right now at 7:00, the president's defense team finished its closing arguments on the senate floor. the final message the team had for senators. plus, the big question on capitol hill -- will john bolton testify? larry gerston joins us with how senators might vote. and then, the big game now five days away. raj mathai will show us how the 49ers are preparing. good evening, and thanks for joining us for this special edition of "nbc bay area news." we are on at this hour to focus on the impeachment trial of president trump. good evening. i'm jessica aguirre. >> i'm terry mcsweeney in for raj mathai. he's in miami on assignment. we'll get to him in a minute. here are the top three moments from the impeachment hearing today, starting with the president's defense team, which ended their opening arguments.

>> reject these articles of impeachment. it will show that we can come together on both sides of the aisle and end the era of impeachment for good. you know it should end. >> former national security adviser john bolton continues to cast a shadow over the impeachment trial. his claim about the president's request for a quid pro quo from ukraine won support today from jon kelley, the president's former chief of staff. kelley told a florida newspaper he believes john bolton. >> and dianne feinstein took to twitter to say the "l.a. times" misquoted and misunderstood her. she said she might vote to acquit there his fate the senator now says it's clear the president's actions were mh mcconnell has told senators privately he does not have the votes to block new witnesses in president trump's impeachment trial. >> that news surfaced just after

the president's legal team made its closing arguments. let's head to alice barr in washington for the latest. >> reporter: in the trump team's last day with the stage to themselves, they tried to take apart the democrats' case for impeachment and stave off new evidence senators could choose to hear through witnesses and documents. the president's defense team closing three days of opening arguments with an impassioned plea. >> reject these articles of impeachment, for our country and for the american people. >> reporter: and a sharp warning -- >> danger, danger, danger. >> reporter: -- that removing president trump from office would lower the bar for future democrats, republicans -- will be paralyzed the moment they are elected. >> reporter: the trump team attacking house democrats' central claim that the president abused his power by pressuring ukraine to investigate the bidens, saying ukrainian leaders disagree.

>> have repeatedly said there was no pressure, it was a good call. >> reporter: the president's lawyers insisting the hold on ukraine's military aid was not tied to those investigations, and they tried to diffuse a potential threat to their case -- former national security adviser john bolton. in his upcoming book, described by sources to "the new york times," bolton claims president trump told him he withheld aid from ukraine. >> i call it inadmissible. >> democrats call it proof that they need to hear from witnesses. >> those for or against the president overly want the trial to be fair, which means the calling of witnesses. >> we're adjourned. >> reporter: the trial now heads into 16 hours of senators' questions that will pave the way to a vote on whether witnesses will testify, potentially adding new weight to the case against president trump. senate republicans met after the trial adjourned for the day to get into the question of who supports calling witnesses and what that could mean.

jessica and terry, back to you. >> okay, thank you, alice. we're going to continue our coverage of the impeachment trial in less than ten minutes in the 7:00 edition of bay area news, we have been breaking down the arguments from both prosecution and defense. up next, we'll talk on our political analyst, larry gerston, about his takeaways from both sides, plus what we can expect from the trial for the rest of the week. turning away from the impeachment trial for a few minutes to focus on the upcoming super bowl. >> the days and hours until kickoff just ticking away. nbc bay area's raj mathai is live in miami. players didn't practice today, but they are still working, especially working the media. >> reporter: yeah, there's a lot of work to be done, not just football work here. you know, usually, super bowl week's pretty slow. it's just about the party and social scene, but not the case so far this week. there's been a lot of heavy stories, even today as we look at aami this tuesday night, 100 p.m. here eastern time. we had an earthquake near cuba, 7.7, but we did feel it here in downtown miami. several buildings downtown were

evacuated, but no damage or injuries here. as for what's happening at the stadium, about 20 minutes north of us, hard rock stadium, we heard something very interesting a short while ago. take a listen. ♪ >> reporter: that is it, the sound check, shakira and j. lo. they are the headliners for the halftime show this sunday. but before sunday, we're hearing from them right now as they're rehearsing just like the niners and chiefs getting ready for the big day. speaking of the 49ers, you mentioned earlier, no practice today. however, they did their mandatory media sessions. they've got to meet with reporters. remember, there's more than 6,000 media members here covering this game from all over the world, representing 25 different countries. the 49ers just going at it, very confident, loose, but also awar >> this is my first full season as a starter. knock on wood, i made it through healthy and everything. but yeah, it's been crazy.

and so, just got to enjoy it, man. i mean, can't put too much thought into are you young or old. you've just got to go out and play football. >> i was really impressed with our people in the room that i knew we had some good people, i knew we had some tough players, but just week in, week out, those guys never got caught up in anything. >> reporter: we also chatted today with 49ers owner jed york. we talked about football. we talked about the business of the 49ers. but really, we also talked about the family tragedy and struggles that he's going through. a rare one-on-one interview with the 40-year-old owner -- in fact, this was an exclusive chat with him earlier. 0 years old. parents 12 years ago, when he was just 28. we've seen him go through the ups and downs, but this game is all about his younger brother, tony. tony york died of suicide just 13 months ago, and jed york saying sunday's game is a dedication to his little brother. what he wants to do is get that super bowl ring and save a ring for tony.

>> after my brother, it's certainly been a long ride kind of back to whatever the new normal is, so it's been special kind of dedicating this season to tony and getting to this point. >> reporter: we'll be posting the entire segment with jed york on our website at nbcbayarea.com. that's going to do it from now, 10:00 p.m. in miami and the night is still young. guys, we'll send it back to you. >> just getting going. >> yeah. okay, thank you, raj. other news now. san francisco's public works director yoor and a well-known restaurant owner in federal court charged with corruption. mohammed nuru accused of trying to bribe an airport commissioner on behalf of left o'doul's's owner, nick bovis, to get his restaurant into the airport. >> the scheme involved the payment of $5,000 bribe and also the provision of travel. >> investigators say the airport commissioner turned down that bribe, but the offer was the crime. the longtime dpw director is

also accused of giving bovis inside information to help him win a contract for speciality port-a-potties on city streets and accepting bribes from a chinese developer in exchange for help getting him building permits. bovis and nuru both face up to 20 years in prison, if convicted. searching for answers, investigators still trying to figure out why a helicopter carrying basketball icon kobe bryant crashed. bryant, his daughter, and seven others died in the crash on sunday. today, federal investigators recovered the wreckage and used drones to recreate part of the helicopter's flight path. they say the chopper was just about 20 to 30 feet from clearing the hill when it crashed into it. investigators plan to release a preliminary report in the next ten days. coming up next, the president's defense team wrapped up its closing arguments on the senate floor today. the main message. we're going to break that down for you with political analyst larry gerston. vo: droughts. floods.

hurricanes. tornadoes. donald trump is making it worse. trump:"all of this with the global warming. a lot of it's a hoax." vo: mike bloomberg knows the science and understands the challenge, he's led an effort that has shut down half the nation's dirty polluting coal plants so far. as president, a plan for 80% clean energy by 2028 - cutting carbon emissions and creating millions of clean energy jobs. mike will get it done. i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message.

well, the president's legal team ended its closing arguments

today and they did it by using the democratic house manager's words against them, playing clips from bill clinton's impeachment trial in 1999. >> this is unfair to the american people. by these actions, you would undo the free election that expressed the will of the american people in 1996. >> my fear is that when a republican wins the white house, democrats will demand payback. >> you were right. >> are you going to allow proceedings on impeachment to go from a "new york times" report about someone that says what they hear is in a manuscript? is that where we are? >> and i would remind my republican friends, these witnesses we've asked for are not democrats, they're not anti-trump people. they're his own appointees. >> now, when the trial resumes tomorrow, senators will submit questions to the house impeachment managers and the

president's defense team. they will ask for clarification on various issues. >> joining us to talk about it all, political analyst lettery gerston. a moment of entertainment with the old videos, talking about bill clinton's impeachment. different set of circumstances and everything, but let's get back to what happened today. they were talking about this is a partisan impeachment and they've got a big problem with that, because a lot of people have said over the years, you can't have that, but we're having that, it looks like. what's the deal? >> well, i think this time things are divided more than they've been in the past, and i think that's a reflection of the polarization we have in society. i mean, you know, most people are either on one side or the other. very few in the middle. and i think that's reflected in the kind of people who are in congress and the debate over the impeachment. but the interesting thing is, is how they hung on dershowitz today. alan dershowitz, who came into this thing for the president's team and basically said, even if you commit a crime, it's not necessarily impeachable. this has sort of blown a lot of people away.

dershowitz, of course, is a very talented attorney and law professor. he is not a constitutional law expert, however. and when we saw that the four professors who came to speak during the hearings -- >> right. >> even the one that went ahead for the republicans, jonathan turley said that, of course, a crime can be impeachable, so that was interesting. >> okay, larry, let's take a step back, and in a non-partisan way, because that's the perspective youan give us from everything we've been hearing. what are the things that you've seen on both sides that have made sense to you while you've been watching this impeachment process? >> well, the democrats operated basically with one hand behind their back, tied behind their back. you know, they couldn't get to the president. the president had this great wall. he's got a phenomenal job of keeping them at bay. he would not honor any subpoenas. he would not honor any requests for his people to go ahead. the ones who did go ahead, of course, did at their own risk, and the democrats had to work with that kind of problem. and for that, they did a pretty good job. on the other hand, you've got the republicans who over the

last couple days basically sat back and kind of swatted the democrats away like they were flies, a nuisance. get out of our way. you know, things are going fine. they demonstrated -- the republicans did, in their minds, at least -- that there was no there there -- the president was doing his job. foreign policy is part of his job. managing the country is part of his job. and all these people did, as far as republicans were concerned, was try to interfere for partisan reasons and try to take a president who is elected dutifully in 2016 and remove him from office. >> let's talk about john bolton. that's the big news today. reports -- the "wall street journal" is saying that it's a fact, we're going to see. a this moment, the republicans do not have the votes to avoid having witnesses at this trial. now, that wouldn't happen until -- the vote's not going to take place until friday, so there's some time, but right now, there's some people, some sand-shifting, perhaps, in the republican party?

>> there's sand shifting tonight. the question is, will it shift back tomorrow or the day after? >> okay, yeah. >> you know? there's going to be a tremendous amount of pressure put on these wavering republican senators to stay with the team -- >> and we're talking about? >> the trump team. >> yeah, like collins and -- >> collins, i think, and romney are pretty sure to be two votes. but beyond them, you know -- >> lamar alexander, that name? >> cory gardner. probably half a dozen others -- murkowski's one -- who really would like to, we think, vote to hear witnesses, but on the other hand, they don't want -- number one, make it appear that they betrayed the president. the president's certainly put it that way. and number two, delay the inevitable. look, even if witnesses come, the feeling by almost everyone is, at the end of the day, there will be an acquittal. so, a lot of these folks are thinking, why should we belabor this, jeopardize our relationship with the president just to keep things going for

longer in order to get witnesses? so, that kind of thing is going through their mind. on the other hand, what they're saying is i've got a conscience, this is the right thing to do and they're torn. but at the end of the day, watch mitch mcconnell. >> how much weight to the fact that the former chief of staff came outside and says he believes -- john kelly's quote was, bolton is an honorable man. how much will that pressure those particular senators to then do what some people say would be the honorable thing? >> i don't think very much. bolton himself, of course, is a very polarizing individual. he has a lot of friends in the republican side of the senate. people have known him for 25, 30 years, going back to both bushes, if you bleeven elieve i. and some of these people don't want to hurt bolton, but feel betrayed by him. so that's more of a problem than anything else. people coming in aying bolton's an honorable man, this or that, i don't think it really enters into this picture very seriously. >> you're talking about why do

the democrats want to delay the inevitable, because they're not going to get enough people to get -- but let's switch it around -- why does mitch mcconnell want to end it so quickly, doesn't want to have any witnesses, even though it's delaying his victory? why doesn't he just wait a little bit? >> let's answer both questions. he doesn't want to wait any longer than he has to, because every day you go longer is a day of the unknown. you don't know what other person's going to come up out of nowhere and say the same thing bolton's saying. they know it's a hot potato. they know the president hasn't handled this particularly well, so they want to get by this as quickly as possible. >> especially in an electionay. >> absolutely, get it done. for democrats, they know they're going to lose this fight, but they want to go ahead and make their case, make their case for november. we're losing it now, but we want to plant the seed. this is the kind of person you've had for the last 3 1/2 years. do you want this person for another four years? here's why you shouldn't. >> and what about the american people weighing in? we've get a new poll out now

that says that a good majority of people would like to hear a little bit more, the people watching it, and they want to hear, okay, let's hear hear was the witnesses have to say. this is the third party in this fight. >> and by the way, that's the group that the democrats are playing to right now, okay? they know they're done with congress and the republicans in the senate. they're praying to the public. and as far as that poll goes, yeah, it's the fourth poll i've seen where it's 70% or above, this time about 75%. and the question is, why don't they act on this? well, it's an individual thing. remember, some of these republicans come from very, very red states. they're not going to go the other way on this deal. those with republicans who come from questionable purple states, they may want to listen to this little bit more. but at the end of the day, just like we were talking so much about nancy pelosi and how she was so successful with her democrats, mitch mcconnell's every bit as successful at keeping republicans in line. >> and it's interesting, we haven't seen nancy pelosi much

during this process. >> well, not much of a reason. she's handed it off to the managers, those folks whose faces we see every day. her job is basically done for now. and we'll have to see what happens over the next day or two. it will be so interesting. >> your job is not done for now. we'll take a quick break and be back with larry gerston in two more minutes to talk about what happens next in the next couple of days.

back with larry gerston talking about the impeachment trial, and dianne feinstein making some news. the "l.a. times" put out a story saying feinstein leans towards acquitting trump. then she came back and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, i said i have an open mind, i'm not leaning towards acquitting. do you think any democrat is going to vote for acquittal? >> it's possible. it's possible. doug jones in alabama has get a very, very tough race. remember, he was the fill shelby's spot -- not shelby, excuse me -- the attorney general. >> sessions. >> yes, sessions. thank you very much. and he won that election just by

a whisker. sessions is running again. if he wins the nomination, he's going to be very tough for shelby. this is a republican state, so he may vote to acquit for that kind of reason. >> walk us through what happens. we've seen them end their opening arguments. now they submit questions. and this is basically a submit questions to each other like a follow-up? >> no. what they're doing over the next few hours and through tomorrow, i guess, is they're going to write questions. the questions they're going to give, they're going to give them to their leaders, the management team for the house, the management team for the president. the leaders will then submit those questions. they're not going to doctor them up or anything, to the chief justice. the chief justice will then take one from one side and ask it, and one from the other side. >> and he asked all of them or does he pick which ones? is it like a game and try to make the will go ahead and answer. there's the possibility that the chief justice will allow for

rebuttals. we don't know yet. look, this is the third time we've had an impeachment. we never know exactly how they're going to run. there's the possibility, if they vote on witnesses, if it's 50/50, the justice chief could decide to break that tie. it's a possibility. >> when after the questions too they then vote? >> up to 16 hours -- >> of questions? >> right. one side may run out early, and you know, i have no more questions. the other side can keep going. at 16 hours, no matter what, we're done. now, 16 hours can go over two days. my suspicious is, if it's 16 hours -- if it is -- it would go over three. >> last time they had an impeachment, justin rehnquist was presiding over the clinton impeachment and said in front of the senate, we would like questions that can be answered in five minutes or less, to which the senate lfed back then in '99, i think it was. they want condensed, clear-cut

questions, brief. don't get paid by the hour kind of answers. >> yeah. you know, the senate's not like the house. the house, you're allowed to speak for two minutes on this, one minute on that and that's that. the senate is the home of -- the quote is -- unlimited debate. it takes more than five minutes for a senator to breathe. these guys take their time about making their case. so when he implored -- and he did that, rehnquist -- please, keep it five minutes or left, these guys had a hard time, most of them, and did a good job. >> and finally to wrap up, larry, when do you expect to see a vote either on the witnesses or a vote to convict the president? >> we could see a vote on the witnesses friday or saturday, if they need friday to go ahead and finish up the 16 hours. could be saturday. and then assuming -- well, if the witnesses are disadisallowe then on monday they'll debate, and they'll probably vote monday night. >> right up to the state of the union almost. >> well, pretty close, yeah. if witnesses are allowed, which is, by the way, another reason why the republicans don't want

to allow witnesses, the idea of interfering with the state of the union. >> meantime, next week we have the iowa caucus. we have three senators who are running for president who would love to not be there in washington, would love to be in iowa, but the funny thing is, the three who are stuck in washington are gaining ground, and joe biden losing ground in some polls that are coming out now. >> well, let's think about why biden may be losing grund. look at the beating that biden has taken. and that's something that's taken a toll on him, right or wrong. >> all right, thank you so much, larry. we appreciate so much having your expertise on a nightly basis here. again, tomorrow the senate begins the next phase of the impeachment, that question-and-answer. senators will submit the questions. you heard larry talk about it. of course, we'll have more for you on our newscast that begins at 10:00 a.m. local time. it's expected to continue through thursday. tonight's the lastht of our kee informed on all of our newscasts at 5:00 and 6:00. all right, looking at a live picture of th

the rain it is gone. what's the forecast look like for tomorrow? chief meteorologist jeff ranieri's got the answer. jeff? >> as we head into tomorrow, we are losing our chance of rainfall, but we will have patchy areas of morning fog to watch out for and chillier temperatures in the loach to mid-40s from the south bay to the tri-valley. 45 in the north bay, san francisco 48 and the east bay at 42. let's take a closer look at the fog for tomorrow. isolated contra costa, alameda counties ah through the central valley. after that morning fog, chance will clear out and get some sunshine returning and that will help temperatures to be just a little bit milder as we head through tomorrow afternoon. got you up 64 in antioch, 65 in morgan hill, napa, 61 in oakland and 50s fromo i so half. my extended forecast has it dry, storm-free all the way through super bowl sunday, even for the beginning part of next week, 50s to low 60s here in san

francisco. inland valleys, take note. 65 trees on friday and dropping cooler heading into super bowl sunday. speaking of which, any parties in the bay area? we know most of us can't go to miami. 60s and partly cloudy. but if you are lucky enough to head to miami after rain on thursday morning, thunderstorms friday and saturday, we'll dry out for that 3:30 pacific time kickoff on sunday. so, good weather there as well. >> it's going to be great. jeff, thanks very much and thanks for watching "nbc bay area news" special coverage of the impeachment trial. >> we'll see you at 11:00. bye-bye. but they wouldn't. so we took it to the voters and forced big tobacco to pay its share of healthcare costs. we fought oil companies for new clean air laws and closed a billion dollar corporate tax loophole to fund public schools. we got results. that's not something you see a lot of i'm tom steyer and i approve this message. let's make change happen.

can't have life without death. >> everything just broke down. >> we're learning so muc about kobe's final hours and the countless lives changed. >> it was the greatest thing ever. >> i would say openly to everyone, i know.

>> how did jess can simpson hide her drinking problems? and justin bieber bears his soul. >> dark times. >> cancer didn't take my life but this weight could. >> it's back but the biggest loser is changed for the better. >> 3, 2 -- >> kate's marilyn moment and here come the super bowl commercials. ♪ welcome to "access hollywood." i'm mario lopez with kat hooper. tonight we're learning more about kobe and gianna's last moments. this is the last photo taken of kobe. here he is at a mall right near their home. >> hours before the accident, kobe and his family did what they do every sunday, attend mass at a local catholic ch.