It was never about the removal of the President.  Not the Russia probe. Not the Mueller report.  Not the inquiry into Obstruction.  Not the Quid Pro Quo.  Not the Bribery.  Not the phone call.  None of these investigations, either separately or in unison, was going to result in the impeachment and removal of the President.

It was always about flipping the Senate in the 2020 election and neutering the President’s second term.

This would be done if the electorate in choice states with moderate Republican senators could be swayed that their Senator participated in a partisan cover up to salvage the Presidency of Donald J Trump.  It was a clarion call for righteous indignation among an impressionable electorate that could be persuaded by non-stop one-sided media hype to oust weak or retiring Senatorial candidates.

Step One was to create a scenario whereby the House majority could vote to impeach on a dubious case that, by design, lacked merit in both the facts and the law.  Step Two, once the Articles were voted on, was to delay the onset of the Senate trial to sustain a “media buzz” of intrigue and expectation, even if it temporarily generated partisan scorn for the House and its Speaker.  But all along, while enduring GOP ridicule over “where’s the urgency now?”, the opposition was carefully crafting new evidence and new witnesses to spring upon a smug Senate majority that pre-supposed it held all the cards.

These late-to-the-party witnesses, and the suspect evidence they purported to possess, would be foisted upon the Senate for due consideration, lest the optics connote a cover-up.  “Why”, the reasonable would be coached to ask aloud, “if there’s nothing to hide, should the witnesses not be heard?”.  Several weak-kneed GOP Senators could be counted on to buckle, just as was demonstrated in the Cavanaugh confirmation hearings.  To save face and show good faith, these GOP Senators would indulge the mob and lend credence to the discredited.  The media would overlook the checkered past and self-serving motives of the witnesses, and instead enshrine them as dauntless crusaders for truth.  Their evidence, purloined or manufactured though it may be, will be hailed as the smoking gun. 

The resulting faux-frenzy will lure more weak-willed GOP Senators to approve ever greater lengths by the Democrats to re-litigate the Mueller Report and the Ukrainian matter.  Hoping such magnanimous gestures will appease the masses, the GOP it will instead ignite a drumbeat for removal.

In the end, by an unnecessarily small margin, the Republican Senators will vote to acquit the President.  And in so doing, sacrifice enough seats, irrespective of voting yea or nay, as to cede the Upper Chamber to the Democrats in November.

And that was the impeachment gambit all along.