Aggrieved members complained about the lack of “transparency and inclusion” in the House’s investigation. Republicans were being excluded, they railed.

On Wednesday afternoon, more than two dozen members of the House GOP caucus stormed into the secure, classified facility where House committees have been conducting interviews as part of the impeachment inquiry.

But like pretty much every other Republican objection to the impeachment investigation so far, it wasn’t true.

Forty-eight GOP members are on committees that allow them to attend the hearings — including, amazingly, 13 of those who stormed the gates. And the impeachment inquiry is being conducted in the same manner that House Republicans ran the Benghazi hearings — behind closed doors so witnesses can’t coordinate their statements.


This latest stunt is yet another flailing and delusional defense against the mounting evidence that President Trump has committed grave abuses of power.

First, the White House claimed that Trump did not put pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former vice president Joe Biden during a July phone call. Then the administration released a summary of the call showing exactly the opposite.

Next, the defense became that the Trump administration hadn’t spelled out a specific quid pro quo.

Text messages between US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker and a key aide to Zelensky blew that one out of the water. The most damning read: “Heard from White House-assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate/‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington. Good luck!” Zelensky wanted a White House photo op. Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate Biden and a delusional conspiracy theory about Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 American election.

And the two month delay in military assistance for Ukraine while Trump pressed that country’s leaders to further his political interests? No crime there said GOP Representative John Ratcliffe. The Ukrainians were not “aware that military aid was being withheld,” he explained. “You can’t have a quid pro quo with no quo.”


This isn’t true either. Ukrainian officials first heard hints about the freeze in early August. And after the delay was publicly revealed later that month, it too became part of the quid pro quo.

William Taylor, chargé d’affaires at the US embassy in Ukraine, testified this week that, after hearing from panicked Ukrainian officials about the freeze on aid, he asked US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland to speak to Trump about it. Sondland reported back that “everything” was now part of the deal to get Ukrainian cooperation on the investigations, including the military assistance.

The evidence of a quid pro quo is simply overwhelming.

Yet, the hare-brained defenses continue.

“No Ukrainian said they felt pressured. Biden wasn’t investigated. Aid flowed to Ukraine,” says Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee.

Yes, aid did flow to Ukraine . . . only after it was held up. This is a bit like a hostage-taker taking credit for giving their captives freedom. And while it’s true Biden wasn’t investigated, Trump and US diplomats clearly did everything they could to make it happen. By McDaniel’s logic, a person accused of attempted murder shouldn’t be prosecuted because they missed.

But, but . . . the whistle-blower who blew the whole matter open only had “second-hand knowledge” of Trump’s actions, administration officials plea. Trouble is, virtually everything that the whistle-blower alleged in the original complaint has been backed up in House testimony.


The whole impeachment inquiry is a “coup” intended to undo a presidential election. In fact, impeachment is a tool to hold the president accountable for “high crimes and misdemeanors” — and it’s enshrined in the Constitution.

It was up to the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board to make the most creative argument on behalf of the president, namely “that while Mr. Trump wanted a quid pro quo policy ultimatum toward Ukraine, he was too inept to execute it.” When your best defense is that the president is too incompetent to be a criminal, you’ve truly hit rock bottom.

Ultimately, the problem for Trump and his coterie of defenders is that there is no defense. The president tried to extort the Ukrainian government. He used military assistance, which Kyiv desperately needed to stop Russian-led aggression in eastern Ukraine, as leverage. He sought to use his office for personal political gain and in the process committed an impeachable abuse of presidential power. There’s no silver bullet explanation that will explain this away. Sooner or later, Republicans are going to have to accept reality.

Michael A. Cohen’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter at @speechboy71.