[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 7 (Monday, January 13, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S152-S154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Impeachment

  Mr. President, on Friday Speaker Pelosi signaled that she may finally 
wind down her one-woman blockade of a fair and timely impeachment 
trial. It has certainly been revealing to see House Democrats first 
claim that impeachment was so urgent--so urgent--that they could not 
even wait to fill out the factual record and then, subsequently, delay 
it for weeks. I am glad the Speaker finally realized she never had any 
leverage in the first place to dictate Senate procedure to Senators and 
is giving in to bipartisan pressure to move forward.
  In terms of influencing Senate proceedings, this strange gambit has 
achieved absolutely nothing, but it has produced one unintended side 
effect: The Speaker's efforts to precommit the Senate to carry on an 
investigation with which her own House lost patience concedes that the 
House case is rushed, weak, and incomplete.
  Let me say that again. By trying and failing to get the Senate to 
precommit to redoing the House's investigation, House Democrats 
admitted that even they did not believe their own case is persuasive.
  Think about the message it sends when the prosecutors are this 
desperate to get the judge and jury to redo their homework for them, 
and think about the separation of powers. The House, knowingly--
knowingly--declined to spend time on legal battles and due process that 
it would have needed to pursue the certain avenues. Now, after 
declining to fight their own fight, they want the Senate to precommit 
ourselves to wage these potentially protracted legal battles on their 
behalf. They wanted Senators to precommit ourselves to not only judge 
the case that House Democrats are actually going to send over but, 
also, to reopen the investigatory stage and maybe supplement Chairman 
Schiff's slapdash work. In other words, the President's opponents are 
afraid of having the Senate judge the case they actually are going to 
send us. They are afraid of having the Senate judge the case they 
themselves voted on. That alone speaks volumes.
  A few weeks ago, in real time, many Senators and legal experts tried 
to warn House Democrats that they were nowhere near a finished 
product--nowhere near--and that the Articles of Impeachment they had 
drafted were more like a censure resolution based on partisan anger 
than an actual impeachment based on careful investigation.
  The House ignored us at the time. They rushed ahead to meet a 
political timetable. Now they have spent almost a month conceding that 
their own case does not stand on its own and searching for ways to 
supplement it from the outside. This is exactly the kind of toxic new 
precedent that many of us warned about back in December--that Speaker 
Pelosi's House was not sending the Senate a thorough investigation. 
They were just tossing up a jump ball and hoping that the political 
winds might blow things their way.
  So here we are. The Senate was never going to precommit ourselves to 
redoing the prosecutors' homework for them, and we were never going to 
allow the Speaker of the House to dictate Senate proceedings to 
Senators.
  House Democrats have already done enough damage to the precedent, to 
national unity, and to our institutions of government. The Senate will 
not be sucked into this precedent-breaking path. We will fulfill our 
constitutional duty. We will honor the reason for which the Founders 
created this body: to ensure our institutions and our Republic can rise 
above short-term, factional fever.
  The House has done enough damage. The Senate is ready to fulfill our 
duty.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page S153]]

  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it has now been 26 days since House 
Democrats voted to impeach the President of the United States. This is 
a predictable ending to an increasingly embarrassing impeachment 
inquiry. Apparently, Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Schiff, Chairman Nadler, 
and others were in such a big hurry to get this done before the end of 
the year, they have obviously gotten cold feet because they have 
refused to present the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate so that we 
can have the trial.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, ordinarily, if you are presented with 
a situation in which the prosecution refuses to proceed to put on the 
evidence in the case, they are dismissed as a routine matter--dismissal 
for want of prosecution--or if, in fact, they do intend to present the 
Articles of Impeachment, there is a fundamental notion of basic 
fairness included in the guarantee of a speedy trial that is obviously 
being neglected, avoided, and abused by the Speaker and her leaders in 
the House.
  Our Democratic colleagues in the House rushed through their 
investigation in only 12 weeks, and it ended up passing Articles of 
Impeachment on a partisan basis. After repeatedly saying that this is a 
grave and urgent matter, it seems that Speaker Pelosi has experienced 
some buyer's remorse and has questioned just how grave and urgent it 
really is.
  Here we are, as I said, 26 days later, and she still has not sent the 
Articles of Impeachment to the Senate. As we know, even though some 
have suggested the Senate could somehow proceed to trial absent the 
delivery of those articles here, we can't try the case until the 
charges are delivered.
  Finally, last Friday, the Speaker indicated that she will transmit 
the articles this week. They will also have to name impeachment 
managers, Representatives from the House who will come over and 
actually present the charges to the Senate and attempt to produce 
evidence in support of those charges.
  It remains to be seen whether the Speaker will deliver the articles 
this week. She has been withholding them, as I said, for nearly 4 weeks 
now, claiming that it is part of her strategy to get leverage over the 
Senate, a strategy that has yielded no positive results.
  In fact, what we have seen is, the Speaker has zero leverage in the 
Senate. She runs the House; there is no doubt about that. But the 
Senate is a separate body. We don't take our instructions from the 
House, just as the House does not take their direction from the Senate.
  Before the House even voted on the articles, Leader McConnell said 
that the Senate should follow the same bipartisan framework used to 
guide the Clinton impeachment trial. I say ``bipartisan'' because, at 
that time, 100 Senators agreed to this path forward.
  The logic goes this way: If it was good enough for President Clinton, 
then it should be good enough for President Trump. Suffice it to say, 
the Speaker disagrees. Instead of sending the Articles of Impeachment 
over and letting 100 Members of the Senate decide how best to proceed, 
she chose to take matters into her own hands.
  Apparently, ``the sole Power of Impeachment,'' as the Constitution 
describes the House's role, isn't good enough for Speaker Pelosi. She 
is now trying to assume what the Constitution says is the Senate's 
``sole Power to try all Impeachments.''
  We shouldn't be fooled. Despite her claims, this is not an effort to 
create a fair process. A fair process would be like the Bill Clinton 
impeachment trial, which was agreed to by 100 Senators on a bipartisan 
basis. Our Democratic colleagues in the House threw fairness out the 
window months ago. This is Speaker Pelosi singlehandedly ignoring the 
express commands of the Constitution for her own perceived political 
benefit.
  Republicans aren't the only ones who think the Speaker has gone too 
far. There is bipartisan agreement that Speaker Pelosi should send the 
Articles of Impeachment over here forthwith.
  A number of our Senate Democrats have expressed their desire to get 
started with the impeachment trial. I think the senior Senator from 
California--our friend Mrs. Feinstein, same State as the Speaker of the 
House--summed it up best when she said:

       The longer it goes on, the less urgent it becomes. . . . So 
     if it's serious and urgent, send them over. If it isn't, 
     don't send it over.

  Irrefutable logic.
  We are hearing from a growing number of House Democrats who have 
split from Speaker Pelosi and say that it is time to send the articles. 
For example, the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said 
that ``we control it in the House, Mitch McConnell controls it in the 
Senate.'' Senator McConnell might disagree with that, but that is what 
the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee said. He conceded: ``I 
think it is time to send the impeachment to the Senate.''

  With Speaker Pelosi facing increasing backlash from Members of her 
own party, including her rank-and-file Democrats, you can't help but 
wonder who is winning this game that she is playing. It is clearly a 
game. It is laughable to say that she is doing this for the sake of the 
American people or the Constitution.
  A new poll released by The Hill and Harris last week showed that 58 
percent of voters nationwide think it is high time for the House to 
send the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate--58 percent.
  This delay isn't putting President Trump in a bad position. In fact, 
it is further proving the partisan motivations that have been driving 
the House impeachment inquiry from the very beginning.
  Speaker Pelosi obviously isn't doing this for the good of House 
Democrats. Their role in the impeachment inquiry is finished. As I 
mentioned, a number of her own Members think she is making a big 
mistake by holding up the articles.
  This clearly isn't giving our Senate Democratic colleagues a leg up. 
Several of our colleagues in the Senate have voiced their desire to get 
this thing going, as one has said. In fact, I think it is actually 
harming our Senate Democratic colleagues who are on the Presidential 
campaign trail.
  Can you think what Senator Warren, Senator Sanders, Senator 
Klobuchar, Senator Bennet, and Senator Booker--who, until this morning, 
were all vying for the chance to be President--are thinking about the 
desirability of sitting here in the Senate Chamber 6 days a week while 
the Iowa caucuses are coming up on February 3, the New Hampshire 
primary, South Carolina, Nevada, among others? The Iowa caucuses are 
happening just 3 weeks from today. New Hampshire's primary is the week 
after that. These Senators on the Democratic side who are running for 
the Democratic nominations have campaigns that are in high gear. I 
imagine the last place they want to be is in Washington, DC, sitting in 
this Chamber during an impeachment trial.
  During the trial, every Member of the Senate will be sitting at our 
desks, 6 days a week, until we are finished. And no, we will not have 
our electronic devices. I just saw a piece of cabinetry in the 
cloakroom where we will be required to turn over our iPads and our 
iPhones. This will just be us, not speaking--we don't have a speaking 
role; we have a listening role--sitting for hours each afternoon, 6 
days a week, until we finish this process. That doesn't leave a lot of 
time for our Senate colleagues who are running for the Democratic 
nomination to talk to voters in Iowa or New Hampshire.
  The longer Speaker Pelosi holds on to the Articles of Impeachment, 
the closer a trial gets to overlapping with those key dates. You have 
to imagine that our friends on the other side who are running for 
President are getting a little nervous. Cory Booker, who left the 
campaign trail this morning, recently said this trial could be a ``big, 
big blow'' to his campaign. Even a short, 2-week trial could mean 
``literally dozens of events we won't be able do.'' While that is no 
longer true for Senator Booker, it is for the remaining candidates.
  Senator Warren shared this same sentiment, and she thinks being in 
Washington would prevent her from

[[Page S154]]

being able to build critical, personal connections on the campaign 
trail. Had Speaker Pelosi immediately transmitted the Articles of 
Impeachment at the end of last year, it would have been the first item 
on the Senate's agenda when we reconvened in January. We could have 
used the Clinton model to guide the process, the same process the 
leader has promised since before the articles even passed.
  I can't help but imagine that the Senate and the American people 
would be close to putting this entire saga behind us, but, instead, the 
Speaker sat on the articles. She stood in the way of the Senate's duty 
to try the impeachment trial, and she stood in the way of President 
Trump's due process rights.
  The only people who seem to gain anything from this are the Democrats 
who are running for President but who are not U.S. Senators and, thus, 
aren't going to be tied up during the impeachment trial. Oddly enough, 
one of these candidates and his son are looming figures in the 
impeachment inquiry. If you are Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, or any other 
candidate who isn't a Member of the Senate, you have to be glad that 
the Speaker sat on these articles for nearly 4 weeks. Having your 
competitors stuck in Washington, literally in their seats, while you 
are hitting the campaign trail there--well, that seems like a pretty 
good advantage to me.
  The timeline the Speaker created is all but sure to interfere with 
the Iowa caucuses. It is remarkable that Democrats' effort to impeach a 
President of the opposing party could end up having a negative impact 
on the Presidential candidates of their own. All of this is to say, it 
is time to bring this embarrassing chapter to an end.
  Republicans and Democrats and the American people all agree that it 
is time to get the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate so that we can 
try the case according to our duties under the Constitution and the 
American people and the Congress can move on.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.