To protect President Donald Trump, Senate Republicans have been pushing the debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election in order to help Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton. This isn’t just a lie; it’s Russian disinformation, designed to deflect criticism and cast doubt over Russia’s 2016 interference campaign. Russian President Vladimir Putin, unable to suppress his glee that the Republican Party has adopted his line, even told a crowd in November: “Thank God. No one is accusing us of interfering in the U.S. elections anymore; now they’re accusing Ukraine.”

Lev Parnas has decided to tell the world what he knows, and so far, it’s been devastating for President Donald Trump. In an extensive interview with Rachel Maddow, Parnas declared in no uncertain terms that “Trump knew exactly what was going on.” One of his most significant allegations involved indicted Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash, a figure who has been lurking in the shadows of the impeachment investigation since the beginning.

One look at the list of potential witnesses shows why the president and his allies in Congress are trying to prevent a full impeachment trial in the Senate: The witnesses are capable of providing damning evidence against Trump.

It’s official: The House of Representatives has impeached president Donald Trump. Now, Americans are demanding a real trial: More than 70 percent of Americans—including almost two-thirds of Republicans—want top administration officials such as former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to testify. 

The House Judiciary Committee has introduced two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, for abusing his power and obstructing Congress. The House of Representatives has been able to move so quickly because President Trump got caught red-handed: His extortion scheme was discovered and exposed before it could be completed. Meanwhile, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the Russia investigation suggests that, had the FBI been more thorough in its investigation, Trump might have been caught red-handed in 2016 as well. Instead, the FBI proceeded with such extreme caution that it appears to have undermined subsequent efforts to investigate the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia.

Former U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, one of the highest-ranking participants in the Ukraine scandal, has so far managed to escape significant scrutiny through the impeachmeint inquiry. But while he may not be as much of a lighting rod as Mulvaney, Giuliani, or Trump himself is, he nonetheless deserves a closer look.

The Ukraine investigation has exposed more than just impeachable conduct by President Donald Trump; it has revealed large-scale corruption involving the president and many of his top advisers. As former FBI Assistant Director Frank Figliuzzi told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, the evidence increasingly makes it look like there’s “an organized-crime scheme that works its way throughout the White House.” Public hearings continue to show that Trump’s behavior was not only impeachable but also the exact type of conduct the founders sought to prevent when they gave Congress the power to impeach the U.S. president.

As the House of Representatives moves forward with its impeachment investigation, the circle of apparent co-conspirators keeps growing. We have now heard reports that there was a group of shadow advisers—including President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani; Lev Parnas and his business partner Igor Fruman; attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing; “occasionally” top Rep. Devin Nunes (D-CA) aide Derek Harvey; and columnist and conspiracy theorist John Solomon—regularly meeting at the BLT Prime restaurant in Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C., to allegedly coordinate their efforts for Trump’s own benefit.