[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 5 (Thursday, January 9, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S101-S102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Impeachment

  Madam President, on impeachment, I have to respond to Leader 
McConnell's hyperbolic accusations that the Speaker is trying to 
dictate terms of the Senate trial. I know the Republican leader must be 
upset he cannot exert total control over this process, but Speaker 
Pelosi has done just the right thing. I can understand why Leader 
McConnell is so frustrated. If the Speaker had sent the Articles of 
Impeachment over to the Senate immediately after they passed, Senate 
Republicans could have moved to dismiss the articles. There was a lot 
of talk about that a while ago. There wouldn't have been a fair or even 
a cursory trial, and they might have even tried to dismiss the whole 
articles before Christmas. Instead, over the past few weeks, not only 
have they been prevented from doing that, there have been several 
crucial disclosures of evidence that appear to further incriminate the 
President, each disclosure bolstering the arguments we Democrats have 
made for a trial that features the relevant witnesses and documents. 
That has been Speaker Pelosi's focus from the very beginning and has 
been my focus from the very beginning: getting a fair trial that 
considers the facts and only the facts. As I have said repeatedly on 
this Senate floor, as Joe Friday said in ``Dragnet,'' ``Just the facts, 
ma'am.''
  The Speaker and I are in complete agreement on that point, and 
because the Republican leader has been unable to bring up the articles 
and dismiss them or stampede through a trial over the Christmas period, 
the focus of the country has been on witnesses and documents.
  Leader McConnell will do everything he can to divert attention from 
that focus on witnesses and documents. He knows his Senators are under 
huge pressure not to just truncate a trial and have no evidence; that 
it will play very badly in America and back home in their States. He is 
a very clever fellow, so he doesn't just say no. He says: Let's delay 
this for a while and see what happens.
  I have little doubt most people who follow this--most Republicans 
probably quietly--have little doubt that Leader McConnell has no 
interest in witnesses and documents, no interest in a fair trial. When 
we say ``fair trial,'' we mean facts; we mean witnesses; we mean 
documents.
  When the impeachment trial begins in the Senate, the issue will 
return to witnesses and documents. It has been out there all along but 
will come back even stronger. That question will not be decided, 
fortunately, just by Leader McConnell. Every Senator will have to vote 
on that question. Those votes at the beginning of the trial will not be 
the last votes on witnesses and documents. Make no mistake, we will 
continue to revisit the issue because it is so important to our 
constitutional prerogative to hold a fair impeachment trial.
  The American people believe, overwhelmingly, and regardless of 
partisan affiliation, that the Senate should conduct a fair trial. A 
fair trial means that we get to hear the evidence, the facts, the 
truth. Every Presidential impeachment trial in history has featured 
witnesses and documents. The trial of the President should be no 
different.
  The Leader has accused the Speaker of making up her own rules.
  Mr. Leader, you are making up your own rules. Every trial has had 
witnesses. Will you support this trial having witnesses or are you 
making up your own rules to serve the President's purpose of covering 
up?
  The argument in favor of witnesses is so strong and has such common 
sense behind it that my Republican colleagues cannot even argue against 
it on the merits. They can only say: We should punt the question. Maybe 
we will decide on that later, after both sides finish making their 
cases.
  As already explained over and over again, but it is worth repeating, 
that position makes no sense from a trial perspective. Have both sides 
finish their presentations and then vote on whether there should be 
evidence? The presentation should be based on evidence, on witnesses, 
on documents. It should not be an afterthought.
  I say to my Republican colleagues, this strategy of voting on 
witnesses later lives on borrowed time. To repeat, once the trial 
begins, there will--there will be a vote about the question of 
witnesses and documents, and the spotlight will be on four Republican 
Senators, who at any point could join Democrats and form a majority in 
favor of witnesses and documents. Four Republicans could stand up and 
do the right thing. Four Republicans could make a difference between a 
fair trial and a coverup. Four Republicans could do what the Founding 
Fathers wanted us to do: hold a fair trial with all the facts.
  All Leader McConnell can do right now is try to divert attention, 
call names--he is good at that--and delay the inevitable, but he can 
only delay it. Every single one of us in this Senate will have to take 
a stand. How do my Republican friends want the American people, their 
constituents, and history to remember them? We shall see.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I think it is safe to say that most 
Republicans here in the Senate expect that at some point we will be 
receiving Articles of Impeachment from the House of Representatives, at 
which time we will conduct the Senate's business. We will give the 
President a fair opportunity to be heard--something that was lacking in 
the House of Representatives.

[[Page S102]]

  I heard the Democratic leader's suggestion that the reason the House 
had to sit on this is because if they sent this over to the Senate, 
somehow the Senate would dismiss this earlier, immediately, or 
something along those lines. I have no idea where that comes from. That 
has never been the intention here for Republicans in the Senate. 
Republicans in the Senate know full well that we have a job to do under 
the Constitution in which we hear the case, hear the arguments, ask 
questions, and consider the possibility of additional evidence being 
presented. We have said all along that is how we intend to treat this. 
But we want to make sure it is a fair process--a process that isn't 
rushed, a process that isn't partisan, as it was in the House of 
Representatives.
  We have gone so far as to suggest that the precedent to be used be 
the Clinton precedent--in other words, the precedent that was used 
during President Clinton's impeachment process back in 1999. At that 
time, there were 100 votes in the Senate--Republican and Democrat--
supporting that particular process, which, as I pointed out, allows for 
both sides to make their arguments. The managers in the House of 
Representatives come over and make their case, and the President and 
his team have an opportunity to respond to that, and then there is an 
opportunity for Senators to propound questions. It seems to me, at 
least, that is a fair process.
  So far, we haven't seen the articles; nor have we seen any 
cooperation from the Senate Democrats about a process that would do all 
the things I just mentioned. So the Democratic leader's suggestion that 
they needed to wait all this time because they have to somehow ensure 
that Republicans were not going to dismiss this is a false argument.
  I would argue that the House of Representatives sitting on this and 
stalling it undermines the very point they made about why it was so 
important that they do this. If they rush it, if they do not hear some 
of the witnesses, if they do not subpoena some of the witnesses--some 
of the very people they want the Senate to subpoena and hear from are 
people they could have subpoenaed and heard from.
  They have now evidently concluded that--while at one time ``We just 
have to get this through because this President is such a clear and 
present danger to the country. We have to do this fast and do it with a 
sense of urgency,'' now, all of a sudden, the brakes have been put on 
and for no apparent reason other than, I would argue, they see 
political advantage in doing that.
  But the fact is, the Senate will hear this at some point if we 
receive the articles, and we will employ a process--a fair process--
that allows both sides to make their arguments and to be heard. Then we 
will allow the Senate to do its will, and whatever 51 votes in the 
Senate decide is ultimately how this will be disposed of.
  I can tell you, contrary to the assertions of the Democrats, I 
believe people across this country are very weary and tired--frankly, 
in some ways exhausted--from having this thing just drag on. There are 
so many important issues we need to deal with.
  We have a trade agreement that is teed up and ready to go--I hope we 
can vote on it here in the Senate--that has real relevance to the 
American people. There are farmers and ranchers in my State of South 
Dakota and across this country who desperately need to expand and open 
markets. We have depressed ag prices and low commodity prices in both 
grains and livestock, and we need to create opportunities for these 
farmers to get back on their feet and to restore profitability.
  Instead of doing that, we are waiting for the Articles of Impeachment 
to come here. Assuming that they do, we will spend who knows how long 
on processing that at a time when there are so many pressing needs the 
American people care deeply about, not to mention the fact that in 
November of this year, we will have a Presidential election and 
congressional elections, where the people of this country can weigh in. 
They can have their voices heard.
  That is how we ought to decide the differences we have in this 
country. If you have a difference with the President of the United 
States, you will have an opportunity to go vote in November of this 
year. If you decide you don't like him and you want to vote him out of 
office, you can do that. That is where the people believe this ought to 
be decided, not through a long, drawn-out, protracted process here in 
Washington, DC, where a bunch of Members of Congress, who should be 
working on important issues like energy, healthcare, economy, jobs and 
wages, and things like that, are bogged down with this impeachment 
process.
  I believe the American people are weary. I think they know that 
starting in about 3 weeks in Iowa, they are going to start voting. We 
have a Presidential election that is underway, and it seems to me that 
people who have views they want to express can make their voices heard 
in the election, rather than having a long, drawn-out impeachment 
process, which, as I said earlier, the House of Representatives 
initiated in such a hurried way that they came up with some pretty weak 
tea-type Articles of Impeachment in a rush to try to get it over here. 
Now they are stalling it and not delivering it.
  The Senate is not going to act, obviously, until the House acts and 
sends over those articles. When they do, we will ensure that, unlike 
the way they conducted themselves in the House of Representatives, it 
is a fair process that gives the President of the United States, who 
has been attacked through this process, a chance to respond and defend 
himself.