Hi, and welcome back to Trump Watch! The build-up to the slow-motion car crash that is the Senate impeachment trial is finally over, and now the fun begins. Restricted press access means I'll be watching most of this trial from my laptop, which I highly recommend federal courts start considering as an option. Send me emails to read during lulls in the trial at [email protected] and follow the fun on Twitter @jacq_thomsen.

The Impeachment Trial Has Started. Pat Cipollone Is Ready.

Leading the defense of a president in an impeachment trial is the legal role of a lifetime, and White House counsel Pat Cipollone has spent months quietly building the case for him to land it.

Starting Tuesday, Cipollone and his White House deputies Mike Purpura and Pat Philbin, alongside attorney Jay Sekulow, are among the attorneys expected to defend Trump from the articles of impeachment passed last month.

Trump has long relied on attorneys to help build his real estate empire and later, shield him from allegations that could harm his 2016 presidential bid. One such attorney, Jay Goldberg, 87, who represented Trump in his divorces, still speaks warmly of Trump, even after a spat over a memoir the lawyer released in 2018.

On the other hand, ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen flipped on the president and is in prison after he arranged hush-money payments to women alleging affairs with Trump, and for lying to Congress.

Trump has reportedly bemoaned his lack of a forceful attorney in the mold of Roy Cohn, who was more than willing to go the extra mile to shield him from threats.

Perhaps Rudy Giuliani most closely fits that bill, with his frequent media appearances and trips to Ukraine to push for the Biden investigations. Too bad those efforts have landed Giuliani at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.

Even in his more removed role as White House counsel, Cipollone has stepped up to the plate. He's been far from shy, and sometimes verging on outlandish, in his legal arguments defending the president.

Under his leadership, the White House counsel's office has repeatedly asserted executive privilege in refusing to turn over materials to Congress. Cipollone's Oct. 8 letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in which he said the White House wouldn't participate in the impeachment inquiry, drew significant bipartisan backlash.

The former Kirkland & Ellis partner's previous legal work focused on commercial litigation, which he also worked on as a partner at Stein, Mitchell Cipollone, Beato & Missner.

Cipollone was one of the attorneys behind a 2017 lawsuit on the Equifax data breach, and he also helped sue CVS in a class action alleging inflation of generic drug prices.

His close ties to conservative figures may have also helped him land the White House job. Fox News host Laura Ingraham has credited Cipollone with helping her convert to Catholicism.

And he's also close with other prominent conservative Catholics, like Leonard Leo, who has played an outsize role in helping Trump get judicial nominees onto the bench.

Even as Cipollone's letters and legal strategies have dominated headlines, he has personally stayed out of the spotlight. At a White House event last year, Trump described him as the "strong, silent type."

Now Cipollone will earn a place in history as one of a handful of lawyers who have argued during an impeachment trial.

A Look Ahead

The Senate impeachment trial will start in earnest next week, after Chief Justice John Roberts made his first appearance at the chamber yesterday to swear in the senators. As my colleague Marcia Coyle reports, Roberts isn't expected to miss any arguments scheduled at the Supreme Court next week. If he does, Senior Associate Justice Clarence Thomas will preside over the court.

Opening arguments are expected to start in the Senate trial on Tuesday, after the long Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. A senior administration official told reporters this week that it'd be "extraordinary" if the trial lasts more than two weeks—but that was apparently assuming witnesses won't be called.

What We're Reading

>> Roberts Expects 'Business as Usual' at SCOTUS as Impeachment Trial Ramps Up: "[Chief Justice John] Roberts will wear his black judicial robe—the same one he wears for oral arguments—when he travels across the street at 2 p.m. Thursday to take the oath promising to do impartial justice, a court spokesperson said Thursday….The court staff has been coordinating with Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough and the office of the Senate Sergeant at Arms on logistics and the chief justice's role." [National Law Journal]

>> Meet the Impeachment Managers: Pelosi's Prosecutors Who Will Make the Case to Remove Trump: "Nearly all of the managers selected for the Democrats have law degrees, and some are former prosecutors themselves. Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, who took the lead in the impeachment inquiry, are expected to replicate that performance on the Senate floor. The House team will face off with Trump's attorneys for the first time in the impeachment proceedings, after the White House refused to participate in the process while it was under House Democrats' control." [National Law Journal]

>> Michael Flynn Wants to Scrap His Guilty Plea Ahead of Sentencing: "Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, accused the government of 'bad faith' and 'vindictiveness' in arguing that prosecutors broke their cooperation deal with him when they recommended earlier this month he receive a prison sentence of up to six months. The prosecutors' recommendation marked a reversal of their past support for a probation-only sentence. Flynn admitted in 2017 that he lied to investigators about his contacts with Russia's top diplomat to the U.S. during the latest transition." [National Law Journal]

>> Judge Links Fate of House's Bid for Trump Tax Returns to DC Circuit Ruling on McGahn: "A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday abruptly halted the House's lawsuit seeking President Donald Trump's federal tax returns pending an appeals court ruling on whether former White House counsel Don McGahn can be compelled to testify. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden of the District of Columbia at 2:54 p.m. Tuesday scheduled a phone conference in the case for 3 p.m. Shortly afterward, an order was issued saying the case will be stayed until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issues its decision in the McGahn case…The appellate court is scheduled to next release opinions Friday, although it's unclear when a ruling will be made." [National Law Journal]

>> White House hold on Ukraine aid violated federal law, congressional watchdog says: "The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that reports to Congress, found that the Trump administration violated a law that governs how the White House disburses money approved by Congress….'Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,' the decision says. 'OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act.'" [The Washington Post]

>> This Trump Supreme Court Short-Lister Says God Can Instruct Juries on Guilt and Innocence: "[Judge William] Pryor's dubious view of the role of religion under our constitutional system was on display again last week in a Florida case. He wrote a long, rambling dissent in a case that needed no such thing, a dissent that so jolted a fellow conservative judge on the panel that she felt compelled to write a concurrence aimed at diluting Pryor's message that 'religious freedom' ought to extend more fully to jury deliberations. That he would bring such views to the Supreme Court if Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell say so isn't just a chilling thought; it also could turn jury trials into religious contests." [Slate]