S.

Voted in its reality TV president, there were those who thought this moment inevitable.

While few could predict Nancy Pelosi would use quite so many pens to sign the articles of impeachment custom to dole them out as Mementos, some of Donald Trump's detractors suspected it would just be a matter of time.

Many supporters to wondered if this moment would come when those articles will be carried by hand in a choreographed procession to the Senate, although they predicted it would happen because their man would be unfairly targeted, the victim of a witch hunt.

But this season of the Trump reality saga had a big last minute twist that we were there for the president.

The United States.

You were there to speak on President Trump's correct exact those exact words.

On the eve of only the third impeachment trial in U.

S.

History, a bombshell interview, this man live Parness turned to prime time to blow up the president's defense.

What do you think is the main inaccuracy or the main lie that's being told that you feel like you can correct that the president didn't know what was going on President Trump know exactly what was going on.

Hey was aware of my movements.

He wouldn't do anything without consent.

The Rudy Giuliani never.

The president left harnesses under indictment for campaign finance violations, which is why the White House says he's not credible.

But he was the man hired by the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, he says, to help persuade Ukraine's president, Zelinsky, to dig up dirt on Trump's political rival, Joe Biden.

But Trump has insisted his actions were only ever about one thing.

I'm only interested in corruption.

Everything to me is about corruption.

We're investigating corruption.

Are you saying the president was aware that you and Mr Giuliani were working on this effort in Ukraine to basically try to hurt Joe Biden's political career?

He was about that.

It was a little about Joe Biden.

Hunter Biden on it was never about corruption.

The man sitting next to Mr Parness during his interview with MSNBC is his lawyer, who released this video on Twitter a few days ago.

In October, the president Trump denied knowing either partners or his associate, Eagle Frumin.

I don't know those gentlemen now it's possible I have a picture with him because I have a picture with everybody.

I don't know them.

I don't know about them.

I don't know what they do.

He liked.

I mean, we're not friends.

I mean, when you say friends at me and me and him didn't watch football games together within heat, hot dogs.

But he knew exactly who we were.

He knew exactly who I was, especially because I interacted with him in a lot of events.

There's no doubt the partners revelations will raise the stakes.

So, incredibly, they were Republican senators this morning who said they hadn't even heard them grab one very quickly.

Just what do you make of the revelations this morning?

Haven't revelations from left Parness.

What do you make of these revelations from Left Parness this morning.

How damaging our way to the president?

Well, I haven't.

I haven't seen all the materials that have been turned over.

Um, he says the president knew exactly what was going on, right?

I haven't seen all the materials that have been turned over, and I haven't really seen the interview.

You way.

Democrats say the Parness allegations need to be considered were obviously seeing more from Mr Parness and others that I think have to be, uh, made part of the record.

How we do that remains to be seen.

I'm the dean of the Senate, and I've never seen any president, Republican or Democrat ever even contemplate doing something like this.

The manager's on the part of the House of Representatives are present and ready to present the articles of impeachment.

In the past few hours, the articles were formally read in the Senate.

Article one.

Abuse of Power Article too.

Obstruction of Congress.

Next.

Senators on both sides must take an oath of impartiality.

But ponder on this.

The Senate's top Republican has already said on national TV he is not impartial, and he'll take his cues during the trial from the White House.

A couple of important developments to mention here.

The federal watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, has said today that the White House, ergo President Trump violated federal law when it withheld that military aid that $400 million worth to Ukraine because the aid was agreed and signed off by Congress.

It said the president therefore had no right to appropriate those funds for what they called policy reasons.

The money was, of course later released to Ukraine, but only after the scandal broke the Democrats today.

Immediately seizing on that news is evidence that the White House and President Trump broke the law.

The white has those still continuing to insists that holding those funds were both appropriate, it said, and necessary either way.

Certainly not good news on the day that the president's trial kicks off formally in the Senate.

I think you can see some pictures here off senators waiting for the swearing in ceremony to begin.

They will, of course, actors jurors during that trial.

More bad news today.

Obviously, you saw there in my piece those ugly revelations from live Parness.

Now Republicans have said that those allegations need to be validated.

But certainly there's no doubt that they will put pressure on the Republicans to include witnesses during the trial, something that the Republicans have so far strongly resisted.

And if they do include witnesses, And if there are new fresh, damning allegations that fresh evidence comes out then that could up the stakes quite considerably for President Trump.

Sean Kennedy on Capitol Hill.

Well, earlier, I spoke to David from former speechwriter for president George W.

Bush had author off transport Chrissy the Corruption of the American Republic.

I began by asking him about the significance of left Parness.

His comments.

The impact of the Parness testimony is to deliver a body blow warning to Republicans in the Senate that there is a lot of information out there about what President Trump did to try to be famous political opponent by blackmailing the government of Ukraine that the Trump administration has been engaged in an attempt to cover up by refusing to provide evidence by refusing to allow people to testify, but is a huge pile of dirt.

It's not that big a carpet, and every once in a while you get these gusts that show how much dirt is under the carpet.

Parnassus reminded us all of that.

How reliable is pronounced?

Not very.

That's what one of the things that happens in these trump inquiries, you know, the Trump people say he's he's, ah, liar, He's a hoodlum.

And all of that is true because, after all, he is an associate of Donald Trump's that the Trump defense so often says, How can you believe this witness?

How can you believe Donald Trump's long term personal lawyer.

How long King?

How can you believe his thes associates of his?

After all, they work for Donald Trump.

They must be criminals and liars.

The problem is, there aren't very many honest people who work for Donald Trump.

So the evidence you're going to get from his associates comes from people with with these impairments.

But remember everything That part, NASA's saying so far, has been backed up by contemporaneous textual evidence.

You mean there are really texts which can't really be challenged?

One of the claims that Donald Trump makes for examples that perhaps Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, Donald Trump's personal lawyer, was off on some frolic and diversion of his own willpower.

NASA's provided us with a letter from Rudy Giuliani to the president of Ukraine, in which Rudy Giuliani says, I'm acting for President Trump.

I'm acting in his personal capacity.

This is not a favor on behalf of the United States, and I understand that you'll find my request may be unusual.

So the elements of the unusualness of the demand are all there.

We've made the assumption that the impeachment, which has come through from the Congress is politically motivated and can be escaped by the fact that there is a majority for the Republicans in the Senate.

But is this so easily escaped?

Look, I don't think to this day any real doubt that the Republicans in the Senate will vote to acquit.

The president, after all, takes a 2/3 majority to convict, to impeach and remove a president.

And that's probably not available.

But what happens with each passing day is the political price to those Republicans rises.

What happens to them if they vote not just to quit, but to cover up, to have a fake trial, not hear evidence.

What happens to them?

That is a calculation they all have to make.

So the political damage to them, in terms of honesty is worse than any question of loyalty.

That's implied Bye.

By voting in the Senate against the impeachment, Donald Trump is probably going to lose the 2020 election.

He has been consistently the most unpopular first term president in the history of polling, and his people in Britain know when a candidate is unpopular, they tend to lose.

So.

The question, however, has been we all most people see him.

Donald Trump may lose in 2020 but the Republican hold on the Senate is solid.

But if the impeachment begins to show up lots and lots of dirt, if the Republicans look like their complicity with Donald Trump in concealing, if they refuse to give a fair hearing to what is obviously important evidence, the question then becomes his Republican control of the Senate in 2020 at risk as well.

But it's fascinating that you say that Mr Trump's gonna lose, because I mean the Democrats really not even easily finding somebody to challenge him on.

At the same time, there is this, incredibly a populous sort of.

I mean, it is popularity that that is, that is keeping him so happily in the White House.

I didn't say he will lose.

I said he probably will lose.

Donald Trump has is the only president the only first term president in history.

Polling never wants to have achieved 50% approval in any credible pool.

He usually in the middle forties.

He's got a lot of wind in his face, and there's a lot of effort to deny that, because a lot of Donald Trump's secret of his career to date, has been telling people that he's succeeding even when he's failing.

David from.

Thank you very much indeed for talking to us.

Thank you very much.

And right now you could see senators coming in one by one to sign in effectively as members of the jury.