(CNN) US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland spent most of Wednesday morning dismantling every argument that the Trump White House and congressional Republicans had offered to explain away the pressure campaign that the US conducted in Ukraine.

Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, was sitting right there as Sondland detailed clear evidence of a quid pro quo -- the Ukrainians would get a sit-down between their President and President Donald Trump only if they announced an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden's connections to a Ukrainian natural gas company -- and made clear that all sorts of senior officials within the administration were aware of this in real time.

So how did Nunes start off his allotted 45-minute questioning of Sondland? By floating a series of debunked conspiracy theories about Ukraine meddling in the election, of course!

"We have records showing Democrats were heavily involved with Ukraine in 2016," Nunes said before detailing a series of claims that have been debunked not only by nonpartisan fact checkers but by the likes of former US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and former Trump homeland security adviser Tom Bossert.

On top of all that, there's all this : The intelligence community has unanimously concluded that it was Russia that sought to interfere in the 2016 election, with the goal of helping Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton. Special counsel Robert Mueller's nearly two-year investigation drew the same conclusion.

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