The Democrats’ initial victory had been getting Lewandowski to show up in the first place. For months, current and former Trump-administration officials whom they had called as public witnesses in their investigation of the president had refused to comply with subpoenas at the demand of the White House. Those included Rick Dearborn, a former deputy chief of staff, and Rob Porter, the former staff secretary, who had been called to testify alongside Lewandowski today.

Lewandowski, however, had never served in the Trump administration, so the White House’s ability to block his testimony was more limited. Still, on the eve of his appearance, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone informed Nadler that he was instructing Lewandowski not to talk about anything that was not already covered in the public Mueller report.

The demand infuriated Democrats, but their options to contest it were limited, partly by their own choosing. They are challenging the Trump administration’s assertions of executive privilege and refusal to comply with subpoenas in court, but that legal process could drag out for months. The party’s other recourse is impeaching Trump for obstructing Congress, but even though the Judiciary Committee is now formally investigating whether to recommend articles of impeachment, the Democratic leadership is reluctant to move more quickly or aggressively toward a vote. Republicans, both in Congress and in the White House, know this and are taking advantage.

Read: The question Democrats have to answer before they can impeach

Lewandowski had given Democrats a preview of his tone during the hearing on Twitter, when he tweeted early this morning that he was “excited about the opportunity to remind the American people today there was no collusion [and] no obstruction.” In his opening statement, he adopted Trump’s talking points about the “fake Russian collusion” narrative and criticized “Trump haters” bent on taking down a duly elected president. At one point, he said that as Trump’s campaign manager, he received hundreds of thousands of emails. “Unlike Hillary Clinton, I don’t think I ever deleted any of those,” Lewandowski joked.

When Nadler began his questioning by simply asking Lewandowski whether, as stated in the Mueller report, he had met with Trump in the Oval Office in July 2017, Lewandowski made clear that he was going to follow Cipollone’s instruction to a T. Before answering the question, he demanded that Nadler furnish him with a physical copy of the Mueller report and a precise citation he could reference.

To prevent Lewandowski from running out Nadler’s five minutes of allotted question time, the chairman ordered the clerk to stop the clock, which drew protests from Republicans, who demanded that he had to restart it. “No, I don’t when he is filibustering me,” an exasperated Nadler replied.