[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 14, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H231-H234]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          IMPEACHMENT TIMELINE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Biggs) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, my eloquent friend so ably made his case, 
and I would suggest that it is undercut in some respects when one 
introduces and discusses impeachment the day after the election in 
2016, before President Trump even came to office.
  That isn't protecting the country, is it? What that is suggesting is 
that one knows more than the voters of this country.
  I am also always intrigued when the complaint comes up about the 
majority in the Senate, when the majority in the Senate is going to 
determine the rules for the trial in the Senate because the 
Constitution says that the Senate holds the trial.
  We just heard that there have to be 51 votes over in the Senate. 
Oddly enough, I didn't hear complaints when the majority in the House 
controlled the inquiry. In fact, the term ``coverup'' was used 
preemptively regarding the Senate, but what I saw in the House was a 
coverup.
  We didn't get to introduce all of our witnesses. I sit on the 
Judiciary Committee. Who did we get as witnesses? We got three or four 
law professors who came in. That is who got to come in to testify 
before the Judiciary Committee.
  We didn't have the witnesses who had factual evidence come in. We 
requested. We gave lists. We were told we couldn't have them. That is 
part of the problem.
  Adding to this hypocrisy, we heard over and over again that we must 
impeach the President of the United States because it is an imminent 
danger for him to continue in his office. But once that vote was taken, 
the Speaker held the Articles of Impeachment and would not transmit 
them. Here we sit, 27 days following that vote, with no transmittal.
  We hear that there is going to be a transmittal tomorrow. I am 
interested to see if that really takes place.
  Madam Speaker, I am joined today by a number of my colleagues, and I 
am grateful to have them here.
  I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Davidson).
  Mr. DAVIDSON of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today one last time to ask the House to drop 
these charges against our duly elected President, if, for no other 
reason, because the process that they have used has been the exact 
partisan process that was just condemned on the floor by people who 
were the first to call for impeaching the President, the Speaker of 
this body.
  This is a 2.5-year endeavor, in spite of it being only a few months 
after the call to Ukraine that is supposedly the abuse of power that 
the President engaged in.
  As for the other charge, they say that it was obstruction of justice, 
but the House didn't even bother to enforce its own subpoenas.
  The impeachment process boldly broke with that of Presidents Nixon 
and Clinton. The urgency was so great that the House declined to 
enforce its subpoenas and relied on shaky evidence, trying to move 
swiftly so they didn't lose the momentum.

                              {time}  1515

  Now, when they realize they haven't made the case--not just that it 
will be needed in the Senate, but for the American people, first and 
foremost--they

[[Page H232]]

want to strong-arm the Senate into adopting the same unfair partisan 
course charted here in the House.
  Fortunately, it doesn't work like that. Voters deserve better from 
our House of Representatives, but it is not the House's prerogative to 
dictate the rules of the Senate.
  This partisan impeachment should be dropped today. This political 
charade is a waste of taxpayer dollars. It is unfair to the President 
of the United States or anyone else to be treated beneath the law. 
Certainly no one is above the law, but the President of the United 
States is certainly not beneath the law.
  Rather than give in to our worst partisan inclinations, Congress 
should strive to work together on real policies that will benefit all 
of the American people.
  Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Roy).
  Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I point out that, in Article I, Section 2, 
Clause 5, it says: ``The House of Representatives shall choose their 
Speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of 
impeachment.''
  I would note, also, that in Section 3, when we talk about the Senate: 
``Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to 
removal from office,'' et cetera.
  Clause 6: ``The Senate shall have the sole power to try all 
impeachments.''
  This is what the Constitution says. This is not unclear. The United 
States Senate has the power to try impeachments, yet the Speaker of 
this body has tried to impose her will on the United States Senate.
  If the Speaker is so interested in what is going on in the Senate, 
maybe the Speaker should run for the Senate.
  But what we have today is a body, the House, that acted; and the 
leader of this body, the Speaker, is refusing to do her duty to 
transmit the articles to the Senate and has done so despite a lot of 
rhetoric over the course of the year about the urgency of running 
impeachment through this body, which now, I think, the vast majority of 
the American people have seen it for what it was: a political action, a 
political stunt, to target the President of the United States, to 
demean the office of the President of the United States, to target him 
very specifically for political purposes rather than the solemn duty 
that impeachment is supposed to be reserved for.
  So we should now be getting this to the Senate so that the President 
can have his day to defend himself, his day in court, as it were. He 
should have his day in the United States Senate. He should be able to 
defend himself and have lawyers defend against what is being charged 
against him from this wrongful impeachment out of this House.
  So I am hopeful that we will finally get that movement this week and 
that the President will have the time due him in the United States 
Senate and that the United States Senate can get through this in an 
expedited way so that we can get back to the business the American 
people sent us here for: dealing with debt, dealing with spending, 
dealing with open borders, and dealing with men and women in uniform 
and what they need.
  I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona for arranging this.
  Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona, (Mr. 
Gosar).
  Mr. GOSAR. Madam Speaker, Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrats 
rushed through the weakest impeachment in American history. Devoid of 
any evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump, Speaker Pelosi and her 
Caucus allowed their hatred of President Trump to triumph at all costs.
  Now House Democrats are demanding the Senate hold a trial dictated by 
their terms, including witness testimony they failed to obtain 
themselves.
  Since House Democrats want more witnesses, I will gladly offer some 
names for the Senate to consider.
  How about Joe and Hunter Biden? Together, they peddled the influence 
of the Vice President's office for Hunter Biden's personal financial 
gain. It is plainly on video.
  How about Adam Schiff? He spent 2 years severely misleading the 
American people about Russian collusion, held secret hearings at the 
Capitol basement, and was caught redhanded coordinating with the 
alleged whistleblower.
  Ah, yes, why don't we hear from the alleged whistleblower? Reports 
indicate he worked for Joe Biden, coordinated with Adam Schiff, and has 
deep anti-Trump views. President Trump deserves to face his secret 
Democratic accuser.
  How did we end up in this impeachment mess? The simple truth is the 
abuse of the FISA court to spy on the Trump campaign.
  Yes, you heard it: the weaponization of the Federal Government 
against the people. This is the insidious inbreeding of the swamp, 
corruption, plain and simple. The President and others are victims of a 
crime.
  It is said that those who don't learn from history are doomed to 
repeat it, and look what is happening with the FISA court now. Just 
this week, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court appointed David 
Kris, an Obama-era DOJ lawyer, to review the abuse of the FISA court, a 
person who is already engaged in FISA denialism.
  Yes, let me be clear, perfectly clear: A FISA abuse denier is now in 
charge of tackling the FISA abuse. I guess, America, only in the 
Washington, D.C., swamp.
  Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert).
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this is an important time. We have got 
people who are demanding that the Senate do what they hypocritically 
refused to do here in the House, and that is to have a fair 
investigation and have fair hearings.
  And, in fact, we know the majority is the majority; they can change 
the rules anytime they want to. But they didn't even bother to change 
the rules. They just said: Do you know what? Even though the rules say 
that the minority can have a minority witness day, we are going to just 
ignore that and move on, because time is of the essence.

  So we didn't need any evidence to show that our friends were not 
being completely genuine with their comments, no, because we heard: 
Clear and present danger; urgent; urgency; got to happen now; we can't 
wait; we can't follow the rules; we can't hear witnesses here in the 
House; we have got to have this impeachment done.
  And then they sit on it for over a month. Seriously, that says what 
anybody needs to say.
  This was never serious to begin with in the respect that there was a 
serious charge. There was no serious charge. It is supposed to be about 
treason, bribery, high crimes, misdemeanors. All of those are crimes, 
including misdemeanors.
  Look at the charges: abuse of power, obstruction of Congress. Those 
are the two charges that those pushing impeachment are guilty of, not 
this President.
  Madam Speaker, this is a scam. It is a shame.
  The Senate should just go in and have a trial, follow the Clinton 
rules, and that is it. Let's get this done. Let's get it over with. A 
proper verdict is not guilty, not removed.
  Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Cloud).
  Mr. CLOUD. Madam Speaker, as I sat in the basement of this Capitol 
listening to deposition after deposition, it was very clear that this 
impeachment shenanigan was never about a real search for truth.
  House leadership wanted us to believe, the American people to 
believe, that this impeachment process began as a result of a July 
phone call when, in reality, Speaker Pelosi said that this began 2\1/2\ 
years ago. They wanted us to believe that the evidence was irrefutable, 
when the truth is they polled to figure out, to see what to charge the 
President with.
  The way this is supposed to work in an investigation is that there is 
a crime that produces evidence that leads to a verdict. When this 
started with the verdict, it was a search for evidence that was never 
found, and yet we are sending impeachment articles to the Senate.
  This is crazy.
  And, of course, it has taken over 4 weeks to get what was urgent--the 
Speaker said this was urgent. She said this is urgent, so we will be 
bringing the articles. It has been 4 weeks to get

[[Page H233]]

the articles from here across to the Senate.
  This is a straight line. You go straight through this door, walk 
about 90 seconds and you will be in the Senate; yet, it has taken 4 
weeks.
  This is crazy and should not happen.
  Senator Feinstein said the longer it goes on, the less urgent it 
becomes. So, if it is serious and urgent, send them over; if it isn't, 
don't send them over.
  I will be voting appropriately on this and the fact that it is not 
urgent and we haven't sent them over.
  Let's get back to the work we were elected to do: keeping this 
Republic and ensuring the blessings of liberty for future generations.
  Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Perry).
  Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, we have watched our colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle since, literally, the week the President was 
inaugurated say it is time to start the impeachment. They have made 
that a policy consideration, a policy goal for the whole rest of their 
time since that time in Congress, working diligently day by day, no 
matter what the President did, no matter what he said. Whether it was 
comments about other Members of Congress, whether it is comments in 
foreign policy, you name it, it was worthy of impeachment.
  Madam Speaker, they have cheapened impeachment.
  We were told--rightly so--how solemn it is, the most important thing, 
other than declaring war, that Members of Congress would ever embark 
on. Yet, during the vote on the floor of the House, when the numbers 
came through that they had indeed passed impeachment and Members on the 
other side began to cheer, the Speaker gave them a look and admonished 
them because, of course, they said it was the most solemn thing that 
they would do. Yet, we all know, in their hearts, it was what they had 
desired all along.
  I understand disagreements with the President of the other party--I 
have had my own--but this is about doing the business of the work of 
the people and the work of this country.
  If you disagree, there is a process for that in this country, and 
that is the election process, where all Americans get to decide whether 
whatever the President says is too much, whether whatever the President 
does is too little or too much.
  But this is seeking to remove a President from office early because 
of a disagreement over policy, a disagreement about how one comports 
himself or not, a disagreement with the President that is personal.
  This is beneath the decorum of this establishment and the business 
that we should be doing. It is disappointing. It is disrupting. It 
should be voted ``no,'' accordingly, because it is a fool's errand 
based on no facts, not based on the Constitution and not based on our 
best will and best judgment.
  Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote for the Articles of Impeachment 
to be transmitted.
  Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Yoho).
  Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, let's take a look at the chronological 
timeline since Donald Trump won the primary. I mean, this movement 
started immediately after that.
  You can go to Mark Zaid, the attorney for the whistleblower. You can 
go on and hear the Members of this body saying: We are going to impeach 
him.
  The vile words that came out of one of the Members from Michigan, 
saying: We are going to impeach this m-effer.
  Those people shouldn't even be allowed to serve in here with that 
kind of an attitude and hatred. They set a goal to impeach this 
President. They didn't have a reason, but they set a goal, and then 
they searched for that goal.
  It was the Steele dossier that was completely fabricated, paid for by 
the Clinton campaign and DCCC, completely dispelled as false, but yet 
they went down this. They dispelled the Mueller report. They kept going 
to find something.
  And then Adam Schiff said: We have irrefutable evidence that this 
President colluded with the Russians. That turned out to be false. The 
whistleblower, and the second whistleblower, and I could go on, but you 
guys have heard enough of that stuff.
  I want to come back to what our Founding Fathers said. This is 
Washington's warning to this Republic 223 years ago.
  The Constitution rightly sets a high bar for impeachment, but the 
integrity of the process also depends on the ability of legislators to 
vote their minds independent of party politics. Removing a President is 
too important, and lawmakers are given too much latitude to define high 
crimes and misdemeanors for it to be any other way; otherwise, 
excessively partisan politicians could overturn an election simply 
because the President is a member of the opposing party.
  It is in regards to this impeachment process that George Washington 
forewarned us of this moment in history when political parties ``may 
now and then answer popular ends,'' but ``they are likely, in the 
course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, 
ambitious, and unprincipled men'' and women ``will be enabled to 
subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins 
of government. . . . ''
  That is what we have here.

                              {time}  1530

  Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Jordan).
  Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, impeachment didn't start with Ukraine. It 
started before he was elected. It started on July 31, 2016, when the 
FBI opened an investigation and spied on four American citizens 
associated with the President's campaign. That is when it started. It 
continued after he was elected before inauguration when they go up to 
Trump Tower and they brief the President on the dossier. The dossier 
that they already knew was false, the dossier that Michael Horowitz 
said when they took it to the FISA court they lied to the court 17 
times. It continued after inauguration with the Mueller investigation 
and those 2 years that we went through.
  Why are the Democrats so focused on getting to the President?
  Why are they so focused about going after the President?
  Because they don't like what this guy is getting done. They don't 
like the fact that he is shaking up this town. They don't like the fact 
that he is doing what he said he would do. They don't like the fact 
that he is draining the swamp, and when you drain the swamp, the swamp 
fights back. And that is exactly what we are seeing from the Democrats 
in this entire impeachment escapade we have lived through now for 4 
months that has needlessly divided our country.
  Here is the good news: the American people get it. They understand 
it. They know the four key facts. They have got the call transcript, 
there was no quid pro quo. The two individuals on the call, President 
Trump and President Zelensky have repeatedly said: There was no 
pushing, no pressure, and no linkage of an investigation to any type of 
security assistance money. We know the Ukrainians knew at the time of 
the call that aid wasn't even on hold at the time of the call. Most 
importantly, they took no action to get the money released.
  The American people get the facts. They know the facts are on the 
President's side, and that is why this whole thing is wrong. They get 
the facts, and they understand.
  Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio's 
comments.
  I want to add one comment. When you consider the aid that was the 
subject of this issue where people said that he withheld aid as a quid 
pro quo, the one thing that America has not heard enough of is this: 
the aid was released in perfect compliance with the law. It was 
released in the time constraints required by the law. In fact, it was 
released 3 weeks prior to its being required to have been released. 
That has not been said enough, nor has it been understood enough. So 
that charge has always been bogus.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith).
  Mr. GRIFFITH. Madam Speaker, we have heard today several times that 
we were told this was urgent and that things must move quickly. And yet 
it has been 26 days since it was passed on the calendar, 15 working 
days, and 10 legislative days have gone by, and yet the Senate has not 
yet been informed of the Articles of Impeachment.

[[Page H234]]

  Now, Madam Speaker, let me get boring. Most politicians won't admit 
that, but that is what I am going to do because it is important that we 
understand the process.
  So what happens is the Articles of Impeachment were passed by the 
House. We were told later this week that we are going to vote on 
managers who will then present the Articles of Impeachment at the bar 
of the Senate. That is their job. That means to prosecute the case. But 
the annotations to Jefferson's Manual--that is Jefferson's Manual of 
Parliamentary Practice and Procedure, for all of you policy-and-
procedure wonks back home--we are told in there that the managers who 
are elected by the House or are appointed by the Speaker in obedience 
to a resolution of the House take this to the bar of the Senate, the 
House having previously informed the Senate.
  Now, the problem is the House has not previously informed the Senate. 
And what we are going to do now is we are going to say: well, that is 
okay, but my summary look at the past indicates that the times that 
these have been separated, the notice to the Senate that impeachment 
resolutions were coming and the actual sending over of the managers to 
present the articles at the bar, the longest previously has been 4 
days. Here it has been 26 calendar days, 15 working days, and 10 
legislative days, and the Speaker of the House indicates to us that 
this is all fine and normal.
  Madam Speaker, we should all be concerned, not just because we have 
what appears to be a trumped up--pun not intended--impeachment policy 
by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but because if the 
Speaker can hold up H. Res. 755, the Articles of Impeachment, from 
being sent over to the Senate thus notifying them that managers will be 
coming to prosecute or present these impeachment articles at the bar of 
the Senate, then the Speaker can hold up anything the Speaker doesn't 
want the Senate having.
  There are 435 Members of the United States House. While I do not 
agree with the impeachment articles, the House voted on them, and the 
Senate should have had those promptly. It takes a couple of days to get 
it through the process where all the i's are dotted and t's are 
crossed. This Speaker did not do that. It is a dangerous precedent 
because if H. Res. 755 can be held up, then I submit to you, Madam 
Speaker, anything can be held up. And if a Speaker suddenly decides 
that he or she does not agree with the will of this House, can they 
really stick it in their back pocket?
  Can they really do a pocket Speaker veto of actions of this House?
  Nothing of this nature has ever been contemplated, but that is what 
the actions of Speaker Pelosi tell us she is trying to do or at least 
tried to do if she didn't get her way in the Senate. It is 
unconscionable and against the principles of a democratic republic.
  Be warned, be alert, and pay attention. Let's guard our Republic with 
every ounce of our energy.

  Mr. BIGGS. I would ask the Speaker how much time is remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Arizona has 5 minutes 
remaining
  Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I appreciate those who shared their 
thoughts on this matter, and I want to just cover a couple of things 
that I think are absolutely critical to remember. They have been 
touched on, but not emphasized enough for me, and that is this: when we 
start looking at how this began and we look at the timeline, you will 
see that this began before President Trump was elected, it proceeded 
after he was elected but before he was sworn into office, and then the 
day he was sworn in, the media said: Let the impeachment begin.
  Ten days later the attorney for the whistleblower said:

       Let the impeachment begin, let the coup begin, more power 
     to the attorneys.

  That is what they were talking about, a search, as one of my 
colleagues said earlier, for a modus vivendi for impeachment. That is 
really what this was about.
  Or you get in a phone conversation, and in that phone conversation 
there is an amicable discussion of numerous things. That phone 
conversation has been misquoted, and it has been deliberately 
fabricated by the person who no doubt will be one of the House managers 
going over to the Senate. This is the chairman who basically out of 
whole cloth created a dramatic reading that was not representative in 
any way of the actual transcript. This is the same individual who 
promised us we would get to interview and depose the whistleblower 
because where this engine got started is with the whistleblower. That 
never happened.
  So along the way, as witnesses were subpoenaed to talk and the 
President exercised his executive privilege, my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle said that we do not have time to go to the court and 
determine whether that executive privilege is being exerted in an 
overly broad manner, whether we can narrow it, or whether it is 
completely inappropriate. We just don't have time. Because do you know 
why? We have got to impeach this President tomorrow because it is as if 
he is an absolute destructive force and an immediate danger to this 
Republic.
  The reality is they got their vote, and here we sit. Here we sit, a 
total of 27 days since the day of the vote. That day was there. We were 
told it was going to go tomorrow. My colleague from Virginia has very 
ably explained that there is a distinction between informing the Senate 
procedurally and having the vote on House managers. But the point he 
was making, and I wish to also join in, is this: you simply have seen a 
process that has been devoid of the normal rules of precedent in this 
House.
  When we see these amorphous charges, these articles, passed by this 
body, it tells you two things that make this a supreme danger to the 
Republic going forward. All I am pointing to is what my colleague from 
Florida said, is the danger that the impeachment process will be 
misused for political purposes.
  And that is this: Number one, process matters. Process always 
matters. It is why we have these wonderful folks who sit in front of us 
to make sure that we are following the rules of the House and to make 
sure that we are following the rules of precedent. It is not unlike 
international law, quite frankly, where all you are relying on is 
precedent, and you just change it very simply. If you don't have those 
rules and you don't have integrity to the rules, then the minority 
rights are abused.
  When the minority rights are abused in this place, that means the 
right of representation of tens of millions of Americans is diffused 
and abused. So you have that problem.
  Then you have the fundamental idea of trying to impeach on things 
like obstruction of Congress. Well, I just told you how Congress was 
not obstructed. Congress had a remedy. You cannot have obstruction if 
you have a remedy. The remedy was to go to the other branch and resolve 
it. They chose not to.
  These are the two problems in the most virulent way.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________