House Intelligence Committee Democrats released their 300-page report on their impeachment inquisition so far. It’s riveting reading if you like works of fiction very loosely “based on a true story.” The far more accurate version is the Republican prebuttal.

“President Trump’s scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign,” argue Adam Schiff and other House Democrats in their report. Moreover, they aim to bolster their case on “obstruction” by saying, “It would be hard to imagine a stronger or more complete case of obstruction than that demonstrated by the President since the inquiry began.”

Democrats proceed to base their gripes in their longstanding narrative that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. They argue that his Ukraine endeavors were the same kind of corrupt conduct. “In making the decision to move forward, we were struck by the fact that the President’s misconduct was not an isolated occurrence, nor was it the product of a naïve president,” the preface to the report asserts. “Instead, the efforts to involve Ukraine in our 2020 presidential election were undertaken by a President who himself was elected in 2016 with the benefit of an unprecedented and sweeping campaign of election interference undertaken by Russia in his favor, and which the President welcomed and utilized.”

In conclusion, Democrats argue, “The president placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the U.S. presidential election process, and endangered U.S. national security.”

Baloney. Trump’s only “real” sin is having defeated Hillary Clinton. The fact that he’d like to win again in 2020 is utterly unconscionable to Democrats.

As for “bribery”? George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley is testifying today before the House Judiciary Committee, and he argues that the Democrats’ expansive definition of bribery is historically ignorant and mendacious.

In other news, Adam Schiff obtained Rudy Giuliani’s phone records, which include conversations with Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, as well as journalist John Solomon and others. Clearly, Democrats hope to discredit Nunes with this revelation. Still, The Resurgent’s Erick Erickson puts it in perspective: “I don’t find it outrageous at all that the Democrats got these records. It suggests a level of competence and thoroughness I did not think they possessed. [But] it is remarkable the Democrats have not been able to advance the ball and are flailing about given what all they had.”

Maybe Schiff’s phone records would reveal that it wasn’t just his staff colluding with the whistleblower…

And finally, speaking of Nunes, he filed a $435 million defamation lawsuit against CNN Tuesday over its “demonstrably false hit piece” alleging that the congressman had traveled to Vienna in 2018, where he supposedly met former Ukrainian chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin in a bid to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. None of that is true. “CNN is the mother of fake news,” says the lawsuit. “It must be held accountable.”