In the absence of any productive purpose, the hearing will likely serve as an opportunity for Republicans to amplify their unfounded complaints about the impeachment process. The GOP has already telegraphed this will be their approach. Trump’s attorneys over the weekend said they would not be participating in the hearing, decrying it as unfair. On Tuesday, in a Fox News op-ed written with Rep. Russ Fulcher, committee member Rep. Andy Biggs accused Democrats of doing things backward, omitting fact witnesses only to have the scholars “giving us jury instructions before we hear the evidence.”

And crucially, the format of the committee will set it up for failure. During the Intelligence Committee’s fact-finding inquiry, Chairman Adam Schiff took control of the hearings by beginning with 45-minute rounds of direct witness questioning by him and a staff attorney, followed by equal time for Republican ranking member Devin Nunes and the GOP staff attorney, before opening things up for five-minute rounds of questioning for the 22 members on the committee. The House Judiciary Committee is nearly twice as large as the Intelligence committee, with 41 members—24 Democrats and 17 Republicans—set to offer questioning in sprawling free-for-all of a multiplicity of agendas.

In such a contest, the winning side is often the one that can yell the loudest, or—as the New York Times described the Republican game plan—merely the side that can “mire Democrats in a sloppy fight, making the hearings into such a confusing mishmash of competing information that even Republicans troubled by Mr. Trump’s actions see no upside in breaking with him.”