[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 8, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E11-E13]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      LETTER FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. W. GREGORY STEUBE

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, January 8, 2020

  Mr. STEUBE. Madam Speaker, in light of how the House concluded 2019 
with the passage of Articles of Impeachment, and the current state of 
the process, the constituents of Florida's 17th Congressional District 
and all Americans must be informed about the truth of this process as 
accurately conveyed in this letter from President Trump to Speaker 
Pelosi.

                                              The White House,

                                    Washington, December 17, 2019.
     Hon. Nancy Pelosi,
     Speaker of the House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Madam Speaker: I write to express my strongest and 
     most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment 
     crusade being pursued by the Democrats in the House of 
     Representatives. This impeachment represents an unprecedented 
     and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, 
     unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American 
     legislative history.
       The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House 
     Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard 
     of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. 
     They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses 
     whatsoever. You have cheapened the importance of the very 
     ugly word, impeachment!
       By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are 
     violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your 
     allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open 
     war on American Democracy. You dare to invoke the Founding 
     Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification scheme--yet 
     your spiteful actions display unfettered contempt for 
     America's founding and your egregious conduct threatens to 
     destroy that which our Founders pledged their very lives to 
     build. Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you 
     are offending Americans of faith by continually saying ``I 
     pray for the President,'' when you know this statement is not 
     true, unless it is meant in a negative sense. It is a 
     terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with 
     it, not I!
       Your first claim, ``Abuse of Power,'' is a completely 
     disingenuous, meritless, and baseless invention of your 
     imagination. You know that I had a totally innocent 
     conversation with the President of Ukraine. I then had a 
     second conversation that has been misquoted, 
     mischaracterized, and fraudulently misrepresented. 
     Fortunately, there was a transcript of the conversation 
     taken, and you know from the transcript (which was 
     immediately made available) that the paragraph in question 
     was perfect. I said to President Zelensky: ``I would like you 
     to do us a favor, though, because our country has been 
     through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.'' I said do 
     us a favor, not me, and our country, not a campaign. I then 
     mentioned the Attorney General of the United States. Every 
     time I talk with a foreign leader, I put America's interests 
     first, just as I did with President Zelensky.
       You are turning a policy disagreement between two branches 
     of government into an impeachable offense--it is no more 
     legitimate than the Executive Branch charging members of 
     Congress with crimes for the lawful exercise of legislative 
     power.
       You know full well that Vice President Biden used his 
     office and $1 billion dollars of U.S. aid money to coerce 
     Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who was digging into the 
     company paying his son millions of dollars. You know this 
     because Biden bragged about it on video. Biden openly stated: 
     ``I said, `I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion 
     dollars' . . . I looked at them and said: `I'm leaving in six 
     hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the 
     money.' Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.'' Even Joe Biden 
     admitted just days ago in an interview with NPR that it 
     ``looked bad.'' Now you are trying to impeach me by falsely 
     accusing me of doing what Joe Biden has admitted he actually 
     did.
       President Zelensky has repeatedly declared that I did 
     nothing wrong, and that there was No Pressure. He further 
     emphasized that it was a ``good phone call,'' that ``I don't 
     feel pressure,'' and explicitly stressed that ``nobody pushed 
     me.'' The Ukrainian Foreign Minister stated very Clearly: ``I 
     have never seen a direct link between investigations and 
     security assistance.'' He also said there was ``No 
     Pressure.'' Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a supporter of 
     Ukraine who met privately with President Zelensky, has said: 
     ``At no time during this meeting . . . was there any mention 
     by Zelensky or any Ukrainian that they were feeling pressure 
     to do anything in return for the military aid.'' Many 
     meetings have been held between representatives of Ukraine 
     and our country. Never once did Ukraine complain about 
     pressure being applied--not once! Ambassador Sandland 
     testified that I told him: ``No quid pro quo. I want nothing. 
     I want nothing. I want President Zelensky to do the right 
     thing, do what he ran on.''
       The second claim, so-called ``Obstruction of Congress,'' is 
     preposterous and dangerous. House Democrats are trying to 
     impeach the duly elected President of the United States for 
     asserting Constitutionally based privileges that have been 
     asserted on a bipartisan basis by administrations of both 
     political parties throughout our Nation's history. Under that 
     standard, every American president would have been impeached 
     many times over. As liberal law professor Jonathan Turley 
     warned when addressing Congressional Democrats: ``I can't 
     emphasize this enough . . . if you impeach a president, if 
     you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the 
     courts, it is an abuse of power. It's your abuse of power. 
     You're doing precisely what you're criticizing the President 
     for doing.''
       Everyone, you included, knows what is really happening. 
     Your chosen candidate lost the election in 2016, in an 
     Electoral College landslide (306-227), and you and your party 
     have never recovered from this defeat. You have developed a 
     full-fledged case of what many in the media call Trump 
     Derangement Syndrome and sadly, you will never get over it! 
     You are unwilling and unable to accept the verdict issued at 
     the ballot box during the great Election of 2016. So you have 
     spent three straight years attempting to overturn the will of 
     the American people and nullify their votes. You view 
     democracy as your enemy!
       Speaker Pelosi, you admitted just last week at a public 
     forum that your party's impeachment effort has been going on 
     for ``two and a half years,'' long before you ever heard

[[Page E12]]

     about a phone call with Ukraine. Nineteen minutes after I 
     took the oath of office, the Washington Post published a 
     story headlined, ``The Campaign to Impeach President Trump 
     Has Begun.'' Less than three months after my inauguration, 
     Representative Maxine Waters stated, ``I'm going to fight 
     every day until he's impeached.'' House Democrats introduced 
     the first impeachment resolution against me within months of 
     my inauguration, for what will be regarded as one of our 
     country's best decisions, the firing of James Cormey (see 
     Inspector General Reports)--who the world now knows is one of 
     the dirtiest cops our Nation has ever seen. A ranting and 
     raving Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, declared just hours 
     after she was sworn into office, ``We're gonna go in there 
     and we're gonna impeach the motherf****r.'' Representative Al 
     Green said in May, ``I'm concerned that if we don't impeach 
     this president, he will get re-elected.'' Again, you and your 
     allies said, and did, all of these things long before you 
     ever heard of President Zelensky or anything related to 
     Ukraine. As you know very well, this impeachment drive has 
     nothing to do with Ukraine, or the totally appropriate 
     conversation I had with its new president. It only has to do 
     with your attempt to undo the election of 2016 and steal the 
     election of 2020!
       Congressman Adam Schiff cheated and lied all the way up to 
     the present day, even going so far as to fraudulently make 
     up, out of thin air, my conversation with President Zelensky 
     of Ukraine and read this fantasy language to Congress as 
     though it were said by me. His shameless lies and deceptions, 
     dating all the way back to the Russia Hoax, is one of the 
     main reasons we are here today.
       You and your party are desperate to distract from America's 
     extraordinary economy, incredible jobs boom, record stock 
     market, soaring confidence, and flourishing citizens. Your 
     party simply cannot compete with our record: 7 million new 
     jobs; the lowest-ever unemployment for African Americans, 
     Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans; a rebuilt military; 
     a completely reformed VA with Choice and Accountability for 
     our great veterans; more than 170 new federal judges and two 
     Supreme Court Justices: historic tax and regulation cuts; the 
     elimination of the individual mandate; the first decline in 
     prescription drug prices in half a century; the first new 
     branch of the United States Military since 1947, the Space 
     Force; strong protection of the Second Amendment; criminal 
     justice reform; a defeated ISIS caliphate and the killing of 
     the world's number one terrorist leader, al-Baghdadi; the 
     replacement of the disastrous NAFTA trade deal with the 
     wonderful USMCA (Mexico and Canada); a breakthrough Phase One 
     trade deal with China; massive new trade deals with Japan and 
     South Korea; withdrawal from the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal; 
     cancellation of the unfair and costly Paris Climate Accord; 
     becoming the world's top energy producer; recognition of 
     Israel's capital, opening the American Embassy in Jerusalem, 
     and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; a 
     colossal reduction in illegal border crossings, the ending of 
     Catch-and-Release, and the building of the Southern Border 
     Wall--and that is just the beginning, there is so much more. 
     You cannot defend your extreme policies--open borders, mass 
     migration, high crime, crippling taxes, socialized 
     healthcare, destruction of American energy, late-term 
     taxpayer-funded abortion, elimination of the Second 
     Amendment, radical far-left theories of law and justice, and 
     constant partisan obstruction of both common sense and common 
     good.
       There is nothing I would rather do than stop referring to 
     your party as the Do-Nothing Democrats. Unfortunately, I 
     don't know that you will ever give me a chance to do so.
       After three years of unfair and unwarranted investigations, 
     45 million dollars spent, 18 angry Democrat prosecutors, the 
     entire force of the FBI, headed by leadership now proven to 
     be totally incompetent and corrupt, you have found NOTHING! 
     Few people in high position could have endured or passed this 
     test. You do not know, nor do you care, the great damage and 
     hurt you have inflicted upon wonderful and loving members of 
     my family. You conducted a fake investigation upon the 
     democratically elected President of the United States, and 
     you are doing it yet again.
       There are not many people who could have taken the 
     punishment inflicted during this period of time, and yet done 
     so much for the success of America and its citizens. But 
     instead of putting our country first, you have decided to 
     disgrace our country still further. You completely failed 
     with the Mueller report because there was nothing to find, so 
     you decided to take the next hoax that came along, the phone 
     call with Ukraine--even though it was a perfect call. And by 
     the way, when I speak to foreign countries, there are many 
     people, with permission, listening to the call on both sides 
     of the conversation.
       You are the ones interfering in America's elections. You 
     are the ones subverting America's Democracy. You are the ones 
     Obstructing Justice. You are the ones bringing pain and 
     suffering to our Republic for your own selfish personal, 
     political, and partisan gain.
       Before the Impeachment Hoax, it was the Russian Witch Hunt. 
     Against all evidence, and regardless of the truth, you and 
     your deputies claimed that my campaign colluded with the 
     Russians--a grave, malicious, and slanderous lie, a falsehood 
     like no other. You forced our Nation through turmoil and 
     torment over a wholly fabricated story, illegally purchased 
     from a foreign spy by Hillary Clinton and the DNC in order to 
     assault our democracy. Yet, when the monstrous lie was 
     debunked and this Democrat conspiracy dissolved into dust, 
     you did not apologize. You did not recant. You did not ask to 
     be forgiven. You showed no remorse, no capacity for self-
     reflection. Instead, you pursued your next libelous and 
     vicious crusade--you engineered an attempt to frame and 
     defame an innocent person. All of this was motivated by 
     personal political calculation. Your Speakership and your 
     party are held hostage by your most deranged and radical 
     representatives of the far left. Each one of your members 
     lives in fear of a socialist primary challenger--this is what 
     is driving impeachment. Look at Congressman Nadler's 
     challenger. Look at yourself and others. Do not take our 
     country down with your party.
       If you truly cared about freedom and liberty for our 
     Nation, then you would be devoting your vast investigative 
     resources to exposing the full truth concerning the FBI's 
     horrifying abuses of power before, during, and after the 2016 
     election--including the use of spies against my campaign, the 
     submission of false evidence to a FISA court, and the 
     concealment of exculpatory evidence in order to frame the 
     innocent. The FBI has great and honorable people, but the 
     leadership was inept and corrupt. I would think that you 
     would personally be appalled by these revelations, because in 
     your press conference the day you announced impeachment, you 
     tied the impeachment effort directly to the completely 
     discredited Russia Hoax, declaring twice that ``all roads 
     lead to Putin,'' when you know that is an abject lie. I have 
     been far tougher on Russia than President Obama ever even 
     thought to be.
       Any member of Congress who votes in support of 
     impeachment--against every shred of truth, fact, evidence, 
     and legal principle--is showing how deeply they revile the 
     voters and how truly they detest America's Constitutional 
     order. Our Founders feared the tribalization of partisan 
     politics, and you are bringing their worst fears to life.
       Worse still, I have been deprived of basic Constitutional 
     Due Process from the beginning of this impeachment scam right 
     up until the present. I have been denied the most fundamental 
     rights afforded by the Constitution, including the right to 
     present evidence, to have my own counsel present, to confront 
     accusers, and to call and cross-examine witnesses, like the 
     so-called whistleblower who started this entire hoax with a 
     false report of the phone call that bears no relationship to 
     the actual phone call that was made. Once I presented the 
     transcribed call, which surprised and shocked the fraudsters 
     (they never thought that such evidence would be presented), 
     the so-called whistleblower, and the second whistleblower, 
     disappeared because they got caught, their report was a 
     fraud, and they were no longer going to be made available to 
     us. In other words, once the phone call was made public, your 
     whole plot blew up, but that didn't stop you from continuing.
       More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem 
     Witch Trials.
       You and others on your committees have long said 
     impeachment must be bipartisan--it is not. You said it was 
     very divisive--it certainly is, even far more than you ever 
     thought possible-and it will only get worse!
       This is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted 
     coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the 
     voting booth. You are not just after me, as President, you 
     are after the entire Republican Party. But because of this 
     colossal injustice, our party is more united than it has ever 
     been before. History will judge you harshly as you proceed 
     with this impeachment charade. Your legacy will be that of 
     turning the House of Representatives from a revered 
     legislative body into a Star Chamber of partisan persecution.
       Perhaps most insulting of all is your false display of 
     solemnity. You apparently have so little respect for the 
     American People that you expect them to believe that you are 
     approaching this impeachment somberly, reservedly, and 
     reluctantly. No intelligent person believes what you are 
     saying. Since the moment I won the election, the Democrat 
     Party has been possessed by Impeachment Fever. There is no 
     reticence. This is not a somber affair. You are making a 
     mockery of impeachment and you are scarcely concealing your 
     hatred of me, of the Republican Party, and tens of millions 
     of patriotic Americans. The voters are wise, and they are 
     seeing straight through this empty, hollow, and dangerous 
     game you are playing.
       I have no doubt the American people will hold you and the 
     Democrats fully responsible in the upcoming 2020 election. 
     They will not soon forgive your perversion of justice and 
     abuse of power.
       There is far too much that needs to be done to improve the 
     lives of our citizens. It is time for you and the highly 
     partisan Democrats in Congress to immediately cease this 
     impeachment fantasy and get back to work for the American 
     People. While I have no expectation that you will do so, I 
     write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to 
     put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record.
       One hundred years from now, when people look back at this 
     affair, I want them to understand it and learn from it. so 
     that it can never happen to another President again.
       Sincerely yours,
                                                  Donald J. Trump,
                        President of the United States of America.

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