Washington Post: “Three years after taking the oath of office, President Trump has made more than 16,200 false or misleading claims — a milestone that would have been unthinkable when we first created the Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement he has uttered.”

Alan Dershowitz, a member of President Trump’s legal defense team for the impeachment trial, told CNN that he will be arguing in the Senate that abuse of power and obstruction of Congress do not amount to impeachable offenses, even if proven.

Wall Street Journal: “The unity is the byproduct not only of a White House charm offensive this fall and widespread Republican concerns about the fairness of the impeachment process, but more broadly the president’s personal powers of persuasion and his raw political power over the party, fueled by an intensely loyal base of GOP voters. As has been the case since Mr. Trump ascended to the GOP throne, Republicans who dared step out of line faced his Twitter outrage, meeting the wrath of the president’s base.”

“The stark tribalism has led those who want long-term futures in the party to get in line behind the president and those who have had enough to retire quietly without risking a noisy and disruptive exit. Twenty-six House Republicans have announced they are leaving the House since the 2018 midterm elections, when the party’s moderate wing took major casualties as Democrats won the majority. Not one of those retirees, including several moderates, voted against the party line on impeachment.”

Playbook: “After months of President Trump opting to sit out of the House’s impeachment proceedings, his defense strategy became quite clear in his team’s first official response to the Senate: attack, attack, attack. The six-page response, which will be followed up by a trial brief Monday, hit on not only the process but also argued the entire impeachment effort was engineered by his political opponents.”

“It was a stark contrast to the Democrats’ 111-page brief that detailed their case against the president, including new evidence that has come out in the last few weeks.”

“President Trump launched his first formal attack on the House’s effort to remove him from office on Saturday, calling the Democrats’ impeachment case against him fatally flawed and ‘constitutionally invalid’ while blasting the effort as a political hit job by his adversaries,” Politico reports.

Said the lawyers: “This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election.”

New York Times: “The president’s lawyers did not deny any of the core facts underlying Democrats’ charges, conceding what ample evidence has shown, that he withheld $391 million in aid from Ukraine and asked the country’s president to investigate former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter. But they said Mr. Trump broke no laws and was acting entirely appropriately and within his powers when he did so.”

A source close to the White House who speaks to Donald Trump regularly told CNN the President has appeared “distracted” by the impeachment trial that begins on Tuesday, telling people around him Friday night at Mar-a-Lago that he “can’t understand why he is impeached.”

“You’ve got a good one now, even though they’re trying to impeach the son of a bitch. Can you believe that?”

— President Trump, speaking about the presidency while honoring the LSU football team.

Monica Lewinsky reacts to news that Ken Starr is on President Trump’s impeachment defense team: “This is definitely an ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ kinda day.”

Jonathan Chait: “In May of 2016, shortly after Donald Trump had wrapped up his party’s nomination, but when the notion he might win the presidency seemed remote at best, Benjamin Wittes wrote one of the very early essays attempting to analyze how an obviously authoritarian president might abuse his powers. ‘The soft spot, the least tyrant-proof part of the government, is the U.S. Department of Justice,’ he argued, laying out how prosecutorial discretion could allow a president to harass his domestic enemies.”

“Yesterday’s news that the Department of Justice is exploring yet another probe of James Comey, the former FBI director turned Trump antagonist, would seem to confirm those fears have been borne out.”

President Trump’s impeachment defense team for his upcoming Senate trial will include Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, sources confirmed to The Hill.

The Washington Post says Trump’s team will also include Robert Ray, who along with Starr, investigated President Bill Clinton.

Washington Post: “McConnell, knowing that he currently has the votes to acquit Trump, does not want the Senate trial to come off looking anything like the partisan brawl in the House or a typical Trumpian event. With a handful of GOP incumbents facing difficult reelections in November, McConnell wants a quick, clean, dignified trial to protect their political fortunes as well as his own. That’s why some Democrats believe Trump’s defense team could provide the most dramatic moment of the trial.”

New York Times: “The president capped his day with a meeting with several campaign aides, where he grilled them on how voters were receiving impeachment.”

“In his conversations with advisers on Thursday, Mr. Trump repeated once again that he could not believe he was facing such a predicament as impeachment. He said he wanted people to be prepared for a motion to dismiss and has hoped for one, even though Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, has said the Senate will have to take up the matter.”

Lev Parnas claimed on MSNBC that he was visited in jail by John Dowd, a former attorney for President Trump, who told him to cooperate and sacrifice himself for the president. 

Said Parnas: “They tried to keep me quiet.”

“Federal prosecutors in Washington are investigating a years-old leak of classified information about a Russian intelligence document, and they appear to be focusing on whether the former FBI director James Comey illegally provided details to reporters,” the New York Times reports.

“The case is the second time the Justice Department has investigated leaks potentially involving Mr. Comey, a frequent target of President Trump, who has repeatedly called him a ‘leaker.’ Mr. Trump recently suggested without evidence that Mr. Comey should be prosecuted for ‘unlawful conduct’ and spend years in prison.”

“The timing of the investigation could raise questions about whether it was motivated at least in part by politics.”

“I just got impeached for making a perfect phone call!”

— President Trump, on Twitter.

President Trump told reporters he doesn’t know Lev Parnas, the associated of Rudy Giuliani who has said the president knew about his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival.

Trump acknowledged the two have a photo together, adding: “I meet thousands of people.”

Lev Parnas told CNN that he would release a photograph with President Trump every time the president denies knowing him, insisting that Trump is “lying” about their relationship.