Happy Wednesday, December 18. President Donald Trump is expected to be impeached today, joining former Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton in a very small club. Here’s more on that and the other stories we’re watching.

With the President likely to be impeached tomorrow, we are likely to be entering into a period of some polling volatility. Remember that in the short-term polls fluctuate not only with changes in public opinion but what is called differential response. The excited or agitated side responds to pollsters more and the demoralized or disenchanted side does less. But for the moment, or over the course of the last week, the President’s support numbers have popped up. The numbers aren’t dramatic. But for instance they’re now up to 43.9% in the 538 trend chart. Still pretty poor for an incumbent president but ever so slightly past the edge of the band he’s been in for years. I wouldn’t put too much stock in a few days of numbers. But it is worth keeping an eye on.

I wanted to flag this article in the Post which, amidst so much other news, does not appear to have garnered a lot of attention. In brief, it details a new report into how what appears to be a Russian disinformation effort amplified and tried to advance various conspiracy theories first seen in the reporting of John Solomon in The Hill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has a lot of balls to juggle when it comes how to handle the coming impeachment trial in his chamber: from President Trump’s desire for a long, witness-filled trial that would air out his conspiracy theories about Ukraine; to wobbly moderates in his own conference who are at least somewhat uncomfortable with the President’s Ukraine behavior; to McConnell’s own preference for a swift and witness-less procedure.

Former prosecutor TPM Reader captures this pretty nicely. In fact, it leaves quite a lot out.

Stunning news out of federal court this afternoon: that mystery million dollars that Lev Parnas got from abroad was money from Dmitry Firtash, the former Manafort business partner and Putin-aligned oligarch who is currently fighting extradition to the United States to face bribery charges. We’ve had a lot of hints to date that Firtash was the guy funding Rudy’s team in Ukraine. But this seems to confirm it. Where’s the money for all of this coming from? Why is Giuliani working for free? Why did his fellow Trump lawyers and Fox news regulars DiGenova and Toensing get over a million for a few months of legal work for Firtash. This news tells us what many have suspected: the President’s legal defense – Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman, DiGenova and Toensing and the rest of the collusion squad – is being funded by Firtash.

David Kurtz made this point to our editorial team today and I wanted to share it with you. It’s a key reality check without which it’s impossible to make sense of the news of the moment. Much of our understanding of the current situation is framed around the idea – clearly not actually the case – that the Ukraine conspiracy happened in the past and that the nation is now seeking to litigate whether the President is guilty and how he should be punished if he is guilty. Let’s think of it as a Watergate model, offense followed by cover-up and investigation in tandem.

But clearly this gets the essence of the situation wrong. It’s not something in the past at all. It is an active and on-going series of events. It’s a crime in progress.

Here is some interesting new information. We take it as a given that supporters and opponents of impeachment are basically locked into their positions. All the available evidence supports that conclusion. But there are small exceptions or nuances to that reality when you zoom in close.

There appears to be some disagreement between Senate Republicans and the White House on the length of a trial and calling witnesses. Senators just want to end things with a vote. Perhaps you’ll get a restatement of the case from both sides and then a vote. But it’s the same difference since we know what the arguments are. Little will come of that we don’t already know. There’s very little that is unpredictable or new. We have already seen over the last couple weeks that once we’re into pure partisan haggling, as opposed to unknowns and new facts, people tend to tune out.

I confess I don’t get this either. I guess perhaps they just don’t want the hassle of his generally meritless claims of attorney-client privilege. But he is truly central to the whole conspiracy. From TPM Reader JB …

I’m wondering what the case would be for not calling Rudy Giuliani as a witness at the Senate’s forthcoming impeachment trial

Good morning and happy Tuesday, December 17. In a new interview with the New York Times, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani drags the President, as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, deeper into the scheme to oust ex-Ukraine ambassador and key impeachment witness Marie Yovanovitch from the embassy in Kyiv. Here’s more on that and other stories we’re following.