A question came up during the Senate’s impeachment trial of President Donald Trump this week: What matters? To Alan Dershowitz, the answer was power. The Harvard University law professor emeritus argued on Wednesday night that Trump’s actions don’t actually matter as long as the president believes he did them for the right reasons. “If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” he argued.

The House managers strenuously disagreed on legal grounds. California Representative Adam Schiff described Dershowitz’s stance as a “descent into constitutional madness.” But they also took issue with his theory on moral grounds, as well. “That is the Fifth Avenue standard of presidential accountability: I can do anything I want,” New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries added later. “I can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and it doesn’t matter. No. Lawlessness matters. Abuse of power matters. Corruption matters. The Constitution matters.”

Schiff and Jeffries failed to persuade the Republican-led Senate. As the second day of questions drew to a close on Thursday night, key lawmakers moved to fully adopt the nihilistic worldview that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has long espoused. Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander was among a handful of GOP lawmakers who had appeared open to voting in favor of hearing witnesses. But he shut the door last night, declaring that it wouldn’t matter. The House’s allegations were true, the president did something wrong—and he shouldn’t be removed from office for it.

It was up to the American people, he concluded, to use the November election to punish Trump for trying to cheat in the November election.

“There is no need for more evidence to conclude that the president withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; the House managers have proved this with what they call a ‘mountain of overwhelming evidence,’” Alexander said in a statement. “It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation.” It was up to the American people, he concluded, to use the November election to punish Trump for trying to cheat in the November election.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio took a similar view of the House’s case in a Medium post on Friday morning. To his credit, he rebuked Dershowitz’s theory of an unbounded executive branch. “On the first Article of Impeachment, I reject the argument that ‘abuse of power’ can never constitute grounds for removal unless a crime or a crime-like action is alleged,” he wrote. He also rejected the obstruction-of-Congress article because the White House had legitimate grounds to invoke executive privilege and the House didn’t litigate it enough in the courts.