[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 14, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S167-S168]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMPEACHMENT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, tomorrow will be 4 weeks--4 weeks--
since House Democrats impeached the President of the United States with 
purely partisan support.
  Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Schiff did not wait to fill out the 
factual record. They did not even wait to see their own subpoenas 
through the legal system. They plowed ahead for two reasons: They said 
impeachment was too urgent to wait--too urgent to wait--and they said 
they had already proven their case.
  But since then, House Democrats have spent 4 weeks contradicting both 
of those claims. They spent 4 weeks demonstrating through their actions 
that impeachment is actually not that urgent--not that urgent--and they 
do not actually have much confidence in their case.
  An arbitrary 4-week delay does not show urgency. These demands for 
the Senate to precommit to reopening the House investigation do not 
show confidence. There is a reason why the House inquiry that led to 
President Nixon's resignation took 14 months of hearings in addition to 
the separate special prosecutor. There is a reason why the Clinton 
impeachment inquiry drew on years of prior investigation and mountains 
of testimony from firsthand fact witnesses. That is because both of 
those Houses of Representatives knew they had to prove their case--
prove their case before submitting it to the Senate for judgment.
  Both situations involved legal battles over executive privilege and 
extensive litigation, both times not after a trial had been handed to 
the Senate but beforehand. When the cases were actually being compiled, 
there were mountains of evidence, mountains of testimony, and long 
legal battles over privilege. None of this discovery took place over 
here in the Senate.
  The Constitution gives the sole power of impeachment to the House. If 
the House majority wants to impeach a President, the ball is in their 
court, but they have to do the work. They have to prove their case. 
Nothing--nothing in our history or our Constitution says a House 
majority can pass what amounts to a half-baked censure resolution and 
then insist that the Senate fill in the blanks. There is no 
constitutional exception for a House majority with a short attention 
span.
  I think everyone knows this process has not been some earnest, 
factfinding mission with House Democrats following each thread wherever 
it leads. The Speaker of the House did not reluctantly decide to 
impeach after pouring over secondhand impressions of

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civil servants. This was a predetermined political conclusion. Members 
of her conference had been publicly promising it literally for years.
  That is why the investigation stopped long before the House had come 
anywhere near proving what they allege. They pulled the plug early 
because the facts were never the point. They were never the point. The 
point was to check a political box.
  For goodness' sake, the very morning after the House's historic vote, 
Speaker Pelosi literally chastised reporters for asking too many 
questions about impeachment. She tried to change the subject to 
economic policy. She said:

       Any other questions? . . . Anybody want to talk about the 
     SALT tax. . . . I'm not going to answer any more questions on 
     this--

  Referring to impeachment.
  Really? Really? You impeach a President of the United States, and the 
very next morning, there is nothing to see here? Does that sound like 
the Speaker of the House really thinks the survival of the Republic is 
on the line? Does anyone really think that if Democrats truly believe 
the President of the United States was a criminal who is imperiling our 
country, they would have abandoned the search for evidence because they 
didn't want to make time for due process; that they would have pulled 
the plug on the investigation just because it sounded good to finish by 
Christmas; that they would have delayed the trial for months while they 
test-drove new talking points; that they would have been trying to 
change the subject 12 hours after the vote?
  I cannot say what Democrats do and do not really believe, but they 
certainly do not seem to display the urgency or the seriousness you 
would expect from people who actually thought they had proven the 
President should be removed.
  On television last weekend, the Speaker bragged that ``this President 
is impeached for life,'' regardless of what the Senate does--regardless 
of what the Senate does, as if the ultimate verdict were sort of an 
afterthought.
  Likewise, the Senate Democratic leader recently said that as long as 
he can try to use the trial process to hurt some Republicans' 
reelection chances, ``it's a win-win.'' That is what this is all about. 
The Democratic leader just laid it right out there in case anybody had 
any doubt.
  What a revealing admission. Forget about the fate of the Presidency. 
Forget about the Constitution. As long as the process helps Democrats' 
political fortunes, our Democratic colleagues call it a ``win-win.'' Do 
these sound like leaders who really believe we are in a constitutional 
crisis, one that requires the most severe remedy in our entire system 
of government? Does it sound like that?
  Here is how deep we have come into bizarro world. The latest 
Democratic talking point is, if the Senate conducts a trial based on 
what the House itself looked at, we will be engaged in a coverup. Did 
you get that? Unless the Senate steps outside of our lane and takes it 
upon ourselves to supplement the House case, it is a coverup?
  Do they think the entire country has forgotten what they were saying 
just a couple of days ago? We heard over and over that the House case, 
on its own, was totally damming and convincing. That is what they were 
saying a few days ago.
  Clearly, a majority of the House felt that it was sufficient to 
impeach, and a number of Senate Democrats were happy to prejudge the 
case publicly and suggest the House had proven enough for removal.
  But now, all of a sudden, the story has reversed. Now, we hardly know 
anything. Now, the investigation is just beginning. Now, what the House 
has produced is so weak that they are calling their own investigation a 
coverup. Who would be the author of this coverup--Chairman Schiff?
  We have arrived at a simple contradiction. Two things cannot both be 
true. House Democrats' case cannot simultaneously be so robust that it 
was enough to impeach in the first place but also so weak that the 
Senate needs to go fishing. If the existing case is strong, there is no 
need for the judge and the jury to reopen the investigation.
  If the existing case is weak, House Democrats should not have 
impeached in the first place. I think I am beginning to understand why 
the Speaker wanted to change the subject to tax policy. Unfortunately, 
no matter how irresponsibly this has been handled across the Capitol, 
impeachment is not a political game, and the U.S. Senate will not treat 
it like one.
  A House majority fueled by political animus may have started this 
with frivolity, but it will fall to the Senate--to the Senate--to end 
it with seriousness and sobriety. It will fall to us to do what the 
Founders intended: to take the long view, to move beyond partisan 
passions, and to do what the long-term good of our institution and our 
Nation demands.

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