Good Tuesday morning. I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook Audio Briefing. Stay tuned

after the show for a message from the Association of American Railroads. And I am Jake Sherman.

It has been exactly three weeks since Democrats announced they were going to begin the process of impeaching the president and here's where we are.

Democrats are conducting a series of hearings and depositions behind closed doors, letting the public know little of what they are learning.

Reporters are relying on readouts from the hours-long testimony from lawmakers, many of whom tend to hear what they want from the witnesses.

There are strategic reasons for the secrecy.

Public hearings are often useless, and they don't want witnesses to alter their testimony based on what others say.

But it's left the public completely in the dark about the process to remove the 45th president of the United States.

Republicans, meanwhile, are not really defending what the president has done,

but instead have relied on a series of process arguments to try to make the case that the impeachment is an illegitimate sham.

Republican candidates on the trail and lawmakers in the Capitol have been unwilling or unable

to answer questions about the substance of what Donald Trump is accused of doing.

Anyone who Republicans disagree with is a partisan hack with a bone to pick with the president.

The White House has taken the strategy that this isn't worth participating in and by doing so has given Democrats ammunition to say the administration is

blocking legitimate functions of Congress. Both sides have been firing letters at one another,

turning this into as Garrett Haik of NBC put it on the air that this is the golden age of letter

writing. CNN's Manu Raju posted a video clip of

Adam Schiff getting into a Capitol Police SUV outside the Capitol. It's pretty rare for a committee

chair to have a protective detail. A late night for some people last night, including me, as the

Washington Nationals beat the St. Louis Cardinals 8 to 1. The win puts them up

three nothing and one win away from the next round of the Major League Baseball playoffs. Patrick

Corbin takes the mound today against Dakota Hudson at 8.05 p.m. The Democratic debate is also

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