President Donald Trump and his congressional allies spent the first week of impeachment inquiry hearings trying to refocus the public’s attention to what they cast as the most important piece of evidence: the summary of Trump’s call to the president of Ukraine on July 25.

In the House Intelligence Committee, at press conferences and on Twitter, their message has sought to narrow the Democrats’ case to the facts of that one major event — and then attack it as insufficient to impeach the president.

It’s similar to a strategy that defense attorneys employ in bribery or corruption cases that require fitting together multiple pieces of evidence to build a picture of misconduct, former corruption prosecutors and legal experts told CQ Roll Call.

That vital piece of the puzzle doesn’t fit, the strategy goes. That big smoking gun isn’t smoking. Republicans have sought to put the July 25 call between Trump and the country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in the same category.

[Ousted ambassador gives deeply personal account of firing by Trump]