hear's terry moran. >> reporter: finally, after weeks of indecision,ourc say team to represent him at his senate impeachment trial, and it includes a couple of big names. ken starr, the former independent counsel whose investigation into president bill clinton's affair with monica lewinsky triggered clinton's impeachment. and high-profile harvard law professor alan dershowitz. both men have been frequent and vocal defenders of the president's on fox news. >> they would be abusing their power if they impeach president trump on this record. >> it is a lesson, and a nasty lesson, in how not to do impeachment. >> both men also represented convicted sex offender jeffrey epstein, who committed suicide last year, helping to negotiate a lenient sentence for epstein in 2008. dershowitz also helped to defend o.j. simpson. already, and not surprisingly, there's confusion on the trump team. dershowtiz, who will handle the constitutional issues surrounding impeachment, today telling dan abrams he's not really on the president's team. >> i will be there for one hour, basically, presenting my argume

i want to talk about what terry moran said. we'll show the viewer the president's opening arguments. what was your take on the performance in their case so far? >> you know i had said a while ago, i think there is some other commentators said the same thing, really the primary focus needs to start off with pounding away at kind of a summary judgment. that we don't need to have witnesses, that legally this is insufficient impeachment riddled with due process violations. saturday would have been well-served, ken starr talk about what he talked about today. i thought that was very persuasive. it gave senators with the ability of a straight face, we don't have to go to witnesses. we'll not go into any disputed facts that would turn this into a crime. it can't. i would like to see that as a starting point. going into the facts as much they have, tends to be a little bit after rabbit hole, senators on the fence, democratic senators can say there is a dispute. we need witnesses to solve it. i think we're edging closer toward witnesses

we turn to abc's senior national correspondent, terry moran. what are you hearing from the white house tonight? >> reporter: the president was apprised right away of this attack, and he gathered around him his top national security team, secretary of state mike pompeo, defense secretary mark esper. top military commanders, vice president pence all coming to the white house, in the situation room as these developments occurred. and they watched as the damage assessment took place. he was also calling other world leaders, including the amir qatar. qatar sometimes a go-between between iran and the west. so he was involved diplomatically and militarily, but at the end of the night, held fire, both literally and rhetorically. this is a president who's been issuing bloodcurdling threats against iran, threatening massive escalation if they retaliate for the killing of qassem soleimani, and nothing really at the end of the day, except the president said he would be speaking to the nation tomorrow morning. >> the president tweeted tonight saying in part

terry moran, pretty meticulous and well organized argument from the president's team, kind of saying here's what we're going to tell you over the next couple of days. it seems that the most effective part of the presentation was the boring in on what the democrats left out in their 21 hours of testimony. >> that's effective in a criminal context and it was effective here. we've seen both sides fight their corners pretty well. we're having a well argued impeachment which is good because it crystallizes the arguments and issues and evidence to have good advocates and i think the president can be happy with the job that his team did in part because of what you say, going into what was left out and pointing out in part because of the choice of the house of representatives under nancy pelosi not to go after with any real aggression in court or elsewhere the testimony the people might have direct evidence of what the president said ordered, directed. instead as jay sekulow pointed out, a lot of this is the speculation of ambassador gordan sondland, and he played those bites that the house

let's get more on this from our senior national correspondent terry moran. rry, let's begin with those pretty breathtaking arguments from the president's legal team that it's perfectly legal to get foreign help in an election and alan dershowitz going farther saying almost anything a president does to get re-elected is almost by definition not impeachable because he thinks it's in the national interest. >> reporter: breathtaking, expansive, radical. that's what the president's critics say. president trump's legal team is being accused of that. for the power and privilege of president -- of the presidency in our history. richard nixon once said when the president does it, that means it's not illegal. it was roundly criticized at the time but that is essentially the defense that president trump is making and the impact of it will be to strengthen the president, any president from now on over the congress, over the criminal law, over a lot of american life. >> if indeed he is acquitted. it does appear though that it's quite a practical argument that's carrying t

let's bring in our senior national correspondent terry moran, for more on this from the white house. terry, we know the president signed on to the strategy of getting this done fast. they hope it will be done by the planned state of the union on february 4th but this new debate over witnesses and documents sure does complicate that. >> reporter: it does and it has made this white house facing the prospect of a trial in just a few days still up in the air on strategy. the president has said as you point out he wants a quick dismissal, the speediest impeachment trial in history. bill clinton's lasting over a month, andrew johnson, over two months. he's moving for a dismissal and he's looking at this politically. when he was in the oval office yesterday you could see in front of him the map of the 2016 election and county by county where things are so he's got a sense of where it is going and he's going to decide his strategy, does he want witnesses? does he want to call executive privilege over witnesses from the administration? it is still very much up in the air here. >> it sure is.

our senior national correspondent terry moran is tracking it all at the white house. good morning, terry. >> reporter: good morning, george. today the president is going to announce new sanctions on iran in the country's ruling elites and non-oil industries while many here in congress are pushing for some kind of new check on the president's war-making powers. with growing calls from congress to provide the actual evidence used to justify the u.s. strike on qassem soleimani, secretary of state mike pompeo stopped short of sharing specifics. >> there is no doubt that there were a series of imminent attacks that were being plotted by qassem soleimani. we don't know precisely when and we don't know precisely where, but it was real. >> reporter: but at his rally last night, president trump continued to claim there was a plot to attack u.s. embassies. >> soleimani was actively planning new attacks and he was looking very seriously at our embassies and not just the embassy in baghdad, but we stopped him and we stopped him quickly and we stopped him cold. >> reporter: democra

republican strategist and political analyst alice stewart and our senior national correspondent terry moranepublican for the record. >> you're a republican. >> i used to be. >>> terry, let's start out assessing where we are after five days of argument. >> looking at it, it's classic circumstantial evidence case. the democrats come and they make a very meticulous, narrative argument that requires a leap to the conclusion, that they did in their arguments. that, if you look at this evidence around president trump, he did this -- he did this and it warrants removal from office. and his defense says, where is the direct evidence? that you have to make the conclusion, that leap. and that does raise the question, was it the right choice at the end of the day for the democrats to go with this evidence, go with the impeachment you have, asking the senate now, i was in the room, president trump turned to me and said that money's not going to ukraine unless they go to the bidens. >> mick mulvaney and john bolton. >> donald trump said, i could shoot someone on 5th avenue and my folks wouldn't care. it

abc's terry moran has more. >> reporter: the president was apprised right away, of course, of this attacknd he gathered around him his top national security team, secretary of state mike pompeo, defense secretary mark esper, top military commanders, vice president pence, all coming to the white house in the situation room as these developments occurred. and they watched as the damage assessment took place. he was also calling other world leaders, including qatar, qatar sometimes a go-between between iran and the west. so he was involved diplomatically and militarily. but at the end of the night held fire, both literally and rhetorically. this is a president who's been issuing bloodcurdling threats against iran, threatening massive escalation if they retaliate for the killing of qassem soleimani. and nothing really at the end of the day. he has taken this dramatic action of taking off the battlefield qassem soleimani, one of the national heroes of iran. and here is this response from iran which apparently has taken no american lives, no iraqi lives, as far as we know at this point. it soun

our senior national correspondent terry moran has the details. morning, terry. >> reporter: good morning, george. on the eve of the impeachment trial, this new evidence p potenti potentially important, shows the president's personal associates feverishly involved in that pressure campaign in ukraine to get ukraine tdig up dirt on the president's political rivals. overnight as president trump rallied his supporters, there's new evidence that sheds new light on the president's efforts to pressure ukraine into investigating his political rivals. the new evidence collected by congressional investigators comes from lev parnas, an associate of trump's personal attorney, rudy giuliani, 59 pages of records including text message, emails and handwritten notes, including one scrawled on hotel stationary that reads, quote, get zelensky to announce that the biden case will be investigated. and there's a letter from giuliani requesting a meeting with president-elect zelensky emphasizing giuliani was working in his capacity as persona counsel to president trum

terry moran has those details for us. good morning, terry. >> reporter: good morning, robin. lev parnas, remember that name, he is the new witness who is now taking center stage in the impeachment. a u.s. citizen born in ukraine and he was rudy giuliani's right-hand man in the campaign to pressure ukraine to investigate the bidens. parnas is under indictment in new york on criminal campaign finance charges, but boy, does he have a story to tell. overnight in a blockbuster interview lev parnas directly implicates president trump in the alleged ukraine pressure campaign. >> president trump knew exactly what was going on. he was aware of all of my movements. he -- i wouldn't do anything without the consent of rudy giuliani or the president. >> reporter: and parnas who is an associate of trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani says rooting out corruption was never their mission. >> it was all about joe biden, hunter biden. it was never about corruption. >> reporter: parnas' claims are mostly uncorroborated but he has handed over documents to congress including a handwritten note.

terry moran is there for us this morning with the very latest. terry, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, whit. the killing of qasem soleimani is one of the most consequential decisions of the trump presidency. a game changer in the middle eeft. it will have unknown and major consequences throughout the region. the president in his resort in florida at mar-a-lago, tweeting that american flag and a taunt to iran saying iran has never won a war but it has won a negotiation. that's an apparent reference to the obama nuclear deal which this president detests. president trump meeting with political allies yesterday, house minority leader kevin mccarthy and matt gaetz who is dialed in and focused on the threat that qasem soleimani posed to americans in iraq and he took this action last night. it had been in the works for days apparently. it's the kind of attack, a killing, one of the most powerful leaders in iran that previous presidents have shied away from but it is consistent with the president's hard line on iran, withdrawing from the nuclear d

good evening, i'm terry moran.the story that's ignited fice passions across the nation, as allegations of racism apart a small florida town.tear >> narrator: for obama, once again, the issue of race. >> trayvon martin was walking back from a conveniestore when he was allegedly shot ba neighborhood watch...ol >> pice have the gun, they've got the shooter, but they have not arrested him. the dead man's grieving fami wants to know, "why not?" >> president obama, as the first african-american preside, had been very careful t to talk too much about race. w frustrating to some african-americans. then trayvon martin is killed in florida, and the country gasps. the country is, is really on edge. >> here's a teenager walking through the neighborhood whereer his faives, committing no followed, confronted, and endss up in a physic altercation with a stranger ere he ends up killed. and then the person who killed him is allowed to go home that day. >> the contradiction of th happening in the midst of a black presidency sharpene