President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday in a hearing that proved to be little more than a partisan snipe fest, humorous though it was. Democrats, led by committee chairman Jerry Nadler (NY), were continually frustrated by Lewandowski’s refusal to answer their leading questions and partisan rants. He clearly relished the opportunity to punch back at their fallacious “Trump deserves to be impeached” narrative.

With his opening remarks, Lewandowski effectively called out the Democrats’ charade. “Sadly, the country spent over three years and 40 million taxpayer dollars on these investigations,” he noted. “It is now clear the investigation was populated by many Trump haters who had their own agenda — to try and take down a duly elected president of the United States. As for actual ‘collusion,’ or ‘conspiracy,’ there was none. What there has been, however, is harassment of the president from the day he won the election.” From there, he repeatedly strung Democrats along, giving their “questions” the respect they deserved — which is to say none at all. The hearing was a circus, and Lewandowski treated it like one.

Republicans also took the opportunity to call out Democrats for their purely partisan anti-Trump agenda. Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) observed, “I’ve never seen a majority so amazed with packaging in all my life. You know why? It’s because they can’t sell what’s inside. … They can’t sell the product so they keep packaging it differently.” Collins then sneered that the hearing “has become ‘Let’s Read the Mueller Report’ for audio book.”

Collins also cogently observed that the real reason behind the hearing was a desperate attempt to play up a narrative because Democrats don’t have the votes necessary to move forward with impeachment. As with the New York Times’s vacuous hit piece against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Nadler and company are holding hearings proclaiming Trump to be guilty of a crime that none of their so-called evidence substantiates. So, like a snake-oil salesman, Nadler is left desperately attempting to convince Americans to buy the fraud he’s selling.

Nadler ridiculously asserted, “This is a cover-up, plain and simple. If it were to prevail, it would upend the separation of powers envisioned by our Founders.” The trouble for Nadler and his gang is the obvious question: a cover-up of what? We have Robert Mueller’s report that found no evidence of conspiracy to commit collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The failure of Nadler and company to answer this basic and fundamental question is why he doesn’t have the votes even within his own party to initiate impeachment.

At the end of the day, nothing has really changed. Democrats didn’t uncover any new evidence as they continued to prattle on about “obstruction” and a “cover-up.” Republicans once again took the opportunity to highlight the fact that Democrats are so obsessed with trying to take down Trump that they have ignored the real issues facing the country.