[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 177 (Wednesday, November 6, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S6414]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Impeachment Inquiry

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the House of Representatives continues to 
interview key witnesses as part of its impeachment inquiry. Each 
witness has reportedly added details and context to the central focus 
of the inquiry; that the President allegedly pressured a foreign leader 
to interfere in domestic politics and used the power of his office for 
personal political gain.
  The House must follow the facts where they lead and continue the 
investigation until all the facts come out. When and if there is a 
potential trial in the Senate, it will be our job to impartially look 
at all the evidence and come to our own independent judgment.
  I remind my colleagues of this fact because in recent days a few of 
my colleagues seem to be jumping to conclusions. We all know about our 
colleagues in the House Republican caucus who have made a show of 
storming classified hearings, even though many of them could 
participate in those hearings, who have shifted their defenses of the 
President on a nearly daily basis, who only weeks ago made the idea of 
no quid pro quo the linchpin of their argument in support of the 
President but now admit that the President might have engaged in a quid 
pro quo, but there is nothing wrong with that.
  In the House, the shifting sands of argument to embrace, to almost 
kneel at the feet of the President is appalling. They contradict 
themselves. They turn themselves into pretzels before all of the facts 
come out because they just blindly want to say that the President is 
right. That is not how the Constitution asks us to conduct ourselves as 
legislators.
  In the Senate, we are beginning to get that germ of coming to 
conclusions before we hear all the facts, before a trial occurs. That 
nasty germ is spreading. Senior Members said yesterday that they will 
refuse to read any transcript from the House investigation because they 
have written the whole process off as a bunch of BS. If they were using 
taxpayer dollars, much needed foreign aid--an important part of our 
foreign policy tool--to gain an advantage on a political rival, if that 
is true, that is BS? Our Senate Judiciary chairman knows better, but 
his blind loyalties, his abject following of whatever President Trump 
wants, it seems, make him say things like that.
  Yesterday, Leader McConnell stepped over the line, in my judgment, 
when he said that if an impeachment vote were held today, the President 
would be acquitted. Instead of speculating about the hypothetical trial 
or writing off the entire process before it has even concluded, how 
about we all wait for the facts to come out? That is our job.
  Facts can be stubborn things. Just yesterday we learned that a key 
figure provided supplementary testimony that he told a top Ukraine 
official that U.S. military assistance was conditioned on an 
announcement by Ukraine that it was opening the investigations 
President Trump requested. Instead of leaping to the President's 
defense to declare no quid pro quo as many House Republicans did--a 
claim now contradicted by several witnesses--everyone should wait for 
the facts to come out. Fairness demands that of us.
  Before I move on to another topic, there is another troubling 
development in this area--efforts by the White House and a Member of 
this Chamber to disclose the identity of the whistleblower. Let me 
repeat that. The White House and even a Member of this Chamber are 
openly advocating that Federal whistleblower protections be violated, 
that laws be broken, and the health and safety of the whistleblower and 
their family be put at risk. Shame, shame--it is just outrageous.
  We are in an extraordinary moment of history when Republicans over 
only a few weeks have shifted from saying that no laws were broken to 
saying that laws were broken but it is not impeachable to outright 
advocating that laws be broken. This is wrong. This is against 
democracy. This is against the grain of this country that we have been 
so proud of for 200-some-odd years. Whistleblowers who stand up for the 
Constitution should not be targeted by the President or powerful 
Members of the legislative branch, for sure. And even if you don't 
agree with that, you have to agree that it is the law and you shouldn't 
break it. We are a nation of laws. President Trump should hear that. So 
should the junior Senator from Kentucky--please.
  On a good note, I was pleased to hear that several of my Republican 
colleagues stood up yesterday and did the right thing. They defended 
the whistleblower's legal protections, including a Member of the 
Republican Senate leadership. Later today, I hope these Senators--and, 
indeed, all Senators--join Democrats in approving a resolution offered 
by my colleague Senator Hirono that supports the whistleblower 
protections. Senator Hirono will be asking unanimous consent to pass 
it, and we should, for the sake of the safety of this whistleblower, 
whether you like what he or she did or you don't, for the sake of rule 
of law, and for the sake of what balance of power is all about.