[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 182 (Thursday, November 14, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S6582]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Impeachment

  Madam President, in the House impeachment inquiry into President 
Trump, public hearings began yesterday with the testimony of George 
Kent and William Taylor.
  Ambassador Taylor, who is a career public servant and a war hero who 
has long served Presidents of both parties, provided a startling new 
revelation--that his aide overheard a conversation between President 
Trump and Ambassador Sondland, during which the President made clear he 
cared more about Ukraine's investigating the Bidens than he did about 
helping Ukraine. The aide is reportedly set to appear before the House 
for a deposition later this week, and Mr. Sondland is set to appear 
before the Intelligence Committee for a public hearing next week.
  All Senators will have an obligation to seek and review the full 
facts that will be developed by this inquiry to be able to render 
impartial justice. However, some of my Republican friends in the Senate 
have said they are not even paying attention to the hearings in the 
House. The distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary--a 
former House manager of an impeachment case, who, at the time, 
repeatedly urged Senators not to make up their minds before the case 
was in--recently said that he has made up his mind, that there is 
nothing there. This is before a single bit of evidence has been 
presented in the Senate. Alice in Wonderland: First is the verdict, 
then the trial. That is not becoming for the chairman of the Committee 
on the Judiciary.
  While my Republican colleagues may not have been paying attention, I 
have been paying attention, and my Democratic colleagues in the Senate, 
who know they might have to act as judges and jurors in this case, are 
paying attention. America is also paying attention. The evidence we all 
heard from Mr. Taylor and Mr. Kent has cast a troubling portrait of a 
President who is trying to use the powers of his office for personal 
political gain. As the public hearings continue, we have a 
responsibility here in the Senate not to prejudge the case but to 
examine the evidence impartially. At the very least, Senators should be 
paying attention.