[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 14, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S170-S172]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Impeachment

  Madam President, on an issue closer to home, at the end of last week, 
Speaker Pelosi announced that she was finally ready to send over the 
Articles of Impeachment--the next step in a saga that began 3 years 
ago. That is right, on January 20, 2017--Inauguration Day--the 
Washington Post ran an article entitled ``The campaign to impeach 
President Trump has begun.''
  It is important that we not forget this. We need to remember how we 
got here. Democrats would like to think that this impeachment was the 
result of a high-minded, impartial, thoughtful procession. It wasn't. 
It was the result of a 3-year-long partisan crusade to damage or remove 
this President.
  It is fair to say that the actual impeachment process was the most 
rushed, most biased, and least impartial impeachment process in 
history. For evidence, look no further than the Democrats' behavior in 
the wake of the impeachment vote.
  Democrats rushed the Articles of Impeachment through the House 
because, we were told, it was urgent that the President be removed from 
office. One Democrat even said that the House was acting hastily 
because there was ``a crime spree in progress.'' And then what did 
Democrats do? Instead of

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sending the Articles of Impeachment over to the Senate so the Senate 
could conduct a trial, Speaker Pelosi and the House Democratic caucus 
sat on the articles for close to a month.
  The delay was so flagrantly unjustified that even Senate Democrats 
started to express their impatience with the House. ``If it's serious 
and urgent, send them over.'' That is a quote from the highest ranking 
Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She went on to say: ``If it 
isn't, don't send it over.'' A fair point. But House Democrats never 
really believed in the seriousness and urgency of the articles. If they 
had, they would have sent them over to the Senate immediately.
  Of course, while Senate Democrats have gotten impatient with the 
House, Senate Democrats have also demonstrated a healthy dose of 
partisanship around the impeachment.
  Senate Republicans have proposed modeling the rules for the first 
phase of this impeachment trial on the rules that governed the Clinton 
impeachment trial--rules that were agreed to unanimously by Democrats 
and Republicans at the time--but Senate Democrats are having none of 
it. These rules were eminently fair and, as I said, were supported by 
every single Democrat before President Clinton's impeachment trial. 
These rules gave both sides--the House impeachment managers and the 
President and his team--an opportunity to make their case, and they 
gave Senators an opportunity to question both sides and only then make 
a determination as to whether additional information or witnesses were 
needed. These rules were good enough for Democrats and Republicans back 
then; they ought to be good enough for Democrats and Republicans today.
  I am glad Speaker Pelosi is finally sending over the articles so we 
can move forward with this process and then get back to doing the work 
the American people sent us here to do, but I am saddened by the damage 
Democrats have done to the institution and the processes of government.
  The overturning of an election--the overturning of the American 
people's choice--is a very serious thing. It is a remedy to be wielded 
only with careful deliberation, in the most serious circumstances.
  The Democrats have spent the past 3 years treating impeachment not as 
a remedy of last resort but as a way of overturning an election where 
they didn't like the outcome. That is not what impeachment was intended 
to be. By hijacking the impeachment process for political purposes, 
Democrats have made it clear that they believe election outcomes don't 
matter and that they believe it should be the Democratic Party, not the 
democratic process, that decides elections. And that is profoundly 
disturbing.
  This fall, the American people will have a chance to render their 
verdict on the Trump Presidency. In fact, Presidential primary voting 
begins in just a few short weeks. It is a great pity that Democrats 
have sought to preempt the next Presidential election with a partisan 
impeachment process in Washington, DC.
  I hope we can move beyond this impeachment and the hyper-partisanship 
the Democrats have engaged in over the past 3 years. This institution 
should be in the business of governing, not endlessly trying to 
overturn an election. I hope in the future we can keep impeachment as a 
serious remedy for the most serious of crimes, not as a political 
weapon to be used whenever a partisan majority in Congress despises the 
occupant in the White House.
  We will do our constitutional duty in the Senate over the next few 
weeks, and after that, I look forward to getting back to the business 
of the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, the Senate as it is currently meeting is 
in the normal course of business, but in just a few days, this Senate 
Chamber will change. It will no longer be the Senate considering 
resolutions and legislation; it will be a Senate considering an 
impeachment proceeding. It will be a piece of history for those who 
watch. This will be only the third time in the history of the United 
States of America that the Senate will be convening for an impeachment 
proceeding relative to the President of the United States. It is a 
matter of the most serious constitutional gravity, and I hope all of us 
as Members of the Senate will consider it and approach it that way.
  Under the Constitution, we have a unique role as Members of the 
Senate. We are the jurors; we are the jury. There are 100 Senators who 
will decide whether the Articles of Impeachment should be voted on and 
whether the impeachment of the President of the United States should 
proceed.
  We are also in a unique role under the Constitution in that we aren't 
just jurors sitting silently in the jury box. We are also judges in one 
respect. We set up the procedure, the way the trial moves forward.
  Before I was elected to Congress, I used to practice trial law, and 
jurors had the ultimate word in terms of the fate of my clients, but 
the jurors didn't decide the procedure of the trial. That was decided 
by a judge. When it comes to an impeachment proceeding under the 
Constitution, the actual process or the procedure of the impeachment 
trial is decided by the jurors, the Senators. It is very unusual, but 
it was a decision made by our Founding Fathers to put this ultimate 
test of impeachment in the hands of the Senators.
  Why pick the Senate? It could have gone to the Supreme Court or some 
other tribunal. Alexander Hamilton said that there were two reasons 
they wanted to bring the impeachment trial to the floor of the Senate. 
He said that the Senators, by their nature and political composition, 
would be ``independent and dignified''--his words, ``independent and 
dignified.'' I hope he is right.
  I was here 20 years ago during the Clinton impeachment trial, and I 
can remember very well how the temperament and mood and environment on 
the floor of the Senate changed when the impeachment proceedings began. 
There was the arrival of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in his 
judicial role to sit where the current Presiding Officer of the Senate 
is sitting and to preside over the trial. Instantly, when you walked 
into the Chamber and saw the Chief Justice, you knew this was 
different. This was a new challenge. This was being treated differently 
by the Constitution.
  Then, of course, each of us, having been sworn in to be Senators 
representing the States that sent us, take a separate oath when it 
comes to our responsibilities under impeachment. That oath is fairly 
routine, but it includes one phrase that stands out when I read it. We 
swear that we will impart ``impartial justice'' as impeachment jurors--
impartial justice. We hold up our hands and swear. We sign the book on 
the desk at the front of the Senate, as a matter of history, that we 
have made this oath for impartial justice. That is why I have been 
troubled, as we lead up to this impeachment proceeding, when I hear 
some of the statements and speeches that have been made on the floor of 
the Senate.
  The Republican leader from Kentucky said very openly several weeks 
ago that he was going to work with the President's defense team to 
prepare for how he would handle the impeachment proceedings in the 
Senate. I understand there are some elements of this that just make 
sense that there would be conversation with the managers of the 
impeachment as to the procedure to be followed. But what we have heard, 
even today, on the floor of the Senate is more than just cooperation in 
setting up the workings of the impeachment proceeding. What we have 
heard from the Republican majority leader is nothing short of an 
opening statement at a trial. He has come to the floor even today to 
question, challenge, diminish, even ridicule the entire impeachment 
proceeding. To me, that steps over a line--a line where we were sworn 
to show impartial justice in this proceeding. When the Senator from 
Kentucky comes to the floor and says, for example, that this is a 
hurried process, he raises the question as to whether the impeachment 
proceedings in the House were appropriate. He is correct when he says 
that the previous impeachments have had lengthy investigations leading 
up to them. In fact, one I recall before I was elected to Congress 
involving President Nixon went on for months on questions of the 
Watergate scandal, which was at the heart of the proposed Nixon 
impeachment. There were special prosecutors and investigators and 
people who worked

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constantly for month after month after month before the Articles of 
Impeachment were being prepared. You may recall that President Nixon 
resigned before the actual impeachment proceeding.
  But, then again, there was the Ken Starr investigation under 
President Clinton. It, too, went on for months with sworn testimony and 
depositions and videotaped proceedings of witnesses that led up to the 
impeachment.
  This is different. The case is being brought to us by the House of 
Representatives for the impeachment of President Trump. It is true that 
in comparison it had a shorter investigative process, shorter than the 
two I just referenced. But it is also true that the second count of the 
Articles of Impeachment raises the question as to whether the President 
cooperated in providing witnesses and evidence that led to the Articles 
of Impeachment in the House, and that is one of the counts of 
impeachment against him--that he didn't participate and cooperate.
  For the Senator from Kentucky to stand here and say that it should 
have been a lengthier proceeding in the House--there should have been 
more witnesses; there should have been more evidence--is to ignore the 
obvious. One of the counts of impeachment raises the question as to 
whether the President appropriately denied any cooperation with the 
House impeachment proceeding.
  Secondly, the Senator from Kentucky comes to the floor and 
consistently says that the suggestion that we should allow witnesses 
and evidence to be considered is evidence of the weakness of the case 
coming out of the House of Representatives. Well, there aren't an exact 
number of parallels between ordinary civil and criminal litigation and 
impeachment proceedings, but in the world of law and trials, there is 
usually an opening pleading or proceeding through a grand jury that 
leads to charges against an individual. I have been through that many 
times on the civil side--rarely, but once in a while, on the criminal 
side. The trial itself takes that initial pleading, that initial 
statement of a case, and elaborates on it, opens up, brings in evidence 
and witnesses on both sides.
  When we talk about witnesses and evidence coming before the Senate on 
any impeachment proceeding with President Trump, it isn't just on one 
side of the case. What we are suggesting is there should be witnesses 
from both sides. Let the President bring those who he believes can 
speak most convincingly to his innocence. Let the House managers 
supporting impeachment take the opposite position and find those 
witnesses who they think tell the story from their side of the case. 
That is the nature of a trial. The American people have seen it over 
and over again in their personal lives and in what they have witnessed 
on television and other places. Both sides put on their best evidence, 
and, ultimately, the jury decides the truth of the matter. That is all 
the Democrats are asking for here.
  We are asking that the impeachment proceeding witnesses be allowed on 
both sides, evidence be allowed on both sides, and, ultimately, as 
Senator Schumer said earlier, we get to the truth of the matter; we 
make our decision in the Senate; and the American people get to witness 
this democratic process.
  Senator McConnell has said in many different places that he resists 
this idea of witnesses and evidence, but I hope he will reconsider. I 
hope at least four Republican Senators will reconsider--if they are in 
Senator McConnell's position--and opt, instead, for the historic 
precedent of witnesses and evidence at a trial.
  The Senate will change this week. If you are witnessing it through C-
SPAN or in the audience in the Galleries, you will notice it. First, 
the Senators will be on the floor of the Senate, which is rare, and 
second, with the Chief Justice presiding, there is a much different air 
in the proceedings and business of the Senate.
  The final point I want to make is that I am troubled by the continued 
suggestion that the prospect of an impeachment trial is holding the 
Senate hostage, that we cannot consider serious legislation because of 
the possibility of an impeachment trial. It is true that once the trial 
starts, we devote ourselves to it. But that hasn't happened.
  So how do the leaders of the Senate on the Republican side explain 
the year 2019? It was a unique year in the history of the Senate. It 
was unique for what we failed to do. During the course of the entire 
year, the Senate considered 22 amendments total. There were 22 
amendments on the floor of the Senate. Six were offered by the junior 
Senator from Kentucky, all of which, I believe, failed. But there were 
22 amendments in a year. I can tell you that it is not unusual if you 
look at the history of the Senate for us to consider 22 amendments in 
the course of a week, sometimes in the course of a day. But in the 
entire year, there were only 22 amendments. Why? Because Senator 
McConnell, who has the power under the Senate rules, decided there 
would be no business before the Senate but for the filling of judicial 
vacancies and other Executive appointments. That was it. A handful of 
other pieces of legislation were considered--the Defense authorization 
bill and, finally, a massive spending bill--but never with amendments. 
So to suggest that the impeachment trial has something to do with the 
inactivity in the Senate is to ignore the obvious.
  Last year, before there were any Articles of Impeachment, Senator 
McConnell, under his leadership, called for virtually nothing to be 
debated and considered on the floor of the Senate. I have said this 
before, and I stand by it. This is a Senate Chamber, but too many days, 
in too many respects, it is a storage facility. We are storing the 
desks of the Senate, once occupied by Senators who came here to work. 
They offered bills, offered amendments, had real debates and votes. We 
look at these desks and say: Boy, it must have been a great day in the 
Senate when you actually did that.
  For the Republicans to blame the impeachment process for the 
inactivity of last year defies common sense. For that reason, I hope 
that when the impeachment trial ends, Senator McConnell of Kentucky, 
the Republican majority leader, will consider at least 1 of the more 
than 200 bills that the Democratic House of Representatives has sent us 
to consider--bills relating to healthcare, bills relating to the price 
of prescription drugs, bills relating to student loans, bills relating 
to immigration. They are all sitting somewhere in a file cabinet and a 
computer somewhere in Senator McConnell's office. Maybe we can be the 
Senate after the impeachment trial. It is in the hands of Senator 
McConnell to make that decision.