A new Quinnipiac poll finds President Trump matching his best job approval rating ever, as 43% of registered voters say they approve of the job he is doing, while 52% disapprove.

Said pollster Mary Snow: “A 50-year low unemployment rate coupled with stocks hitting record highs are adding up to a rosy view of the economy and voters feeling optimistic about their own personal finances. That view of a strong economy seems to be helping President Trump match his highest job approval rating since being elected, despite facing becoming the third president in U.S. history to be impeached this week.”

“Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani indicted on U.S. campaign finance charges, said a $1 million transfer into his wife’s bank account from Russia was the proceeds of a loan — and not an attempt to conceal his assets,” Bloomberg reports.

“Federal prosecutors raised the transfer in a filing last week asking the judge to revoke Parnas’s bail because he misrepresented his financial resources when he was arrested. They said Parnas’ wife, Svetlana, received $1 million from a bank account in Russia in September, the month before Parnas and business partner Igor Fruman were arrested as they sought to leave the country.”

A Fox News poll found that 50% of Americans want President Trump impeached and removed from office, while 41% believe he shouldn’t be impeached.

Key finding: While 85% of Democrats favor impeachment and removal and 84% of Republicans don’t, there’s a new high in support for impeachment among independents – 45% now favor it, compared to 38% in October.

Vox: “Trump boasted that his polls are ‘through the roof.’ Fox News quickly proved him wrong.”

In case you’ve lost count, President Trump has now made 15,413 false or misleading claims over his 1,055 days in office, according to the Washington Post.

That’s an average of nearly 15 every single day.

Sen. Chris Coons told NBC News that if President Trump is “exonerated in the Senate, if the Senate Republican majority refuses to discipline him through impeachment, he will be unbounded.”

He added: “I’m gravely concerned about what else he might do between now and the 2020 election, when there are no restrictions on his behavior.”

“A close aide to President Trump who was dismissed last year by the White House chief of staff at the time is expected to rejoin the West Wing,” the New York Times reports.

“John McEntee, who shadowed Mr. Trump as his body man, is slated to come back in a similar role… His return will mean a familiar presence with whom Mr. Trump is comfortable as he heads into the 2020 re-election campaign, and he is likely to divide duties with one of his successors, Nick Luna.”

“In March 2018, on the orders of the chief of staff at the time, John Kelly, Mr. McEntee was marched out of the West Wing, with no time to collect his belongings, people in the building said then. His security clearance had been denied at least in part because of an online gambling habit.”

“A federal judge on Friday ordered the State Department to release documents concerning Ukraine it had previously withheld,” the HuffPost reports.

The judge Cooper ruled that the records should be released no later than Jan. 8. 

“President Trump’s senior aides have further restricted the number of administration officials allowed to listen to the President’s phone calls with foreign leaders since his July 25 call with Ukraine’s President was revealed and became the centerpiece of the impeachment inquiry,” CNN reports.

“Transcripts of Trump’s calls with world leaders are also disseminated to a far smaller group of people inside the White House, those administration sources say, continuing an effort to limit the number of people with insight and information about the conversations.”

“I’ll do whatever I want. Look — we did nothing wrong, so I’ll do long or short.”

— President Trump, quoted by CNN, when asked if he preferred a long or short impeachment trial in the Senate.

Jonathan Swan: “Half a dozen House Democrats attended the White House Congressional Ball last night while their colleagues on the Judiciary Committee worked late into the night on articles of impeachment, according to two sources familiar with the event.”

“If you’re looking for clues about which House Democrats might vote against impeaching President Trump next week, one tempting place to start is with those who chose to be Trump’s guests at the annual ball — but that doesn’t mean the two lists will totally overlap.”

Greg Olear: “He seems so nice. Unlike Paul Manafort, who presents as the mobbed-up asshole he is, or Roger Stone, who arrayed himself like a comic-book villain, or Corey Lewandowski, who comes across as the drunken lout rooting for the other team behind you at the game, Bill Barr doesn’t look like a bad guy. He has a kind face, gentle eyes, a full head of hella-good hair, bookish glasses, and an avuncular manner. His pleasing plumpness is more Kris Kringle than Jabba the Hutt. In a word, he’s cuddly. But make no mistake: the once and current Attorney General is the most dangerous man in America. He may well be the Devil himself.”

“Under pressure over his possible impeachment, President Richard M. Nixon supposedly talked to the paintings in the White House. President Bill Clinton absently toyed with his old campaign buttons. President Trump punches out Twitter messages in the lonely midnight hour,” the New York Times reports.

“Long after his staff has gone home, long after the lights have gone out elsewhere around the capital, the besieged 45th president hunkers down in the upstairs residential portion of the Executive Mansion venting his frustration and cheering on his defenders through social media blasts.”

“No matter what some of his critics say, advisers said he genuinely does not want to be impeached, viewing it as a personal humiliation. Even in private, he accepts no blame and expresses no regret, but he rails against the enemies he sees all around him.”

New York Times: “A federal appeals court in Virginia heard arguments Thursday about whether to revive a lawsuit accusing President Trump of violating the Constitution by profiting from his hotel near the White House, in a spirited session that indicated sharp divisions among the judges over the legal consequences of the president’s conduct.”

“The three-hour hearing in Richmond was the first time that a full federal appeals court has considered the so-called emoluments or anticorruption clauses of the Constitution. Mr. Trump is the first president to be sued for violating those clauses, and so far only lower courts or appellate panels have ruled on the three cases against him.”

Politico: “Democrats are only just beginning to confront the paradox that their imminent impeachment vote creates: What happens when a remorseless president commits the same behavior that got him impeached in the first place — only this time after the House has already deployed the most potent weapon in its arsenal?”

“There’s no roadmap for Congress to handle an already-impeached president who could have as many as five years left in office. Democrats acknowledge there’s no realistic path or political will to revisit impeachment in Trump’s first term, especially with the 2020 election less than a year away.”

“But far from being deterred by impeachment, Trump appears emboldened — suggesting impeachment may not be the kind of bulwark against misconduct envisioned in the Constitution.”