The New Yorker says a bad week for Trump just got worse. The President addressed the White House press corps on Friday afternoon about the impeachment hearings. Trump didn’t hide his fury. “The Republicans are given no due process whatsoever,” he said. “We’re not allowed to do anything… In the history of our country, there has never been a disgrace like what’s going on right now.”

The New Yorker says the question that set Trump off was about a tweet he sent, in which he attacked Marie Yovanovich, who was testifying before the committee. In the tweet, he wrote that everywhere Yovanovich had been posted “turned bad”.

But Friday would continue to get worse for Trump. Later in the day, in a closed-door meeting, the impeachment committee heard testimony from David Holmes. Mr Holmes testified that this past summer, he overheard a transatlantic phone call in which Trump asked the U.S Ambassador to the EU whether the Ukrainian President was going to go ahead with the investigations Trump demanded. 

The Guardian says the president’s abuse of power looks as bad as Watergate, but so far he’s enjoyed the privilege of the age: impunity. The paper says Trump winning the election in the first place was the first proof he enjoys a rare form of impunity. Despite all the scandals and revelations that could have destroyed other candidates, Trump not only survived it but won office.

Three years on Trump’s impunity is being tested again, with the launch this week of the public phase of the House intelligence committee’s impeachment inquiry. 

The Democrats have laid out what should be a slam-dunk case for the removal of a president. Americans have known since September that Trump withheld foriegn aid from Ukraine as he pressured its president to reveal or make-up dirt on Trump’s 2020 opponent, Joe Biden. 

However you look at it, the White House’s own account reveals abuse of power which is as clear cut as Watergate. On Friday, Trump added to the charge sheet intimidating a witness via tweet at the very moment she was testifying she felt threatened by him. And just like Watergate, Trump aides hid the “transcript” on a top-secret server, where it would have stayed undiscovered if it had not been for a whistleblower. 

CNN looks at Fox News and their coverage of Trump’s impeachment. And why Fox wants you to think the impeachment hearings are “boring”. On Wednesday night Sean Hannity (who has a prime-time show on Fox News) was giddy. Hannity declared it had been “a great day for the United States, for the country, the President. A lousy day for the corrupt, do-nothing for three years radical, extreme, socialist Democrats and their top allies known as the media mob.”

Hannity was celebrating because he claimed, the public hearings on impeachment were so boring. And he wasn’t the only right-winger to claim the hearings were boring. 

CNN says the “boring” charge is less surprising if we think of it as part of a broader strategy to discredit and devalue the hearings. They say for decades right-wing media consumers have learned that sources they’d consider trustworthy roll out their ideology in slick trappings with bombastic claims. 

This is why, CNN says, the boring charge is not solely a claim for entertainment. It tells the viewer who they should trust and those they should view with suspicion — a lesson that helps explain why a huckster like Trump has done so well with conservative voters.