Republicans know Trump is innocent. They’re trying to figure out why.

They’ve ended up in three main categories:

The president did nothing wrong. The advantage of this position is that it puts you on the same side as the president, and means he won’t be taking shots at you publicly, the way he has at some other Republicans. The disadvantage is it puts you on the same side as the president—and against the judgment of most Americans. (Some of the people espousing it have constituencies that may be more Trump-friendly than the general populace.)

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The president did something wrong, but it’s not an impeachable offense. This is perhaps the simplest position to argue, since it allows members to concede that something is rotten without having to actually take the drastic step of backing impeachment. Yet it conflicts with the president’s insistence that he did nothing wrong and the call was “perfect,” making it a precarious ledge on which to stand.

The president did nothing wrong, but his advisers did. This view, far more ridiculous than the “he did nothing wrong” defense, holds that although various Trump aides, including government officials and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, may have extorted Ukraine to announce politically motivated investigations in exchange for a White House visit and the release of military aid, “there is no direct linkage to the president of the United States,” as Representative Mark Meadows put it. Never mind that Trump had made the demand himself in the call with Zelensky, to name one serious flaw in the argument.

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