Reviews coming in Planning on hibernating today with some gavel-to-gavel impeachment hearings coverage? Probably not, but still, it’s going to be hard to avoid the topic. Case in point, we’re starting off today’s Daily with the latest CNN poll, which finds 51% of Americans say the Senate should remove Trump from office (90,000+ shares). Jennifer Agiesta summarizes the key findings, noting that “Massive partisan gaps continue to dominate” the views. However, majorities of Americans think each of the charges he’s faced with are true. 
NBD, says Team Trump, and yet that argument is ‘Constitutional Nonsense’: Trump’s Impeachment Defense Defies Legal Consensus, writes Charlie Savage in his analysis for The New York Times. He tweets, “Trump’s legal team says even if he *did* abuse his power to coerce Ukraine into tarring a political rival as a crook, it doesn’t matter bc ‘abuse of power,’ absent an indictable crime, is not impeachable. That’s way out of the mainstream.” As Patrick LaForge says, “Reviews coming in about the Trump defense.” And Michael Broder shares, “I understand that The New York Times is not magic and does not have superpowers, but I’m very glad they ran this piece. It’s what I’ve been shouting at my radio for months now!” 
Meanwhile, Robert Costa and Rachael Bade of The Washington Post report that Trump’s lawyers and Senate GOP allies are working privately to ensure Bolton does not testify publicly. A senior administration official tells Costa and Bade that one option being discussed would be to move Bolton’s testimony to a classified setting because of national security concerns. Jim Sciutto wonders, “Other than politics, why would @AmbJohnBolton’s testimony need a classified setting when the testimony of other senior officials involved incl Fiona Hill, Bill Taylor, and Gordon Sondland did not?” “Afraid of the truth?” offers Kevin Riordan. Before we move on, “Here’s a reminder that the administration’s original sin—Trump’s decision to retain sprawling holdings—was only a first step in monetizing the presidency. The destructive effects of his conflicts of interest are easy to forget amidst the daily calamities.” Walter Shaub links to new reporting by Anita Kumar of POLITICO on how Trump fused his business empire to the presidency. Opens up and unloads In case you hadn’t noticed, “The 2020 campaign is raging. So is the 2016 campaign,” Michael Calia reminds us, and as Matthew Belloni tweets, “This year’s @THR Sundance cover story is the person least likely to be spotted at Sundance. @HillaryClinton opens up and unloads on @BernieSanders in her new @hulu documentary: ‘Nobody likes him...Nobody wants to work with him.’” 
For all that and more, read Lacey Rose’s interview with Clinton for The Hollywood Reporter, Hillary Clinton in Full: A Fiery New Documentary, Trump Regrets and Harsh Words for Bernie: “Nobody Likes Him.” Ed O’Keefe notices, “The night after @BernieSanders apologizes to @JoeBiden, @THR drops an interview with @HillaryClinton who gives her unvarnished take on the Vermont senator.” CBS News’s Cara Korte has more on said apology, Bernie Sanders apologizes to Joe Biden for surrogate’s op-ed alleging he has a “big corruption problem.” Tweets Shane Goldmacher, “Joe Biden gets a Bernie Sanders apology for @ZephyrTeachout op-ed: ‘It is absolutely not my view that Joe is corrupt in any way. And I’m sorry that that op-ed appeared.’” So, back to that Hillary interview: “And I don’t think we want to go down that road again where you campaign by insult and attack and maybe you try to get some distance from it, but you either don’t know what your campaign and supporters are doing or you’re just giving them a wink...” Meanwhile, a new Suffolk University/Boston Globe New Hampshire poll finds Sanders and Biden leading a tight pack of front-runners. The top four, Sanders, Biden, Buttigieg and Warren, are all within the margin of error, Victoria McGrane reports. ‘Oh, really?’ Speaking of opening up and unloading, the Sacramento Bee Editorial Board writes that Devin Nunes’ Ukraine lies are a betrayal. Voters in his district deserve better. An excerpt from that “brutal editorial,” as Jose A. Del Real dubs it: “I remember that call, which was very odd, random, talking about random things,” Nunes told Fox. “And I said, ‘Great, you know, just talk to my staff,’ and boom, boom, boom. Which is normal, standard operating procedure.” Oh, really? Nunes hasn’t held a townhall with his constituents in years, yet he expects people to believe his conversation with a now-indicted Ukrainian-American operative was completely normal? Incredible and terrifying Don’t miss the result of Justin Nobel’s 20-month investigation into oil and gas radioactivity, published by Rolling Stone, Beyond Fracking: Oil-and-Gas Industry’s Toxic Waste Is Radioactive. That story quotes British radiation biologist Ian Fairlie, who says, “All oil-field workers are radiation workers.” But they don’t necessarily know it, Nobel adds. Tessa Stuart shares, “I have been waiting MONTHS to share this incredible and terrifying @JustinNobel story, edited by the incomparable @PhoebeNeidl.” From the piece, Bob Marshall highlights, “America’s Radioactive Secret: Oil-and-gas wells produce nearly a trillion gallons of toxic waste a year, some of it radioactive. Think Louisiana has a problem?” 
On that note, for a look at the politics of global warming, read Christopher Flavelle’s new piece for The Washington Post, Conservative States Seek Billions to Brace for Disaster. (Just Don’t Call It Climate Change.) Call it “changing coastal conditions” or the “destabilizing effects and unpredictability” of major storms, or, if you must, put the phrase “climate change” in the appendix on the final page of the proposal. ‘Our house is still on fire’ At Davos, meanwhile, “Only a handful of executives from the oil, gas and coal industries that are chiefly responsible for greenhouse gas emissions were seen attending the panel at which Thunberg spoke on Tuesday.” Natasha Doff links to the reporting by Javier Blas and Laura Millan Lombrana of Bloomberg on Greta Thunberg’s speech at Davos: Nothing Has Been Done to Stop Climate Change. As Somini Sengupta of The New York Times writes, Thunberg punched a hole in the promises emerging from a forum of the global political and business elite and offered instead an ultimatum. Thunberg also reprised her most famous line from an address last year at Davos: “Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour.” As for media coverage of climate change, Stacie Sherman shares, “Bloomberg is changing the way we cover climate change. This is why.” She links to John Micklethwait’s letter about Bloomberg’s new home for climate change coverage, Green. One feature of the platform is The Green Data Dashboard, which appears alongside every story and offers “A Live Climate Scoreboard for the World.” Just checking the taps 
Here’s a piece about Davos you might have missed. Sam Jones of the Financial Times reveals, Swiss police suspect Davos plumbers of being Russian spies. You know, “just checking the taps,” as Jim Pickard says. For the record, that’s “Russia, our closest ally,” tweets Barry Ritholtz. “Though many may doubt how much actionable intelligence even the most subtle of agents could lift from the World Economic Forum,” Margot Patrick highlights. Speaking checking the taps, check out the big scoop from Joseph Menn of Reuters, whose sources reveal that Apple dropped plans to let iPhone users fully encrypt backups of their devices after the FBI complained that the move would harm investigations. “Apple failed to ship an announced security feature for a billion or so users, and we only learned about that two years after the fact. Craziness. (via @matthew_d_green, a mandatory follow if you have any interest in cryptography),” says Rob Pegoraro. More must-reads What does your manicure really cost? Amelia Gentleman of The Guardian reveals the unvarnished truth about nail bars. On Twitter, she shares, “I watched police raid a discount nail bar in London, where arrests were made on modern slavery charges.” Isabella Kaminski thinks, “This is a good article by @ameliagentleman about exploitation in nail bars. But it has to tread that fine journalistic line between blaming traffickers, highlighting public authority enforcement gaps and gently informing the public about their own impacts.” Angela Sterritt of CBC News spoke with a 12-year-old Indigenous girl who, along with her grandfather, was handcuffed and then detained for 45 minutes on a downtown street by the Vancouver Police Department after trying to open an account at the Bank of Montreal. Read Tori-Anne's story here. And finally today, S. E. Smith says, “This Australian true crime story has, uh, some significant twists and turns. (CN some descriptions of murder, but that’s not the focus.)” Smith is referring to The Mysterious Lawyer X, by Evan Ratliff for The California Sunday Magazine, and “What a crazy story. Read from start to end without interruption,” urges Jency Jacob. Taking her advice, Marin Cogan is “Requesting the rest of the day off so I can read this new @ev_rat piece.” Not convinced? Yaffa Fredrick teases, “This has everything I want in a long read: mobsters, crime and a mysterious lady lawyer willing to defend them until…” | 
Today’s featured journalist is Ukraine-based 
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