You can make a case for Pelosi hanging on to the articles indefinitely; that way, she could prevent Trump from taking a victory lap, and use the unfairness of the process as a campaign issue against GOP senators. That would trivialize the impeachment process and be a violation of her constitutional duty, however, so she won’t do it. Then what?
The job of the managers at the trial with regard to Article I will be fairly straightforward; they will lay out the evidence, probably in chronological form, showing the effort to coerce the Ukrainians into at least announcing the investigations (the actual investigations were an afterthought at best). This should not be too difficult, as there is no truly exculpatory evidence in the record. The more important and complicated task will be to make the case that Trump’s ultimately unsuccessful efforts at self-dealing are serious enough to be considered high crimes and misdemeanors. How will Trump’s lawyers respond?
This is where it gets tricky. They can complain about the unfairness of the House process, but the logical antidote for that is live witnesses. They can also argue that there is insufficient direct evidence of Trump’s involvement to convict him, but the obvious rebuttal to that is to subpoena Bolton, Mulvaney, and Giuliani. There appears to be an agreement with McConnell to avoid doing that. What’s left as a defense?
That the activity in question is not serious enough to merit impeachment. That defense will not satisfy the president in the slightest, but as long as no witnesses are called, at the insistence of his lawyers and his GOP allies, it’s the only argument that can be made that survives the straight face test.
And what about Article II, which presents different legal and tactical issues? More on that in a subsequent post.