Well, it looks like the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump is finally gearing up. As ever, POTUS argues he’s the victim of a partisan smear campign, but a high-profile critic is daring him to testify.

“Many believe that by the Senate giving credence to a trial based on the no evidence, no crime, read the transcripts, ‘no pressure’ Impeachment Hoax, rather than an outright dismissal, it gives the partisan Democrat Witch Hunt credibility that it otherwise does not have,” Trump said in a tweet Sunday afternoon. “I agree!”

Neal Katyal, a Trump critic who served as acting solicitor general during the Obama administration, dared him to testify before the Senate.

“So come and testify and explain why 18 witnesses, many from your own Administration, have testified in Congress and thrown the book at you,” he wrote. “So far, the count is 18-0. Your party controls the Senate. If you are innocent you should have nothing to fear.”

The president was impeached last month after allegedly making military aid to the Ukraine conditional on that nation investigating Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden. Trump complained Sunday about the “stigma of Impeachment” and maintained his innocence. Katyal again dared him to testify.

If you really believed this, you’d be trying to clear your name—clamoring for a real trial, with witnesses+docs, and you would testify under oath that you did “nothing wrong” The fact that you don’t speaks volumes and far more than your protestations of innocence on,ahem,Twitter https://t.co/S7lT750ZzC — Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) January 12, 2020

Another Trump critic, attorney George Conway, had dared Trump to testify in the impeachment inquiry last year.

[Image via Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images]

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