I have conceded your response in what I already wrote, but I cannot celebrate it. I do cling to the idea that putting it all in the public record may be more important than putting it in the Congressional Record, but even if that’s not so, I have a recollection from the brown shoe days when I practiced law that sometimes you are forced to go to trial when you’d rather not. In such a case, you rope together all the evidence you have and hope your opponent will plug the holes for you on cross-examination. The biggest question for Chief Justice Roberts is whether Donald Trump may be called to testify.

If civil rules, yes. If criminal rules, no. But would it be allowed to make the request and then argue from his refusal? (Right past his claim that the lawyers made him do it, which in this one case would be correct. If I were representing Trump, I would suggest to my client that it’s a good time for a state visit to Antarctica.)

The broad and shallow approach I advocate maximizes the number of cards turned over and the number of times the House managers get to roll the dice. It stops the Cannonball Run. Looking back on my batting average practicing law, I think when you throw everything in the stew pot, the truth often comes bubbling to the surface…right past all the mixed metaphors.

It’s not every day you get a case when you would be perfectly happy with the unvarnished truth. More often than not, you have something to hide but you are willing to let it all hang out because of the stakes. In this case, the House managers have that rare and wild freedom that comes from just needing the truth to show its face.

In my experience, the truth wants to show its face but the lawyers, in pursuit of short term goals, get in the way. If there was ever a case for thinking in terms of what the evidence will leave to be discovered when we are all dead and gone, this is that case. I’m thinking that if we try it for posterity, the present will take care of itself.