[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 192 (Tuesday, December 3, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1525-E1526]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  PRINCIPLES GOVERNING CONSIDERATION OF ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT OF A 
                               PRESIDENT

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 3, 2019

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the House 
Judiciary Committee and one who served on the Committee during the last 
impeachment proceeding, I rise to share some of the fundamental 
principles that will guide my deliberations on the momentous task 
before the Committee.
  In 1776, the Framers founded this country and created this government 
on the basis of a

[[Page E1526]]

bedrock belief in a revolutionary assumption: that all men are created 
equal and have the inalienable right to life, liberty, and property; 
are entitled to live free of arbitrary rule; and most important, are 
endowed with the right to govern themselves.
  Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that ``all 
Experience has sh[o]wn that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while 
Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by taking'' immediate 
action against their oppressors.
  But, Jefferson continued, ``when a long Train of Abuses and 
Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to 
reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their 
duty'' to take immediate action to repel the danger.
  The Framers had first-hand experience with the types of abuses and 
usurpations committed by political leaders who ruled them but were not 
accountable to them and detailed many of those wrongs in the 
Declaration of Independence.
  The Framers understood and declared that democratic governors derived 
their powers from the knowing and voluntary consent of the governed as 
expressed in free, fair, and unfettered elections unmarred by the 
influence or sabotage of any entity not a member of the political 
community.
  If elections are influenced by foreign actors, then voters are 
reduced from citizens to subjects, and government for and by the people 
is a sham.
  The most important feature of a democracy is that it is the voters 
who alone can confer the legitimate consent and authorization necessary 
to govern upon the governors who are then duty-bound to represent the 
voters' interests, and only their interests.
  The fundamental democratic compact between the governed and the 
governors is that the latter's authority and continuance in office 
comes exclusively from the governed and allegiance is owed exclusively 
to the governed.
  This agreement can only be reached through free and fair elections, a 
breach of which threatens the vitality and viability of the social 
contract upon which democratic self-rule depends.
  Based on their personal experiences, the Framers understood the 
importance of a president's allegiance being always and only to the 
nation.
  That is why they included the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution 
as Article I, section 9, clause 8, which bans Presidents from accepting 
titles of nobility and strictly prohibits the acceptance of any 
emolument of any kind from any king, prince, or foreign state.
  President Lincoln called the United States the ``last best hope of 
man on earth'' and stated at Gettysburg the importance of finishing the 
work we are in to ensure that ``government of the people, for the 
people, by the people does not perish from the earth.''
  The serious allegation before us is that the President extorted or 
bribed the head of a foreign nation to conspire with him to sabotage an 
American election by manufacturing false charges against his political 
rival so that he could retain his office and continue to abuse his 
power.
  This is undoubtedly the most serious transgression that could be 
committed by a president who, as Lincoln said, has taken an oath 
``registered in Heaven'' to preserve, protect, and defend the 
Constitution of the United States.
  If American elections are not free, fair, and uninfluenced by foreign 
actors, then the democracy is extinguished, and the people do not rule.
  Instead, citizens are reduced to subjects, ruled by an authority 
dependent not on the consent of the governed, but on the assistance and 
beneficence of unaccountable foreign actors.
  Such a state of affairs inevitably would lead to actions taken by the 
ruler that are not in the interests of the nation, like dishonoring 
treaty agreements, abandoning allies, impugning the independent 
judiciary and the free press, disregarding fundamental rights and 
liberties of the people, abrogating civic norms and virtues, pursuing 
acts of personal enrichment, and currying favor with foreign despots 
and authoritarians.
  Although President Lincoln said in his First Inaugural Address that 
``while the people retain their virtue and vigilance no Administration 
by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the 
Government in the short space of four years,'' the Framers anticipated 
that the day may come when the actions of a Chief Magistrate would 
constitute a clear and present danger to the security and survival of 
the republic.
  To protect the republic, the Framers equipped the representatives 
chosen directly by the people with the necessary means of protecting 
their liberty by wisely including in the Constitution of the United 
States, Article I, section 2, clause 5, which vests the sole power of 
impeachment in the House of Representatives.
  As a Member of Congress who has taken an oath to preserve, protect, 
and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, 
foreign and domestic, these are the principles to which I am in 
fidelity and against which I will evaluate the actions of the President 
of the United States.

                          ____________________