Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) spoke to reporters during a break in the Senate impeachment trial on Tuesday.

We’ve seen one motion after the other after the other. They’ve been redundant. They’ve been making the same arguments. This seems to be a time for Adam Schiff and the House managers to lecture the American people and to attack the President. But, you know, there’s an old saying that:

If you have the facts, you bang the facts.

If you have the law, you bang the law.

If you don’t have either, you bang the table.

Well, this afternoon, we’ve seen a whole lot of table banging.

And at the end of the day, we’re in the same spot we were in when we began the day, which is the House Articles of Impeachment that were passed on a partisan basis, they don’t meet the constitutional standard. And that’s why, at the end of this process, after a fair proceeding, after hearing the arguments of the House managers, after hearing the arguments of the President, at the end of this proceeding is going to be an acquittal because the House managers still can’t meet the constiutional threshold.

If you have the facts, you bang the facts.
If you have the law, you bang the law.
If you don't have either, you bang the table.

Today, we've seen a whole lot of table banging. pic.twitter.com/ez6HZtvu7y

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 22, 2020

Cruz may be onto something. The Democrats spent a good deal of their time on Tuesday arguing for access to new sources of evidence which indicates they brought their case to a vote in December with insufficient (or more probably no) evidence. There is a legal remedy available when documents and/or witnesses aren’t forthcoming, but Democrats were in too much of a hurry. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed the Democratic members of Congress to vote on impeachment with non-existent evidence. The impeachment itself was the goal. The substance would come. Schiff tried mightily to convince the Senate that Trump was a threat to our national security, he was corrupt and his actions would have “alarmed the Founders.” It’s Schiff himself, whose behavior would have alarmed the Founders.

Lots of accusations, but no proof.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren offered us a history lesson on impeachment, which quickly shifted into an appeal to collect more evidence. She said “Trump’s refusal to hand over records is a brazen act without precedent in impeachment inquiries…Former Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton each released a trove of records during their impeachment inquiries…Not a single president has categorically refused to cooperate with an impeachment investigation.”

Nor were Nixon and Clinton under investigation since the day they took office. President Trump turned over “troves” of information to the Special Counsel and even to early House requests. When the demands from the House reached the point of harassment, he turned to the courts.

Another thing she fails to recall is that there actually were underlying crimes in the Nixon and Clinton impeachments, a feature that is absent in Trump’s impeachment. Important difference.

It must be a horrifying feeling to be standing on the Senate Floor arguing the case to remove the President of the United States from office, and then realize you don’t have any evidence.

How will Schiff come up with new evidence? He looks to have already been caught in a lie over the Lev Parnas evidence he so gleefully introduced last week. My colleague Bonchie posted about that here. Schiff’s non-Lev Parnas related lies on the Senate Floor are covered by Nick Arama here.

Oh, evidence can be so elusive.

Get ready for a whole lot of table banging, because round two starts in 3…2…1!