“I’ve seen you on TV,” Trump tried to bolster him. “You’re a good lawyer. Just do it. Why are you so afraid of Castor?”

“Because I’m a wimp, sir,” said David Schoen to the president.

“What? What did you say?”

“I’m a wimp sir. I’m a pushover. That’s me. I can’t stand up for myself. That’s just who I am.”

“A wimp? You’re supposed to be defending me in an impeachment trial? My lawyer’s a wimp? A wimp? Did you just call yourself a wimp? A wimp? I want you to do it. You do it. Man up.”

With no place not to be overheard, the Trump aides found themselves in the anteroom to the Senate women’s locker room, huddled together, away from both Democrats and Trump’s own lawyers, trying to map out a desperate last-minute plan. Writing and organizing key parts of the presentations, for whoever would deliver them, fell to Ory Rinat, who had gone to law school before bailing on a legal career and becoming a videographer.

They needed somehow to keep Castor out of the president’s view. So, the plan, going into Thursday, was for van der Veen, who Trump now decided might be the only competent one in the bunch (“One of the all time greats,” he promoted him to), to do the opening; then for Schoen to take on the due process argument; then van der Veen to cover the First Amendment case; and then, briefly, for Castor to close, so as not to make it look like he had deserted the team.

Except the president wouldn’t have him. “No way, no way. I never want to see him at the podium again.”

But meanwhile, it became clear that Schoen had little prepared and was now balking at the videographer’s script. “I haven’t had any time to do anything. I don’t have any paralegals. It’s just me. I was promised a brief writer, a serious constitutional scholar. I was promised.” The implication being that, in lieu of a scholar, he had gotten a videographer.

“Yes, but—it’s tomorrow. You’re up,” said Miller.

“I’m just not going to do this,” Schoen suddenly told Miller on Thursday night.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not going to do it.”

“You can’t just not do it.”

“Yes, I can. You can’t tell me what to do, you can’t tell me what to do. I can do whatever I want. You’re not in charge of me,” said Schoen, heading quickly into what seemed like a breakdown and saying he thought Miller and Alex Cannon, with Justin Clark now joining them, were thugs.

“No, I’m telling you. You can’t quit. Because you’ll look like a jackass.”

“Don’t tell me that. Don’t tell me that. I can look like whatever I want to look like,” said Schoen, now storming off.