two excerpts that caught my eye, my underlining

Trump's fear about the possibility has escalated as the consequences of federal investigations involving his associates and Democratic control of the House sink in, the sources said, and his allies believe maintaining the support of establishment Republicans he bucked to win election is now critical to saving his presidency

On Wednesday Trump was delivered another blow when federal prosecutors announced an agreement with American Media Inc [....]

 “The entire question about whether the president committed an impeachable offense now hinges on the testimony of two men: David Pecker and Allen Weisselberg, both cooperating witnesses in the SDNY investigation," a close Trump ally told NBC News.

Woodward:

Laundry list:

Interesting fact:

Extensive Interview with ‘Russian Roulette’ Coauthor Isikoff Reveals Big Problems With ‘Collusion’ Theory

by John Zieger @ mediaite.com, Dec 16th, 2018

One of the most dangerous aspects of journalism is that, when reporters specialize in a subject, they can easily become inherently invested in a narrative surrounding it which is the most popular or helpful to them personally

When it comes to the investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election, it has always seemed to be a landscape ripe for confirmation bias to overtake a group of “experts” who are mostly very anti-Trump, as well as desirous that a story on which their opinion is greatly valued be perceived as the most significant political scandal of our time.

As someone who has long been on the fence about what really happened in this case (my basic position is that Donald Trump is guilty of serious offenses, probably obstruction of justice and perjury, but maybe not actual “collusion,” depending on how that highly nebulous term is defined), I was really looking forward to my interview with famed Yahoo investigative reporter Michael Isikoff.

This is because Isikoff is the co-author of a great book about the Russian scandal called, Russian Roulette, which makes him an important voice on the subject. And because based on his journalistic history, there was no reason to think that he would blindly buy into a narrative just because that story-line might help him personally.

I was not remotely disappointed. Isikoff, who generously gave me a highly-informative hour-long discussion, directly answered every question I could get in during the allotted time, and clearly had no agenda other than trying to figure out what the truth is.

By the end of the interview, which actually begins with a look at his large role in the recent Amazon/A&E miniseries The Clinton Affair (about Bill Clinton’s impeachment) it was quite clear that, against the grain of the rest of the media horde, Isikoff is now leaning, rather clearly, against the idea that Robert Mueller is likely to claim criminal “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia. As a result of his highly reasoned, though admittedly circumstantial argument, he now has me inclined more decidedly in that direction as well.  

Isikoff concluded that portion of our interview by declaring, seemingly against his own self-interest, “All the signs to me are, Mueller is reaching his end game, and we may see less than what many people want him to find.”

There seem to be at least four basic reasons behind Isikoff coming to his tentative conclusion about where this is all going (or, perhaps, not heading). Here they are in no particular order [....]