Let's all just back up for a moment here and remind ourselves that this impeachment inquiry is all about. These are the facts:

Rudy Guiliani, the personal attorney of the United States, essentially ran a months-long shadow government, in which he made several visits to Ukraine in an effort to convince them to investigate a natural gas company called Burisma, upon which Hunter Biden sat on the board. A former Ukranian prosecutor known to the rest of the world as corrupt was fired in 2016 because Joe Biden -- as VP -- and a host of other world leaders had pressured the Ukranian government to fire him, not because the prosecutor had threatened to investigate Burisma, but because he was corrupt and known to other world leaders to be corrupt. There is zero evidence of wrongdoing where it concerns Hunter Biden and Burisma.

Guiliani, on behalf of Trump, also wanted the Ukrainian government to investigate a baseless conspiracy theory that suggested the Ukrainian government had access to a secret server that somehow would have shown that it was the Ukrainians interfering in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton in an effort to sabotage Trump's election efforts. This server does not exist, except in the mind of Donald Trump, who has convinced himself that the Russians didn't interfere on behalf of Trump in 2016, but that the enemy of the Russians -- the Ukrainians -- did. In his mind, he needs this to be true, because he cannot accept that he won the election based on the meddling of the Russians.

Trump does not like Ukrainians, and he doesn't trust the Ukrainian government. The United States Congress, however, had approved military aid to Ukraine. Trump didn't want to provide that aid until the new Ukranian President, Zelensky, agreed to investigate the Bidens and this non-existent server. Trump's advisors, including Tom Bossert, tried to convince Trump that these conspiracy theories were not true. Likewise, Kurt Volker and others in the State Department tried to convince Rudy Giuliani that these conspiracy theories were not true. Nevertheless, Rudy at one point gave the State Department a packet of materials and asked the them to investigate a number of conspiracy theories, which Mike Pompeo agreed to do.

After Zelensky won the election, Rudy Giuliani, in conjunction with the State Department, arranged a phone call between Trump and Zelensky, but only on the condition that Zelensky would investigate the Bidens. Before the phone call, Guiliani and a number of diplomats drafted a statement that Zelensky was meant to read after the phone call that would have committed him to investigating the Bidens. In that phone call, Trump asked Zelensky to "do him a favor," and it is clear that the both the military aid and the existence of a U.S./Ukranian relationship was dependent upon that favor.

It's unclear what Zelensky's frame of mind was in all of this. It is clear that the Ukranian diplomats were uncomfortable with these arrangements, but at the same time, Zelensky is in a war with the Russians. Congress sides with Ukraine, but Trump sides with the Russians, and Zelensky clearly understood that if he were going to get that much-needed aid, he would have to "play ball" with Trump's demands.

The damning text messages, which were released this morning, make clear that the U.S./Ukraninan relationship was dependent upon Zelensky agreeing to investigate the Bidens. At one point in the text messages, a U.S. diplomat to Ukraine texted US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, "As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign."

All of this is the heart of the impeachment inquiry. Trump wanted the Ukranian government to investigate a political enemy in an effort to both disprove that Trump won the election in 2016 with the Russians help and to smear his 2020 political rival. Does it matter if there is evidence of wrongdoing involving Burisma? No. All Trump wants is the headline, "Ukraine investigates Joe and Hunter Biden," because Donald Trump knows that he can "But her emails" that headline to destroy Joe Biden's election efforts. The truth is not important to Donald Trump. All he cares about is creating the illusion of impropriety, as he did with Hillary in 2016. Even without that headline, Trump is making every effort to associate Joe Biden with "corruption."

As President I have an obligation to end CORRUPTION, even if that means requesting the help of a foreign country or countries. It is done all the time. This has NOTHING to do with politics or a political campaign against the Bidens. This does have to do with their corruption!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2019

Trump understands that he cannot win the 2020 election with his ideas. His only strategy is to destroy his rival with "fake news" and suppress turnout for his opposition in the hopes that his smaller but very loyal base is enough to defeat his opponent at the polls. The ability to tweet out the above 6 times a day every day until the election is all he wants. Alternatively, I suspect, Trump would like an excuse to imprison or threaten to imprison his opponent, or at least run on a "lock him up" campaign. He plans to reproduce his 2016 playbook.

It's still very unclear, however, whether the impeachment process will be successful. Regardless of how much evidence of impeachable wrongdoing the Democrats unearth, it is unlikely that the Republican Senate will vote to remove Trump from office. Democrats, however, are trying to demonstrate to the majority of Americans that Trump violated the Constitution, and hopefully, the fact that Trump used the office of Presidency for personal gain and repeatedly obstructed justice will damage Trump's reelection efforts. Most importantly, hopefully, it will prevent Trump from trying again to cheat as we head into an election year.