Apparently, it’s a test of gullibility.  The Trump team just wants to know, “How stupid are you?”  Most of the rank and file conservatives are responding with “How stupid do you need us to pretend to be?”

Here’s the trumped up defense as summarized by the Guardian:

• The transcript (which the White House said is not verbatim) shows that the president did not condition either security assistance or a meeting on anything.
• Ukrainians have said there was no quid pro quo.
• Ukraine did not know security assistance was paused until a month after the 25 July call.
• No Ukrainian investigation into Joe Biden took place.
• Ukraine received assistance without such an investigation.
• Trump has been a bigger supporter of Ukraine than his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Okay, first if it’s not verbatim, it’s not a transcript.  It’s an abstract.  The White House chose which information to include and what to withhold.  The actual transcript?  The White House hid that on a secure server and won’t let anybody see it…

Yeah, the Ukrainians said there was no quid pro quo.  They were trying to negotiate a meeting with Dumbass in the White House and knew they needed to massage the man-baby’s fragile ego.  Besides, as the cons confess, Ukraine didn’t yet know about Donnie’s crime…

Ukraine didn’t know the assistance had been paused at the time of the call.  This particular bit is like receiving the ransom note before discovering your child has been kidnapped.  You wouldn’t really take such a threat seriously – until the day your child doesn’t come home as expected.  THEN, you’d feel threatened.  THEN, you’d know you’re being extorted.  THEN, you’d realize your child had been kidnapped.  But you STILL might keep it to yourself, if you feared that doing otherwise might make the problem worse.  Once Ukraine discovered the depths to which the Beast was willing to stoop, they had an entirely new reason to fear retribution from this White House…

No investigation took place.  BFD.  No investigation was ever going to take place.  Trump didn’t want an investigation.  He wanted an announcement of an investigation.

The conservatives pretend that releasing the aid and saying “No quid pro quo” AFTER getting caught in his crime is the same as not committing the crime in the first place.

I did not see the claim that Dems just want to overturn an “election” though I think they’ll try to make that case as they proceed.  Let’s think about it, though.  Let’s say you get a job as a bookkeeper.  Three years after you’re hired, the company discovers that you’ve been embezzling.  When they try to fire you, do you think you can forestall that outcome by shouting that they’re just trying to overturn their own hire?  Do you think they should have to retain the employee if it turns out he/she is able to form the sentence, “The process is unfair?”

I did NOT see in their list the con that ImPOTUS won’t try to prove his innocence because the process is unfair.  I guess even THEY realize just how stupid that argument is.  I recently saw a story in the news about a guy who was released 27 years after being convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.  You know who suffered from an unfair process?  A guy who gets convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.  (Sadly, it happens FAR more often in this country than we admit.)  Did that guy just refuse to participate because the process was unfair?  Why, no he didn’t.  He used the process to – eventually – prove his innocence.  I ask: what moron would NOT try to prove their innocence if they could?

I’ve had several discussions with cons about this whole process.  There’s not a single argument trumped up by the defense that ANY of the cons would accept if it affected them directly.  Let’s look at the kidnap analogy again.

If the kidnapper sees the cops pull up in front of the house and sends the kidnapped kid out, shouting “No kidnapping.  Arrest this kid for trespassing!” should the police just…shrug their shoulders and walk away?  SHOULD they arrest the kid?  Of course not.  What a person does AFTER they’ve been caught cannot be considered exculpatory.  (In fact, it’s called a “false exculpatory.”)

A friend of mine asked me how we can know if we’re right and the cons are wrong.  There’s a very simple answer: I NEVER have to do anything differently than anything I’ve ever done before in order to make my understanding work.  I don’t have to do any mental gymnastics.  I don’t have to pretend I have no ability to connect dots.  I don’t have to pretend that claiming the process is unfair is a get out of jail free card.  Cons have to pretend – aggressively – not to understand these very simple, basic things.

I don’t think that the fact that Republicans have no actual case is going to change the outcome.  I believe Senate Republicans are going to nullify the impeachment.  It won’t make Trump any less guilty, though…