This week promises ramped-up impeachment drama as the House will finally hold public hearings of several “witnesses” to “whistleblower-gate.” The Democrats’ impeachment-inquiry resolution, which not a single Republican voted for, gives House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) veto power over any witnesses the GOP may call. Predictably, Schiff has demonstrated the purely partisan nature of this whole impeachment charade by denying the Republicans’ request that the whistleblower, widely identified as Eric Ciaramella, testify. So, the individual responsible for instigating this whole fiasco will not be called on to give an account. All this does is further cement the fact that this impeachment inquiry is a sham.

Democrats don’t want the whistleblower to testify because they know it will lead to Schiff’s doorstep. By taking the whistleblower out of the equation, Schiff hopes to build a case on the testimony of cherry-picked State Department officials who clearly disagreed with President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy agenda but were not witnesses to the phone call upon which the entire complaint is based.

Meanwhile, House Republicans aim to discover who all was involved in orchestrating this clearly partisan hit job against Trump and its connections to Ukraine’s 2016 election interference. The GOP’s list of requested witnesses includes Hunter Biden and his longtime business partner and former fellow Burisma board member, Devon Archer, as well as Nellie Ohr, who worked for the opposition research firm Fusion GPS (famous for the dossier) and whose husband Bruce was a key anti-Trump conspirator at the FBI. Thus far, it’s highly unlikely that Schiff will let any of these individuals testify, nor will Schiff testify about his own role as Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) called for him to do.

In an open letter to Schiff, Nunes labels the Democrats’ actions a “sham impeachment process” and insists Schiff’s “failure to fulfill Minority witness requests shall constitute evidence of your denial of fundamental fairness and due process.”

Interestingly, Democrats have now backed off their demand that former National Security Advisor John Bolton testify following the White House’s blocking of their subpoena. Bolton has indicated that he would be happy to testify, and Judge Richard Leon is expected to rule on this issue shortly even after the Democrats asked for the matter to be dropped. It appears that Democrats fear Bolton’s testimony would severely undercut their allegations against Trump.

Will Democrats have any success in their attempts to convince Republicans and the majority of the American public that their impeachment spectacle is anything but a partisan hit job against a duly elected president? It’s highly unlikely.