The bid to impeach Trump by any means necessary.

If an impeachment resolution came over from the House, Mitch McConnell said on Monday, the Senate would have to take it up. In the meantime, those confused by the impeachment process might keep the tangled back story in mind.

Back in 2017, Rep. Adam Schiff was crowing that there was evidence in plain sight that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. The intel committee boss never produced the evidence and neither did Robert Mueller with his police-state tactics. Schiff has now turned to improvised dialogue about President Trump pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden in exchange for military aid. That is a tough act to follow but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is up to the task.

On Sunday the San Francisco Democrat made the rounds of the talk shows explaining, “This is a very sad time for our country. There is no joy in this. We must be somber, we must be prayerful and we must pursue the facts,” and so on. This from an alleged moderate who formerly opposed calls for impeachment from the party’s far left. Now Pelosi has impeachment on the fast track.

Impeachment normally starts with a resolution and a vote on the house floor. Pelosi bypassed that vote and announced that an impeachment inquiry was already under way. That spared the representatives from going on record and gave the go-ahead for committees to continue their investigations.

The vaunted “intelligence community” changed a key whistleblower form to drop the requirement for “first-hand” information. So the complaint could proceed even though the whistleblower had no knowledge of President Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

President Trump is like Paul Newman in Absence of Malice, being set up by someone with no face and no name. The whistleblower is reportedly a CIA employee but the president wants to know who this person is and face his accuser. The accuser is being represented by Andrew Bakaj, a former CIA officer who says the whistleblower “is entitled to anonymity.”

Democrats want more of Trump’s phone calls with Vladimir Putin and other world leaders. Adam Schiff wants to see if “the president was also undermining our security in a way that he thought would personally benefit his campaign.” For his part, Trump wants Schiff questioned “at the highest level for Fraud & Treason,” and he wants to know who was spying on him.

As this unfolds other developments should be kept in mind. As Victor Davis Hanson explains,

“we still have a number of government audits coming from Michael Horowitz, John Durham, and John Huber—and the targets are not Trump.” Hanson expects the impeachment hearings to “descend into a Kavanaugh-esque farce,” as the Democrat candidates’ “screaming and hysterics return.” That should serve as a reminder that this is all about the 2016 election.

Progressives believe they have somehow escaped the repressive conditioning of the masses and are wise enough to usher in the utopian state. This has all been predetermined by history, so if the progressive candidate loses, it can only be due to trickery or theft.

Progressive candidates cannot accept that outsider Donald Trump defeated former First Lady Hillary Clinton. Democrats are worried that if they don’t impeach Trump he will win again in 2020. Others don’t care about the election and just want him impeached by any means necessary.

The hearsay whistleblower is the latest offensive and the CIA connection is troubling. Some speculate that the person is a protégé of John Brennan, on record that the whistleblower “deserves our praise and gratitude.” This from a man who voted for the Stalinist Gus Hall for president and never should have been given any job in U.S. government, let alone head of the CIA.

Puzzled observers would be wise not to underestimate the malice and fatuity of leftist Democrats, who have consistently underestimated President Trump. Charles Hurt of the Washington Times finds it “just mind-boggling to me that they would want to turn the entire political discussion today suddenly to talking about Ukraine, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden in Ukraine, all of this is stuff that Donald Trump is delighted to talk about.” And the president can do more than just talk.

Bill Clinton’s impeachment tangle prompted a flurry of pardons to people he didn’t even know. President Trump, the most powerful man in the world, could extend deployment of his power to declassify. That could prove interesting, even for someone like POTUS 44, who in 2012 told

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” to deal with contentious issues like missile defense after the U.S. presidential election. And of course he and Hillary Clinton gave the Russians everything they wanted.

They also colluded with Russia to take down candidate and President Trump. Vice President Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating a firm whose board included Biden’s son. Trump thinks Ukraine should investigate, and that was what the call was about. Yet Trump, not Biden, faces the barrage.

As Victory Davis Hanson has it, “if Trump’s health holds out, if we don’t have a recession, if there is not an optional war, and Trump endures the next few weeks of 360-degree, 24/7 targeting, 2020 will be far more favorable than ever imaginable for him.” As the president says, we’ll have to see what happens.