The most remarkable thing produced by the release of the rough readout of Donald Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, followed quickly by the whistle-blower complaint, was Democratic unity. After months of infighting over impeachment, there were few voices challenging Nancy Pelosi’s decision. But questions remained. The caucus was, for the first time, headed in the same direction, but its precise path remained unclear.

The Script: By Thursday afternoon, the waypoints began to come into focus. At 3 p.m. the Congressional Progressive Caucus gathered in the Capitol Visitor Center. After members finished trickling in and remarks from progressive leadership, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, the chairmen of the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees, respectively, took the spotlight and addressed the progressive lawmakers in the closed-door meeting. The top-line takeaway was: Stay on message. “We have to stay on script,” Nadler said, according to a source familiar with his remarks. The script was simple: The president solicited dirt from a foreign government on a political rival to swing an American election. For the next several weeks, this is the message lawmakers needed to inject into living rooms across the country. “We have to get the American people to support this impeachment.”

The Recess: Another question was what to do about the congressional recess, which was scheduled to start Friday. Democratic lawmakers and congressional aides fretted they were about to squander their momentum by abandoning Capitol Hill and returning to their districts, allowing Trump to twist the messaging in his favor. “I think we need to stay in Washington. I don’t think Congress should adjourn for two weeks,” California congressman Ro Khanna told me early Thursday afternoon. “That really would allow the White House to control the narrative.” A congressional staffer on the Judiciary Committee echoed the sentiment. “Optics matter, as much as some people here pretend that they don’t. The visual of Trump at work against Democrats being on vacation will be challenging if that’s what happens,” this person told me. Addressing concerns about the recess, Schiff told lawmakers in the room that his committee wasn’t going to stop digging on Ukraine. Over the next several weeks, the goal is for the House Intelligence committee “to move as expeditiously as possible,” according to the person familiar with the meeting. First and foremost, Schiff wants to speak with the whistle-blower, but in the meantime, his committee is poised to fire off subpoenas—not invitations to appear—to any relevant witnesses who might be able to speak to Trump’s interactions with the president of Ukraine. “We are not going to be horsing around,” he told the group.

Division of Labor: Judiciary and Intelligence will have clearly defined responsibilities. As Schiff’s committee investigates the Ukrainian tangle, Nadler said the Judiciary Committee will cede the spotlight until it is time to draft articles of impeachment “that are both legally sound and politically viable.” When this happens, he added, will be up to Schiff and leadership. The Intelligence Committee will be given a wide berth for its Ukraine investigation, but when it concludes, its findings, along with those of the four other investigatory committees—Foreign Affairs, Ways and Means, Oversight, and Financial Services—will be turned over to the Judiciary as the basis for the articles. “Right now, the investigative focus has to be narrowly on the Ukraine episode, but it’s obviously continuous with and completely reflective of a general pattern of corrupt conduct by the president. And indeed, many parts of this story obviously relate to the president’s attempts to continue to whitewash and cover up what took place in the 2016 election,” Congressman Jamie Raskin, who sits on both the Judiciary and Oversight committees, told me. “Over the next few weeks, we will be able to integrate this into an overarching narrative and we will be able to identify very specific high crimes and misdemeanors that have taken place.”