republican senators have now signed on to his resolution criticizing the House impeachment process. At last count, just 46 senators had signed on.

It appears that three Senate Republicans are missing: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney.

David Graham: “Graham may eventually be able to cajole the rest of the Republican caucus into signing on to his resolution condemning the House process. The final vote isn’t the point, though. Graham’s resolution was intended to send a message about Senate support for Trump—and it already has.”

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) criticized Attorney General William Barr over reports that the Justice Department is launching a criminal investigation of the Russia probe.

Said Warner: “Senate Intel is wrapping up a three-year bipartisan investigation, and we’ve found nothing remotely justifying this… He needs to come before Congress and explain himself.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News that he has 46 senators who have backed his resolution criticizing the impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives.

Of course, that means 7 Republican senators declined to sign the resolution which suggests the resolution may not have the votes to pass.

David Frum: “This is really, really, really bad news for President Trump.”

“Top Trump officials have quietly created a de facto impeachment war room, with a chief goal of policing and solidifying Republican Senate support for acquittal,” Axios reports.

“Most senior officials in the White House recognized quickly that the G7 and Syria decisions harmed the president’s standing with Senate Republicans, and realized that could bleed over and cause problems for their impeachment firewall.”

“For the past several weeks, senior Trump White House officials have held a near-daily meeting focused on messaging — not the legal side of the impeachment fight, per three sources familiar with the situation.”

Senate Republicans voted Thursday to confirm Justin Walker to a lifetime seat on a federal court, despite the fact that he earned a rare and embarrassing ‘not qualified’ rating from the American Bar Association, the HuffPost reports.

Every Republican present voted to put Walker, 37, onto the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. Every Democrat present voted no. The full vote tally is here.

Bloomberg points out that the text of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) resolution doesn’t actually “condemn” the House impeachment inquiry as initially advertised, it just calls for different and more transparent process.

That could ease ability of more moderate Republicans to support it.