[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 14, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S169-S170]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Impeachment

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, the House of Representatives has 
impeached the President for a very serious offense: coercing a foreign 
leader into interfering in our elections, using the powers of the 
Presidency, the most powerful public office in the Nation, to benefit 
himself--to actually influence the election, which should be decided by 
American citizens, not by a foreign power. When debating the 
impeachment clause of the Constitution, the Founders worried about 
foreign capitals having undue influence over our country. Hamilton, 
writing in the Federalist Papers, described impeachable offenses as 
abuses or violations of some public trust.
  In the impeachment of President Trump, the question the Senate will 
be asked to answer is whether the President did, in fact, abuse his 
public trust and, by doing so, invite the very foreign influence the 
Founders feared would be a corruption of our democracy. To answer that 
question, to decide whether the President merits acquittal and removal 
from office, the Senate must conduct a fair trial. A fair trial has 
witnesses. A fair trial has relevant documents as a part of the record. 
A fair trial seeks the truth--no more, no less.
  That is why Democrats have asked to call four fact witnesses and 
subpoena three specific sets of relevant documents related to the 
President's misconduct with Ukraine. At the moment, my Republican 
colleagues are opposing these witnesses and documents, but they can't 
seem to find a real reason why. Most are unwilling to argue that 
witnesses shouldn't come before the Senate. They can only support 
delaying the decision until most of the trial is over, like a magic 
eight ball that keeps saying: Ask again later.
  The most the Republican leader can do is smear our request as some 
partisan fishing expedition intended to damage the President, but the 
leader himself has warned that the witnesses we have requested might 
not help the House managers' case against the President. He is right 
about that. These are the President's top advisers. They are appointed 
by him, vetted by him. They work with him.
  We don't know what those witnesses will say or what the documents 
will reveal. They could hurt the President's case or they could help 
the President's case. We don't know.
  We know one thing. We want the truth on something as weighty and 
profound as an impeachment trial. Does Leader McConnell want the truth? 
Do Senate Republicans want the truth?
  I would remind the leader that our request for witnesses and 
documents is very much in line with the Senate's history. The 
Republican leader keeps citing precedent. Well, here is precedent, Mr. 
Leader. There have been two Presidential impeachment trials in history. 
Both--both--had witnesses. The trial of Andrew Johnson had 41 
witnesses. There have been 16 completed impeachment trials in the 
Senate's entire history. In every one, except one, the trial in 1799 of 
Senator William Blount, which was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, 
every Senate impeachment trial in history has included witnesses.
  You want precedent? Precedent says witnesses overwhelmingly.
  The long arc of history casts a shadow on the proceedings we are 
about to undertake. It suggests something obvious--that the Senate has 
always believed trials were about evidence and getting the truth. Of 
the 16 impeachment trials, 15 had witnesses and 1 was dismissed early. 
Do Senate Republicans want to break that lengthy historical precedent 
by conducting the first impeachment trial of a President in history 
with no witnesses? Let me ask that question again. This is weighty. 
This is vital. This is about the Republic. Do Senate Republicans want 
to break the lengthy historical precedent that said witnesses should be 
at in impeachment trial by conducting the first impeachment trial of 
the President in history--in history, since 1789--with no witnesses?

  I ask that question because that seems to be where the Republican 
leader wants us to be headed. The Republican leader has designed a 
schedule for a Senate trial that might--might--have us vote on 
witnesses and documents after the presentations from both sides have 
been concluded--the judicial equivalent of putting the cart before the 
horse. Of course, Leader McConnell has made no guarantee that he will 
support voting on witnesses and documents at that time--only that 
supposedly he will be open to the idea.
  I want my Republican colleagues to bear in mind that if we consider 
witnesses at a later date, it could extend the trial by several days, 
maybe several weeks, as witnesses did during the Clinton trial.
  Leader McConnell has said that after the arguments are made, we 
should vote and move on. Do my Republican colleagues really believe 
Leader McConnell will have an open mind about witnesses at a later date 
when they might extend the trial much longer than he wants? I am not in 
the prediction business, but I can bet that

[[Page S170]]

when the time comes, Leader McConnell will say that we have heard 
enough, that the trial shouldn't drag on any longer, that the Senate 
doesn't need witnesses and documents, and that we should, just as he 
once said ``vote and move on.''
  Before Senate Republicans are so quick to reject the Democratic 
proposal for a limited list of relevant witnesses and documents, I want 
them to consider that our proposal would save the Senate time. We want 
to confront the issue now, not be forced to extend the trial later. We 
want both the House managers and the White House defense counsel to 
have time to incorporate the testimony of witnesses into their 
presentations. That is the proper way to proceed. That is what happens 
at trials--collect all the evidence at the beginning, not at the end.
  All we are asking is for the President's own men, his appointees, to 
come forward and tell their side of the story. The American people want 
a fair trial in the Senate. The American people know that a trial 
without witnesses and documents is not a real trial; it is a sham 
trial. And the American people will be able to tell the difference 
between a fair hearing of the facts and a coverup.