The effect of the coverage was to suggest to the public that there were new and damaging revelations in the impeachment case — not the old stuff that everyone had already digested and was reflected in the polls, but new and really serious charges. Impeachment was exciting again!

And does anyone expect that to be the last such revelation? From now until the trial is over, and perhaps beyond, Republicans expect Democrats to come up with some new something on a regular, if not daily, basis. GOP defenders are beginning to see the next month in the Senate not so much as an impeachment trial but as a replay of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings: a fait accompli that becomes a cliffhanger with new and progressively more spectacular allegations. None of them were true, but they threw Republicans on the defensive and plunged the confirmation into chaos for a while.

For Democrats facing an uphill climb in a Republican-controlled Senate, why not try the same thing at the very highest level, an effort to remove the president?