[Receive the day’s most urgent debates right in your inbox by subscribing to the Opinion Today newsletter.]

In May, CNN’s Dana Bash interviewed Giuliani, and she posited that the “Spygate” saga was “an intentional strategy to undermine the investigation, knowing that they, the investigators, the special counsel, it’s their policy not to talk. But you are very free to and are very aggressive about doing so.”

Giuliani responded in part:

“Of course, we have to do it in defending the president. We are defending — to a large extent, remember, Dana, we are defending here, it is for public opinion, because eventually the decision here is going to be impeach, not impeach. Members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, are going to be informed a lot by their constituents. So, our jury is the American — as it should be — is the American people.”

Yes, there is some impeachment fervor on the left, some that party leaders have tried to tamp down, fervor even in advance of Mueller’s findings. But there also appears to be very real impeachment fear in the Trump inner circle.

One has to ask: Why exactly is impeachment front of mind for these people? If they were as innocent as they publicly proclaim, they would know that impeachment would be out of the question as a matter of fact and law. But that is apparently not the case.

Do they believe that Democrats would take the politically disastrous step of moving to impeach Trump even if Mueller fully exonerated him?

I don’t believe so. I believe that Trump is conducting himself as only a guilty man would, one who has a very real and well-founded fear that he is in imminent jeopardy.