[googthrowaway42]

> but it's definitely possible that by not "following conservative media" I overlooked the actually agonizing deliberation that transpired behind the scenes.

This is actually exactly what I'm talking about, not the proceedings themselves. With the exception of the potential wildcard of the Bolton testimony (which never ended up happening) at that point the party had essentially been whipped and it was just theatre.

Here are the names that were discussed incessantly in conservative media: https://www.vox.com/2019/10/14/20908684/senate-republicans-t...

Up until Matt Gaetz did his stunt disrupting the private/secret hearings of House witnesses there wasn't very much fire on the Republican side which was why these close-door pre-impeachment vote hearings happened in the first place. Remember that at certain point there was a pseudo-impeachment process occurring prior to any impeachment vote having taken place. Even convincing Republicans that they needed to fight to get an actual vote on the record was not an simple process.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/23/20929023/...