As recently as this week, the New York Times allowed only that there is “no evidence so far to support Mr. Trump’s claim that Mr. Biden improperly intervened to help his son’s business in Ukraine” (emphasis added).

And simply fraudulent are news reports insisting that Mr. Biden wasn’t influenced by his son’s presence on the Burisma board, because it’s impossible to know. Mr. Biden, instead of insisting that Ukraine’s chief prosecutor be fired, might have insisted he prove his bona fides by reopening his dormant Burisma investigation. We just can’t know. This is why the mere “appearance” of a conflict of interest is rightly considered compromising to U.S. policy (as the vice president’s own aides reportedly tried to warn him).

But all such questions now are illegitimate in a rush to paint Mr. Trump as impeachable. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough quotes the White House transcript until its words no longer suit him and then invents his own to portray Mr. Trump as asking for information to “smear an opponent.”

The transcript says no such thing.