[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 85 (Tuesday, May 21, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H4054-H4058]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Madam Speaker, and still I rise, and I do so with 
the love of my country within my heart, and I do so this evening 
because I believe that no one is above the law. No one.
  We find this to be the case in our great country: If you are a person 
who exceeds the speed limit, you are breaking the law. If you are 
caught exceeding the speed limit, there is a price to pay. No one is 
above the law.
  If you are a person who happens to, in the State of Texas, decide 
that you are going to go through the supermarket and pick and choose 
certain things that you would like to sample, at some point, if you 
partake of more than is reasonable, you will be charged with grazing. 
It is a crime in the State of Texas to graze, to take more than what is 
reasonable in having a sample of a grape. No one is above the law. 
People are prosecuted in the State of Texas for grazing.
  In the State of Texas, a good many persons have been prosecuted for 
not causing their children to go to school. Thwarting public attendance 
in school was a law in the State of Texas. People paid fines for not 
having their children in school.

  The list of laws is too long to ever mention in a statement such as 
this, but the point is, no one is above the law. There are laws that 
deal with persons who commit felonies and persons who commit 
misdemeanors. When you break these laws, you are prosecuted.
  You are not allowed to break the law with impunity, and you are not 
allowed to do it with immunity. No one is above the law.
  I believe that this is a part of the very hallmark of our criminal 
justice system in this great country. We believe that no one is above 
the law and that no one is beneath the law, meaning that the law should 
apply equally to all. Every person ought to be treated the same when it 
comes to the very bedrock principle of whether or not someone is above 
the law. No one is in this country.
  However, we find ourselves with a unique circumstance now. We have 
the highest office holder in the executive branch, the chief executive 
officer, if you will, who has refused to cooperate with lawful 
investigations of the Congress.
  He refused to cooperate in this sense. He has said to witnesses they 
should not appear and give testimony in a lawful investigation. He 
indicated that subpoenas will not be answered. They were issued 
pursuant to lawful investigations.
  No one is above the law. If you are not above the law, then if you 
are called upon to testify, you must testify. If you have some document 
within your possession and there has been a request for it by way of a 
subpoena, then you have to produce it. No one is above the law.
  Well, we currently have a circumstance where the chief executive 
officer is at odds with the legislative branch. This places the 
legislative and the executive at odds with each other. They are in a 
stalemate, if you will.
  When this occurs, you have one branch of government refusing to 
cooperate with lawful requests of another branch, the executive 
refusing the request of the legislative, then you have a standoff, as I 
indicated. No one is above the law.
  This, in my opinion, creates a constitutional crisis. Now, there are 
people who would differ with me. But remember this: What they are 
expressing is what I am expressing, an opinion. This is my opinion. 
They have their opinion. There is no hard and fast definition for a 
constitutional crisis.
  There are some who would contend that to have a constitutional crisis 
in this area, the subpoenas that have been issued would have to go to 
court. They would have to be litigated. At some point, a court might 
say to the executive branch of the government that it must obey the 
subpoena issued by Congress, the lawful subpoena.
  If the executive officer declines to obey the subpoena, it would be 
concluded that you have a constitutional crisis because the chief 
executive officer is not only disobeying Congress, he is disobeying a 
third branch of the government, the judicial branch, the judiciary. So 
you would then have a constitutional crisis.
  I differ. It is my opinion that you have a constitutional crisis when 
the

[[Page H4055]]

chief executive officer declines and refuses to obey a lawful request 
from the legislative branch. I think that when you get to the point 
that the President of the United States, or the chief executive 
officer, refuses an order from the court, you have a constitutional 
crisis, but you also have a collapse.
  That is when you have gone beyond a constitutional crisis. It is a 
collapse. The crisis leads up to that point. Once this happens and the 
President refuses to obey the judiciary as well as the legislative, you 
have a collapse.
  Right now, we are in a constitutional crisis. In this constitutional 
crisis, we have a circumstance that has developed that we cannot 
tolerate. You see, it is the legislative branch that has the duty to 
provide the check on the executive branch such that we maintain the 
balance of power. When the legislative branch seeks to check the 
executive branch and it absolutely refuses to cooperate, when this 
occurs, the system of checks and balances is being ignored.
  The system of checks and balances was put in place by the Framers of 
the Constitution to prevent the concentration of power in any one 
branch of government. To prevent the executive branch from having a 
concentration of power, the legislative branch was given this ability 
to check it.
  When the legislative branch cannot get cooperation, the ultimate 
check that it has is impeachment. The legislative branch prevents the 
concentration of power by saying to the chief executive officer: Mr. 
Chief Executive Officer, you are out of balance. You are assuming more 
authority than the Constitution accords you. Because you cannot do 
this, we, the Members of the legislative branch, can bring you before 
the bar of justice. We can call on you to answer for your failure to 
honor lawful investigative requests of the legislative branch. So we 
bring you before the bar of justice, and that is called impeachment.
  But it is important to remember that the Framers of the Constitution 
put the system of checks and balances in place to prevent a 
concentration of power. Why would we want to prevent a concentration of 
power? Because if the chief executive officer, the President, is 
allowed to have power concentrated beyond what the Constitution 
accords, meaning there are no guardrails, the President can do whatever 
he chooses.
  The President then becomes an officer who is and can be above the 
law. He is above the law in this country. No person is above the law. 
The checks and balances are in place to prevent the President from 
being above the law.
  If we don't enforce this system of checks and balances, we then allow 
the concentration of power, and we no longer have the form of 
government that the Framers intended and that we have enjoyed for these 
many years.

  We would have a monarchy. We would have a monarch. A monarch has the 
power to do whatever he chooses. The monarch is the law.
  We never intended in this country for the chief executive officer, 
the President, to be the law. We intended for the President to enforce 
the law by and through the various agencies that are under his domain, 
if you will, but not to be the law itself, not to decide what the law 
is on any given day, not to decide that he will obey the law when he 
chooses. No one is above the law.
  The Mueller report is a good indication of how the law is viewed. The 
Mueller report indicates that there are many instances where, but for a 
rule that the Justice Department adheres to, the President would be 
indicted--but for this rule.
  You won't find the words stated exactly as I have stated them, but 
that is the essence of what is stated in the Mueller report as it 
relates to obstruction of justice. Mr. Mueller was assigned the 
responsibility of looking into certain aspects of the campaign that the 
President participated in before being elected and to ascertain whether 
or not there was some collusion, obstruction of justice, if you will.

                              {time}  1815

  The Mueller conclusion is that the President is not exonerated when 
it comes to obstruction of justice and that the President but for these 
rules that they have, this rule that says you don't indict a sitting 
President, the President would likely be indicted. I say, likely be, 
because Mr. Mueller didn't say he would be, but he did say that the 
President wasn't exonerated when it comes to obstruction of justice.
  So the President is not above the law, and if the Justice Department 
is not going to prosecute, then where is the bar of justice?
  It is here. It is right here in this room; this very august body that 
we call the Congress of the United States of America. We then have the 
responsibility. If the Justice Department is not going to pursue the 
President, then it is left to the Congress. This is the last 
alternative for ensuring that the checks and balances are maintained 
and that the President is not above the law.
  Who agrees with the Mueller Report as I have expressed it?
  Some 800 former prosecutors have indicated that if this were any 
other person who violated the law as they see it in the Mueller Report, 
that this person would be prosecuted. They go on to say that it is 
critical that obstruction of justice be prosecuted because if you do 
not, then what you are sending is a message to people that they can 
interfere with lawful investigations. They don't say it in those exact 
words, but that is the import of the message that they do share with 
us, some 800 prosecutors, Federal prosecutors, persons who understand 
this law.
  Many of them have said that there is more than enough evidence here 
to prosecute anyone other than the President. But they have been 
respectful, and they understand that there is a rule in the Justice 
Department--the Office of Legal Counsel has promulgated it--that 
indicates that a sitting President won't be prosecuted.
  If the sitting President is not going to be prosecuted, then these 
800 lawyers are saying to us that the bar of justice has to be the 
place where the President will be brought, and that bar of justice is 
here in the House of Representatives. No one is above the law.
  We now recognize that we are some 34 days since the Mueller Report 
was made public. This is the number of days that the Trump 
administration has been above the law, some 34 days.
  Why?
  Because we have one official in the administration who has refused to 
honor a lawful request by the Ways and Means Committee to produce 
certain records, certain records belonging to the President, tax 
records--refused to produce those records in contravention of the law. 
Another official, the person who heads the Justice Department, is 
declining to respond to requests of the Judiciary Committee.
  No one is above the law. So we now have not only the President 
refusing, but the persons who are part of the administration are 
refusing. Some 34 days now I would say the administration itself has 
been above the law.
  These are the days since the Mueller Report has been released to the 
public, the number of days the Trump administration has been above the 
law.
  I love my country. I never came to Congress to give the speech I am 
giving tonight. I didn't come to Congress to take on the most powerful 
person on the planet Earth. I find myself standing here because I 
believe that you cannot see that this moral imperative exists to make 
sure that the law is followed and treated the same as it relates to all 
people and then ignore it. I just don't see how you can do it. I 
cannot. I refuse to ignore the fact that the President has obstructed 
justice.
  The President is not above the law. No one is. I will not allow 
political expediency, this notion that rather than deal with this now, 
let's just wait and let the next election determine the fate of a 
person who has breached the law in the highest office of the land, I 
might add. I refuse to accept it. I just cannot.
  The President is not above the law. I didn't come to the Congress to 
say this, but I love my country, and I see what this is doing to the 
country, when we have the chief executive officer saying to law 
enforcement officers--and he did say what I am about to tell you--that 
you don't have to be nice when you arrest people.
  What message are you sending to them in terms of what their behavior 
should be when they take people into their care, custody, and control?
  You are saying to them you can break the law.
  What kind of message do you send when you are at a campaign rally and

[[Page H4056]]

you say to people: Don't worry about how you treat them; if they arrest 
you, I will take care of it?
  That wasn't the exact language, but that was the message. This is the 
chief executive officer. This is the person who is the standard-bearer 
for the United States of America--the standard-bearer, the person who 
carries the torch of freedom for the United States of America.
  What are you saying when you say that you are a person who would 
support the breaking of the law and then you would support defending 
the person who breaks the law?
  You are saying you are above the law and you believe it, and you are 
saying you are willing to take care of those who would break the law as 
well.
  We have seen circumstances in this country that I never thought we 
would see: a President sending messages and signals indicating that if 
you side with me, I have the magic wand. If you side with me, I have 
the power to erase your offenses, your crimes. It is not really 
erasing, but I am communicating that it is a pardon. The President has 
this power, and he sends signals: break the law, but worry not, I have 
your back.
  Is this what we expect from the highest office in the land in the 
greatest country in the world?
  Are we going to allow ourselves to be brought into this complicity 
that we see so many people succumbing to?

  I don't think so. I will not. We cannot allow ourselves to become 
complicit. We cannot allow ourselves to become a party to what is going 
on here. The mere fact that we stand silent on it, as Dr. King put it: 
at some point, silence in and of itself becomes betrayal.
  The silence is betraying our country, it is betraying the 
Constitution, and it is betraying the Republic. The silence--no one is 
above the law.
  When will we cease to be silent on the greatest issue confronting us 
at this time?
  The Republic is at stake. It is not about Republicans, it is about 
the Republic and whether we will maintain it. It is not about 
Democrats, it is about our democracy. This is bigger than all of us. It 
is bigger. It is bigger than the President. It is about the country we 
love and whether we are going to allow one person to destroy the 
concept of no one being above the law.
  It is bigger than we are, and the truth is it has now become an issue 
that is about Congress. This issue is now about Congress. It is about 
whether the Congress of the United States of America is going to 
fulfill its responsibility. It is about whether the Congress of the 
United States of America will see and say--see that the President is 
obstructing and say that the President is obstructing.
  I marvel at the number of Members of Congress who have said that the 
President is obstructing justice, who have said that the President has 
committed impeachable offenses, impeachable acts, but notwithstanding 
having said it will not say that the President ought to be impeached. 
There are some who say that he should be impeached as a matter of fact 
and still won't move to impeach him.
  The President is not above the law. We are the law, the Members of 
Congress, 435 of us. We have been given an awesome responsibility. It 
is awesome. I don't take it lightly. It is not something that I think 
everybody should have the responsibility accorded to them because there 
are a good many people who don't believe that you should prosecute a 
President. They think that if the President commits a crime, well, that 
is the President. I am not one of them.
  They think that you have to commit a crime, by the way, before you 
can be impeached, a good many people. I am not one of them. The 
President doesn't have to commit a crime to be impeached. It is the 
harm that he causes society that the Framers of the Constitution 
addressed in Federalist 65, the words of Madison, Jay, and Hamilton.
  The President is not above the law. We in this body are now the 
issue. The issue is: Will Congress do what the Constitution has given 
us as the means by which we can deal with a chief executive officer who 
is breaking the law, who sees himself, apparently by virtue of his 
behavior, as being above the law?
  This is what Congress has to look into. This is what Congress has to 
bring before the bar of justice, this whole notion that the President 
is not above the law.
  So let's just take a moment now and talk about the process of 
impeachment because a good many people don't understand. Impeachment 
does not mean that a President is removed from office. Impeachment is 
sort of like an indictment. It is not the same but very much similar to 
an indictment. The Members of the House of Representatives serve as a 
body very similar to a grand jury. It is not the same, but it is 
similar to a grand jury. The Members of the House of Representatives 
determine whether or not a President should be impeached. They do so 
with a vote, a majority of the House voting to impeach, and the 
President is impeached.
  The President doesn't have to commit a crime to be impeached. Andrew 
Johnson was impeached in 1868. Article 10 of the articles of 
impeachment against him for a high misdemeanor that was not a crime--a 
misdemeanor is a misdeed, aside from being a minor criminal offense it 
is also a misdeed. He was impeached for this misdeed, and we here in 
this body can impeach any President for misdeeds.
  So if the body impeaches, it doesn't mean that the President is 
removed from office. It simply means that the President must now go to 
trial in the Senate. There is no requirement in the Constitution for 
the House to have to investigate the Mueller Report. The Mueller Report 
has been shared with us. There is enough evidence in that report to 
impeach the President. The Mueller Report has evidence shared by virtue 
of talking to witnesses who gave their testimony under the penalty of 
perjury. We can use that as the reason--that report--to send this to 
the Senate where a trial will take place.
  Remember, impeachment is sort of like an indictment--not the same but 
similar. It goes to the Senate. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 
would preside over that trial--the Chief Justice.
  In so doing, the House will have persons called managers. These 
managers would act as prosecutors. They would bring evidence before the 
Senate for the Senate to act upon. The Senate acts upon the evidence. 
The Chief Justice is there to make sure certain rules are followed. For 
example, if the House prosecutors, the managers, if they would like to 
call a witness, the Chief Justice will then be there to assist the 
process to get that witness before the Senate.
  There is a trial. Witnesses are called. Subpoenas can be issued, and 
you don't have to meander through some lower courts, inferior courts, 
because all courts, when it comes to the impeachment of the President, 
are inferior to the Senate when it sits in trial of the President.

                              {time}  1830

  They are all inferior, all of the courts.
  So you have the Chief Justice there to make his ruling. All of this 
is done before the public. There will be a trial. All of these 
subpoenas that are not being honored, all of the witnesses that are 
refusing to testify, take them before the Senate. Call them; have them 
sworn; have them give their testimony; and let the world hear and see.
  There is a desire to have a trial before the trial in the House, to 
have a trial in the sense that witnesses come and appear and are a part 
of an investigation. That is not, in fact, the kind of trial that you 
think of when you think of the word ``trial,'' but in a sense, we are 
having the witnesses come in and give their testimony. There is a 
desire to do this.
  To be very honest with you, I am not antithetical to the idea, but I 
do understand that, if the witnesses are not coming, if the subpoenas 
are not being honored, then the option left to us is to impeach and 
have that trial in the Senate, where they will have to come. Subpoenas 
will have to be honored. That is the means by which we maintain the 
system of checks and balances when the President refuses to perform as 
expected under the Constitution--as a matter of fact, as required under 
the Constitution.
  So, given that the President is not following the norms and not 
following the law and eventually we could take this through the 
inferior courts--they are inferior to the Senate when it sits

[[Page H4057]]

in trial of the President, because that is the ultimate court related 
to issues related to the President.
  These things can meander through the inferior courts. They are not 
inferior in the sense that they are less than efficient and effective 
at what they do; they are just inferior to this impeachment trial when 
the President has been impeached, the trial to determine whether or not 
he should be removed from office. Impeachment doesn't remove the 
President from office.
  But these subpoenas and all of these issues can go through these 
courts. No one knows how long it will take, but everybody 
prognosticates, people who know and who are supposed to know, that it 
can take months. It can take months, which means that we will, at some 
point, engage in paralysis analysis.
  Dr. King called it the paralysis of analysis, but analysis paralysis, 
meaning this: We will have done all that we can in these courts to try 
to bring the President to justice, get the witnesses necessary to bring 
the President to justice because he has committed these impeachable 
acts, and at some point, you will get so close to an election that 
someone will say: Well, let's not do this. Let's just wait until the 
next election.
  We will have been paralyzed going through the courts such that we 
won't get to the issues in time, and, as a matter of fact, it could be 
after the next election before some of the courts will rule. We just 
don't know. But those who prognosticate say that it will be months.
  One would think that maybe there can be an expedited process, but the 
courts will determine whether this will be the case.
  So, when you have all of this and you are confronting all of these 
things, you have to ask yourself: Will the House of Representatives do 
its job?
  And for those who are saying, well, you have to have bipartisan 
support, I would love to see bipartisan support, but there is no 
requirement for it in the Constitution.
  As a matter of fact, Jay, Hamilton, Madison, they prognosticated that 
you would not have unanimity. You won't have the bipartisanship that 
you are looking for. They said it would be a time of strife. They 
indicated that people would separate along party lines.
  Read Federalist 65, not a long read. Read it. You will see. They 
prognosticated that there would be divisions. So to say you have got to 
have the Republican Party on board before the Democratic Party can do 
its job is incorrect--not required.
  And, by the way, history is not going to be kind. It is not going to 
be kind. History is not going to be kind to us. History is going to 
cause a lot of reputations to be soiled. Those who look through the 
vista of time are not going to side with us the way we have friendships 
and relationships siding with us now.
  History is not going to be kind to Democrats or Republicans. History 
is going to present us as people who saw an injustice in the highest 
office of the land and refused to do our jobs.
  It won't be kind to us. Reputations are going to be tarnished. People 
who will be saluted and proclaimed heroes today who were just waiting 
to do the right thing at the right time, history is not going to be 
kind to them. There are too many things on record that they have 
already said. And there are too many people who will go back through 
these records, videos of what they have said.
  They can walk it back now, and they can have friendships now that 
will be of assistance to them, but history is not going to be kind to 
them.
  But there is a means by which we can bring ourselves back in proper 
alignment with the Constitution. It is called impeachment. This is what 
we can do, and it is never too late to get on the right side of 
history.
  There are many people in this House who are on the wrong side of 
history, wrong side of history. The right side of politics, as they see 
it. I would rather be on the right side of history and the wrong side 
of politics.
  So these persons who are now on the wrong side of history, my hope is 
that they will do as I see many of my colleagues doing now, and they 
are coming forward and they are acknowledging that enough is enough. 
Impeachment is a solution that has to be pursued.
  The question no longer is who is going to be the first to engage in 
this notion that we have to bring the President before the bar of 
justice in the House of Representatives. This is not the question.
  The question now is who will be the last person to say we must do it, 
because there seems to be a momentum building. There seems to be a 
momentum building that is going to cause some people who would have 
made history to be made by history.

  History can make people, and people can make history. There are some 
people who are going to be proclaimed by our contemporaries now as 
having made history, but the truth is that history will make them. 
History will make them do what they should do and should have done.
  They are going to have to face history. Maybe not right away, but, I 
assure you, time always tells. The truth is known, and history always 
judges.
  We are going to be judged, my friends. We all are. We are going to be 
judged. So why don't we just get on the right side of history now and 
salvage some of the reputation that we have?
  They don't have to lose their entire reputation. They don't have to 
become adamant about this. They have made their point. Let it go. Get 
on the right side of history. We know where this is going. It is just a 
matter of time.
  There will be additional votes on impeachment right here on this 
floor of the House of Representatives. Be on the right side of history 
for our children, for our grandchildren, for our great-grandchildren, 
for unborn generations. Get on the right side of history.
  Yes, history will have made them, but they will have made the right 
decision.
  History makes people; people make history. Either way, be on the 
right side of history. Don't find yourself on the wrong side of history 
when you hold yourself out to be a person who adheres to moral 
authority, the moral imperative to do the right thing. Be on the right 
side of history.
  I have heard people say that the soul of the country is at risk. I 
concur. But I also say this: Before the soul of the country goes, the 
soul of the House of Representatives will have gone, the soul of the 
House of Representatives, the very soul that we have in our hands, that 
has the moral authority, the moral imperative, to go forward and not 
allow political expediency to jeopardize our duty to do that which the 
Constitution affords us the opportunity to do if we have but only the 
will to do it.
  This House is now on trial. The House of Representatives is on trial 
in the court of public opinion. Some would say: Well, the court is not 
unanimously opposed. Some 40-plus percent of persons say that 
impeachment is appropriate.
  The public is here today and there tomorrow. The public has no duty 
to stay in one place all the time. We are looking at a snapshot in 
time, and the public opinion will change. It does.
  When Nixon was first brought before the attention of the Senate, as 
they were investigating, public opinion was not such that it would call 
for his impeachment then. Public opinion changes.
  I have a great example--unrelated to impeachment, but a great 
example.
  I remember when we had to vote on what has been called the 
``bailout.'' I remember the calls to my office. People knew that we 
were about to, as they saw it, bail out the banks, and the calls were 
very strong.
  People called in in large numbers, saying: Don't you vote to bail out 
those banks. Don't you do it. If you do it--there was at least one 
caller, probably more, who said--we will run you out of town.
  Well, I remember standing in the back of the Chamber, and as I stood 
there, after having cast my vote against the bailout, I saw the votes 
go up and the stock market go down.
  And having done what I thought was the appropriate thing pursuant to 
the requests of my constituents, I could not wait to hear what the 
response would be the next day.
  The response the next day was: What is wrong with you? Don't you see 
what you have done to my 401(k)? What is wrong with you? We are going 
to run you out of town.

[[Page H4058]]

  I learned a lesson about public opinion. Public opinion can be in one 
place today and in an entirely different place tomorrow.
  We should do what we believe is the right thing based upon what our 
conscience dictates. That is what I do.
  I assure you, this is a question of conscience for me, and I am going 
to follow my conscience, and I will have done the right thing.
  Dr. King said there are times when you have to do that which is 
neither safe, nor politic, nor popular. You do it because it is right.
  I am going to do the right thing because conscience dictates that 
this is the right thing to do.
  Madam Speaker, 34 days the President, the administration, is above 
the law--34 days.
  But there is one other thing. There are some things that are 
indelible, some things that you can't get out of your mind, some things 
that you just can't reconcile within yourself.
  This baby--and we have all seen this picture, or a good many of us 
have--crying, being separated from a parent--babies--at the border. I 
don't know the people. I know that they are part of the same race that 
I am a part of, the human race. I know that I have a kinship and a 
relationship with them.
  For our executive office to promulgate a policy, produce a policy 
that separates babies from their parents and not have a means by which 
they can be reunited is sinful.
  Babies separated from their parents and no means of reuniting them in 
place at the time you make this separation?

                              {time}  1845

  This is indelible in my mind. There are many other things to think 
about, but this I think about a lot, how we have treated people who are 
coming to this country who mean us no harm but who are trying to escape 
harm's way. I cannot divorce myself from it.
  I don't know them. I just know that they are human beings.
  I know that there is a crisis at the border. I think we have to deal 
with it. I want to deal with the border crisis. But I don't think 
separating children from their parents, as we have done it, is a part 
of the solution.
  I think that persons who would do this are victims. Those Border 
Patrol officers are victims themselves for what they have to do. Many 
of them, they don't want to do some of the things that they are being 
forced to do. They, too, are victims.
  But it started at the top. It started at the top with a belief that 
somehow this would deter people from coming, people who are fleeing 
harm's way.
  I only say to people as it relates to me. I say to myself, but for 
the grace of God, I could be one of these people. I was just fortunate 
enough to be born in this country, in a country where there are great 
opportunities. But for the grace of God, it could be me.
  Why would I treat someone with this level of indignity? But for the 
grace of God, it could be me.
  I refuse to let this go. I believe that this, too, is a part of the 
overall rationale for impeachment.
  Madam Speaker, this is our watch. This is the watch that has been 
afforded us. To every woman and man, a watch is given, and this is our 
watch.
  We can do as best we can to reconcile in our minds that this is okay, 
that it is all right. But in our hearts, we can't reconcile it. The 
mind can reconcile it, but the heart cannot.
  My heart won't let this be reconciled. In my mind, it is indelible.
  I say that, on my watch, I want the Record to show that I took a 
stand. Even when I had to stand alone, I took a stand. It is better to 
stand alone than not stand at all.
  But there are others who are standing, and I believe there will be 
many more, one of whom happens to be on the opposite side of the aisle. 
I thank him for having courage.
  I know what is going to happen. He is going to be ridiculed, but 
don't let that become the final word. When the pages of history are 
properly written, he will be vindicated. He will be vindicated. I 
assure him, my dear brother, he will be vindicated.
  I don't know him. I have never encouraged him to do anything. Nobody 
can say that he and I have any kind of friendship, really, other than I 
believe that all of us have collegiality and that we ought to be 
friendly with each other.
  But he is going to be vindicated. Stay strong. People are going to 
say ugly things. He may even get threats. But stay strong, because he 
is on the right side of history.
  More importantly, he is on the right side of righteousness. The right 
side of righteousness, what a great place to be.
  Don't let the head convince you that the heart is wrong. The heart 
speaks to the soul, to your very being. The head speaks to those who 
would listen to you. Let your heart speak to you.
  Madam Speaker, I pray that we, in this House, will do that which the 
Constitution and the Framers of the Constitution have given us the 
opportunity to do in a time such as this with a President such as 
Trump.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.

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