I hope those who observe Thanksgiving had a great day and your football team played better than mine. This was one of the busiest news days since I started this blog so let’s dive in.

• The White House is declining to participate in the impeachment hearings taking place in the House Judiciary Committee this week. This is not surprising but it eliminates yet another Republican talking point – that the president has not been allowed to present evidence.

• Lisa Page, one of the FBI agents investigating Russia in 2016, gave an interview to Molly Jong-Fast highlighting what it’s like to be a target of the president. At a rally this year, Trump acted out a sex act of Ms. Page, including simulating an orgasm. We also learned that text messages between Ms. Page and fellow agent Peter Strzok were selectively leaked by a Department of Justice employee under the stipulation journalists not source them to the department.

• Trump said Zelensky announced that Trump did nothing wrong. This is another lie. Zelensky explicitly talked about the harm caused by withholding aid to an ally.

• Mike Pompeo said in a speech today that Obama had chosen Iran to be the US’s primary security partner in the Middle East. This is a blatant lie.

• Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the indicted Giuliani associates involved in his Ukrainian actions, have turned over a large number of electronic devices to prosecutors.

• Senate Republicans via the Intelligence Committee investigated whether Ukraine interfered in any way in the 2016 election. They concluded they did not. This has not prevented Republicans from pushing the idea they did despite our intelligence community informing them this is a Russian disinformation campaign. Senator John Kennedy today held up a newspaper with an op-ed from the Ukrainian ambassador who was concerned about then-candidate Trump’s acceptance of Russia invading his country. Representative Randy Weber tonight said Republicans had information that a Ukrainian owned Crowdstrike. This is another lie. Senator Burr compared Ukrainian politicians preferring a Clinton victory to Russia’s hacking of the DNC.

• The president asked on Twitter if the Supreme Court can stop impeachment in the House. They cannot. After three years, he still lacks even a basic understanding of The Constitution.

• The Republicans have prepared a counter-report regarding impeachment. Their arguments have not changed are are still nonsensical or easily countered. They claim this is about Trump rooting out corruption but no one has been able to provide a single instance of Trump looking into foreign corruption aside from the Biden investigation he wanted announced. It also makes no sense to believe that the Ukrainian government is extremely corrupt while simultaneously trusting them to investigate an American citizen. Philip Bump did an excellent breakdown here.

• A large number of Mueller notes were released after a FOIA request. Michael Cohen told investigators the president’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, instructed him not to divulge all of the information regarding the Trump Tower Moscow project. Hope Hicks told them Jared Kushner brought Trump an envelope concerning the meeting at Trump Tower with Russian operatives. As he began to open it, Trump told him he didn’t want to know about it.

• Attorney General Barr is rejecting the Inspector General’s conclusion that the Russia investigation was begun properly.

• Last week Tucker Carlson, frequently watched by the president, said he sided with Russia over Ukraine. He walked this back later saying he was just kidding. Tonight he said the US should side with Russia in their war with Ukraine.

• The Department of Justice is now arguing it was wrong when the department handed over grand jury material to Congress during the Watergate impeachment hearings. They’re fighting to keep as much information from the Mueller investigation from Congress as possible.