Congressional Record

United States

of America

PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE

116

CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION

∑ This ‘‘bullet’’ symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by a Member of the Senate on the floor.

S813

Vol. 166 WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2020 No. 23

Senate

The Senate met at 9:30 a.m. and was

called to order by the Honorable M

IKE

, a Senator from the State of Utah.

PRAYER

The Chaplain, Dr. Barry C. Black, of-

fered the following prayer:

Let us pray.

Eternal God, we offer You our hearts.

Guide our lawmakers. May they strive

to permit justice to roll down like

waters and righteousness like a mighty

stream. Grant that they will join You

in Your messianic thrust to bring good

news to the marginalized, to announce

freedom for those who suffer, and to

give sight to the ethically, morally,

and spiritually blind. Lord, inspire our

Senators to live pure and blameless

lives, seeking to bring the greatest

glory to You.

We pray in Your strong Name. Amen.

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

The Presiding Officer led the Pledge

of Allegiance, as follows:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the

United States of America, and to the Repub-

lic for which it stands, one nation under God,

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

APPOINTMENT OF ACTING

PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will please read a communication

to the Senate from the President pro

tempore (Mr. G

RASSLEY

The legislative clerk read the fol-

lowing letter:

U.S. S

ENATE

RESIDENT PRO TEMPORE

Washington, DC, February 4, 2020.

To the Senate:

Under the provisions of rule I, paragraph 3,

of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby

appoint the Honorable M

IKE

, a Senator

from the State of Utah, to perform the du-

ties of the Chair.

HUCK

RASSLEY

President pro tempore.

Mr. LEE thereupon assumed the

Chair as Acting President pro tempore.

RESERVATION OF LEADER TIME

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-

pore. Under the previous order, leader-

ship time is reserved.

MORNING BUSINESS

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-

pore. Under the previous order, the

Senate will be in a period of morning

business, with Senators permitted to

speak therein for up to 10 minutes

each.

RECOGNITION OF THE MAJORITY

LEADER

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem-

pore. The majority leader is recog-

nized.

IMPEACHMENT

Mr. M

CONNELL. Mr. President,

these past weeks, the Senate has grap-

pled with as grave a subject as we ever

consider: a request from a majority of

the House to remove the President.

The Framers took impeachment ex-

tremely seriously, but they harbored

no illusions that these trials would al-

ways begin for the right reasons.

Alexander Hamilton warned that

‘‘the demon of faction’’ would ‘‘extend

his sceptre’’ over the House of Rep-

resentatives ‘‘at certain seasons.’’ He

warned that ‘‘an intemperate or de-

signing majority of the House’’ might

misuse impeachment as a weapon of or-

dinary politics rather than emergency

tool of last resort. The Framers knew

impeachments might begin with over-

heated passions and short-term fac-

tualism. But they knew those things

could not get the final say, so they

placed the ultimate judgment not in

the fractious lower Chamber but in the

sober and stable Senate.

They wanted impeachment trials to

be fair to both sides. They wanted

them to be timely, avoiding the ‘‘pro-

crastinated determination of the

charges.’’ They wanted us to take a

deep breath and decide which outcome

would reflect the facts, protect our in-

stitutions, and advance the common

good. They called the Senate ‘‘the most

fit depositary of this important trust.’’

Tomorrow, we will know whether that

trust was well-placed.

The drive to impeach President

Trump did not begin with the allega-

tions before us. Here was reporting in

April of 2016, before the President was

the nominee: ‘‘Donald Trump isn’t even

the Republican nominee yet . . . [but]

‘Impeachment’ is already on the lips of

pundits, newspaper editorials, constitu-

tional scholars, and even a few mem-

bers of Congress.’’

Here was the Washington Post head-

line minutes after President Trump’s

inauguration: ‘‘The campaign to im-

peach President Trump has begun,’’ the

Washington Post says.

The Articles of Impeachment before

us were not even the first ones House

Democrats introduced. This was go-

around number, roughly, seven. Those

previously alleged high crimes and

misdemeanors included things like

being impolite to the press and to pro-

fessional athletes. It insults the intel-

ligence of the American people to pre-

tend this was a solemn process reluc-

tantly begun because of withheld for-

eign aid. No, Washington Democrats’

position on this President has been

clear literally for years. Their position

was obvious when they openly rooted

for the Mueller investigation to tear

our country apart and were dis-

appointed when the facts proved other-

wise. It was obvious when they sought

to impeach the President over and

over.

Here is their real position: Wash-

ington Democrats think President

Donald Trump committed a high crime

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or misdemeanor the moment he de-

feated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elec-

tion. That is the original sin of this

Presidency: that he won and they lost.

Ever since, the Nation has suffered

through a grinding campaign against

our norms and institutions from the

same people who keep shouting that

our norms and institutions need de-

fending—a campaign to degrade our de-

mocracy and delegitimize our elections

from the same people who shout that

confidence in our democracy must be

paramount.

We have watched a major American

political party adopt the following ab-

surd proposition: We think this Presi-

dent is a bull in a China shop, so we are

going to drive a bulldozer through the

China shop to get rid of him. This fever

led to the most rushed, least fair, and

least thorough Presidential impeach-

ment inquiry in American history.

The House inquiry under President

Nixon spanned many months. The spe-

cial prosecutors’ investigation added

many more months. With President

Clinton, the independent counsel

worked literally for years. It takes

time to find facts. It takes time to liti-

gate executive privilege, which hap-

pened in both those investigations.

Litigating privilege questions is a nor-

mal step that investigators of both par-

ties understood was their responsi-

bility. But this time, there was no

lengthy investigation, no serious in-

quiry. The House abandoned its own

subpoenas. They had an arbitrary po-

litical deadline to meet. They had to

impeach by Christmas. They had to im-

peach by Christmas. So in December,

House Democrats realized the Framers’

nightmare. A purely partisan majority

approved two Articles of Impeachment

over bipartisan opposition.

After the Speaker of the House de-

layed for a month in a futile effort to

dictate Senate process to Senators, the

articles finally arrived over here in the

Senate.

Over the course of the trial, Senators

have heard sworn video testimony from

13 witnesses, over 193 video clips. We

have entered more than 28,000 pages of

documents into evidence, including 17

depositions. And our Members asked

180 questions. In contrast to the House

proceedings, our trial gave both sides a

fair platform. Our process tracked with

the structure that Senators adopted for

the Clinton trial 20 years ago.

Just as Democrats such as the cur-

rent Democratic leader and then-Sen-

ator Joe Biden argued at length in 1999,

we recognized that Senate traditions

imposed no obligation to hear new live

witness testimony if it is not necessary

to decide the case—if it is not nec-

essary to decide the case; let me em-

phasize that.

The House managers themselves said

over and over that additional testi-

mony was not necessary to prove their

case. They claimed dozens of times

that their existing case was ‘‘over-

whelming’’ and ‘‘incontrovertible.’’

That was the House managers saying

their evidence was overwhelming and

incontrovertible at the same time they

were arguing for more witnesses.

But in reality, both of the House’s

accusations are constitutionally inco-

herent.

The ‘‘obstruction of Congress’’

charge is absurd and dangerous. House

Democrats argued that anytime the

Speaker invokes the House’s ‘‘sole

power of impeachment,’’ the President

must do whatever the House demands,

no questions asked. Invoking executive

branch privileges and immunities in re-

sponse to House subpoenas becomes an

impeachable offense itself.

Here is how Chairman S

CHIFF

put it

back in October. ‘‘Any action’’—any

action—‘‘that forces us to litigate, or

have to consider litigation, will be con-

sidered further evidence of obstruction

of justice.’’

That is nonsense impeachment. That

is nonsense. ‘‘Impeachment’’ is not

some magical constitutional trump

card that melts away the separations

between the branches of government.

The Framers did not leave the House a

secret constitutional steamroller that

everyone somehow overlooked for 230

years.

When Congress subpoenas executive

branch officials with questions of privi-

lege, the two sides either reach an ac-

commodation or they go to court. That

is the way it works.

So can you imagine if the shoe were

on the other foot? How would Demo-

crats and the press have responded if

House Republicans had told President

Obama: We don’t want to litigate our

subpoenas over Fast and Furious. So if

you make us step foot in court, we will

just impeach you. We will just impeach

you.

Of course, that is not what happened.

The Republican House litigated its sub-

poenas for years until they prevailed.

So much for ‘‘obstruction of Con-

gress.’’

And the ‘‘abuse of power’’ charge is

just as unpersuasive and dangerous. By

passing that article, House Democrats

gave in to a temptation that every pre-

vious House has resisted. They im-

peached a President without even al-

leging a crime known to our laws.

Now, I do not subscribe to the legal

theory that impeachment requires a

violation of a criminal statute, but

there are powerful reasons why, for 230

years, every Presidential impeachment

did in fact allege a criminal violation.

The Framers explicitly rejected im-

peachment for ‘‘maladministration,’’ a

general charge under English law that

basically encompassed bad manage-

ment—a sort of general vote of no con-

fidence. Except in the most extreme

circumstances, except for acts that

overwhelmingly shocked the national

conscience, the Framers decided Presi-

dents must serve at the pleasure of the

electorate—the electorate—and not at

the pleasure of House majorities. As

Hamilton wrote, ‘‘It is one thing to be

subordinate to the laws, and another to

be dependent’’—dependent—‘‘on the

legislative body.

So House Democrats sailed into new

and dangerous waters—the first im-

peachment unbound by the criminal

law. Any House that felt it needed to

take this radical step owed the country

the most fair and painstaking process,

the most rigorous investigation, the

most bipartisan effort. Instead, we got

the opposite—the exact opposite.

The House managers argued that the

President could not have been acting in

the national interest because he acted

inconsistently with their own concep-

tion of the national interest. Let me

say that again. The House managers

were basically arguing that the Presi-

dent could not have been acting in the

national interest because he acted in-

consistently with their conception of

the national interest, a conception

shared by some of President’s subordi-

nates as well.

This does not even approach a case

for the first Presidential removal in

American history. It doesn’t even ap-

proach it. Such an act cannot rest

alone on the exercise of a constitu-

tional power, combined with concerns

about whether the President’s motiva-

tions were public or personal, and a

disagreement over whether the exer-

cise of the power was in the national

interests.

The Framers gave our Nation an ulti-

mate tool for evaluating a President’s

character and policy decisions. They

are called elections. They are called

elections.

If Washington Democrats have a case

to make against the President’s reelec-

tion, they should go out and make it.

Let them try to do what they failed to

do 3 years ago and sell the American

people on their vision for the country.

I can certainly see why, given Presi-

dent Trump’s remarkable achieve-

ments over the past 3 years, Democrats

might feel a bit uneasy about defeating

him at the ballot box. But they don’t

get to rip the choice away from the

voters just because they are afraid

they might lose again. They don’t get

to strike President Trump’s name from

the ballot just because, as one House

Democrat put it, ‘‘I am concerned that

if we don’t impeach [him], he will get

re-elected.’’

The impeachment power exists for a

reason. It is no nullity. But invoking it

on a partisan whim to settle 3-year-old

political scores does not honor the

Framers’ design. It insults the Fram-

ers’ design.

Frankly, it is hard to believe that

House Democrats ever really thought

this reckless and precedent-breaking

process would yield 67 votes to cross

the Rubicon.

Was their vision so clouded by par-

tisanship that they really believed—

they really believed—this would be

anywhere near enough for the first

Presidential removal in American his-

tory?

Or was success beside the point? Was

this all an effort to hijack our institu-

tions for a month-long political rally?

Either way, ‘‘the demon of faction’’

has been on full display, but now it is

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time for him, the demon, to exit the

stage. We have indeed witnessed an

abuse of power—a grave abuse of

power—by just the kind of House ma-

jority that the Framers warned us

about.

So tomorrow—tomorrow—the Senate

must do what we were created to do.

We have done our duty. We considered

all the arguments. We have studied the

‘‘mountain of evidence,’’ and, tomor-

row, we will vote.

We must vote to reject the House’s

abuse of power, vote to protect our in-

stitutions, vote to reject new prece-

dents that would reduce the Framers’

design to rubble, and vote to keep fac-

tional fever from boiling over and

scorching our Republic.

I urge every one of our colleagues to

cast the vote that the facts in evi-

dence, the Constitution, and the com-

mon good clearly require. Vote to ac-

quit the President of these charges.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. C

SIDY

). The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk proceeded to

call the roll.

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask

unanimous consent that the order for

the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

RECOGNITION OF THE MINORITY

LEADER

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

Democratic leader is recognized.

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the

majority leader can come up on the

floor and repeat his talking points, but

there are some salient points that are

irrefutable.

The first, this is the first impeach-

ment trial of a President or impeach-

ment trial of anybody else that was

completed that has no witnesses and no

documents. The American people are

just amazed that our Republican

friends would not even ask for wit-

nesses and documents.

I thought the House did a very good

job. I thought they made a compelling

case. But even if you didn’t, the idea

that that means you shouldn’t have

witnesses and documents, when we are

doing something as august, as impor-

tant as an impeachment trial, fails the

laugh test. It makes people believe—

correctly, in my judgment—that the

administration, its top people, and

Senate Republicans are all hiding the

truth. They are afraid of the truth.

Second, the charges are extremely se-

rious. To interfere in an election, to

blackmail a foreign country to inter-

fere in our elections gets at the very

core of what our democracy is about. If

Americans believe that they don’t de-

termine who is President, who is Gov-

ernor, who is Senator, but some foreign

potentate out of reach of any law en-

forcement can jaundice our elections,

that is the beginning of the end of de-

mocracy.

So it is a serious charge. Republicans

refused to get the evidence because

they were afraid of what it would show,

and that is all that needs to be said.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk proceeded to

call the roll.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask

unanimous consent that the order for

the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs.

YDE

-S

MITH

). Without objection, it is

so ordered.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, to-

morrow we will be voting on the two

impeachment articles sent over to us

by the House of Representatives, a

process, as the leader pointed out, that

really started from the very day this

President took office.

I will be voting to acquit the Presi-

dent for several reasons. First and fore-

most, I do not believe the facts in this

case rise to the high bar that the

Founders set for removal from office.

The Founders imposed a threshold for

impeachment of ‘‘Treason, Bribery, or

other high Crimes and Mis-

demeanors’’—in other words, very seri-

ous violations of the public trust.

The Founders were deliberate in

their choice of words. They wanted to

be clear that impeachment was a se-

vere remedy to be deployed only for

very serious violations. When George

Mason proposed adding the term ‘‘mal-

administration’’ to the impeachment

clause during the Constitutional Con-

vention, the Framers rejected the pro-

posal because, as Madison pointed out,

the term was too vague and would be

‘‘equivalent to a tenure during pleasure

of the Senate.’’

The Founders recognized that with-

out safeguards, impeachment could

quickly degenerate into a political

weapon to be used to turn over elec-

tions when one faction or another de-

cided they didn’t like the President.

That is why the Founders split the im-

peachment power, giving the House the

sole authority to impeach and the Sen-

ate the sole authority to try impeach-

ments. As a final check, the Founders

required a two-thirds supermajority

vote in the Senate to remove a Presi-

dent from office. All of these things

show just how seriously the Founders

regarded removing a duly elected

President. They intended it as an ex-

treme remedy to be used only in very

grave circumstances.

I do not believe that the charges the

House has leveled against the Presi-

dent meet that high bar. The House

managers’ presentation, which

stretched over 22 hours, included testi-

mony from more than a dozen wit-

nesses. We also heard from the House

managers during more than 16 hours of

questions from Senators—in all, about

180 questions—and we received more

than 28,000 pages of testimony, evi-

dence, and arguments from the House

of Representatives.

I considered all the evidence care-

fully, but ultimately I concluded that

the two charges presented by the House

managers—abuse of power and obstruc-

tion of Congress—did not provide a

compelling case for removing this

President.

According to public reporting, House

Democrats toyed with charging the

President with bribery, believing that

it polled well, but they didn’t have the

evidence to prove that charge or, in-

deed, to prove any actual crime.

While allegations of specific criminal

conduct may not be constitutionally

required, they anchor impeachment in

the law, and their absence is telling.

Lacking evidence of a specific crime,

the House decided to use the shotgun

approach and throw everything under

the catchall ‘‘abuse of power’’ um-

brella.

Abuse of power is vaguely defined

and subject to interpretation. In fact, I

don’t believe there has been a Presi-

dent in my lifetime who hasn’t been ac-

cused of some form of abuse of power.

For that reason, abuse of power seemed

to me a fairly weak predicate on which

to remove a democratically elected

President from office. During the Clin-

ton impeachment, I voted against the

abuse of power article precisely be-

cause I believed it did not offer strong

grounds for removing the duly elected

President.

With respect to the second article,

obstruction of Congress, the House

took issue with the President’s asser-

tion of legal privileges, including those

rooted in the constitutional separation

of powers. Of course, every President in

recent memory has invoked such privi-

leges—for example, when the Obama

administration cited executive privi-

lege to deny documents to Congress

during the Fast and Furious

gunrunning investigation.

The House could have challenged the

President’s privilege claims by going

through the traditional channels to re-

solve disputes between the executive

and legislative branches, that being, of

course, the courts. That is what was

done in previous impeachment inquir-

ies, like the Clinton impeachment. But

the House skipped that step in the

hopes that the Senate would bail them

out and compel testimony and docu-

ments that the House, in its rush to

impeachment, was unwilling to pro-

cure. Again, it seemed like a very thin

basis on which to remove a duly elect-

ed President from office.

The facts in the case are that aid to

Ukraine was released prior to the end

of the fiscal year. No investigation of

the scandal-plagued firm Burisma or

the Bidens was ever initiated. While we

can debate the President’s judgment

when it comes to his dealings with

Ukraine or even conclude that his ac-

tions were inappropriate, the House’s

vague and overreaching impeachment

charges do not meet the high bar set by

the Founders for removal from office.

My second consideration in voting to

acquit the President is the deeply par-

tisan nature of the House’s impeach-

ment proceedings. The Founders’ over-

riding concern about impeachment was

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that partisan majorities could use im-

peachment as a political weapon.

In Federalist 65, Alexander Hamilton

speaks of the danger of impeachment

being used by ‘‘an intemperate or de-

signing majority in the House of Rep-

resentatives.’’ By limiting the House’s

power to impeaching the President and

not to removing him from office, the

Founders hoped that the Senate would

act as a check on any attempt by the

House to use the power of impeach-

ment for partisan purposes.

Unfortunately, the Founders’ con-

cerns about partisanship were realized

in this impeachment process. For the

first time in modern history, impeach-

ment was initiated and conducted on a

purely partisan basis.

While the Nixon impeachment pro-

ceedings in the House are held up as an

example of bipartisanship, even the im-

peachment of President Clinton was

initiated with the support of more than

30 Democrats. By contrast, in this case,

House Democrats drove ahead in a

completely—completely—partisan ex-

ercise. Then they rushed through the

impeachment process at breakneck

speed, rejecting a thorough investiga-

tion because they wanted to impeach

the President as fast as possible. Then

they expected the Senate to take on

the House’s investigative responsi-

bility.

House Democrats paid lip service to

the idea that they regretted having to

impeach the President, but their ac-

tions told a different story. The Speak-

er of the House—the Speaker—distrib-

uted celebratory pens when she signed

the Articles of Impeachment and then

went on TV and celebrated the im-

peachment with a fist bump.

It doesn’t require much work to

imagine the damage that could be done

to our Republic if impeachment be-

comes a weapon to be used whenever a

political party doesn’t like a President.

Pretty soon, Presidents would not be

serving at the pleasure of the American

people but at the pleasure of the House

and the Senate.

We need to call a halt before we have

gone too far to turn back. Endorsing

the House’s rushed, partisan, and slip-

shod work would encourage future

Houses to use impeachment for par-

tisan purposes. Both parties need to

learn that partisan impeachments are

perilous.

Finally, I believe that except in the

most extreme circumstances, it should

be the American people, and not Wash-

ington politicians, who decide whether

a President should be removed from of-

fice. Presidential primary voting, as we

learned yesterday in Iowa, is already

underway. We have a Presidential elec-

tion in November, when the people of

this country can weigh in and make

their voices heard. I think we should

leave the decision up to them.

Indeed, given the deep divisions

plaguing our country, as reflected in

the starkly different views about this

impeachment, removing the President

from office and from the ballots for the

upcoming election would almost cer-

tainly plunge the country into even

greater political turmoil.

I am deeply troubled by the events of

the past few months. I have always be-

lieved that we can differ here in Con-

gress while still respecting and work-

ing with those who disagree with us,

but Democrats have increasingly

sought to demonize anyone who doesn’t

share their obsession with impeaching

this President. One of the House man-

agers in this trial went so far as to sug-

gest that any Senator who voted

against them was treacherous.

At one point, a Senator asked wheth-

er the Chief Justice’s constitutionally

required participation in the trial was

contributing to ‘‘the loss of legitimacy

of the Chief Justice, the Supreme

Court, and the Constitution,’’ with the

clear suggestion that the only way for

the Supreme Court to maintain its le-

gitimacy would be for it to agree with

the Democratic Party. We have sunk

pretty low when we have come to the

point of suggesting that disagreement

is unconstitutional.

But for all this, I remain hopeful.

Congress has been through contentious

times before, and we have gotten

through them. There is no question

that this partisan impeachment has

been divisive, but I do believe we can

move on from this. I am ready to work

with all of my colleagues, both Demo-

crat and Republican, in the coming

weeks and months as we get back to

the business of the American people.

And for the Nation that we all love, I

pray that proves possible.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Louisiana.

Mr. CASSIDY. Madam President, the

Senate must determine whether to re-

move a President duly elected by the

people. A decision of such magnitude

deserves, first, full consideration of the

procedures; second, the merits of the

charges; and third, the ramifications

removal would have on our Republic.

The Framers of the Constitution

granted the House of Representatives

impeachment powers yet cautioned

against using that power unless abso-

lutely necessary. Impeachment negates

an election in which Americans choose

their leader. If substantial numbers of

Americans disagree with removing the

President, removal damages civic soci-

ety. It follows that the House should

conduct thorough and complete inves-

tigations, even if time-consuming, be-

fore impeaching.

A thorough investigation educates

Americans that a President should be

impeached and removed. Failing to

convince the people invites anger to-

wards, disdain for, and abandonment of

the democratic process.

The Framers also required a two-

thirds Senate majority for removal to

prevent partisanship, so that removal

only occurs after the House convinces

its own Members, the Senate, and the

American people. The Watergate inves-

tigation, for example, convinced Amer-

icans that President Nixon committed

crimes, forcing his resignation with

overwhelming support for removal in

the House and the Senate.

In the case against President Trump,

the House declined to call witnesses it

felt relevant, arguing that the courts

would take too long and the President

was an imminent threat to our Repub-

lic. House managers blamed legal re-

sistance from the administration and

witnesses. For example, Dr. Charles

Kupperman threatened to sue. A con-

gressional committee afraid of being

sued while claiming to be fearlessly

pursuing truth for the good of the

country rings hollow. It also rang hol-

low when A

DAM

CHIFF

said that we

could not wait for the next election for

voters to decide President Trump’s fate

after Speaker N

ANCY

ELOSI

held the

articles for 37 days. That decision

smacks of partisan political motiva-

tions.

The partisanship the Founders

warned against was reflected in the

House vote with the only bipartisan

votes being against impeachment.

House Managers S

CHIFF

, N

ADLER

, and

OFGREN

once said that party-line im-

peachment would divide the Nation.

They never explained why their opin-

ions changed.

The role of the Senate, though, is to

judge the House’s evidence. House man-

agers stated their case was ‘‘over-

whelming’’ and ‘‘compelling.’’ Having

not pursued further witness testimony

in building their case, the House man-

agers demanded the Senate call wit-

nesses the House did not call.

Additional witnesses, however, would

not have changed material facts, but

allowing the House to poorly develop a

case, sacrificing thoroughness for polit-

ical timing, would have forever

changed the dynamic of the Chambers

respective to the role of each in the im-

peachment process. Should the Senate

acquiesce in this manipulation of the

process, it would welcome the House to

use impeachment as a political weap-

on, whatever the merits of its case.

I have been speaking of procedure. I

want to emphasize that procedure mat-

ters. Justice Frankfurter once wrote:

‘‘The history of liberty has largely

been the history of the observance of

procedural safeguards.’’ If the appro-

priate use of impeachment is to be pre-

served, procedural safeguards must be

observed.

Moving now to charges, in article II,

House managers argued the President

obstructed Congress by acting on the

advice of legal counsel to resist sub-

poenas. The judiciary resolves disputes

between the executive and legislative

branches. The House should have ex-

hausted judicial remedies before bring-

ing this charge. I shall vote against ar-

ticle II.

On article I, abuse of power, three

issues must be addressed: one, the legal

standard of guilt by which to judge the

President; two, whether the President

committed a crime; and if so, three,

whether that crime warrants removal

from office.

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First, the standard of guilt was never

established. Legal standards for convic-

tion vary from the lower—more prob-

able than not—threshold to the higher,

which is beyond a reasonable doubt,

which is used in criminal cases.

Since House managers charged

‘‘something akin’’ to a crime, ‘‘beyond

a reasonable doubt’’ seems most appro-

priate, the higher threshold. As Sen-

ator Jay Rockefeller stated during

President Clinton’s impeachment, be-

yond a reasonable doubt ‘‘means that

it is proven to a moral certainty, that

the case is clear, that the case is con-

cise.’’

Second, House managers allege that

the President held military aid to

Ukraine to leverage an investigation

into former Vice President Biden as a

quid pro quo, although they did not

charge President Trump with the crime

of requiring a quid pro quo or bribery.

The President’s defense team cast rea-

sonable doubt on this allegation.

For example, regarding the July 25

phone call, which was reported by the

whistleblower and which triggered the

House impeachment proceedings, the

President raised the issue of corruption

in Ukraine. President Trump has al-

ways been skeptical of foreign aid and

especially when he thinks it is wasted.

Hunter Biden was mentioned, but no

connection was made with the release

of aid to Ukraine.

Other defense arguments included

that Ambassador Kurt Volker denied a

connection between aid and corruption

investigations; President Zelensky and

Ukrainian officials denied feeling pres-

sure; and President Trump denied a

quid pro quo to Ambassador Sondland

and told Senator R

OHNSON

, when

asked if there was some sort of ar-

rangement, ‘‘No way. I would never do

that.’’

Both aid to Ukraine was released be-

fore the statutory deadline and a meet-

ing between Presidents Trump and

Zelensky occurred without an an-

nounced investigation.

It is also important to note that the

release of aid on September 11 followed

new Ukrainian anti-corruption meas-

ures, which included swearing in a re-

formed Parliament and installing a

new prosecutor general—August 29—

and the newly established High Anti-

Corruption Court meeting for the first

time—September 5.

The third issue regarding article I,

abuse of power, is that the term is a

nebulous one which does not define a

specific crime. Contrast this with the

impeachment of President Nixon when

the House drafted an Article of Im-

peachment alleging abuse of power

which enumerated five specific crimi-

nal and noncriminal offenses against

President Nixon.

The Constitution speaks of treason,

bribery, or other high crimes and mis-

demeanors. Because high crimes and

misdemeanors are not specifically de-

fined, it is reasonable to assume that

the Framers meant for impeachment to

occur only if a crime approached levels

as severe as treason and bribery.

Since the House managers allege

President Trump committed something

‘‘akin to a crime,’’ in deciding whether

abuse of power is a high crime or mis-

demeanor, the prudent decision is to

apply the principle of lenity. This prin-

ciple, relied upon by Supreme Court

Justice Marshall and Justice Frank-

furter, says that if a law is ambiguous,

it is better to narrowly interpret the

words of a law in favor of the defend-

ant.

Although the preceding discussion

finds that the House managers failed to

prove their case beyond a shadow of a

doubt, failed to define the crime, there-

by invoking the principle of lenity, it

is still a question that if a crime was

committed, was it an impeachable

crime?

In 1998, then-Democratic Congress-

man Ed Markey argued that even

though President Clinton, as chief law

enforcement officer of the land, lied

under oath, the crime was not im-

peachable. The Senate agreed, estab-

lishing the precedent that to remove a

President, the crime must reach a high

threshold of severity. The allegation

against President Trump was not prov-

en beyond a reasonable doubt, and it

does not meet that high threshold.

I shall vote against article I.

I end by speaking of the ramifica-

tions for our Republic. In 1998, then-

Congressman C

HUCK

CHUMER

said of

the Clinton impeachment:

I suspect history will show that we have

lowered the bar on impeachment so much,

we have broken the seal on this extreme pen-

alty so cavalierly that it will be used as a

routine tool to fight political battles. My

fear is that when a Republican wins the

White House, Democrats will demand pay-

back.

Mr. S

CHUMER

was a prophet.

This must stop.

With that, I yield.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Iowa.

Ms. ERNST. Madam President, I

want to first thank the House man-

agers and the counsel for the President

for their time and their hard work and

patience these past few weeks.

Yes, folks, we have had a robust and

at times a rancorous trial. Some days I

left here feeling angry, and some days

I left more hopeful. Frankly, it is like-

ly that many Americans—and in my

case, Iowans—from every political

stripe will feel hurt by this process at

some level. But we are all representa-

tives of the ideals and beliefs of the

people we are here to represent.

Like all of you, I have sworn an oath

to uphold the Constitution, and I take

that oath very seriously. There have

been a lot of arguments presented

about what the Constitution says re-

garding the threshold for impeaching a

President. It is clear to me that the

Constitution goes out of its way to

make it a high bar for removing the

President. This is because the Found-

ers were rightfully concerned that im-

peachment might be used to upend the

electoral will of the American people.

Absent restraint, the impeachment

process would be all too tempting for

those who oppose a sitting President to

simply use it as a tool to achieve polit-

ical advantage.

Each of us had one job—one job—dur-

ing this process: to decide, based on the

evidence, whether the President com-

mitted an impeachable offense. Upon

reviewing the record containing the

testimony of 17 witnesses and over

28,000 pages, as well as hearing from

both sides on their arguments pre-

sented throughout this process, I will

vote against both Articles of Impeach-

ment.

The arguments of the House man-

agers simply did not demonstrate that

the President’s actions rise to an im-

peachable offense. Given the constitu-

tional requirements, voting any other

way on these articles would remove the

ability of the American people to make

their own decision at the ballot box in

November.

This process was fraught from the

start with political aims and partisan

innuendos that simply cannot be over-

looked.

The House managers’ arguments

have argued that the American people

cannot be trusted to render their own

judgment on this President. I reject

this premise and the complete distrust

of the American people with every-

thing in my heart. To do this would set

a new and dangerous precedent in

American history.

As we sit here today, we believe we

are experiencing a unique and histor-

ical event; however, if the case pre-

sented by the House of Representatives

is allowed to be the basis for the re-

moval of this President, I am afraid

that impeachment will become just an-

other tool used by those who play par-

tisan politics. This is not what the

Founders intended, and this is a very

dark path to go down.

Under the Constitution, impeach-

ment wasn’t designed to be a litmus

test on every action of the President’s;

elections were designed to be that

check. Further, the issue of foreign af-

fairs has historically been fraught with

peril for Presidents. Foreign affairs is

an art, not a science, and trying to in-

sert a formula into every Presidential

interaction with a foreign leader is a

path toward ineffectiveness.

The Senate is about to close this

chapter in American history. I pray

that we do not allow this to become

the norm. I also pray earnestly that we

will shift into a spirit of cohesiveness,

coming together to get our work done

for the American people. Our people,

our Founders, our country, and my

great State of Iowa deserve better than

this.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from the great State of Mis-

sissippi.

Mr. WICKER. Madam President, to-

morrow I will cast my vote against the

removal of our duly elected President.

I will do so based upon my under-

standing of the duty conferred upon me

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES818 February 4, 2020

by the Constitution of the United

States.

I do not believe the House managers

have proved the allegations contained

in the Articles of Impeachment, nor do

I believe the articles allege conduct

that may be used as grounds for re-

moval. I find the President’s counsel to

be persuasive in this regard. Signifi-

cantly, much of the American public,

without the benefit of learned constitu-

tional instruction, has come to the

same conclusion.

During the 2

⁄

weeks of this trial, we

have received more than 28,000 pages of

documents, we have seen 192 video clips

of 13 different witnesses, we had the op-

portunity to question each side for a

total of 16 hours, and we have listened

to literally hours and hours of argu-

ment. Clearly, I am unable to discuss

every aspect of the trial in the time al-

lotted me. Some facts in this case are

in dispute, but many are not. Here is

what we all know beyond a doubt:

First, we know that voices on the left

have been calling for the impeachment

of Donald Trump since day one—lit-

erally day one. The Washington Post

on January 20, 2017, published an arti-

cle titled ‘‘The Campaign to Impeach

President Trump Has Begun’’ on Inau-

guration Day.

Secondly, we know that the

yearslong $32 million Mueller inves-

tigation failed to reveal sufficient am-

munition for those who desired im-

peachment.

Third, the impeachment of this

President in the House was the result

of a narrowly partisan vote, with no

Republican Representatives—zero—

voting in favor of the articles.

And fourth, a guilty verdict this

week would not only immediately re-

move the President from office, but it

would also remove his name from the

ballot in an election, which is already

going on, and the first caucuses of

which were conducted only yesterday.

The words are right there in articles I

and II, on pages 3 and 4 of the resolu-

tion: ‘‘disqualification to hold . . . any

office.’’

The Founders of this country en-

trusted Congress with the power of im-

peachment as a check and balance on

the executive branch. This power was

never intended to settle policy dif-

ferences or political disagreements—

even intense disagreements. It was not

designed so that Congress could get rid

of a President they found odious or ob-

noxious or with whom they vehemently

disagree.

The Constitution gives Congress this

extraordinary authority as a remedy

only for what it calls ‘‘high Crimes and

Misdemeanors.’’ And making it clear

what an extreme action of impeach-

ment is, the Framers required the sup-

port of two-thirds in this Chamber in

order to convict.

These standards intentionally set a

very high bar to prevent abuse of the

impeachment process. Meeting these

standards requires this process be used

to try only the most serious allega-

tions and requires broad consensus in

the Senate. Members of both parties

have, in the past, warned about the

dangers of a narrowly partisan im-

peachment.

As late as last year, House Speaker

ANCY

ELOSI

cautioned:

Impeachment is so divisive to the country

that unless there’s something so compelling

and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t

think we should go down that path because

it divides the country.

Congressman N

ADLER

, one of the im-

peachment managers, said in 1998:

There must never be a narrowly voted im-

peachment or an impeachment substantially

supported by one of our major political par-

ties and largely opposed by the other. Such

an impeachment would lack legitimacy,

would produce divisiveness and bitterness in

our politics for years to come.

This wide approach has been sup-

ported in the past by House Manager

OFGREN

, by Senator and future

Vice President Joe Biden, and by our

own colleagues, Senator M

ENENDEZ

and

CHUMER

, who feared that impeach-

ment would become a routine tool.

These leaders had good company in

taking this position. In Federalist No.

65, Alexander Hamilton warned of the

danger that the decision to impeach

‘‘will be regulated more by the com-

parative strength of the parties than

by the real demonstrations of inno-

cence or guilt.’’

Many of our Democratic friends who

once sided with Hamilton have appar-

ently changed their minds. They have

also reversed themselves on the ur-

gency of doing so—a rather sudden and

abrupt change of heart on that ques-

tion.

House advocates of impeachment

have argued that President Trump is

willing to cheat in the ongoing election

and amounting to such an imminent

threat to our democracy that he must

be removed at once. Unless he is out of

office and out quickly, they assert, we

cannot have any confidence that the

2020 election results will be trust-

worthy.

I ask: Does any Senator really be-

lieve that; that America cannot have a

fair election if Donald Trump is in the

White House? But that alleged danger

was the reason for the abbreviated

House procedure. The lead House man-

ager, Congressman S

CHIFF

, said in an

interview last year that the timing of

impeachment was driven by the ur-

gency of removing the President. Con-

gressman N

ADLER

agreed, saying that

‘‘nothing could be more urgent.’’

Speaker P

ELOSI

repeated the same ar-

gument many times to explain the

rushed process in the House and why

there was not time to give the Presi-

dent a fair hearing. Senators heard the

words repeated and repeated on video

clips shown during this trial—‘‘ur-

gent,’’ ‘‘urgency.’’

What happened to that urgency once

the House voted? Did the Speaker then

rush the papers to the Senate so we

could address this imminent threat?

Hardly. Speaker P

ELOSI

held the arti-

cles for more than a month. If this

trial was so urgent, why not send the

articles without delay? Some might

conclude that by withholding the arti-

cles, the Speaker exposed that she did

not, in fact, believe that this case was

so urgent. Perhaps it was an effort to

influence our procedural decisions. I do

not impugn motives here. Our rules

prohibit me from doing so. I merely

note an obvious change for whatever

reason.

As I consider the high bar of im-

peachment tomorrow, I will vote not to

convict. I will do so because there is

not overwhelming evidence, because no

high crimes are shown, because there is

not a broad consensus among my coun-

trymen, only articles passed on a nar-

rowly partisan basis, and because re-

moving President Trump on these

charges at this time would set a dan-

gerous precedent.

I conclude by reminding my col-

leagues that we are the trustees of the

Constitution of 1787. We have the privi-

lege and responsibility of standing on

the shoulders of our remarkably per-

ceptive Founders, but we also act as

trustees for our Republic on behalf of

future generations. With that in mind,

we have an enhanced obligation to be

careful, to resist the passions of the

moment, and to remember that what

we do today establishes precedence for

decades and centuries to come.

Manager S

CHIFF

closed his remarks

yesterday with an ominous reference to

nefarious midnight decisions somehow

threatening the freedom or welfare of

Americans. His hopeful conclusion was

that it is midnight in America, but the

Sun will rise tomorrow, a sentiment I

happen to share, though my concept of

what amounts to a beautiful sunrise

may differ from his.

Over a century ago, during the

depths of World War I, Vachel Lindsay

composed ‘‘Abraham Lincoln Walks at

Midnight,’’ imagining an agonized,

sleepless Lincoln walking the streets of

Springfield, dismayed over the carnage

in Europe.

Let us ask ourselves today, do Ham-

ilton and Madison and Franklin walk

these venerable halls at midnight? Do

these Founding Fathers traverse the

stone corridors of these great building,

this symbol of stability and rule of

law? If they do, they caution us, as

they always have, to be careful, to

avoid rash decisions, to resist the urges

of partisanship, and to let the Con-

stitution work. I hope my colleagues

will heed their counsel.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Connecticut.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam Presi-

dent, as we think back over these last

weeks, when we have sat together on

the floor considering evidence and sit-

ting in judgment as jurors and judges,

spending countless hours deliberating,

I often think about what I will remem-

ber from these days on a very personal

level.

It has been a historic event, but in

some ways, the human element strikes

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me as the most memorable. I will re-

member vividly the bravery of dedi-

cated public servants who had every-

thing to lose and nothing to gain by

telling the American people the truth

about Donald Trump and his scheme to

corruptly use power for his personal

benefit. Their courage, their grace

under pressure, their dignity, and

unshakeable honesty should be a model

for all of us.

I will remember, for example, LTC

Alexander Vindman, whose video ap-

peared before us, a man who was

brought to the United States at the age

of 3 and grew to love this country so

much that he put his life at risk in

combat and then his career at risk by

coming before the Congress.

I will remember Fiona Hill, the

daughter of a coal miner and nurse,

who proceeded to get a Ph.D., swear an

oath to this country, serving in both

Republican and Democratic adminis-

trations, warning us not to peddle the

‘‘fictional narrative . . . perpetrated

and propagated,’’ as she said, ‘‘by the

Russian security services themselves’’

about this supposed Ukrainian effort to

meddle in our election. I will remember

very vividly Ambassador William Tay-

lor, West Point graduate and decorated

Vietnam war veteran, who testified

that he thought it was ‘‘crazy to with-

hold security assistance for help with a

political campaign.’’

I will remember the whistleblower

who came forward to express shock and

alarm that the President of the United

States would attempt to extort a vul-

nerable, fledgling democracy to help

him cheat in the next election in ex-

change for the foreign military aid

they so desperately needed to fight

their adversary, Russia, and our adver-

sary, Russia, attacking and killing

their young men and women.

I have met some of those young men

and women who came to Connecticut

to the Burn Center at Bridgeport Hos-

pital, so badly injured they could bare-

ly talk, and the stories of their suf-

fering and hardship came back to me,

as I sat on the floor here, and their

courage and their bravery and strength

also will stay with me.

I will remember the moment that we

raised our hands and took an oath to be

impartial, all 100 of us—99—at the same

time, in a historic moment when the

weight of that responsibility shook me

like a rock. I will also remember the

shame and sadness that I felt when this

body—supposedly, the greatest delib-

erative body in the history of the

world—voted to close its eyes, to put

on blinders to evidence, witnesses, and

documents; firsthand knowledge, eyes

and ears on the President, black and

white—documents don’t lie—that were

necessary to understand the complete

story and give the American people the

complete truth. That moment—unfor-

tunately, a moment of dismay and dis-

appointment—will stay with me as

well, after aspiring for so long to be

part of this body, which I respected and

revered, so utterly failing the Amer-

ican people at this moment of crisis.

And I will remember audible gasps,

some laughs, and raised eyebrows in

this Chamber when Professor Alan

Dershowitz made the incredible, shock-

ing argument that a President who be-

lieves that his own reelection serves

the public interest can do anything he

wants, and his actions are not im-

peachable. The implications of that ar-

gument for the future of our democ-

racy are simply indescribable.

I have been a trial lawyer. I have

spent most of my career in and out of

the courtroom. So I can argue the le-

galities. But I am not here to rehash

the legal arguments, because culpa-

bility here seems pretty clear to me.

The President solicited a bribe when he

sought a personal benefit and inves-

tigation of his political opponent, a

smear of his rival, in exchange for an

official act—in fact, two official acts:

the release of military funding for an

ally and a White House meeting—in re-

turn for that personal benefit. Those

actions are a violation of section 201, 18

United States Code, today. They were a

violation of criminal law at the time of

the Framers, and that is why they put

it in the Constitution.

Bribery and treason are specifically

mentioned. Bribery is included as an

abuse of power, as it was when Judge

Porteous was convicted and impeached.

Many of the Members of this Chamber

voted to impeach him, although brib-

ery was never mentioned in the articles

charging him with abuse of power.

The idea that bribery or any crime

has to be mentioned for there to be an

abuse of power is clearly preposterous.

In my view, the elements of bribery

have been proved beyond a reasonable

doubt, and there is no excuse for that

criminal conduct. I am going to submit

a detailed statement for the R

ECORD

that makes the legal case, but, clearly,

bribery has been committed by this

President.

Looking beyond the legalities, what

strikes me, perhaps, as most telling

here is the constant theme of secrecy—

the fact that the President kept his

reasons for withholding aid a secret.

Unlike other suspensions of aid to

other countries—like the Northern Tri-

angle in Central America or Egypt,

where it was announced publicly and

Congress was notified—here, he kept it

secret. He operated through his per-

sonal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in se-

cret, not through the State Depart-

ment, not through the Department of

Justice. Despite all of his claims of

corruption and wrongdoing by Hunter

or Joe Biden, he either never went to

the Department of Justice or they de-

clined to investigate because there was

no ‘‘there’’ there. Instead, he sought,

secretly, the investigation of a polit-

ical rival through a foreign govern-

ment, targeting a U.S. citizen secretly.

His refusal to provide a single docu-

ment to Congress, to allow a single

witness to testify, keeping their testi-

mony and that evidence secret, con-

cealing it; his defiance of every sub-

poena in court, effectively neutering

Congress’s oversight authority—our

oversight authority—to check any of

these abuses, all of it is for the purpose

of secrecy.

His claim of absolute immunity is to-

tally discredited and rejected by the

court because, as the court said in the

McGahn case, he is not a King.

His claim of executive privilege as

the reason for keeping that evidence

secret—well, he never really invoked

executive privilege, but executive

privilege cannot be invoked to conceal

criminal conduct that fits within the

crime of a fraud exception.

And while the President’s lawyers ar-

gued before this body that the House

should have gone to court to enforce

those subpoenas instead of resorting to

the remedy of impeachment, they then

had the audacity to, simultaneously, at

exactly the same time, argue in court

that Congress cannot seek a judicial

remedy to enforce subpoenas because it

has the remedy of impeachment. They

argued no jurisdiction because of im-

peachment, and at the same time no

access to evidence necessary for im-

peachment because, supposedly, you

can go to court. This duplicity is abso-

lutely stunning.

Again, I will say, just on a personal

note as a prosecutor, it is a dead give-

away. He is guilty. Regardless of what

we do tomorrow, we know for sure, in

this great democracy, the truth will

come out. It always does. It is just a

question of when. It comes out about

all of us at some point. And, for this

President, the truth is coming out in

realtime, as we speak on this floor and

as we vote tomorrow.

The revelations in the New York

Times about what John Bolton has

written in his book indicate the truth

is going to come out in mid-March with

John Bolton’s book, assuming the

President doesn’t try to censor it and

tie him up in court or exercise some

prior restraint. It will come out in con-

gressional investigations when John

Bolton and others testify. It will come

out because there are courageous men

and women, like Ambassador Taylor,

Fiona Hill, Colonel Vindman, and oth-

ers, who are willing to put country

ahead of their personal careers.

When my children grow up—and they

are pretty well grown—I hope they will

be more like them than like the Presi-

dent. I never, ever thought I would say

that in the Senate of the United

States, let alone anywhere, because

this President has shown that he will

take advantage of every opportunity

for self-enrichment and self-aggran-

dizement. Whether it is violating the

emoluments clause—and I, along with

199 of my colleagues, have sued him on

that issue, making money from the

Presidency, profiting and putting prof-

it ahead of his official duties, or seek-

ing to smear a political rival and solic-

iting a bribe. Even if the aid went

through and even if the investigation

was never announced, it is still a

crime—putting that kind of self-benefit

ahead of his duty to the country and

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES820 February 4, 2020

our national security, the welfare and

fight of an ally at the tip of the spear

against a common adversary who is

seeking to destroy Western democ-

racies. He is someone who has said:

Show me the boundaries of the law,

and I will push them, and if I can suc-

cessfully cross them, I will do it again.

And he will do it again. Everyone in

this Chamber knows it.

So, as we make this momentous deci-

sion, I implore each of my colleagues

to think about the gravity of what we

will do if we fail to convict this Presi-

dent, the message that we send to

countries struggling to overcome cor-

ruption, because America is more than

just a country. America is an idea and

an ideal. When we implore them to

fight corruption, our credibility is

shredded when we condone it at home.

The Framers, in their wisdom, knew

that elections every 4 years were an in-

adequate check against any President

who corruptly abuses power for per-

sonal gain. And this situation and this

President are exactly what they feared

when our young infant country was

struggling to avoid foreign interference

in our elections. It was their worst

nightmare, foreign interference, the

threat of foreign meddling—exactly

what this President has invited.

It was delegate William Davie of

North Carolina who said: ‘‘If he be not

impeachable whilst in office, he will

spare no effort or means whatever to

get himself re-elected.’’ It was pre-

cisely cheating in a future election,

foreign interference in our domestic af-

fairs, that the Framers established im-

peachment to prevent. That is why the

remedy exists, and that is why we must

use it now.

History will judge us harshly if we

fail in this historic challenge. History

will haunt the colleagues who fail to

meet this challenge, who lack the cour-

age that was demonstrated by those

heroes: Taylor, Vindman, Hill, Cooper,

and others. And they will continue to

serve our country. The truth will come

out.

The heroes of this darker era will be

our independent judiciary and our free

press. They will continue uncovering

the truth. They will continue providing

freedom of information material under

the law. They will continue to protect

civil rights and civil liberties. They

will continue their vigilance, even if

we fail in ours.

But we have this task now. History

will sit in judgment of us, and the fu-

ture of our Republic will be in jeopardy

if we fail tomorrow to do the right

thing.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs.

OEFFLER

). The Senator from Mary-

land is recognized.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Presi-

dent, it is the constitutional duty of

each Senator to weigh the evidence be-

fore us and render a final verdict on

the two Articles of Impeachment.

On the charge of abuse of power, the

House managers have presented over-

whelming evidence, a ‘‘mountain of it,’’

as Senator A

LEXANDER

has conceded.

For anyone with eyes to see or ears to

hear, President Trump undoubtedly

used the power of the Presidency to

withhold vital, taxpayer-funded mili-

tary aid from Ukraine to extort its

government into helping him in his re-

election campaign. He did so even

though fighting Russian aggression is

in our national interest. And make no

mistake, the fact that he got caught

before his scheme succeeded is no de-

fense.

The House has also proved its case on

the charge of obstruction of Congress.

President Trump has engaged in un-

precedented stonewalling, a blanket

coverup that makes President Nixon

look like an amateur—not a single doc-

ument produced nor a single witness.

Those who did testify did so despite the

President’s order not to show up. They

raised their right hands and swore to

tell the truth. They included Trump

political appointees and a major donor

to his campaign, individuals who

served our country in war, dedicated

public servants who took an oath to de-

fend the Constitution. Dismissing them

as ‘‘anti-Trumpers’’ and ‘‘Democratic

witnesses’’ is wrong, as were the Presi-

dent’s attempts to bully and intimi-

date them.

With the facts proven, the Senate

must now ask: Do these charges meet

the standard for impeachment? The

President claims impeachment re-

quires charging him with a statutory

crime, but that is a fringe view with

patently absurd results. Their lead law-

yer making this argument, Alan

Dershowitz, did not hold this view dur-

ing the Clinton impeachment; nor does

Trump’s Attorney General, William

Barr; nor does Jonathan Turley,

Trump’s constitutional law expert at

the House Judiciary Committee hear-

ing—nor does the authority cited by

the President’s own lawyers here in the

Senate and referenced nine times in

their legal briefs. That authority, enti-

tled ‘‘Impeachment: A Handbook’’

states that ‘‘the limitation of impeach-

able offenses to those offenses made

generally criminal by statute is unwar-

ranted—even absurd.’’

This suggested standard has been

roundly dismissed because it leads to

ridiculous conclusions—for example,

that a President could withhold tax-

payer-funded disaster assistance to the

people of a State until their Governor

endorsed the President for reelection.

Even Alan Dershowitz recognized the

folly of his own argument, so he

switched to saying impeachment re-

quires ‘‘criminal-like’’ conduct. Well,

the President’s actions here have all

the markings of criminal-like conduct,

including what the Founders would

consider bribery and extortion. More-

over, as made clear by the nonpartisan

legal opinion I requested from the

GAO, the President and his team broke

the impoundment control law as part

of his overall extortion scheme.

In fact, the toxic mix of misconduct

we find here—a President corruptly

using his office in a manner that com-

promises our national security to get a

foreign government to help him stay in

power—is exactly the kind of abuse of

power our Founders most feared.

Yet the President shows no sign of

remorse or regret. His refusal to ac-

knowledge any wrongdoing is an ongo-

ing threat to our country and our Con-

stitution. Even as this impeachment

process has proceeded, he has contin-

ued to solicit other countries, includ-

ing China, to help his reelection ef-

forts, as he says the Constitution gives

him ‘‘the right to do whatever I want

as President.’’

Let’s be honest. President Trump

sees the Constitution not as a check on

his powers but as a blank check to

abuse power, and he will not change.

His ongoing betrayal of the oath of of-

fice represents a clear and present dan-

ger to our Constitution, our democ-

racy, and the rule of law.

Those who argue we must not remove

the President before the next election

ignore the fact that the Founders in-

cluded an impeachment clause in the

same Constitution that establishes 4-

year terms for the President. They

wrote the impeachment clause for ex-

actly this moment, to prevent a cor-

rupt President from enlisting a foreign

power to help him cheat in an election.

President Trump has committed high

crimes and misdemeanors against the

Constitution, and we must use the

Founders’ remedy. We must find him

guilty and remove him from office.

Failure to convict will send a terrible

signal that this President and any fu-

ture President can commit crimes

against the Constitution and the Amer-

ican people and get away with it.

But it is not only the President who

has violated his duty under the Con-

stitution. So, too, has this Senate, not

because of the ultimate conclusion ex-

pected tomorrow but because of the

flawed way the Senate will reach that

decision. While I strongly disagree with

acquittal, that verdict might be ac-

cepted by most Americans if reached

through a real and a fair trial. But this

Senate did not hold a real trial. It held

the first impeachment proceeding in

our history not to call a single witness

or seek a single document.

President Trump’s former National

Security Advisor, John Bolton, offered

us important information about the

charges against the President. The

Senate voted not to hear from him.

President Trump said he wanted his

Acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney,

to testify at the Senate trial, but then

he changed his mind and Senate Repub-

licans voted not to hear from him. I of-

fered to have the Chief Justice make

decisions about relevant witnesses and

documents, just as impartial judges do

in trials every day across America. In

fact, unlike in every other courtroom,

it preserved the right of the Senate to

overturn the Chief Justice’s decision

by a majority vote. That is obviously a

fair process for the President, but

every Republican Senator voted

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against it. And why? Because they are

afraid of getting to the truth, the

whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

They know that, as more incriminating

facts come out, it becomes harder to

acquit. By joining the President’s

coverup, they have become his accom-

plices.

While the decision on the President

will come tomorrow, the verdict on

this Senate is already in—guilty,

guilty of dereliction of its constitu-

tional duty to conduct an impartial

trial. And because the trial was a farce,

the final result will be seen by most of

the country as illegitimate, the prod-

uct of a tainted trial.

President Trump must understand

this: There is no exoneration, no vindi-

cation, no real acquittal from a fake

trial. In failing to adhere to the prin-

ciples of our Constitution and the val-

ues of our country, I fear we have done

grievous injury to the nature of our de-

mocracy. I only hope America will find

the resilience to repair the damage in

the years to come.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Michigan is recognized.

Mr. PETERS. Madam President, I

swore an oath to defend the Constitu-

tion, both as an officer in the U.S.

Navy Reserve and as a U.S. Senator. At

the beginning of this impeachment

trial, I swore an oath to keep an open

mind, listen carefully to the facts, and,

in the end, deliver impartial justice.

After carefully listening to the argu-

ments presented by both House man-

agers and the President’s lawyers, I be-

lieve the facts are clear. President

Trump stands accused by the House of

Representatives of abusing his power in

an attempt to extort a foreign govern-

ment to announce a trumped-up inves-

tigation into a political rival and

thereby put his personal interest ahead

of national security and the public

trust.

The President illegally withheld con-

gressionally approved military aid to

an ally at war with Russia and condi-

tioned its release on Ukraine making

an announcement the President could

use to falsely discredit a likely polit-

ical opponent.

When the President’s corrupt plan

was brought to light, the White House

engaged in a systematic and unprece-

dented effort to cover up the scheme.

The President’s complete refusal to co-

operate with a constitutionally author-

ized investigation is unparalleled in

American history.

Despite the extraordinary efforts by

the President to cover up the facts, the

House managers made a convincing

case. It is clear the President’s actions

were not an effort to further official

American foreign policy. The President

was not working in the public interest.

What the President did was wrong, un-

acceptable, and impeachable.

I expected the President’s lawyers to

offer new eyewitness testimony from

people with firsthand knowledge and

offer new documents to defend the

President, but that did not happen. It

became very clear to me that the

President’s closest advisers could not

speak to the President’s innocence, and

his lawyers did everything in their

power to prevent them from testifying

under oath.

No one in this country is above the

law—no one, not even the President. If

someone is accused of a crime and they

have witnesses that could clear them of

any wrongdoing, they would want

those witnesses to testify. In fact, not

only would they welcome it; they

would insist on it. All we need to do is

use some common sense. The fact that

the President refuses to have his clos-

est advisers testify tells me that he is

afraid of what they will say.

The President’s conduct is unaccept-

able for any official, let alone the lead-

er of our country. Our Nation’s Found-

ers feared unchecked and unlimited

power by the President. They rebelled

against an abusive Monarch with un-

limited power and, instead, created a

republic that distributed power across

different branches of government. They

were careful students of history. They

knew unchecked power would destroy a

democratic republic. They were espe-

cially fearful of an unchecked execu-

tive and specifically granted Congress

the power of impeachment to check a

President who thought of themselves

as above the law.

Two years ago, I had the privilege of

participating in the annual bipartisan

Senate tradition, reading President

George Washington’s Farewell Address

to the Senate. In that address, Presi-

dent Washington warned that un-

checked power, the rise of partisan fac-

tions and foreign influence, if left un-

checked, would undermine our young

Nation and allow for the rise of a

demagogue. He warned that we could

become so divided and so entrenched in

the beliefs of our particular partisan

group that ‘‘cunning, ambitious, and

unprincipled men will be enabled to

subvert the power of the people and to

usurp for themselves the reins of gov-

ernment.’’

I am struck by the contrast of where

we are today and where our Founders

were more than 200 years ago. George

Washington was the ultimate rock star

of his time. He was beloved, and when

he announced he would leave the Presi-

dency and return to Mount Vernon,

people begged him to stay.

There was a call to make him a King,

and he said no. He reminded folks that

he had just fought against a Monarch

so that the American people could

enjoy the liberties of a free people.

George Washington, a man of integrity

and an American hero, refused to be

anointed King when it was offered to

him by his adoring countrymen. He

chose a republic over a monarchy.

But tomorrow, by refusing to hold

President Trump accountable for his

abuses, Republicans in the Senate are

offering him unbridled power without

accountability, and he will gleefully

seize that power. And when he does,

our Republic will face an existential

threat. A vote against the Articles of

Impeachment will set a dangerous

precedent. It will be used by future

Presidents to act with impunity. Given

what we know—that the President

abused his power in office by attempt-

ing to extort a foreign government to

interfere with an American election;

that he willfully obstructed justice at

every turn; and that his actions run

counter to our Nation’s most cherished

and fundamental values—it is clear the

President betrayed the trust the Amer-

ican public placed in him to fully exe-

cute his constitutional responsibilities.

This betrayal is, by definition, a high

crime and misdemeanor. If it does not

rise to the level of impeachment and

removal, I am not sure what would.

The Senate has a constitutional re-

sponsibility to hold him accountable. If

we do not stand up and defend our de-

mocracy during this fragile period, we

will be allowing the President and fu-

ture Presidents to have unchecked

power. This is not what our Founders

intended.

The oath I swore to protect and de-

fend the Constitution demands that I

vote to preserve the future of our Re-

public. I will faithfully execute my

oath and vote to hold this President

accountable for his actions.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk proceeded to

call the roll.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam Presi-

dent, I ask unanimous consent that the

order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam Presi-

dent, may I say that it is a pleasure to

speak to the Senate with the new Sen-

ator from Georgia presiding for the

first time, at least, that I have had this

occasion.

Well, here we are. The impeachment

outcome is settled, as it was from day

one. In my view, the facts are clear,

the conduct impeachable, and the ob-

struction unprecedented.

In my view, this impeachment proc-

ess ran into a partisan wall, and the

Senate’s part was to deny the Amer-

ican people the most basic elements of

a fair trial: witnesses and evidence.

Alexander Hamilton, years ago,

warned us of what he called the ‘‘great-

est danger’’ in impeachments, ‘‘that

the decision will be regulated more by

the comparative strength of parties,

than by the real demonstrations of in-

nocence or guilt.’’

In my view, that danger has met us.

As a boy I often sang a hymn with

the stanza that ‘‘to every man and na-

tion comes the moment to decide, in

the strife of truth with falsehood, for

the good or evil side.’’

In my view, the Senate chose the

wrong side.

We are obviously going to disagree

about a lot here, so let me focus on two

thoughts that perhaps we can agree on.

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One is that what we have done here

should carry little weight as precedent.

Politics cast very long shadows over

this proceeding. This was not our finest

hour, by any stretch, and much of what

was said and done here should not be

repeated, let alone treated as prece-

dent.

I hope history treats this episode as

an aberration, not a precedent.

Too many things that are right and

proper had to be bent or broken to get

to the preordained result, and too

much of what was said by White House

counsel was not only wrong but dis-

graceful.

The presentation in this Chamber by

White House counsel was characterized

by smarminess, smear, elision, out-

right misstatement, and various dis-

honest rhetorical tricks that I doubt

they would dare pull before judges.

Knowing that we were a captive and

silent audience, knowing the outcome

was predetermined in their favor, and

grandstanding for a TV audience, par-

ticularly an audience of one, they de-

livered a performance that leaves a

stain on the pages of the Senate

ECORD

Perhaps there will be consequences

for some of their conduct in our Cham-

ber.

The conduct of White House counsel

in the Trump impeachment trial raise

grave concerns.

A staunch Republican friend, who is

an able and eminent lawyer, emailed

me about a White House counsel argu-

ment, calling it ‘‘the most shocking

thing I have seen a ‘serious’ lawyer say

in my entire legal career.’’ He referred

to Professor Dershowitz, but the con-

duct of White House counsel in this

matter has indeed been shocking far

beyond the excesses of Professor

Dershowitz.

In some cases, we do not know who

pays them. Mr. Sekulow is evidently

anonymously paid, with dark money,

through a mail drop box. Who is he

working for here? Does his secret bene-

factor create a conflict for him? We

should know.

Among them are lawyers who appear

to have grave professional conflicts.

They represent the President although

they are fact witnesses to conduct

charged in the impeachment. This con-

cern was brought to their attention by

House letter on January 21, 2020, put-

ting them on notice. They ignored the

letter.

The House argued that members of

the White House counsel team actually

administered a massive cover-up, using

extreme and unprecedented arguments

to protect a blanket defiance against

congressional inquiry into alleged

Presidential misdeeds, with the intent

to hide evidence of those misdeeds.

There is new evidence that counsel

were not just fact witnesses, but

present at meetings in which the

scheme at issue was advanced, and the

misconduct alleged was confessed to,

by the President. Being present during

the commission of the offense and wit-

ness to an overt act in furtherance of

the alleged scheme is more grave than

being a mere fact witness. This needs

further inquiry, but it raises the ques-

tion of actual participation in the

crime or fraud or misconduct at issue,

which would waive their attorney-cli-

ent privilege.

They have not been candid about the

law. They have argued over and over

that they will delay the Senate pro-

ceedings by litigation in United States

District Courts if we allow witnesses or

subpoenas, mentioning only once, in

their pretrial brief, the case of Walter

Nixon v. United States, where the Su-

preme Court save the federal Judiciary

‘‘no role’’ in senate impeachment pro-

ceedings, warning ‘‘that opening the

door of judicial review to the proce-

dures used by the Senate in trying im-

peachments would ‘expose the political

life of the country to months, or per-

haps years, of chaos,’ ’’ the very delay

White House lawyers have threatened.

Further investigation may reveal

whether various counsel made, or per-

mitted co-counsel to make, arguments

at odds with facts to which they were

witness, thereby deliberately mis-

leading the Senate. For a lawyer to

participate in or be immediate witness

to criminal or impeachable wrongful

activity; and then practice as a counsel

in matters related to that criminal or

impeachable or wrongful activity; and

then conceal from that tribunal what

they knew about that criminal or im-

peachable or wrongful activity, and

even affirmatively mislead that tri-

bunal about the misconduct as they

witnessed it, would be attorney mis-

conduct of the gravest nature.

In light of these problems, one recur-

ring argument by White House counsel

takes on new meaning. In an often

conflated argument, White House coun-

sel insisted that no crime was alleged

in the House of Representatives’ Arti-

cles of Impeachment and that there

was no crime committed. If, as recent

evidence suggests, at least one White

House counsel was present at and par-

ticipated in a meeting in furtherance

of the scheme at issue, the argument

that the scheme was not criminal is

deeply self-serving. That self-serving

nature is precisely why counsel under

that sort of conflict of interest should

not appear in proceedings addressing

conduct which they witnessed, which

they aided or abetted, or in which they

participated.

White House counsel used their time

before us to smear non-parties; to

present virtual political commercials;

to misstate, exaggerate or mislead

about legal propositions; to misstate,

exaggerate or mislead about factual

propositions; to misstate, exaggerate

or mislead about House managers’ ar-

guments; and to float conspiracy theo-

ries and unsupported political charges

to the public audience. In some cases,

arguments are deeply unfair: for in-

stance, calling secondary witnesses’

testimony hearsay and secondhand at

the same time they are blocking the di-

rect witnesses’ testimony. It was in

sum, a sordid spectacle, one that few if

any courts would have tolerated. They

came into our House, and dirtied it.

So enough of my professional disgust

with their performance, but let us

agree that this ought not be precedent.

Let us also agree on something else.

There is one particular argument the

White House made that we should

trample, discard, and put out into the

trash: the notion that a U.S. district

court can supervise our Senate im-

peachment proceeding. I truly hope we

can agree on this.

As a Court of Impeachment, we are

constituted at the Founders’ command.

The Chief Justice presided in that seat

at the Founders’ command. We con-

vened as a body at the Founders’ com-

mand. And at the Founders’ command,

the Senate—the Senate—has the sole

power to try all impeachments.

Every signal from the Constitution

directs that we try impeachments and

no part of the Senate’s power to do so

is conferred anywhere else in the gov-

ernment. It is on us.

The President’s counsel proposed

that they may interrupt the Senate’s

trial of impeachment, delay the Sen-

ate’s trial of impeachment, in order to

go down the street to the U.S. district

court to litigate our trial determina-

tions about evidence and privilege—de-

terminations in our proceeding.

There are three arguments against

that proposition. The most obvious one

is the Constitution. The Constitution

puts the trial in the hands of the Sen-

ate sitting as a Court of Impeachment

and makes no mention of any role for

any court to supervise or pass on the

Senate’s conduct of this trial. It is sim-

ply not in the Constitution.

The second argument is the improb-

ability—the improbability—that the

Founders would convene the U.S. Sen-

ate as a Court of Impeachment, bring

the managers of the U.S. House of Rep-

resentatives over here to present their

charges, put the Chief Justice of the

U.S. Supreme Court into that chair to

preside over the trial, give the Senate

the sole power to try the impeachment,

and then allow a defendant to run down

the street to a district judge and inter-

rupt the proceedings. That idea is con-

trary to common sense as well as con-

stitutional order.

The impeachment provisions of the

Constitution were adopted by the

Founders in September of 1787, after

that long, hot summer in Philadelphia,

and ratified with the Constitution in

1788. The Judiciary Act establishing

lower courts did not pass until 1789. It

is hard to imagine that the Founders

meant the proceedings and determina-

tions of our Senate Court of Impeach-

ment to be subject to the oversight of

a judge down the road from us whose

office did not even exist at the time.

The Founders in the Constitution put

this squarely on us. No one else is men-

tioned. It is our ‘‘sole Power.’’ It is the

duty of the Chief Justice under the

Constitution to preside over the trial.

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It is his duty to make appropriate rul-

ings. And it is on us to live with that,

unless—as we may—we choose to over-

rule the Chief Justice as a body, by re-

corded vote, and live with that. We run

this trial—the Senators, the Senate—

no one else. We are responsible to the

people of the United States to run this

trial. We were trusted by the Founders

to live up to those responsibilities.

When we sit as a Court of Impeach-

ment, it is all on us. The Founders put

it squarely on us. We took that job

when we took our oaths. That means

we control the trial rulings, the tim-

ing, the evidence determinations, and

the privileges we will accept. We can

accept the rulings of the Chief Justice

or we can reverse them, but it is our

job.

Previous impeachments record the

Senate making just such rulings. Never

has the Senate referred such a ruling

to a court. Indeed, in Walter Nixon v.

United States, 506 U.S. 224, a 1993 deci-

sion, the Supreme Court held that Fed-

eral courts have no power to review

procedures used by the Senate in try-

ing impeachments, that it was a non-

justiciable political question, and that

‘‘the Judiciary, and the Supreme Court

in particular, were not chosen to have

any role in impeachments.’’

The Supreme Court in that decision

even foresaw the delays that White

House Counsel threatened us with and

saw them as an argument against any

judicial role. The Court said that

‘‘opening the door of judicial review to

the procedures used by the Senate in

trying impeachments would expose the

political life of the country to months,

or perhaps years, of chaos,’’ and the

Court immediately went on to particu-

larly highlight that concern with re-

spect to the impeachment of a Presi-

dent.

It would have been nice if White

House Counsel, when they were in this

Chamber arguing for their threatened

delays, would have addressed this Su-

preme Court decision.

The Constitution, common sense, and

our impeachment precedents all put

the responsibility for a Senate trial of

impeachment squarely on us. We

should not—we should never—shirk

that responsibility.

This has been a sad and sordid mo-

ment for the Senate. It has done harm

enough. Let it not provide any credit

to this false White House argument,

and let this not be precedent for future

Presidential misconduct.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Minnesota is recognized.

Ms. SMITH. Madam President, this

morning, I let Minnesotans know that

I will vote to remove President Donald

Trump from office. I rise today be-

cause, on this historic vote, I want

Minnesotans to understand why and

where I think we go from here.

I was reluctant to go down the path

of impeachment. While I strongly dis-

agree with the President on many

issues, I see impeachment as a last re-

sort, and I feared that leaping to im-

peachment would only serve to drive us

even further into our political corners.

This changed when I read the whistle-

blower report, which alleged nothing

less than the President’s corrupt abuse

of power, an abuse that had the poten-

tial to undermine our election in 2020.

For me, this left no choice but for the

House to fully investigate these allega-

tions.

When the House sent the two Articles

of Impeachment to the Senate, it be-

came my job to ‘‘do impartial justice

according to the Constitution and the

laws,’’ and I take that oath as seriously

as anything I have ever done.

This impeachment trial has been

about whether the President’s corrupt

abuse of power—power that he used for

his own personal, political benefit

while betraying the public trust—is a

high crime and misdemeanor as defined

by the Founders of our Constitution.

I believe that it is, and I also believe

that to condone corrupt behavior such

as this undermines the core values we

stand for as a nation that no one is

above the law, including and most es-

pecially the President.

Over the past several weeks, I have

listened carefully to hundreds of hours

of presentations, questions and an-

swers, and read thousands of pages of

documents. Through it all, the facts

underlying the case against the Presi-

dent were never really refuted.

The President, working through his

personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, with-

held Ukrainian security assistance and

a prestigious meeting in the White

House in an effort to persuade Presi-

dent Zelensky to announce he was in-

vestigating Joe Biden and the theory

that Ukraine interfered in our 2016

elections. In order to improve his pros-

pects for reelection, Trump directed

that vital assistance be withheld until

Ukraine announced investigations into

a baseless conspiracy theory that origi-

nated as Russian propaganda, and he

only released the aid when he was

found out.

Then, when the House sought to in-

vestigate these actions, the Trump

White House categorically blocked any

and all subpoenas for documents and

witnesses. No U.S. President has ever

categorically rejected the power of

Congress to investigate and do over-

sight of the executive branch—not

Nixon, not Clinton. This obstruction

fractures the balance of power between

the legislative and executive branches.

How can our constitutional system

work if we allow the President to de-

cide if and how Congress can inves-

tigate the President’s misconduct? It

can’t. If we say that the President can

decide when he cooperates with a con-

gressional investigation, we are saying

that he is above the law.

While evidence of the President’s

wrongdoing is substantial, I advocated

every way I could for a trial that would

be fair for both sides, which means

hearing from witnesses with direct

knowledge of the President’s actions. I

am greatly disappointed that almost

all of my Republican colleagues in the

Senate abandoned the historical, bipar-

tisan precedent of hearing from wit-

nesses in every Senate impeachment

trial.

Ultimately, when so many people

know the truth of what happened, the

complete truth will come out. Yet the

Senate abandoned its responsibilities

when it blocked efforts to get the com-

plete truth here in this Chamber. As a

result, there will be a permanent cloud

over these proceedings. The President

may be acquitted, but without a fair

trial he cannot claim to be exonerated.

The core question of this impeach-

ment trial is this: Do we say that it is

OK for the President to use his office

to advance his personal political inter-

ests while ignoring or damaging the

public good? My answer is no.

Corruptly soliciting a foreign govern-

ment to interfere in our elections and

to announce an investigation to dam-

age a political rival and an American

citizen at the expense of free and fair

elections and our national security—

that is the definition of an abuse of

power. This is what Alexander Ham-

ilton was talking about when he wrote

that impeachment proceedings should

concern ‘‘the abuse or violation of

some public trust.’’

Some have argued that what the

President did was wrong, but his con-

duct does not rise to the level of im-

peachment. They agree that the Presi-

dent used his power to secure an unfair

advantage in our elections but think

that this abuse of power isn’t that bad.

It isn’t bad enough to remove him from

office.

It is that bad. Trump’s abuses of

power are grave offenses that threaten

the constitutional balance of power

and the core value that no one, espe-

cially the President, is above the law.

The President’s abuse of power under-

mines the integrity of our next elec-

tion and calls into question whether

our elections will be free and fair. His

abuses of power damage national secu-

rity by undermining the moral stature

of the United States as a trusted ally

and as a fighter against corruption.

For me, one of the saddest moments

of this trial was the testimony from

American diplomats who urged Ukrain-

ian leaders not to engage in political

investigations. According to the testi-

mony, the Ukrainians responded by

saying, in effect: Do you mean like the

investigations you are asking us to do

with the Bidens and the Clintons?

Some have said that we should wait

and let the American people decide in

the next election, only months away.

But when the President has solicited

foreign nations to influence our elec-

tions with disinformation and has pre-

vented the American people from hear-

ing a full and fair accounting of that

effort, our duty to defend the Constitu-

tion requires that we act now. A vote

to remove the President from office

protects our next election.

When Leader M

ONNELL

refuses to

allow the Senate to consider election

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security legislation and when the

President shows no remorse and says

publicly that he is ready to do it again,

we have no choice but to act. When the

President says that the Constitution

allows him to do whatever he wants,

Congress must act.

The President’s conduct is a threat

to our elections and our national secu-

rity. What is more, if we fail to check

this President, future Presidents may

be emboldened to pursue even more

shameless schemes.

Lots of countries have high-minded

constitutions full of powerful words

and strong enunciations of rights that

don’t really mean anything. As House

manager A

DAM

CHIFF

pointed out,

Russia has a Constitution like this.

Our Constitution is different. It is not

some dry, historic document that we

keep behind glass in a museum. It is

the big idea of our system of govern-

ment that no one is above the law, and

people, not Monarchs, are the source of

power. Everything—everything—flows

from this great idea realized in the

lives of Minnesotans who, every day,

seek the freedom and the opportunities

they need to build the lives they want.

There is nothing inevitable about de-

mocracy. It is not a natural state. It is

a state that we have to fight for. The

fight for democracy and our Constitu-

tion has chosen us in this moment, and

it is our job to rise to this moment.

After the Senate vote, the work of re-

inforcing the American values of fair-

ness and justice will continue. We have

a lot of work to do. Democracy is hard

work, and I know that Minnesotans are

up to it. The truth is that I see more

signs of common ground, hope, and de-

termination in Minnesota than I do the

fractures of division, distrust, and par-

tisanship, and that is a foundation for

us all to build on going forward.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr.

RUZ

). The Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, the great

irony of the last several weeks in the

impeachment trial is that the Demo-

crats accused the President of using his

governmental office to go after his po-

litical opponent. The irony is, they

then used the impeachment process to

go after their political opponent. In

fact, as you look at the way it un-

folded, they admitted as much.

As the impeachment proceedings un-

folded, they said: We didn’t have time

for witnesses. We had to get it done be-

fore Christmas because we wanted it

done and ready to go for the election.

We had to get it done—the entire proc-

ess needed to be completed—before the

election.

They didn’t have time for the proc-

ess. They didn’t have time for due proc-

ess. They didn’t have time for the

President to call his own witnesses or

cross-examine their witnesses.

The great irony is, they did exactly

what they accused the President of.

They used the government and the gov-

ernment’s process to go after their po-

litical opponent.

What is the evidence that it is par-

tisan? They didn’t convince one Repub-

lican. Not one elected Republican de-

cided that any of their arguments were

valid or that the President should be

impeached.

They made it into a sham. They

made it into a political process because

they didn’t like the results of the elec-

tion.

When did this start? Did the im-

peachment start with a phone call to

the Ukrainian President? No, the im-

peachment and the attacks on the

President started 6 months before he

was elected.

We had something truly devastating

to our Republic happen. We had, for the

first time in our history, a secret court

decide to investigate a campaign. At

the time, when those of us who criti-

cized this secret court for spying on

the Trump campaign, they said: Oh, it

is just a conspiracy theory. None of

this is happening. There is no ‘‘there’’

there.

But now that we have investigated

it—guess what—the FISA court admits

they were lied to. The FBI has now

been proven to have lied 17 times. We

have a half a dozen people at the top

level of our intelligence community

who have admitted to having extreme

bias. You have Peter Strzok and Lisa

Page talking about taking down the

President and having an insurance pol-

icy against him succeeding and becom-

ing the President. You have McCabe,

you have Comey, and you have Clapper.

You remember James Clapper, the

one who came to the Senate, and, when

asked by Senator W

YDEN

, ‘‘Are you

storing, are you gathering information

from Americans by the millions and

storing it on government computers?’’

James Clapper said no. He lied to Con-

gress. Nobody chose to impeach him,

but he lied to Congress and committed

a felony. Is he in jail? No, he is making

millions of dollars as a contributor on

television now, using and peddling his

national security influence for dollars,

after having committed a felony in

lying to us.

These are the people who plotted to

bring the President down. These are

the people who continue to plot to

bring the President down. Before all of

this started, though, I was a critic of

the secret courts. I was a critic of

FISA. I was a critic of them abusing

American civil liberties. I was a critic

of them invading our privacy, record-

ing the length of our phone calls, who

we talk to, and sometimes recording

conversations—all of this done sup-

posedly to go after terrorists, but

Americans, by the millions, are caught

up in this web.

But now, for the first time, it is not

just American civil liberties that are

being abused by our intelligence agen-

cies. It is an entire Presidential cam-

paign, and it could go either way. This

is why you want to limit power. Men

are not angels, and that is why we put

restrictions on government. We need

more restrictions now. We can’t allow

secret courts to investigate campaigns.

This started before the election. It

went on for the last 3 years, through

the Mueller investigation. They

thought they had the President dead to

rights, and they would bring him down

through this investigation. So, ini-

tially, the spying didn’t work, and the

Mueller investigation didn’t work.

They went seamlessly into the im-

peachment.

The question for the American public

is now: Will they go on? Are they going

to immediately start up hearings again

in the House that will be partisan hear-

ings again? I suspect they will. They

have had their day in the Sun, and they

loved it, and I think they are going to

keep doing it time and time and time

again.

Now, during the proceedings, I asked

a question that was disallowed, but I

am going to ask that question again

this morning, because the Constitution

does protect debate and does protect

the asking of questions. I think they

made a big mistake not allowing my

question.

My question did not talk about any-

body who is a whistleblower. My ques-

tion did not accuse anybody of being a

whistleblower. It did not make a state-

ment believing there was someone who

was a whistleblower. I simply named

two people’s names because I think it

is very important to know what hap-

pened.

We are now finding out that the

FISA investigation was predicated

upon 17 lies by the FBI, by people at

high levels who were biased against the

President, and it turns out it was an il-

legitimate investigation. Everything

they did about investigating the Presi-

dent was untrue and abused govern-

ment to do something they never

should have done in the first place.

So I asked this question. And this is

my question—my exact question. We

will put it up here:

Are you aware that the House Intelligence

Committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close

relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at

the National Security Council together? Are

you aware and how do you respond to reports

that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked

together to plot impeaching the President

before there were formal House impeach-

ment proceedings?

Now, why did I ask this question? Be-

cause there are news reports saying

that these two people—one of them

who works for A

DAM

CHIFF

and one of

them who worked with this person at

the National Security Council—that

they knew each other and had been

overheard talking about impeaching

the President in the first month of his

office. In January of 2017, they were al-

ready plotting the impeachment.

And you say: Well, we should protect

the whistleblower. The whistleblower

deserves anonymity.

The law does not preserve anonym-

ity. His boss is not supposed to say

anything about him. He is not supposed

to be fired. I am for that.

But when you get into the details of

talking about whistleblowers, there is

a variety of opinions around here. The

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greatest whistleblower in American

history, in all likelihood, is Edward

Snowden. What did people want to do

with him? Half the people here want to

put him to death and the other half

want to put him in jail forever. So it

depends on what you blow the whistle

on, whether or not they are actually

for the whistleblower statute.

I am not for retributions on the whis-

tleblower. I don’t want him to go to

jail, and I don’t want him to lose his

job. But if six people, who all work to-

gether at the National Security Coun-

cil, knew each other and gamed the

system, knowing that they would get

these protections—they gamed the sys-

tem in order to try to bring down the

President—we should know about that.

If they had extreme bias going into the

impeachment, we should know about

that.

I think the question is an important

one, and I think we should still get to

the bottom of it. Were people plotting

to bring down the President? They

were plotting in advance of the elec-

tion. Were they plotting within the

halls of government to bring down the

President? Look, these people also

knew the Vindman brothers, who are

still in government. So you have two

Vindman brothers over there who know

Eric Ciaramella, who also know Sean

Misko, who also knew two people work-

ing on A

DAM

CHIFF

’s staff, and A

DAM

CHIFF

throws his hands up and says: I

don’t know who the whistleblower is. I

have never met him. I have no idea who

he is.

So if he doesn’t know who he is and

the President’s counsel doesn’t know

who he is, how does the Chief Justice of

the United States know who the whis-

tleblower is? I have no independent

confirmation from anyone in govern-

ment as to who the whistleblower is.

So how am I prevented from asking a

question when nobody seems to admit

that they even know who this person

is?

My point is, is by having such protec-

tions—such overzealous protection—we

don’t get to the root of the matter of

how this started, because this could

happen again. When the institution of

the bureaucracy, when the intelligence

community with all the power to listen

to every phone conversation you have

has political bias and can game the

system to go after you, that is a real

worry. It is a real worry that they

spied on the President.

But what if you are an average ordi-

nary American? What if you are just a

supporter of President Trump or you

are a Republican or you are a conserv-

ative? Are we not concerned that se-

cret courts could allow for warrants to

listen to your phone calls, to tap into

your emails, to read your text mes-

sages? I am very concerned about that.

So we are going to have this discus-

sion go on. It isn’t really about the

whistleblower so much. It is about re-

forming government. It is about lim-

iting the power of what they can do as

secret courts. I think the FISA Court

should be restricted from ever inves-

tigating campaigns. If you think a

campaign has done something wrong,

call the FBI, go to a regular court,

where judges get to appear on both

sides, and if you want to subpoena

somebody or tap the phone, all right,

we can do it, but it has got to be an ex-

traordinary thing.

Think about it. Think about the dan-

ger. The other side says it is a danger

to democracy. Think about the danger

to democracy of letting your govern-

ment tap the phones of people you dis-

agree with politically.

I don’t care whether it is Republican

or Democrat. We cannot allow the in-

telligence community and secret

courts like the FISA court to go after

political campaigns. And I mean that

sincerely—Republican or Democrat. We

need to change the rules. We cannot

have secret courts trying to reverse the

elections.

I feel very strongly about this. I was

for this reform before Donald Trump

ever came on the scene and before any

of this happened. I have been for hav-

ing more significant restrictions on

these secret courts and more signifi-

cant restrictions on the intelligence

community to make sure they don’t

abuse the rights of Americans. This is

a big deal, and if we are going to get

something good out of this, if there is

going to be some positive aspect to

having to go through this nightmare

we have been through over the last sev-

eral months or years now, the blessing

in disguise here would be that we actu-

ally reform the system so this never

happens to anyone else ever again.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Nebraska.

Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I rise

to voice my opposition to these Arti-

cles of Impeachment. I want the people

of Nebraska to know how I will vote

and why, as the Senate prepares for the

trial’s final vote.

I took an oath to uphold the Con-

stitution, and I have a responsibility to

be an impartial juror during the trial.

I have given fair and careful consid-

eration to the evidence presented dur-

ing this trial, and I have engaged in the

questioning process. This is a process

that should be about facts and fairness,

and that is what the Senate has done

its very best to do, but the reality is

that the House of Representatives

didn’t do its job.

Under the Constitution and by prece-

dent, the impeachment investigation is

the responsibility of the House, not the

Senate. Hearings in the House inquiry

during the Nixon impeachment inves-

tigation lasted for 14 months. The Clin-

ton impeachment House inquiry relied

on years of prior investigation and

overwhelming amounts of testimony

from firsthand witnesses. President

Trump’s inquiry in the House was deep-

ly partisan, and it lasted only 12 weeks.

Disturbingly, there was a lack of due

process during this House investiga-

tion. The President was not allowed to

have his lawyers cross-examine wit-

nesses at the House Intelligence Com-

mittee hearings and depositions. This

is the committee that was the lead on

the investigative hearings. Shockingly,

the President of the United States was

prevented from participating in the

House’s impeachment for 71 of the 78

days of investigation. Our founding

document protects the right of the ac-

cused. The Constitution explicitly

states that no one should ‘‘be deprived

of life, liberty or property without due

process of law.’’ Our blueprint for free-

dom protects all individuals’ rights,

whether that person is a truckdriver, a

farmer, a businesswoman, or the Presi-

dent of the United States.

The third branch of government—our

court system—is of foundational im-

portance, and we have it for a reason.

That reason is to provide every Amer-

ican with the opportunity to have jus-

tice in a fair way in accordance with

the Constitution and the rule of law.

But because House Democrats were in

a rush to impeach the President before

their holiday break, they decided to

abandon the courts completely.

It was the House’s constitutional

right to subpoena witnesses. It was the

President’s constitutional right to as-

sert privilege. And it was the court’s

constitutional right to enforce sub-

poenas. The House did not petition the

court to enforce subpoenas. Short-

circuiting the process led to an incom-

plete investigation by the House.

Article 1, section 3 of the Constitu-

tion provides that ‘‘the Senate shall

have the sole Power to try all Impeach-

ments.’’ If the Senate were to become

the factfinder in an impeachment in-

vestigation, it would completely

change the role of the Senate from this

point forward, this hallowed Chamber,

the world’s greatest deliberative body.

It would become an investigative arm

of the House. Setting this precedent

would have a devastating effect on our

political institution, transforming the

very nature of the Senate during im-

peachment hearings for generations to

come.

The Senate is supposed to conduct a

fair trial, protect the Constitution, and

guarantee due process of law.

My Republican colleagues and I un-

derstand the gravity of these pro-

ceedings. The record shows that Presi-

dent Clinton’s impeachment trial was

met with a motion filed by Senator

Byrd to dismiss the Articles of Im-

peachment early on. This time, not a

single Senator filed such a motion. We

approached this process with the seri-

ousness it deserves.

Senate Republicans supported a reso-

lution that gave the House managers

more than ample time to lay out their

case. Since then, we have heard an ex-

traordinary amount of information

over the last 2 weeks. The House man-

agers presented 192 video clips with tes-

timony from 13 witnesses and sub-

mitted more than 28,000 pages of docu-

ments. Senators then submitted 180

questions. After 2 weeks of trial argu-

ments, the House managers failed to

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES826 February 4, 2020

make a compelling case that the Presi-

dent should be removed from office;

therefore, I will vote for the Presi-

dent’s acquittal.

I firmly believe it is time for the

Senate to move forward and return to

the people’s business. It is time to

refocus our attention on our bipartisan

work: providing for our servicemem-

bers, caring for our veterans, funding

research to cure diseases that cut short

too many lives, fighting the opioid ad-

diction, and improving our criminal

justice system.

So I speak to Nebraskans and to all

Americans in urging every Senator in

this Chamber to have the courage, the

heart, and the vision to move past this

process and work together toward a

brighter future for generations to

come. That should be our mindset at

this pivotal moment. That should be

our mindset in everything we do.

I urge my colleagues to take the long

view and fulfill our constitutional role.

Let’s reunite around our common goals

and our values. Let’s bring this process

to an end and advance policies that

will make life better for Nebraskans

and better for all Americans.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from West Virginia.

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I rise

today to discuss why I will be voting to

acquit President Trump on both Arti-

cles of Impeachment tomorrow after-

noon.

Our Constitution makes clear that

only a particularly grave act—‘‘trea-

son, bribery, or other high crimes and

misdemeanors’’—would justify a Sen-

ate voting to reverse the will of the

people, the voters, and remove from of-

fice the person they chose to lead this

Nation.

Besides making clear just how seri-

ous an offense needs to be in order to

warrant impeachment, our founding

document allows the President to re-

main in office unless two-thirds of our

body—the Senate—votes for impeach-

ment. To me, that underscores the

need for a national consensus that runs

across partisan lines before undoing an

election.

The Senate has never in our history

removed a President from office fol-

lowing an impeachment trial.

Our Founding Fathers recognized

that impeachment should not be used

as a blunt partisan instrument.

President Trump was duly elected by

the people of this country to be Presi-

dent of the United States in 2016. Noth-

ing that I have heard in this process

has come close to providing a reason

that would justify my voting to over-

turn the choice made by nearly half a

million West Virginians and tens of

millions of other Americans and even

further—even further—to remove him

from the ballot in 2020.

There is no doubt that the House im-

peachment process was partisan, politi-

cally driven, and denied President

Trump some of his most basic rights of

due process. At the same time, the

product that was brought to our Cham-

ber was obviously flimsy, rushed, and

contained incomplete evidence.

Time and again, House managers de-

manded that we do things here in the

Senate that they neglected to do them-

selves during their House proceedings,

such as calling witnesses they refused

to call—witnesses they are now asking

us to bring forward.

Regardless of the failings of the

House managers, it is the Senate’s job

and, indeed, our oath to do impartial

justice. In keeping with that oath, I

supported a trial process that was mod-

eled after the Senate’s precedent in

1999, when it received the approval of

100 Senators. I am glad we conducted

this trial under that process because I

felt it was fair to both sides.

Both the managers and the Presi-

dent’s attorneys were given 3 full days

in the Senate to present their respec-

tive cases, and Senators spent 2 full

days—16 hours—asking questions and

receiving answers from the parties. Ac-

tually, I found that very instructive.

The Senate heard testimony from wit-

nesses in 192 video segments—some of

them repetitive—and received more

than 28,000 pages of documents. The

House record, which we received here

in the Senate, included the testimony

of 17 witnesses. So there were wit-

nesses. The House brought witness tes-

timony into the Senate.

I keenly listened to these presen-

tations with an open mind, and I have

concluded that the arguments and evi-

dence do not provide me with a suffi-

cient rationale for reversing the 2016

election and removing President

Trump from the ballot in 2020. That is

especially true considering the par-

tisan nature of this impeachment proc-

ess.

In the cases of President Nixon and

President Clinton, there was signifi-

cant support from House Members of

the President’s party for opening im-

peachment inquiries. The impeachment

inquiry into President Nixon was sup-

ported by more than 400 Members of

the House, many of those—an over-

whelming number of those—from his

own party. And 31 House Democrats

voted to open an impeachment inquiry

into their President, the Democratic

President, President Clinton.

By contrast, in this case, not a single

Member of the President’s party voted

in the House of Representatives to

start an impeachment inquiry or to

adopt either Article of Impeachment

against the President.

Many of the President’s political op-

ponents want—and have wanted for

years—to have him removed from of-

fice, while virtually no one in his own

party supports this impeachment.

We have a mechanism in this country

for dealing with issues that divide

along party lines. That mechanism is

not impeachment or removal. That

mechanism, quite simply, is an elec-

tion, and we have one in 9 months. So,

beginning yesterday, we think, and in 9

months, we will have the certainty ev-

eryone desires.

In the meantime, I am casting a ‘‘no’’

vote in this Chamber tomorrow. I am

voting no on both of these articles. But

do you know what? I am also going to

do something else. I am going to take

this opportunity to rededicate myself

to the principles that this U.S. Senate

stands for. I am going to take this op-

portunity to look at those principles

and appreciate that these are the prin-

ciples that are tied to making America

better each and every day. Together we

can do this, as Republicans and Demo-

crats.

During the impeachment process, Re-

publicans approached me all the time—

West Virginians approached me all the

time, regardless of party, to ask why

we were spending all of this time on a

wasted process. They asked me ques-

tions like, Why don’t you just get on

with the business of giving America

the confidence that you are working on

the things that we care about—this was

the butcher in the grocery store who

asked me this very question—our fami-

lies, making our families stronger, our

lives better, and our jobs more perma-

nent?

When we rid ourselves of the shackles

of politics, we can truly work together

on issues like transportation,

broadband, energy, ending the drug cri-

sis, or strengthening our military.

These are the issues that affect all of

us. These are the issues that transcend

the day-to-day lives of all the people

we represent. They also transcend the

day-to-day sound bites we hear from

the constant barrage of both positive

and negative media to which we are so

attuned.

No one has been served by this in-

tense—and, at times, sensationalized—

and very divisive proceeding. When we

rid ourselves of the poisonous venom of

partisan politics, we see more clearly.

We know that we don’t always agree.

That is pretty clear. But we can cer-

tainly find common ground, and we do,

as was envisioned by our Founders.

So let’s all just take a deep breath

and move on from here. Let’s listen to

our better voices. Those are the Ameri-

cans we represent, who remind us every

day how important our freedom and

our futures are to the country and to

the constitutional institutions that

gird our values.

We sure have work to do. The Amer-

ican public expects us to do better. We

should expect that of ourselves. After

these wayward few weeks, there is no

question we will need to rebuild that

confidence. Do you know what? I am in

this for the long haul, as I know the

Presiding Officer is—the one where

West Virginians and Texans and Amer-

icans see better days ahead for them-

selves and their children; the ones

where West Virginians, Texans, and

Americans drive to work each day and

hear that Congress is actually doing its

job. We were sent to Congress to work

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S827 February 4, 2020

for the American people, to deliver re-

sults, to renew their faith in our insti-

tutions, to rise above our own parties,

and to make life better.

I have always been humbled by the

confidence that has been placed in me

by my fellow West Virginians. It is

truly an honor to serve, and it is one

that comes with great responsibility.

We need to roll up our sleeves, stop the

bickering, and deliver.

I am looking at a lot of young people

here in the Hall of the Senate, and I am

thinking: How can I do better for you

all? That is where our future lies.

I am an eternal optimist. I always

have been. I am optimistic that we can

find the solutions that move our coun-

try forward. Sure, there will be dif-

ferences of opinion. There will prob-

ably be some harsh and sharp words

along the way and differences in our

philosophies, but Americans and these

young people expect that we will bridge

those gaps. It is going to take a lot of

hard work, but I am certainly ready for

the challenge, and I hope you will join

me.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Kansas.

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, tomor-

row, on this floor, the Senate will re-

convene again as a court to vote on

two Articles of Impeachment against

President Trump. Now, after per-

forming my due diligence, along with

many others, and considering all asser-

tions by the House and Senate man-

agers, I believe the President should be

acquitted from both charges. I do not

believe that removal from office is war-

ranted, more especially during an elec-

tion year.

I, like everyone in this body, listened

to 12 days of debate and testimony cov-

ering nearly 90 hours. I spent time

meeting with my fellow Senators in

order to reach a conclusion that was,

one, fair; and two, met our constitu-

tional mandates; and three, what will

best serve our Nation.

I did not seek that responsibility.

However, I have tried to carry it out to

the best of my ability. As a Senate

juror, I was asked to weigh whether or

not the House Articles of Impeachment

charging the President with obstruc-

tion of Congress or abuse of power had

merit and, if true, whether the offenses

rose to a level that requires the Presi-

dent to be removed from office—again,

during an election year.

And like many of us, I am troubled

by multiple factors. Quite frankly, I

am troubled with the House managers’

demand that we in the Senate fill in

the gaps of their investigation and call

more witnesses, something they failed

to execute themselves. The job of the

Senate is to be an honest jury, if you

will, and not take up the role of pros-

ecutor or prosecution. Nonetheless,

after hearing House managers’ state-

ments, it is clear this is exactly the

role they insisted we do.

I am troubled that countless times

the House managers made Senators

feel as if we were the ones on trial. I

believe the House managers were both

incorrect and demanding, constantly

stating that Senators have no choice

but to agree with their line of rea-

soning, and if we did not, then we

would deal with the consequences—a

veiled threat yet to be defined.

I served in the House 16 years. For 12

years before that, I was chief of staff

for a House Member. I know the House.

I truly enjoyed my service there. But

you don’t come to the Senate and point

fingers at Senate Members and make

the insinuation that we are on trial if

we do not do the right thing, as they

have concluded. Enough of that.

Additionally, my top concern was

what precedence would be set for fu-

ture Presidents and their expectations

of privacy in conversation with their

advisers, not to mention the future,

with regard to this situation, once

again, with our Nation finding itself in

a whirlpool of partisan impeachment. I

have been most troubled that the

House managers have not put cause be-

fore personal animus. I would think,

back in the day, perhaps, that they had

a barrel—like a rain barrel to capture

the excess water off of the roof. I know

we had that in Dodge City. I think it

probably sat right over there. It is

flowing over with personal animus. It

is a rain barrel to catch that and get

rid of it and let us get back to our busi-

ness. I deeply regret that.

As has been stated frequently, Alex-

ander Hamilton described it best, that

charges against the President ‘‘will sel-

dom fail to agitate the passions of the

whole community, and to divide it into

parties more or less friendly or inim-

ical to the accused. In many cases it

will connect itself with the pre-exist-

ing factions, and will enlist all their

animosities, partialities, influence, and

interest on one side or the other; and

in such cases there will always be the

greatest danger [to our Nation] that

the decision will be regulated more by

the comparative strength of parties,

than by the real demonstrations of in-

nocence or guilt.’’

I don’t know how many Senators and,

for that matter, the distinguished pro-

fessor from Harvard, Professor

Dershowitz, said that over and over

again. Unfortunately, the warning of

Alexander Hamilton and our Founders

have come into fruition today. It is in-

fectious and harming our ability to

function as the United States Senate,

where the threads of comity are al-

ready getting pretty frayed, thread-

bare.

In this regard, I appreciated yester-

day when the White House counsel

showed clips of major bills important

to the American people that we have

done in a bipartisan fashion, despite

our differences, despite the animus in

the Senate, especially highlighting

something called the farm bill, where

we achieved 87 votes, with the support,

by the way, of the distinguished Pre-

siding Officer. We don’t always agree

on every issue on the Ag Committee,

but we can work together to accom-

plish great things for America. We

have done that with the farm bill.

Along with Senator S

TABENOW

and the

entire Agriculture Committee, we are

the least partisan committee in this

distinguished body. That is what we do

in the Senate; that is what we do on be-

half of our farmers, ranchers, our grow-

ers—everybody throughout rural and

smalltown America—and we are

charged with certainty and predict-

ability, and we had to get it done. That

is what the White House has done on a

number of occasions. We use the

threads of comity to get things done. It

needs a lot of restitching.

So I ask, have President Trump’s ac-

tions risen to the level and vision by

our Founding Fathers and the Con-

stitution as high crimes and mis-

demeanors warranting removal from

office? Our Constitution requires that

the threshold for that judgment must

be set by each Senator sitting as a

juror.

All of us in this Senate have concerns

about the direction this country is

heading, but let me just stress that we

have come through, time and time

again, dark times. These are not the

worst of times. When I first arrived

here in the Senate as a chief of staff for

Senator Frank Carlson, it was within

weeks we had the horrible tragedy of

the assassination of Martin Luther

King. Washington was burning. Ma-

rines were on the Capitol steps with

sandbags and live ammunition. That

was tough. Vietnam tore the country

apart, so did Watergate, so did the im-

peachment of Bill Clinton, so did Iran-

Contra, just to name a few.

Today a charge of impeachment

against the President has placed this

Nation in jeopardy again. The House

managers’ assertions are exactly the

kind of situation the Framers were try-

ing to avoid—the remarks by Alex-

ander Hamilton that I just read—as

they devised the impeachment mecha-

nism to remove a sitting President

whose actions endangered the Repub-

lic.

However, as we did back then, we will

once again come together. As I said,

these are not the worst of times, and

we have always pulled it together. We

are a strong nation because we have

strong people. We are a strong nation

because it is in our nature to work to-

gether, even as we disagree among our-

selves.

So I made my choice very clear, and

my plea is, let us restore the threads of

comity in this distinguished body.

Work together, we must. We will

emerge strong because we will.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from North Dakota.

Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise

today to speak regarding the impeach-

ment of President Trump.

For more than 2 weeks now, the Sen-

ate has listened as both the House

managers and the President’s counsel

presented their cases. Nearly 28,000

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES828 February 4, 2020

pages of documents, including testi-

mony from 17 witnesses gathered as

part of the House investigation, will be

part of the Senate record. Over the

course of 2 days, Senators asked 180

questions of the House managers and

the White House counsel. The Senate

took its constitutional duty very seri-

ously.

After carefully listening to the House

managers, President’s counsel, review-

ing the documents and testimony, and

asking questions, it is clear to me that

the House should not have impeached

President Trump, and the Senate

should vote to acquit the President.

The House process did not provide

the President with important due proc-

ess rights. On the other hand, the Sen-

ate trial was conducted using past

precedent of the Clinton trial as the

framework. At the start of the Senate

trial, the Senate agreed that the House

evidence could be admitted into the

record. We provided ample opportunity

for both the House managers and White

House counsel to make their argu-

ments and ensure that Senators had

substantial time to ask their ques-

tions. As I said, in fact, Senators asked

180 questions over 2 full days and re-

ceived lengthy answers from both—and

detailed answers from both President’s

counsel and the House managers.

The American public has seen the

transcript of the call between Presi-

dent Trump and President Zelensky.

President Zelensky has said on several

occasions that he did not feel pressured

to do anything in return for the secu-

rity assistance. Further, the military

aid was provided to Ukraine without

any investigations being conducted.

Given these facts, the House’s allega-

tions do not rise to the level of an im-

peachable offense.

Our Founding Fathers believed that

impeachment should not be used as a

partisan weapon and that the President

serves at the will of the people. With

an election to be held in coming

months, it should be up to the Amer-

ican people to decide who will lead the

country.

We need to put this impeachment be-

hind us. We need to get back to work

advancing measures to help improve

the lives of Americans. These legisla-

tive priorities, delayed while the House

and Senate focused its attention on

partisan impeachment, include impor-

tant items like addressing our Nation’s

infrastructure, lowering prescription

drug costs, providing middle-class tax

relief, promoting American energy de-

velopment, supporting our military

and veterans, upholding our trust and

treaty obligations to our Tribal com-

munities, securing our borders, and

continuing to fight for our farmers and

our ranchers. These should all be areas

where we can work together on a bipar-

tisan basis for the American people.

With these important priorities in

mind, I look forward to getting back to

work for the American people.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from New Jersey.

Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I

rise today as an unwavering believer in

the system of checks and balances laid

out by our Framers in the Constitu-

tion, with three coequal branches of

government at times working with

each other and at times working as a

check against each other. It is this sys-

tem of checks and balances that safe-

guards our Republic against tyranny

and ensures that our government by

the people, for the people, as Abraham

Lincoln said, does not perish from the

Earth.

My colleagues, what the facts of this

trial have shown and what every Mem-

ber of this body knows is that Presi-

dent Trump did exactly what the House

has accused him of in these two Arti-

cles of Impeachment: abusing his power

and obstructing Congress.

These articles strike at the very

heart of a republic ruled not by men

but by laws and the very notion of a

government elected by and for the peo-

ple.

I took my constitutional oath to do

impartial justice seriously. I came to

the trial with an open mind. I listened

to both sides. I waited for the facts to

persuade me. But in all the many hours

I sat through this trial, not once did I

hear the President’s team make a com-

pelling defense. Instead, I heard a

damning case from the House managers

detailing how President Trump sub-

verted our national security and solic-

ited foreign interference in our elec-

tion for his own personal political ben-

efit.

The facts show that the President

used U.S. security assistance and an of-

ficial White House meeting—two of

Ukraine’s highest priorities—not to ad-

vance our national security but, rath-

er, his own 2020 reelection effort. In so

doing, he violated the law known has

the Impoundment Control Act and un-

dermined Congress’s constitutional au-

thority.

As the ranking member of the Senate

Foreign Relations Committee, I want

to make something clear. When a for-

eign adversary like Russia interferes in

our elections, it is not for the benefit

of the United States; it is for the ben-

efit of Russia.

The United States provides foreign

assistance to countries all over the

world because it benefits America’s in-

terests. We help Ukraine in their fight

against Russian aggression because it

is the right thing to do for our national

security. But when U.S. officials tell

Ukraine that in order to get the Oval

Office meeting their President wants

and the security assistance it urgently

needs, their government must first an-

nounce investigation into President

Trump’s political opponents, that is

not advancing our national security.

That is corrupting it. That is forcing a

foreign country to choose between

their own security and getting per-

versely involved in another country’s

elections.

When we use U.S. foreign assistance

as a political pawn, we weaken our

standing and credibility in the world.

Ukraine needed our help. Yet, when

it sought our military assistance, in-

stead of sending it right away, the

President of the United States said:

Well, I would like you to do us a favor,

though. The damage of that message

cannot be undone. And if we don’t hold

this President accountable, then we are

saying it is OK to do it again.

I fear the consequences of the Presi-

dent’s actions, and I fear the con-

sequences of our own inaction—not

just for today or this year but for years

to come when we have to explain to our

allies ‘‘Trust us; we will be there’’ or

when we tell the American people

‘‘Trust us; we are doing this in the

name of U.S. national security’’ or

when we press other countries about

strengthening the rule of law and hold-

ing free and fair elections.

If we do not rein in this conduct, if

we do not call it the abuse of power

that it is, then we have failed to live up

to the ideals of our Republic.

I fear we have already let the Amer-

ican people and our Constitution down

by failing to hold a fair trial. There is

no American across this country who

would call a trial without witnesses

and documents a fair trial. They would

call it a sham. And by refusing wit-

nesses and documents, the Senate is

complicit in the President’s obstruc-

tion of Congress—the essence of the

House’s second Article of Impeach-

ment.

The House had a constitutional pre-

rogative to conduct an impeachment

and oversight investigation. Yet Presi-

dent Trump engaged in unprecedented

obstruction in order to cover up his

misconduct by blocking witnesses with

firsthand knowledge, by denying access

to any documents, by publicly dispar-

aging and threatening—threatening—

those with the courage to defy his or-

ders and testify publicly, by casting

aside a coequal branch of government,

as if he can really do, as he himself has

said, whatever he wants.

When a President tries to extort a

foreign government for his own polit-

ical aims and in doing so ignores the

law and the Constitution, the only

remedy can be that which our Framers

gave us: impeachment and removal.

The Framers knew this day would

come. They knew the threat of an Ex-

ecutive who welcomed or solicited for-

eign interference in our elections is

real. What the Framers of our Con-

stitution never could have imagined is

that there would come a day when the

U.S. Senate would shrink in the face of

a President who would behave like a

King, not out of principle but out of

willful ignorance and blind party loy-

alty.

Our failure to conduct a fair trial

casts doubt on the very verdict ren-

dered by this body. This is not an exon-

eration of a President; it is a corona-

tion of a King.

I believe that the day we fail to re-

move this President will go down in

history as a day of constitutional in-

famy. It will be remembered as a dark

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day for our democracy, for our national

security, and for our constitutional

order.

I ask my colleagues, what future

damage will we enable if this body says

that it is OK for a President to subvert

our national security interests and so-

licit foreign interference in our elec-

tions? What will be left of our system

of checks and balances if there are no

consequences for obstructing investiga-

tions, blocking witnesses, and with-

holding evidence from Congress? If we

do not remove this President, can we

pull ourselves back to a place where

the rule of law matters? How much

more shredding of the Constitution as

a nation can we possibly endure?

We already know President Trump

thinks he can go to war without con-

gressional authorization. He believes

he can misuse congressionally appro-

priated funds for whatever he wants,

like taking billions from the Depart-

ment of Defense to spend on a border

wall that every day proves to be a co-

lossal waste. And through it all, the

compliant and complicit Republican

majority has further emboldened this

President by eliminating the 60-vote

threshold for Supreme Court nomina-

tions, by refusing to call witnesses in

this trial, by further stripping the Sen-

ate of its David versus Goliath role in

which we serve as a check on vast exec-

utive power.

If the Senate is prepared to say that

this President and all future Presidents

of either party can misuse congression-

ally appropriated funding to extract

political favors from a foreign power,

can deny all witnesses, can withhold

all relevant documents, can openly

threaten Ambassadors, career public

servants, and Members of Congress—if

a President can commit all of these

gross abuses of power as if he were

above the law, then the very essence of

our democracy is broken, and what we

must ask ourselves is, What is left?

What is left of our Constitution if we

are not prepared to defend it? What is

left other than lawlessness?

We need Republicans of conscience

and courage to say more than just

‘‘Yes, the President did it, and it was

wrong.’’ We need our Republican col-

leagues to be intellectually honest. We

need them to speak the truth and say

it is impeachable so we can mount a bi-

partisan defense of the Constitution

and all that America stands for.

I, for one, am prepared to defend our

Constitution. I will vote guilty on the

Articles of Impeachment, not because

of loyalty to any party, not because of

how it will or won’t play in any upcom-

ing election. I will vote for impeach-

ment and removal not because I hate

this President, because I don’t, but be-

cause I love our country more.

I took an oath to uphold the Con-

stitution, and with this vote, I intend

to do so.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. M

KOWSKI

). The Senator from Massachu-

setts.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I

thank you.

Over the course of this trial, we have

heard nothing less than a blistering,

scalding indictment of President

Trump’s conduct. The House managers

put forward a compelling—indeed,

overwhelming—case that Donald

Trump engaged in impeachable con-

duct. He withheld both congressionally

approved aid to our ally Ukraine and

an Oval Office meeting desperately

sought by Ukraine’s new President—

two official acts—in exchange for per-

sonal favors that would benefit him po-

litically.

Trump sought an announcement by

Ukraine of baseless investigations into

bogus corruption allegations against

Joe Biden, whom Donald Trump most

feared as an opponent in the 2020 Presi-

dential election. He also wanted

Ukraine to announce an investigation

into the discredited and debunked con-

spiracy theory that Ukraine, not Rus-

sia, interfered in the 2016 Presidential

election.

At every turn, Donald Trump refused

to cooperate with and actively ob-

structed Congress’s investigation into

his wrongdoing. His obstruction was, in

the words of the Articles of Impeach-

ment, ‘‘unprecedented, categorical, and

indiscriminate.’’

I listened carefully to the President’s

lawyers as they presented their defense

case. Like my colleagues, I took pages

of notes. My colleagues were very pa-

tiently trying to hear each argument

that was being made by the defense

counsel. I took notes. They took notes.

As I sat at this desk, with the seri-

ousness and sanctity of the proceedings

thick in the air, I waited for the Presi-

dent’s lawyers to rebut the avalanche

of evidence against their client, and I

waited and I waited. At the end of the

case, I was still waiting. And that is

because the President’s lawyers did

nothing to rebut any of the facts in

this case—nothing. They knew what we

all knew after we heard the House

managers’ case. Donald Trump did it.

He did it. He did exactly what he was

alleged to have done. He abused his

power. He committed impeachable

crimes. He is guilty. There is no ques-

tion about it—no question at all.

There is no doubt that President

Trump used his personal attorney,

Rudy Giuliani, to solicit Ukraine’s in-

terference in the 2020 election. There is

no doubt that President Trump froze

the $391 million of taxpayer dollars in

Ukraine military aid and security as-

sistance that Congress authorized and

appropriated. There is no doubt that

President Trump conditioned the re-

lease of that aid on the Ukrainian Gov-

ernment’s announcement of politically

motivated investigations.

There is no doubt that in a July 25,

2019, telephone call, President Trump

directly solicited investigations from

President Zelensky, as the partial

transcript memorialized and as Acting

White House Chief of Staff Mick

Mulvaney admitted. There is no doubt

that President Trump released the aid

to Ukraine only after a patriot within

the intelligence community blew the

whistle on him and after several House

committees announced a joint inves-

tigation into the President’s coercive

scheme. There is no doubt that the

President directed and orchestrated a

coverup and the wholesale obstruction

of Congress’s investigation into his

wrongdoing.

Donald Trump has shown no remorse,

no contrition, no recognition whatso-

ever that his conduct was wrong. In-

stead, he has doubled down on his

abuses, gaslighting us repeatedly with

the assertion that his call with Presi-

dent Zelensky was ‘‘perfect’’ and by

publicly urging Ukraine and China to

investigate his political rivals.

The question now before the U.S.

Senate is not, What are the facts? We

know the facts. No reasonable person

can dispute them. No, the question for

the Senate is, What in the pursuit of

impartial justice, as our oaths require,

must we do with these facts?

To me, the answer is clear. We must

vote to convict Donald Trump and re-

move him from office. All the evidence

shows that he has committed impeach-

able offenses and is a clear and present

danger to our democracy and our na-

tional security.

But if we fail to remove Donald

Trump from office, we are left with an

equally consequential question: What

would prevent an acquitted Donald

Trump from abusing his power again?

We all know that the answer is noth-

ing—nothing will. That is the answer I

received from the House managers

when I asked this question during the

trial. In fact, we know that an acquit-

tal will only embolden him.

We know that Donald Trump’s phone

call with Ukrainian President Zelensky

took place the day after Special Coun-

sel Mueller testified in the House of

Representatives. The special counsel

found and explained in his House testi-

mony that there was evidence of a

criminal conspiracy between members

of the Trump campaign and Russia, but

the evidence was not sufficient to bring

charges. Robert Mueller never said

there was no evidence of such a con-

spiracy. There was evidence. It was

merely insufficient for a prosecution.

We know that Donald Trump took

this as a green light to invite further

foreign interference in our elections,

which he did the very next day.

Donald Trump has no shame. He can-

not help himself. If we acquit President

Trump, he will believe himself to be ac-

countable to no one, and when—not if,

but when—he is again faced with a

choice between the public interest and

his personal interest, he will choose his

personal interest, and it will, in part,

be a reckoning of our own making. A

majority in this Chamber will have

made President Trump a dictator.

Then, what will we tell the American

people? How will we convince them

that we still have a democracy that

they should have faith in, a system of

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES830 February 4, 2020

checks and balances that ensures ac-

countability, that no one is above the

law?

This weekend I asked some of my

constituents what they would say on

the floor of the Senate if they could

make remarks in this trial.

Jennifer Baker Jones of Woburn said

it perfectly:

Wednesday’s vote won’t be a vindication of

Trump, but an end to the right of Congress

to push back on the President. They are giv-

ing up their balance of power.

It will be difficult because we have

already ceded much of our authority

and, indeed, betrayed the public’s faith

in us by the conduct of this trial.

Hope Anderson in Lowell, MA, told

me:

We need to not only hold our leaders and

ourselves accountable, but seek to maintain

and repair the public’s trust.

We are not here simply to protect

one election in 2020. We are here to pro-

tect all elections.

At the beginning of this trial, we

each took an oath to do impartial jus-

tice, but then we held the trial without

witnesses and without documents. We

moved to vote on the Articles of Im-

peachment without hearing from John

Bolton, a witness whose firsthand

knowledge directly cuts the heart out

of the President’s case; without hear-

ing from Mick Mulvaney, whose finger-

prints are all over this scheme; without

the emails, texts, and other documents

we know exist, writings that memori-

alize communications about the ac-

tions at issue here.

A trial is a search for the truth, the

full truth, the whole truth. That search

for the truth requires hearing from rel-

evant witnesses and seeing relevant

documents so that the fact finders un-

derstand the entire story. By not pur-

suing this evidence, the Senate—the

fact finders—have told the American

people that the truth does not matter.

They deserve better from us. Our

Constitution demands it, our democ-

racy demands it, and I believe the vast

majority of my Republican colleagues

do understand what Donald Trump did

here and know that it is very, very

wrong. They know the House managers

proved their case. Some are even say-

ing that out loud.

I believe the vast majority of my Re-

publican colleagues recognizes that

abuse of power is an impeachable of-

fense and that the President is not

above the law. But, unfortunately, I

also believe that they are simply too

afraid of Donald Trump to do what

they know is right.

Every Senator needs to consider this

question. If what Donald Trump did

here is not impeachable—extorting for-

eign interference in our free and fair

elections and then covering it up—

then, what is impeachable?

We have to have accountability. That

is our duty. We cannot give future

Presidents carte blanche to tear down

our Constitution and interfere with

free and fair elections, period. That has

to be our standard.

I will end my remarks with the an-

swer I got from my constituent Mat-

thew Murray in Gloucester to what he

would say if he were here. He said:

I urge you, my fellow Senators, to delib-

erate in accordance to your conscience and

the oath you took when you were elected,

and vote to remove this dangerous President

from office.

This is the choice we must make:

duty to this President or duty to de-

mocracy. For this reason, I will be vot-

ing to remove President Trump from

office. This is an historic moment. I do

not think that this body has a choice.

Thank you, Madam President. I yield

back.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk proceeded to

call the roll.

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I

ask unanimous consent that the order

for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, 233

years ago, our Founding Fathers gath-

ered in Philadelphia, just a few miles

north of us in Delaware. Eleven years

earlier, we had declared our independ-

ence from the British Crown, the most

powerful empire in the world. Despite

long odds, David overcame Goliath, and

we won our independence, but would

the government of this new Nation en-

dure?

When the Founders gathered in

Philadelphia that summer of 1787, they

began debating a new form of govern-

ment. At times, the differences be-

tween our Founders—Northern States,

Southern States, small States, and

large States—seemed irreconcilable.

However, a great compromise was

eventually reached, and an intricate

system of checks and balances was

written into a governing document, the

Constitution of the United States.

Nebraska Senator William Jennings

Bryan once remarked: ‘‘Destiny is not

a matter of chance. It is a matter of

choice.’’ Our Constitution has endured

longer than any other on Earth, in

large part because we did not leave our

destiny to chance. Today, our Con-

stitution remains the longest lasting

Constitution in the world.

Our Founders, despite their many

disagreements, made the crucial choice

that this new Constitution would not

lead to the creation of an all-powerful

King. They came from places where

they had done that, been there, and

they didn’t want to go through that

again. Instead, the Constitution cre-

ated three separate, coequal branches

of government—an executive branch, a

legislative branch, and a judicial

branch. This ingenious system would

ensure that a future President with the

impulses of a King would be restrained

by the other two branches.

The Constitution also provided an-

other backstop against abuses from a

future President who committed trea-

son, bribery, or other high crimes and

misdemeanors. That constitutional

backstop is called impeachment.

As we consider the impeachment of

Donald J. Trump, I ask my colleagues

to remember that while we are here

today because of the conduct of one

man, the Constitution that guides us

through these choppy waters some 233

years later is the triumph and wisdom

of many men. We are here because of

patriots like Washington, Adams, Jef-

ferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton,

and many others who lived under the

harsh rule of a King and fought for the

freedom to govern themselves.

Our Constitution gives the House of

Representatives the sole power of im-

peachment, while the Senate has the

sole power to conduct a trial in the

event the House impeaches a sitting

President.

We are now at the end of the im-

peachment trial of Donald J. Trump. It

is not the trial that many of us had

hoped for. We had hoped for a fair trial.

The American people deserve a fair

trial. A fair trial has witnesses. A fair

trial has evidence.

I don’t believe that history will be

kind to those who have and continue to

prevent the truth from coming to light

during this trial. The American people

deserve to know the truth, as does this

jury, the Members of the United States

Senate.

President Lincoln once said:

I am a firm believer in the people. If given

the truth, they can be depended upon to

meet any national crisis.

Thomas Jefferson said something

very similar to that. He said that if the

people know the truth, they won’t

make a mistake.

The same is true of the Senate. If

given the truth, we, too, can be de-

pended upon to meet this crisis and do

the right thing. I believe the truth will

not only set us free but keep us free.

We now have an obligation to con-

sider the evidence presented by House

managers and the President’s defense

team related to two Articles of Im-

peachment—one, abuse of power; two,

obstruction of Congress.

The House managers have presented

a case that is a result of a 3-month-

long investigation during which the

House Intelligence Committee issued

scores of subpoenas for documents and

testimony. Donald Trump obstructed

this process from the start. No Presi-

dent—not even President Richard

Nixon during Watergate—has ever

issued an order to direct a witness to

refuse to cooperate in an impeachment

inquiry. As a result of this unprece-

dented obstruction, the Trump admin-

istration did not provide a single docu-

ment to the House of Representatives—

not one.

Fortunately, those 17 brave public

servants, many of whom risked their

careers, came forward to testify under

oath, and here is what we learned from

them.

Donald Trump used the powers of his

office to pressure the Government of

Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 elec-

tion on his behalf and to smear his

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most feared political opponent, our

former colleague, former Vice Presi-

dent Joe Biden. Donald Trump did this

by illegally withholding funds appro-

priated by Congress to help an ally,

Ukraine, in the midst of a hot war

against Russia. Donald Trump did this

by withholding a coveted White House

meeting from the newly elected Presi-

dent of Ukraine, President Zelensky.

This President illegally withheld the

funds and a meeting until President

Zelensky merely announced sham in-

vestigations involving Vice President

Joe Biden and a debunked conspiracy

theory that Ukraine, not Russia, inter-

fered in the 2016 election. And when he

got caught in the midst of this corrupt

scheme, President Trump even called

for other foreign nations to interfere

on his behalf in the upcoming 2020 elec-

tion.

While I believe the evidence against

Donald Trump is overwhelming, like

any criminal defendant, he is entitled

to a robust defense.

Many of us listened carefully to the

President’s defense team over the

course of his 2-week trial. Not once did

the President’s defense team rebut the

facts of the case. Not once did they de-

fend their client’s character or call an

eyewitness who could contradict the

assertions made by witnesses who tes-

tified under oath. Not once did we hear

the President’s defense team say: Of

course, the President wouldn’t use the

weight of the Federal Government to

smear his political rival.

What did we hear? Instead, we heard

distractions, conspiracy theories, un-

founded smears about Vice President

Biden—our former colleague—and his

family. Instead, we heard a farfetched

legal theory that Presidents cannot be

impeached for soliciting foreign inter-

ference in our elections if they believe

their own reelection is in the national

interest.

I believe the House managers proved

their case, and there now appears to be

some bipartisan agreement that the

President abused his power. Still, does

this merit conviction and removal

from office? Think about that.

Our Constitution, agreed to in 1787,

sought to establish ‘‘a more perfect

Union’’—not a perfect union, ‘‘a more

perfect Union.’’ The hard work toward

a more perfect union did not end when

Delaware became the first State to rat-

ify the Constitution on December 7,

1787. In truth, it had only just begun.

We went on as a nation to enact the

Bill of Rights, abolish slavery, give

women the right to vote, and much,

much more.

Throughout our history, each genera-

tion of Americans has sought to im-

prove our government and our country

because, after all, we are not perfect.

In the words of Senator Bryan, we do

not leave our destiny to chance. We

make it a matter of choice. And we

choose to make this a more perfect

union, a reflection that the hard work

begun in Philadelphia in 1787 is never—

never—truly complete.

Our Constitution has weathered a

Civil War, World War I, World War II,

Vietnam, Watergate, a Great Depres-

sion, a great recession, death of Presi-

dents, assassination of Presidents, and,

yes, impeachment of Presidents. Our

Constitution will weather this storm

too.

A vote to acquit this President does

not exonerate this President. A vote to

acquit effectively legalizes the corrup-

tion of our elections—the very founda-

tion under our democratic process. A

vote to acquit says to the President,

and to all who follow, that you may use

the powers of the office to solicit for-

eign interference in our elections—the

very thing that the Founding Fathers

feared. A vote to acquit is the realiza-

tion of our Founders’ worst fears: leav-

ing a President with the impulses of a

King, unchecked by the other coequal

branches of government and undeterred

by the prospect of impeachment.

Donald Trump violated his oath. He

broke the law. He attempted to cheat

in the 2020 election, and when he got

caught, he left little doubt that he will

cheat again. That is not the conduct

we expect of an American President.

That is the conduct of someone who be-

lieves that he or she is above the law.

Donald Trump is our President. He is

not our King.

So colleagues, if our destiny is to re-

main the most enduring democracy in

the history of the world, we must not

leave this to be a matter of chance. We

must choose to preserve and protect

our Constitution, and, to do so, we

must convict Donald Trump on both

Articles of Impeachment and remove

him from office.

As he left the Constitutional Conven-

tion in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was

asked this question we heard asked

several times in the last 2 weeks on

this floor. He was asked: ‘‘What do we

have, [what do we have here] a mon-

archy or a republic?’’ Franklin an-

swered famously: ‘‘A republic, if you

can keep it.’’

Today I want to pose the same ques-

tion to all of us, to our colleagues, in

this Chamber: What do we have here, a

monarchy or a Republic? I guess we

can all answer for ourselves, but I want

to leave you with my answer today.

Here it is. We have a Republic, and I in-

tend to keep it.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Virginia.

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise

also to discuss the pending matter, the

serious matter of impeachment.

President Trump schemed to get

Ukraine to help him win the 2020 elec-

tion by strong-arming its new Presi-

dent to announce a bogus investigation

against a political opponent. To carry

out his scheme, he smeared, fired, and

threatened a dedicated career ambas-

sador, thwarted Congress by secretly

withholding appropriated military aid

over the advice of his national security

team, violated two laws in order to

hide his actions, outsourced critical

foreign policy to a rogue private attor-

ney, hurt an American ally, gratified

an adversary, and overturned long-

standing precedent regarding the rela-

tionship between the executive and leg-

islative branches. The scheme was so

repellant that numerous members of

his own administration fought against

it, and then, when they could not stop

it themselves, courageously brought it

to light.

The House managers have proven

both Articles of Impeachment. But I

have struggled during the Senate proc-

ess—which cannot be called a trial due

to the shocking refusal to allow key

witnesses and documents—with a basic

question: Is it an abuse of trust for a

President to behave exactly as ex-

pected?

President Trump’s behavior has been

appalling, but it has not been a sur-

prise. The American people knew that

Donald Trump would seek foreign help

to win an election. He publicly did so

in 2016 by appealing to Russia for help

at the same time as our Chairman of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Russia

was America’s chief adversary. That he

is doing so again is no surprise.

The American public knew that Don-

ald Trump would target political oppo-

nents with false attacks. He publicly

did so in 2016 by leading crowds in

chants of ‘‘Lock her up.’’ That he will

again target perceived opponents,

Democrats or Republicans, Ambas-

sadors or whistleblowers, Representa-

tives or Senators, war heros or teenage

environmental activists, is no surprise.

The American public knew that Don-

ald Trump would obstruct the release

of information. He publicly did so in

2016, when he violated longstanding

practice by refusing to release his tax

returns. That he will continue to ob-

struct Congress, the media, and the

American public is no surprise.

His bigotry is no surprise. His lying

is no surprise. His lack of ethics is no

surprise. His xenophobia is no surprise.

His misogyny is no surprise. His obses-

sive selfishness is no surprise. His hate-

ful, divisive, and ignorant rhetoric is

no surprise.

But Presidential impeachment was

not designed to remove an amoral lead-

er that the Nation had knowingly and

willingly elected. It was designed to

rescue the Nation from a leader who

abuses the public trust. Can one abuse

the public trust by behaving exactly as

expected?

The Senate impeachment process an-

swered my question. In 1974, Senators

of both parties were willing to con-

demn extreme Presidential mis-

conduct. In 1999, Senators of both par-

ties were able to distinguish between

unacceptable personal behavior and

‘‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors.’’ But

in 2020, the Senate majority engineered

an effort to conceal the truth rather

than find the truth. Some described

their motives as ‘‘let the people de-

cide,’’ even as they voted to hide crit-

ical evidence from the American peo-

ple.

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES832 February 4, 2020

While the President’s actions have

not been surprising, the Senate’s capit-

ulation has surprised me. And last Fri-

day, as the majority repeatedly

blocked the effort to consider witnesses

and documents, I had a sad epiphany.

Unchallenged evil spreads like a virus.

We have allowed a toxic President to

infect the Senate and warp its behav-

ior, and now the Senate’s refusal to

allow a fair trial threatens to spread a

broader anxiety about whether ‘‘impar-

tial justice’’ is a hollow fiction. An ac-

quittal will lead to worse conduct.

I will not be part of this continual

degradation of public trust; thus, I will

vote to convict.

An acquittal will, however, under-

score a higher principle. The removal

of a man will not remove the moral

void he exemplifies. Instead, every day,

people of good will must engage as

never before and show to ourselves and

to the world that Americans still have

the capacity to choose right over

wrong, service over self, fact over fic-

tion, and decency over malice.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will call the roll.

The bill clerk proceeded to call the

roll.

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I ask

unanimous consent that the order for

the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, tomor-

row afternoon, the Senate will vote to

acquit President Trump in these im-

peachment proceedings. That is the

right thing to do. That is the decision

that comports with both the facts and

the law.

These impeachment proceedings

began in the House of Representatives

in a thoroughly partisan affair, driven

by House Democrats, without allowing

the President to participate in cross-

examining witnesses and calling de-

fense witnesses.

When the matter came to the Senate,

the Senate was obligated to do much

better. We had an obligation under the

Constitution to conduct a fair trial,

and that is what the Senate has done.

Over the course of the last 2 weeks, we

have heard hour upon hour upon hour

of argument. The House proceeding

heard testimony from 18 different wit-

nesses. The Senate saw 193 video clips

of witness testimony presented here on

the Senate floor. The Senate posed 180

separate questions from Senators to

the House managers or the White

House defense team. Within the record

were over 28,000 pages of documents, in-

cluding the single most important evi-

dence in this case, which is the actual

transcript of the conversation at issue

between President Trump and the

President of Ukraine. The Trump ad-

ministration, to the astonishment of

everyone, declassified that transcript

and released it to the world so that we

can read precisely what was said in

that conversation.

The reason acquittal is the right de-

cision is that the House managers

failed to prove their case. They failed

to demonstrate that they satisfied the

constitutional standard of high crimes

and misdemeanors. The text of the

Constitution provides that a President

may be impeached for ‘‘Treason, Brib-

ery, or other high Crimes and Mis-

demeanors.’’ The House managers fell

woefully short of that standard. In-

deed, in the Articles of Impeachment

they sent over here, they don’t allege

any crime whatsoever. They don’t even

allege a single Federal law that the

President violated.

An awful lot of Americans looking at

these proceedings have heard a lot of

noise, have heard a lot of screaming,

but are left wondering, What was this

all about?

If you examine the substance, there

are two things that the House man-

agers allege the President did wrong.

One, they allege that the President

wrongfully delayed aid to Ukraine,

and, two, they allege that the Presi-

dent wrongfully asked for an investiga-

tion into a political rival. Both of

those are legitimate ends.

Let me address them one at a time

because there is a deep irony in the ar-

gument of the House managers. Both of

those objectives are consistent with

law, are permissible and legal, and both

of those objectives have been done, by

any measure, substantially worse by

the preceding administration, by the

Obama administration.

Let’s take delaying aid to Ukraine. I

am a big believer in America standing

with Ukraine. Indeed, I traveled to

Ukraine. I went to the Maidan Square

and stood with protesters who had been

shot down by their government as the

protesters stood for freedom.

I believe military aid to Ukraine is a

good thing, and it is true that the

Trump administration temporarily de-

layed aid to Ukraine. That is their

right to do so. Presidents have delayed

foreign aid before. The Trump adminis-

tration has done so with regard to a

number of countries. The Obama ad-

ministration did so before that. Pre-

vious administrations have done so.

But we heard hour upon hour of the

House managers trying to establish the

proposition that aid to Ukraine was de-

layed when President Trump admits

aid to Ukraine was delayed. There is no

dispute about it.

We heard testimony about how

Ukrainians died because aid was de-

layed. Here is the irony: If you support

aid to Ukraine, as I do, military aid to

Ukraine as they stand up to Russia,

there is no dispute whatsoever that, for

the entirety of his Presidency, Presi-

dent Obama refused to give lethal mili-

tary aid, defensive aid, to Ukraine, de-

spite the fact that I and other Members

of this body called on President Obama

to give aid to Ukraine. I remember

when we all went to the floor of the

House of Representatives to hear a

speech to a joint session of Congress

from President Poroshenko, then the

President of Ukraine, where the Presi-

dent of Ukraine called out the Obama

administration because they were send-

ing blankets and MREs—meals. And

President Poroshenko rightly said that

you can’t fight a Russian tank with a

blanket.

So if the House managers are right

that there is something improper about

delaying military aid, the Obama ad-

ministration did so for the entirety of

the administration. What did President

Trump do? He did something Obama

never did: He provided lethal defensive

military aid—Javelin missiles that can

take out Russian tanks.

The first ground they allege, of de-

laying aid, is legal and permissible, and

by any measure, the Trump adminis-

tration’s record on it is much, much

better than the Obama administra-

tion’s.

How about the second ground: direct-

ing an investigation into your political

rival. The most important legal ques-

tion in this proceeding, the question

that resolves this proceeding, is this:

Does the President have the constitu-

tional authority to investigate credible

allegations of corruption?

The House managers built their case

on the proposition that seeking an in-

vestigation into Burisma, the corrupt

Ukrainian natural gas company, and

Joe Biden and Hunter Biden—seeking

any investigation into whether there

was corruption was, in the words of the

House managers, ‘‘baseless,’’ ‘‘a sham,’’

and utterly ‘‘without merit.’’ In their

opening arguments, the House man-

agers spent over 2 hours trying to

make that case, and Madam President,

I will say, on the face of it, that propo-

sition is objectively absurd.

The White House legal defense team

laid out, in considerable detail, that

there was very substantial evidence of

corruption. Burisma is a company that

was built on corruption. The oligarch

who started Burisma, Mr. Zlochevsky,

was the sitting energy minister in

Ukraine, and he amassed his billions

by, as the sitting energy minister, giv-

ing gas licenses to his own company

that he was head of. That is where

Burisma made their money. It was a

company built on corruption from day

one.

Now, I think it is worth pausing and

examining the timeline of what oc-

curred because, remember, the House

managers’ case is that it is baseless

and a sham to even investigate corrup-

tion.

In early 2014, Vice President Joe

Biden was named the point person for

the Obama administration on Ukraine.

In April—on April 13 of 2014—Devon Ar-

cher, business partner of Hunter Biden,

the son of Joe Biden, joined the board

of Burisma and began being paid a mil-

lion dollars a year. On April 28, Brit-

ain’s securities fraud bureau freezes $23

million in accounts controlled by

Zlochevsky, the oligarch who owned

Burisma. Then, just 2 weeks later, on

May 12, Hunter Biden, the son of Joe

Biden, is named to the board and paid

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S833 February 4, 2020

a million dollars a year, despite having

no background in oil and gas and no

discernible background in Ukraine.

Hunter Biden gets paid a million dol-

lars a year, and Joe Biden actively, ag-

gressively, vigorously leads the Obama

administration’s policies on Ukraine.

Now, the House managers were asked

in questioning: What exactly did Hun-

ter Biden do for his million dollars a

year? They refused to answer that.

That is a perfectly reasonable question

to ask if you are investigating corrup-

tion. Joe Biden is seen on video not

just admitting but bragging that he

told the President of Ukraine he would

personally block a billion dollars in

foreign aid loan guarantees unless

Ukraine fired the prosecutor who was

investigating Burisma, the company

paying his son a million dollars a year.

As Joe Biden bragged on that video,

‘‘Well, son of a bitch,’’ they fired him.

Now, that, on its face, raises signifi-

cant issues of potential corruption. We

don’t know for sure if there was, in

fact, corruption, but when President

Trump asked that it be investigated to

get to the bottom of what happened,

the President has the authority to in-

vestigate corruption, and there was

more than sufficient basis to do so.

Of course, the House managers are

right that it is somehow illegitimate,

it is somehow inappropriate—it is, in

fact, impeachable—to seek the inves-

tigation of your political rival.

We know for a fact that the Obama

administration not only sought the in-

vestigation but aggressively led an in-

vestigation marred by abuse of power,

going after then-Candidate Trump, in-

cluding wiretaps, including fraudu-

lently obtained court documents and

court warrants from the FISA Court.

Impeachment is an extraordinary

remedy. It is not designed for when you

disagree. It is not designed for when

you have political differences or policy

differences. It is designed for when a

President crosses the constitutional

threshold.

On February 6, 1974, the Democratic

Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter

Rodino, Democrat from New Jersey

who led the impeachment inquiry into

Richard Nixon, told his colleagues:

Whatever the result, whatever we learn or

conclude, let us now proceed, with such care

and decency and thoroughness and honor

that the vast majority of the American peo-

ple, and their children after them, will say:

This was the right course. There was no

other way.

That was the standard that led to an

overwhelming bipartisan vote to open

the impeachment proceeding against

Richard Nixon. That standard was not

remotely followed by the House man-

agers. This was a partisan impeach-

ment, and we are right now in an elec-

tion year. The voters are voting, and it

is up to the voters to decide which poli-

cies they want to continue. The House

managers have abused the constitu-

tional process by trying to use im-

peachment to settle a partisan score.

That is divisive to the country, and I

am proud that this body will vote—and

I hope in a bipartisan way—to reject

these Articles of Impeachment, to ac-

quit the President, and to find Presi-

dent Trump not guilty of the articles

the House has sent over.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs.

APITO

). The Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I

will vote against each of the House

Democrats’ Articles of Impeachment,

and I would like to explain why.

The House Democrats’ impeachment

proceedings and their Articles of Im-

peachment were and are fatally flawed.

My friends, the House Democrats, say

that the President is out of control.

What they really mean is that the

President is out of their control. And

that is not grounds for impeachment.

First, the process. The House Demo-

crats’ impeachment proceedings were

rigged. Speaker P

ELOSI

and the House

Democratic leadership decided before

they even began to give President

Trump a fair and impartial firing

squad. Speaker P

ELOSI

and the House

Democrats’ judicial philosophy from

the very beginning was guilty. That is

why much of the proceedings were held

in secret.

Democracy, they say, dies in dark-

ness, and I believe it. That is why the

House Democrats hid the identity of

the original accuser, the so-called

whistleblower, thus prohibiting the

American people from being able to

judge the accuser’s motives. That is

also why the House Democrats pre-

vented the President and his counsel

from cross-examining the House Demo-

crats’ witnesses, from offering his own

witnesses, from offering rebuttal evi-

dence, and even from being able to

challenge the House Democrats’ evi-

dence. The House Democrats wouldn’t

even allow the President or his counsel

to attend critical parts of the impeach-

ment proceedings.

The U.S. Senate cannot and should

not consider an impeachment based on

such a deficient record. It is true that

in America no one is above the law, but

no one is beneath it either. Fairness

matters in our country.

The House Democrats’ impeachment

is also flawed because it is a partisan

impeachment. Its genesis is partisan

rage. Not a single, solitary House Re-

publican voted for the Articles of Im-

peachment—not one.

The House Democrats made a con-

scious decision to turn impeachment

into a routine Washington, DC, polit-

ical weapon, to normalize it. Our coun-

try’s Founders were concerned about

impeachments based on partisan rage

and our country’s Founders were ada-

mantly opposed. That is why in the

Constitution they required a two-

thirds vote of the Senate to impeach.

Now, a word about the substance of

the House Democrats’ Articles of Im-

peachment. The House Democrats ac-

cused the President of obstruction of

justice. Why? Because he chose to as-

sert executive privilege and testi-

monial immunity when the House

Democrats sought testimony and docu-

ments from some of the President’s

closest aides. Anyone who knows a law-

book from a J. Crew catalog does not

take this charge seriously. Executive

privilege and testimonial immunity

are well-established, constitutionally

based Presidential and executive

branch privileges that every President

at one time or another has asserted.

The proper course by the House Demo-

crats in the face of the assertion of

these privileges was to seek judicial re-

view—go see a judge to seek judicial

review from our third branch of gov-

ernment, which then would have bal-

anced the policies underlining the

privileges against the public interest of

overriding the privileges. But House

Democrats chose not to do that. They

cannot now complain.

The House Democrats also accused

President Trump of abuse of power. If

you listen carefully to their allega-

tions, you will see that they don’t real-

ly argue that the President of the

United States did not and does not

have the inherent authority to pause

U.S. foreign aid to Ukraine until

Ukraine agreed to investigate corrup-

tion. That is clearly within the author-

ity of the President of the United

States.

Instead, the House Democrats, claim-

ing to be able to read the President’s

mind, say that the President did it

with a corrupt motive because the in-

vestigation of corruption was against

former Vice President Joe Biden, a po-

litical rival. But the President didn’t

get Joe Biden’s name out of a

phonebook. Why did the President ask

for an investigation involving former

Vice President Biden? Four words:

Hunter Biden and Burisma.

Now, these are the facts. President

Obama put Vice President Biden in

charge of the foreign affairs of our

country for two other countries,

Ukraine and China. And in both in-

stances, the former Vice President’s

son, Hunter Biden, promptly walked

away with millions of dollars in con-

tracts from politically connected com-

panies in those two countries, includ-

ing Burisma Holdings. The message

that this behavior sent to the world

was that America’s foreign policy can

be bought like a sack of potatoes. No

fairminded person can argue that an

investigation of this possible corrup-

tion was not in the national interest.

The House Democrats’ impeachment

proceedings and their Articles of Im-

peachment are an example of swamped-

up Washington, DC, both procedurally

and substantively. On the basis of par-

tisan rage—partisan rage coursing

through their veins—the House Demo-

crats seek to annul the 134 million

Americans who voted in the 2016 Presi-

dential election, which resulted in the

Trump Presidency, and to do so when a

new Presidential election is just 10

months away. No one in the Milky Way

who is fairminded can believe this is

good for America. A nation as great as

ours deserves better.

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So to my Democratic friends, here is

what I say. The 2016 Presidential elec-

tion is over. Let it go. Put aside your

partisan rage. Stop regretting yester-

day, and instead, let’s try working to-

gether and creating tomorrow, because,

after all, the future is just a bunch of

things we do right now strung to-

gether.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Georgia.

Mr. PERDUE. Madam President, in

Federalist Papers No. 65, which we

have heard referred to quite a bit in

the last 2 weeks, Alexander Hamilton

warned that the impeachment process

should never be used as a partisan po-

litical weapon. He said that impeach-

ment can ‘‘connect itself with the pre-

existing factions and will enlist all

their animosities, partialities, influ-

ence, and interest on one side or on the

other . . . in such cases there will al-

ways be the greatest danger that the

decision will be regulated more by the

comparative strength of the parties,

than by the real demonstrations of in-

nocence or guilt.’’

Today, unfortunately, over two cen-

turies later, Hamilton’s fears have be-

come reality. This current impeach-

ment process has never been about the

truth, justice, or the rule of law. For

my colleagues across the aisle, this is

only about overturning the 2016 elec-

tion, impacting the 2020 election, and

gaining the Senate majority.

From the start, this House process

has been totally illegitimate. The Arti-

cles of Impeachment that the House of

Representatives presented to us last

month were nothing more than the

fruit of a poisonous tree.

In America, we believe in the rule of

law. In America, we believe in due

process. In America, we believe anyone

has the right to a fair trial. In Amer-

ica, we believe anyone is innocent until

proven guilty. However, House Demo-

crats violated each of these

foundational precepts in using the im-

peachment process as a partisan polit-

ical weapon.

Throughout the course of the House

impeachment investigation, Democrats

repeatedly denied President Trump due

process and the fundamental rights of

the accused in America. Simply put,

what they did was not fair. They de-

nied him the right to have counsel, the

right to have witnesses, the right to

cross-examine their witnesses, the

right to see the evidence, and, lastly,

the right to face his accuser.

Contrast that with the last two

Presidents to face impeachment. The

grand jury investigation of Clinton and

the Watergate investigation of Nixon

were conducted in a fair manner, with

rights for the accused. No action was

taken by the House of Representatives

until the facts were clear and indis-

putable in both of those trials. When

these investigations were complete and

those two Presidents were found to

have committed a crime, impeachment

had bipartisan support, unlike this

time.

This investigation is entirely dif-

ferent. It was rushed and was totally

partisan, with not one single House Re-

publican voting for these two pitiful

Articles of Impeachment.

The impeachment trial in the Senate

has been going on for the past 11 days.

Unlike in the House, the Senate upheld

its constitutional duty to conduct a

fair trial. The Democratic House man-

agers had the opportunity to present

their case. Then, for the first time in

this sad affair, the President and his

team—his lawyers—had an opportunity

to present their case, their defense.

Neither article I, ‘‘abuse of power,’’

nor article II, ‘‘obstruction of Con-

gress,’’ qualify as constitutional rea-

sons for impeachment.

It is pretty simple. I am not a law-

yer, but if you look at the facts, it is

very direct. The Constitution clearly

lays out four explicit reasons for im-

peaching a President. Even corruption

does not qualify under these defini-

tions. It is very clear. They itemized

treason, bribery, high crimes, and mis-

demeanors. And they explained to us in

the hearings: Another translation in

modern terms, using the Old English

for misdemeanors, is crimes. It is an-

other word for crime.

The charges against President Trump

don’t come close to any of these speci-

fied requirements. It is as simple as

that. The House really was beginning

to make up new constitutional law.

Each of the other three Presidents who

has faced impeachment was charged

with committing a crime.

President Trump is the first Presi-

dent ever to face impeachment who

was never accused of any crime in

these proceedings, whatsoever. These

two Articles of Impeachment simply do

not qualify as reasons to impeach any

President. Further, Democratic House

managers did not prove their case for

either of the two Articles of Impeach-

ment.

The entire case for abuse of power is

centered around the June 25, 2019,

phone call between President Trump

and President Zelensky of Ukraine.

The Democrats allege President Trump

only asked for help in investigating the

Burisma situation for political gain. It

is clear now, after hearing all the testi-

mony, that the primary motivation to

ask Zelensky to look into the Biden-

Burisma corruption issue was to root

out corruption in the Ukraine. Ukraine

has had a long history of corruption

and this President was well within his

rights to ask for help in rooting out

this fairly obvious example of corrup-

tion. Democrats completely failed to

prove the President’s request was for

political gain only.

Regarding the obstruction of Con-

gress article, every President has the

right to exert executive privilege to

protect our national interests and the

separation of power. Honestly, this ar-

ticle should have never been received

in the Senate in the first place. We

should have dismissed this article out

of hand. It simply is absurd.

Arguing that President Trump ob-

structed Congress by claiming his

rights is unacceptable and would fun-

damentally weaken this right for fu-

ture Presidents. When President

Trump exerted executive privilege—his

right under the Constitution—Demo-

crats could simply have pursued the

subpoenas. That is the way the Found-

ers laid it out. They could have pur-

sued the subpoenas in court. For some

reason, the House Democrats chose not

to do that.

House Democrats were in such a rush

that they sent the Senate an incom-

plete case. That is why I believe the

Senate should not have accepted them

in the first place, because the process

was illegitimate, inappropriate, and in-

complete.

Bottom line: House Democrats sim-

ply did not do their job. In the Clinton

investigation, the House investigated

for over 400 days before they brought

Articles of Impeachment. There was a

conviction. In this case, it was barely

100.

The Democratic House managers

brought the Articles of Impeachment

and claimed they had overwhelming

proof. Immediately in their opening

statement, they had overwhelming

proof. However, right away, even with

that, they immediately demanded the

Senate call witnesses that the House

had already chosen not to call, like

John Bolton. They could have easily

called him but chose not to, claiming it

would take too long. Instead, they de-

manded that the Senate call additional

witnesses who were not included in the

House investigation.

The Constitution requires that the

House conduct the investigation, in-

cluding calling witnesses, taking depo-

sitions, collecting evidence, and the

Senate is charged to rule based on the

evidence the House provides.

This was designed this way for a very

specific reason, a very practical reason.

In the House, committees can inves-

tigate these charges while the rest of

the House continues to do their legisla-

tive work. Unfortunately, in the Sen-

ate, when Articles of Impeachment are

brought and sent to the Senate, the

Senate, by constitutional law, must

stop what it is doing, must open an im-

peachment hearing, and while in a for-

mal impeachment hearing, the Senate

cannot do anything else by law. It goes

into legislative shutdown by law.

In this case, if we were to call addi-

tional witnesses, then we would be set-

ting a dangerous precedent for every

future case. The House could theoreti-

cally make up any flimsy charge they

wanted, with no investigation, no wit-

nesses, no testimony, no evidence

whatsoever, and then send the articles

to the Senate and expect the Senate to

do their job. That is not what the

Founders wrote. That is not what they

had in mind. It would open up a pan-

dora’s box, shut the Senate down in-

definitely, and you can see why the

Founders did not want to go down that

road. That is now how they built this

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S835 February 4, 2020

process. For the sake of our very sys-

tem of government, we cannot yield to

this unconstitutional effort.

The House actually did call 17 wit-

nesses. They sent over 193 videos and

28,000 pages of documents. Ultimately,

a majority in this body concluded it

was unnecessary to hear from any of

those witnesses again. On top of that,

the impeachment rules do not require

the Senate to call witnesses. That is

the House’s job. It is just that simple.

Let’s be very clear. This entire im-

peachment process has been a purely

partisan political stunt perpetrated by

House Democrats. It truly is an embar-

rassment and exactly what Alexander

Hamilton warned us all against.

It is no secret—Democrats have been

trying to obstruct this President from

day one. On the day President Trump

was inaugurated, the headline of the

Washington Post—right here in town—

claimed ‘‘The Campaign to Impeach

this President has Begun.’’

House Democratic manager A

DAM

CHIFF

, in his opening remarks, said

you can’t trust elections. That is why

we have impeachments. Really? Real-

ly? That is absurd.

The President has done nothing to

warrant this impeachment process. He

must be acquitted. If we let House

Democrats get away with this today,

we are setting a dangerous precedent

for the future.

Already, we are in an era of impeach-

ment. In the first 180 years, we only

had one impeachment case that came

to the Senate and was investigated in

the House. In the last 45 years, we have

had three investigated by the House,

and two have actually made it to the

Senate. If we let Democrats improperly

use the impeachment process as a par-

tisan political weapon, then it will

only get worse in the future.

I call on my colleagues today—I

plead with my colleagues today—to re-

ject this unconstitutional effort and

vote to acquit Donald J. Trump of

these illegitimate and unconstitutional

Articles of Impeachment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Montana.

Mr. DAINES. Madam President, I rise

today in the very Chamber where just

three Presidential impeachment trials

have been held over the course of our

Nation’s history—President Johnson in

1868, President Clinton in 1999, and now

President Trump.

In fact, I sat at this desk the past 2

weeks listening to over 65 hours of trial

proceedings, and during that time, we

heard from 13 witnesses, and we viewed

193 video clips and 28,000-plus pages of

documentation. Senators, over a 16-

hour period, asked over 180 questions.

In the Senate, we took our solemn duty

seriously.

If there is one thing to be remem-

bered from this trial for generations to

come, it is this: Sadly, over the course

of our country’s 244-year history, never

has our Nation faced such a partisan

abuse of power. Never has the Senate

been faced with Articles of Impeach-

ment that allege no crimes in an at-

tempt to remove a duly elected Presi-

dent of the United States from office.

Never before have we seen such a par-

tisan Presidential impeachment proc-

ess.

In 1974, when President Nixon faced

impeachment—Nixon, a Republican—

177 House Republicans joined Demo-

crats in support of the impeachment

inquiry. During President Clinton’s im-

peachment—a Democrat—31 Democrats

joined House Republicans. But with

President Trump, there were zero. Not

one Republican supported it. In fact,

there were some Democrats who op-

posed it. So, to be clear, there was ac-

tually bipartisan opposition.

This impeachment is an unprece-

dented, purely partisan threat to the

Constitution. Our Founding Fathers,

the Framers of our great Constitution,

understood what the power of impeach-

ment meant when they gave it to Con-

gress after great deliberation.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madi-

son feared—they feared—congressional

abuse of power and legislative tyranny

as they debated whether to include the

power of impeachment in the Constitu-

tion because the Founders knew the re-

moval of a President from office

amounted to a political death sentence.

In Federalist 65, Hamilton warns that

the House could be ‘‘intemperate,’’ was

the word he used, and abuse their ma-

jority. He proclaimed that the Senate

would be—and I use his words—

‘‘unawed and uninfluenced,’’ the ‘‘inde-

pendent’’ institution to determine

whether a House impeachment was

warranted.

The Founders had the wisdom to es-

tablish a two-thirds Senate vote

threshold to help ensure that removal

could not be achieved by mere partisan

politics. The Founders established that

the thermonuclear option of impeach-

ment must be bipartisan to safeguard

not just the President from unwar-

ranted removal but, importantly, to

protect the will of the American people

who elected the President in the first

place.

Unfortunately, N

ANCY

ELOSI

, A

DAM

CHIFF

, and House Democrats have

done exactly what the Founding Fa-

thers feared. They have ignored what

House manager and the chairman of

the House Judiciary Committee, J

ERRY

ADLER

, himself correctly observed

during the 1998 Clinton impeachment

when he stated:

There must never be a narrowly voted im-

peachment or an impeachment substantially

supported by one of our major political par-

ties and largely opposed by the other. Such

an impeachment would lack legitimacy.

That was J

ERRY

ADLER

in 1998.

Unfortunately, N

ANCY

ELOSI

’s House

of Representatives discarded N

ADLER

’s

very wise words, and they stubbornly

defied historical precedent by rushing

these Articles of Impeachment, driven

by a Christmas deadline, on a purely

partisan vote and sending it to the

Senate.

The Democrats’ decision was a mis-

take, and it has only further divided

our Nation at a time when we need to

be working together. It was wrong, and

it has damaged our country. We now

need to fear for future Presidents,

Democrats or Republicans, who will

hold the oath of office in this newly

hyperpartisan era.

Importantly, for the first time in our

Nation’s history, the Articles of Presi-

dential Impeachment passed by N

ANCY

ELOSI

’s House accuse President

Trump of no crimes, let alone dem-

onstrate the President’s actions war-

ranted removal from office.

This partisan and weak case from the

House managers proves what this im-

peachment has always been about—it

is about purely partisan politics. This

impeachment has been nothing more

than an attempt to overturn the 2016

Presidential election and to severely

impact the 2020 election.

By the way, if we were to convict the

President of either one of these arti-

cles, one or both, he literally would be

removed not only from office but from

the 2020 ballot.

Speaking of the 2020 ballot, the 2020

election is already underway. Just yes-

terday, Americans cast their votes in

Iowa for President of the United

States. In fact, last Friday, Montanans

submitted signatures and filed the pa-

perwork to place President Trump on

the Montana ballot for the 2020 elec-

tion.

Sadly, it is no surprise that we are in

this situation today. You see, the

Democrats have been obsessed with im-

peaching President Trump since before

he was even sworn into office. They

could not accept the fact that Donald

Trump won the 2016 election.

On December 15, 2016, just 5 weeks

following the 2016 Presidential elec-

tion, there was a headline from Vanity

Fair, and I quote it: ‘‘Democrats are

Paving the Way to Impeach Donald

Trump.’’

On January 20—now, when I think of

January 20, 2017, I think about the day

the President was inaugurated, which

it was—the Washington Post headline

read ‘‘The campaign to impeach Presi-

dent Trump has begun.’’ This article

was posted 19 minutes—just 19 min-

utes—after President Trump was sworn

into office.

It gets worse. Ten days later, on Jan-

uary 30, 2017, the attorney for the whis-

tleblower who was talked about during

the trial—the whistleblower’s attor-

ney, 10 days after President Trump was

inaugurated back in 2017, said this in a

tweet: ‘‘Coup has started. First of

many steps. Rebellion. Impeachment

will follow immediately.’’ That was the

attorney for the whistleblower who

really started this entire impeachment

process.

We have even seen some House Demo-

crats publicly state that the only way

to beat President Trump in the next

election is to impeach him.

Our Founding Fathers would be

grieved by the careless use of this most

powerful tool against the Presidency.

Impeachment is not a tool to overturn

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the results of a past election. It is not

a tool to change the outcome of an up-

coming election.

You see, in America, the power of our

government doesn’t come from 100 Sen-

ators in this body or a handful of law-

makers; our power is derived from the

people whom we serve. This grand

American experiment of our demo-

cratic Republic is built upon the idea

of a government of, by, and for the peo-

ple.

Montanans elected me to represent

them in the U.S. Senate, to be their

voice on this floor and in Washington,

DC. Montanans overwhelmingly oppose

this impeachment. Montanans stand

with President Trump. In fact, Presi-

dent Trump won Montana by over 20

points in the 2016 election. Supporting

this impeachment means ignoring the

voices of Montanans who voted for

President Trump in the last election,

and it means silencing Montanans who

plan to vote for President Trump in the

2020 election.

Keep in mind—never before has the

U.S. Senate ever removed a President

from office, and it is not going to hap-

pen now.

I am voting to acquit President Don-

ald J. Trump.

For the good of our country, let it be

seared in our minds forevermore: Im-

peachment must never ever again be

used as a partisan weapon.

I encourage my colleagues on both

sides of the aisle to fully understand

the magnitude of what this would

mean for our country. This is the first

purely partisan impeachment in our

Nation’s history, and it must be our

last. It should be up to the American

people to decide who their next Presi-

dent is, not the U.S. Senate.

The answer is an election, not im-

peachment.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from South Dakota.

Mr. ROUNDS. Madam President,

today, I rise to discuss the decision on

whether to remove the President from

office based on the Articles of Impeach-

ment sent to us by the House of Rep-

resentatives.

Our Founding Fathers included im-

peachment—effectively overturning

the will of the American electorate—to

be used only as a last resort. They

trusted the Senate, requiring more sol-

emn judgment than their counterparts

in the House, to decide whether an alle-

gation by the House has the substan-

tiality to require removal from office.

According to ‘‘Commentaries on the

Constitution’’ by Joseph Story, the

Framers saw the Senate as a tribunal

‘‘removed from popular power and pas-

sions . . . and from the more dangerous

influence of mere party spirit,’’ guided

by ‘‘a deep responsibility to future

times.’’

This impeachment process, driven by

partisan desire, was rushed and lacked

any proper form and substance. This is

an attempt by the House to undo the

results of the 2016 election and impact

the 2020 election.

Article II, section 4 of the Constitu-

tion states: ‘‘The President, Vice Presi-

dent and all civil Officers of the United

States, shall be removed from Office on

Impeachment for, and Conviction of,

Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes

and Misdemeanors.’’

During the debates at the Federal

Convention of 1787, James Madison,

Alexander Hamilton, and others relied

heavily on Sir William Blackstone’s

work, ‘‘Commentaries on the Law of

England,’’ which Madison described as

‘‘a book which is in every man’s hand.’’

Within his work, Blackstone dis-

cussed ‘‘high misdemeanors,’’ which in-

cluded many crimes against the King

and government, including maladmin-

istration. According to Blackstone,

maladministration applied to high offi-

cers in public trust and employment

and was punished by the method of par-

liamentary impeachment. It is from

this understanding that the Framers

selected ‘‘high Crimes and Mis-

demeanors’’ for the impeachment

clause in our Constitution.

The term ‘‘high Crimes and Mis-

demeanors’’ had a limited and tech-

nical meaning that was well known to

the Framers. It was a term of art. As

early as 14th century England, high

crimes and misdemeanors were a cat-

egory of political crimes against the

State and were tried in parliamentary

impeachments. It should be understood

that the word ‘‘high’’ in high crimes

and misdemeanors is a modifying ad-

jective and also applies to the word

‘‘misdemeanors.’’

‘‘High misdemeanors’’ was applied in

impeachment proceedings conducted

by Parliament long before there was

such a crime as a misdemeanor as we

know it today. Misdemeanors alone re-

ferred to criminal sanctions for private

wrongs. High crimes and misdemeanors

were charged against officers of the

‘‘highest rank and favor with the

crown’’ or who were in ‘‘judicial or ex-

ecutive offices’’ and, because of their

stations, were unindictable by ordinary

rules of justice.

For those individuals who were not

indictable by the ordinary rules of jus-

tice, the Founding Fathers, in their

subtle brilliance, sought to have some-

thing akin to crimes and misdemeanors

that allowed them to impeach for great

and dangerous crimes committed

against the State.

As we know, the Founding Fathers

specifically adopted the phrase ‘‘high

crimes and misdemeanors.’’ The em-

phasis on high misdemeanors is impor-

tant in this context because the House

of Representatives has not alleged

treason, and they have not alleged

bribery. Their case rests on whether

the articles charged are the types of

high crimes and high misdemeanors in-

tended by our Framers.

In defining high misdemeanors,

Blackstone stated that ‘‘the first and

principal is the mal-administration of

such high officers.’’ However, the

Founding Fathers specifically chose

not to include maladministration as a

basis for impeachment.

When George Mason and James Madi-

son debated the specific language of

the impeachment clause, Mason stated:

Why is the provision restrained to treason

and bribery only? Treason as defined in the

Constitution will not reach many great and

dangerous offences. Hastings is not guilty of

Treason. Attempts to subvert the Constitu-

tion may not be Treason as above defined.

Mason then moved to add after brib-

ery, ‘‘or maladministration,’’ to which

Madison replied and I quote: ‘‘So vague

a term will be equivalent to a tenure

during pleasure of the Senate.’’

The Framers knew what they were

adopting when they chose ‘‘high crimes

and misdemeanors.’’ They explicitly

rejected maladministration and other

vague terms in favor of more specific

allegations, which had a limited and

technical meaning.

In the first Article of Impeachment

before the Senate, the question is

whether abuse of power as a charge on

its own is an impeachable offense.

The answer is no. Abuse of power

does not have a limited meaning and is

as vague as maladministration. The

Framers actually discussed abuse of

power and rejected it.

At the Virginia ratifying convention,

James Iredell, one of the first Supreme

Court Justices, stated:

No power of any kind or degree can be

given but what may be abused; we have,

therefore, only to consider whether any par-

ticular power is absolutely necessary. If it

be, the power must be given, and we must

run the risk of abuse.

In the first Article of Impeachment,

the House has claimed that the abuse

of power is within the scope of high

crimes and misdemeanors. I believe the

Founding Fathers saw abuse of power

as an inherent risk within the delega-

tion of that authority. The Framers

did not intend impeachment pro-

ceedings to be brought every time an

abuse of power is alleged.

In the second Article of Impeach-

ment, the House alleges the President

obstructed Congress when he refused to

comply with congressional subpoenas.

The President rejected the legitimacy

of those subpoenas. The House then

failed to pursue redress through the

courts, rejecting the court’s rightful

role in settling disputes between the

two branches of government.

The separation of powers doctrine

recognized executive privilege as a law-

ful exercise for the President to protect

both Presidential and deliberative

process communications. The House

showed a deliberate disregard for the

proper role of the judicial branch and

now expects the Senate to gather evi-

dence after they have already im-

peached.

Alleging an obstruction of Congress

charge before the House exhausted its

remedy for judicial relief would change

the balance of power between our co-

equal branches of government and ig-

nore the rightful place the courts hold

in arbitrating differences between the

executive and legislative branches.

No branch of government is above

the Constitution. We are obligated

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under oath of office to support and de-

fend it.

Article I, sections 2 and 3 of the Con-

stitution state ‘‘the House shall have

the sole Power of Impeachment,’’ and

‘‘[t]he Senate shall have the sole Power

to try all Impeachments.’’ The Fram-

ers intentionally separated these au-

thorities.

The Senate does not have the author-

ity to impeach; however, the Senate

does have the authority to judge the

sufficiency of articles presented to it.

The Senate, as a trier of facts, should

not overstep its role. It is the House’s

responsibility to bring the evidence to

make their case, not simply make an

allegation.

This does not mean that the Senate

cannot call witnesses, but it most cer-

tainly should not be the Senate’s obli-

gation to do so because the House

failed to do so in the first place.

Upon the founding of the Senate,

James Madison explained that the Sen-

ate would be a ‘‘necessary fence’’

against the ‘‘fickleness and passion’’

that tended to influence the attitudes

of the general public and Members of

the House of Representatives.

George Washington is said to have

told Thomas Jefferson that the Fram-

ers had created the Senate to ‘‘cool’’

House legislation, just as a saucer was

used to cool hot tea. For impeachment,

there can be no difference.

When the House is ignited by par-

tisan passions, eager to reach a desired

result, the Senate must be cool and

firm in its heightened review. In recog-

nizing the haste and half-hearted at-

tempt by our colleagues in the House,

the Senate must also recognize these

Articles of Impeachment to be wholly

insufficient and not warranting a re-

moval from office.

Let this decision lie in its rightful

place, with the electorate. The Senate

has conducted a fair, impartial trial.

We did our due diligence and fulfilled

our constitutional duty. Now it is time

to bring this process to a close and get

on with the business of the American

people who sent us here.

I will vote against the Articles of Im-

peachment, in keeping with the con-

stitutional intent our Framers ex-

pected.

Madam President, I ask unanimous

consent that citations to my remarks

be printed in the R

ECORD

There being no objection, the mate-

rial was ordered to be printed in the

ECORD

, as follows:

ITATIONS

1. According to Commentaries on the Con-

stitution by Joseph Story, the Framers saw

the Senate as a tribunal ‘‘removed from pop-

ular power and passions . . . and from the

more dangerous influence of mere party spir-

it,’’ guided by ‘‘a deep responsibility to fu-

ture times.’’ 2 Joseph Story, Commentaries

on the Constitution § 743 (1833).

2. During the debates of the Federal Con-

vention of 1787, James Madison, Alexander

Hamilton and others relied heavily on Sir

William Blackstone’s work, Commentaries

on the Laws of England, which Madison de-

scribed as ‘‘a book which is in every man’s

hand.’’ 3 The Debates in the Several State

Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal

Constitution, at 501 (Jonathan Elliot 2nd ed.

1987).

3. According to Blackstone, maladmin-

istration applied to high officers in public

trust and employment and was punished by

the method of parliamentary impeachment.

4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the

Laws of England, *122.

4. The term ‘‘high crimes and mis-

demeanors’’ had a limited and technical

meaning that was well-known to the fram-

ers. Raoul Berger, Impeachment: The Con-

stitutional Problems 74 (1973).

5. ‘‘High misdemeanors’’ was applied in im-

peachment proceedings conducted by par-

liament long before there was such a crime

as a ‘misdemeanor’ as we know it today. 4

Blackstone at *121.

6. ‘‘High misdemeanors’’ was applied in im-

peachment proceedings conducted by par-

liament long before there was such a crime

as a ‘misdemeanor’ as we know it today. Mis-

demeanors alone referred to criminal sanc-

tions for private wrongs. Berger at 61.

7. High crimes and misdemeanors were

charged against officers of the ‘‘highest rank

and favor with the crown’’ or who were in

‘‘judicial or executive offices’’ and because of

their stations, were un-indictable by ordi-

nary rules of justice. Berger at 60; See also

id. ‘‘The House of Lords was reminded of this

history by Serjeant Pengelly during the im-

peachment of Lord Chancellor Macclesfield

in 1725: your lordships are now exercising a

power of judicature reserved in the original

frame of the English constitution for the

punishment of offenses of a public nature,

which may affect the nation; as well in in-

stances where the inferior courts have no

power to punish the crimes committed by or-

dinary rules of justice; as in cases within the

jurisdiction of the courts of Westminster

Hall, where the person offending is by his de-

gree, raised above the apprehension of dan-

ger, from a prosecution carried on in the

usual course of justice; and whose exalted

station requires the united accusation of all

the Commons.’’

8. In defining high misdemeanors, Black-

stone stated ‘‘. . . the first and principal is

the mal-administration of such high officers

. . .’’ 4 Blackstone at *122.

9. When George Mason and James Madison

debated the specific language of the im-

peachment clause, Mason stated: ‘‘Why is

the provision restrained to treason and brib-

ery only? Treason as defined in the Constitu-

tion will not reach many great and dan-

gerous offences. Hastings is not guilty of

Treason. Attempts to subvert the Constitu-

tion may not be Treason as above defined.’’

2 The Records of the Federal Convention at

499. See also id: The impeachment of Warren

Hastings was a failed attempt between 1788

and 1795 to impeach the first Governor-Gen-

eral of Bengal in the Parliament of Great

Britain. Hastings was accused of misconduct

during his time in Calcutta particularly re-

lating to mismanagement and corruption.

10. Mason then moved to add after bribery,

‘‘or maladministration,’’ to which Madison

replied, ‘‘So vague a term will be equivalent

to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate.’’ 2

The Records of the Federal Convention at

499.

11. At the Virginia ratifying convention,

James Iredall, one of the first Justices of the

Supreme Court, stated: ‘‘No power of any

kind or degree can be given but what may be

abused; we have, therefore, only to consider

whether any particular power is absolutely

necessary. If it be, the power must be given,

and we must run the risk of abuse.’’ 4 The

Debates in the Several State Conventions on

the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, at

95 (Jonathan Elliot 2nd ed. 1987).

12. Upon the founding of the Senate, James

Madison explained that the Senate would be

a ‘‘necessary fence’’ against the ‘‘fickleness

and passion’’ that tended to influence the at-

titudes of the general public and members of

the House of Representatives. George Wash-

ington is said to have told Thomas Jefferson

that the framers had created the Senate to

‘cool’ House legislation, just as a saucer was

used to cool hot tea. U.S. Senate, ‘‘Senate

Created,’’ at http://www.senate.gov/

artandhistory/history/minute/Sen-

ate_Created.htm (January 3, 2020).

Mr. ROUNDS. I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from New Hampshire.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I

come to the floor this afternoon to ex-

press my profound disappointment.

This is a sad moment in our Nation’s

history. I, like all of us in the Senate,

came to this body to try and make a

difference for our constituents, to ad-

dress the kitchen table issues that af-

fect their everyday lives—lowering pre-

scription drug costs, rebuilding our

crumbling infrastructure, making col-

lege more affordable, protecting our

environment, helping our veterans,

supporting our small businesses—so

many of the things that I and others

here have worked on.

Critics have argued that the im-

peachment process is nothing more

than a political attack orchestrated by

those who have wanted to remove this

President since his election. I flatly re-

ject that argument.

I have repeatedly expressed my reluc-

tance to the use of impeachment. Un-

fortunately, it is this President’s dis-

turbing actions that have put us in this

position.

President Trump went to great

lengths to try and force the Ukrainian

President to help smear Joe Biden, his

political rival. This scheme included

withholding military aid and with-

holding a meeting at the White House

with the Ukrainian President.

Each of us here took an oath to sup-

port and defend the Constitution. The

Constitution requires us to do this job.

It tells us that the Senate shall have

‘‘the sole Power to try all Impeach-

ments.’’ After the power to declare

war, the power to impeach is among

the most serious and consequential

powers granted to Congress by our

founding document.

When we all stood here at the begin-

ning of this trial, we took an oath to do

‘‘impartial justice.’’ That should mean

a commitment to seek all of the facts.

A fair trial means documents and wit-

nesses, facts that will help us better

understand the truth.

Previous Senates understood this. In

fact, every Senate impeachment trial

in history included witnesses. Most re-

cently, in the Judge Porteous impeach-

ment trial in 2010, when I was one of

the Senators who served on that im-

peachment committee, we heard from

26 witnesses, 17 of whom had not testi-

fied before in the House. We believed

then that Senate witnesses were impor-

tant for impeachment of a Federal dis-

trict court judge. So why wouldn’t we

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want witnesses in something as impor-

tant as an impeachment of a sitting

President?

We know that documents exist that

could help shed more light on this case.

We also know of other witnesses with

additional firsthand information whom

we have yet to hear from. We have one

witness, in particular—former National

Security Advisor John Bolton, who has

told the world he has relevant informa-

tion and he is willing to testify.

Yet, despite all of that, the Senate,

on a partisan vote, refused to listen to

Ambassador Bolton or any other wit-

nesses. Members of this institution

have willfully turned their back on im-

portant, relevant, firsthand informa-

tion.

On the Articles of Impeachment be-

fore us, I have listened to the extensive

arguments from both the House man-

agers and the defense counsel for the

President. I believe the evidence clear-

ly shows that the President abused his

power—which has been acknowledged

by several Republican Senators—and

he obstructed Congress, which is why I

will be supporting both Articles of Im-

peachment.

On the first Article of Impeachment,

it is my strong view that the House

managers have proved that President

Trump withheld military aid and a

White House meeting from the Govern-

ment of Ukraine to further his own po-

litical interests in the upcoming Presi-

dential election and to damage the

candidacy of his opponent. The evi-

dence presented to the Senate was

overwhelming.

Further supporting the House man-

agers’ case, the independent Govern-

ment Accountability Office, the GAO,

concluded that the withholding of mili-

tary aid to Ukraine was improper and

illegal under the law. The nature of the

President’s offenses outlined in the ar-

ticles strike at the very heart of our

democratic system.

Our Founding Fathers were very con-

cerned about both foreign interference

in our democracy and the executive

abusing the powers of the office for

electoral gain. James Madison warned

of a President who ‘‘might betray his

trust to foreign powers.’’

George Washington, in his Farewell

Address, warned us all ‘‘to be con-

stantly awake, since history and expe-

rience prove that foreign influence is

one of the most baneful foes of repub-

lican government.’’

As a Senator who sits on the Armed

Services and Foreign Relations Com-

mittees, I am keenly aware of the seri-

ous national security interests that are

at stake here. This body, the Senate,

has been deeply supportive of an inde-

pendent Ukraine and a strong U.S.-

Ukraine relationship. I join with Sen-

ators from both sides of the aisle in

support of providing lethal assistance

to help Ukraine better defend itself

from Russian aggression. We continue

to do so because it is in our direct na-

tional security interest to support our

partner in the midst of an active war

with Russia, our adversary.

We know that Russia has serious de-

signs on Eastern Europe. They are

looking at ways to influence European

countries—former Soviet republics

where they think they can make in-

roads—and Ukraine is standing at the

wall between Eastern Europe and Rus-

sia.

I also joined the bipartisan leader-

ship of the Ukraine Caucus in writing a

letter expressing deep concerns over re-

ports that aid to Ukraine was being

held up. This September 2019 letter

clearly stated that the administra-

tion’s hold on assistance would do last-

ing damage to the Ukrainian military

and would undo the progress made by

Ukraine to defend itself. That was a bi-

partisan letter.

Putting our national security at risk

in order to secure personal political fa-

vors is an unacceptable abuse of power,

and that is why we are here today. In

response to the overwhelming evidence

presented by the House managers, the

President’s counsels failed to refute

these serious allegations. Their argu-

ments that President Trump was fo-

cused only on the national interest are

not supported by the facts. The Presi-

dent has never demonstrated an inter-

est in rooting out corruption in

Ukraine and has a troubling pattern of

personally seeking political dirt from

foreign governments. I worry that this

behavior will continue.

The 2020 election is 9 months away,

and the President continues to suggest

that he would consider receiving polit-

ical help from foreign governments.

Just recently, the President suggested

that China should also investigate the

Bidens.

Now, with respect to the second arti-

cle dealing with obstruction of justice,

the House managers have also pre-

sented overwhelming evidence that

President Trump obstructed the inves-

tigation into his conduct toward

Ukraine. The President has repeatedly

denied the House of Representatives’

constitutional authority to conduct an

impeachment inquiry. The President

ordered Federal agencies and officials

to ignore all requests for documents

and all subpoenas. Those agencies

obeyed the President’s order, and not a

single document was turned over to the

House. In total, nine witnesses called

by the House followed President

Trump’s order and refused to testify

under subpoena in the impeachment

proceedings. This is an unprecedented

attempt to thwart Congress’s constitu-

tional authority to exercise the im-

peachment power. Even President

Nixon instructed his White House staff

to voluntarily appear before Congress

and to testify under oath.

Despite the administration’s

stonewalling, many courageous offi-

cials did come forward to testify at

great personal and professional ex-

pense. I want to thank those who testi-

fied. Their bravery and commitment to

the truth should be commended. But if

the President is allowed to completely

stonewall congressional impeachment

investigations into executive branch

abuses, then the congressional power of

impeachment is meaningless.

As a Senator, I never imagined I

would have to participate in an im-

peachment trial of a sitting President.

These proceedings cause strain and di-

vision not just here in Congress but

across the country. I would much pre-

fer that Congress be engaged in the

critical bipartisan work that is needed

on important issues, things that can

improve lives across this country and

move our Nation forward. I hope that

this body will move on from this dis-

appointing day and will get back to the

business of the country.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs.

LACKBURN

). The clerk will call the

roll.

The senior assistant legislative clerk

proceeded to call the roll.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President,

I ask unanimous consent that the order

for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President,

the decision to remove a President at

any point in their term—particularly 9

months before an election—is not

something we should take lightly. Im-

peachment should not be a tool that

Congress uses to settle policy or per-

sonal disagreement. Instead, it should

only be used if a President engages in

misconduct so egregious that their

conviction and removal is necessary

and in the Nation’s best interest.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in Fed-

eralist 65 that the Founders chose the

Senate as ‘‘the most fit depositary of

this important trust’’ to make such a

weighty decision. They actually had

faith that this body could rise above

pure partisanship to conduct a fair

trial and reach a just verdict.

In this case, however, we could not

reach bipartisan agreement—not even

on how to conduct the trial. It is a fact

that, for the first time in this Nation’s

history, the Senate will render a ver-

dict in an impeachment hearing with-

out hearing from a single witness and

without reviewing key documents that

have been withheld by the executive

branch.

As recently as last Friday, OMB ad-

mitted it continues to withhold key

documents. Let me provide an exam-

ple. In a court filing, an OMB lawyer

wrote that 24 White House emails were

being withheld because they ‘‘reflect

communications’’ by the President,

Vice President, or top advisers on the

‘‘scope, duration, and purpose of the

hold on military assistance to

Ukraine.’’

Proceeding without such vital evi-

dence is a real mistake. I came to this

trial with an open mind, to listen to

the case presented by both sides and

then to make a determination based on

the facts. After hearing the House

managers’ case, it is clear that Presi-

dent Trump withheld U.S. aid in an ef-

fort to obtain Ukraine’s assistance to

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win reelection by asking that Ukraine

launch and make public an investiga-

tion into Joe Biden, Mr. Trump’s polit-

ical opponent.

The President’s legal team tried to

argue that this didn’t happen, but

without seeing key documents and

hearing from key fact witnesses such

as John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney,

top advisers with firsthand knowledge

of the President’s conduct and motives,

their arguments were not persuasive.

So, after weighing the evidence avail-

able to us and considering the Presi-

dent’s pattern of similar misconduct, I

will vote yes on the Articles of Im-

peachment.

The House presented a compelling

factual case. Congress appropriated

nearly $400 million in foreign aid to

Ukraine, an ally engaged in a war with

a major power, Russia. It was signed

into law by President Trump, who

knew what he was signing and what it

entailed. President Trump also knew

that Ukraine desperately needed the

aid and America’s partnership in its ef-

forts against the huge power, Russia.

He used that vulnerability to his ad-

vantage. He privately demanded that,

in exchange for U.S. aid and a White

House meeting for Ukraine’s newly

elected President, Ukraine’s leaders

had to publicly announce an investiga-

tion that would damage his political

rival, Vice President Joe Biden. The

President relayed those same demands

to senior Ukrainian officials through

both private and official government

channels. This was a clear quid pro

quo, and it is at the heart of the argu-

ment in the first Article of Impeach-

ment: abuse of power.

President Trump took this action to

benefit himself personally and not for

the good of the Nation. He violated the

law by withholding appropriated funds

in order to benefit himself and not our

country. President Trump did not

withhold these funds because of con-

cern about corruption generally. In-

stead, he demanded just two specific

investigations—Burisma and Biden—

both intended to help him win reelec-

tion in 2020.

After hearing the House managers’

presentation, I think we have got to

really ask ourselves, How can this

President deal with any foreign nation

after compromising himself in such a

fashion? How can he be trusted to en-

sure that American elections are free

from foreign interference? Other coun-

tries are watching. After the President

compromised himself this way with

Ukraine, what is to keep them, or any

other country, from seeking benefits

from the President in exchange for po-

litical or personal assistance? So, if the

Senate refuses to correct this prece-

dent now, the door to foreign political

influence in our elections will be

opened.

The House managers also presented a

strong case on the second Article of

Impeachment: obstruction of Congress.

Here, the facts themselves are not in

dispute. President Trump ordered his

administration to withhold all docu-

ments and ordered executive branch

witnesses not to testify before the

House began its inquiry. The Presi-

dent’s legal team countered that he has

a right to defy congressional subpoenas

as a matter of executive privilege, but

there is no precedent for their sweeping

claim of absolute immunity from con-

gressional oversight, particularly in

the context of impeachment pro-

ceedings.

President Trump has taken the posi-

tion that there are no checks on his

Presidential authority, effectively

placing himself above the law, and I

don’t believe the Senate can let this

stand. Unfortunately, the President’s

actions are not isolated incidents. Both

Articles of Impeachment point to this.

The articles note: ‘‘These actions were

consistent with President Trump’s pre-

vious invitations of foreign inter-

ference in U.S. elections’’ and with

‘‘previous efforts to undermine United

States Government investigations into

foreign interference in United States

elections.’’

During the 2016 campaign, President

Trump welcomed Russia’s assistance to

defeat his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

The Mueller report detailed exactly

how the Trump campaign sought to

work with Russia to improve his elec-

toral chances, including providing in-

ternal campaign polling data to a Rus-

sian operative, inviting Russia to hack

Hillary Clinton after Russia had al-

ready successfully hacked the Demo-

cratic National Committee, and ob-

taining information about upcoming

releases of emails stolen by Russian

agents and weaponizing these stolen

documents to harm Hillary Clinton.

When this conduct came under ques-

tion, President Trump obstructed the

investigation. Special Counsel Mueller

catalogued not 1 or 2 but 10 clear in-

stances where President Trump sought

to interfere in this investigation. This

isn’t my view. This isn’t anyone else’s

view; it is a catalogue of a group of

legal professionals indicating 10 clear

instances where Trump sought to

interfere in the investigation.

This egregious pattern of soliciting

foreign interference and blocking any

effort to investigate continues to this

day. As recently as October, while the

House impeachment inquiry was going

on, President Trump stood on the

White House lawn and asked China to

investigate the Biden family.

This trial must do impartial justice

as is required by the oath we all took.

After listening to the arguments of

both sides, it is clear the House man-

agers have proven their case. The

President’s conduct with respect to

Ukraine has mirrored other parts of his

Presidency, and it is all about what is

best for President Trump. If we vote to

acquit and allow President Trump’s be-

havior, we will set a dangerous prece-

dent, one that has the strong possi-

bility of inflicting lasting damage on

our country.

We will be saying that any President,

Republican or Democratic, can lever-

age their office for personal political

gain. We will be inviting more foreign

interference into our elections and say-

ing it is acceptable to use the Presi-

dency to solicit that assistance. His de-

fense counsel admitted as much.

And we will be accepting the Presi-

dent’s extreme view that article II of

the Constitution gives him the right to

do whatever he wants.

I am convinced this is a rare instance

where this Senate has no choice but to

vote to convict and remove this Presi-

dent. I reach this conclusion reluc-

tantly and with deep concern but with

the belief that this action is necessary

and cannot and should not be ignored.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Virginia is recognized.

Mr. WARNER. Madam President, be-

fore I get started on my comments, I

want to commend my colleague from

California, who has served in this body

with great distinction for a long time,

who was present during the preceding

impeachment proceedings under Presi-

dent Clinton, and who, time and

again—and I have had the honor of fol-

lowing in her shoes on the Intelligence

Committee—has always been a voice

who stood up for what is right, for

what is correct, oftentimes what may

not be politically expedient but what

she thinks is right and appropriate.

It is with great honor that I follow

her as I make my statement as well on

this most serious of matters, the im-

peachment of Donald J. Trump. So I

thank my friend, the senior Senator

from California, for her comments.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank Mr. W

NER

Mr. WARNER. I will echo many of

her thoughts.

Madam President, I want to begin my

remarks the way we began this trial:

with the oath we each took to do im-

partial justice. Now, any other day, we

walk into this Chamber as Republicans

and Democrats, but in this trial we

have a much greater responsibility.

The allegations against this Presi-

dent are grave. The House managers

presented a compelling case, based on

the testimony of more than a dozen

witnesses. And the remarkable thing

about the dozen witnesses that we saw

clips of: all of these witnesses were ei-

ther appointees—political appointees—

of President Trump or career public

servants. The fact that these dozen-

plus witnesses had the courage to

speak truth to power when they knew

that their careers, their reputations

would be sullied in many ways speaks

volumes.

Their testimony and the House man-

agers’ case presents a clear fact pat-

tern, a fact pattern that even many of

my Republican colleagues acknowledge

is true.

This evidence reflects a corrupt

scheme to solicit foreign interference

in support of this President’s reelec-

tion. The President both unlawfully

withheld aid to an ally at war with

Russia and he withheld a White House

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES840 February 4, 2020

meeting that would have strengthened

our relationship with a democratically

elected leader of Ukraine, a leader who

was trying to prevent further Russian

occupation of his country.

The President used these powerful

tools of American foreign policy as le-

verage—not leverage to further ad-

vance America’s national interests but

leverage to secure investigations into a

political opponent. He also used these

as an opportunity to try to expound on

the so-called CrowdStrike conspiracy

theory, a notion that has been repeat-

edly debunked by Mr. Trump’s own law

enforcement and intelligence agencies;

a theory that somehow it was Ukraine,

not Russia, that attacked our democ-

racy in 2016. It is a theory, by the way,

that currently has been and continues

to be promoted by the Russian spy

services.

Since this information came to light,

the President has attempted to con-

found the House of Representatives’

constitutional role in the impeachment

process. The White House issued a

blanket refusal to provide any wit-

nesses or documents without any his-

torical precedent or sound legal argu-

ment to support this position. For this

reason, President Trump is also

charged with obstruction of Congress.

Frankly, I understand some of the

points the President’s defense team has

raised concerning this second Article of

Impeachment. There are legitimate

questions to consider about executive

privilege and separation of powers, but

we cannot accept the absolute immu-

nity argument this White House has in-

vented. This absolute stance and the

evidence we have seen about the Presi-

dent’s corrupt actions and intentions

do not reflect a principled, good-faith

defense of executive privilege. Rather,

it suggests an effort to deny Congress

the constitutional authority to inves-

tigate Presidential wrongdoing and, ul-

timately, to prevent exposure of the

President’s conduct.

In reviewing this evidence, I have

tried to stick to my oath of impar-

tiality. I have tried to keep an open

mind about what witnesses like John

Bolton and Mick Mulvaney—people

who were in the room with the Presi-

dent—could tell us. If anyone can pro-

vide new information that further ex-

plains the President’s actions, it is

they. But I don’t see how the White

House’s desperate efforts to block wit-

nesses is anything but an admission

that what they would say under oath

would not be good for this President.

And I am deeply disappointed that the

Senate could not achieve the majority

necessary for a full, fair trial. Con-

sequently, the defense of the President

that we are left with is thin, legalistic,

and, frankly, cynical.

Instead of disputing the core facts,

which are damning on their own terms,

the President’s lawyers have resorted

to remarkable legal gymnastics. The

notion that even if the President did

what he is accused of, abuse of power is

not impeachable; that foreign inter-

ference is not a crime; that even call-

ing witnesses to seek the truth about

the President’s actions and motiva-

tions might somehow endanger the Re-

public. And then when Professor

Dershowitz made his bizarre argument

that abusing Presidential power to aid

your reelection cannot be impeachable

if you believe your own election to be

in the national interest, I paid close at-

tention. Frankly, I paid closer atten-

tion to what Professor Dershowitz said

in this Chamber than I paid when I was

in his class back in 1977. But you don’t

need a Harvard Law School degree to

understand what utter nonsense that

argument is and where it could take us

if we followed it to its logical conclu-

sion.

The Framers wrote impeachment

into the Constitution precisely because

they were worried about the abuse of

Presidential power. And if an abuse of

power is what the Framers had in mind

when they crafted impeachment, then,

the two questions remaining in our de-

liberations are simple: Did President

Trump abuse his power and should he

be removed from office?

The House managers have presented

a compelling case that the President

did pressure Ukraine to announce po-

litically motivated investigations.

Again, a number of my Republican col-

leagues have acknowledged these facts,

acknowledged that what the President

did was wrong. And, frankly, it is clear

why he did it. Does anyone here hon-

estly believe that Donald Trump want-

ed an investigation into the Bidens for

any other reason than to damage Joe

Biden politically and, therefore, aid in

his own reelection? Time and again,

this President has shown a willingness

to attack anyone who stands in his

way. And on this he is ecumenical—Re-

publicans, Democrats, members of his

staff, Members of this body. Nobody is

off limits. There is nothing out of char-

acter about this President using every

available tool to damage an opponent

regardless of their political party.

I don’t find fault for the President in

his unorthodox style. That is not an

impeachable offense. The long list of

things I disagree with this President on

are not impeachable offenses either.

But the Constitution draws a line that

is much clearer than the President’s

lawyers have tried to argue. The Presi-

dent crossed it. He abused his power.

He commandeered America’s foreign

policy, not to advance America’s inter-

est but to advance Donald Trump’s po-

litical interest. And despite his efforts

to cover it up, he got caught.

Now, each one of us must vote guilty

or not guilty. I will vote to convict the

President because I swore an oath to do

impartial justice and the evidence

proves the charges against him are

true. There must be consequences for

abusing the power of the Presidency to

solicit foreign interference in our elec-

tions.

If the Senate fails to hold him ac-

countable, we will be setting a dan-

gerous precedent. We will be giving the

green light to foreign adversaries and

future Presidents that this kind of be-

havior is OK. I will vote to convict the

President because it is the Senate’s

constitutional responsibility to uphold

this bedrock American principle that

no one is above the law, not even the

President, and especially not the Presi-

dent.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Montana.

Mr. TESTER. Madam President, I am

going to read a statement and then I

am going to go back through the infor-

mation that I used to make the deci-

sion to be able to write this statement.

Montanans sent me to the U.S. Sen-

ate to hold government accountable. I

fought to allow this trial to include

documents and testimony from wit-

nesses with firsthand knowledge of the

allegations against the President, re-

gardless of whether they were incrimi-

nating or exculpatory, so that the Sen-

ate could make its decision based on

the best information available.

Unfortunately, my Republican col-

leagues and the administration blocked

this information, robbing the American

people of their legitimate right to hold

their elected officials accountable.

Based on the evidence that was avail-

able to me during this trial, I believe

President Trump abused his power by

withholding military aid from an ally

for personal political gain, and that he

obstructed legitimate oversight by a

coequal branch of government.

It is a sad day for this country and

for all Americans who believe that no

one—not even the President of the

United States—is above the law.

So how did I get to this point? Well,

just a little over 2 weeks ago, we came

into this Chamber and we started hear-

ing testimony. That testimony re-

sulted in these two notebooks full of

notes, because, quite frankly, the

House managers laid out a compelling

case. The defense made their argu-

ments, but the case of the House was

incredibly compelling.

An impeachment is a solemn time. It

is not something we should be taking

without the deepest and most serious

consideration. I compare it to a vote to

send our people to war. But in this par-

ticular case, there was very little

transparency, and none, if the Presi-

dent would have had it his way, of in-

formation coming to this body during

this trial. This, in fact, is the shortest

impeachment trial of a President ever.

If we are going to have information to

make good decisions—and I always said

if you have good information, you can

make good decisions—then, the Presi-

dent really needed to open up and co-

operate just a little bit.

This is the first time ever that we

had a trial with no witnesses and no

documents—a trial in the Senate with

no information from the executive

branch. And I get it. I get ‘‘executive

privilege,’’ and I think there are times

when executive privilege has to be used

because the information is sensitive.

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But I have to tell you that the Wil-

liams letter is a prime example. I went

down to the SCIF. I read it. I have to

tell you something. If there is some-

thing in there that needs to be classi-

fied, you have me. The information in

that letter was information that I

knew before I went in the SCIF. It is

the same with many of the emails—if

not all of the emails—that the Presi-

dent has requested to be classified and

kept away from this body and kept

away from the press.

That is not the way this democracy

should work. It should be open. If

things are done, the people should be

allowed to know.

There are moments in time when

documents have to be classified on sen-

sitive information, but I am here to

tell you I have seen none of that. I

think many of the FOIA requests that

have been brought forth show heavily

redacted email messages, and then

when we find out what was really in

them, there was no need for that redac-

tion.

So when it comes to the obstruction

of Congress, the article II impeach-

ment, I don’t think there is any doubt

that the President obstructed our abil-

ity—the Senate of the United States—

to do its job as a coequal branch to

make sure that the executive branch is

being honest and forthright.

Let’s talk about the abuse of power.

There is a lot of information that was

brought forth during this trial about

what the President did. It has been

stated many times on this floor over

the last nearly 3 weeks. The fact of the

matter is, there is little doubt that the

President withheld the aid to an ally

for the purpose of creating a position

where they had to do an investigation

if they were going to get that money,

or at least announce that investigation

on a U.S. citizen who happened to be a

political foe, to corrupt our next elec-

tion.

There is no doubt about that. Many

of the folks who are not going to vote

for impeachment have already said

that the President has wrongdoing, but

it is not an impeachable offense. And I

am here to tell you, if anybody in this

country—especially the President of

the United States—corrupts an elec-

tion and that is not an impeachable of-

fense for the President of the United

States, I don’t know what is. Fair elec-

tions are a foundational issue for this

country, and to corrupt our elections is

something that we need to hold people

accountable for if they have done it.

And I will tell you that the prosecution

proved that point beyond a shadow of a

doubt.

I would also say that if you take a

look at the episodes that happened be-

fore we got to this point that have ac-

tually nothing to do with the impeach-

ment, but it does have something to do

with the point that the defense said

about folks having been calling for im-

peachment since this President got in

office, I offer you this: Freedom of

speech is something that is very impor-

tant to this country. And I can tell you

that when the President first got into

office and he got in a fight with the

Prime Minister of Australia and the

Prime Minister of Sweden and got in a

fight with the Prime Minister of the

best friend the United States has, Can-

ada, I was critical of the President.

When the President pushed back on

NATO and embraced every dictator in

the world, from Putin, to Erdogan, to

Xi, to Kim Jong Un, yes, I was critical

of the President. When the President

pulled troops out of northern Syria and

left our allies the Kurds on the field

alone, I was critical of the President.

When the President did his trade wars

that put American family farmers and

Main Street businesses at risk of clo-

sure, I was critical of the President.

And we should be. That had nothing to

do with the impeachment, but it abso-

lutely has everything to do with your

freedom of speech.

Today—tomorrow, I should say—we

are going to vote on whether to convict

or acquit the President on taking tax-

payer dollars and withholding them

from an ally that is at war with an ad-

versary for his own personal and polit-

ical good, and we are going to vote on

whether to convict a President of with-

holding information from the entire

executive branch. And the only ones

who testified were those patriotic

Americans who defied his order. We are

going to vote whether he obstructed

Congress. This is a no-brainer. He abso-

lutely, unequivocally is guilty of both

article I and article II of the impeach-

ment.

So the question is this: If it goes as

predicted tomorrow and the President

gets acquitted, where do we go from

here? I am very concerned about where

we go from here because the next

President will use this precedent to not

give any information to a coequal

branch of government when we ques-

tion them. The next President will use

this as, geez, if it is good for me and

my election, it is good for the country,

as Dershowitz said. So, Katy, bar the

door.

As Chairman S

CHIFF

said yesterday,

if you think this President is going to

stop doing these actions, you are living

on a different planet than I am living

on. This will empower him to do any-

thing he wants.

At some point in time—if we want to

listen to what the Framers said—at

some point in time, we are going to

have to do our constitutional duty. It

doesn’t appear we are going to do it

this time.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Maine.

Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, for

more than 200 years after our Constitu-

tion was adopted, only one President

faced an impeachment trial before the

Senate. That was Andrew Johnson in

1868. But now we are concluding our

second impeachment trial in just 21

years.

While each case must stand on its

own facts, this trend reflects the in-

creasingly acrimonious partisanship

facing our Nation. The Founders

warned against excessive partisanship,

fearing that it would lead to ‘‘insta-

bility, injustice, and confusion,’’ ulti-

mately posing a mortal threat to our

free government.

To protect against this, the Founders

constructed an elaborate system of

checks and balances to prevent ‘‘fac-

tions’’ from sacrificing ‘‘both the pub-

lic good and the rights of other citi-

zens.’’ Impeachment is part of that

elaborate system. The Founders set a

very high bar for its use, requiring that

the President may only be removed by

a two-thirds vote of the Senate.

The Framers recognized that in re-

moving a sitting President, we would

be acting against not only the office-

holder but also the voters who en-

trusted him with that position. Thus,

the Senate must consider whether mis-

conduct occurred, its nature, and the

traumatic and disruptive impact that

removing a duly elected President

would have on our Nation.

In the trial of President Clinton, I ar-

gued that in order to convict, ‘‘we

must conclude from the evidence pre-

sented to us with no room for doubt

that our Constitution will be injured

and our democracy suffer should the

President remain in office one moment

more.’’ The House managers adopted a

similar threshold when they argued

that President Trump’s conduct is so

dangerous that he ‘‘must not remain in

power one moment longer.’’

The point is, impeachment of a Presi-

dent should be reserved for conduct

that poses such a serious threat to our

governmental institutions as to war-

rant the extreme step of immediate re-

moval from office. I voted to acquit

President Clinton, even though the

House managers proved to my satisfac-

tion that he did commit a crime, be-

cause his conduct did not meet that

threshold.

I will now discuss each of the arti-

cles.

In its first Article of Impeachment

against President Trump, the House as-

serts that the President abused the

power of his Presidency. While there

are gaps in the record, some key facts

are not disputed.

It is clear from the July 25, 2019,

phone call between President Trump

and Ukrainian President Zelensky that

the investigation into the Bidens’ ac-

tivities requested by President Trump

was improper and demonstrated very

poor judgment.

There is conflicting evidence in the

record about the President’s motiva-

tion for this improper request. The

House managers stated repeatedly that

President Trump’s actions were moti-

vated ‘‘solely’’ for his own political

gain in the 2020 campaign. Yet the

President’s attorneys argued that the

President had sound public policy mo-

tivations, including a concern about

widespread corruption in Ukraine.

Regardless, it was wrong for Presi-

dent Trump to mention former Vice

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President Biden on that phone call, and

it was wrong for him to ask a foreign

country to investigate a political rival.

The House Judiciary Committee

identified in its report crimes that it

believed the President committed. Ar-

ticle I, however, does not even attempt

to assert that the President committed

a crime. I sought to reconcile this con-

tradiction between the report and the

articles in a question I posed to the

House managers, but they failed to ad-

dress that point in their response.

While I do not believe that the con-

viction of a President requires a crimi-

nal act, the high bar for removal from

office is perhaps even higher when the

impeachment is for a difficult-to-de-

fine, noncriminal act.

In any event, the House did little to

support its assertion in article I that

the President ‘‘will remain a threat to

national security and the Constitution

if allowed to remain in office.’’

As I concluded in the impeachment

trial of President Clinton, I do not be-

lieve that the House has met its burden

of showing that the President’s con-

duct, however flawed, warrants the ex-

treme step of immediate removal from

office, nor does the record support the

assertion by the House managers that

the President must not remain in office

one moment longer. The fact that the

House delayed transmitting the Arti-

cles of Impeachment to the Senate for

33 days undercuts this argument.

For all of the reasons I have dis-

cussed, I will vote to acquit on article

Article II seeks to have the Senate

convict the President based on a dis-

pute over witnesses and documents be-

tween the legislative and executive

branches. As a general principle, an ob-

jection or privilege asserted by one

party cannot be deemed invalid, let

alone impeachable, simply because the

opposing party disagrees with it.

Before the House even authorized its

impeachment inquiry, it issued 23 sub-

poenas to current and former adminis-

tration officials. When the House and

the President could not reach an ac-

commodation, the House failed to com-

pel testimony and document produc-

tion. The House actually withdrew a

subpoena seeking testimony from Dr.

Charles Kupperman, a national secu-

rity aide, once he went to court for

guidance. And the House chose not to

issue a subpoena to John Bolton, the

National Security Advisor, whom the

House has identified as the key wit-

ness.

At a minimum, the House should

have pursued the full extent of its own

remedies before bringing impeachment

charges, including by seeking the as-

sistance of a neutral third party—the

judicial branch.

In making these choices, the House

substituted its own political preference

for speed over finality. The House man-

agers described impeachment as a ‘‘last

resort’’ for the Congress. In this case,

however, the House chose to skip the

basic steps of judicial adjudication and

instead leapt straight to impeachment

as the first resort. Therefore, I will

vote to acquit on article II.

This decision is not about whether

you like or dislike this President, or

agree with or oppose his policies, or ap-

prove or disapprove of his conduct in

other circumstances. Rather, it is

about whether the charges meet the

very high constitutional standard of

‘‘Treason, Bribery, or other High

Crimes or Misdemeanors.’’

It has been 230 years since George

Washington first took the oath of of-

fice, and there are good reasons why

during that entire time the Senate has

never removed a President. Such a

move would not only affect the sitting

President but could have unpredictable

and potentially adverse consequences

for public confidence in our electoral

process.

It is my judgment that, except when

extraordinary circumstances require a

different result, we should entrust to

the people the most fundamental deci-

sion of a democracy; namely, who

should lead their country.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from New Jersey.

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, in

1974, after the House Judiciary Com-

mittee voted to approve Articles of Im-

peachment against President Nixon,

Chairman Peter Rodino, of my home

State of New Jersey, a lifelong Newark

resident of my home city who had been

thrust into the high-profile position

only the previous year, returned to his

office and called his wife. When she an-

swered the phone, this chairman, this

longtime Congressman broke down in

tears and cried.

Forty-six years later, our Nation has

found itself under similar duress, and I

agree with my fellow Newarker—im-

peaching a President is a profoundly

sad time for our Nation. It is a painful

time. No matter what party, if you

love your country, then this is heart-

breaking.

When we think about our history as

Americans, so many of us have rev-

erence for our Founding Fathers and

our founding documents. They rep-

resented imperfect genius. We talk

about the Declaration of Independence.

We hail the Constitution. These docu-

ments literally bent the arc of not just

our own history but human history for

democratic governance on the planet.

While these were milestones in the

path of our Nation’s relatively brief ex-

istence, the governing document that

came between the Declaration of Inde-

pendence and our Constitution is often

overlooked—the Articles of Confed-

eration.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is

easy to view the development of our

Nation as preordained, inevitable—as if

it were an expected march toward the

greatness we now collectively hail,

that this was somehow a perfectly plot-

ted path toward a more perfect union.

But it wasn’t.

In 1787, as our Founders gathered in

Philadelphia, our fledgling country was

at a crisis and at a crossroads. Its fu-

ture, as in so many moments of our

past, was deeply uncertain.

You see, when the Framers designed

our system of government in the Arti-

cles of Confederation, you can say they

overcompensated. With the tyranny of

King George III fresh in their minds,

they created a government with powers

so diffuse and decentralized that noth-

ing could really get done. Instead of

one Nation, we were operating essen-

tially as 13 independent States. The

Federal Government could not tax its

citizens. It could not raise money. It

lacked a judiciary and an executive

branch.

So when our Framers arrived in

Philadelphia that hot summer, they

would have to thread a difficult needle,

providing for a strong central govern-

ment that represented the people and

one that also guarded against the cor-

rupt tendencies that come when power

is concentrated, as they well knew was

so in a monarchy.

Our democratic Republic was their

solution. The Nation needed a powerful

Executive, yes, but that Executive

needed guardrails, and his power need-

ed to be checked and balanced. So the

Framers created what we now almost

take for granted—three coequal

branches of government: the legisla-

tive, the executive, and judicial

branches. Each branch would have the

ability to check the power of the other

branches to ensure, as James Madison

so profoundly argued, that ambition

would ‘‘be made to counteract ambi-

tion.’’

But this system of checks and bal-

ances was not enough for our Founders.

Still reeling from their experience

under the oppressive rule of the King,

many feared an unaccountable, auto-

cratic leader. So the Founders created

a mechanism of last resort—impeach-

ment.

George Mason prophetically asked

the Founders to wrestle with the con-

cept of impeachment at the Constitu-

tional Convention, saying: ‘‘Shall any

man be above Justice?’’

The Founders answered that question

with a resounding no. The Constitution

made clear that any Federal officer,

even the President, would be subject to

impeachment and removal. No one—no

one—no one is above the law. This was

seen as the ultimate safeguard, and it

has only been invoked twice before in

American history. This is the third.

I sat in this very spot and listened to

the evidence presented, honoring my

oath to be objective, and based on the

evidence that was presented in hour

after hour after hour of presentations,

I concluded that the President, Donald

John Trump, is guilty of committing

high crimes and misdemeanors against

the United States of America, against

the people. I believe he abused the awe-

some power of his office for personal

and political gain to pressure a foreign

power to interfere in the most sacred

institution of our democracy, our elec-

tions. He then engaged in a concerted,

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S843 February 4, 2020

far-reaching, and categorical effort to

cover up his transgression and block

any efforts for the people’s representa-

tives to have the truth.

It brings me no satisfaction to come

to this conclusion. I feel that sadness

of my predecessor. Yet we have sworn

an oath to protect and defend the Con-

stitution of the United States.

This is not a moment that should

call for partisan passions. It is not a

moment that we think of in terms of

the limitlessness of personal ambition.

This is a patriotic moment. It is about

putting principle above party. It is

about honoring this body and the Sen-

ate’s rightful place in our constitu-

tional system of checks and balances.

It is about fulfilling the enormous

trust the Founders placed in this body

as an impartial Court of Impeachment

and a necessary check on what they

foresaw as the potential for ‘‘grave

abuses’’ by the Executive.

If we fail to hold this President ac-

countable, then we fail the Founders’

intent; we fail our democracy; and I

fear the injury that will result.

When our grandchildren and their

children read about this chapter in the

history books at a time far into the fu-

ture, when this President is a memory

along with those of us serving in this

Chamber, it will not be seen through

the eye of politics or partisanship.

They will read about how this body

acted in their moment of constitu-

tional crisis. I fear that their unflinch-

ing eyes, at a time when the full body

of evidence will be out in the public do-

main, will see clearly how this body ab-

dicated its constitutional responsibil-

ities, surrendering them to partisan

passions. They will read about how the

Senate shut its doors to the truth, even

though it was within easy reach; how,

for the first time in our history of im-

peachment proceedings for judges and

for past Presidents, the world’s great-

est deliberative body conducted an im-

peachment trial without demanding a

single witness and without sub-

poenaing a single document; how, even

as new evidence during the trial con-

tinued to be uncovered, the Members of

this body failed to even view it. They

failed to pursue with even the faintest

effort those things that would have

easily and more perfectly revealed the

breadth and depth of the President’s

misconduct.

We know across the street, in the Su-

preme Court, the saying is that justice

is blind, but that means that no one is

above the law. It does not mean that

this body should abdicate its respon-

sibilities and it should abandon its

senses and even abandon common

sense. If there is evidence we know

about that could speak beyond a rea-

sonable doubt to this President’s al-

leged crimes and misconduct, it makes

no sense whatsoever that we should

deny, in this deliberative body, the

truth—the truth.

This kind of willful ignorance, this

metaphorical closing of our eyes and

ears, is a grave danger to any democ-

racy. It is the rot from within, when

the ideals of truth and justice fall vic-

tim to the toxic tyranny of absolute

partisanship.

This President has claimed authori-

tarian power that our Constitution was

explicitly designed to prevent. He has

literally said that article II allows him

to do whatever he wants. That out-

rageous statement tomorrow could be

given life within this democracy.

He has declared himself unaccount-

able to and above the law. He has

shredded the very governing ideals of

this great Republic, and we, the Sen-

ate, the body designed to check such

abuses of power, that ‘‘dignified . . .

independent . . . unawed and

uninfluenced’’ tribunal, as Hamilton so

famously wrote in Federalist Paper No.

65, have been enablers to this destruc-

tive instinct.

This is a sad day. This is a sad mo-

ment in the history of this body and in

our Nation, and I fear that it is em-

blematic, that it is a symptom of deep-

er challenges to this Nation, challenges

that are being exploited by our enemies

abroad and by opportunists here at

home.

The factionalism that our Founders

warned us of has deepened beyond mere

partisanship to a self-destructive trib-

alism. The ‘‘cunning, ambitious, and

unprincipled men’’ seeking to subvert

the power of the people, as Washington

predicted in his profound and prophetic

Farewell Address, have found their sea-

son to flourish here in our time. Many

in our society now hate other Ameri-

cans, not because of the content of

their character or their virtue and the

values they hold dear, but we, as Amer-

icans, now more and more see hate pro-

liferating in our country between fel-

low Americans because of what party

we belong to.

We have failed to listen to the words

that come out of each other’s mouths,

failed to listen to the ideals or the

principles or the underlying facts be-

cause we now simply listen to partisan-

ship. This Nation was founded with

great sacrifice. The blood, sweat, and

tears of our ancestors, which gave life

and strength to this Nation, are now

being weakened and threatened, as our

very first President warned.

And, yes, today is a sad moment, but

we, as a nation, have never been de-

fined by our darkest hours. We have al-

ways been defined by how we respond

to our challenges, how we have refused

to surrender to cynicism, and how we

have refused to give in to despair.

As Senator after Senator today gets

up and speaks, I fear that mere words

in this time are impotent and ineffec-

tive. It may mark where we as individ-

uals stand for the record, but the chal-

lenge demands more from all of us in

this time. We have already seen on this

Senate floor that sound arguments

have been dismissed as partisanship.

We have heard speech after speech and

seen how they will not cure this time.

They will not save this Republic from

our deepening divides.

So I ask: What will? How? How do we

heal? How do we meet this crisis? I

know that this President is incapable

of healing this Nation. I have never

seen a leader in high office ever take

such glee in meanness. He considers it

some kind of high badge of virtue in

the way he demeans and degrades his

political adversaries. He demonizes

others, often the weak in our society,

and I firmly believe that he has shown

that he will even conspire with foreign

nations to defeat his adversaries, and

then defend himself not with any truth

or transparency but by trying to

heighten and ignite even more partisan

passions.

So the question is really, How do we

heal this Nation? How do we meet this

challenge that is not embodied in any

individual?

It was a man far greater than me

named Learned Hand who said:

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and

women; when it dies there, no constitution,

no law, no court can save it; no constitution,

no law, no court can even do much to help it.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not

too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty

is the spirit which seeks to understand the

minds of other men and women; the spirit of

liberty is the spirit which weighs their inter-

ests alongside its own without bias.

I continue to quote this great judge.

Our dangers, as it seems to me, are not

from the outrageous but from the con-

forming; not from those who rarely and

under the lurid glare of obloquy upset our

moral complaisance, or shock us with unac-

customed conduct, but from those, the mass

of us, who take their virtues and their

tastes, like their shirts and their furniture,

from the limited patterns which the market

offers.

I love our Nation’s history. I am tell-

ing you right now we have seen that

the true test of our democracy will not

come simply from the low actions from

our leaders on most high. The true test

of our democracy will not turn alone

on the actions of this body because

Presidents before and this body before

have failed us in dark times. They

failed the ideals of freedom when time

and again they defended slavery. This

body has failed the ideals of liberty

when time and again it rejected civil

rights. This body has failed the ideals

in the past of equality when it voted

down, again and again, suffrage for

women. Lo, Presidents before and the

Senate before has failed this Nation in

the darkest of times. As the songs of

my ancestors have said, our path has

been watered with the tears and blood

of ancestors.

How do we heal? How do we move for-

ward? I say on this dark day that the

hope of this Nation lies with its people.

As Learned Hand said: The spirit of lib-

erty is not embodied in the Constitu-

tion. Other nations have constitutions

and have failed. The hope of this Na-

tion will always lie with its people.

So we will not be cured today, and, I

tell you, tomorrow’s vote—it is a de-

feat. But we, as a people facing other

defeats in this body, must never be de-

feated. Just like they beat us down at

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Stonewall and they beat us back in

Selma, the hope of this Nation lies

with the people who faced defeats but

must never be defeated.

So my prayer for our Republic, now

yet in another crisis in the Senate, is

that we cannot let this be leading us

further and further into a treacherous

time of partisanship and tribalism

where we tear at each other and when

we turn against each other. Now is the

time in America where we must begin,

in the hearts of people, to turn to each

other and to begin to find a way out of

this dark time to a higher ground of

hope. This is not a time to simply

point blame at one side or another.

This is a time to accept responsibility.

Like our ancestors in the past so un-

derstood, that change does not come

from Washington. It must come to

Washington. As I was taught as a boy,

we didn’t get civil rights because

Strom Thurmond came to the Senate

floor one day and pronounced that he

had seen the light. No, this body re-

sponded to the demands of people, and

now is a time that we must demand the

highest virtues of our land and see each

other for who we are—our greatest

hope and our greatest promise.

We are a weary people in America

again. We are tired. We are frustrated.

But we cannot give up. That flag over

there and we who swear an oath to it

and don’t just parrot words or say

them with some kind of perfunctory

obligation—but those who swear an

oath to this Nation—must now act

with a greater unyielding conviction.

We must act to do justice. We must act

to heal harms. We must act to walk

more humbly. We must act to love one

another unconditionally. And now,

more than ever, perhaps we need to act

in the words of a great abolitionist, a

former slave, who in a dark, difficult

time when America was failing to live

up to its promise, gave forth a senti-

ment of his actions captured in the po-

etry of Langston Hughes. He declared

through his deed and through his work

and through his sacrifice:

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!

As a Nation, in this difficult time

where we face the betrayal of a Presi-

dent, the surrender of obligation by a

body, may we meet this time with our

actions of good will, of a commitment

to love and to justice, and to yet again

elevating our country so that we, too,

may be like, as it says in that great

text, ‘‘a light unto all Nations.’’

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. C

SIDY

). The Senator from Ohio.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am

here today to talk about the Senate

trial and the factors I have considered

in making my decision on the Articles

of Impeachment from the House. I have

now read hundreds of pages of legal

briefs and memos, including the testi-

mony of 17 witnesses. Here, on the Sen-

ate floor, I have reviewed more than

190 witness videos and listened care-

fully to more than 65 hours of detailed

presentations from both the House

managers and from the President’s

legal team.

As cofounder and cochair of the

Ukraine Caucus and someone who is

proud to represent many Ukrainian

Americans in Ohio, I have been active

for the past several years in helping

Ukraine as it has sought freedom and

independence since the 2014 Revolution

of Dignity that saw the corrupt Rus-

sian-backed government of Viktor

Yanukovych replaced with pro-Western

elected leaders.

Since first seeing the transcript of

the phone call between President

Trump and President Zelensky 4

months ago, I have consistently said

that the President asking Ukraine for

an investigation into Joe Biden was in-

appropriate and wrong. I have also

said, since then, that any actions

taken by members of the administra-

tion or those outside the administra-

tion to try to delay military assistance

or a White House meeting pending an

investigation by Ukraine were not ap-

propriate either.

But while I don’t condone this behav-

ior, these actions do not rise to the

level of removing President Trump

from office and taking him off the bal-

lot in a Presidential election year that

is already well under way.

I first looked to the fact that the

Founders meant for impeachment of a

President to be extremely rare, re-

served for only ‘‘Treason, Bribery, or

other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.’’

Any fair reading of what the Founders

meant in the Constitution and in the

Federalist papers in the context of his-

tory and just plain common sense

makes it clear that removing a duly

elected President demands that those

arguing for conviction meet a high

standard.

As an example, for good reason there

has never been a Presidential impeach-

ment that didn’t allege a crime. In the

Clinton impeachment, the independent

counsel concluded that President Clin-

ton committed not one but two crimes.

In this case, no crime is alleged. Let

me repeat. In the two Articles of Im-

peachment that came over to us from

the House, there is no criminal law vio-

lation alleged. Although I don’t think

that that is always necessary—there

could be circumstances where a crime

isn’t necessary in an impeachment—

without a crime, it is even a higher bar

for those who advocate for a convic-

tion, and that high bar is not met here.

What is more, even though it was de-

layed, the President ultimately did

provide the needed military assistance

to Ukraine, and he provided it before

the September 30 budget deadline, and

the requested investigations by

Ukraine were not undertaken. It is an

important point to make. The aid

went. The investigations did not occur.

The military assistance is particu-

larly important to me as a strong sup-

porter of Ukraine. In fact, I was one of

those Senators who fought to give

President Obama and his administra-

tion the authority to provide badly

needed lethal military assistance to

Ukraine in response to the Russian ag-

gression that came right after the Rev-

olution of Dignity in 2014.

I must say, I strongly urged the

Obama administration to use that au-

thority, and, like Ukraine, I was deeply

disappointed when they did not. I

strongly supported President Trump’s

decision to change course and provide

that assistance shortly after he came

into office. While visiting Ukrainian

troops on the frontlines in the Donbas

region of Ukraine, I have seen first-

hand how much those soldiers need the

military assistance President Trump

alone has provided.

Beyond whether the President’s con-

duct met the high bar of impeachment,

there is also the underlying issue of the

legitimacy of the House impeachment

process. The House Democrats sent the

Senate a flawed case built on what re-

spected George Washington University

constitutional law professor Jonathan

Turley calls ‘‘the shortest proceeding,

with the thinnest evidentiary record,

and the narrowest grounds ever used to

impeach a President.’’

Instead of using the tools available

to compel the administration to

produce documents and witnesses, the

House followed a self-imposed and en-

tirely political deadline for voting on

the Articles of Impeachment before

Christmas. After the rushed vote, the

House then inexplicably stalled, keep-

ing those articles from being delivered

here in the Senate for 28 days, time

they could have used to subpoena wit-

nesses and resolve legitimate disagree-

ments about whether evidence was

privileged or not. They didn’t even

bother to subpoena witnesses they then

wanted the Senate to subpoena for

them.

The House process was also lacking

in fundamental fairness and due proc-

ess in a number of respects. It is in-

comprehensible to me that the Presi-

dent’s counsel did not have the oppor-

tunity to cross-examine fact witnesses

and that the House selectively leaked

deposition testimony from closed-door

sessions.

Rushing an impeachment case

through the House without due process

and giving the Senate a half-baked

case to finish sets a very dangerous

precedent. If the Senate were to con-

vict, it would send the wrong message

and risk making this kind of quick,

partisan impeachment in the House a

regular occurrence moving forward.

That would be terrible for the country.

Less than a year ago, Speaker N

ANCY

ELOSI

said: ‘‘Impeachment is so divi-

sive to the country that unless there’s

something so compelling and over-

whelming and bipartisan, I don’t think

we should go down that path.’’ She was

right.

It is better to let the people decide.

Early voting has already started in

some States, and the Iowa caucuses oc-

curred last night. Armed with all the

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information, we should let the voters

have their say at the ballot box.

During the last impeachment 21

years ago, now-House Manager Con-

gressman J

ERRY

ADLER

said:

There must never be a narrowly voted im-

peachment or an impeachment substantially

supported by one of our major political par-

ties and largely opposed by the other. Such

an impeachment would lack legitimacy.

In this case, the impeachment wasn’t

just ‘‘substantially supported’’ by

Democrats; it was only supported by

Democrats. In fact, a few Democrats

actually voted with all the Republicans

to oppose the impeachment.

Founder Alexander Hamilton feared

that impeachment could easily fall

prey to partisan politics. That is ex-

actly what happened here with the

only purely partisan impeachment in

the history of our great country. For

all of these reasons, I am voting

against the Articles of Impeachment

tomorrow.

It is time to move on and to move on

to focus on bipartisan legislation to

help the families whom we represent.

Unlike the House, the Senate is

blocked from conducting its regular

business during impeachment.

My colleague from New Jersey asked

a moment ago, how do we heal? How do

we heal the wounds? Our country is di-

vided, and I think the impeachment

has further divided an already polar-

ized country. I think we heal, in part,

by surprising the people and coming

out from our partisan corners and get-

ting stuff done—stuff that they care

about that affects the families we were

sent here to represent.

While in the impeachment trial, we

were prevented from doing the impor-

tant legislative work our constituents

expect, like passing legislation to

lower prescription drug costs, like re-

building our crumbling roads and

bridges, like addressing the new addic-

tion crisis—the combination of syn-

thetic opioids like fentanyl and crystal

meth, pure crystal meth coming from

Mexico. It is an opportunity for us to

strengthen our economy with better

skills training, including passing legis-

lation to give workers the skills they

need to meet the jobs that are out

there. Those are just a few ideas that

are ready to go—ideas the President

supports, Republicans support, and

Democrats support.

I have been working on bipartisan

initiatives like the JOBS Act to pro-

vide that needed skills training, the

Restore Our Parks Act to deal with the

infrastructure that is crumbling in our

national parks, the Energy Savings and

Industrial Competitiveness Act, which

promotes energy efficiency—something

we should be able to agree on across

the aisle. All of these have been sitting

idle this year as we have grappled with

impeachment.

How do we heal? How do we heal the

wounds? In part, let’s do it by working

together to pass legislation people care

about.

Back home, I have seen that the im-

peachment process has, indeed, further

divided an already polarized country. A

conviction in the Senate, removing

Donald Trump from office and taking

his name off the ballot, would dan-

gerously deepen that growing rift. That

is one reason I am glad we are not like-

ly to see a conviction because I do care

about our country and bringing it to-

gether.

Instead, my hope is that lessons have

been learned; that we can heal some

wounds for the sake of the country;

that we can turn to the bipartisan

work most Americans expect us to do;

and that we can allow American vot-

ers, exercising the most important con-

stitutional check and balance of all, to

have their say in this year’s Presi-

dential election. I believe this is what

the Constitution requires and what the

country needs.

I yield back my time.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, as I rise

today to discuss this impeachment

trial, I am reminded of an inscription

above the front door of the Finance

Building in Harrisburg, PA, from the

1930s. Here is the inscription: ‘‘All pub-

lic service is a trust, given in faith and

accepted in honor.’’

I believe that President Trump and

every public official in America must

earn that trust every day. That sacred

trust is given to us, as the inscription

says, ‘‘in faith,’’ by virtue of our elec-

tion.

The question for the President and

every public official is this: Will we ac-

cept this trust by our honorable con-

duct? The trust set forth in the inscrip-

tion is an echo of Alexander Hamilton’s

words in Federalist No. 65, where Ham-

ilton articulated the standard for im-

peachment as ‘‘offenses which proceed

from the misconduct of public men, or,

in other words, from the abuse or viola-

tion of some public trust.’’

Over the past 2 weeks, I have listened

carefully to the arguments put forward

by the President’s defense lawyers and

the House managers. In light of the

substantial record put forth by the

managers in this case, I have deter-

mined that the managers have not only

met but exceeded their burden of proof.

President Trump violated his duty as

a public servant by corruptly abusing

his power to solicit foreign inter-

ference in the 2020 election and by re-

peatedly obstructing Congress’s con-

stitutionally based investigation into

his conduct.

President Trump’s clearly estab-

lished pattern of conduct indicates

that he will continue to be ‘‘a threat to

national security and the Constitution

if allowed to remain in office.’’ For

these reasons, I will vote guilty on

both article I and article II.

This impeachment was triggered by

the President’s conduct. We are here

because the President abused his

power—the awesome power of his of-

fice—to demand that an ally inves-

tigate a political opponent, proving his

contempt for the Constitution and his

duties as a public official.

The House managers provided sub-

stantial evidence of wrongdoing. First,

as to article I regarding abuse of

power, many of the facts here are un-

disputed. For example, there is no dis-

pute that the President has said, when

referring to the Constitution itself:

‘‘Article II allows me to do whatever I

want.’’ This is what the President of

the United States of America said.

Then he withheld congressionally au-

thorized military assistance to Ukraine

in a White House meeting with Presi-

dent Zelensky and conditioned that

military assistance and the meeting on

Ukraine publicly announcing inves-

tigations into Vice President Biden and

his son, as well as a debunked con-

spiracy theory about the 2016 election

interference. The memorandum of the

July 25 phone call in which President

Trump asked President Zelensky ‘‘to

do us a favor though,’’ after Zelensky

brought up in the conversation mili-

tary assistance, that evidence is com-

pelling evidence of wrongdoing.

The President reiterated on the

White House lawn on October 3 that

Ukraine should ‘‘start a major inves-

tigation into the Bidens’’ before adding

that China should also ‘‘start an inves-

tigation into the Bidens.’’

President Trump’s own politically

appointed Ambassador to the European

Union, Gordon Sondland, explicitly tes-

tified that the meeting and the assist-

ance were conditioned on announcing—

announcing—the investigations.

The President’s defense lawyers first

insisted on this floor that he ‘‘did abso-

lutely nothing wrong.’’ But later, after

even Republican Senators would not

make that claim, the new justification

for his misconduct was ‘‘corruption’’

and ‘‘burden-sharing.’’

If the President were so concerned

about corruption in Ukraine, why did

he dismiss one of our best corruption-

fighting diplomats, Marie

Yovanovitch? In May, the Department

of Defense also certified—certified—

that Ukraine had taken ‘‘substantial

actions’’ to decrease corruption.

If there were legitimate foreign pol-

icy concerns about corruption, the

President would not have released aid

to Ukraine without delay in 2017 and in

2018, only to delay it in 2019, after Joe

Biden announced his run for President.

If there were legitimate foreign pol-

icy concerns, the President would not

have been interested in pursuing inves-

tigations based on—as Dr. Fiona Hill

testified—a ‘‘fictional narrative that is

being perpetrated and propagated by

the Russian security services’’ to raise

doubts about Russia’s own culpability

in the 2016 election interference and to

harm the relationship between the

United States and Ukraine.

Furthermore, the President’s defense

team would have us believe that he le-

gitimately asserted executive privilege

over the House’s well-founded impeach-

ment inquiry, despite the fact that he

never actually asserted a privilege over

a single document or witness. Rather,

he issued a blanket directive in which

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he refused to cooperate entirely with

the House investigation. This action

not only obstructed the House’s con-

stitutional responsibility of oversight,

it also sought to cover up the Presi-

dent’s corrupt abuse of power.

At the time of the drafting of the

Constitution, the Framers’ under-

standing of ‘‘high Crimes and Mis-

demeanors’’ was informed by centuries

of English legal precedent. This under-

standing was reflected in the language

of Federalist No. 65 that I referred to

earlier regarding ‘‘an abuse or viola-

tion of some public trust.’’ Based on

this history, both Chambers of Con-

gress have consistently interpreted

‘‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors’’

broadly to mean ‘‘serious violations of

the public trust.’’

The President’s defense lawyers ar-

gued that impeachment requires the

violation of a criminal statute to be

constitutionally valid. This argument

is offensive, dangerous, and not sup-

ported by historical precedent, credible

scholarship, or common sense about

the sacred notion of the public trust.

When applying the impeachment

standard of an ‘‘abuse or violation of

some public trust,’’ it is clear that

President Trump’s conduct exceeded

that standard. Any effort to corrupt

our next election must be met with

swift accountability, as provided for in

the impeachment clause in the Con-

stitution. There is no other remedy to

constrain a President who has acted

time and again to advance his personal

interests over those of the Nation.

Furthermore, as demonstrated

through Special Counsel Mueller’s re-

port regarding Russian interference in

the 2016 election and the substantial

evidence presented in this impeach-

ment trial and the House proceedings,

President Trump has engaged in ongo-

ing efforts to solicit foreign inter-

ference in our elections.

As the Washington Post reported on

September the 21st in a story written

by three reporters who have covered

the President for several years, the

President’s conduct on the Ukraine

phone call revealed a ‘‘President con-

vinced of his own invincibility—appar-

ently willing and even eager to wield

the vast powers of the United States to

taint a political foe and confident that

no one could hold him back.’’

This President will abuse his power

again.

At the outset of this trial and

throughout the proceedings, Senate

Democrats and 75 percent of the Amer-

ican people have repeatedly called for

relevant witnesses and relevant docu-

ments to be subpoenaed to ensure a full

and fair trial for all parties. For exam-

ple, we sought testimony from former

National Security Advisor John

Bolton, whose unpublished manuscript

indicates that the President explicitly

told Bolton that he wanted to continue

the delay in military assistance to

Ukraine until it announced the polit-

ical investigations he was seeking.

Fifty-one Senate Republicans refused

to examine this or other relevant evi-

dence, thereby rigging this trial to the

benefit of the President. Fair trials

have witnesses and documents. Cover-

ups have neither.

This is the third Presidential im-

peachment trial in our country’s his-

tory, and it is the only one—the only

one—to be conducted without calling a

single witness. In fact, every completed

impeachment trial in history has in-

cluded new witnesses who were not

even interviewed in the House of Rep-

resentatives. Senate Republicans

slammed the door shut on relevant tes-

timony, contrary to the national inter-

est.

Our Founders had the foresight to en-

sure that the power of the President

was not unlimited and that Congress

could, if necessary, hold the Executive

accountable for abuses of power

through the impeachment process. This

trial is not simply about grave Presi-

dential abuse of power; it is about our

democracy, the sanctity of our elec-

tions, and the very values that the

Founders agreed should guide our Na-

tion.

I go back to the beginning and that

inscription: ‘‘All public service is a

trust, given in faith and accepted in

honor.’’ President Trump dishonored

that public trust and thereby abused

his power for personal political gain. In

order to prevent continuing inter-

ference in our upcoming election and

blatant obstruction of Congress, I will

vote guilty on both articles.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Arkansas.

Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, I rise

today to address the topic that has

consumed this body for the past several

weeks, which is, of course, the im-

peachment trial of the President of the

United States.

After the passage of two Impeach-

ment Articles in the House, Speaker

ELOSI

waited nearly a month to trans-

mit the articles to the Senate. Once

she finally did, the trial took prece-

dence, and the wheels were set in mo-

tion to conduct the proceedings and

render a verdict.

Since it became clear that the House

would vote to impeach the President, I

have taken my constitutional duty to

serve as a juror in the impeachment

trial with the seriousness and atten-

tion that it demands.

In light of the extensive coverage the

situation received, it was impossible

not to take notice of the process that

unfolded in the House over the course

of its investigation. Its inquiry was

hasty, flawed, and clearly undertaken

under partisan pretenses.

Having rushed to impeach the Presi-

dent ahead of an arbitrary deadline, as

well as failing to provide adequate op-

portunities for the President to defend

himself, the impeachment investiga-

tion in this case specifically was con-

trived, at least partially, and was a ve-

hicle to fulfill the fierce desire among

many of the President’s detractors

that has existed since before he was

even sworn in to remove him from of-

fice.

Be that as it may, the Constitution

makes clear that the Senate has a duty

to try all the impeachments. As such,

the chief concern I had, as I know

many of my colleagues also shared, was

for the process in this body to be fair.

It was clear to me that what transpired

in the House was incredibly partisan

and unfair.

I believed the Senate must and would

rise to the occasion to conduct a trial

that was fair, respectful, and faithful

to the design and intent of our Found-

ers. I believed that the organizing reso-

lution that we passed was sufficient in

establishing a framework for the trial

and also would address the outstanding

issues at the appropriate times.

Throughout the course of the trial, I

stayed attentive and engaged, taking

in the arguments and the evidence pre-

sented to the Senate, which included

the testimony of over a dozen wit-

nesses and thousands of documents as

part of the House investigation.

The House impeachment managers

were emphatic that their case against

the President was overwhelming,

uncontested, convincing, and proven.

The President’s counsel made an equal-

ly forceful case in his defense, coun-

tering the claims made by the House

and underscoring the grounds on which

the Senate should reject the articles

and, by necessity, the attempt to expel

him from office and a future ballot.

Based on the work done by the

House—or maybe, more accurately, the

work not done and the inherently

flawed and partisan nature of the prod-

uct it presented to the Senate—I was

skeptical that it could prove its case

and convince anybody, apart from the

President’s longtime, most severe crit-

ics, that his behavior merited removal

from office. After 2 weeks of pro-

ceedings in the Senate, my assessment

of the situation has not been swayed,

nor has it changed. That is why I will

vote to acquit the President and reject

the weaponization of Congress’s au-

thority to impeach the duly elected

President of the United States.

To be clear, the partisan nature of

this impeachment process potentially

sets the stage for more impeachments

along strictly partisan lines—a devel-

opment that would be terrible for our

country. The Constitution lays out jus-

tifications for impeachment, which in-

clude ‘‘Treason, Bribery, or other high

Crimes and Misdemeanors.’’

As a U.S. Senator, there is perhaps

no more important decision that I am

asked to make aside from voting to

send Americans to war. That is exactly

why I treated this impeachment trial

with the gravity and the thoughtful-

ness I believe that it deserved.

The accusations explicitly made by

the House impeachment managers and

echoed by some on the other side that

the Senate is engaging in a coverup are

wrong on the merits and further drag

this process down into the rhetoric of

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S847 February 4, 2020

partisan political warfare. I regret that

it has descended to such a place. Ful-

filling my constitutional obligation

after drawing my own conclusions is

far from a coverup.

The attempt to turn the impeach-

ment power into a weapon of political

convenience will be far more damaging

than any other aspect of this chapter

in our Nation’s history.

At the end of the day, this partisan,

deficient process yielded a product

built on inadequate foundation, in ad-

dition to being clearly motivated by

the desire to remove the President,

who some vocal activists have viewed

as illegitimate since Election Day 2016.

Not even a year ago, Speaker P

ELOSI

was still attempting to stem the push

for impeachment within her own party,

arguing that ‘‘impeachment is so divi-

sive to the country that unless there’s

something so compelling and over-

whelming and bipartisan, I don’t think

we should go down that path.’’ She was

right, and this impeachment process

has failed by each of these metrics. It

has further divided the country.

The case is certainly not over-

whelming, and it has been anything

but bipartisan. In fact, the vote against

impeaching the President in the House

was bipartisan. As a result of Senate

rules and precedents, it has also

brought the legislative process nearly

to a grinding halt.

But as the trial reaches its conclu-

sion, I believe we must move on and re-

turn to doing the work of trying to get

things done for the American people.

The average Arkansan, like many

other Americans, is looking for results

and asking how the elected leaders

they have chosen are trying to help

make their lives better and move our

country forward. They are not inter-

ested in the political games and the-

ater that have consumed much of

Washington since September. It is my

hope that we return to that real, press-

ing work in short order.

In just a few months, the voters of

this country will get to decide who

they prefer to lead our country. I trust

them to make that decision, and I

trust that the process by which we

choose our President and other leaders

will remain free and fair and that the

outcome will represent the will of the

people. The hard-working men and

women of our intelligence, law enforce-

ment, and national security commu-

nities will continue to work tirelessly

to ensure that this is the case, and I

have every confidence they will suc-

ceed in that endeavor.

It is time to get back to the impor-

tant work before us and to remember

that those we represent are capable of

judging for themselves how this im-

peachment was conducted and, maybe

just as importantly, how we conducted

ourselves as it unfolded.

We have a responsibility to lead by

example. I implore my colleagues to

join me in committing to getting back

to doing the hard and necessary work

before us when this impeachment trial

reaches its conclusion.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Oklahoma.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, we

are in our third week of the impeach-

ment trial right now. After thousands

of documents being reviewed and over a

dozen witnesses that we have heard,

well over 100 video testimony clips that

we have gone through, we are nearing

the end.

The country is deeply divided on

multiple issues right now, and the im-

peachment trial is both a symptom of

our times and another example of our

division.

The Nation didn’t have an impeach-

ment inquiry for almost 100 years,

until 1868, the partisan impeachment of

Andrew Johnson.

Another impeachment wasn’t con-

ducted for over 100 years after that,

when the House began a formal im-

peachment inquiry into President

Nixon with an overwhelmingly bipar-

tisan vote of 410 to 4.

Just a little over two decades later,

there was another partisan impeach-

ment process—President Clinton, when

he was impeached on an almost

straight partisan vote.

Tomorrow I will join many others to

vote to acquit the President of the

United States. His actions certainly do

not rise to the level of removal from

office. This is clearly another one of

our partisan impeachments, now the

third in our history.

Over the past 3 years, the House of

Representatives has voted four times

to open an impeachment inquiry: once

in 2017, once in 2018, and twice in 2019.

Only the second vote in 2019 actually

passed and turned into an actual im-

peachment inquiry.

For 4 months the country has been

consumed with impeachment hearings

and investigations. First, rumors of

issues with Ukraine arose on August 28,

when POLITICO wrote a story about

U.S. aid being slow-walked for Ukraine,

and then September 18, when the Wash-

ington Post released a story about a

whistleblower report that claimed

President Trump pressured an

unnamed foreign head of state to do an

investigation for his campaign.

Within days of the Washington Post

story, before the whistleblower report

came out, before anything was known,

Speaker P

ELOSI

announced the House

would begin hearings to impeach the

President, which led to a formal House

vote to open an impeachment inquiry

on October 31 and a formal vote to im-

peach the President on December 18.

The House sent over two Articles of

Impeachment, asking the Senate to de-

cide if the President should be removed

from office and barred from running for

any future office in the United States—

one on abuse of power; the second on

obstruction of Congress. Let me take

those two in order.

The abuse of power argument hinges

on two things: Did the President of the

United States use official funds to

compel the Ukrainian Government to

investigate Joe Biden’s son and his

work for the corrupt natural gas com-

pany in Ukraine, Burisma, and did the

President withhold a meeting with

President Zelensky until President

Zelensky agreed to investigate Joe

Biden’s son?

To be clear, the theory of the funds

being withheld from Ukraine in ex-

change for an investigation doesn’t

originate from that now-infamous July

25 call. There is nothing in the text of

the call that threatens the withholding

of funds for an investigation. The the-

ory originates from the belief of Am-

bassador to the European Union Gor-

don Sondland’s—what he said—pre-

sumption—and he repeated that over

and over again—presumption that the

aid must have been held because of the

President’s desire to get the Biden in-

vestigation done, since the President’s

attorney—his private attorney—Rudy

Giuliani was working to find out more

about the Biden investigation and

Burisma.

Ambassador Sondland told multiple

people about his theory. When he actu-

ally called President Trump and asked

him directly about it, the President re-

sponded that there wasn’t any quid pro

quo. He just said he wanted the Presi-

dent of Ukraine to do what he ran on

and to do the right thing.

Interestingly enough, that is the

same thing that President Zelensky

said and his Defense Minister said and

his chief of staff said. The aid was held

because there was legitimate concern

about the transition of a brand-new

President in Ukraine and his adminis-

tration in the early days of his Presi-

dency. An unknown on a world stage

was elected, President Zelensky, on

April 21. His swearing-in date was May

21. During his swearing-in, he also

abolished Parliament and called for

snap elections. No one knew what he

was going to do or what was going to

happen.

Those elections happened July 21 in

Ukraine, where an overwhelming num-

ber of President Zelensky’s party won

in Parliament. There was an amazing

transition in a relatively short period

of time in Ukraine and there were a lot

of questions.

I will tell you, I was in Ukraine in

late May of 2019, and our State Depart-

ment officials there certainly had ques-

tions on the ground about the rapid

transition that was happening in

Ukraine. It was entirely reasonable for

there to be able to be a pause in that

time period. Those concerns were re-

solved in August and early September

when the new Parliament started pass-

ing anti-corruption laws, and Vice

President P

ENCE

sat down face-to-face

with President Zelensky on September

1 in Poland to discuss the progress and

corruption and their progress on get-

ting other nations to help supply more

aid to Ukraine.

As for the meeting with the Presi-

dent being withheld, as I just men-

tioned, the Vice President of the

United States met with President

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES848 February 4, 2020

Zelensky on September 1. That meet-

ing was originally scheduled to be with

the President of the United States and

all the planning had gone into it, and

there was documentation for that.

There was a meeting happening be-

tween President Zelensky, which was

actually the place and date that he

asked for to meet with President

Trump, except in the final moments of

that and the final days leading up to it,

Hurricane Dorian approached the

United States and that meeting had to

be called off by the President while he

stayed here, so the Vice President went

in his stead.

There was no quid pro quo in a meet-

ing. The meeting that was requested

actually occurred. It was interesting to

note, as well, when I researched the

record about the aid dates for Ukraine

in the past 3 years, I found out that, in

2019, the aid arrived in September. It is

interesting, from 2016 to 2018, the vast

majority of military aid for each of

those years—2016, 2017, and 2018—also

went to Ukraine in September.

Well, it is easy to create an intricate

story about the hold of foreign aid. It

is also clear that President Trump has

held foreign aid from multiple coun-

tries over the last 2 years, including

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Honduras, Gua-

temala, El Salvador, Lebanon, and oth-

ers. There is no question that a Presi-

dent can withhold aid for a short pe-

riod of time, but it has to be released

by September 30, which it was to

Ukraine on time.

The hold did occur. There are mes-

sages back and forth about being able

to hold, but it is entirely reasonable to

have the hold, and it was such a short

period of time—the aid arrived at the

same time as it usually did each of the

past 3 years—that the Minister of De-

fense for Ukraine actually stated that

the hold was so short, they didn’t even

know it.

What is interesting about this is this

is stretched from not just an ‘‘abuse of

power,’’ but also ‘‘obstruction of Con-

gress.’’ That is the second Article of

Impeachment. The House argument

was that the President didn’t turn over

every document and allow every wit-

ness without submitting everything to

Congress immediately. They argued

that, if the President challenged any

subpoena, he was stalling, he was act-

ing guilty, and so it was grounds for

impeachment.

Remember how fast this all hap-

pened. The investigation started Sep-

tember 24. The official start of im-

peachment started October 31 and

ended on December 18, with a partisan

vote in the House for impeachment. If

President Trump obstructed Congress

because he didn’t turn over documents

that didn’t even have a legal subpoena

within 2 months, then I would say

President Obama was not impeached,

but maybe he should have been, though

I don’t think he should have been.

But you could argue in that same

way because President Obama did not

honor three subpoenas in 3 years on the

Fast and Furious investigation when

that happened. For 3 years, he stalled

out, but there was no consideration for

impeaching President Obama because

he shouldn’t have been impeached. He

was working through the court system

as things moved.

This was a serious issue that became

even more serious when the House

managers moved, not just to say that

this is obstruction of Congress if the

President doesn’t immediately submit,

but they took this to a different level

by saying the President should not

have access to the courts at all, lit-

erally stating: Does the Constitution

give the legislative branch the power

to block the executive branch from the

judicial branch?

House managers said, yes, they can

rapidly move through a trial, then

bring the case to the Senate and have

it only partially investigated and then

try to use the power of the Senate to

block the executive branch from ever

going to court to resolve any issue.

That has not been done in the past, nor

should it be. The President, like every

other citizen of the United States,

should have access to the courts, and it

is not grounds for contempt of Con-

gress to block the President from ever

trying to go to court to resolve issues

that need to be resolved. Every other

President has had that right. This one

should have had that right as well.

This tale that President Trump

thinks he is a King and doesn’t want to

follow the law begs reality. Let me re-

mind everyone of the Mueller inves-

tigation, where 2,800 subpoenas were

done in over 2

⁄

years, with 500 wit-

nesses, including many of the Presi-

dent’s inner circle. All of those were

provided. None of those were blocked

by the administration.

After 2

⁄

years, the final conclusion

was there was no conspiracy between

the President’s campaign and the Rus-

sians. The President did honor those

subpoenas. The President has been very

clear in multiple court cases that he

did not like it and he did not agree

with it. He has been outspoken on

those, but he has honored each court

decision. It would be a terrible prece-

dent for the Senate to remove a Presi-

dent from office because he didn’t

agree that Congress couldn’t take away

his rights in court like every other

American.

The difficulty in this process, as with

every impeachment process, is sepa-

rating facts and the politics of it.

There are facts in this case that we

took a lot of time to go through. Each

of us in this body sat for hour upon

hour upon hour, for 2

⁄

weeks, listening

to testimony and going through the

record. We all spent lots of time being

able to read, on our own, the facts and

details. That was entirely reasonable

to be able to do.

But we have to examine, at the end

of the day, what is a fact-based issue

that has been answered—and each of

the key facts raised by the House all

have answers—and what is a politics

issue—to say in an election year, what

is being presented by the House that

says: What can we do to slow down this

process and to try to give the President

a bad name during the middle of an

election time period? To separate out

those two is not a simple process.

But we begin with the most basic ele-

ment. Do the facts line up with the ac-

cusations made by the House? They do

not. Are there plenty of accusations?

Yes, there are. My fear is that, in the

days ahead, there will be more and

more accusations as we go. There have

been for the last 3 years.

But at this moment and the facts at

this time, in the partisan rancor from

the House and into the Senate, I am

going to choose to acquit the President

of the United States. This certainly

does not rise to the level of removal

from office and forbidding him to run

for any other office in the future. It

certainly doesn’t rise to that level.

In the days ahead, as more facts

come out, all of history will be able to

see how this occurred and the details of

what happens next. I look forward, ac-

tually, for that to continue to be able

to come out so all can be known.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-

ator from Maine.

Mr. KING. Mr. President, I would

like to share my remarks, not only

with my colleagues today, but more so

with those who will come after us. I

want to touch on four issues: the trial

evidence; the President’s actions as

outlined in articles I and II of the Arti-

cles of Impeachment; and finally, and

most importantly in my mind, the im-

plications of our decision this week on

the future of our government and our

country.

First, the trial—weeks ago, I joined

my colleagues in swearing an oath to

‘‘do impartial justice.’’ Since that

time, I have done everything possible

to fulfill that responsibility. I paid full

attention, taken three legal pads’

worth of notes, reviewed press ac-

counts, and had conversations with my

colleagues and citizens in my home

State of Maine.

The one question I got most fre-

quently back home was how we could

proceed without calling relevant wit-

nesses and securing the documents

that would confirm or deny the charges

against the President, which are at the

heart of this matter.

But for the first time in American

history, we failed to do so. We robbed

ourselves and the American people of a

full record of this President’s misuse of

his office. This failure stains this insti-

tution, undermines tomorrow’s verdict,

and creates a precedent that will haunt

those who come after us and, indeed,

will haunt the country. But now, we

are here, left to make this decision

without the facts, concealed by the

White House and left concealed by the

votes of this body last Friday.

This was not a trial in any real sense.

It was, instead, an argument based

upon a partial, but still damning,

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S849 February 4, 2020

record. How much better it could have

been had we had access to all the facts,

facts which will eventually come out,

but too late to inform our decisions?

As to the articles themselves, I

should begin by saying I have always

been a conservative on the subject of

impeachment. For the better part of

the last 3 years, I have argued both

publicly and privately against the idea.

Impeachment should not be a tool to

remove a President on the basis of pol-

icy disagreements. The President’s

lawyers are right when they argue that

this would change our system of gov-

ernment and dangerously weaken any

President.

But this reluctance must give way if

it requires my turning a blind eye to

what happened last summer. The

events of last summer were no policy

disagreement. They were a deliberate

series of acts whereby the President

sought to use the power of his office in

his own personal and political inter-

ests, specifically by pressuring a gov-

ernment of a strategic partner—a part-

ner, by the way, significantly depend-

ent upon our moral and financial sup-

port—pressuring that government to

take action against one of the Presi-

dent’s political rivals and, thereby, un-

dermine the integrity of the coming

American election.

This last point is important. In nor-

mal circumstances, the argument of

the President’s defenders that im-

peachment is not necessary because

the election is less than a year away

would be persuasive. I could under-

stand that. But the President, in this

matter, was attempting to undermine

that very election, and he gives every

indication that he will continue to do

so.

He has expressed no understanding

that he did anything wrong, let alone

anything reassembling remorse. Im-

peachment is not a punishment; it is a

prevention. The only way, unfortu-

nately, to keep an unrepentant Presi-

dent from repeating his wrongful ac-

tions is removal. This President has

made it plain that he will listen to

nothing else.

Article I charges a clear abuse of

power, inviting foreign interference in

the upcoming election. The President

tasked his personal attorney to work

with a foreign head of state to induce

an investigation—or just the mere an-

nouncement of an investigation—that

could harm one of the President’s top

political rivals.

And to compel the Ukrainians to do

so, he unilaterally withheld nearly $400

million appropriated by Congress to

help them fend off Russia’s naked and

relentless aggression. The President’s

backers claim that this was done in an

effort to root out corruption. So why

not use official channels? Why did he

focus on no examples of corruption

generally other than ones directly af-

fecting his political fortunes? And why

did he not make public the withholding

of funds, as the executive branch typi-

cally does, when seeking to leverage

Federal moneys for policy goals?

No matter how many times the

President claims his phone call with

President Zelensky was perfect, it sim-

ply wasn’t. He clearly solicited foreign

interference in our elections. He dis-

regarded a congressionally passed law.

He impaired the security of a key

American partner. He undermined our

own national security. And, if he was

simply pursuing our national interests

rather than his own, why was his per-

sonal attorney Rudy Giuliani put in

charge? Why was Rudy Giuliani men-

tioned in that phone call?

Put bluntly, no matter the defense,

and as a majority of the Members of

this body apparently now recognize,

President Trump placed his own polit-

ical interests above the national inter-

ests he is sworn to protect. And, as I

mentioned, he has shown no sign that

he will stop doing so when the next oc-

casion arises, as it surely will.

The implications of acquitting the

President on article I are serious. This

President will likely do it again, and

future Presidents will be unbound from

any restraints on the use of the world’s

most powerful political office for their

own personal political gain.

We are moving dangerously close to

an elected Monarch—the very thing the

Framers feared most.

Article II, to me, is even more seri-

ous in its long-term implications. Arti-

cle I concerns an incident—an egre-

gious misuse of power, to be sure, but a

specific set of actions in time. A

scheme is probably the most appro-

priate description, which took place

over the course of the past year.

Article II, however, which concerns

the President’s wholesale obstruction

of the impeachment process itself, goes

to the heart of Congress’s constitu-

tionally derived power to investigate

wrongdoing by this or any future Presi-

dent.

I do not arrive at this conclusion

lightly. I take seriously the White

House counsel’s argument that there is

a legitimate separation of powers issue

here, that executive privilege is real—

although I have to note it was never

actually asserted in this case, but that

executive privilege is real—and that

there must be limits on Congress’s

ability to intrude upon the executive

function.

But in this case, despite counsel’s

questions about which authorizing res-

olution passed when or whether the

House should have more vigorously

pursued judicial remedies, the record is

clear and is summarized in the White

House letter to the House in early Oc-

tober—that the President and his ad-

ministration ‘‘cannot participate’’ in

the impeachment process—cannot par-

ticipate.

To me, it is this ongoing blanket re-

fusal to cooperate in any way—no wit-

nesses, no documents, no evidence of

any kind—that undermines the asser-

tion that a categorical refusal, with

overt witness intimidation thrown in,

was based upon any legitimate, nar-

rowly tailored legal or constitutional

privilege.

No prior President has ever taken

such a position, and the argument that

this blanket obstruction should be

tested in court is severely undercut by

the administration’s recent argument

that the courts have no jurisdiction

over such disputes and that the remedy

for stonewalling Congress is—you

guessed it—impeachment. They argued

that in the Federal court in Wash-

ington this week.

Interestingly, the first assertion of

executive privilege was by George

Washington, when the House sought

background documents on the Jay

Treaty. Washington rested his refusal

to produce those documents on the idea

that the House had no jurisdiction over

matters of foreign policy, but, interest-

ingly, Washington, in his message to

Congress, did specify one instance

where the House would have a legiti-

mate claim on the documents’ release.

What was the instance? You guessed

it—impeachment.

If allowed to stand, this position that

the President—any President—can use

his or her position to totally obstruct

the production of evidence of their own

wrongdoing eviscerates the impeach-

ment power entirely, and it com-

promises the ongoing authority of Con-

gress to provide any meaningful over-

sight of the executive whatsoever.

For these and other reasons, I will

vote guilty on both Articles of Im-

peachment.

A final point, the Congress has been

committing slow-motion institutional

suicide for the past 70 years, abdicating

its constitutional authorities and re-

sponsibilities one by one: the war

power, effectively in the hands of the

President since 1942; authority over

trade with other countries, superceded

by unilateral Presidentially imposed

tariffs on friends and foes alike; and

even the power of the purse, which a

supine Congress ceded to the President

last year, enabling him to rewrite our

duly passed appropriations bill to sub-

stitute his priorities for ours. And now

this.

The structure of our Constitution is

based upon the bedrock principle that

the concentration of power is dan-

gerous, that power divided and shared

is the best long-term assurance of lib-

erty. To the extent we compromise

that principle, give up powers the

Framers bestowed upon us, and acqui-

esce to the growth of an imperial Presi-

dency, we are failing. We are failing

our oaths, we are failing our most fun-

damental responsibility, we are failing

the American people.

History may record this week as a

turning point in the American experi-

ment—the day that we stepped away

from the Framers’ vision, enabled a

new and unbounded Presidency, and

made ourselves observers rather than

full participants in the shaping of our

country’s future.

I sincerely hope I am wrong in all of

this, but I deeply fear that I am right.

I yield the floor.

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES850 February 4, 2020

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms.

ALLY

). The majority leader is rec-

ognized.

UNANIMOUS CONSENT AGREE-

MENT—READING OF WASHING-

TON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS

Mr. M

CONNELL. Madam President,

I ask unanimous consent that notwith-

standing the resolution of the Senate

of January 24, 1901, the traditional

reading of Washington’s Farewell Ad-

dress take place on Monday, February

24, following the prayer and pledge; fur-

ther, that Senator B

ALDWIN

be recog-

nized to deliver the address.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without

objection, it is so ordered.

ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

TRIBUTE TO ALICE PRIESTER

∑ Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, it

is my distinct honor to recognize a be-

loved member of my hometown of

Farmington, WV, as well as a very dear

lifelong friend to me and my family:

Alice Priester, who celebrated her

100th birthday on February 2, 2020.

Particularly what comes to mind

when I think of Alice is our bond with

the coal miners of our great State. She

and I have both lost loved ones to acci-

dents in the coal mines. Every day, as

I fight for these brave souls who per-

form this dangerous work, I am also

thinking of the family members like

Alice, who also depend on safety stand-

ards, fair wages, and precautions. She

and her late husband Paul have one

son, Fred, who is also involved in the

coal industry. I carry this heritage

with me no matter where I am but es-

pecially when I am in Washington.

The women in my life who raised me

are the most important people in the

world to me. Even those not related by

blood are considered as good as family

in tight-knit communities like Farm-

ington, and Alice is an inspiration to

me and so many others. Having de-

feated cancer twice, Alice is one of the

strongest, most inspirational people I

have ever had the pleasure of calling a

dear friend. When she is not cheering

on the WVU Mountaineers, Alice is

very involved with our church, helping

with funeral dinners and driving her

neighbors and friends to town and

church functions. She also has had a

history of involvement with the volun-

teer fire department and fundraising,

and she treats her neighbors as family.

From her days working at the local

mine’s company store to her retire-

ment from the dining hall at Fairmont

State University, Alice has showcased

an unparalleled work ethic and zest for

life that truly represents the very best

of what it means to be a West Vir-

ginian.

Alice while you weren’t born here,

you certainly are a West Virginian in

your heart and soul. In West Virginia,

if you are hungry, you will be fed. If

you are lost, someone will not only

give you directions but will offer to

drive you to your destination. I am so

deeply proud of the people of my home

State and the values that make us

stand out from the rest of the Nation.

Gayle and I are so deeply appreciative

of your very dear friendship, your gen-

erosity to the Farmington community,

and your warm, welcoming hospitality.

Alice, as your family and friends

honor you, please know that you have

provided so much happiness and wis-

dom to the lives of those around you

throughout the years. It is my wish

that the memory of your special 100th

birthday remains with you just as your

guidance and influence will remain in

all the lives you have touched. Again,

it is with the greatest admiration that

I send to you my best wishes.∑

TRIBUTE TO MATTIE FLORENCE

JONES

∑ Mr. PAUL. Madam President, I want

to recognize Ms. Mattie Florence

Jones, recipient of the 2020 Dr. Martin

Luther King, Jr. Freedom Award, for

her lifetime of commitment to the

dream of equality so beautifully ar-

ticulated by Dr. King. Her tireless civil

rights advocacy is surpassed only by

her loving commitment to her family,

including the dozens of foster children

who were welcomed into her Louisville

household. Her legacy of activism and

service are unparalleled and worthy of

this special distinction.∑

RECOGNIZING SUN HARVEST

CITRUS

∑ Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, as

chairman of the Senate Committee on

Small Business and Entrepreneurship,

each week I honor a small business

that demonstrates America’s unique

entrepreneurial spirit. I am pleased to

recognize a business that has been a

notable member of their local commu-

nity for nearly 30 years. Today, it is

my pleasure to name Sun Harvest Cit-

rus of Fort Myers, FL, as the Senate

Small Business of the Week.

Founded in 1990 by Sandy McKenzie

Nicely, Sun Harvest Citrus is known

for their high-quality citrus products,

which makes them a premiere Fort

Myers destination. Their produce is

sourced from citrus groves originally

purchased by Sandy’s grandfather Rob-

ert Edsall, Sr., in 1940. The grove, lo-

cated along the east coast of Florida

and consisting of approximately 800

acres of land, has passed through her

family for three generations and is now

managed by her brother, David

McKenzie. Sandy became inspired to

open the Sun Harvest Citrus store in

1990 when the Florida citrus industry

dealt with overproduction. The store

became a great way to sell the surplus

citrus from the groves, while offering a

location for customers to gather. Since

1990, they have expanded their products

to offer several different types of citrus

produce, juices, candies, and sweets, as

well as serve as a tourist attraction for

the Fort Myers area.

Today, Sun Harvest Citrus employs

more than 25 Floridians and produces a

diverse variety of orange and grape-

fruit products. The store sells seasonal

citrus baskets and produces up to 2,500

gallons of juice a day. One of their