Saturday's performance by Trump's defense lawyers served to enlighten the public and, of course, exasperate Adam Schiff.  He tweeted thus:

After listening to the President's lawyers opening arguments, I have three observations:

They don't contest the facts of Trump's scheme.

They're trying to deflect, distract from, and distort the truth.

And they are continuing to cover it up by blocking documents and witnesses.

The "facts" of Trump's "scheme" were not only contested, but utterly deflated in the White House lawyers' two-hour presentation.  Deflecting the truth is, as articulated by the Trump defense team, a favorite pastime of Schiff and Co., in addition to their hobby of cherry-picking.  Michael Purpura pointed to the House managers' attempt to smuggle the phone call's dialogue about Javelin missile sales into their tall tale of Trump dangling the aid carrot before Zelensky's pressured, concerned countenance.  Turns out those weapons were in no way connected to the suspended security assistance.  Contesting this particular fact, manufactured so slyly by the Democrats, was easily done by their very own witnesses, former ambassador Maria Yovanovitch and National Security Council senior director Timothy Morrison.

What's more, Purpura proved that the Ukrainians weren't even cognizant of the freeze until more than a month after the July 25th call.  Testimony from ambassadors William Taylor and Kurt Volker and deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent made everyone aware of that and ended Democrats' dream of enacting July 25 as National Quid Pro Quo Remembrance Day.  Instead of transparently showing the entirety of their witness footage, the mendacious managers showed select clips multiple times to create a loop of delusion for their audience.  To give him the benefit of the doubt, Schiff may have missed the puncturing of his Trumpian scheme story.  Two hours must feel like two minutes to his sense of time progression these days.

As for the distortion of the truth yesterday that so incensed Schiff, Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) reports that when Purpura played Schiff's embellished rendition of the July 25 call, the blood draining from the lead manager's face was a sight for sore eyes.  There can be no doubt about it: the eyes in that room couldn't have been sorer; after endless hours of listening to a mafia-style drama of intrigue, vile threats, and betrayal, the boring old truth has got to hurt.

Finally, the Great Cover-Up Schiff speaks of couldn't possibly be a projection of his own dealings with a certain whistleblower.  Or could it?  Patrick Philbin satisfyingly concluded his arguments with a timeline of Schiff's statements regarding his faceless friend:

September 17:
Yes, we would love to talk directly with the whistleblower.

September 29:
We'll get the unfiltered testimony of that whistleblower.

October 13:
We don't need the whistleblower. 

This change, explained Philbin, could be chalked up to the early-October exposé that Schiff's staff interacted with the whistleblower, perhaps for guidance before he blew his whistle — a meeting Schiff previously denied.

"After that point it became critical to shut down any inquiry into the whistleblower," Philbin quipped.

A cover-up, indeed.

So, to anyone who still follows Schiff on Twitter, let it be known that when he looks in the mirror and sees the faces of Pat Cipollone, Michael Purpura, Jay Sekulow, and Patrick Philbin, immediate psychiatric care should be called for.