[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 198 (Wednesday, December 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6959-S6960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Impeachment

  Mr. President, now on impeachment, yesterday, the House Judiciary 
Committee announced two Articles of Impeachment against the President 
of the United States. The articles allege that President Trump abused 
the office of the Presidency by soliciting the interference of a 
foreign power in our elections to benefit himself personally. They also 
allege the President obstructed Congress in the investigation of these 
matters.
  The President has had every chance to defend himself against these 
allegations. He has had every chance to rebut the specific evidence 
that was presented in the House. If there is information or a witness 
who the White House believes can provide exculpatory evidence in 
defense of the President, nothing is stopping them from testifying 
under oath. But if the President is so innocent, if this is a mere 
witch hunt, then why isn't he answering the specific charges? Why is he 
blocking witnesses from testifying who would have direct knowledge of 
these facts?
  The House has made an extremely strong case. The burden now lies on 
the President to rebut it, if he can. And what the majority of 
Americans are saying is that the fact that he refuses to produce 
rebutting evidence, the fact that he blocks witnesses from testifying, 
the fact that he won't let documents come forward may well indicate 
that he did everything alleged in the House proceedings.
  To talk about things that are unrelated to the charges against the 
President have nothing to do with what happened here. The President 
merely needs to claim his innocence. If he has nothing to hide, he 
should have nothing to fear from handing over documents or allowing 
witnesses to testify. So their silence, the silence imposed by the 
White House on top officials with knowledge of these dealings, speaks 
volumes.
  What has the President, the White House, and their congressional 
allies here in the Senate and the House tried to do? Instead of 
defending the President with facts, the White House, the President 
himself, and congressional Republicans employ one fringe conspiracy 
theory after the next to explain away the President's conduct, even 
though they have nothing to do with the specific charges against the 
President.
  Here in the Senate, unfortunately, we have several Members on the 
other side of the aisle who are forming their own conspiracy caucus. 
Any conspiracy theory pulled out of the air by known pranks, then 
broadcast on FOX News, which shows an all-too willingness to broadcast 
this stuff, is then picked up here as a diversion. Why do they want to 
divert? Is it because they know the facts can be answered?
  For the past few weeks, certain Republican Senators have repeated the 
fiction invented by Putin's intelligence services that Ukraine, not 
Putin, interfered in the 2016 election. They are mouthing Putin's 
propaganda. The Republican Party is to be anti-Russian, anti-Putin, 
anti-Communist, but now all of a sudden, because President Trump has 
created so many different diversions because he seems to go along with 
what Putin wants, these Republicans have become Putin mouthpieces when 
it comes to these conspiracy theories.
  Today, an example, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is 
holding a hearing on the report issued this week by the Department of 
Justice Inspector General, which found no evidence of a political 
motive for the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign. The deputy 
counsel of the FBI said there was an obligation to investigate--not by 
anyone's design--once they heard these allegations that came from a 
credible source.
  What will the Judiciary chairman do? Will he focus on the central 
finding of the IG report? I suspect not. I suspect Republicans on that 
committee, instead, will take every opportunity to contort the facts to 
further the President's baseless claim that the FBI was out to get him. 
So many people accused of crimes and wrongdoing, instead of addressing 
the issue when they know they are guilty, blame the prosecutor. That is 
not what our system of justice is about.
  But, astonishingly, that is what the chief law enforcement officer of 
the land, the Attorney General of the United States, did yesterday in 
interviews. Contradicting the findings of his own inspector general--
someone who would study the case for months, someone who the Attorney 
General himself had recently praised as fiercely independent and a 
superb investigator--what Attorney General Barr did was push the false 
narrative that the FBI acted in bad faith when it investigated the 
Trump campaign. Attorney General Barr has signed himself up to be a 
charter member of the conspiracy caucus.
  The real bad faith is the relationship between the Attorney General 
and his oath of office. He did not swear to ``support and defend 
President Trump,'' but that is what he has done as Attorney General. It 
is deeply, dangerously corrosive to the primary rule of law in our 
constitutional system.
  At the same time, the Attorney General's handpicked prosecutor John 
Durham put out a ridiculous statement on Monday, criticizing the 
findings of the IG report. Durham used to have some credibility as a 
no-nonsense prosecutor, but when Barr chose him, I said, Uh-oh, because 
Barr is not a down-the-middle guy. By putting out a

[[Page S6960]]

hugely partisan, political statement on a pending investigation he is 
doing, Mr. Durham has signaled to the world he is not capable of 
producing a report that anyone can take seriously.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Durham, like too many others, has aligned himself 
with Attorney General Barr and consigned himself to the world of 
alternative truth facts, many of them on the fringe. Whatever 
reputation Durham had for fairness is now in tatters.
  Now, Mr. President, there is a possibility that the Senate will be 
served with the Articles of Impeachment for the President from the 
House. We may soon, in all likelihood, confront the demands of hosting 
a trial for the Chief Executive and serving as judges and jurors in 
determining the fate of that trial. With such a weighty constitutional 
responsibility on the horizon, I implore my colleagues to stop dipping 
their toes in the murky waters of conspiracy. Hew to the facts. Don't 
prejudge the outcome. Remember our oaths to the Constitution, our 
responsibility to do impartial justice in the Senate trial. That is our 
responsibility. History will judge whether we live up to it or not.