The time that Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted to devote to impeaching Trump over Ukraine fell short of the time it would take to thoroughly investigate Ukraine, so impeachment took precedence and the investigation gave way. The House scored some meaningful witnesses, especially U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, but in a more deliberate process, it would have kept working its way up the food chain of Trump officials and digging into Rudy Giuliani’s skullduggery.

Since there wasn’t time to do this before a pre-Christmas impeachment, the House didn’t try. It failed to subpoena John Bolton, whose testimony is now said to be absolutely central to the integrity of a Senate trial.

When a Bolton deputy Charles Kupperman went to court over his House subpoena — seeking definitive guidance on whether privilege applied to his potential testimony — the House dropped the subpoena in a transparently cynical move. It feared any delay, and perhaps an unwelcome ruling by the judge. So it forgot about getting the testimony of a witness it had wanted.

The disturbing Lev Parnas documents just turned over to the House and released publicly are a boon to the Democrats. But the House impeached about a month before getting them. Indeed, if Pelosi hadn’t delayed transmitting the articles in a futile attempt to pressure Mitch McConnell, the Senate trial could conceivably have ended before the release of the documents. Pelosi’s defenders say this is a vindication of her stall, but it’s more of an indictment of her rush to impeach.

Even now, the documents raise questions that would be natural to answer in an impeachment inquiry — if the inquiry hadn’t already ended.

Mitch McConnell, of course, is loath to pick up the investigation where the House prematurely left it off. He’s on solid ground in replicating the process from the Bill Clinton impeachment, which began with opening arguments before a vote on witnesses. In the end, the Senate heard from only three.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff says one difference between then and now is that the witnesses in the Clinton impeachment had already been deposed. But that’s because independent counsel Ken Starr fought out the privilege battles with the Clinton White House, and won. In contrast, Schiff and Co. just added obstruction to the articles of impeachment, and began to browbeat the Senate to take up the fight for witnesses.

But if the House hasn’t managed to keep its story straight over the past month, Senate Republicans aren’t making their best case on witnesses, either. Their most compelling argument would be that we already know the broad outlines of what Trump has done, so more fact-finding is unnecessary and the Senate only has to decide the threshold question of whether his conduct rises to the level of removal. But if Republicans maintain Trump didn’t engage in any misconduct, it raises the natural question why Bolton and others shouldn’t come testify and put to rest the allegations against him.

The fact of the matter is that this is a most political impeachment because it’s happening in the run-up to an election less than a year away. Pelosi wanted to rush impeachment, in part, to get it over with as soon as possible for her vulnerable members. Meanwhile, McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will be engaging in a political joust, with McConnell trying to hold together and protect his caucus and Schumer trying to split it and force awkward votes. Whether there are witnesses will depend on the contours of this contest. Either way, the republic will survive.

