Either way, take Rudy out of the picture and replace him with almost any competent lawyer, and Trump wouldn’t have been impeached.

Start with the first (and most probable) scenario: that Rudy was faithfully following Trump’s orders in implementing the aid-for-dirt scheme.

What kind of attorney follows orders like that? What kind of attorney doesn’t immediately advise his client not to implement that kind of corrupt scheme, or at least refuse to play any part in it?

There are countless examples of Trump blurting out preposterous, illegal demands that were quickly and easily thwarted by the adults in the room. Of course, that requires one to think back to a time when there actually were adults in the room, but that wasn’t so long ago.