On Tuesday, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council staffer, gave his public testimony in the House's impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump. Unlike the witnesses who appeared before House investigators last week, Vindman listened in on Trump's extortionate phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this year, which made his account of the president's crimes especially compelling—and prompted Republicans in attendance to twist themselves into conspiracy-theorizing pretzels while attempting to discredit him.

Last month, Vindman made news after revealing that the White House's "transcript" omitted critical aspects of the conversation, including that Zelensky had specifically named Burisma, the company for which former vice president Joe Biden's son worked, and that Trump's references to "recordings" of Biden were conspicuously replaced by an ellipsis. At the time, Vindman attempted to flag these as errors that required correction. Instead, the White House placed the record of what Trump insisted was a "perfect call" on an ultra-classified system to ensure that as few people as possible would have access to its contents.

After House Democrats opened an impeachment inquiry into the Trump-Ukraine scandal in late September, they began taking testimony from Vindman and other key witnesses in a series of closed-door hearings. Immediately, outraged Republicans began deploying a variety of strident defenses of their party's leader. A gaggle of lawmakers led by Florida congressman Matt Gaetz argued that Democrats were using a secret process to undo an election, and even barged into a secure hearing room in the U.S. Capitol in order to make their point, even though many of them were on the committees running those hearings. Others pointed out that the people offering allegedly damning testimony in fact had only secondhand information about Trump's misconduct. Taking cues from the White House, still others insisted that the call record contains no evidence of impeachable conduct, and that this was all a giant waste of legislative time and taxpayer dollars.

With the inquiry's public phase now underway, though, Vindman's testimony about specific incriminating omissions of which he had personal knowledge disposed of all three of these lines of argument in short order. As a result, Republicans were forced to roll out a battery of new attacks during Tuesday's hearing—and to repackage some old standbys, too, to see if they'd still stick. Here are the highlights.

A "favor" isn't an "order"

Who said it: Utah congressman and U.S. Air Force veteran Chris Stewart

What he said: "Much has been talked about as we discussed between President Trump and President Zelensky and the word 'favor' being interpreted as a basis for impeachment," Stewart began. "You said in the military culture, which we're both familiar with, when a superior officer asks for a 'favor' of a subordinate, they interpret that as a demand...Your interpretation of a 'favor' as a demand is based on your military experience." After establishing that neither Trump nor Zelensky had served in the military, he concluded: "Would it be fair, then, to take a person who has never served in the military, and to take your evaluation of their words based on your military experience?"

What's going on here: Stewart is arguing that Trump's request for a "favor" could not have been a "demand" of Zelensky because Zelensky, who is not Trump's military subordinate, would not have interpreted Trump's ask for an investigation as an order. This bit of semantic gymnastics ignores the fact that Ukraine relies heavily on U.S. military assistance during its ongoing armed conflict with Russia. Similarly, when a mafia boss dangles a suspected informant from a penthouse balcony and tells the informant to do him a "favor" and never talk to a police officer again or else, no one involved believes non-compliance is a meaningful option.