Everyone had seen the scenery. The sun would rise, the sun would set, Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, would yell. It would be really cold in the hearing room, and at some point, the committee members would all break for lunch, hopefully soon.
There was much to argue about, little to be convinced about. Republicans kept saying that President Trump “committed no crime,” thus rendering all of this a sham and a farce and a “railroad job,” as Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, put it.
“There are no crimes here?” countered Representative Eric Swalwell, the indignant Democrat from California, expressing astonishment that Republicans did not think Mr. Trump abused his power — one of the articles of impeachment — by inviting foreign interference in the 2020 election. “That is the defense my colleagues across the aisle are putting forward?”
No, these were not crimes, not like what a certain other president did to get himself impeached. “Bill Clinton lied to a grand jury,” Mr. Sensenbrenner said.
Thoughts turned to sex.
“If it’s lying about sex, we could put Stormy Daniels’s case before us,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, referring to the pornographic film actress who was paid to keep quiet about an affair she said she had had with Mr. Trump. No one pursued this idea further.
Oh, look, the president was watching.
“Dems Veronica Escobar and Jackson Lee purposely misquoted my call,” Mr. Trump posted on Twitter a little before 11 a.m., referring to Representatives Veronica Escobar and Sheila Jackson Lee, both of Texas, and a call Mr. Trump had with the president of Ukraine that got the impeachment effort started. “They know that but decided to LIE in order to make a fraudulent point! Very sad.”