This week, Ambassador William Taylor gave testimony that many are calling the smoking gun for proving Trump intended a quid pro quo deal with the Ukraine, making impeachment seem all but inevitable.

What makes this funny to me is that quid pro quo was never really the standard. Just asking the Ukrainian president to announce a baseless investigation in order to affect our elections should have been enough to start impeachment proceedings. It was President Trump who drew the line at quid pro quo by repeatedly denying it had happened at every opportunity, a strategy that has apparently worked for him with “no collusion.” What’s more, the evidence for quid pro quo was already clear in even the White House’s released transcript of the phone call with Zelensky.

Still, Ambassador Taylor’s testimony seems to have shifted the ground somewhat, and Republicans are in full meltdown mode. On Wednesday, a group of GOP congressmen stormed a closed-door meeting where Pentagon official Laura Cooper was testifying. Cooper had been warned by the Trump administration not to testify, but she did anyway, so a protest was staged to disrupt the hearing.

And I do mean staged. Some of the Republican congressmen who were part of the protest were actually members of the committees doing the inquiry, and so they had every right to attend the meetings they were protesting not being allowed to attend. All of the committees are made up of Democrats and Republicans, all of whom are allowed to cross-examine witnesses in the hearings.

What’s more, the protesters violated any number of rules, including those prohibiting electronic devices in the secure room where the inquiry was being held. Maybe they think that rules don’t apply to them any more. Perhaps that’s something they picked up from President Trump himself, who apparently knew about the stunt in advance.

If you’ve reached the point where you need to send in your gang to physically disrupt the investigation of your crimes, it just might be time to resign.

From Henry VI, Part One:

I cry you mercy, ’tis but quid for quo.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Mob rids query to crucify you? Quit!