Happy Wednesday! Outwardly, President Donald Trump has dismissed concern about the forthcoming vote to impeach him. But for a man fixated on his image, it could be a harsh reality that years from now, one of the first things school children will learn about him will be the vote today to make him only the third president in American history to be impeached. It’s an asterisk on his presidency that will never go away. “For Trump, now impeachment will appear in the opening paragraph of his life,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. [Politico]
Topping the news: Sen. Mitt Romney said ahead of the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump that he will not be taking sides, but will “act as a juror and will be unbiased.” [Trib]
-> Hundreds of Utahns rallied in downtown Salt Lake City last night for Trump’s impeachment. [Trib]
-> The White House responded to Rep. Ben McAdams’ decision to vote to impeach President Trump, saying that he is “siding with Nancy Pelosi and far-left Democrats.” [Fox13]
-> In a recent poll, 47% of Utahns say that President Trump should not be impeached. [DNews] [UtahPolicy]
Tweets of the day: From @jdawsey1: “Trump’s letter tonight reminds me of something a senior aide told me early in 2018 about a different letter: ‘He speaks. You write it down. And that’s a letter.’”
-> From @eliehonig: “If you want an indication why @realDonaldTrump is losing it right now, just Google ‘Andrew Johnson’ and look how far down you have to scroll to find anything not relating to impeachment.”
Happy birthday: To South Jordan Mayor Dawn Ramsey and Tribune columnist Holly Richardson.
Also in the news: Every senior enrolled in southeastern Utah’s Monticello High for the 2018-2019 school year graduated for the first time in recent memory. [Trib]
-> The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has responded to allegations made by a former employee who filed an IRS complaint last month. Romney says he’s happy his faith has saved for a “rainy decade.” [Trib] [DNews]
-> On-the-job fatalities increased by 14 percent in Utah in 2018, according to the annual Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. [Trib]
-> The Utah Legislature will take another look at a bill that would require universal background checks for most gun sales in the state. [Trib]
-> Weber County’s poverty rate of 9.41 percent has ranked highest among the state’s four most populated counties. [StandEx]
Nationally: In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President Trump voiced his concerns with impeachment and loosely abided by the facts of the matter. [NYTimes] [CNN]
-> Take a read of President Trump’s letter to Speaker Pelosi. [NYTimes]
-> The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has responded to a report on the FBI by ordering a fix in a rare public order. [NYTimes] [Politico]
-> Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that “the president is not a lawyer” in response to Trump’s calls to halt impeachment. [CNN]
-> A change in a law to hold tech platforms accountable for online sex trafficking has shown the difficulty of reigning in the industry and has lawmakers rethinking their prior support. [NYTimes]
-> A labor dispute had threatened to upend the next Democratic debate, but the event will go on as planned after negotiators reached an agreement to resolve the matter. [NYTimes]
-> The Trump administration is not calling the mass killing of Armenians a genocide, despite strong bipartisan support by Congress to formally recognize it as such. [CNN]
-> A group of political conservatives opposed to Trump have launched a PAC in an effort to thwart his 2020 reelection changes. [CNN] [WaPost]
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-- Thomas Burr and Clara Hatcher
Follow @sltribpolitics