President Trump’s defense team in his Senate impeachment trial began its closing arguments on Monday with Kenneth Starr, once the prosecutor who drove the impeachment of President Bill Clinton 20 years ago.

Speaking with church-like solemnity, Starr endeavored to cast the case against and trial of the president in a moral light. He told a story about having worked with “one of the great trial lawyers of his time,” to whom he posed a question: What’s your secret?

“'I let the judge and the jury know that they can believe and trust every word that comes out of my mouth,'" the lawyer said, according to Starr. "'I will not be proven wrong.’”

“So here's a question as you begin your deliberations,” Starr continued. “Have the facts as presented to you as a court, as the high court of impeachment, proven trustworthy? Has there been full and fair disclosure in the course of these proceedings?”

Starr wrapped up his arguments, turning the lectern over to Mike Purpura, another of Trump’s attorneys.

Purpura then proceeded to offer an untrustworthy presentation of the available evidence and to disclose only partially what is known about the alleged actions by Trump that are at the center of his impeachment trial.

The best example came when Purpura sought to rebut the idea that Trump had predicated a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the announcement of investigations that would have benefited Trump politically.

Here’s the entirety of Purpura’s argument to that end.

“Let me turn very briefly to the claim that a presidential meeting was also conditioned on investigations. Remember, by the end of the July 25 call, President Trump had personally invited President Zelensky to meet three times. Twice by phone, once in a letter, without any preconditions.
"You heard that the White House was working behind the scenes to schedule the meeting and how difficult scheduling those meetings can be.
“The two presidents planned to meet in Warsaw, just as President Zelensky requested on the July 25 call. President Trump had to cancel at the last minute due to Hurricane Dorian. President Trump and President Zelensky then met three weeks later in New York without Ukraine announcing any investigations.”

He made four points.

  1. That Trump invited Zelensky three times.
  2. That the delay in a meeting was due to scheduling problems.
  3. That a planned meeting in Warsaw was canceled, so they instead met in New York.
  4. That the meeting was clearly not predicated on investigations since none were announced.

The first point is true, to a point. Trump extended an invitation to Zelensky in their call on April 21, 2019, after Zelensky won the presidential election. (“When you’re settled in and ready, I’d like to invite you to the White House.”) He did so in a letter delivered to Zelensky in May by the acting ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor. (“President Trump congratulated President Zelensky on his election victory and invited him to a meeting in the Oval Office,” Taylor said of the letter during his testimony.) And he did so again during the July 25 call that has been a focal point of the impeachment probe. (“Whenever you would like to come to the White House feel free to call. Give us a date, and we’ll work that out.”)

Notice, though, what's missing: a date. When Trump and Zelensky met in New York on Sept. 25, Zelensky was pointed in his frustration about the lack of a finalized meeting.

“I want to thank you for invitation to Washington,” Zelensky said, with obvious frustration. “You invited me, but I think — I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But I think you forgot to tell me the date.”

Purpura argues in his second point that this was a function of scheduling issues. That largely hinges on an interview with former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker in which Volker testified that there was no effort to make a meeting between the presidents contingent upon investigations, but that officials were having “a difficult time scheduling a bilateral meeting.”

There's plenty of evidence, though, that this was not really the case. Taylor, for example, was told by Volker and Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland — both of whom were tasked by Trump to work on Ukraine issues — that Trump “wanted to hear from Zelensky before scheduling the meeting in the Oval Office.” Sondland later clarified: Zelensky needed to demonstrate that he wasn't “standing in the way” of the probes Trump sought.

In a meeting with Ukrainian officials at the White House on July 10, the officials asked for a specific date for the meeting.

“Well,” Sondland replied, according to former National Security Council staffer Fiona Hill, “we have an agreement with [acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney] for a meeting if these investigations in the energy sector start.” That’s a reference to an investigation Trump sought that centered on former vice president Joe Biden.

The following month, Sondland, Volker and a Zelensky aide named Andriy Yermak had an extended interaction aimed at finalizing a meeting — and finalizing the language for an announcement of new probes. Yermak at one point suggested that the statement would come out only after a date for a meeting was set, as opposed to making the announcement first, an explicit recognition that the meeting was being held off until the announcement came. Text messages between Sondland and Volker in that same period similarly make that tie clear.

“[Hill’s replacement Tim] Morrison ready to get dates as soon as Yermak confirms,” Sondland told Volker about the statement that was sought. Dates were contingent not on scheduling issues but, instead, on confirmation from Zelensky’s office that probes were moving forward.

None of this, though, is the most obvious evidence that a meeting wasn't delayed because of scheduling issues. That evidence comes from Volker himself, on the morning of the July 25 call.

That morning, Sondland and Trump spoke, after which Sondland contacted Volker. Volker texted Yermak, telling him that “assuming President [Zelensky] convinces trump he will investigate / “get to the bottom of what happened” in 2016″ — another of the desired investigations — “we will nail down date for visit to Washington.” He later texted Sondland to confirm that Sondland’s message had been passed to Zelensky’s team.

Zelensky offered Trump the required assurance on the call. After the call ended, Yermak texted Volker.

“Phone call went well. President Trump proposed to choose any convenient dates. President Zelenskiy chose 20, 21, 22 September for the White House Visit,” he wrote. “Thank you again for your help!”

Those dates were never formalized. Despite the apparent logistical issues within the administration that Purpura claims hampered Zelensky’s visit, the White House held a number of bilateral White House meetings in the latter half of last year.

Purpura, in his third point, claims that the meeting happened. They’d meant to meet in Poland but, because of Hurricane Dorian, pushed it to the meeting in New York. This was not the meeting that Zelensky sought, and it’s an insult to the U.S. Senate that Trump’s legal team would argue that it was.

In the July 25 call itself, Trump himself made clear that the Poland meeting wasn’t the meeting that Zelensky desired.

“I look forward to seeing you in Washington,” Trump said, “and maybe in Poland because I think we are going to be there at that time.”

The invitation was the same in each of the three invitations that Trump extended, the ones Purpura used to defend Trump. Trump invited Zelensky to the White House and the Oval Office each time, as the quotes above make clear — not to a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of a United Nations event, which is what transpired in September.

On that day and the day before, Trump had also met with leaders from Japan, El Salvador, India, Britain and Iraq. Zelensky wanted photos of himself standing with the U.S. president in the White House to show Russia — with which Ukraine is in active conflict — that his country had a strong, consistent ally. That is not what he got from that meeting in September.

Who did get such a meeting? Russia's foreign minister, in December.

That Zelensky still hasn’t gotten the meeting he sought completely undermines Purpura’s fourth point. It’s irrelevant that no investigations were announced, since the meeting Zelensky wanted didn’t happen. Even if the New York meeting were the one he wanted, the point is still hollow. By Sept. 25, Trump’s interactions with Ukraine had emerged into the public eye. The rough transcript of the July 25 call was published that morning. The quid pro quo sought by Trump had collapsed. It’s the now-familiar analogy: holding someone hostage for a ransom is not excused by letting the person go before you got the ransom. To offer a more fitting analogy for the issue at hand, it’s also not excused if you release a life-size mannequin of the person.

Purpura wanted to address the meeting quid pro quo “very briefly” because he didn’t want to dwell on his team’s sloppy argumentation. The question posed by Starr — have the facts as presented to you as the high court of impeachment proven trustworthy? — is not answered here in a way that reflects well on Starr’s own team.