Hear No Evil: What’s clear after endless hours of argument in the opening day of President Trump’s Senate trial is that the Republicans not only don’t want to hear the truth, they don’t want to be exposed to any evidence of it. 

  It took until just before 2 am for the Republicans to shoot down 11 Democratic amendments to the trial procedures.

 The Republicans quickly sidelined Democratic proposals to subpoena White House, State Department, and Office of Management and Budget documents related to Ukraine, demonstrating that they have the votes to hold off Democratic efforts to balance the rules and run something resembling a real trial of the facts.

  They also tabled efforts to call witnesses. In the early hours, House impeachment manager Jerrold Nadler said, “They will not permit the American people to hear from the witnesses. And they lie, and lie, and lie, and lie.”

  Part of the Democratic strategy last night was to get time arguing for their amendments in front of the television-watching public. Their speeches repeatedly referenced testimony before the House confirming that President Trump withheld military aide from Ukraine until they agreed to investigate Vice President Joe Biden.

  Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated before each argument that he intended to table the Democratic amendments to the rules. After the Republicans tabled an amendment to call White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to testify, McConnell asked the Democrats to “stack” all their amendments — vote on them all at once. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer refused, saying, “We will not back off on getting votes on all of these amendments.”

  The rules set by McConnell say both sides have to make their cases before there’s a vote on whether to have witnesses and presentation of evidence. McConnell made last-minute adjustments to the rules to appease the handful of Republican moderates who have the power to blow open the trial if they break from their boss. Instead of just two days, McConnell is allowing 24 hours of argument spread over three days for both sides.

  The central issue is the Democrats’ effort to get actual evidence and testimony into the trial. California Rep. Adam Schiff, one of the lead House managers, said, “If the Senate votes to deprive itself of witnesses and documents, the opening statements will be the end of the trial.”

  Schiff said, “To say let’s just have the opening statements and then we’ll see means let’s have the trial, and maybe we can just sweep this all under the rug.”

The Greatest: As his trial got under way, President Trump was in Davos, Switzerland, thumping his chest at the World Economic Forum about how great he is.

  In a speech to the gathering Trump said that before he became President, “America’s economy was in a rather dismal state.” He claimed that “Before my presidency began, the outlook for many economies was bleak.”

  The US economy recovered from recession during the Obama administration, but Trump bragged that he had created a “roaring geyser of opportunity” and declared that “the American dream is back bigger, better and stronger than ever before.”

Don’t Breathe: China is fighting the spread of a deadly virus that has killed at least nine people and infected as many as 440. During China’s busiest travel season, the disease has spread to other Asian countries and the United States.

  A man from Washington State was diagnosed with the disease after returning from Wuhan.

 Symptoms of what has been called the Wuhan Coronavirus include high fever, difficulty breathing and lesions in the lungs. The airborne virus spreads quickly from person to person. One patient is believed to have infected 14 medical workers. 

The Bulletin Board: American journalist Glenn Greenwald is charged with a crime in Brazil for publishing messages hacked from the phones of Brazilian officials that suggest collusion between a judge and prosecutors in the conviction and jailing of a former president. Greenwald calls the accusation an “obvious attempt to attack a free press in retaliation for the revelations we reported.”  — Deborah Dugan, the Recording Academy’s CEO who was ousted after only seven months on the job, has filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The Recording Academy hands out the Grammy Awards. The Academy’s first woman boss claims she’s being punished for attempting to reorganize and change the culture of the boys’ club.

The Obit Page: You can’t beat the timing on this one.

   Egil Krogh, the aide to President Richard Nixon who was a leader of the secret “Plumbers” unit that committed break-ins leading to the President’s downfall, has died at age 80.

  Krogh gave the greenlight for a burglary into the office of a psychiatrist who treated Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the infamous Pentagon Papers that detailed how the government pursued the hopeless Vietnam War. That break-in was the prelude to the intrusion into the Democratic Party headquarters at  the Watergate in Washington. 

  The Plumbers unit was established to stop leaks that were damaging Nixon. In November 1973, Krogh pleaded guilty to “conspiracy against rights of citizens.”  He wrote in a 2007 memoir, “Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices and Life Lessons From the White House,” that,  “We were wrong, and the price paid by the country was too high.”

Ready, Aim: Demonstrating once again that the Democratic Party is a circular firing squad, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton denounces Bernie Sanders in a documentary to be shown this coming weekend at the Sundance Film Festival.

  In the documentary, Clinton declines to say whether she would endorse Sanders if he wins the Democratic nomination. “Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician,” she said. “It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.” 

  Sanders told reporters, “On a good day my wife likes me so let’s clear the air on that one.”

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