One of the interesting things about the first day of yesterday’s impeachment trial is that the President’s attorneys kept making the point that the President didn’t respond to the subpoenas issued by the House because the House did not begin their impeachment inquiry with a House-wide vote.

The problem with this argument is that there is no requirement in the Constitution that the House kick of it’s impeachment with a House-wide vote. As it happened, the impeachment inquiry was kicked off when Nancy Pelosi referred the matter to the House Intelligence Committee to begin with. Which was entirely within their right.

The President does not get to decide whether a House subpoena is legitimate or not. But it’s clearly going to be part of the President’s team strategy for the attorneys to just misrepresent the law, assuming that most Americans aren’t going to know the difference.