Yet House Republicans attempted to dispute it plenty during the hearings, with misdirection, diversions and outright lies so blatant that, in normal times, they wouldn’t have passed the blush test.

They repeatedly claimed the aid was released before anyone raised red flags about it, which is false. They claimed Trump was only concerned about combating corruption in general, which — in addition to being laughably incongruous with all that we know of this president — was disproved by testimony that Trump only cared about getting a public announcement of an investigation against Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Most shamelessly, they repeated, again and again, the baseless contention that it was Ukraine that meddled in our elections in 2016, to help Democrats, rather than Russia, to help Republicans. This isn’t some subtle twisting of the facts, but a whole-cloth fabrication that originated with the Russian government, according to U.S. intelligence. Yet even now, congressional Republicans continue spreading this Kremlin lie.

That whirring sound you hear is Ronald Reagan spinning in his grave.

Another GOP talking point is that Democrats are only considering party and not the facts of the case. Never mind that several Democrats broke from their party on the impeachment vote, while not a single Republican did. Republican after Republican has nonetheless stepped up to the microphone to accuse the other side of partisan blindness. You can’t make this stuff up.