WTF Just Happened Today

Friday, January 17, 2020

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1/ Trump added celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz and former independent counsel Ken Starr to his Senate impeachment trial defense team. Starr investigated Bill Clinton, and Dershowitz's past clients include Jeffrey Epstein and O.J. Simpson. The team will be led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump's personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, and Starr's successor at the Office of Independent Counsel during the Clinton administration, Robert Ray. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump's longtime personal counsel Jane Raskin will also supplement the impeachment team. (New York Times / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / CNN / Politico / NBC News / Axios)

2/ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo publicly committed to investigate allegations of surveillance of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, saying he believed the allegations would "ultimately prove wrong" but that he had an obligation to investigate the matter. Pompeo's comments came more than 48 hours after evidence emerged that Yovanovitch was under surveillance and possibly threatened by associates of Lev Parnas – and more than 24 hours after Ukraine announced its own investigation into the matter. Pompeo added that "to the best of my recollection" he "had never heard of this at all." (Associated Press / New York Times / CNN / Bloomberg)

• ???? Day 1091: Rudy Giuliani requested a private meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky – then the president-elect of Ukraine – with Trump's "knowledge and consent," according to new documents released by House Democrats. The documents contains several handwritten notes, emails, encrypted messages, and text messages that show how Giuliani associate, Lev Parnas, tried to set up a meeting between Giuliani and Zelensky, as well as efforts to "Get Zelensky to announce that the Biden case will be investigated." The documents also show that before Marie Yovanovitch, the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, was removed from her post, a Parnas associate now running for Congress sent menacing text messages suggesting that he had Yovanovitch under surveillance in Ukraine. Democrats said the new records "demonstrate that there is more evidence relevant to the president's scheme" that has "been concealed by the president himself." (New York Times /