Don't let Republicans focus on "the phone call". This was a multi-month extortion conspiracy. [View all]

[Tom Rinaldo]

The phone call between Trump and Zelensky was not the basis of the crime. It is one damning piece of evidence of an orchestrated multi-player national security sell out. The crime was carefully formulated and carried out by a team working at Trump's direction and it took place in multiple ways, at multiple times, and in multiple locations. The totality of the evidence must always be front and center

Damning as it may be, Republicans want to focus on that one phone call because if that is examined outside of its full context, then the impeachment burden of proof rests on how certain words spoken in a single instance are interpreted. That lends itself to a "Trump always talks that way, it may be inappropriate but it isn't impeachable" defense. Republicans want to fight on the grounds of a single phone call, a single "spontaneous" moment in time. We can't let them boil it down to that.