I asked White House insiders if they thought Trump was ready for impeachment proceedings. Their replies were damning

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Impeachment is coming, and Donald Trump is not ready.

His decision to publicly release a whistleblower complaint documenting his attempts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dealt his own presidency a self-inflicted wound that is far more serious than anything he faced from Robert Mueller or the various investigations that have dominated the 984 days of his term.

Subsequent revelations that he has allegedly enlisted Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General William Barr, and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in his attempts to weaponize foreign policy in service of his re-election campaign have further twisted the knife in the wound. And yesterday's reports that Barr has been traveling the world to pressure allies into investigating American intelligence services in hopes of proving conspiracy theories about Robert Mueller's investigation have poured salt into it.

Political wounds this serious normally require the equivalent of a surgeon with the sort of "gifted hands" once attributed to Housing and Urban Development Secretary — and famed pediatric neurosurgeon — Ben Carson. But with Trump's poll numbers in decline and support for impeachment on the rise, he is in danger of letting his presidency suffer the equivalent of what happened to President James Garfield, who succumbed to an assassin's bullet because of his doctor's incompetent ministrations.

This is because so far, Trump's legal team has been no more helpful than the quacks who shoved their filthy hands into Garfield's bullet wound.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, once lauded as "America's Mayor" for his response to the September 11 terror attacks, has taken the role of Garfield physician Doctor (yes, his first name was "Doctor") Willard Bliss.

In a series of television appearances, Giuliani has repeatedly made admissions that have brought impeachment closer to the man he describes as his client. He may have even put himself in legal hot water after all but inviting a Congressional subpoena by insisting that text messages and emails stored on his phone would vindicate him and his client (the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight committees took him up on the invitation yesterday).

According to former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman, Giuliani's "totally unhinged" performance shows how hard it will be for him — or anyone else — to defend Trump against allegations that could, in theory, be proven with documents released publicly by his own White House.

"He was basically caught with his hand in the cookie jar… it's hard to come up with a coherent strategy when you're guilty," Akerman told me. "There's no real defense to it, everything they've come up with is to just pound the table. I don't know where they go."

Akerman also noted that the other attorneys who defended the President during the Mueller investigation are "totally out of their depth."

While Trump's other TV-ready lawyer, American Center for Law and Justice founder Jay Sekulow, is a respected appellate lawyer who has argued religious freedom cases in front of the Supreme Court, Akerman noted that Sekulow's experience isn't applicable to Trump's predicament.

"This is not [Sekulow's] cup of tea, and they're not ready for it."

Robert Bennett, a veteran Washington legal hand who was then-President Bill Clinton's personal lawyer during the sex scandal which led to his impeachment, told me that if Trump is impeached, he will need lawyers who can do more than go on TV.

"He's going to need more people — workhorses to analyze all the evidence and to prepare factual legal defenses," Bennett said, but added that Trump's reputation for disregarding advice and non-payment may hinder attempts to bolster his legal team.

"A top-flight lawyer with a top-flight reputation would not want to take the chance of being fired or criticized publicly. Somebody with an established reputation would not want to take that chance," he continued. "You don't want to take on a high-profile reputation if you're certain that your client won't pay attention to you."

Asked if Trump's current team was up to the task, he offered a damning one-word answer: "No."

While the seeming inadequacy of Trump's legal team has rankled some in his inner circle, one presidential confidante, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said all efforts to persuade him of the necessity of bringing in some bigger guns have been heretofore unsuccessful.

Other Trump allies, like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have taken to arguing that more lawyers are unnecessary because current Speaker Nancy Pelosi's announcement of a "formal impeachment inquiry" is meaningless. They argue that it wasn't authorized by a majority vote, as it was in 1998 when the House directed the Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment inquiry based on Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's report, and therefore it can’t continue.

White House officials have made similar arguments in support of the administration's refusal to answer Congressional subpoenas, but University of Missouri law professor Frank Bowman called that particular view "entirely unsound and unsupported by the constitution."

"Both the House and Senate can proceed entirely as they choose. In my view, they don't need to pass a resolution to start any more than they need to pass a resolution to engage in appropriations activity," said Bowman, who is the author of High Crimes and Misdemeanors: A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump.

Bowman noted that similar "due process" arguments have been made to little effect during previous impeachments to discredit the process, but stressed that Article I of the constitution gives the House the power to impeach any way it wants to impeach.

"In 1868, the articles of impeachment against Johnson were filed on February 21st. Three days later, the House voted 168-47 to impeach the President,” he said. There's some due process for you.”