As President Trump keeps talking, he makes it more and more difficult for his supporters to mount an actual defense of his underlying behavior.

Trump’s pushback against impeachment efforts seemed to be gaining some traction on Wednesday with the revelation that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff lied about having had contacts with the Ukraine whistleblower. In fact, the whistleblower reached out to his office before filing the complaint. This came on the heels of Schiff improvising a version of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a congressional hearing rather than just reading directly from the text of the call. In a highly politicized impeachment fight, being able to portray a leader of the opposition as being dishonest is a way of undermining public confidence in the integrity of the impeachment process.