Trial and Error: The Senate voted 51 to 49 last night to block calling witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Trump, closing out the possibility of damning testimony by direct witnesses to his scheme to pressure Ukraine for an investigation of Joe Biden. The Narrow majority of senators is refusing to hear from former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who would say that President Trump told him to pressure Ukraine for dirt on Democrats. 

  In the end, only  two Republicans crossed the party line and voted to have witnesses. Maine’s Susan Collins and Mitt Romney of Utah were the dissenters. Romney genuinely wanted witnesses; Collins was probably given permission to vote with the Democrats to help her get re-elected.   

  After the vote, Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “No witnesses no documents in an impeachment trial is a perfidy, it’s a grand tragedy.” He said, “America will remember this day unfortunately where the Senate did not live up to its responsibilities, where the Senate turned away from truth and went along with a sham trial.”

  Even before the final votes, Republicans announced their intentions. “Can anyone doubt that at least half of the country would view his removal as illegitimate — as nothing short of a coup d’état?” Sen. Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, wrote in a statement.

  A NY Times editorial opined that, “Alas, no one ever lost money betting on the cynicism of today’s congressional Republicans.” The editorial board wrote, “The vote also brings the nation face to face with the reality that the Senate has become nothing more than an arena for the most base and brutal — and stupid — power politics. Faced with credible evidence that a president was abusing his powers, it would not muster the institutional self-respect to even investigate.”

  The trial continues with closing arguments Monday, President Trump’s State of the Union message Tuesday night under the shadow of impeachment, followed by a nearly dead-certain 100-percent guaranteed acquittal on Tuesday.

Read it and Weep: Yesterday’s developments came as The NY Times reported that Trump first ordered John Bolton to participate in his Ukraine operation in May of 2018, according to passages from Bolton’s as yet unpublished book. That was two months before Trump put direct pressure on the Ukraine president during a July 25^th phone call that Trump has described as “perfect.”

  The Times reports that, according to what it has seen of the manuscript, present at the 2018 meeting were acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, who now leads the president’s impeachment defense.

  That’s right, while Cipollone led the argument that Trump did nothing wrong, he had been present during a meeting in which the President ordered his underlings to do wrong. The Republican majority, as well as Cipollone, made sure that never came to light during the trial proceedings.

Outbreak: The Dow Jones dropped 600 points yesterday, just over two percent, because of worries about the growing coronavirus outbreak in China. Airline, cruise line, and hotel stocks were hit hardest. American, Delta, and United airlines have all stopped flights to mainland China.

  At least 46 people in China died of the coronavirus yesterday, the biggest one-day toll yet in the spreading epidemic. The number of deaths is now 259.  

Son of Travel Ban: President Trump added six countries to his administration’s Muslim-country travel ban, expanding it to ­Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. 

  Citing national security, Homeland Security and the State Department said Trump’s will bar most citizens of Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar, and Kyrgyzstan from coming to work and live in the United States. 

The Bulletin Board: Marie Yovanovitch, the career diplomat and Ambassador to Ukraine who was withdrawn in the Trump campaign to get dirt on Joe Biden, has retired from the State Department. She was a star witness in the impeachment inquiry. — This morning, Britain is officially out of the European Union. Some Brits celebrated, some wept. — Shirts with the name and number 24 of the late Kobe Bryant were draped over every seat at the Staples Center in Los Angeles before last night’s encounter between the Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers, the first since Bryant’s death in a helicopter crash. One seat had a black jersey with Mamba #2 for Bryant’s daughter Gianna, who died with him.

The Obit Page: Mary Higgins Clark, the writer known as the Known as the “Queen of Suspense,” has died at age 92. She wrote about 50 books, among them “Where are My Children?” and “A Stranger is Watching.” 

 Perfect: A witness in the Harvey Weinstein rape trial said that the first time she saw the deposed movie producer naked his genitalia were so deformed she thought he was intersex. Asked by reporters later whether the description was accurate, Weinstein said, “Yeah, perfect.”

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