[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 14, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S174-S175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Impeachment

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, on January 20, 2017, at 12:19 p.m., the 
Washington Post ran a story with this headline: ``The campaign to 
impeach President Trump has begun.'' Donald Trump had been President 
for only 19 minutes when that headline ran.
  As we have since learned, it has been made abundantly clear that many 
of our Democratic colleagues simply don't recognize the President as 
having been legitimately elected, and they have been doing everything 
they can to remove him from office since he was first elected in 2016.
  This has now taken a new form, that of impeachment--an impeachment 
that occurred 27 days ago when the House voted for two Articles of 
Impeachment. Their impeachment inquiry lasted 12 weeks, but it became 
clear that Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Schiff and Chairman Nadler were 
in a big hurry to get those Articles of Impeachment voted out of the 
House before the holidays. In the end, only the Democrats voted for 
these partisan Articles of Impeachment. Then the Speaker and the 
Democrats in the House declared victory.
  That is when the breakneck pace of the impeachment process came to a 
screeching halt. It appears Speaker Pelosi got cold feet when she 
realized the President would be afforded a fair trial in the Senate. 
That was not good enough for her. When we offered President Trump the 
same terms that President Clinton received during his trial, that 
wasn't good enough for Speaker Pelosi, for she wanted guarantees from 
the Senate. The Speaker of the House flatly refused to send the 
Articles of Impeachment to the Senate in order for her to somehow gain 
leverage over Senate trial procedures--a responsibility that falls far 
outside her job description. She was seeking assurances from the 
majority leader that he would redo the House's shoddy investigative 
work--something that is not part of our job description under the 
Constitution.

  After weeks of holding the articles hostage with nothing to show for 
it, the Speaker has, apparently, finally caved. In holding the 
articles, she managed to accomplish something all too uncommon these 
days: she brought together Republicans and Democrats from both 
Chambers. Unfortunately, for the Speaker, this bipartisan, bicameral 
chorus of voices stood in firm opposition to her decision to withhold 
the articles.
  Last week, she finally announced that she would be sending over the 
articles this week, and it now looks like a vote is scheduled for 
Wednesday, tomorrow, where impeachment managers will be identified, and 
the process of sending it to the Senate will begin in earnest. In a 
letter to her House colleagues on Friday, Speaker Pelosi indicated she 
would be sending the articles this week, and it looks like we are 
rapidly closing on the start of that trial.
  As the majority leader has made clear from the beginning, this should 
be a far cry from the partisan impeachment process we saw in the House. 
We simply don't want to repeat the circuslike, partisan rush to 
impeachment that we saw in the House. Our responsibilities as Senators 
is to sit as a court--literally, as a jury--to consider the case that 
is being presented by the impeachment managers in the House as well as 
the President's lawyers.
  Despite the Speaker's insistence, we, the Senate--the jury--are not 
going to be handpicking the witnesses before the trial begins. In no 
courtroom in America does the jury decide how the case before them will 
be tried. That is decided by the parties to the lawsuit, whether it is 
the prosecution in the case of a criminal case and the defense lawyer 
or the plaintiff and defense counsel in a civil case. The jury's job is 
to sit and listen and to weigh the evidence and to reach a verdict.
  The Senate will--instead of the process Speaker Pelosi is advocating 
for--follow the only modern precedent we have, and that is the Clinton 
impeachment trial. If it was good enough for President Clinton, it is 
good enough for President Trump. We are going to follow that precedent 
and provide for some order and fairness in the process and, again, not 
repeat the circus we saw in the House.
  Just as we did in 1999, in the Clinton impeachment, we will begin 
with opening arguments. The impeachment managers, Speaker Pelosi's 
lawyers, will come over and present their case and argue their case. 
Then we will turn to the President's lawyers who will have a chance to 
respond. They can refer to some of the testimony of the 17 witnesses 
who testified during the House impeachment inquiry. They could offer 
additional evidence for the Senate to consider.
  This is not a question of witnesses or no witnesses. That is a 
blatant misrepresentation by those who are trying to somehow work the 
public's understanding of exactly how this will proceed. As in the 
Clinton impeachment trial, all 100 Senators will have an opportunity to 
hear the case from both sides before making a decision whether we, the 
jury, want to have additional witnesses presented. That is what 
happened in the Clinton case, and that is what should happen with 
President Trump.
  We will have an opportunity to ask written questions, which will be 
transmitted to the Chief Justice, who will then put those questions to 
the lawyers representing the impeachment managers and the President. 
Then we will be able to get information from them based on those 
questions.
  The more I thought about it--ordinarily, in a trial you would have 
disputed facts, and then you would have the law applied to the facts as 
found by the jury, but the more and more I have heard about this 
impeachment inquiry, the more and more I am inclined to believe that 
the facts are not disputed. If the facts are not really disputed, why 
would you need additional witnesses?
  There are people with opinions, there are people who draw inferences, 
and there are people who draw their own conclusions, but in the end, 
that is our job, not the witnesses' job. The witnesses' job is to 
provide the facts, should they be disputed, and it is our job then to 
decide whether this meets the constitutional standard of treason, 
bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors.
  What I find so amazing about these impeachment articles is neither 
one of them claim that President Trump committed a crime. Unlike the 
Clinton impeachment, where he was charged with perjury--with lying 
under oath--President Trump is not charged with any crime.
  In the first Article of Impeachment, basically, what we have is a 
disagreement in the way in which the President handled aid voted by 
Congress that would then be given to the Government of the Ukraine. 
That is what this impeachment is about. This is not about high crimes 
and misdemeanors.
  This is about political differences. This is about stylistic 
differences. This

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is where diplomats and others disagree with the way the President 
handled himself. Well, fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion, 
but that doesn't make impeachment the appropriate remedy.
  Here we are 11 months more or less until the next general election. 
I, for one, think it is dangerous to have 535 Members of Congress 
essentially be asked to convict and remove a President 11 months before 
the next general election; in other words, to substitute our views with 
those of the voters, the American people. I think that is very 
dangerous. If it succeeds here, I guarantee this will not be the last 
time.
  Unfortunately, the House has normalized this concept of impeachment 
essentially for political differences. That is a dangerous concept, and 
it would be a dangerous precedent if we were to accept it.
  This is the third time in American history--the history of our entire 
country--where this process will go forward in the Senate. We need to 
be very careful, very sober, very serious, and very deliberate in how 
we conduct ourselves and how we conduct this trial.
  Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi has violated her own admonition when, 
in March of 2019, she said that impeachment is too divisive, and it is 
just not worth it unless it is bipartisan, unless it is compelling. 
Well, this impeachment is neither bipartisan nor compelling. Speaker 
Pelosi apparently got stampeded by the more radical members of her 
caucus into this position, which now she is trying to find some face-
saving way out. That is what this is about.
  In the end, we know the politics, unfortunately, will continue in the 
Senate. We know that under the present circumstances, it is highly 
unlikely that 67 Senators, based on the record we know now, would vote 
to convict and remove the President. So what is all this posturing and 
grandstanding about with regard to witnesses or no witnesses--which I 
said earlier is a false choice. There will be witnesses, and there will 
be evidence. We are going to let the parties present it, and we are 
going to listen and make a decision.
  This is about the Democratic leader trying to put incumbent Senators 
who are on the ballot in 2020 in a tough position. That is what this is 
all about.
  In the end, this is not about President Trump. This is about who is 
going to maintain the majority in the Senate--whether Republicans will 
or whether the Democratic leader will accomplish his life's dream and 
become the next majority leader. That is what this is about.
  Well, unfortunately, the Speaker's senseless delay tactics have 
robbed us all of the valuable time that we could have spent conducting 
this trial and moving on to more constructive business. We are waiting 
for the Speaker to deliver the articles, but in the meantime we are not 
sitting around twiddling our thumbs.