Category: senatetrial

Lindsey Graham supports scheme to review Bolton manuscript in secret, prevent witnesses at trial

Posted on by Mark Sumner

On Monday, Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma offered nervous Republicans an exit ramp from the dilemma posed by former national security adviser John Bolton. Rather than have Bolton appear as a witness in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, Republicans would instead have a chance to look at the manuscript of Bolton’s upcoming book, which claims that Bolton has knowledge as a firsthand witness to Trump’s alleged actions, in secret, and then determine how to proceed.

On Tuesday, Lindsey Graham signed on to this scheme, calling for the manuscript to be made available in ”a classified setting.” Not only is this an obvious ploy to prevent Bolton from ever answering questions in front of Mitch McConnell’s personally controlled camera; it also means that Republicans, after a trial in which they have constantly accused Democrats of changing the rules to gather evidence in “secret,” are genuinely looking to change the rules … so they can examine evidence. In secret.

Bolton has already volunteered to appear before the Senate if subpoenaed, and over the weekend The New York Times revealed that Bolton’s upcoming book details a conversation in which Donald Trump explicitly connects military assistance for Ukraine to extorting an investigation by that country into Joe Biden. Keeping that information out of the Senate trial has become a growing challenge, as polls show swelling support for the testimony of Bolton and other potential witnesses.

The idea of a secret review of the manuscript offers Republicans several attractive options. First, they can emerge from the classified setting to declare that there’s no there there, no matter what’s actually contained in the text. Second, they can condemn Bolton’s text as a money grab from someone whom Fox News is now repositioning from a longtime Republican hardliner to a “deep state agent” who is part of a conspiracy featuring former FBI Director James Comey. Finally, Bolton’s manuscript can be cherry-picked for both complimentary statements about Trump and derogatory comments about Democrats.

If this scheme goes forward, expect Graham to simultaneously claim that Bolton’s manuscript is a smear against Trump and that it says bad, bad things about Nancy Pelosi/Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama. But most of all, expect Graham and other Republicans to claim that, after reviewing the manuscript, they find no reason for Bolton to answer any more questions. Especially when Trump is going to fight Bolton’s appearance.

Then Republicans can demand that Joe Biden appear. After all, they’ll say, they heard from Bolton.

Poppycock, pettifogging, and foul calumny: Trump’s team tries it all in Senate trial

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Monday saw Trump’s defense team roll out the big guns. Not Alan Dershowitz’s universally panned effort to apply legal-ish terminology to an argument that Fifth Avenue could fill up with bodies, and Donald Trump still wouldn’t be subject to impeachment. Not even the multiparty pile-up effort to use the Senate floor as a proxy for what Trump tried to extort from Ukraine, by delivering a prime-time smear of Joe Biden. No. The really big guns on Team Trump were reserved for denial, as Pat Cipollone, Jay Sekulow, and crew plunged madly on, ignoring the fact that their case was thoroughly sunk by weekend revelations.

Not that there was ever a case to begin with, since the evidence of Trump’s actions in Ukraine was overwhelming and public. It might be tempting to feel some pity for a legal team charged with defending Trump against the idea that he was trying to involve a foreign government in the 2020 election, when he has—more than once—appeared before cameras to request exactly that, and expanded the scope of his crimes by dragging China into the mix. If that weren’t bad enough, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney stepped in front of cameras to declare that, yep, it was true, every word of it, so … “Get over it.” Against that backdrop, pitiful is the best that can be achieved.

Still, Team Trump worked hard on Monday to make pitiful seem like a high-water mark they were not even interested in reaching. Across the day, they took a tripartite approach: denying Trump did anything wrong, smearing Joe Biden, and declaring that abuse of power is not impeachable in roughly equal—and equally bad—portions.

The day started out in denial territory, with the case continuing from the positions Trump’s core group of attorneys had held on Saturday. Resting on the certainty that Republicans would never ask for a fact witness to appear, Cipollone and company continued to tout the idea that the case meticulously assembled by the House managers was lacking the critical connections that would show Trump’s hands on the wheel. As it has from the time of the House hearings, this case boiled down to the fact that Trump had never stood on top of the Resolute Desk to deliver a Lex Luthor-style monologue, explaining every step of his actions complete with a diagram of connections. Short of this, said Trump’s team, there can’t really be a case. Also, Trump said, “No quid pro quo,” while explaining that someone would have to give him that to get this. So, all good.

But every word of that argument on Monday required that Trump’s attorneys ignore the elephantine Yosemite Sam in the room. With not only the revelation that John Bolton was willing to testify, but also his leaked manuscript providing a very good indication that any testimony would definitely not exonerate Trump, Republicans on both Trump’s legal team and the Senate floor—which is really the same thing—had to spend the morning operating with fingers firmly pressed in their ears. Meanwhile, Fox News began a concerted effort to explain that John Bolton was not really a Republican, had never been a Republican, and was really a deep-state operative in bed with (quick spin of the random Trump Enemy dial) … James Comey.

The middle chunk of Monday was devoted to using the Senate to achieve what Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump, and all Dmytro Firtash’s men, could not accomplish in Ukraine: a public smear of Joe Biden. The primary tactic for accomplishing this was simple enough: utterly flipping the facts on their ear. Over the course of the day, Trump’s team argued that Biden had pushed to eliminate a prosecutor who was investigating the company where his son worked. Which was and is 100% a lie. They built on that lie with the lie that Biden’s actions were somehow beneficial to his son. A good chunk of this was delivered by attorney Pam Bondi, whose chief talent lies in her ability to take a bribe. That was, unfortunately, not a talent that contributed much to her talk on Monday.

However, this part of the day seemed to be a hit with Republican senators, who couldn’t wait to get to a microphone during the next break to talk about how well they had smeared Joe Biden. That was particularly true of Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who gushed with joy as she pondered how a day of dragging his family through the mud might directly change the outcome of the looming primaries. Which … does Ernst remember why this trial was going on in the first place?

In any case, Ernst and others proved that Trump had wasted considerable time and effort overseas. After all, plain old American corruption could be had for the cost of a few dollars in campaign contributions and the treat of a Twitter beat-down. There was really no need to threaten Ukraine, what with that kind of talent in America’s heartland.

Finally, the day was capped off by Alan Dershowitz’s effort to explain that this wasn’t “no harm, no foul,” because there aren’t any fouls. With the nation’s constitutional scholars looking on, Dershowitz reminded listeners that he is a defense attorney to the nation’s most notorious, who rode to fame attached to the names Claus von Bülow, O. J. Simpson, and Brett Kavanaugh. His work as a professor of constitutional law consists of: He isn’t one, and his record before the Supreme Court is a perfect 0 for 0. So Dershowitz was clearly the perfect choice to engage in a long technical argument that boiled down to, the Founding Fathers didn’t know what the hell the Founding Fathers were talking about … but Dershowitz could read their minds.

Overall, the day was an embarrassment top to bottom. Much of it, particularly Dershowitz, wasn’t even the fun kind of embarrassment. It didn’t rise to the ranks of so-bad-it-was-good. It was just bad. It was so bad that—other than the GOP- and Trump-pleasing section of Biden-smearing—it’s difficult to recall a single salient point, just hours after they stopped talking. 

In any case, the real case on Monday wasn’t happening in front of Mitch McConnell’s carefully aimed camera. It was happening offscreen, where Republicans were trying desperately to calculate whether giving Trump the quick acquittal that he wants—a move that had seemed like a sure thing on Friday, despite a crackerjack case from the House managers—was still such a slam dunk. Republicans always knew that going along with Trump was going to make them part of the conspiracy. They just didn’t know it was going to be this damn obvious.

How desperate are Senate Republicans to silence Bolton? Desperate enough to throw away the republic

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Republicans don't give a damn about how dangerous Donald Trump is, or about the fact that he's selling our democracy to whichever foreign governments will help him get reelected. They are absolutely desperate not to hear directly from former national security adviser John Bolton. In fact, nothing could be worse than simply calling Bolton to testify under oath about what he knew and what he heard directly from Trump about withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations into Trump’s domestic political opponents, the basis for Trump’s impeachment.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said that the Bolton account wasn't worth exploring because it was just a marketing stunt: “This looks like a marketing tactic to sell books is what it looks like to me.” Gee, John, why not find out by calling Bolton in and asking him?

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Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska prefers a statement to actual testimony: “It doesn’t take a subpoena to put out a statement. I think if Ambassador Bolton has something to say he could  do that.” Also, Fischer is pretty sick of being asked about the biggest news of the day and likely even the entire impeachment trial so far: “Do you guys have memos on the same question to ask all the time? Just curious.”

Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri doesn't really care what the facts are—he's in Trump's camp no matter what: "I can’t imagine that anything he would have to say would change the outcome of the final vote."

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming applied his blindfold to the "so-called blockbuster" Bolton report: "To me, the facts of the case remain the same."

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota echoed Barrasso’s nothing-to-see-here take: “I don’t think it changes the facts. ... I don’t personally see it as a game changer.”

And—wait for it—Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is confused about what constitutes a first-hand witness: “Well, I don’t know. Is he a firsthand witness? I’m not sure.” LOL. Man, what a complete joker, unworthy of holding elected office—a proud moment for Missouri, no doubt. 

And Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst—who's already declared her undying fealty to Trump and the White House’s distorted version of events—is waiting to hear White House lawyers declare the earth is flat once again so she can agree with them wholeheartedly: “I’m sure they will address this now, and we go from there.”

Yep, that may be the one truthful thing uttered so far by Republicans on Monday morning. The White House counsel will absolutely try to twist the Bolton revelations one way or the other. Asked by a chorus of reporters about the Bolton report Monday morning, Trump was unusually short on words. "False" was all he offered. 

Senate Republicans were heading into an all-caucus meeting just before the impeachment trial resumes, and they will likely come out with a more tailored set of talking points intended to blunt the damage of the bomb that just dropped on them. They will also surely apply immense pressure on Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the only GOP senator to signal any interest whatsoever in hearing from Bolton. Romney called it “increasingly apparent that it would be important to hear from John Bolton.” That’s what counts for courage these days in the Republican Party.

Second day of Trump impeachment trial ends with Adam Schiff delivering closing argument for the ages

Posted on by Mark Sumner

On Thursday, House managers of the impeachment trial of Donald Trump shifted gears from the chronology of events as laid out on Wednesday to the corrupt intent behind Trump’s actions. The entire day was focused on just the issue of abuse of power and why it is an impeachable offense, and on evidence that Trump’s actions in Ukraine were taken with a deeply corrupt intent. Over the course of the day, that meant revisiting some of the same statements and clips from the hearings that were presented on Wednesday. But the tone of the day was quite different. More pedantic in places. More insistent in others. 

And then the whole thing ended with Adam Schiff giving a 10-minute closer that, in any other circumstance, should have brought on a standing ovation. It was a masterful demonstration not just of how to make a point, but of why Donald J. Trump really has to go.

The opening of the day was really left to House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, who spoke of the basic idea of abuse of power and grounded the first article of Trump’s impeachment in historical thought. For Republicans who love to hear those quotes from founders, Nadler’s talk delivered. From The Federalist papers to English common law to the Constitution itself, Nadler reviewed the origins of both the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” and the way in which abuse of power had become defined as a crime that can only be committed by someone who is, obviously, in a position of power.

After that beginning, each of the House managers took a turn at methodically plowing through the history of past impeachments before switching to look at how Trump’s actions compared to those past cases. Schiff took part in carrying one of those segments at mid-morning, but, as the day wore on, it was Rep. Val Demings and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries who again emerged as stars of the management team. Both of them looked specifically at how Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine were taken not out of any concern over corruption or out of any national interest, but purely to benefit Trump personally.

Jeffries in particular did a knock-out job of destroying the argument that Republicans have used so often: the idea that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky felt “no pressure.” Reviewing the steps that began before U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was forced from her position and proceeding to the moment when Trump relented to release military assistance to Ukraine, Jeffries showed that Zelensky recognized that what Trump and Rudy Giuliani were trying to force on him was corrupt and wrong. Zelensky actually tried to resist that effort until Trump piled on the freshman president with a push that came from all directions, and with statements that made it obvious that giving in to Trump was the price of Ukraine’s security.

Over the course of the day, the Democratic team also took the time to pre-puncture some other parts of the Trump argument, with Schiff stepping in to detail the CrowdStrike conspiracy theory, and show that what Ukraine was being asked to support wasn’t some generic review of actions in 2016. Zelensky was being asked to support Russian propaganda, even as Russia was crushing Ukrainian troops at his eastern border. Overall, the day was another powerful, deeply convincing turn from the House team, which is expected to continue talking about abuse of power before moving to discussion of obstruction on Friday.

Then, at the end of the day, Schiff rose again for a brief conclusion. This wasn’t the closing argument for the team. It wasn’t the closing argument for this phase of the presentation. It wasn’t even the closing argument for the case on article one. This was just the closing argument for Thursday. 

But it was amazing. Devastating. A plea for the ages that should have brought the room to its feet, and created a spark of doubt in even the biggest Trump supporter. In less than 10 minutes, Schiff laid out not just why what Trump did was wrong, but why it is vital to the nation that Donald J Trump be removed from office. Immediately. And it started with a very simple question.

Schiff said, "Whether we can say it publicly, we all know what we're dealing with here with this president. Donald Trump chose Rudy Giuliani over his own intelligence agencies ... that makes him dangerous ... Why would anyone in their right mind believe Giuliani over Christopher Wray?" 

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Schiff continued, “If right doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter how good the Constitution is. The framers could not protect us from ourselves if right and truth don’t matter. And you know what he did was not right. That’s what they do in the old country, where Colonel Vindman’s father came from, the old country that my great-grandfather came from, or the old country that my ancestors came from, or maybe where you came from.

“Because right matters. And the truth matters. Otherwise, we are lost.”

The Senate chamber was silent as he left the podium. But that silence was ringing.

Cartoon: Join the Trump legal defense team!

Posted on by Mark Fiore

x Vimeo Video

We have now seen — in ranting “legal” briefs — how President Trump’s team is planning on defending him in the Senate impeachment trial. In short, they’re going to rant and rave, blame everyone else and wrap the whole package in faux legalese.

That’s what happens when you pick most of your legal team from the Fox News bench. You don’t necessarily get the brightest legal minds by doing it that way. (In their defense, even the most brilliant legal mind would have a tough time defending Trump.) Good thing the president has the Republican-held Senate to throw down roadblocks and acquittals as needed.

The more we review the details of what led to impeachment, the more disheartening it is that the Senate will likely let him off the hook. Who knows, maybe more revelations and evidence outside the Senate trial will lead to additional articles of impeachment. Extorting Ukraine is just one of the many threads of criminality woven through this administration.

Enjoy the cartoon, which you would have seen along the way to completion if you were one of my Patreon supporters :-)

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries destroys Donald Trump’s claims of ‘no pressure’ in critical presentation

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Stopped in a hallway outside the Senate chamber, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was asked what she’d seen that was “new.” Her immediate response — the presentation that had just finished from Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. Warren is right. The facts that Jeffries reviewed may have come from the House hearings, but what they revealed in his presentation placed a whole new light on a key element of Trump’s impeachment.

On Wednesday morning, Trump began his record day of tweets by simply tweeting “No pressure.” That claim, that the Ukrainian government did not feel pressured to give Trump the investigations he wanted, is critical to the case for Trump’s defense. And Jeffries’ presentation showed just how ridiculous that claim really is.

1) The White House meeting and military assistance were both vital to Ukraine's very existence. As a independent democracy.

2) The pressure to maintain a stable relationship with the United States was enormous, because that relationship is the most important connection Ukraine has, and the only partnership that can safeguard them against a serious Russian incursion.

3) When Rudy Giuliani approached incoming President Volodymyr Zelensky saying that he was Trump's personal attorney, Zelensky and team fended off the demands that were passed from Trump through Giuliani for months.

4) Behind the scenes Ukrainian officials scrambled madly to preserve the U.S. relationship without doing something they knew was wrong. They saw what Giuliani was doing, but in supporting corrupt figures from past Ukrainian governments, and smearing ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, but did their best to stay out of it. 

5) Zelensky’s government understood what Trump wanted, but they knew that giving it to him risked losing the bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress that was vital to continued assistance from the U.S. So, as long as it was just Giuliani pushing them, they resisted.

6) Unhappy that Giuliani had not been able to get the investigations started, Trump assigned the “three amigos” to listen to Giuliani and support his play. 

7) After Kurt Volker and Gordon Sondland talked with Giuliani, reinforced the demands, and made it clear that U.S. foreign policy had been subverted to support Trump’s personal goals, Zelensky could see that the only way to preserve any U.S.-Ukraine relationship in the short term was to go along with Trump’s demands. 

8) Even so, Ukrainian officials didn’t come to this position willingly. They drafted a version of the announcement that they hoped would satisfy Trump without making enemies in Congress. But Trump’s team shoved it back and forced them to make it more explicit.

9) With Giuliani, Sondland, Volker and others all pounding the Ukrainian team for announcements of the investigations, Zelensky eventually folded and agreed to the CNN interviews. Sondland walked Zelensky through what he needed to say to Trump to please him.

10) The interviews were only stopped when Trump was pinned down by the whistleblower, congressional inquiries, and public knowledge that forced him to release the military assistance. Without the pressure of the pending aid package, Zelensky withdrew from the interviews.

When Rudy Giuliani pulled up at Zelensky’s door and represented himself as Trump’s personal attorney, Zelensky was able to resist responding to the demands passed to him. It wasn’t until Trump backed Giuliani with senior officials—until “everyone was in the loop”— that officials in Ukraine realized just how corrupt the U.S. had become. And Zelensky saw that, for the sake of his nation, he had no choice to bend to the immeasurable pressure being applied by Trump.

Trump’s trial, day one: A master class from House Democrats, and empty seats from Senate Republicans

Posted on by Mark Sumner

On the first full day of the presentation to the Senate in the impeachment trial against Donald Trump, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and the House management team delivered the evidence against Trump in three different ways: in a two-hour opening statement; in a six-hour walk-through of the whole timeline of events; and in a ten-minute recap of the highlights. The entire team was effective, and the presentation was clear. Schiff’s opening account was genuinely compelling—sharp, precise, impactful, well-supported by short moments of testimony from the House hearings, and leaving absolutely no doubt as to Trump’s guilt.

So naturally, throughout the day, Republicans left their seats, wandered out into the hallways, and complained that they were “bored.” Though the rules of the trial require all senators to be present, double-digit numbers of Republicans were missing at any given time. At least one, Missouri’s Josh Hawley, found an opportunity to make an appearance with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson during the trial … without garnering as much as the shake of a finger from Chief Justice John Roberts. 

For anyone tuning in from outside the Senate, Schiff’s opening was a master class in getting across complex information. Despite the volume of material on events and individuals, Schiff moved from point to point with precision, delivering information in a speech that’s likely to appear in future textbooks. Even for those who had seen the facts presented in House hearings, he was simply compelling. For anyone watching—whether or not they knew the facts of the case coming in—it was spellbinding work: a scene straight out of the best courtroom dramas.

Following Schiff’s introduction of the facts, the House team worked through events in a timeline, starting with the smear campaign to unseat U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and proceeding to the whistleblower, congressional investigations, and the eventual release of U.S. aid that had been allocated to Ukraine. Each presenter took a section of the timeline, mixing a recitation of facts with snatches of testimony. All of the presentations moved the story forward, but some presenters brought additional energy to their time in front of the camera, presenting the information in a personal and genuine way. In Rep. Val Demings’ case, her experience in law enforcement came through in her clear disdain for the criminal behavior of Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and others maneuvering to game the system for personal gain.

Unlike the lengthy opening act on Tuesday, when amendments, efforts to obtain witnesses, and Republican actions to suppress those witnesses carried the hearing into the early hours of the morning, Schiff actually wrapped the presentation within 8 hours after it began, revisiting the high points of the day in a compressed replay. Whereas Schiff used his opening statement to deliver a thorough, sharp account of the events leading to Trump’s impeachment, in the final 10 minutes of the night he touched again on some of the most compelling moments of that story. That included the scheme against Yovanovitch and the sorry spectacle of officials standing back to allow Giuliani to threaten and harass a widely respected ambassador.

Across all the presentations, there was a theme: Trump wasn’t fighting corruption; he was the source of corruption. The actions that Trump took in an effort to secure an announcement that had personal benefits only for him came at the cost of the national security of the U.S. and Ukraine. It also came at enormous cost to the relationship between the two nations, and to the whole idea that the United States is on the side of justice and democracy.

And, of course, despite the fact that this was the first day of the presentation; despite the fact that many Republican senators claimed not to have watched a moment of the hearings in the House; despite the fact that Schiff and his team presented their information in a way that would have made a must-watch documentary—or a genuinely outstanding college course—there were those empty seats. Republicans complained that the information was just the same thing over and over, that they were bored, that they … were absent. Anyone wondering why Mitch McConnell locked down the camera locations and kicked out C-SPAN has their answer in those empty seats.

Chief Justice John Roberts opened his mouth long enough on Tuesday evening to caution visitors that this was the United States Senate, the “greatest deliberative body” on the planet. He should have told the senators. But then, it seemed Roberts had no concern about the Republicans violating the rules he was supposed to enforce.

McConnell makes it clear: He doesn’t want witnesses at any point in impeachment trial

Posted on by Mark Sumner

As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made multiple attempts to subpoena documents and witnesses during the opening day of the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump’s legal team sang the same tune: This was the wrong time. In response to every round of amendments, Trump’s attorneys repeated the claim that they weren’t really trying to suppress witnesses; it was just that Schumer was asking at the wrong time. There would be a point later in the trial, after the case was made and debates were complete: Then there’d be a time when the rules would allow for witnesses. Or, actually, when the rules would allow for debate over whether any witnesses should be called, with a provision to shut down all witnesses with a single vote.

And McConnell has made it clear how he wants to use that vote. Despite all the overnight protests that if Schumer would only sit down, and the House managers would stop supporting the call for subpoenas, there would be a time for all that later, McConnell has made the real plan perfectly plain to Senate Republicans: He wants no witnesses in this trial. Ever.

As CNN reports, before the trial began, McConnell claimed that he was the impeachment of Bill Clinton as a model for the trial of Trump, leaving the question of calling witnesses until later in the process. McConnell went into the trial pretending that he wasn’t shutting out witnesses, and several Republicans—such as the always-willing-to-pretend-at-fairness Susan Collins—have indicated that they will consider the possibility of calling witnesses.

But the structure of the trial, as defined by McConnell’s passed-at-2-a.m. proposal, means that any witnesses called would come after the case is made by the House managers, and after the period of questioning and debate. So witnesses could appear, say their piece … and apparently leave without comment. During Tuesday’s long session, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff made it clear what McConnell’s trial structure really meant: “A vote to delay is a vote to deny," he said.

That’s not just the plain reading of the resolution that Republicans passed along party lines in the early morning Wednesday; it’s also exactly what McConnell has told his fellow senators in what CNN describes as “private meetings.” In addition to telling those senators that he wants no witnesses, McConnell has promised that if Democrats succeed in getting enough Republican votes to call someone such as John Bolton or Mick Mulvaney, McConnell will respond with flood-the-zone tactics, calling Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and others who are the subjects of right-wing conspiracy theories.

But, especially in light of the rigid voting on Tuesday night, McConnell seems confident that he won’t face that prospect. Instead, he expects to put a bow on the whole affair by this point next week … handing Donald Trump a chance to scream about exoneration without the threat of hearing from a single witness or facing a single document.

Chuck Schumer and House impeachment managers destroy Team Trump on first night of Senate trial

Posted on by Mark Sumner

All through Tuesday afternoon, and evening, and night, and the early hours of Wednesday, the Democratic team of House managers fought the good fight, seeking subpoenas of documents and witnesses as well as procedural changes that would close loopholes intentionally built into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s design for the Senate impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. And they lost every time. In fact, except for a single early morning vote from faux moderate Susan Collins, Republicans voted exactly as expected, giving Trump and McConnell a 53-47 party line victory on nine straight proposed amendments.

But if that made it seem that the day was a waste … it wasn’t. Yes, Republicans batted down attempts to get documents, call witnesses, and prevent the White House from flooding the zone with cherry-picked documents. However, with every amendment, House managers got the chance to lay out their case. They introduced the facets of Trump’s malfeasance step by step, pillar by pillar, with each member of the team stepping up to carry the load on a specific area. Meanwhile, Trump’s legal team was left sputtering and looping back over not just talking points, but also obvious lies. It might have been a losing effort—but it was still magnificent.

At first, it wasn’t clear exactly what was happening. After an introductory speech from both sides—during which Trump attorneys Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow burned up every talking point they had—Schumer introduced a proposal to seek documents from the White House. This provided for an hour on each side to debate the merits of the amendment. Except the Democratic team used that time for a detailed review of those documents that were being withheld by the White House and how key they were to the case ahead. Trump’s attorneys responded by repeating their talking points and throwing on more personal insults for the case managers.

This pattern then repeated for an incredible nine more amendments. After the second, it became clear just what was happening: Chuck Schumer structured the amendments not as simple requests, but as detailed explanations that mentioned specific exchanges, particular conversations, critical meetings, and other events that were known to have happened, but were missing from the evidence available to the House team. During the debate period for each amendment, different members of that House team rose to give an even more detailed defense of the need for those documents, with Zoe Lofgren, Val Demings, Hakeem Jeffries, and Jason Crow all doing spectacular jobs in dealing with requests from the White House, State Department, Office of Management and Budget, and Department of Defense.

After the OMB request, Schumer mixed things up a bit by requesting a personal subpoena of Mick Mulvaney. Again, this wasn’t just a “Give us Mulvaney” request, but a detailed summons that included a recitation of Mulvaney’s interactions with Trump, his role in blocking military assistance to Ukraine, and—wonderfully—his press conference confession, complete with the “Get over it” moment. The individual subpoenas continued, allowing Sylvia Garcia and Jerry Nadler to join in the fray. Those subpoenas bracketed additional requests for changes to the structure of the proceedings to eliminate wording that made it excessively easy for the White House to pretend to respond to a request by producing only documents that are favorable to Trump, and another section that gave Republicans multiple chances to kill future requests for witnesses.

By the sixth proposed amendment—at around 9:30 p.m.—a clearly dragging Mitch McConnell begged for mercy. He called for a quorum vote to force a delay, trying to negotiate Schumer into making all his remaining requests in a lump so Republicans could give them a single down vote and go home.

But Schumer had no inclination to make such a deal for a very, very good reason. Over the course of 10 amendments, the team of Democratic House managers introduced the case against Trump in loving detail. Without touching a minute of the 24 hours that the proposal allots to each team, the House managers made a 10-hour introduction to the case, spelling out the players and the crimes.

Through it all, both McConnell and the Trump team seemed utterly unprepared, while the Democrats had clearly practiced this maneuver for weeks. Despite McConnell’s vaunted reputation as a master of Senate secrets, he seemed utterly unable to deal with Schumer’s moves as the Democratic team slowly, methodically, and systematically bulldozed the Republican team. 

There were some highlights for Trump’s attorneys, but not in a good sense. While Deputy White House Counsel Patrick Philbin stepped in to occasionally spell Sekulow and Cipollone, it was after 11 p.m. before Trump lawyer Pam Bondi was allowed to make a five-minute appearance in which she not only failed to even mention the topic at hand, but also sat down without even noting that her moment in the spotlight was done. The other top-notch moment came when Jay Sekulow apparently misheard Val Demings talking about “FOIA lawsuits” and spent his entire time period making an incoherent rant about “lawyer lawsuits,” and “how dare” Demings talk about “lawyer lawsuits”?

The Bolton subpoena was near the end of the proceedings, and when a still-wound-up-at-midnight Nadler rose to support that amendment, he jumped in with both feet, taking a much more aggressive tone than previous House managers. The usually much more pedantic House Judiciary Committee chair called Republican votes to suppress subpoenas “treacherous” and accused Republicans in the Senate of being part of the cover-up as they voted to shut out witnesses. Nadler’s sharply worded performance seemed to wake up Trump’s tired team, and both Cipollone and Sekulow jumped in to flat-out scream at Nadler in response—following which Chief Justice John Roberts saw fit to waggle a finger at both sides, cautioning them about the Senate’s rules against personal insults. Notably, Roberts had not been stirred to make such a comment despite hundreds of insults and lies from the Republican team earlier in the night.

In the end, the Republicans got everything they wanted. On paper. But the Democratic team didn’t put on a pointless show. It showed that it’s come loaded for a serious fight, and that neither McConnell nor Trump’s legal team is prepared. It’s almost as if the House managers spent that time that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave them planning strategy and tactics and practicing their approach to the material. Which suggests that, like Tuesday night, the rest of the week might not go quite as well for Team Trump as they’ve been expecting.

Schumer and the House team may not have won the votes, but they absolutely won the evening. By miles. And everyone on the other side of the aisle should be sweating.