[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 3 (Tuesday, January 7, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S35]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Impeachment

  Madam President, secondly, I would like to address the issue of the 
impeachment trial, which the Senate majority leader, Senator McConnell, 
raised this morning.
  Before I was elected to Congress, I made a living as a lawyer. I took 
many cases to trial. Few, if any, ever moved to a final decision 
without the introduction of evidence. The evidence, of course, consists 
of documentation, sometimes physical evidence, but often the testimony 
of people who were witnesses to events critical to a jury's final 
decision.
  This impeachment trial should be nothing less. This is an opportunity 
for us--a rare opportunity in American history--to come forward and to 
demonstrate that we are going to handle a trial in the U.S. Senate in a 
professional manner. For the Senate majority leader, Senator McConnell, 
to announce that there will be no witnesses, there will be no evidence, 
there will be no documents in advance is to deny the very basis of a 
trial, as I understand it and as most Americans understand it.
  If this President believes, as he has said so often, the charges in 
the impeachment articles do not rise to any serious or credible level, 
then, certainly, there is evidence that could prove his case. He will 
have his managers on the floor of the Senate when the articles are 
presented to us. They can certainly call witnesses. They can bring 
evidence before us. But so far, the record is not very strong for that 
to happen.
  One of the Articles of Impeachment, the second one, relates to the 
President's refusal to cooperate with the investigation in the House, 
refusal to provide documentation and witnesses. For a President who is 
arguing that there is really nothing to these charges, he has refused 
to provide even the most basic evidence to prove his point, if it 
exists.
  What we are saying on the Democratic side is that if there is to be a 
trial for impeachment in the U.S. Senate, common sense and the 
Constitution require that it be a fair trial with evidence for not only 
the Senators but the American people themselves to see. What we have 
asked for so far is limited in terms of what we are looking for: four 
witnesses and documents that can be clearly identified. Those are 
things I think should be part of this trial record so that regardless 
of the outcome of the trial, the American people will believe it was 
handled fairly, in a dispassionate and nonpartisan way.