Congressional Record, Volume 166 Issue 24 (Wednesday, February 5, 2020)

[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 5, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S873-S936]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

IMPEACHMENT

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, over the last months, our country has
been consumed by a single word, one that we don't use often in our
ordinary parlance. That word, of course, is ``impeachment.'' It has
filled our news channels, our Twitter feeds, and dinner conversations.
It has led to a wide-ranging debate on everything from the
constitutional doctrines of the separation of powers to the due process
of law--two concepts which are the most fundamental building blocks of
who we are as a nation. It has even prompted those who typically have
no interest in politics to tune into C-SPAN or into their favorite
cable news channels.
The impeachment of a President of the United States is simply the
gravest undertaking we can pursue in this country. It is the nuclear
option in our Constitution--the choice of last resort--when a President
has committed a crime so serious that Congress must act rather than
leave the choice to the voters in the election.
The Framers of the Constitution granted this awesome power to the
U.S. Congress and placed their confidence in the Senate to use only
when absolutely necessary, when there is no other choice.
This is a rare, historic moment for the Members of this Chamber. This
has been faced by the Senate only on two previous occasions during our
Constitution's 232-year history--only two times previously. We should
be extraordinarily vigilant in ensuring that the impeachment power does
not become a regular feature of our differences and, in the process,
cheapen the vote of the American people. Soon, Members of the Senate
will determine whether, for the first time in our history, a President
will be removed from office, and then we will decide whether he will be
barred from the ballot in 2020.
The question all Senators have to answer is, Did the President
commit, in the words of the Constitution, a high crime and misdemeanor
that warrants his removal from office or should he be acquitted of the
charges made by the House?
I did my best to listen intently to both sides as they presented
their cases during the trial, and I am confident in saying that
President Trump should be acquitted and not removed from office.
First, the Constitution gives the Congress the power to impeach and
remove a President from office only for treason, bribery, and other
high crimes and misdemeanors, but the two Articles of Impeachment
passed by the House of Representatives fail to meet that standard.
The first charge, as we know, is abuse of power. House Democrats
alleged that the President withheld military aid from Ukraine in
exchange for investigations of Joe and Hunter

[[Page S874]]

Biden. But they failed to bring forward compelling and unassailable
evidence of any crime--again, the Constitution talks about treason,
bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors; clearly, a criminal
standard--and thus failed to meet their burden of proof. Certainly, the
House managers did not meet the high burden required to remove the
President from office, effectively nullifying the will of tens of
millions of Americans just months before the next election. What is
more, the House's vague charge in the first article is equivalent to
acts considered and rejected by the Framers of our Constitution.
That brings us to the second article we are considering--obstruction
of Congress. During the House inquiry, Democrats were upset because
some of the President's closest advisers--and their most sought-after
witnesses--did not testify. To be clear, some of the executive branch
witnesses were among the 13 witnesses whose testimony we did hear
during the Senate trial. But for those witnesses for whom it was clear
the administration would claim a privilege, almost certainly leading to
a long court battle, the House declined to issue the subpoenas and
certainly did not seek judicial enforcement. Rather than addressing the
privilege claims in court, as happened in the Nixon and Clinton
impeachments, the Democratic managers moved to impeach President Trump
for obstruction of Congress for protecting the Presidency itself from a
partisan abuse of power by the House.
Removing the President from office for asserting long-recognized and
constitutionally grounded privileges that have been invoked by both
Republican and Democratic Presidents would set a very dangerous
precedent and would do violence to the Constitution's separation of
powers design. In effect, it would make the Presidency itself
subservient to Congress.
The father of our Constitution, James Madison, warned against
allowing the impeachment power to create a Presidential tenure at the
pleasure of the Senate.
Even more concerning, at every turn throughout this process, the
House Democrats violated President Trump's right to due process of law.
All American law is built on a constitutional foundation securing basic
rights and rules of fairness for a citizen accused of wrongdoing.
It is undisputed that the House excluded the President's legal team
from both the closed-door testimony and almost the entirety of the
House's 78-day inquiry. They channeled personal, policy, and political
grievances and attempted to use the most solemn responsibility of
Congress to bring down a political rival in a partisan process.
It is no secret that Democrats' crusade to remove the President began
more than 3 years ago on the very day he was inaugurated. On January
20, 2017, the Washington Post ran a story with the headline ``The
campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.''
At first, Speaker Pelosi wisely resisted. Less than a year ago, she
said, ``Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is
something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think
we should go down that path because it divides the country.'' And she
was right. But when she couldn't hold back the stampede of her caucus,
she did a 180-degree about-face. She encouraged House Democrats to rush
through an impeachment inquiry before an arbitrary Christmas deadline.
In the end, the articles passed with support from only a single
party--not bipartisan. The bipartisanship the Speaker claimed was
necessary was actually opposed to the impeachment of the President;
that is, Democrats and Republicans voted in opposition to the Articles
of Impeachment. Only Democrats voted for the Articles of Impeachment in
the House.
Once the articles finally made it to the Senate after a confusing,
28-day delay, Speaker Pelosi tried to have Senator Schumer--the
Democratic leader here--use Speaker Pelosi's playbook, and he staged a
number of political votes every Member of the Senate knew would fail,
just so he could secure some perceived political advantage against
Republican Senators in the 2020 election.
What should be a solemn, constitutional undertaking became partisan
guerilla warfare to take down President Trump and make Senator Schumer
the next majority leader of the U.S. Senate.
All of this was done on the eve of an election and just days shy of
the first primary in Iowa.
Well, to say the timing was a coincidence would be laughable. This
partisan impeachment process could not only remove the President from
office, it would also potentially prevent his name from appearing on
the ballot in November. We are only 9 months away from an election--9
months away from the American people voting on the direction of our
country--but our Democratic colleagues don't trust the American people,
so they have taken matters into their own hands.
This politically motivated impeachment sets a dangerous precedent.
This is a very important point. This is not just about President Trump;
this is about the Office of the Presidency and what precedent a
conviction and removal would set for our Constitution and for our
future. If successful, this would give a green light to future
Congresses to weaponize impeachment to defeat a political opponent for
any action--even a failure to kowtow to Congress's wishes.
Impeachment is a profoundly serious matter that must be handled as
such. It cannot become the Hail Mary pass of a party to remove a
President, effectively nullifying an election and interfering in the
next.
I believe--I think we should all believe--that the results of the
next election should be decided by the American people, not by
Congress.
The decision to remove a President from office requires undeniable
evidence of a high crime. That is the language chosen by the Framers of
our Constitution. But despite our colleagues' best attempts, the facts
they presented simply don't add up to that standard.
House managers failed to meet their heavy burden of proof that
President Trump, beyond a reasonable doubt, committed a crime, let
alone a high crime; therefore, I will not vote to convict the
President.
I hope our Democratic colleagues will finally accept the result of
this trial--just as they have not accepted the result of the 2016
election--and I hope they won't take the advice of Congresswoman
Waters, Maxine Waters in the House, and open a second impeachment
inquiry. It is time for our country to come together to heal the wounds
that divide us and to get the people's work done.
There is no doubt, as Speaker Pelosi observed in March of 2019, that
impeachment is a source of division in our country, and it is also a
period of great sadness. If this partisan impeachment were to succeed,
my greatest fear is it would become a routine process for every
President who serves with a House majority of the opposite party, and
we would find ourselves in a recurring impeachment nightmare every time
we elect a new President.
Our country is deeply divided and damaged by this partisan
impeachment process. It is time for us to bring it to a close and to
let the wounds from this unnecessary and misguided episode heal.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Statement for the Record--Impeachment Trial of Donald John Trump

Senator John Cornyn of Texas

Mr. President, I would like to submit this statement for
the record regarding the impeachment trial of President
Donald Trump. This statement seeks to supplement the remarks
that I made on the Senate floor on Wednesday, February 5,
2020. It includes some of my observations as a former judge
on some of the complicated constitutional, legal, and factual
issues associated with this impeachment proceeding and its
implications for future presidential impeachments.
(1) What is the Constitutional standard?
In America, all government derives its power, in the words
of the Declaration of Independence, ``from the consent of the
governed.'' \1\ This is not just a statement of national
policy, but a statement about legitimacy.
Elections are the principal means of conferring legitimacy
by the consent of the governed. Impeachments, by the House
and tried in the Senate, while conferring authority on 535
Members of Congress to nullify one election and disqualify a
convicted President from appearing on a future ballot,
exercise delegated power from the governed, much attenuated
from the direct consent provided by

[[Page S875]]

an election. It seems obvious that an impeachment of a
President during an election year should give rise to
heightened concerns about legitimacy.
While there was extensive argument on what the Framers
intended the impeachment standard to be, suffice it to say,
they believed it should be serious enough to warrant removal,
and disqualification from future office, of a duly elected
President.
The role of impeachments in a constitutional republic like
the United States was borrowed, to some extent, from our
British forebears. But it was not a wholesale acceptance of
the British model, with its parliamentary system where entire
governments can be removed on a vote of no confidence, but
rather a distinctly Americanized system that purposefully
created a strong and co-equal chief executive, elected by the
people for a definite term, with a narrowed scope of
impeachable offenses for the President.
Under the U.S. Constitution, Presidents may be impeached
for ``treason, bribery, and other high crimes and
misdemeanors.'' Due to the rarity of presidential
impeachments (three in 232 years), the age of some precedents
(dating back to the Johnson impeachment of 1868), and the
diversity of impeachment cases (and in particular, the
significant difference between the impeachment of judges and
Presidents), there remains quite a bit of debate about
precisely what actions by a President are impeachable.
Some argue a crime is not required, although all previous
presidential impeachments charged a crime. Some argue that
not all crimes are impeachable, only serious crimes can be
``high'' crimes. Some categories, including ``malversation,''
``neglect of duty,'' ``corruption,'' ``malpractice,'' and
``maladministration'' were considered and rejected by the
Framers.\2\
(2) Abuse of power
The President's lawyers charge that ``abuse of power''
alleged in the first Article of Impeachment is not a crime,
much less a ``high'' crime, nor a violation of established
law. This argument raises Due Process of Law concerns with
regard to notice of what is prohibited. As Justice Antonin
Scalia observed shortly before his death in the criminal
context, ``invoking so shapeless a provision to condemn
someone . . . does not comport with the Constitution's
guarantee of due process.'' \3\
Moreover, they argue that ``abuse of power'' is tantamount
to ``maladministration,'' which was rejected by the Framers.
There is little doubt that a vague and ambiguous charge in an
Article of Impeachment can be a generalized accusation into
which the House can lump all of their political, policy, and
personal differences with a President. This should be
avoided.
The House Managers say no crime is required for
impeachment, and that abuse of power, which incorporates a
host of nefarious acts, is all that is required. No violation
of criminal statutes is alleged, nor required they say, and
they disagree that abuse of power equates with
``maladministration.'' They point to Alexander Hamilton's
statement in Federalist 65 that impeachable offenses are
``those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public
men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some
public trust.''
(3) Obstruction of Congress.
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued
dozens of subpoenas and heard testimony from 17 witnesses. As
to other witness subpoenas issued to members of the Trump
Administration, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone argued in
his October 8, 2019 letter to Speaker of the House Pelosi
that any subpoenas issued before passage of a formal
resolution of the House establishing an impeachment inquiry
were constitutionally invalid and a violation of due process.
The House Managers rely on the Constitution's grant of the
``sole power of impeachment'' to the House and argue that no
authorizing resolution was required. Essentially, they argue
that under the Constitution the House can run an
impeachment inquiry any way the House wants and no one can
complain.
No committee of the House was officially delegated the
House's impeachment authority until October 31, 2019, when
the House passed House Resolution 660 directing ``the
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committees
on Financial Services, Foreign Affairs, the Judiciary,
Oversight and Reform, and Ways and Means to continue their
ongoing investigations as part of the existing House of
Representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist
for the House of Representatives to exercise its
constitutional power to impeach Donald John Trump, President
of the United States.''
Neither the House's theory that it could act without a
delegation resolution, nor the White House Counsel's argument
that subpoenas were void without one was presented to a court
during this impeachment inquiry.\4\ In fact, the House
intentionally avoided litigation because, as House Manager
Adam Schiff stated, it would slow down their inquiry.
One example makes this point. Charles Kupperman was a
deputy to former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Other
than Bolton himself, Kupperman was one of the officials most
likely to have direct knowledge of an alleged quid pro quo on
aid to Ukraine. But after the House subpoenaed him last fall,
Kupperman went to court and asked for a resolution of the
competing claims between the President and the House. Rather
than wait for a judicial determination in this interbranch
dispute, the House withdrew its subpoena and affirmatively
disclaimed any desire to pursue Kupperman's testimony in the
future.\5\ The House also decided not to subpoena Bolton or
any other key witnesses in the administration.
Instead, the House elected to push through impeachment with
an abbreviated period of roughly three months and declared
any delay by President Trump, even to seek judicial review,
to be obstruction of Congress and a high crime and
misdemeanor. The Administration is currently in court
challenging demands for witnesses and documents. Just a
couple weeks ago, the Supreme Court accepted such cases for
review and stayed the lower court decisions ordering the
production of President Trump's financial records from third
parties.\6\ Still, the House impeached President Trump before
the Supreme Court or other federal courts could rule on the
merits of claims of presidential privileges and immunities in
this impeachment inquiry.
The essence of the House's second Article of Impeachment is
that it is Obstruction of Congress to decline to voluntarily
submit to the House's inquiry and forgo any claims of
presidential privileges or immunities. One interpretation of
these facts is that the House simply gave up pursuing the
testimony in the interest of speed. While undoubtedly
litigation would have delayed for a time the House's
impeachment inquiry if they were determined to secure the
testimony they initially sought, it is clear that the
President, and not the witnesses, would assert claims of
executive privilege or absolute testimony immunity to protect
the Office of the Presidency. These claims are
constitutionally based in the separation of powers, long-
recognized by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal
Counsel, and repeatedly asserted by both Republican and
Democratic Administrations in countless disputes with
Congress. And since the House did not pursue the testimony
originally subpoenaed, the issue of presidential privileges
or immunity was never decided.\7\
But that is not all. Representative Eric Swalwell recently
declared that not only should a sitting president be
impeached if he or she goes to the courts rather than submit
to Congress, but that contesting demands for evidence is
actually evidence of guilt on all of the charged offenses.
Congressman Swalwell claimed ``we can only conclude that you
are guilty'' if someone refuses to give testimony or
documents to Congress.\8\ So much for the presumption of
innocence and other constitutional rights encompassed by the
Constitution's guarantee of Due Process of Law.
It is an odd argument that a person accused of running a
red light has more legal rights than a President being
impeached.
(4) The House's impeachment inquiry
The House Managers argue that since Article 1, Section 2 of
the Constitution gives the House the ``sole power of
impeachment,'' the President cannot question the procedures
as a denial of Due Process of Law or authority by which that
House produced the Articles. What they don't explain is how
House rules can preempt the Constitution. They can't. As
Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Marbury v. Madison,
``the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the
legislature, [and] the Constitution, and not such ordinary
act, must govern the case to which they both apply.'' \9\
While the Constitution gives the House the ``sole power to
impeach'' it gives the Senate the ``sole power to try all
impeachments.'' Some have analogized the House's role to a
grand jury in criminal cases. Generally speaking, a grand
jury may issue an indictment, also known as a ``true bill,''
only if it finds, based upon the evidence that has been
presented to it, that there is probable cause to believe that
a crime has been committed by a criminal suspect.
But impeachment is not, strictly speaking, a criminal case,
even though the Constitution speaks in terms of
``conviction'' and the impeachment standard is ``treason,
bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.'' Contrast
that with Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7: ``the Party
convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to
Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to
Law.'' In other words, the constitutional prohibition of
double jeopardy does not apply.
Neither are Senators jurors in the usual sense of being
``disinterested'' in the facts or outcome. Senators take the
following oath: ``Do you solemnly swear that in all things
appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John
Trump, President of the United States, now pending, you will
do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws,
so help you God?''
Hamilton wrote in Federalist 65 the Senate was chosen as
the tribunal for courts of impeachment because:
``Where else than in the Senate could have been found a
tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent?
What other body would be likely to feel confidence enough in
its own situation, to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the
necessary impartiality between an individual accused, and the
representatives of the people, his accusers?''
Because impeachment is neither civil nor criminal in the
usual sense, it must be something different. President
Trump's counsel referred to the Senate role as sitting in a

[[Page S876]]

``High Court of Impeachment,'' and ``Democracy's ultimate
court.'' Hamilton, in Federalist 65, called it ``a method of
national inquest.''
One of most significant disputes in the Senate impeachment
trial of President Trump was the duty of the House to develop
evidence during its impeachment inquiry and the duty of the
Senate when new evidence is sought by one or both parties
during the trial. In addressing this issue, it is helpful to
remind ourselves that the American system of justice is
adversarial in nature. That is, it is a system that
``resolves disputes by presenting conflicting views of fact
and law to an impartial and relatively passive arbiter, who
decides which side wins what.'' \10\ This system ``consists
of a core of basic rights that recognize and protect the
dignity of the individual in a free society.'' \11\
The rights that comprise the adversary system include . . .
the rights to call and to confront witnesses, and the right
to require the government to prove guilt beyond a reasonable
doubt. . . . These rights, and others, are also included in
the broad and fundamental concept [of] due process of law--a
concept which itself has been substantially equated with the
adversary system.'' \12\
The adversarial nature of these proceedings means that the
House Managers were obligated to develop their case,
including the evidence, in the House inquiry, and not rely on
the Senate to do so. In typical court proceedings, the
failure of the prosecutor to present sufficient evidence at
trial results in dismissal, not in open-ended discovery or a
re-opened investigation.
President Trump's lawyers argued that there were three main
errors in the House proceedings:
(1) The House did not initially authorize the impeachment
inquiry, thus delegating its ``sole power'' to the
Intelligence Committee, which issued dozens of subpoenas the
President deemed invalid;
(2) Numerous due process violations during the Intelligence
Committee's proceedings, including denial of notice, counsel,
cross examination, and the opportunity to call witnesses;
(3) And, finally, that as an interested fact witness
regarding Intelligence Committee contacts with the
whistleblower, Chairman Schiff could not be said to have
fairly conducted the House investigation.
Again, the House Managers argue that the method by which
the Articles of Impeachment were approved in the House cannot
be challenged in the Senate trial given the House's ``sole
power to impeach.''
Ominously, the President's lawyers argue that whatever
precedent was set by the Senate in this trial would be the
``new normal'' and govern not just this trial but all
impeachment trials in the future. They also argue that to
make impeachment ``too easy'' in the House will result in
more frequent presidential impeachments being approved by
this and future Houses, which the Senate would then be
obligated to try. Similarly, they argue that the Senate
should not reward the failure of the House to litigate
questions of presidential privileges and immunities in their
impeachment inquiry and transfer that burden to the Senate.
An important difference between the House and Senate is that
House inquiries can be delegated to committees while the
House conducts other business; not so in the Senate, which
must sit as a court of impeachment until the trial is
completed.
Thus, during a Senate impeachment trial, absent unanimous
consent--unlikely given the contentious nature of the
proceedings--the Senate is precluded from any other business,
even during delays while executive privilege and similar
issues are litigated in the courts. Given that the House
chose to not seek judicial enforcement of subpoenas during
its impeachment inquiry because of concerns about delay, the
question is do they have a right to do so during the Senate
trial? If so, the President's lawyers claim, such an outcome
would significantly protract a Senate trial and permanently
alter the relationship between the House and Senate in
impeachment proceedings. Indeed, there is a strong textual
and structural argument that the Constitution prohibits the
Senate from performing the investigative role assigned to the
House.
The House Managers contend that Chief Justice John Roberts
could rule on questions of privilege while presiding over the
impeachment trial, avoiding delay during litigation, but the
Chief Justice made clear his was not a judicial role in the
usual sense.\13\ When the issue of whether the Chief Justice
would be a tie-breaking vote came up during the trial, he
said: ``I think it would be inappropriate for me, an
unelected official from a different branch of government, to
assert the power to change that result so that the motion
would succeed.'' So it is that the Senate, not the Chief
Justice presiding in an essentially ceremonial role during
impeachment trials, determines disputed issues. This
conclusion is further supported by the rule that a majority
of Senators are empowered to effectively ``overrule'' an
initial determination by the presiding officer. In the words
of Senate Impeachment Rule Seven: ``The presiding officer
may, in the first instance, submit to the Senate, without a
division, all questions of evidence and incidental questions;
but the same shall, on the demand of one-fifth of the members
present, be decided by yeas and nays.'' The unseemliness of
imposing this role on the Chief Justice is obvious and should
be avoided.
(5) The Facts
Of course, the main factual contentions of the House
Managers involve President Trump's interest in an
investigation of Hunter and Joe Biden's role in Ukraine. They
allege the President's ``corrupt'' motive to dig up dirt on a
potential political rival is an abuse of power. The
President's lawyers argue that it is clearly within the
President's authority to investigate corruption and leverage
foreign aid in order to combat it. Even if it incidentally
helps the President electorally, they argue it is not a
``high crime and misdemeanor.''
But there are more basic factual conundrums. Any
investigations discussed in the July 25 conversation between
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump
never occurred. And the foreign aid, including lethal
defensive aid and weapons, was paused for just a short time
and delivered on September 11, 2019, before the deadline of
September 30.
The abuse of power alleged was based on desired
investigations and the withholding of foreign aid. But
neither, ultimately, occurred. This is similar to an
``attempted'' offense under the criminal law. Indeed, the law
criminalizes a host of attempted offenses. But the Articles
of Impeachment do not charge President Trump with any crimes,
including any ``attempted'' offenses.
(6) Burden of Proof
President Trump's counsel argued that the appropriate
burden of proof in this quasi-criminal trial is ``proof
beyond a reasonable doubt.'' This point was not seriously
contested by the House Managers who repeatedly claimed the
evidence in support of the Articles of Impeachment was
``overwhelming.'' Manager Jerry Nadler went further and
claimed, repeatedly, that the evidence produced was
``conclusive'' and ``uncontested.'' Manager Zoe Lofgren
argued that Senators could use, literally, any standard they
wished.
This is significant on the issue of the President's motive
in seeking a corruption investigation from President
Zelensky, one that included former Vice President Biden and
his son, Hunter, and the company on whose board he served,
Burisma. The House Managers argued, repeatedly, that
President Trump did not care about Ukrainian corruption or
burden sharing with allies and that his sole motive was to
get information damaging to a political rival, Joe Biden.
President Trump's lawyers contend that he has a record of
concerns about burden sharing with allies, as well as
corruption, and produced several examples. At most, they say,
his was a mixed motive--partly policy, partly political--and
in any event it was not a crime and thus not impeachable.
Therefore, the question arises: did the House Managers
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the sole motive for
pausing military aid to Ukraine was for his personal benefit?
Or, did they fail to meet their burden?
Conclusion
Ultimately, the House Managers failed to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that President Trump's sole motive for
seeking any corruption investigation in Ukraine, including of
Hunter Biden, was for a personal political benefit. This is
particularly true given the evidence of President Trump's
documented interest in financial burden sharing with allies,
and the widely shared concerns, including by the Obama/Biden
Administration, with corruption in Ukraine and the need to
protect American taxpayers.
Even if President Trump had mixed motives--a public
interest combined with a personal interest--the fact is the
investigations never occurred and the aid to Ukraine was
paused but delivered on schedule.
Moreover, none of the above conduct rises to the level of a
``high crime and misdemeanor.'' The first article, Abuse of
Power, which charges no crime or violation of existing law is
too vague and ambiguous to meet the Constitution's
requirements. It is simply a conclusion into which any
disagreeable conduct can be lumped.
Finally, the second article, Obstruction of Congress,
cannot be sustained on this record. The President's counsel
argued persuasively that its subpoenas were largely
unauthorized in the absence of a House resolution delegating
its authority to a House committee. What's more, the House
never sought to enforce its subpoenas in the courts,
essentially giving up efforts to do so in favor of expediting
the House impeachment inquiry. The desire to meet an
arbitrary deadline before Christmas was prioritized over a
judicial determination in the interbranch dispute.

endnotes

1. See Declaration of Independence (``We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent
of the government.'')
2. See The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (Max
Farrand, ed., 1911).
3. Johnson v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 2560 (2015).
Chief Justice Roberts similarly relied on Justice Scalia's
views when he raised due process concerns in the context of
an amorphous definition of corruption in the criminal
prosecution of public officials. McDonnell v. United States,
136 S.Ct. 2355, 2373 (2016).
4. A variation of these arguments came up in active
litigation related to the House's access to testimony and
evidence connected

[[Page S877]]

with Special Counsel Mueller's investigation. The district
courts rejected the White House Counsel's position. See House
of Representatives v. McGahn, No. 1:19-cv-02379-KBJ, 2019 WL
6312011 (D.D.C. Nov. 25, 2019) and In re Application of House
of Representatives for Release of Certain Grand Jury
Materials, No. 1:19-gj-00048, 2019 WL 5485221 (D.D.C. Oct.
25, 2019). But those decisions are now on appeal, and the
D.C. Circuit heard argument in those cases on January 3,
2020.
5. See Kupperman v. House of Representatives, 1:19-cv-
03224-RJL, 2019 WL 729359 (D.D.C. Dec. 30, 2019).
6. See Order of Supreme Court dated December 13, 2019
granting certiorari in Trump v. Mazars USA, 940 F.3d 710
(D.C. Cir. 2019); Trump v. Deutsche Bank, 943 F.3d 627 (2d
Cir. 2019), and Trump v. Vance, 941 F.3d 631 (2d Cir. 2019).
The Supreme Court will hear argument in these cases on March
31, 2020.
7. Issues associated with executive privilege were
litigated and resolved in the courts well in advance of the
Nixon and Clinton impeachments.
8. See December 17, 2019 Interview of Congressman Eric
Swalwell by CNN's Wolf Blitzer (``Unless you send those
[witnesses] to us, we can only conclude that you are guilty,
because in America, innocent men do not hide and conceal
evidence. In fact, . . . they do just the opposite, they are
forthcoming and they want to cooperate, and the President is
acting like a very guilty person.'')
9. See Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 138 (1803) (``An act
of congress repugnant to the constitution cannot become a
law.'')
10. Monroe H. Freeman, ``Our Constitutionalized Adversary
System,'' 1 Chapman Law Rev. 57, 57 (1998). Justice Scalia
noted that the adversarial system is founded on ``the
presence of a judge who does not (as the inquisitor does)
conduct the factual and legal investigation himself, but
instead decides on the basis of facts and arguments pro and
con adduced by the parties.'' McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U.S.
171, 181 n.2 (1991).
11. Id.
12. Id.
13. As even one of the witnesses who testified in the House
has recognized, the Constitution designates the Chief Justice
to serve as presiding officer of the Senate for presidential
impeachments because the Framers understood the obvious
conflict of interest and tension in allowing the Vice
President to preside over the trial of the President. Michael
Gerhardt, The Constitutional Limits to Impeachment and Its
Alternatives, 68 Texas Law Review 1, 98 (1989).

Mr. CORNYN. I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Loeffler). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, I come here today with the business of
impeachment before this Chamber. It should hardly be necessary at this
late juncture to outline again the train of abuses and distortions and
outright lies that have brought us to today's impeachment vote: the
secret meetings in the Capitol basement; the closed hearings without
due process or basic fairness; the failure of the House to follow their
own rules and authorize an impeachment inquiry and then the bipartisan
vote against impeachment; and the attempt to manipulate or even prevent
a trial here in the Senate--holding the Articles of Impeachment for 33
days--in brazen defiance of the Constitution's mandates.
The House Democrats have given us the first purely partisan
impeachment in our history and the first attempt to remove an elected
President that does not even allege unlawful conduct.
Animating it all has been the bitter resentment of a professional
political class that cannot accept the verdict of the people in 2016,
that cannot accept the people's priorities, and that now seeks to
overturn the election and entrench themselves in power. That is how we
arrived at this moment, that is how we got here, and that is what this
is really about.
Now it is time to bring this fiasco to a close. It is time to end
this cycle of retribution and payback and bitterness. It is time to end
the abuse of our institutions. It is time to let the verdict of the
people stand. So I will vote today to acquit the President of these
charges.
You know, it has been clear for a long time that impeachment is not a
priority of the people--it is not even close. It is a pipe dream of
politicians. And as the Democrats have forced it on this country over
these many months, it has sapped our energy and diverted our attention
from the real issues that press upon our country, the issues the people
of this Nation have tried to get this town to care about for years. I
mean the crisis of surging suicides and drug addiction that is driving
down life expectancy in my State and across this Nation. I mean the
crisis at the border, where those drugs are pouring across. I mean the
crisis of skyrocketing healthcare costs, which burden families, young
and old, with bills they cannot pay. I mean the crisis of affordable
housing, which robs parents of a safe place to raise their children and
build a life. I mean the crisis of trafficking and exploitation, which
robs our young girls and boys of a future and our society of their
innocence. I mean the crisis of the family farm and the crisis of
education costs for those who go to college and the lack of good-paying
jobs for those who don't. I mean the crisis of connectivity in our
heartland, where too many schoolchildren can't access the internet even
to do their homework at night. I mean the crisis of unfair trade and
lost jobs and broken homes. And I could go on.
My point is this: When I listen to the people of my State, I don't
hear about impeachment. No, I hear about the problems of home and
neighborhood, of family and community, about the loss of faith in our
government and about the struggle to find hope for the future. This
town owes it to these Americans--the ones who sent us here--finally to
listen, finally to act, and finally to do something that really matters
to them.
We must leave this impeachment circus behind us and ensure that our
Constitution is never again abused in this way. It is time to turn the
page. It is time to turn to a new politics of the people and to a
politics of home. It is time to turn to the future--a future where this
town finally accepts the people's judgment and the people's verdict and
where this town finally delivers for the people who elected them; a
future where the middle of our society gets a fair shake and a level
playing field; a future where maybe--maybe--this town will finally
listen.
When I think of all the energy and all the effort that has been
expended on this impeachment crusade over almost 3 years now, I wonder
what might have been.
Today is a sad day, but it does not have to remain that way. Imagine
what we might achieve for the good of this Nation if we turn our energy
and our effort to the work of the American people. Imagine what we
could do to keep families in their homes and to bring new possibility
to the Nation's heartland and to care for our children in every part of
this society. Imagine what we could do to lift up the most vulnerable
among us who have been exploited and trafficked and give them new hope
and new life. Imagine what we could do for those who have been
forgotten, from our rural towns to our inner cities. Imagine what we
could do to give them control over their own destinies.
We can find the common good. We can push the boundaries of the
possible. We can rebuild this Nation if we will listen to the American
people. Let us begin.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, in this impeachment proceeding, I
worked with other Senators to make sure that we had the right to ask
for more documents and witnesses, but there was no need for more
evidence to prove something that I believe had already been proven and
that did not meet the U.S. Constitution's high bar for an impeachable
offense.
There was no need for more evidence to prove that the President asked
Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. He said this on
television on October 3, 2019, and he said it during his July 25, 2019,
telephone call with the President of Ukraine.
There was no need for more evidence to conclude that the President
withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to
investigate the Bidens. The House managers have proved this with what
they called a ``mountain of overwhelming evidence.'' One of the
managers said it was ``proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.''
There was no need to consider further the frivolous second Article of
Impeachment that would remove from the President and future
Presidents--remove this President for asserting his constitutional
prerogative to protect confidential conversations with his close
advisers.

[[Page S878]]

It was inappropriate for the President to ask a foreign leader to
investigate his political opponent and to withhold U.S. aid to
encourage this investigation. When elected officials inappropriately
interfere with such investigations, it undermines the principle of
equal justice under the law. But the Constitution does not give the
Senate the power to remove the President from office and ban him from
this year's ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate.
The question, then, is not whether the President did it but whether
the Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what
he did. I believe that the Constitution clearly provides that the
people should make that decision in the Presidential election that
began on Monday in Iowa.
The Senate has spent 11 long days considering this mountain of
evidence, the arguments of the House managers and the President's
lawyers, their answers to Senators' questions, and the House record.
Even if the House charges were true, they don't meet the Constitution's
``Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors'' standard
for impeachable offense.
The Framers believed that there never ever should be a partisan
impeachment. That is why the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of
the Senate to convict. Yet not one House Republican voted for these
articles.
If this shallow, hurried, and wholly partisan impeachment were to
succeed, it would rip the country apart, pouring gasoline on the fire
of cultural divisions that already exist. It would create a weapon of
perpetual impeachment to be used against future Presidents whenever the
House of Representatives is of a different political party.
Our founding documents provide for duly elected Presidents who serve
with ``the consent of the governed,'' not at the pleasure of the U.S.
Congress. Let the people decide.
A year ago, at the Southeastern Conference basketball tournament, a
friend of 40 years sitting in front of me turned to me and said: ``I am
very unhappy with you for voting against the President.'' She was
referring to my vote against the President's decision to spend money
that Congress hadn't appropriated to build the border wall.
I believed then and now that the U.S. Constitution gives to the
Congress the exclusive power to appropriate money. This separation of
powers creates checks and balances in our government that preserve our
individual liberty by not allowing, in that case, the Executive to have
too much power.
I replied to my friend: ``Look, I was not voting for or against the
President. I was voting for the United States Constitution.'' Well, she
wasn't convinced.
This past Sunday, walking my dog Rufus in Nashville, I was confronted
by a neighbor who said she was angry and crushed by my vote against
allowing more witnesses in the impeachment trial. ``The Senate should
remove the President for extortion,'' she said.
I replied to her: ``I was not voting for or against the President. I
was voting for the United States Constitution, which, in my view, does
not give the Senate the power to remove a President from his office and
from this year's election ballot simply for actions that are
inappropriate. The United States Constitution says a President may be
convicted only for Treason, Bribery, and other High Crimes and
Misdemeanors. President Trump's actions regarding Ukraine are a far cry
from that. Plus,'' I said, ``unlike the Nixon impeachment, when almost
all Republicans voted to initiate an impeachment inquiry, not one
single Republican voted to initiate this impeachment inquiry against
President Trump. The Trump impeachment,'' I said to her, ``was a
completely partisan action, and the Framers of the United States
Constitution, especially James Madison, believed we should never ever
have a partisan impeachment. That would undermine the separation of
powers by allowing the House of Representatives to immobilize the
executive branch, as well as the Senate, by a perpetual partisan series
of impeachments.'' Well, she was not convinced.
When our country was created, there never had been anything quite
like it--a democratic republic with a written Constitution. Perhaps its
greatest innovation was the separation of powers among the Presidency,
the Supreme Court, and the Congress.
The late Justice Scalia said this of checks and balances: ``Every tin
horn dictator in the world today, every president for life, has a Bill
of Rights. . . . What has made us free is our Constitution.'' What he
meant was, what makes the United States different and protects our
individual liberty is the separation of powers and the checks and
balances in our Constitution.
The goal of our Founders was not to have a King as a chief executive,
on the one hand, or not to have a British-style parliament, on the
other, which could remove our chief executive or prime minister with a
majority or no-confidence vote. The principle reason our Constitution
created a U.S. Senate is so that one body of Congress can pause and
resist the excesses of the Executive or popular passions that could run
through the House of Representatives like a freight train.
The language of the Constitution, of course, is subject to
interpretation, but on some things, its words are clear. The President
cannot spend money that Congress doesn't appropriate--that is clear--
and the Senate can't remove a President for anything less than treason,
bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors, and two-thirds of us, the
Senators, must agree on that. That requires a bipartisan consensus.
We Senators take an oath to base our decisions on the provisions of
our Constitution, which is what I have endeavored to do during this
impeachment proceeding.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to include a few documents
in the Record following my remarks. They include an editorial from
February 3 from the Wall Street Journal; an editorial from the National
Review, also dated February 3; an opinion editorial by Robert Doar,
president of the American Enterprise Institute on February 1; an
article from KnoxTNToday, yesterday; and a transcript from my
appearance on ``Meet the Press'' on Sunday, February 2, 2020. These
documents illuminate and further explain my statement today.
Thank you.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 3, 2020]

Editorial Board: Lamar Alexander's Finest Hour--His Vote Against
Witnesses was Rooted in Constitutional Wisdom

Senate Republicans are taking even more media abuse than
usual after voting to bar witnesses from the impeachment
trial of President Trump. ``Cringing abdication'' and ``a
dishonorable Senate'' are two examples of the sputtering
progressive rage. On the contrary, we think it was Lamar
Alexander's finest hour.
The Tennessee Republican, who isn't running for re-election
this year, was a decisive vote in the narrowly divided Senate
on calling witnesses. He listened to the evidence and
arguments from both sides, and then he offered his sensible
judgment: Even if Mr. Trump did what House managers charge,
it still isn't enough to remove a President from office.``It
was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader
to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United
States aid to encourage that investigation,'' Mr. Alexander
said in a statement Thursday night. ``But the Constitution
does not give the Senate the power to remove the president
from office and ban him from this year's ballot simply for
actions that are inappropriate.''
The House managers had proved their case to his
satisfaction even without new witnesses, Mr. Alexander added,
but ``they do not meet the Constitution's `treason, bribery,
or other high crimes and misdemeanors' standard for an
impeachable offense.'' Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse told reporters
``let me be clear: Lamar speaks for lots and lots of us.''
This isn't an abdication. It's a wise judgment based on
what Mr. Trump did and the rushed, partisan nature of the
House impeachment. Mr. Trump was wrong to ask Ukraine to
investigate Joe and Hunter Biden, and wrong to use U.S. aid
as leverage. His call with Ukraine's President was far from
``perfect.'' It was reckless and self-destructive, as Mr.
Trump often is.
Nearly all of his advisers and several Senators opposed his
actions, Senators like Wisconsin's Ron Johnson lobbied Mr.
Trump hard against the aid delay, and in the end the aid was
delivered within the fiscal year and Ukraine did not begin an
investigation. Even the House managers did not allege
specific crimes in their impeachment articles. For those who
want the best overall account of what happened, we again
recommend the Nov. 18 letter that Mr. Johnson wrote to House
Republicans.
Mr. Alexander's statement made two other crucial points.
The first concerns the damage that partisan removal of Mr.
Trump would do to the country.

[[Page S879]]

``The framers believed that there should never, ever be a
partisan impeachment. That is why the Constitution requires a
2/3 vote of the Senate for conviction. Yet not one House
Republican voted for these articles,'' Mr. Alexander noted.
``If this shallow, hurried and wholly partisan impeachment
were to succeed, it would rip the country apart, pouring
gasoline on the fire of cultural divisions that already
exist. It would create the weapon of perpetual impeachment to
be used against future presidents whenever the House of
Representatives is of a different political party.''
Does anyone who isn't a Resistance partisan doubt this?
Democrats and the press talk as if removing Mr. Trump is a
matter of constitutional routine that would restore American
politics to some pre-2016 normalcy. That's a dangerous
illusion.
The ouster of Mr. Trump, the political outsider, on such
slender grounds would be seen by half the country as an
insider coup d'etat. Unlike Richard Nixon's resignation, it
would never be accepted by Mr. Trump's voters, who would wave
it as a bloody flag for years to come. Payback against the
next Democratic President when the Republicans retake the
House would be a certainty.
Mr. Alexander directed Americans to the better solution of
our constitutional bedrock. ``The question then is not
whether the president did it, but whether the United States
Senate or the American people should decide what to do about
what he did,'' his statement said. ``Our founding documents
provide for duly elected presidents who serve with `the
consent of the governed,' not at the pleasure of the United
States Congress. Let the people decide.''
Democrats and their allies in the media have spent three
years trying to nullify the election their candidate lost in
2016. They have hawked false Russian conspiracy theories,
ignored abuse by the FBI, floated fantasies about triggering
the 25th Amendment, and tried to turn bad presidential
judgment toward Ukraine into an impeachable offense. Yet Mr.
Trump's job approval rating has increased during the
impeachment hearings and trial.
Our friendly advice to Democrats and the impeachment press
is to accept that you lost fair and square in 2016 and focus
on nominating a better Democratic candidate this year. On the
recent polling evidence, that task is urgent. In the
meantime, thank you, Lamar Alexander.
____

[From the National Review, Feb. 3, 2020]

Editorial Board: Lamar Alexander Gets It Right

The impeachment saga is drawing to a close.
The Senate is prepared to acquit without hearing from
witnesses, after Lamar Alexander, a swing vote, came out
against calling them late last week.
In his statement, Alexander expressed the correct view on
the underlying matter--one we have been urging Republicans to
publicly adopt since impeachment first got off the ground.
The Tennessee Republican said that it has been amply
established that Donald Trump used a hold on defense aid to
pressure the Ukrainians to undertake the investigations that
he wanted, and that this was, as he mildly put it,
inappropriate. But this misconduct, he argued, doesn't rise
to the level of the high crimes and misdemeanors required to
remove a president from office. If the Senate were to do so
anyway, it would further envenom the nation's partisan
divide. Besides, there is a national election looming where
the public itself can decide whether Trump should stay in
office or not.
Since we already know the core of what happened, Alexander
explained, there was no need to hear from additional
witnesses in the Senate trial. (On this theory of the case,
the Senate is in effect acting like an appellate court,
rendering a judgment on a threshold question of law, rather
than a trial court sifting through the facts.)
In the wake of Alexander's statement, other Senate
Republicans endorsed his line of analysis, which, it must be
noted, is superior to the defense mounted by the White House
legal team over the last two weeks.
Because the president refused to acknowledge what he did,
his team implausibly denied there was a quid pro quo and
argued that one hadn't been proven since there were no first-
hand witnesses. Obviously, this position was at odds with the
defense team's insistence that no further witnesses be
called. It also raised the natural question why, if people
with firsthand knowledge had exculpatory information, the
White House wasn't eager to let them come forward.
Additionally, the White House maintained that a president
can't be impeached unless he's guilty of a criminal
violation. This is an erroneous interpretation of the
Constitution, although it is true that past presidential
impeachments have involved violations of the law and that
such violations provide a bright line that's missing if the
charge is only abuse of power. Alan Dershowitz argued this
position most aggressively for the president's defense, and
made it even worse by briefly seeming--before walking it
back--to argue that anything a president does to advance his
reelection is properly motivated.
As for the House managers, they were at their strongest
making the case that the president had done what they
alleged, and their weakest arguing that he should be removed
for it.
They tried to inflate the gravity of Trump's offense by
repeatedly calling it ``election interference.'' At the end
of the day, though, what the Trump team sought was not an
investigation of Joe or Hunter Biden, but a statement by the
Ukrainians that they'd look into Burisma, the Ukrainian
company on whose board Hunter Biden sat. The firm has a shady
past and has been investigated before. Trump should have
steered clear of anything involving his potential opponent,
but it's not obvious that a new Burisma probe would have had
any effect on 2020 (the vulnerability for Biden is Hunter's
payments, which are already on the record) and, of course,
the announcement of an investigation never happened.
They said that Trump's seeking this Ukrainian interference
was in keeping with his welcoming of Russian meddling,
implying that Trump had been found guilty of colluding with
the Russians in 2016, rather than exonerated. (Part of the
complaint here is that Trump made use of material that
emerged via Russian hacking. Then again, so did Bernie
Sanders in his fight with the DNC.)
They alleged that the brief delay in aid to Ukraine somehow
endangered our national security, a risible claim given that
the Ukrainians got the aid and that Trump has provided
Ukraine lethal assistance that President Obama never did.
They accused the president of obstruction of justice for
asserting privileges invoked by other presidents and not
producing documents and witnesses on the House's accelerated
timeline, a charge that White House lawyer Patrick Philbin
effectively dismantled.
Finally, they insisted that a trial without witnesses
wouldn't be fair, despite making no real effort to secure the
new witnesses during their own rushed impeachment inquiry.
As for the Senate trial being a ``cover up,'' as Democrats
now insist it is, there is nothing stopping the House--or the
Senate, for that matter--from seeking testimony from John
Bolton and others outside the confines of the trial. This
would be entirely reasonable congressional oversight (despite
the White House arguing otherwise) and there is still a
public interest in knowing as much as possible about this
matter, even if Trump isn't going to be removed.
If nothing else, the last two weeks have been a forum for
extensive discussion about the respective powers of the two
elected branches of government. We are sympathetic to the
view that the executive branch has too much power. If
Congress seeks to remedy this imbalance by impeaching and
removing presidents, though, it will be sorely disappointed,
since the two-thirds requirement for a Senate conviction is
an almost insuperable obstacle to removal (as both House
Republicans and House Democrats have experienced the last 20
years).
It would be better if Congress undertook a more systematic
effort to take back prerogatives it has ceded to the
executive branch and the courts. But we aren't optimistic on
this score, since the same Democrats who claim to be
sticklers about congressional power on the Ukraine matter
won't say a discouraging word about Elizabeth Warren's and
Bernie Sanders's promised adventures in unilateral rule as
president.
At the end of the day, Nancy Pelosi impeached knowing that
the Senate wouldn't convict, and so here we are--with nine
months to go until voters get to make their judgment: not
just about Ukraine, but about the last four years and Trump's
eventual opponent.
____

[From the AEI, Feb. 1, 2020]

Alexander Got It Right: It Takes More To Remove a President

(By Robert Doar)

``It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign
leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold
United States aid to encourage that investigation. When
elected officials inappropriately interfere with such
investigations, it undermines the principle of equal justice
under the law. But the Constitution does not give the Senate
the power to remove the president from office and ban him
from this year's ballot simply for actions that are
inappropriate.''
Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander's words reminded me of the
struggle my father, John Doar, had as he considered whether
the conduct of President Richard Nixon was so serious that it
should lead the House to impeach him and the Senate to remove
him from office. Dad was in charge of the House Judiciary
Committee staff, which took seven months (between December
1973 and July 1974) to examine the evidence and consider the
question. What he concluded, and what the House Judiciary
Committee by bipartisan majorities also found, was that Nixon
deserved impeachment and removal for a pattern of conduct
over a multi-year period that both obstructed justice and
abused power.
So the first article, concerning obstruction of justice,
found that Nixon and his subordinates had tampered with
witnesses and interfered with the Department of Justice's
investigations. They had paid hush money and attempted to
misuse the CIA. And they had lied repeatedly to investigators
and the American people.
On abuse of power, Nixon was found to have misused his
authority over the IRS, the FBI, the CIA, and the Secret
Service to defeat political opponents and protect himself,
and in the process he had violated the constitutional rights
of citizens. After he came

[[Page S880]]

under suspicion, he tried to manipulate these agencies to
interfere with the investigation.
President Trump's conduct toward Ukraine, though
inappropriate, differs significantly from Nixon's in one
crucial respect. Where Nixon's impeachable abuse of power
occurred over a period of several years, the conduct
challenged by the House's impeachment of Trump was not nearly
as prolonged. From July to September of last year, Trump
attempted to cajole a foreign government to open an
investigation into his political opponent. That conduct was
wrong. But it's not the same as what Nixon did over multiple
years.
This contrast brings to light a critical difference between
the House's behavior in 1974 and its efforts today. When
Nixon's actions came to light, the House conducted an
impeachment the right way: The House Judiciary Committee took
seven months to examine all of the evidence, built up a
theory of the case which matched the Constitution's
requirements, and produced charges that implicated the
president and his subordinates in a pattern of impeachable
conduct. Faced with certain impeachment and removal from
office, Nixon resigned. What Trump attempted to do, as
Alexander rightly sees, is not that.
Alexander is right about one other thing--we should let the
people decide who our next president should be.
____

[From the Knox TN Today, Feb. 4, 2020]

Lamar Was Right

(By Frank Cagle)

Since I'm older than dirt, there have been occasions over
the years when first-term state legislators would ask me if I
had any advice for them.
Yes.
When a major and controversial issue looms study it, decide
where you are and let everyone know where you are. In other
words, pick a side early, have a reputation for keeping your
word, and do not be known as a member who will go where the
wind blows.
Make sure you do not get into the group known as the
undecideds. You will get hammered by both sides, wooed by
both sides and hounded by the media. And finally, do not
under any circumstances be the deciding vote. Yours will be
the only vote anyone remembers.
You would think someone who has been around as long as
Lamar Alexander could avoid this trap. But not so. In the
impeachment trial of President Trump, he got the label
undecided, he was then hounded by the media and hammered by
both sides over whether he would march in lockstep with
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or whether he would vote to
call more witnesses as the Democrats wanted.
And horror of horrors, he was the deciding vote and the
only one that will be remembered. When he announced how he
would vote the ``more witnesses'' movement collapsed.
Alexander now finds himself being excoriated by both sides.
The Trump supporters will never forget his failure to fall in
line and salute. The anti-Trumpers are expressing their
disappointment.
I've never been a Lamar fan. But I would like to make the
case that he did exactly the right thing and he expressed the
position of the majority of his Republican colleagues. He,
and anyone who has been paying attention, says Trump did what
he was accused of and what he did was wrong--inappropriate.
But it did not rise to the level of removing him from office.
There was no point in listening to additional witnesses and
dragging things out. Everyone knew he was guilty. But if
Trump is to be removed from office, let the voters do it.
If you believe that Trump didn't hold up aid to Ukraine or
that he didn't ask them to investigate Joe Biden you have
surrendered your critical faculties or you haven't been
paying attention.
Joe and Hunter Biden should be investigated. By the FBI. I
understand Trump's frustration that the mainstream media
could not be counted on to investigate what should be
disqualifying information about Biden's presidential run. (In
the media's defense, Trump's kids are also trading off their
father's position.) Trump's problem is that instead of
turning to the FBI he turned the problem over to Rudy
Giuliani and a couple of his questionable associates,
otherwise known as the ``Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight.''
I doubt you could find 10 Republican senators who, in their
heart of hearts, didn't agree with Lamar's position. Many
have echoed his argument. But it will be Lamar who will take
the heat.
____

[From Meet the Press, Feb. 2, 2020]

Interview With Senator Lamar Alexander, U.S. Senator for Tennessee

Chuck Todd: Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of
Tennessee. Senator Alexander, welcome back.
Senator Lamar Alexander: Thank you, Chuck.
Todd: So one of the reasons you gave in your release about
not voting for more witnesses is that--and to decide that,
okay, this trial is over, let's let the people decide--was
that the election was too close. So let me ask you though, on
the witness vote itself, would it be helpful for the people
to decide if they had more information?
Alexander: Well, I mean, if you have eight witnesses who
say someone left the scene of an accident, why do you need
nine? I mean, the question for me was, do I need more
evidence to conclude that the president did what he did? And
I concluded no. So I voted.
Todd: What do you believe he did?
Alexander: What I believe he did. One, was that he called
the president of Ukraine and asked him to become involved in
investigating Joe Biden, who was--
Todd: You believe his wrongdoing began there, not before?
Alexander: I don't know about that, but he admitted that.
The president admitted that. He released the transcript. He
said it on television. The second thing was, at least in
part, he delayed the military and other assistance to Ukraine
in order to encourage that investigation. Those are the two
things he did. I think he shouldn't have done it. I think it
was wrong. Inappropriate was the way I'd say it, improper,
crossing the line. And then the only question left is, who
decides what to do about that?
Todd: Well, who decides what to do with that?
Alexander: The people. The people is my conclusion. You
know, it struck me really for the first time early last week,
that we're not just being asked to remove the president from
office. We're saying, tell him you can't run in the 2020
election, which begins Monday in Iowa.
Todd: If this weren't an election year, would you have
looked at this differently?
Alexander: I would have looked at it differently and
probably come to the same conclusion because I think what he
did is a long way from treason, bribery, high crimes and
misdemeanors. I don't think it's the kind of inappropriate
action that the framers would expect the Senate to substitute
its judgment for the people in picking a president.
Todd: Does it wear on you though that one of the
foundational ways that the framers wrote the constitution was
almost fear of foreign interference.
Alexander: That's true.
Todd: So, and here it is.
Alexander: Well, if you hooked up with Ukraine to wage war
on the United States, as the first Senator from Tennessee
did, you could be expelled, but this wasn't that. What the
president should have done was, if he was upset about Joe
Biden and his son and what they were doing in Ukraine, he
should've called the Attorney General and told him that and
let the Attorney General handle it the way they always handle
cases that involve public things.
Todd: Why you think he didn't do that?
Alexander: Maybe he didn't know to do it.
Todd: Okay. This has been a rationale that I've heard from
a lot of Republicans. Well boy, he's still new to this.
Alexander: Well, a lot of people come to Washington--
Todd: At what point though, is he no longer new to this?
Alexander: The bottom line is not an excuse. He shouldn't
have done it. And I said he shouldn't have done it and now I
think it's up to the American people to say, okay, good
economy, lower taxes, conservative judges, behavior that I
might not like, call to Ukraine. And weigh that against
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and pick a president.
Todd: Are you at all concerned though when you seek foreign
interference? He does not believe he's done anything wrong.
That what has happened here might encourage him that he can
continue to do this?
Alexander: I don't think so. I hope not. I mean, enduring
an impeachment is something that nobody should like. Even the
president said he didn't want that on his resume. I don't
blame him. So, if a call like that gets you an impeachment, I
would think he would think twice before he did it again.
Todd: What example in the life of Donald Trump has he been
chastened?
Alexander: I haven't studied his life that close, but, like
most people who survive to make it to the Presidency, he's
sure of himself. But hopefully he'll look at this and say,
okay, that was a mistake I shouldn't have done that,
shouldn't have done it that way. And he'll focus on the
strengths of his Administration, which are considerable.
Todd: Abuse of power, define it.
Alexander: Well, that's the problem with abuse of power. As
Professor Dershowitz said during his argument, he had a list
of 40 presidents who'd been accused of abuse of power from
Washington to Obama. So it's too vague a standard to use to
impeach a president. And the founders didn't use it. I mean,
they said, I mean, think of what a high bar they set. They
said treason, bribery, high crimes or misdemeanors. And then
they said
Todd: What do you think they meant by misdemeanors?
Violation of a public trust.
Alexander: At the time they used it, misdemeanor meant a
different thing in Great Britain. But I think Dershowitz was
right. It was something akin to treason, bribery and other
high crimes and misdemeanors, very high. And then in addition
to that, two thirds of us in the Senate have to agree to
that, which is very hard to do, which is why we've never
removed a president this way in 230 years.
Todd: One of your other reasonings was the partisan nature
of the impeachment vote itself in the House. Except now we
are answering a partisan impeachment vote in the House with a
partisan, I guess, I don't know what we would call this right
now.
Alexander: Well you all it acquittal. That's what happens.
Todd: An acquittal, but essentially also, on how the trial
was run--a partisan way from

[[Page S881]]

the trial. So, if we make bipartisanship a standard, if
somebody has a stranglehold on a base of a political party,
then what you're saying is, you can overcome any impeachable
offense as long as you have this stranglehold on a group of
people.
Alexander: Well, as far as what the Senate did, I thought
we gave a good hearing to the case. I mean, I help make sure
that we didn't dismiss it. We heard it. There were some who
wanted to dismiss it. I helped make sure that we had a right
to ask for more evidence if we needed it, which we thought we
didn't. We heard, we saw videotapes of 192 times that
witnesses testified. We sat there for 11 and 12 hour days for
nine days. So, I think we heard the case pretty well, but the
partisan points, the most important point to me, James
Madison, others thought there never, ever should be a wholly
partisan impeachment. And if you look at Nixon, when the vote
that authorized that inquiry was 410 to four and you look at
Trump, where not a single Republican voted for it. If you
start out with a partisan impeachment, you're almost destined
to have a partisan acquittal.
Todd: Alright, but what do you do if you have somebody who
has the ability to essentially be a populist? You know, be
somebody who is able to say it's fake news. It's deep state.
Don't trust this. Don't trust that. The establishment is
doing this. And so don't worry about truth anymore. Don't
worry about what you hear over there. I mean, some may say
I'm painting an accurate picture. Some may be saying I'm
painting a radical picture. But how do you prevent that?
Alexander: Well, the way you prevent that in our system,
according to the Declaration of Independence, is we have duly
elected presidents with the consent of the governed. So we
vote them out of office. The other thing we do is, as in the
Nixon case, Nixon had just been elected big in 1972 big time,
only lost only one state, I think. But then a consensus
developed, a bipartisan consensus, that what he was doing was
wrong. And then when they found the crimes, he only had 10 or
12 votes that would have kept him in the Senate. So he quit.
So those are the two options you have.
Todd: Have we essentially eliminated impeachment as a tool
for a first-term president?
Alexander: No, I don't think so. I think impeachment as a
tool should be rarely used and it's never been used in 230
years to remove a president. There been 63 impeachments,
eight convictions. They're all federal judges on a lower
standard.
Todd: Does it bother you that the president's lead lawyer,
Pat Cipollone, is now fingered as being in the room with John
Bolton the first time the president asked John Bolton to call
the new President of Ukraine and have him take a meeting with
Rudy Giuliani? And I say that because Pat Cipollone is up
there arguing that there's no direct evidence and yet, he may
have been a firsthand witness.
Alexander: Well, it doesn't have anything to do with my
decision because my decision was, did the president do it,
what he's charged with? He wasn't charged with a crime. He
was charged with two things. And my conclusion was, he did do
that and I don't need any more evidence to prove it. That
doesn't have anything to do with where Cipollone was.
Todd: No, I say that does it only reinforce what some
believe is that the White House was disingenuous about this
the whole time. They've been disingenuous about how they've
handled subpoenas from the House or requests from the House.
Alexander: I don't agree with that Chuck, either. The fact
of the matter is in the Nixon case, the House voted 410 to
four to authorize an inquiry. That means that it authorized
subpoenas by the judiciary committee for impeachment. This
House never did that. And so, all the subpoenas that they
asked for were not properly authorized. That's the reason
that the president didn't respond to them.
Todd: Bill Clinton offered regret for his behavior. This
president has not. Does that bother you?
Alexander: Well, there hasn't been a vote yet either, so
we'll see what he says and does. I think that's up to him.
Todd: You're comfortable acquitting him before he says
something of regret. Would that not, would that not help make
your acquittal vote?
Alexander: Well, I wasn't asked to decide who says his
level of regret. I was asked, did he make a phone call and
did he, at least in part, hold up aid in order to influence
an investigation of Joe Biden? I concluded yes. So I don't
need to assess his level of regret. What I hope he would do
is when he makes his State of the Union address, that he puts
this completely behind him, never mentions it and talks about
what he thinks he's done for the country and where we're
headed. He's got a pretty good story to tell. If he'll focus
on it.
Todd: You're one of the few people that detailed what you
believe he did wrong. One of the few Republicans that have
accepted the facts as they were presented. Mitt Romney was
just uninvited from CPAC. Mike Pompeo can't speak freely in
talking about Maria Bonovich, the ousted ambassador. Is there
room for dissent in the Republican party right now?
Alexander: Well, I believe there is. I mean, I dissent when
I need to. Whether it's on--
Todd: --not easy though right now, is it?
Alexander: Well, I voted in a way that not everybody
appreciated on immigration. Just before I was reelected, I
voted against the president's decision to use what I thought
was unauthorized money to build a wall, even though I think
we need the wall. I said, I thought he did it this past week
and we'll vote to acquit him. So I'm very comfortable saying
what I believe. And I think others can as well.
Todd: You know, in that phone call, there's one thing on
the phone call that I'm surprised frankly, hasn't been
brought up more by others. It's the mere mention of the word,
CrowdStrike is a Russian intelligence sort of piece of
propaganda that they've been circulating. Does it bother you
that the President of United States is reiterating Russian
propaganda?
Alexander: Yes. I think that's a mistake. I mean if you,
see what's happening in the Baltic States where Russians have
a big warehouse in St. Petersburg in Russia where they're
devoted to destabilizing Western democracies. I mean, for
example, in one of the Baltic States, they accused a NATO
officer of raping a local girl--of course it didn't happen,
but it threw the government in a complete disarray for a
week. So I think we need to be sensitive to the fact that the
Russians are out to do no good to destabilize Western
democracies, including us. And be very wary of theories that
Russians come up with and peddle.
Todd: Well, I was just going to say this, is it not
alarming? The President of United States in this phone call
and you clearly are judging him on the phone, more so than,
Alexander: Well the phone call and the evidence. There was
plenty of evidence. I mean the House managers came to us and
said, we have overwhelming evidence. We have a mountain of
evidence and we approve it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Which
made me think, well then why do you need more evidence?
Todd: Do you think it's more helpful for the public to hear
from John Bolton?
Alexander: They'll read his book in two weeks.
Todd: You don't want to see him testify.
Alexander: Well, if the question is do I need more evidence
to think the president did it, the answer is no. I guess I'm
coming back to this issue--if you looked at it as an isolated
incident, here he is using Russian propaganda in order to try
to talk to this new president of Ukraine. That's alarming.
Where is he getting this CrowdStrike propaganda. My view is
that that is Russian propaganda. Maybe he has information
that I didn't have.
Todd: Okay. Are you definitely voting to acquit or do you
think you may vote present?
Alexander: No question. I'm going to vote to acquit. I'm
very concerned about any action that we could take that would
establish a perpetual impeachment in the House of
Representatives whenever the House was a different party than
the president. That would immobilize the Senate. You know, we
have to take those articles, stop what we're doing, sit in
our chairs for 11 hours a day for three or four weeks and
consider it. And it would immobilize the presidency. So I
don't want a situation--and the framers didn't either--where
a partisan majority in the house of either party can stop the
government.
Todd: You used the phrase ``pour gasoline on a fire.''
Alexander: Yeah.
Todd: It certainly struck home with me reading you saying
something that I've been thinking long and hard about. How
concerned are you about the democracy as it stands right now?
Alexander: Well, I'm concerned and I want to give credit to
Marco Rubio because that's really his phrase. I borrowed it
from him--pouring gasoline on the cultural fires.
Todd: He went a step further. He said this was an
impeachable offense, but he was uncomfortable in an election
year.
Alexander: But, I'm concerned about the divisions in the
country. They're reflected in the Senate. They make it harder
to get a result. I mean, I work pretty hard to get results on
healthcare, making it easier to go to college. And we've had
some real success with it. But the Senate is for the purpose
of solving big problems that the country will accept. And
that goes back to what happened this past week. The country
would not have accepted the Senate saying to it, you can't
vote for or against President Trump in the Iowa caucus, New
Hampshire primary, or the election this year.
Todd: Are you glad you're leaving?
Alexander: No, I've really loved being in the Senate, but
it's time for me to go on, turn the page, think of something
else to do. It'll be my third permanent retirement.
Todd: You've retired a few times, is this one going to
stick?
Alexander: Well, we'll see.
Todd: Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican from Tennessee,
our always thoughtful guest. Thanks for coming on.
Alexander: Thank you, Chuck.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
Mr. SASSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to introduce into
the Senate Record and into the impeachment trial record an op-ed that I
wrote in the Omaha World-Herald this morning.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[[Page S882]]

[From the Omaha World Herald, Feb. 4, 2020]

Midlands Voices: Open Letter From Ben Sasse Presents His Take on
Impeachment

(By Ben Sasse)

Impeachment is serious. It's the ``Break Glass in Case of
Emergency'' provision of the Constitution.
I plan to vote against removing the president, and I write
to explain this decision to the Nebraskans on both sides who
have advocated so passionately.
An impeachment trial requires senators to carry out two
responsibilities: We're jurors sworn to ``do impartial
justice.'' We're also elected officeholders responsible for
promoting the civic welfare of the country. We must consider
both the facts before us, and the long-term effects of the
verdict rendered. I believe removal is the wrong decision.
Let's start with the facts of the case. It's clear that the
president had mixed motives in his decision to temporarily
withhold military aid from Ukraine. The line between personal
and public was not firmly safeguarded. But it is important to
understand, whether one agrees with him or not, three things
President Trump believes:
He believes foreign aid is almost always a bad deal for
America. I don't believe this, but he has maintained this
position consistently since the 1980s.
He believes the American people need to know the 2016
election was legitimate, and he believes it's dangerous if
they worry Russia picked America's president. About this,
he's right.
He believes the Crowdstrike theory of 2016, that Ukraine
conducted significant meddling in our election. I don't
believe this theory, but the president has heard it
repeatedly from people he trusts, chiefly Rudy Giuliani, and
he believes it.
These beliefs have consequences. When the president spoke
to Ukraine's president Zelensky in July 2019, he seems to
have believed he was doing something that was simultaneously
good for America, and good for himself politically--namely,
reinforcing the legitimacy of his 2016 victory. It is worth
remembering that that phone call occurred just days after
Robert Mueller's two-year investigation into the 2016
election concluded that ``the investigation did not establish
that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated
with the Russian government in its election interference
activities.''
This is not a blanket excuse, of course. Some of the
president's lawyers have admitted that the way the
administration conducted policymaking toward Ukraine was
wrong. I agree. The call with Zelensky was certainly not
``perfect,'' and the president's defense was made weaker by
staking out that unrepentant position.
Moreover, Giuliani's off-the-books foreign policy-making is
unacceptable, and his role in walking the president into this
airplane propeller is underappreciated: His Crowdstrike
theory was a bonkers attempt not only to validate Trump's
2016 election, and to flip the media's narrative of Russian
interference, but also to embarrass a possible opponent. One
certainty from this episode is that America's Mayor shouldn't
be any president's lawyer. It's time for the president and
adults on his team to usher Rudy off the stage--and to ensure
that we do not normalize rogue foreign policy conducted by
political operatives with murky financial interests.
There is no need to hear from any 18th impeachment witness,
beyond the 17 whose testimony the Senate reviewed, to confirm
facts we already know. Even if one concedes that John
Bolton's entire testimony would support Adam Schiff's
argument, this doesn't add to the reality already
established: The aid delay was wrong.
But in the end, the president wasn't seduced by the most
malign voices; his honest advisers made sure Ukraine got the
aid the law required. And importantly, this happened three
weeks before the legal deadline. To repeat: The president's
official staff repeatedly prevailed upon him, Ukraine
ultimately got the money, and no political investigation was
initiated or announced.
You don't remove a president for initially listening to bad
advisors but eventually taking counsel from better advisors--
which is precisely what happened here.
There is another prudential question, though, beyond the
facts of the case: What is the right thing for the long-term
civic health of our country? Will America be more stable in
2030 if the Senate--nine months from Election Day 2020--
removes the president?
In our Constitution's 232 years, no president has ever been
removed from office by the Senate. Today's debate comes at a
time when our institutions of self-government are suffering a
profound crisis of legitimacy, on both sides of the aisle.
This is not a new crisis since 2016; its sources run much
deeper and longer.
We need to shore up trust. A reckless removal would do the
opposite, setting the nation on fire. Half of the citizenry--
tens of millions who intended to elect a disruptive
outsider--would conclude that D.C. insiders overruled their
vote, overturned an election and struck their preferred
candidate from the ballot.
This one-party removal attempt leaves America more bitterly
divided. It makes it more likely that impeachment, intended
as a tool of last resort for the most serious presidential
crimes, becomes just another bludgeon in the bag of tricks
for the party out of power. And more Americans will conclude
that constitutional self-government today is nothing more
than partisan bloodsport.
We must do better. Our kids deserve better. Most of the
restoration and healing will happen far from Washington, of
course. But this week, senators have an important role: Get
out of the way, and allow the American people to render their
verdict on election day.

Mr. SASSE. Thank you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from California.
Ms. HARRIS. Mr. President, when the Framers wrote the Constitution,
they didn't think someone like me would serve as a U.S. Senator, but
they did envision someone like Donald Trump being President of the
United States, someone who thinks he is above the law and that rules
don't apply to him. So they made sure our democracy had the tool of
impeachment to stop that kind of abuse of power.
The House managers have clearly laid out a compelling case and
evidence of Donald Trump's misconduct. They have shown that the
President of the United States of America withheld military aid and a
coveted White House meeting for his political gain. He wanted a foreign
country to announce--not actually conduct, announce--an investigation
into his political rivals. Then he refused to comply with congressional
investigations into his misconduct. Unfortunately, a majority of U.S.
Senators, even those who concede that what Donald Trump did was wrong,
are nonetheless going to refuse to hold him accountable.
The Senate trial of Donald Trump has been a miscarriage of justice.
Donald Trump is going to get away with abusing his position of power
for personal gain, abusing his position of power to stop Congress from
looking into his misconduct and falsely claim he has been exonerated.
He is going to escape accountability because a majority of Senators
have decided to let him. They voted repeatedly to block key evidence
like witnesses and documents that could have shed light on the full
truth.
We must recognize that still in America there are two systems of
justice--one for the powerful and another for everyone else. So let's
speak the truth about what our two systems of justice actually mean in
the real world. It means that in our country too many people walk into
courthouses and face systemic bias. Too often they lack adequate legal
representation, whether they are overworked, underpaid, or both. It
means that a young man named Emmett Till was falsely accused and then
murdered, but his murderer didn't have to spend a day in jail. It means
that four young Black men have their lives taken and turned upside-down
after being falsely accused of a crime in Groveland, FL. It means that,
right now, too many people in America are sitting in jail without
having yet been convicted of a crime but simply because they cannot
afford bail. And it means that future Presidents of the United States
will remember that the U.S. Senate failed to hold Donald Trump
accountable, and they will be emboldened to abuse their power knowing
there will be no consequence.
Donald Trump knows all this better than anybody. He may not
acknowledge that we have two systems of justice, but he knows the
institutions in this country, be it the courts or the Senate, are set
up to protect powerful people like him. He told us as much when,
regarding the sexual assault of women, he said, ``When you're a star,
they let you do it. You can do anything.'' He said that article II of
the U.S. Constitution gives him, as President, the right to do whatever
he wants.
Trump has shown us through his words and actions that he thinks he is
above the law. And when the American people see the President acting as
though he is above the law, it understandably leaves them feeling
distrustful of our system of justice, distrustful of our democracy.
When the U.S. Senate refuses to hold him accountable, it reinforces
that loss of trust in our system.
Now, I am under no illusion that this body is poised to hold this
President accountable, but despite the conduct of the U.S. Senate in
this impeachment trial, the American people must continue to strive
toward the more perfect Union that our Constitution promises. It is
going to take all of us--in every State, every town, everywhere--to
continue fighting for the best of who we

[[Page S883]]

are as a country. We each have an important role to play in fighting
for those words inscribed on the U.S. Supreme Court building: ``Equal
Justice Under Law.''
Frederick Douglass, who I, like many, consider to be one of the
Founders of our Nation, wrote that ``the whole history of the progress
of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august
claims have been born of earnest struggle.''
The impeachment of Donald Trump has been one of those earnest
struggles for liberty, and this fight, like so many before it, has been
a fight against tyranny. This struggle has not been an easy one, and it
has left too many people across our Nation feeling cynical. For too
many people, this trial confirmed something they have always known,
that the real power in this country lies not with them but with just a
few people who advance their own interests at the expense of others'
needs. For many, the injustice in this trial is yet another example of
the way that our system of justice has worked or, more accurately,
failed to work.
But here is the thing. Frederick Douglass also told us that ``if
there is no struggle, there is no progress.'' He went on to say:
``Power concedes nothing without a demand.'' And he said: ``It never
did, and it never will.''
In order to wrestle power away from the few people at the very top
who abuse their power, the American people are going to have to fight
for the voice of the people and the power of the people. We must go
into the darkness to shine a light, and we cannot be deterred and we
cannot be overwhelmed and we cannot ever give up on our country.
We cannot ever give up on the ideals that are the foundation for our
system of democracy. We can never give up on the meaning of true
justice. And it is part of our history, our past, clearly, our present,
and our future that, in order to make these values real, in order to
make the promise of our country real, we can never take it for granted.
There will be moments in time, in history, where we experience
incredible disappointment, but the greatest disappointment of all will
be if we give up. We cannot ever give up fighting for who we know we
are, and we must always see who we can be, unburdened by who we have
been. That is the strength of our Nation.
So, after the Senate votes today, Donald Trump will want the American
people to feel cynical. He will want us not to care. He will want us to
think that he is all powerful and we have no power, but we are not
going to let him get away with that.
We are not going to give him what he wants because the true power and
potential of the United States of America resides not with the
President but with the people--all the people.
So, in our long struggle for justice, I will do my part by voting to
convict this lawless President and remove him from office, and I urge
my colleagues to join me on the right side of history.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, considering whether to convict a President
of the United States on Articles of Impeachment is a solemn and
consequential duty, and I do not take it lightly. Even before we had a
country, our Founders put forward the notion of ``country first,''
pledging in the Declaration of Independence their lives, fortunes, and
sacred honor--a pledge they made to an idea, imagining and hoping for a
country where no one was above the law, where no one had absolute
power.
My dad, a World War II veteran, and my mom raised me to understand
that this is what made our country the unique and indispensable
democracy that it is.
My obligation throughout this process has been to listen carefully to
the case that the House managers put forward and the defenses asserted
by the President's lawyers, and then to carefully consider the
constitutional basis for impeachment, the intent of our Founders, and
the facts.
That is what I have done over the past few days. The Senate heard
extensive presentations from both sides and answers to the almost 200
questions that Senators posed to the House managers and the President's
advocates.
The facts clearly showed that President Trump abused the public's
sacred trust by using taxpayer dollars to extort a foreign government
into providing misinformation about a feared political opponent.
Let me repeat that. The President of the United States used taxpayer
money that had been authorized, obligated, and cleared for delivery as
critical military aid to Ukraine to try to force that country to
interfere in our elections. He violated the law and the public trust.
And he put our national security, and the lives of the Ukrainian
soldiers on the frontlines of Russian aggression at risk.
Although the country was alerted to the possibility that the
President had crossed a critical line because of revelations about his
now-infamous July 25 phone call, it is not the phone call alone that
led to the President's impeachment. Instead, the phone call was a
pivotal point in a scheme that had started earlier, spearheaded by
President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Mr. Giuliani has acknowledged that he was doing the President's
personal and political bidding when he engaged with the Ukrainian
government.
As the newly elected anti-corruption Ukrainian Government came into
power, in need of recognition and support from the United States,
President Trump forced officials from Ukraine and the United States to
negotiate through Mr. Giuliani, conflating his personal and political
interests with the national security and diplomatic interests of our
country.
And then, as President Zelensky resisted the request that he concoct
and announce a fake investigation into the Bidens, the President and
Mr. Giuliani increased the pressure. Suddenly, and without explanation
or a legally required notification to Congress, the President ordered
that previously approved and critically needed military aid to Ukraine
be held up.
Mr. Trump, at first through Mr. Giuliani, and then directly,
solicited interference with an American election from a foreign
government. And he ordered others in his administration to work with
Mr. Giuliani to ensure this scheme's success.
While there is still more evidence that the Senate should have
subpoenaed both witnesses and documents that would have given us a more
complete understanding of what happened, we know as much as we do
because of the courage and strength of American patriots who put
country before self--patriots like the intelligence community
whistleblower, who was followed by Army Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, and
former U.S. Ambassadors to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and William
Taylor, as well as current members of the administration.
These Americans who came forward were doing exactly what we always
ask of citizens: If you see something wrong, you need to speak up;
``See something, say something.'' It is a fundamental part of
citizenship to alert each other to danger, to act for the greater good,
to care about each other and our country without regard to political
party.
When Americans step forward, sometimes at real risk to themselves,
they rightly expect that their government will take the information
they provide and act to make them safer, to protect their fundamental
rights. That is the understanding between the American people and their
representative government.
While the brave women and men who appeared before the House did their
jobs, the Senate, under this majority, has unfortunately not. Rather
than gathering full, relevant testimony under oath and with the benefit
of cross-examination, the Senate majority has apparently decided that
despite what it has heard, it is not interested in learning more; not
interested in learning more about how a President, his personal agent,
and members of his administration corrupted our foreign policy and put
our Nation's security at risk; not interested in learning more about
how they planned to use the power of his office to tilt the scales of
the next election to ensure that he stays in power; not interested in
learning more about how they worked to cover it up.
Increasingly, over the last few days, the President's defense team
and more and more of my colleagues in the Senate have acknowledged the
facts of the

[[Page S884]]

President's scheme. Their argument has shifted from ``He didn't do it''
to ``He had a right to,'' to ``He won't do it again,'' or even ``It
doesn't really matter.''
I disagree so strongly.
The idea that in our country, established by the very rejection of a
monarchy, the President has absolute power is absurd, as is the idea
that this President, whose conduct is ultimately the cause of this
entire process, will suddenly stop. President Trump continues to invite
foreign powers to interfere with our elections, maintaining to this day
that ``it was a perfect call.''
Our Founders knew that all people, all leaders, are fallible human
beings. And they knew that our system of checks and balances could
survive some level of human frailty, even in as important an office as
the Presidency.
The one thing that they feared it could not survive was a President
who would put self-interest before the interests of the American people
or who didn't understand the difference between the two. As citizen-in-
chief, and one wielding enormous power, Presidents must put country
first.
Our Founders knew that we needed a mechanism to hold Presidents
accountable for behavior that violated that basic understanding and
that would threaten our democracy. And they provided a mechanism for
removal outside of the election process because of the immense damage a
President could do in the time between elections--damage, in the case
of this President's continuing behavior, to our national security and
election integrity.
Our Founders believed that they were establishing a country that
would be unique in the history of humankind, a country that would be
indispensable, built on the rule of law, not the whims of a ruler.
Generation after generation of Americans have fought for that vision
because of what it has meant to our individual and collective success
and to the progress of humankind worldwide.
That is the America that I have sworn an oath to protect. I will vote
in favor of both Articles of Impeachment because the President's
conduct requires it, Congress's responsibility as a coequal branch of
government requires it, and the very foundation and security of our
American idea requires it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. JONES. Mr. President, on the day I was sworn in as a United
States Senator, I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.
Just last month, at the beginning of the impeachment trial, I took a
second oath to do fair and impartial justice, according to the same
Constitution I swore to protect.
As I took the oath and throughout the impeachment trial, I couldn't
help but think of my father. As many of you know, I lost my dad over
the holiday recess. While so many were arguing over whether or not the
Speaker of the House should send Articles of Impeachment to the Senate,
I was struggling with watching him slip away, while only occasionally
trying to weigh in with my voice to be heard about the need for
witnesses in the upcoming impeachment trial. My dad was a great man, a
loving husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who did his
best to instill in me the values of right and wrong as I grew up in
Fairfield, AL. He was also a fierce patriot who loved this country.
Although, fortunately, he was never called on to do so, I firmly
believe he would have placed his country even above his family because
he knew and understood fully what America and the freedoms and
liberties that come with her mean to everyone in this great country
and, significantly, to people around the world.
I know he would have put his country before any allegiance to any
political party or even to any President. He was on the younger side of
that ``greatest generation'' who joined the Navy at age 17 to serve our
great military. That service and love of country shaped him into the
man of principle that he was, instilling in me those same principles.
In thinking of him, his patriotism, his principles, and how he raised
me, I am reminded of Robert Kennedy's words that were mentioned in this
trial:

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their
fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their
society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in
battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential,
vital quality for those who seek to change a world that
yields most painfully to change.

Candidly, to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I fear that
moral courage, country before party is a rare commodity these days. We
can write about it and talk about it in speeches and in the media, but
it is harder to put into action when political careers may be on the
line. Nowhere is the dilemma more difficult than in an impeachment of
the President of the United States. Very early on in this process, I
implored my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, in both Houses of
Congress, to stay out of their political and partisan corners. Many
did, but so many did not. Even the media continually view this entire
process through partisan, political eyes and how it may or may not
affect an election. That is unfortunate. The country deserves better,
and we must find a way to move beyond such partisan divides.
The solemn oaths that I have taken have been my guides during what
has been a difficult time for the country, my State, and for me
personally. I did not run for the Senate hoping to participate in the
impeachment trial of a duly elected President, but I cannot and will
not shrink from my duty to defend the Constitution and to do impartial
justice.
In keeping with my oath as Senator and my oath to do impartial
justice, I resolved that throughout this process, I would keep an open
mind, to consider the evidence without regard to political affiliation,
and to hear all of the evidence before making a final decision on
either charge against the President. I believe that my votes later
today will reflect that commitment.
With the eyes of history upon us, I am acutely aware of the
precedents that this impeachment trial will set for future Presidencies
and Congresses. Unfortunately, I do not believe that those precedents
are good ones. I am particularly concerned that we have now set a
precedent that the Senate does not have to go forward with witnesses or
review documents, even when those witnesses have firsthand information
and the documents would allow us to test not just the credibility of
witnesses but also test the words of counsel of both parties.
It is my firm belief that the American people deserve more. In short,
witnesses and documents would provide the Senate and the American
people with a more complete picture of the truth. I believe the
American people deserve nothing less.
That is not to say, however, that there is not sufficient evidence in
which to render a judgment. There is. As a trial lawyer, I once
explained this process to a jury as like putting together the pieces of
a puzzle. When you open the box and spread all the pieces on the table,
it is just an incoherent jumble. But one by one, you hold those pieces
up, and you hold them next to each other and see what fits and what
doesn't. Even if, as was often the case in my house growing up, you are
missing a few pieces--even important ones--you more often than not see
the picture.
As I have said many times, I believe the American people deserve to
see a completed puzzle, a picture with all of the pieces--pieces in the
form of documents and witnesses with relevant, firsthand information,
which would have provided valuable context, corroboration, or
contradiction to that which we have heard. But even with missing
pieces, our common sense and life's experiences allow us to see the
picture as it comes into full view.
Throughout the trial, one piece of evidence continued to stand out
for me. It was the President's statement that under the Constitution,
``we have Article II, and I can do anything I want.'' That seems to
capture this President's belief about the Presidency; that he has
unbridled power, unchecked by Congress or the Judiciary or anyone
else. That view, dangerous as it is, explains the President's actions
toward Ukraine and Congress.

The sum of what we have seen and heard is, unfortunately, a picture
of a President who has abused the great power of his office for
personal gain--a picture of a President who has placed his personal
interest well above the interests of the Nation and, in so doing,

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threatened our national security, the security of our European allies,
and the security of Ukraine. The evidence clearly proves that the
President used the weight of his office and the weight of the U.S.
Government to seek to coerce a foreign government to interfere in our
election for his personal political benefit. His actions were more than
simply inappropriate; they were an abuse of power.
When I was a lawyer for the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission,
there was a saying that the chairman of the inquiry commission and one
of Alabama's great judges, Randall Cole, used to say about judges who
strayed from the canons of ethics. He would say that the judge ``left
his post.''
Sadly, President Trump left his post with regard to the withholding
of military aid to Ukraine and a White House visit for the new
Ukrainian President, and in so doing, he took the great powers of the
Office of the President of the United States with him. Impeachment is
the only check on such Presidential wrongdoing.
The second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress, gave me
more pause. I have struggled to understand the House's strategy in
their failure to fully pursue documents and witnesses and wished that
they had done more. However, after careful consideration of the
evidence developed in the hearings, the public disclosures, the legal
precedents, and the trial, I believe that the President deliberately
and unconstitutionally obstructed Congress by refusing to cooperate
with the investigation in any way. While I am sensitive to protecting
the privileges and immunities afforded to the President and his
advisers, I believe it is critical to our constitutional structure that
we also protect the authorities of the Congress of the United States.
Here it was clear from the outset that the President had no intention
whatsoever of accommodating Congress when he blocked both witnesses and
documents from being produced. In addition, he engaged in a course of
conduct to threaten potential witnesses and smear the reputations of
the civil servants who did come forward and provide testimony.
The President's actions demonstrate a belief that he is above the
law, that Congress has no power whatsoever in questioning or examining
his actions, and that all who do so, do so at their peril. That belief,
unprecedented in the history of this country, simply must not be
permitted to stand. To do otherwise risks guaranteeing that no future
whistleblower or witness will ever come forward, and no future
President, Republican or Democrat, will be subject to congressional
oversight as mandated by the Constitution even when the President has
so clearly abused his office and violated the public trust.
Accordingly, I will vote to convict the President on both Articles of
Impeachment. In doing so, I am mindful that in a democracy there is
nothing more sacred than the right to vote and respecting the will of
the people. But I am also mindful that when our Founders wrote the
Constitution, they envisioned a time or at least a possibility that our
democracy would be more damaged if we fail to impeach and remove a
President. Such is the moment in history that we face today.
The gravity of this moment, the seriousness of the charges, and the
implication for future Presidencies and Congress have all contributed
to the difficulty at which I arrived at my decision.
I am mindful that I am standing at a desk that once was used by John
F. Kennedy, who famously wrote ``Profiles in Courage,'' and there will
be so many who simply look at what I am doing today and say that it is
a profile in courage. It is not. It is simply a matter of right and
wrong, where doing right is not a courageous act; it is simply
following your oath.
This has been a divisive time for our country, but I think it has
nonetheless been an important constitutional process for us to follow.
As this chapter of history draws to a close, one thing is clear to me.
As I have said before, our country deserves better than this. They
deserve better from the President, and they deserve better from the
Congress. We must find a way to come together, to set aside partisan
differences, and to focus on what we have in common as Americans.
While so much is going in our favor these days, we still face great
challenges, both domestically and internationally. But it remains my
firm belief that united we can conquer them and remain the greatest
hope for the people around the world.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, today the Senate is called upon to uphold
our oath of office and our duty to the Constitution because President
Trump failed to do so himself.
After listening closely to the impeachment managers and the
President's defense team, weighing the evidence that was presented to
us, and being denied the opportunity to see relevant documents and hear
from firsthand witnesses, I will vote to find President Trump guilty on
both Articles of Impeachment.
I take no pleasure in voting to impeach a President and remove him
from office. I agree with those who say that impeachment should be rare
and American voters should decide our elections. That is why it is so
galling that President Trump blatantly solicited foreign interference
in our democratic process. And he did it as he geared up for
reelection.
The evidence shows President Trump deliberately and illicitly sought
foreign help to manufacture a scandal that would elevate him by
tarnishing a political rival.
He attempted to undermine our democracy, using U.S. taxpayer money in
the form of U.S. military aid for Ukraine as leverage for his own
personal benefit. The President's aides who heard President Trump's
call seeking ``a favor'' from the Ukrainian President immediately
sensed it was wrong. So when they alerted the White House lawyers, the
record of the call was immediately placed on a highly classified
computer system. And despite the President claiming that the version of
the call that was publicly released ``is an exact word-for-word
transcript of the conversation,'' we know from testimony that there are
key omissions in the document we all read.
Compounding the President's misconduct, he then engaged in an
extended cover up that appears to be ongoing to this day.
There is a lot to unravel here, and I will provide a more detailed
legal explanation in the near future. But for now, let me briefly
explain my decision and outline my thoughts on the Senate's impeachment
proceedings and the disturbing precedents I fear will be set when the
majority chooses to side with the President over the Constitution's
checks and balances.
The House of Representatives voted to impeach the President for abuse
of power and obstruction of Congress. Based on the uncontested
evidence, I concur.
It is clear that President Trump and others, such as Mr. Giuliani,
who was serving as the President's lawyer, attempted to coerce the
newly elected President of Ukraine to announce two sham investigations,
including one that sought to directly damage President Trump's rival in
the upcoming election. The President's actions served his personal and
political needs, not those of our country. His efforts to withhold
military aid to Ukraine for his own personal benefit undermined our
national security.
The second article of impeachment charges the President with
obstruction of Congress for blocking testimony and refusing to provide
documents in response to House subpoenas in the impeachment inquiry.
Again, the House managers produced overwhelming evidence of the
President's obstruction and his efforts to cover up his malfeasance.
The President's counsel offered a number of unpersuasive arguments
against this article, which fail to overcome the following: first, that
the legislative branch has sole power over impeachment under the
Constitution. That could not be more clear; second, past precedents of
prior administrations and court rulings; and third, the blatant October
8 letter expressing a complete rejection of the House's impeachment
proceedings.
The Constitution grants the executive branch significant power, but
as every student in America learns, our system is one of checks and
balances so that no branch is entirely unfettered from oversight and
the law.

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President Trump would have us believe this system of checks and
balances is wrong. In President Trump's own words, he expressed the
misguided imperial belief in the supremacy of his unchecked power,
stating, quote: ``I have an Article II, where I have the right to do
whatever I want as President.''
Couple this sentiment with his January 2016 boast that, quote: ``I
could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I
wouldn't lose voters.'' That paints a chilling picture of someone who
clearly believes, incorrectly, that he is above the law. The
President's attorneys have hewn to this line of faulty reasoning and,
in one notably preposterous effort, even claimed the President could
avoid impeachment for an inappropriate action motivated entirely by his
own political and personal interests.
The President's defense also failed to sufficiently demonstrate that
the President's blanket defiance of subpoenas and document requests
overcomes the precedents established in prior impeachment proceedings
and the record of congressional oversight of the executive branch.
In the Clinton impeachment, there was an enormous amount of
documentary evidence, as well as sworn depositions and testimony by the
President and his closest advisers.
In the cases of United States v. Nixon, House Judiciary Committee v.
Miers, and others, the House managers rightly point out that the courts
have held ``Congress's power to investigate is as broad as its power to
legislate and lies at the heart of Congress's constitutional role.''
While President Trump's impeachment lawyers claim the House should
take the President to court over these previously settled issues,
President Trump's lawyers at the Justice Department are simultaneously
arguing in the courts that the judicial branch cannot even rule on such
matters.
As President Trump staked out new, expansive, and aggressive
positions about executive privilege, immunity, and the limits of
Congress's oversight authority, Republican leaders went along with it.
I have heard a variety of explanations for why my Republican
colleagues voted against witnesses. But no one has offered the simplest
explanation: My Republican colleagues did not want to hear new evidence
because they have a hunch it would be really, really bad for this
President. It would further expose the depth of his wrongdoing. And it
would make it harder for them to vote to acquit.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle did not ask to be put in
this position. President Trump's misconduct forced it on them. But in
the partisan rush to spare President Trump from having his staff and
former staff publicly testify against him under oath, a bar has been
lowered, a constitutional guardrail has been removed, the Senate has
been voluntarily weakened, and our oversight powers severely
diminished.
This short-term maneuver to shield President Trump from the truth is
a severe blow against good government that will do lasting damage to
this institution and our democracy. I hope one day the damage can be
repaired.
The arc of history is indeed long, and it does bend toward justice--
but not today. Today, the Senate and the American people have been
denied access to relevant, available evidence and firsthand witnesses.
We have been prohibited from considering new, material information that
became available after the House's impeachment vote.
The Constitution is our national compass. But at this critical
moment, clouded by the fog of President Trump's misconduct, the Senate
majority has lost its way, and is no longer guided by the Constitution.
In order to regain our moral bearings, stay true to our core values,
and navigate a better path forward, we must hold President Trump
accountable.
The President was wrong to invite foreign interference in our
democracy. He was wrong to try and stonewall the investigation. And he
is wrong if he thinks he is above the law.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Ms. DUCKWORTH. Mr. President, from the first words in the
Constitution, the weight that lies on every American's shoulders has
been clear: We the people are the ones who dreamed up this wild
experiment that we call America, and we the people are the ones charged
with ensuring its survival.
That is the tension--the push and the pull--behind our democracy
because, while there is no greater privilege than living in a country
whose Constitution guarantees our rights, there is no greater burden
than knowing that our actions could sap that very same Constitution of
its power; that our inaction risks allowing it to wither like any other
piece of parchment from some bygone era.
For the past few weeks, it has been my sworn duty as a U.S. Senator
to sit as an impartial juror in the impeachment trial of Donald J.
Trump. While I wish the President had not put our Nation in this
position, after having listened closely with an open mind to both
sides, it is now my duty as an American to vote on whether to remove
him from office. Other than sending our troops into harm's way, I
cannot think of a more serious, more somber vote to take in this
Chamber, but as sobering as it is, the right path forward is clear.
Throughout this trial, we have seen unprecedented obstruction from
the Trump administration--obstruction so flagrant that it makes Nixon,
when in the thick of Watergate, look like the model of transparency.
Yet the facts uncovered still prove the truth of the matter: Trump
abused his power when he secretly withheld security aid and a White
House meeting to try to force Ukraine to announce investigations into a
political rival in order to help him swing November's election. He put
his political self-interest ahead of our national security. He smeared
the name of an American Ambassador, even seemingly risking her safety
because she was simply too principled to further his corruption,
because she was too clean to help him strong-arm Ukraine into that
favor he demanded.
When the reports first emerged about what he had done, he denied it.
Then his explanation changed to: Well, maybe I did do it, but it was
only because I was trying to root out corruption.
If that were true, there would be some documentary record to prove
that, and we have seen absolutely none, even after I asked for it
during the questioning period.
Now his defense team has gone so far as to claim that, well, it
doesn't matter if he did it because he is the President, and the
President can do anything he wants if it will help him get reelected.
Breathtaking. To put it another way, when he got caught, he lied. Then,
when that lie was found out, he lied again, then again, then again.
Along the way, his own defense counsel could not papier-mache
together even the most basic argument to actually exonerate him. The
best case they could muster boiled down to: When the President does it,
it is not illegal. Nixon already tried that defense. It did not work
then, and it does not work now because--here is the thing--in America,
we believe not in rulers but in the rule of law.
Through all we have seen over the past few months, the truth has
never changed. It is what National Security Council officials and
decades-long diplomats testified to under oath. It is what foreign
policy experts and Trump administration staffers--and, yes, an American
warrior with a Purple Heart--have raised their right hands to tell us,
time after time, since the House hearings had begun.
Even some of my Republican colleagues have admitted that Trump
``cross[ed] a line.'' Some said it as recently as this weekend, but
many more said months ago that, if Trump did do what he is accused of,
then it would, indeed, be wrong. Well, it is now obvious that those
allegations were true, and it is pretty clear that Trump's defense team
knows that also. If they actually believe Trump did nothing wrong--that
his call was ``perfect''--then why would they fight so hard to block
the witnesses and the documents from coming to light that could
exonerate him? The only reason they would have done so is if they had
known that he was guilty. The only reason for one to vote to acquit
Trump today is if one is OK with his trying to cover it up.
Now, I know that some folks have been saying that we should acquit

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him--that we should ignore our constitutional duty and leave him in
office--because we are in an election year and that the voters should
decide his fate. That is an argument that rings hollow because this
trial was about Trump's trying to cheat in the next election and rob
the voters of their ability to decide. Any action other than voting to
remove him would give him the license and the power to keep tampering
with that race, to keep trying to turn that election into as much of a
sham as an impeachment trial without witnesses.
You know, I spent 23 years in the military, and one of the most
critical lessons anyone who serves learns is of the damage that can be
done when troops don't oppose illegal orders, when fealty becomes blind
and ignorance becomes intentional. Just as it is the duty of military
officers to oppose unlawful orders, it is the responsibility of public
servants to hold those in power accountable.
Former NSC official Fiona Hill understood that when she testified
before Congress because she knew that politics must never eclipse
national security.
Ambassador Bill Taylor understood that as well. The veteran who has
served in every administration since Reagan's answered the question
that is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. He said under oath
that, yes, there was a ``clear understanding'' of a quid pro quo--
exactly the sort of abuse of power no President should be allowed to
get away with.
LTC Alexander Vindman--the Purple Heart recipient who dedicated
decades of his life to our Armed Forces--understood the lessons of the
past, too, in his saying that, here in America, right matters.
My colleagues in this Chamber who have attacked Lieutenant Colonel
Vindman or who have provided a platform for others to tear him down
just for his doing what he believes is right should be ashamed of
themselves.
We should all be aware of the example we set and always seek to
elevate the national discourse. We should be thoughtful about our own
conduct both in terms of respecting the rule of law and the sacrifices
our troops make to keep us safe because, at the end of the day, our
Constitution is really just a set of rules on some pieces of paper. It
is only as strong as our will to uphold its ideals and hold up the
scales of justice.
So I am asking each of us today to muster up just an ounce of the
courage shown by Fiona Hill, Ambassador Taylor, and Lieutenant Colonel
Vindman. When our names are called from the dais in a few hours, each
of us will either pass or fail the most elementary, yet most important,
test any elected official will ever take--whether to put country over
party or party over country.
It may be a politically difficult vote for some of us, but it should
not be a morally difficult vote for any of us because, while I know
that voting to acquit would make the lives of some of my colleagues
simpler come election day, I also know that America would have never
been born if the heroes of centuries past made decisions based on
political expediency.
It would have been easier to have kept bowing down to King George III
than to have pushed 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor, and it
would have been easier to have kept paying taxes to the Crown than to
have waged a revolution. Yet those patriots knew the importance of
rejecting what was easy if it were in conflict with what was right.
They knew that the courage of just a few could change history.
So, when it is time to vote this afternoon, we cannot think of
political convenience. If we say abuse of power doesn't warrant removal
from office today, we will be paving the way for future Presidents to
do even worse tomorrow--to keep breaking the law and to keep
endangering our country--one ``perfect'' call, one ``favor,'' one high
crime and misdemeanor at a time.
Time and again, over these past few months, we have heard one story
about our Founders, perhaps, more than any other. It was the time when
Benjamin Franklin walked out of Independence Hall after the
Constitutional Convention and someone asked: ``What have we got--a
republic or a monarchy?''
We all know what he said: ``A Republic if you can keep it.''
Keeping it may very well come down to the 100 of us in this very
Chamber. We are the ones the Constitution vests with the power to hold
the President accountable, and through our actions, we are the ones who
vest the Constitution with its power.
In this moment, let's think not just of today but of tomorrow too. In
this moment, let's remember that, here, right matters; truth matters.
The truth is that Donald Trump is guilty of these Articles of
Impeachment. I will vote to do the right thing, and I hope my
colleagues will as well. For the sake of tomorrow and the tomorrow
after that, we must.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, later today I will vote to acquit the
President on the charges of the two Articles of Impeachment. A not-
guilty verdict, as every Senator on this floor has known for some time,
was always what would happen in a House-driven, partisan impeachment
process.
Less than a year ago, the Speaker of the House said that we should
not go through this process unless something was compelling, unless
something was overwhelming, unless something was bipartisan. I think
the Speaker was exactly right then, and I hope all future Speakers look
at that guidance as we think about this process of impeachment.
In the first 180 years of the Constitution, individual Members talked
about impeachment of Presidents--maybe of almost every President--but
the Congress only seriously touched this topic one time--one time in
180 years.
In the last 46 years, Presidential impeachment has been before the
country three times, and each case has been less compelling than the
one before it. We don't want partisan impeachment to become an exercise
that happens when one party--not the party of the President--happens to
have a majority of the votes in the House of Representatives.
Impeachment is fundamentally a political process. The Members of the
Senate meet no standards for a regular jury. The jury can override the
judge. Two-thirds of the Senate is necessary to remove the President.
We really have no better term in the Constitution, I suppose, to use
than ``trial,'' but in any classic sense, this isn't a trial. In any
classic sense, a partisan impeachment isn't any kind of a real
indictment.
Maybe, first and foremost, the House has to do its job. Part of that
job would be to create a case that would produce a bipartisan vote on
the articles in the House. If you haven't met that standard--going back
to the Speaker's standard--you should work on the case some more and
then wonder, if you can't meet the standard, what is wrong with the
process you are going through. Part of that job is to do everything
necessary to have Articles of Impeachment that are compelling and
complete.
The House has time available to it to consider impeachment as they go
about their essential work. They can continue to do the work of the
Congress. They have weeks, months, if they choose to have, even maybe
years to put a case together. They can call witnesses. They can go to
court to seek testimony. They can determine if this is an impeachment
question or just an oversight question.
The House can do lots of things, but once the Senate gets the
Articles of Presidential Impeachment, they become for the Senate an
absolute priority. Both our rules and reality mean we cannot do
anything else, realistically, until we are done dealing with the case
the House sent over.
That was fundamentally what was so wrong with the House sending over
a case that they said needed more work. If it needed more work, it
should have had more work.
You can be for strong review of the executive. You can be for strong
congressional oversight and still support the idea of executive
privilege. The

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President has the right to unfettered advice and to know all the
options. In fact, I think when you pierce that right, you begin to have
advisers who may not want to give all the options to the President
because it might appear they were for all the options. But the
President's advisers need to see that the President understands all the
options and implications of a decision.
The President, by the way--another topic that came up here several
times--the President determines executive policy. The staff, the
assistants, and whoever else works in the executive branch doesn't
determine executive policy; the President determines executive policy.
The staff can put all the notes in front of the President they want to,
but it is the President's decision what the policy of the
administration will be. Sharing that decision with the Congress,
sharing how he got to that point--or later, she got to that point--with
that decision is a negotiated balance.
Congress says: We want to know this.
The President says: No. I need to have some ability for people to
give me advice that isn't all available for the Congress.
So this is balanced out, and if that can't happen, if that balance
can't be achieved, the judiciary decides what the balance is. The
judiciary decides a question and says: You really must talk to the
Congress about this, but you don't have to talk to them about the next
sentence you said at that same meeting.
That is the kind of balance that occurs.
The idea repeatedly advanced by the House managers that the Senate,
by majority vote, can decide these questions is both outrageous and
dangerous.
The idea that the government would balance itself is, frankly, the
miracle of the Constitution. Nobody had ever proposed, until
Philadelphia in 1787, one, that the basis for government was the people
themselves, and two, you could have a government that was so finely
balanced that it would operate and maintain itself over time.
The House managers would really upend that balance. By being
unwilling to take the time the House had to pursue the constitutional
solution, they decided: We don't have to worry about the Constitution
to have that solution.
To charge that the President's assertion of article II rights that go
back to Washington is one of the actual Articles of Impeachment--that
is dangerous.
The legislative branch cannot also be the judicial branch. The
legislative branch can't also decide ``here is the balance'' if the
executive and legislative branch are in a fight about what should be
disclosed and what shouldn't. You can't continue to have the three
balances of power in our government if one of the branches can decide
what the legislative branch should decide.
In their haste to put this case together, the House sent the Senate
the two weakest Articles of Impeachment possible. Presidents since
Washington have been accused by some Members of Congress of abuse of
power. Presidents since Washington have been accused by some Members of
Congress of failure to cooperate with the Congress.
The House managers argued against their own case. They repeatedly
contended that they had made their case completely, they had made their
case totally, they had made their case incontrovertibly, but they
wanted us to call witnesses they had chosen not to call. They said they
had already been in court 9 months to get the President's former White
House Counsel to testify and weren't done yet, but somehow they thought
the Senate could get that person and others in a matter of days.
These arguments have been and should have been rejected by the
Senate.
Today, the Articles of Impeachment should be and will be rejected by
the Senate. Based on the Speaker's March comments, these articles
should have never been sent to the Senate. They were not compelling,
they were not overwhelming, they were not bipartisan, and most
importantly, they were not necessary.
One of the lessons we send today is to this House and to future
Houses of Representatives: Do your job. Take it seriously. Don't make
it political.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I have long maintained that most, if not all,
of the most serious and vexing problems within our Federal Government
can be traced to a deviation from the twin core structural protections
of the Constitution.
There are two of these protections--one that operates along a
vertical axis; the other, a horizontal.
The vertical protection we call federalism, which states a very
simple fact: that in the American system of government, most power is
to be reserved to the States respectively, or the people, where it is
exercised at the State and local level. It is only those powers
enumerated in the Constitution, either in article I, section 8 or
elsewhere, that are made Federal, those things that the Founding
Fathers appropriately deemed unavoidably, necessarily national or that
we have otherwise rendered national through a subsequent constitutional
amendment.
As was the case when James Madison wrote Federalist No. 45, the
powers reserved to the States are numerous and indefinite, while those
that are given to the Congress to be exercised federally are few and
defined--few and defined powers, the Federal Government; numerous and
indefinite reserved for the States.
The horizontal protection operates within the Federal Government
itself, and it acknowledges that we have three coequal, independent
branches within the Federal Government: one that makes the laws, one
that executes the laws, and one that interprets the laws when people
can't come to an agreement and have an active, live dispute as to the
meaning of a particular law in a particular case or controversy.
Sadly, we have drifted steadily, aggressively from both of these
principles over the last 80 years. For roughly the first 150 years of
the founding of our Republic and of the operation of our constitutional
structure, we adhered pretty closely to them, but over the last 80
years or so, we have drifted steadily. This has been a bipartisan
problem. It was one that was created under the broad leadership of
Republicans and Democrats alike and, in fact, in Senates and Houses of
Representatives and White Houses of every conceivable partisan
combination.
We have essentially taken power away from the American people in two
steps--first, by moving power from the State and local level and taking
it to Washington, in violation of the vertical protection we call
federalism; and then a second time, moving it away from the people's
elected lawmakers in Washington to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats
placed within the executive branch of government but who are neither
elected by the people nor accountable to anyone who is electable. Thus,
they constitute essentially a fourth branch of government within our
system, one that is not sanctioned or contemplated by the Constitution
and doesn't really fit all that well within its framework.
This has made the Federal Government bigger and more powerful. It has
occurred in a way that has made people less powerful. It has made
government in general and in particular, this government, the Federal
Government, less responsive to the needs of the people. It has been
fundamentally contrary to the way our system of government operates.
What, one might ask, does any of this have to do with impeachment?
Well, in my opinion, everything--or at least a lot. This distance that
we have created in these two steps--moving power from the people to
Washington and within Washington, handing it to unelected lawmakers or
unelected bureaucrats--has created an amount of anxiety among the
American people. Not all of them necessarily recognize it in the same
way that I do or describe it with the same words, but they know
something is not right. They know it when their Federal Government
requires them to work many months out of every year just to pay their
Federal taxes, only to be told later that it is not enough and hasn't
been enough for

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a long time since we have accumulated $22 to $23 trillion in debt, and
when they come to understand that the Federal Government also imposes
some $2 trillion in regulatory compliance costs on the American people.
This harms the poor and middle class. It makes everything we buy more
expensive. It results in diminished wages, unemployment, and
underemployment. On some level, the American people feel this. They
experience this. They understand it. It creates anxiety. It was that
very anxiety that caused people to want to elect a different kind of
leader in 2016, and they did. It was this set of circumstances that
caused them to elect Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the
United States, and I am glad they did because he promised to change the
way we do things here, and he has done that.
But as someone who has focused intently on the need to reconnect the
American people with their system of government, Donald Trump presents
something of a serious threat to those who have occupied these
positions of power, these individuals who, while hard-working, well-
intentioned, well-educated, and highly specialized, occupy these
positions of power within what we loosely refer to as the executive
branch but is in reality an unelected, unaccountable fourth branch of
government.
He has bucked them on many, many levels and has infuriated them as he
has done so, even as he is implementing the American people's wishes to
close that gap between the people and the government that is supposed
to serve them.
He has bucked them on so many levels, declining to defer to the
opinions of self-proclaimed government experts who claim that they know
better than any of us on a number of levels.
He pushed back on them, for example, when it comes to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act--or FISA, as it is sometimes described--
when he insisted that FISA had been abused in efforts to undermine his
candidacy and infringe on the rights of the American people. When he
took that position, Washington bureaucrats predictably mocked him, but
he turned out to be right.
He called out the folly of engaging in endless nation-building
exercises as part of a two-decade-long war effort that has cost this
country dearly in terms of American blood and treasure. Washington
bureaucrats mocked him again, but he turned out to be right.
He raised questions with how U.S. foreign aid is used and sometimes
misused throughout the world, sometimes to the detriment of the
American people and the very interests that such aid was created to
alleviate. Washington bureaucrats mocked him, but he turned out to be
right.
President Trump asked Ukraine to investigate a Ukrainian energy
company, Burisma. He momentarily paused U.S. aid to Ukraine while
seeking a commitment from the then newly elected Ukrainian President,
Volodymyr Zelensky, regarding that effort. He wanted to make sure that
he could trust this recently elected President Zelensky before sending
him the aid. Within a few weeks, his concerns were satisfied, and he
released the aid. Pausing briefly before doing so isn't criminal. It
certainly isn't impeachable. It is not even wrong.
Quite to the contrary, this is exactly the sort of thing the American
people elected President Trump to do. He would and has decided to bring
a different paradigm to Washington, one that analyzes things from how
the American citizenry views the American Government.
This has in some respects, therefore, been a trial of the Washington,
DC, establishment itself but not necessarily in the way the House
managers apparently intended. While the House managers repeatedly
invoked constitutional principles, including separation of powers,
their arguments have tended to prove the point opposite of the one they
intended.
Yes, we badly need to restore and protect both federalism and
separation of power, and it is my view that the deviation from one
contributes to the deviation from the other. But here, in order to do
that, we have to respect the three branches of government for what they
are, who leads them, how they operate, and who is accountable to whom.
For them to view President Trump as somehow subservient to the career
civil servant bureaucratic class that has tended to manage agencies
within the Federal Government, including the National Security Council,
the Department of Defense, the Office of Management and Budget,
individuals in the White House, and individuals within the State
Department, among others, is not only mischaracterizing this problem,
it helps identify the precise source of this problem.
Many of these people, including some of the witnesses we have heard
from in this trial, have mistakenly taken the conclusion that because
President Trump took a conclusion different from that offered by the
so-called interagency process, that that amounted to a constitutionally
impeachable act. It did not. It did nothing of the sort.
Quite to the contrary, when you actually look at the Constitution
itself, it makes clear that the President has the power to do what he
did here. The very first section of article II of the Constitution--
this is the part of the Constitution that outlines the President's
authority--makes clear that ``[t]he executive Power [of the United
States Government] shall be vested in the President of the United
States.''
It is important to remember that there are exactly two Federal
officials who were elected within the executive branch of government.
One is the Vice President, and the other is the President.
The Vice President's duties, I would add, are relatively limited.
Constitutionally speaking, the Vice President is the President of the
Senate and thus performs a quasi-legislative role, but the Vice
President's executive branch duties are entirely bound up with those of
the President's. They consist of aiding and assisting the President as
the President may deem necessary and standing ready to step into the
position of the Presidency should it become necessary as a result of
disability, incapacitation, or death. Barring that, the entire
executive branch authority is bound up within the Presidency itself.
The President is the executive branch of government, just as the
Justices who sit across the street themselves amount to the capstone of
the judicial branch, just as 100 Senators and 435 Representatives are
the legislative branch.
The President is the executive branch. As such, it is his
prerogative, within the confines of what the law allows and authorizes
and otherwise provides, to decide how to execute that. It is not only
not incompatible with that system of government, it is entirely
consistent with it--indeed, authorized by it.
A President should be able to say: Look, we have a newly elected
President in Ukraine.
We have longstanding allegations of corruption within Ukraine. Those
allegations have been well-founded in Ukraine. No one disputes that
corruption is rampant in Ukraine.
A newly elected President comes in. This President or any President
in the future decides: Hey, we are giving a lot of aid to this
country--$391 million for the year in question. I want to make sure
that I understand how that President operates. I want to establish a
relationship of trust before taking a step further with that President.
So I am going to take my time a little bit. I am going to wait maybe a
few weeks in order to make sure we are on a sure footing there.
He did that. There is nothing wrong with that.
What is the response from the House managers? Well, it gets back to
that interagency process, as if people whom the American people don't
know or have reason to know because those people don't stand
accountable to the people--they are not elected by the people; they are
not really accountable to anyone who is in turn elected by the people--
the fact that those people involved in the interagency process might
disagree with a foreign policy decision made by the President of the
United States and the fact that this President of the United States
might take a different approach than his predecessor or predecessors
does not make this President's decisions criminal. It certainly doesn't
make them impeachable. It doesn't even make them wrong.
In the eyes of many and I believe most Americans--they want a
President to be careful about how the

[[Page S890]]

United States spends money. They want the United States to stop and
reconsider from time to time the fact that we spend a lot of money
throughout the world on countries that are not the United States. We
want a President of the United States to be able to exercise a little
bit of discretion in pushing pause before that President knows whether
he can trust a newly elected government in the country in question.
So to suggest here that our commitment to the Constitution; to
suggest here, as the House managers have, that our respect for the
separation of powers within the constitutional framework somehow
demands that we remove the duly elected President of the United States
is simply wrong. It is elevating to a status completely foreign to our
constitutional structure an entity that the Constitution does not name.
It elevates a policy dispute to a question of high crimes and
misdemeanors. Those two are not the same thing.
At the end of the day, this government does, in fact, stand
accountable to the people. This government is of, by, and for the
people. We cannot remove the 45th President of the United States for
doing something that the law and the Constitution allow him to do
without doing undue violence to that system of government to which
every single one of us has sworn an oath.
We have sworn to uphold and protect and defend that system of
government. That means standing up for the American people and those
they have elected to do a job recognized by the Constitution.
I will be voting to defend this President's actions. I will be voting
against undoing the vote taken by the American people some 3\1/2\ years
ago. I will be voting for the principle of freedom and for the very
principles that our Constitution was designed to protect.
I urge all of my colleagues to reject these deeply factually and
legally flawed Articles of Impeachment and to vote not guilty.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CRAMER. Mr. President, I rise today to officially declare that I
will vote against both Articles of Impeachment brought against
President Trump by the very partisan and, quite frankly, ridiculous
House of Representatives. I know my position is hardly a surprise, but
it is almost as unsurprising as the House impeaching the President, to
begin with.
Since the moment he was sworn into office, Democrats have schemed to
remove Donald Trump from office. It is not my opinion. I take them at
their word. Their fixation on his removal was a conclusion in search of
a justification, which they manufactured from a phone conversation
between world leaders leaked--leaked--by one of the many career
bureaucrats who seem to have forgotten that they work for the elected
leaders in this country, not the other way around.
So the two Articles of Impeachment before this body today, in my
view, are without merit. They are an affront, in fact, to this
institution and to our Constitution, representing the very same
partisan derangement that worried our Founding Fathers so much that
they made the threshold for impeachment this high.
The Senate exists exactly for moments like this. I didn't arrive at
my conclusion to support acquittal hastily or flippantly, and I don't
believe any of my colleagues did either, including those who come to a
different conclusion from mine. Despite being sent such flawed Articles
by the House, the Senate did in fact dutifully and solemnly follow its
constitutional obligation. During the last days of the trial, we heard
sworn testimony from 13 witnesses, read 17 depositions, asked 180
questions, viewed 193 video clips, and poured over 28,000 pages of
documents.
But even more than the House managers' shallow arguments and lack of
evidence against and due process for our President and the obvious
derangement at the very root of every investigation, beginning with the
corrupt FBI Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation
during the 2016 election cycle, the Articles of Impeachment we will
vote on in a few hours should have ended at their beginning.
Can we agree that if a Speaker of the House unilaterally declares an
impeachment inquiry, it represents the opinion of one Member of
Congress, not the official authorization of the entire Congress? Can we
agree that a vote to begin an impeachment inquiry that has only
partisan support and bipartisan opposition is not what the Founders had
in mind and in fact is what they firmly rejected and cautioned about?
Can we agree that impeachment articles passed by a majority of one
party and opposed by Members of both parties on their face fail, if not
the letter of the law, certainly, the spirit of the Constitution?
Yet, even under the cloud of purely partisan politics of the House of
Representatives, the Senate conducted a complete, comprehensive trial,
resulting, in my view, in a crystal clear conclusion: The Democratic-
led House of Representatives failed to meet the most basic standards of
proof and has dramatically lowered the bar for impeachment to
unacceptable levels. It is deeply concerning, and I believe we must
commit to never, ever letting it happen again to the President of any
political party.
That can start today. In just a few hours, the Senate will have the
opportunity to cast a vote to end this whole ordeal, and, in doing so,
can make a statement that the threshold for undoing the will of the
American people in the most recent election and undoing the will of a
major political party in the upcoming election should be higher than
one party's petty obsession.
I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle join me in voting
against these charges. But whether he is acquitted or convicted and
removed, it is my prayer, as we were admonished many times throughout
the last few weeks by our Chaplain Black, that God's will is the one
that will be done.
Then we can move on to the unifying issues the American people want
us to tackle--issues like infrastructure, education, energy security
and dominance, national security, and the rising cost of healthcare,
among many others. These are issues the American people care about.
These are issues that North Dakotans care about. These are issues that
the people have sent us here to deal with. Let's do it together. Let's
start now.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Mr. President, I will vote to acquit President
Donald J. Trump on both Articles of Impeachment presented by House
Democrats. I have listened carefully to the arguments presented by the
House Democratic managers and the White House defense team. Those
prosecuting the President failed on a legal and constitutional basis to
produce the evidence required to undertake the very serious act of
removing a duly elected President from this office.
This trial exposed that pure political partisanship fueled a reckless
investigation and the subsequent impeachment of the President on weak,
vague, and noncriminal accusations. The Democrats' case, which lacked
the basic standards of fairness and due process, was fabricated to
fulfill their one long-held hope to impeach President Trump.
We should all be concerned about the dangerous precedent and
consequences of convicting any President on charges originating from
strictly partisan reasons. The Founding Fathers warned against allowing
impeachment to become a political weapon. In this case, House Democrats
crossed that line.
Rejecting the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress articles
before us will affirm our belief and the impeachment standards intended
by the Founders. With my votes to acquit President Trump, justice will
be served. The Senate has faithfully executed its constitutional duties
to hear and judge the charges leveled against the President.
I remain hopeful that we can finally set aside this flawed partisan
investigation, prosecution, and persecution of President Trump. The
people of Mississippi and this great Nation are more interested in us
getting back to doing the work they sent us here to do.

[[Page S891]]

I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, fellow Senators, I come today to talk about
the business at hand. Obviously, it is the vote that we are going to
take at 4 o'clock this afternoon.
We were subjected to days and days of trial here--many witnesses,
witness statements, and all that sort of thing--and it is incumbent
upon us now as jurors to reach a conclusion, and I have done so.
I come at this with a little bit of a different view, probably, than
others. I have tried more cases, probably, than anyone on the floor,
both as a prosecutor and in private practice. So I watched carefully as
the case was presented to us and how the case had been put together by
the managers from the House. What I learned in the many years of trial
experience that I had is that the only way, really, to try a case and
to reach where you want to get is to do it in good faith and to do it
honestly.
I had real trouble right at the beginning when I saw that the lead
manager read a transcript purporting to be a transcript of the
President's phone call that has been at issue here, and it was
falsified. It was falsified knowingly, willfully, and intentionally.
So, as a result of that, when they walked through the door and wanted
to present their case, there was a strike there already, and I put it
in that perspective.
How the case unfolded after that was stunning because I have never
seen a case succeed the way they put the case together. They put the
case together by taking every fact that they wanted to make fly and put
it only in the best light without showing the other side but more
importantly--more importantly--intentionally excluding evidence. Of
course, this whole thing centered on witness statements that the
President had somehow threatened or pressured the President of Ukraine
to do what he was going to do. That simply wasn't the case. The
transcript didn't say that.
Now, admittedly, they had a witness who was going around saying that,
and they called every person he told to tell us that that was the
situation. The problem is, it was hearsay. There is a good reason why
they don't allow hearsay in a court of law, and that is, it simply
wasn't true.
When the person who was spreading that rumor actually talked to the
President about it, the President got angry and said: That is not true.
I would never do that.
They never told us that. Once the tape was shown, the House managers
spent days putting together that proposition for us. The President's
counsel dismantled that in about an hour and did so really quickly.
And, as a result of that, simply from a factual basis, it is my opinion
that the prosecution in this case did not meet its burden.
Now, much has been said about witnesses and how they did this and
what have you, but the Constitution is crystal clear. It gives the
House absolute, total, 100-percent control of impeachment; that is, the
investigation and the vote on it. It gives us the same thing but on the
trial basis.
The thing I think was surprising is that they came over here and
tried to tell us how to do their job. I suspect they, in the House,
would feel the exact same way about it if we went over there and told
them how they should impeach. They came over here and told us how we
should do witnesses and all that sort of thing. They had every
opportunity to prepare the case. It was totally in their hands. They
had as much time as they wanted, and they simply didn't do it. So in
that respect, I also found that they came short.
But the bottom line for me, too, is that there is a second reason I
would vote to acquit, and that is the stunning attack that this was on
the U.S. Constitution. This is really the first time in history when a
purely political attack was instigated by reaching to the U.S.
Constitution and using what is really a sacred item in that
Constitution, a process that the Founding Fathers gave us for good
reason, and that is impeachment.
It was not intended to be used as a political bludgeon. It simply
wasn't. We had in front of us the Federalist Papers, and we had the
debates of the Constitutional Convention. Really, the one silver lining
that came out of this was it underscored again for us the genius of the
Founding Fathers giving us three branches of government--not just three
branches of government but three branches of government that had
distinct lanes in which they operated and, most importantly, indicating
that they were separate but equal.
They wanted not a parliamentary system like they had looked at from
Britain with a head of state that was a Prime Minister who could be
removed and changed, as happens all around the world today. They gave
us a unique system with three branches of government.
So the Founding Fathers were very clear. They debated the question of
what should it take to get rid of the head of state, and they concluded
that the second branch of government couldn't be a strong branch of
government if, indeed, the President could be removed as a Prime
Minister could be removed, simply by Congress getting unhappy with his
policies or disagreeing with him. So, as a result of that, they did
give us impeachment, and it is a unique process. They were very clear
that it was supposed to be used only in very extreme circumstances and
not just simply because of a political disagreement or a policy
disagreement. And that is exactly what happened here.
The Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention debates are
very, very clear that it is not a broad swath of reasons to impeach the
President that is given to the first branch of government but, indeed,
a very, very narrow swath. It was interesting that, from the beginning,
they picked the two words of ``treason'' and ``bribery,'' and to that
they then had a long debate about what it would be in addition to that.
They had such words as ``malfeasance,'' ``misfeasance,''
``corruption,'' and all those kinds of things that could be very broad.
They rejected all those and said, no, specifically, it had to be ``high
Crimes and Misdemeanors.''
So what they did was they narrowed the lane considerably and made it
difficult to remove the head of the second branch of government. And
then, on top of that, for frosting on the cake, they said it has got to
be two-thirds. Now, what did that simply mean? They knew--they knew--
that human beings being the way they are, that human beings who were
involved in the political process and political parties would reach to
get rid of a political enemy using everything they could. So they
wanted to see that that didn't happen with impeachment. So, as a result
of that, they gave us the two-thirds requirement, and that meant that
no President was going to be impeached without a bipartisan movement.
This movement has been entirely partisan. No Republican voted to
impeach him in the House of Representatives. This afternoon at 4 we are
going to have a vote, and it is going to be along party lines and,
again, it is going to be political.
So what do we have here? At the end of the day, we have a political
exercise, and that political exercise is going to fail. And once
again--once again--God has blessed America, and the Republic that
Benjamin Franklin said we have, if we can keep it, is going to be
sustained.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Loeffler). The Senator from Ohio is
recognized.
Mr. BROWN. Madam President, over the past 3 weeks, we have heard from
the House managers and the President's counsel regarding the facts of
the case against President Donald Trump.
Much like trials in Lorain and Lima and Lordstown, OH, or in
Marietta, in Massillon, and in Marion, OH, we have seen the
prosecution--in this case, the House managers--and the defense--in this
case, the President's lawyers--present their cases. All 100 of us--
every one of us--are the jury. We took an oath to be impartial jurors.
We all took an oath to be impartial jurors just like juries in Ohio and
across America. But to some of my colleagues, that just appeared to be
a joke.
The great journalist Bill Moyers summed up the past 3 weeks: ``What
we've just seen is the dictator of the Senate manipulating the
impeachment process to save the demagogue in the White House whose
political party has become the gravedigger of democracy.''
Let me say that again. ``What we have just seen is the dictator of
the

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Senate manipulating the impeachment process to save the demagogue in
the White House whose political party has become the gravedigger of
democracy.''
Even before this trial began, Leader McConnell admitted out loud that
he was coordinating the trial process with the White House. The leader
of the Senate was coordinating with the White House on impeachment. I
challenge him to show me one trial in my State of Ohio or his State of
Kentucky where the jury coordinated with the defense lawyers. In a fair
trial, the defense and prosecution would have been able to introduce
evidence, to call witnesses, and to listen to testimony.
Every other impeachment proceeding in the Senate for 250 years had
witnesses. Some of them had dozens. We had zero. Leader McConnell
rushed this trial through. He turned off cameras in this body so that
the American public couldn't see the whole process. He restricted
reporter access. We know reporters roam the halls to talk to Members of
the House and Senate. He restricted access there. He twisted arms to
make sure every Republican voted with him to block witnesses. He didn't
get a couple of them, but he had enough to protect himself.
The public already sees through it. This is a sham trial. I said from
the beginning that I would keep an open mind. If there are witnesses
who would exonerate the President, the American people need to hear
from them.
Over the course of this trial we heard mounting, overwhelming
evidence that President Trump did something that not even Richard Nixon
ever did: He extorted a foreign leader. He fired a career foreign
service officer for rooting out corruption. He put his own Presidential
campaign above our collective national security.
The President said this is just hearsay, but he and the Republican
leader, together with 51 of 53 Republican Senators, blocked every
single potential witness we wanted to call. The President says it was
hearsay. We knew there were witnesses who were in the room with
President Trump. We didn't get to hear from them. We didn't hear from
Ambassador Bolton. We didn't hear from interim Chief of Staff Mulvaney.
We didn't hear from Secretary Pompeo. The Republican leader denied the
American people the chance to hear all of them testify under oath.
We have seen more information come to light each day, which builds on
the pattern of facts laid out in great detail by the House managers. We
have now heard tape recordings of the President of the United States
telling associates to ``get rid of'' U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch, a
public servant who devoted her life to fighting corruption and
promoting American ideals and foreign policy throughout her long,
distinguished career at the State Department. With her removed from the
post, it appears the President thought he would be able to compel our
ally Ukraine to investigate President Trump's political opponent.
Reporters have now revealed that Ambassador Bolton--again, a
firsthand witness--outlined that the President did exactly what the
Impeachment Articles allege: He withheld security assistance to an ally
at war with Russia in exchange for a political favor.
The Justice Department admits there are 24 emails showing the
President's thinking on Ukraine assistance. But you know what? Senator
McConnell, down the hall, will not allow us to see any of these 24
emails.
Make no mistake, the full truth is going to come out. The Presiding
Officer, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they are all
going to be embarrassed because they covered this up. It wasn't just
the President and the Vice President and Secretary Pompeo and Chief of
Staff Mulvaney; it was 51 Republican U.S. Senators, including the
Presiding Officer, who is a new Member of this body, who covered up
this evidence.
It will come out this week. It will come out this month, this year,
the year after that, for decades to come. And when the full truth comes
out, we will be judged by our children and grandchildren.
Without additional witnesses, we must judge based on the facts
presented. The House managers made a clear, compelling case. In the
middle of a war with Russia, the President froze $400 million in
security assistance to Ukraine. He wanted an investigation into his
2020 political opponent. He refused a critical meeting with President
Zelensky in the Oval Office.
These actions don't promote our national security or the rule of law;
they promote Donald Trump personally and his campaign.
We know the President extorted President Zelensky. He asked the
leader of a foreign government to help him. That is the definition of
an abuse of power. That is why we have no choice--no choice--but to
convict this President of abusing his office. All of us know this. To
acquit would set a clear, dangerous precedent: If you abuse your
office, it is OK. Congress will look the other way.
This trial and these votes we are about to cast are about way more
than just President Trump. They are about the future of democracy. It
will send a message to this President--or whomever we elect in
November--and to all future Presidents. It will be heard around the
world--our verdict--by our allies and enemies alike, especially the
Russians. Are we going to roll out the welcome mat to our adversaries
to interfere in our elections? Are we going to give a green light to
the President of the United States to base our country's foreign policy
not on our collective, agreed-upon national security or that of our
allies, like Ukraine, but on the President's personal political
campaign?
These are the issues at stake. If we don't hold this President
accountable for abuse of office, if no one in his own party, if no one
on this side of the aisle--no one--has the backbone to stand up and say
``stop,'' there is no question it will get worse. How do I know that? I
have heard it from a number of my Republican colleagues when,
privately, they will tell me, yes, we are concerned about what the
President is going to do if he is exonerated.
I was particularly appalled by the words of Mr. Dershowitz. He said:
``If a President does something which he believes will help him get
elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo
that results in impeachment.''
Think about that for a moment. If the President thinks it is OK, he
thinks it is going to help his election, and he thinks his election is
in the public interest, then it is OK; the President can break any law,
can funnel taxpayer money toward his reelection, can turn the arm of
the State against his political enemies and not be held accountable.
That is what this claim comes down to.
Remember the words of Richard Nixon: ``When the President does it,
that means it is not illegal.'' Our country rejected that argument
during Watergate. We had a Republican Party with principle in those
days and Senators with backbone, and they told that President to resign
because nobody is above the State; nobody is above the law.
If we have a President who can turn the Office of the Presidency and
the entire executive branch into his own political campaign operation,
God help us.
My colleagues think I am exaggerating. We don't have the option to
vote in favor of some arguments made during the trial and not others.
Mr. Dershowitz's words will live forever in the historical record. If
they are allowed to stand beside a ``not guilty'' verdict--make no
mistake--they will be used as precedent by future aspiring autocrats.
In the words of House Manager Schiff, ``that way madness lies.''
I know some of my colleagues agree this sets a dangerous precedent.
Some of you have admitted to me that you are troubled by the
President's behavior. You know he is reckless. You know he lies. You
know what he did was wrong. I have heard Republican after Republican
after Republican Senator tell me that privately. If you acknowledge
that, if you have said it to me, if you said it to your family, if you
said it to your staff, if you just said it to yourself, I implore you,
we have no choice but to vote to convict.
What are my colleagues afraid of? I think about the words of Adam
Schiff in this Chamber on Tuesday: ``If you find that the House has
proved its case and still vote to acquit''--if you still vote to
acquit--``your name will be tied to his with a cord of steel and for
all of history.''
``[Y]our name will be tied to his with a cord of steel and for all of
history.''
So I ask my colleagues again: What are you afraid of?

[[Page S893]]

One of our American fundamental values is that we have no Kings, no
nobility, no oligarchs. No matter how rich, no matter how powerful, no
matter how much money you give to Mitch McConnell's super PAC, everyone
can and should be held accountable.
I hope my colleagues remember that. I hope they will choose courage
over fear. I hope they will choose country over party. I hope they will
join me in holding this President accountable to the American people we
all took an oath to serve.
We know this: Americans are watching. They will not forget.
I will close with quoting, again, Bill Moyers, a longtime journalist:
``What we have just seen is the dictator of the Senate manipulating the
impeachment process to save the demagogue in the White House whose
political party has become the gravedigger of democracy.''
I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle know better. I
hope they vote what they really know.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii is recognized.
Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, when the Framers debated whether to
include the power of impeachment in the Constitution, they envisioned a
moment very much like the one we face now. They were fearful of a
corrupt President who would abuse the Presidency for his or her
personal gain, particularly one who would allow any foreign country to
interfere in the affairs of our United States. With this fear in mind,
the Framers directed the Senate to determine whether to ultimately
remove that President from office.

In normal times, the Senate--conscious of its awesome
responsibility--would meet this moment with the appropriate sobriety
and responsibility to conduct a full and fair trial. That includes
calling appropriate witnesses and subpoenaing relevant documents, none
of which happened here.
In normal times, the Senate would have weighed the evidence presented
by both sides and rendered impartial justice. And in normal times,
having been presented with overwhelming evidence of impeachable acts,
the Senate would have embraced its constitutional responsibility to
convict the President and remove him or her from office.
But as we have learned too often over the past 3 years, these are not
normal times. Instead of fulfilling its duty later today, the U.S.
Senate will fail its test at a crucial moment of our country by voting
to acquit Donald J. Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of
Congress.
The Senate cannot blame its constitutional failure on the House
managers. They proved their case with overwhelming and compelling
evidence. Manager Jerry Nadler laid out a meticulous case demonstrating
how and why the President's actions rose to the constitutional standard
for impeachment and removal.
Manager Hakeem Jeffries explained how Donald Trump ``directly
pressured the Ukrainian leader to commence phony political
investigations as a part of his effort to cheat and solicit foreign
interference in the 2020 election.''
Manager Val Demings walked us through the evidence of how Donald
Trump used $391 million of taxpayer money to pressure Ukraine to
announce politically motivated investigations. She concluded: ``This is
enough to prove extortion in court.''
Manager Sylvia Garcia showed us how Donald Trump's demand for
investigations was purely for his personal, political benefit. She
debunked the conspiracy theories the President's counsel raised against
former Vice President Joe Biden--Donald Trump's political rival and the
true target of his corrupt scheme.
Manager Jason Crow described vividly the human costs of withholding
aid from Ukrainian troops fighting a hot war against Russia.
Manager Adam Schiff tied together the evidence of Donald Trump's
abuse of power--the most serious of impeachable offenses and one that
includes extortion and bribery.
And manager Zoe Lofgren used her extensive experience to provide
perspective on Donald Trump's unprecedented, unilateral, and complete
obstruction of Congress to cover up his corrupt scheme. She is the only
Member of Congress to be involved in three Presidential impeachments.
The President's lawyers could not refute the House's case. Instead,
they ultimately resorted to the argument that, even accepting the facts
as presented by the House managers, Donald Trump's conduct is not
impeachable. It is what I have called the ``He did it; so what?''
argument.
Many of my Republican colleagues are using the ``So what?'' argument
to justify their votes to let the President off the hook. Yet the
senior Senator from Tennessee said: ``I think he shouldn't have done
it. I think it was wrong.'' He said it was ``inappropriate'' and
``improper, crossing a line.'' But he refused to hold the President
accountable, arguing that the voters should decide.
The junior Senator from Iowa said: ``The President has a lot of
latitude to do what he wants to do'' but he ``did it maybe in the wrong
manner.''
She also said that ``whether you like what the President did or
not,'' the charges didn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
The junior Senator from Ohio called the President's actions ``wrong
and inappropriate'' but said they did not ``rise to the level of
removing a duly-elected president from office and taking him off the
ballot in the middle of an election.''
And the senior Senator from Florida went so far as to say: ``Just
because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in
the best interest of the country to remove a president from office.''
By refusing to hold this President accountable, my Republican
colleagues are reinforcing the President's misguided belief that he can
do whatever he wants under article II of the U.S. Constitution.
Donald Trump was already a danger to this country. We have seen it in
his policy decisions--from taking away healthcare from millions of
Americans to threatening painful cuts to Social Security and Medicare,
to engaging in an all-out assault on immigrants in this country.
But today, we are called on to confront a completely different type
of danger--one that goes well beyond the significant policy differences
I have with this President.
If we let Donald Trump get away with extorting the President of
another country for his own personal, political benefit, the Senate
will be complicit--complicit--in his next corrupt scheme.
Which country will he bully or invite to interfere in our elections
next? Which pot of taxpayer money will he use as a bribe to further his
political schemes?
Later today, I will vote to convict and remove President Donald Trump
for abusing his power and obstructing Congress. I am under no illusion
that my Republican colleagues will do the same. They have argued it is
up to the American people to decide, as though impeachment were not a
totally separate, constitutional remedy for a lawless President.
As I considered my vote, I listened closely to Manager Schiff's
closing statement about why the Senate needs to convict this President.
He said:

I do not ask you to convict him because truth or right or
decency matters nothing to him--

He is referring to the President--

but because we have proven our case, and it matters to you.
Truth matters to you. Right matters to you. You are decent.
He is not who you are.

It is time for the Senate to uphold its constitutional responsibility
by convicting this President and holding him accountable.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado is recognized.
Mr. BENNET. Madam President, when I was in the second grade--which I
did twice because I was dyslexic, so I don't know which year of the
second grade it was, but one of those 2 years--we were asked to line up
in order of whose family had been here the longest period of time and
whose family had been here the shortest period of time.
I turned out to be the answer to both of those questions. My father's
family went all the way back to the Mayflower, and my mom's family were
Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust. They didn't leave Warsaw
because my grandfather had a large family he didn't want to leave
behind. And in the event--everybody was killed in the war, except my
mom, her parents, and an aunt. They lived in Warsaw for 2 years after
the war. Then they went to Stockholm for a year. They went to

[[Page S894]]

Mexico City for a year, of all places. And then they came to the United
States--the one place in the world they could rebuild their shattered
lives, and they did rebuild their shattered lives. My mom was the only
person in the family who could speak any English. She registered
herself in the New York City public schools. She graduated from Hunter
College High School. She went on to graduate from Wellesley College in
Massachusetts in one generation. My grandparents rebuilt the business
they had lost during the war.
I knew from them how important this symbol of America was to people
struggling all over the world. They had been through some of the worst
events in human history, and their joy of being Americans was
completely unadulterated. I have met many immigrants across this
country, and I still haven't met anybody with a stronger accent than my
grandparents had, and I have never met anybody who were greater
patriots than they were. They understood how important the idea of
America was, not because we were perfect--exactly the opposite of
that--because we were imperfect. But we lived in a free society that
was able to cure its imperfections with the hard work of our citizens
to make this country more democratic, more free, and more fair--a
country committed to the rule of law. Nobody was above the rule of law,
and nobody was treated unfairly by the law, even if you were an
immigrant to this country.
From my dad's example, I learned something really different. It might
interest some people around here to know he was a staffer in the Senate
for many years. I actually grew up coming here on Saturday mornings,
throwing paper airplanes around the hallways of the Dirksen Building
and Russell Building.
He worked here at a very different time in the Senate. He worked here
at a time when Republicans and Democrats worked together to uphold the
rule of law, to pass important legislation that was needed by the
American people to move our country forward, a time when Democrats and
Republicans went back home and said: I didn't get everything I wanted,
to be sure, but the 65 percent I did get is worth the bill we have, and
here is why the other side needed 35 percent.
Those days are completely gone in the U.S. Senate, and I grieve for
them. My dad passed away about a year ago. I know how disappointed he
would be about where we are, but there isn't anybody who can fix it,
except the 100 people who are here and, I suppose, the American people
for whom we ostensibly work.
In the last 10 years that I have been here, I have watched
politicians come to this floor and destroy the solemn responsibility we
have--the constitutional responsibility we have--to advise and consent
on judicial appointments, to turn that constitutional responsibility
into nothing more than a vicious partisan exercise. That hasn't been
done by the American people. That wasn't done by any other generation
of politicians who were in this place. It has been done by this
generation of politicians led by the Senator from Kentucky, the
majority leader of the Senate.
We have become a body that does nothing. We are an employment agency.
That is what we are. Seventy-five percent of the votes we took last
year were on appointments. We voted on 26 amendments last year--26--26.
In the world's greatest deliberative body, we passed eight amendments
in a year. Pathetic. We didn't consider any of the major issues the
American people are confronting in their lives, not a single one--10
years of townhalls with people saying to me: Michael, we are killing
ourselves, and we can't afford housing, healthcare, higher education,
early childhood education. We cannot save. We can't live a middle-class
life. We think our kids are going to live a more diminished life than
we do.
What does the U.S. Senate do? Cut taxes for rich people. We don't
have time to do anything else around here. And now, when we are the
only body on planet Earth charged with the responsibility of dealing
with the guilt or innocence of this President, we can't even bring
ourselves to have witnesses and evidence as part of a fair trial, even
when there are literally witnesses with direct knowledge of what the
President did practically banging on the door of the Senate saying: Let
me testify.
We are too lazy for that. The reality is, we are too broken for that.
We are too broken for that. And we have failed in our duty to the
American people.
Hamilton said in Federalist 65 that in an impeachment trial we were
the inquisitors for the people. The Senate--we would be the inquisitors
for the people. How can you be the inquisitors for the people when you
don't even dignify the process with evidence and with witnesses?
I often have school kids come visit me here in the Senate, which I
really enjoy because I used to be the superintendent of the Denver
Public Schools. When they come visit me, they very often have been on
the Mall. They have seen the Lincoln Memorial. They have seen the
Washington Monument. They have been seen the Supreme Court, this
Capitol. And there is a tendency among them to believe that this was
just all here, that it was all just here. And of course, 230 years ago,
I tell them, none of it was here. None of it was here. It was in the
ideas of the Founders, the people whom we call the Founders, who did
two incredible things in their lifetime, in their generation, that had
never been done before in human history. They wrote a Constitution that
would be ratified by the people who lived under it. It never happened
before. They would never have imagined that we would have lasted 230
years--at least until the age of Donald Trump.

They led an armed insurrection against a colonial power. We call that
the Revolutionary War. That succeeded too.
They did something terrible in their generation that will last for
the rest of our days and that is they perpetuated human slavery. The
building we are standing in today was built by enslaved human beings
because of the decisions that they made.
But I tell the kids who come and visit me that there is a reason why
there are not enslaved human beings in this country anymore and that is
because of people like Frederick Douglass. He was born a slave in the
United States of America, escaped his slavery in Maryland, risked his
life and limb to get to Massachusetts, and he found the abolitionist
movement there. And the abolitionist movement has been arguing for
generations that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document. Frederick
Douglass, who is completely self-taught, said to them: You have this
exactly wrong, exactly backward, 180 degrees from the truth. The
Constitution is an anti-slavery document, Frederick Douglass said, not
a pro-slavery document.
But we are not living up to the words of the Constitution. It is the
same thing Dr. King said the night before he was killed in Memphis when
he went down there for the striking garbage workers and he said: I am
here to make America keep the promise you wrote down on the page.
In my mind, Frederick Douglass and Dr. King are Founders, just as
much as the people who wrote the Constitution of the United States. How
could they not be? How could they not be?
The women who fought to give my kids, my three daughters, the right
to vote, who fought for 50 years to get the right to vote--mostly women
in this country--are Founders, just like the people who wrote the
Constitution, as well.
Over the years that I have been here, I have seen this institution
crumble into rubble. This institution has become incapable of
addressing the most existential questions of our time that the next
generation cannot address. They can't fix their own school. They can't
fix our immigration system. They can't fix climate change, although
they are getting less and less patient with us on that issue.
But what I have come to conclude is that the responsibility of all of
us--not just Senators but all of us as citizens in a democratic
republic--230 years after the founding of this Republic, is the
responsibility of a Founder. It is that elevated sense of what a
citizen is required to do in a republic to sustain that republic, and I
think that is the right way to think about it. It gives you a sense of
what is really at stake beyond the headlines on the cable television at
night and, certainly, in the social media feeds that divide us minute
to minute in our political life today.

[[Page S895]]

The Senate has clearly failed that standard. We have clearly failed
that standard. The idea that we would turn our backs and close our eyes
to evidence pounding on the outside of the doors of this Capitol is
pitiful. It is disgraceful, and it will be a stain on this body for all
time. More than 50 percent of the people in this place have said that
what the President did was wrong. It clearly was wrong. It clearly was
unconstitutional. It clearly was impeachable. What President would run
for office saying to the American people: I am going to try to extort a
foreign power for my own electoral interest to interfere in our
elections? It is exactly the kind of conduct that the impeachment
clause was written for. It is a textbook case of why the impeachment
clause exists.
But even if you don't agree with me that he should have been
convicted or that he should be convicted, I don't know how anybody in
this body goes home and faces their constituents and says that we
wouldn't even look at the evidence.
So I say to the American people: Our democracy is very much at risk.
I am not one of those people who believes that Donald Trump is the
source of all our problems. I think he has made matters much worse, to
be sure, but he is a symptom of our problem. He is a symptom of our
failure to tend to the democracy--to our responsibility--as Founders.
And if we don't begin to take that responsibility as seriously as our
parents and grandparents did--people who faced much bigger challenges
than we ever did--nobody is asking us, thank God, to end human slavery.
Nobody is asking us to fight for 50 years for the self-evident
proposition that women should have the right to vote. We are not
marching in Selma, being beaten for the self-evident prospect that all
people are created equal. Nobody is asking us to climb the Cliffs of
Normandy to fight for freedom in a World War.
But we are being asked to save the democracy and we are going to fail
that test today in the Senate. And my prayer for our country is that
the American people will not fail that test. I am optimistic that we
will not. We have never failed it before, and I don't think we will
fail it in our time.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Ms. BALDWIN. Madam President, in 2012, the good people of Wisconsin
elected me to work for them in the Senate. Like every one of my fellow
Senators, I took an oath of office. In 2018, I was reelected and I took
that same oath. We have all taken that oath. It is not to support and
defend the President--this President or any other. Our oath is to
support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is our
job every day that we come to work, and it certainly is our job here
today.
Just over 2 weeks ago, we all stood together right here and we took
another oath given to us by Chief Justice Roberts to do impartial
judgment in this impeachment trial. I have taken this responsibility
very seriously. I have listened to both sides make their case. I have
reviewed the evidence presented and I have carefully considered the
facts.
From the beginning, I have supported a full, fair, and honest
impeachment trial. A majority of this Senate has failed to allow it. I
supported the release of critical evidence that was concealed by the
White House. The other side of the aisle let President Trump hide it
from us, and they voted to keep it a secret from the American people. I
voted for testimony of relevant witnesses with direct, firsthand
evidence about the President's conduct. Senate Republicans blocked
witness testimony because they didn't want to be bothered with the
truth.
Every Senate impeachment trial in our Nation's history has included
witnesses, and this Senate trial should have been no different.
Unfortunately, it was. A majority of the Senate has taken the
unprecedented step of refusing to hear all the evidence, declining all
the facts, denying the full truth about this President's corrupt abuse
of power. President Trump has obstructed Congress, and this Senate will
let him.
Last month, President Trump's former National Security Advisor, John
Bolton, provided an unpublished manuscript to the White House. The
recent media reports about what Ambassador Bolton could have testified
to, had he not been blocked as a witness, go to the heart of this
impeachment trial--abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
As reported, in early May 2019, there was an Oval Office meeting that
included President Trump, Mick Mulvaney, Pat Cipollone, Rudy Giuliani,
and John Bolton. According to Mr. Bolton, the President directed him to
help with his pressure campaign to solicit assistance from Ukraine to
pursue investigations that would not only benefit President Trump
politically but would act to exonerate Russia from their interference
in our 2016 elections.
Several weeks later, the U.S. Department of Defense certified the
release of military aid to Ukraine, concluding that they had taken
substantial actions to decrease corruption. This was part of the
security assistance we approved in Congress with bipartisan support to
help Ukraine fight Russian aggression. However, President Trump blocked
it and covered it up from Congress.
On July 25, 2019, as President Trump was withholding the support for
Ukraine, he had a telephone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky.
Based on a White House call summary memo that was released 2 months
later, we all know the President put his own political interest ahead
of our national security and the integrity of our elections.
Based on the clear and convincing evidence presented in this trial,
we know President Trump used American taxpayer dollars in security
assistance in order to get Ukraine to interfere in our elections to
help him politically. We know the President solicited assistance from
Ukraine to pursue an investigation of phony conspiracy theories about
our 2016 U.S. elections that are a part of a Russian disinformation
campaign. We know the President solicited assistance from Ukraine to
discredit the conclusion by American law enforcement, the U.S.
intelligence community, and confirmed by a bipartisan Senate report
that Russia interfered with our 2016 elections. We also know President
Trump solicited foreign interference in the upcoming election by
pressuring Ukraine to publicly announce investigations to help him
politically.
I ask my friends to consider the fact that the Ukrainian President
was pressured and prepared to go on an American cable television
network to announce these political investigations.
To those who are making the argument to acquit the President because
to convict would create further division in our country, I ask you to
acknowledge the fact that President Trump's corrupt scheme has given
Russia another opening to attack our democracy, interfere in our
elections, and further divide our already divided country. We know this
to be true, but the Senate is choosing to ignore the truth.
As reported just weeks after the Zelensky call, President Trump told
Ambassador Bolton in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391
million in security assistance to Ukraine until it helped with the
political investigations. Had Ambassador Bolton testified to these
facts in this trial, it would have directly contradicted what the
President told Senator Johnson in a phone call on August 31, 2019, in
which, according to Senator Johnson, the President said:

I would never do that. Who told you that?

John Bolton not only has direct evidence that implicates President
Trump in a corrupt abuse of power, but he has direct evidence that
President Trump lied to one of our colleagues in an attempt to cover it
up. It may not matter to this Senate, but I can tell you that it
matters to the people of the State of Wisconsin that this President did
not tell their Senator the truth.
Based on the facts presented to us, I refuse to join this President's
coverup, and I refuse to conclude that the President's abuse of power
doesn't matter, that it is OK, and that we should just get over it.
I recognize the courageous public servants who did what this Senate
has failed to do--to put our country first. In the House impeachment
inquiry, brave government servants came forward and told the truth.
They put their jobs on the line. Instead of inspiring us to do our
duty--to do our jobs--they

[[Page S896]]

have faced character assassination from this President, the White
House, and some of my colleagues here in the Senate. It is a disgrace
to this institution that they have been treated as anything less than
the patriots they are.
As Army LTC Alexander Vindman said, ``This is America. Here, right
matters.''
My judgment is inspired by these words, and I am guided to my
commitment to put country before party and our Constitution first.
My vote on the President's abuse of power and obstruction of Congress
is a vote to uphold my oath of office and to support and defend the
Constitution. My vote is a vote to uphold the rule of law and our
uniquely American principle that no one--not even the President--is
above the law. I only have 1 of 100 votes in the U.S. Senate, and I am
afraid that the majority is putting this President above the law by not
convicting him of these impeachable offenses.
Let's be clear. This is not an exoneration of President Trump. It is
a failure to show moral courage and hold this President accountable.
Now every American will have the power to make his or her own
judgment. Every American gets to decide what is in our public interest.
We the people get to choose what is in our national interest. I trust
the American people. I know they will be guided by our common good and
the truth. The people we work for know what the truth is, and they
know, in America, it matters.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, it is important to remind ourselves, at
moments like this, how unnatural and uncommon democracy really is.
Just think of all of the important forums in your life. Think about
your workplace, your family, your favorite sports team. None of them
makes decisions by democratic vote. The CEO decides how much money you
are going to make. It is not by the vote of your fellow employees. You
love your kids, but they don't get an equal say in household matters as
mom and dad do. The plays the Chiefs called on their game-winning
drives were not decided by a team vote.
No, most everything in our lives that matters, other than the
government under which we live, is not run by democratic vote, and, of
course, a tiny percentage of humans--well under 1 percent--have lived
in a democratic society over the last thousand years of human history.
Democracy is unnatural. It is rare. It is delicate. It is fragile,
and untended to, neglected, or taken for granted, it will disappear
like ashes that scatter into the cold night.
This body--the U.S. Senate--was conceived by our Founders to be the
ultimate guardians of this brittle experiment in governance. We, the
100 of us, were given the responsibility to keep it safe from those who
may deign to harm it, and when the Senate lives up to this charge, it
is an awesome, inspirational sight to behold.
I was born 3 weeks after Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence
of a taping system in the White House that likely held evidence of
President Nixon's crimes, and I was born 1 week after the Senate
Watergate Committee, in a bipartisan vote, ordered Nixon to turn over
several key tapes.
Now, my parents were Republicans. My mom is still a Republican. Over
the years, they have voted for a lot of Democrats and Republicans. They
raised me, in the shadow of Watergate, to understand that what mattered
in politics wasn't really someone's party. It was whether you were
honest and decent and if you were pursuing office for the right
reasons.
In the year I was born, this Senate watched a President betray the
Nation, and this Senate--both Democrats and Republicans--stood together
to protect the country from this betrayal. This is exactly what our
Founders envisioned when they gave the Congress the massive
responsibility of the impeachment power. They said to use it sparingly,
to use it not to settle political scores but to use it when a President
has strayed from the bonds of decency and propriety.
The Founders wanted Congress to save the country from bad men who
would try to use the awesome power of the executive branch to enrich
themselves or to win office illicitly, and I grew up under the belief
that, when those bad men presented themselves, this place had the
ability to put aside party and work to protect our fragile democracy
from attack.
This attack on our Republic that we are debating today, if left
unchecked, is potentially lethal. The one sacred covenant that an
American President makes with the governed is to use the massive power
of the executive branch for the good of the country, not for personal
financial or political benefit. The difference between a democracy and
a tin-pot dictatorship is that, here, we don't allow Presidents to use
the official levers of power to destroy political opponents. Yet that
is exactly what President Trump did, and we all know it. Even the
Republicans who are going to vote to acquit him today admit that. If
you think that our endorsement through acquittal will not have an
impact, then, just look at Rudy Giuliani's trip to Ukraine in December,
which was in the middle of the impeachment process. He went back,
looking for more dirt, and the President was ringing him up to get the
details before Giuliani's plane even hit the gate. The corruption
hasn't stopped. It is ongoing. If this is the new normal--the new means
by which a President can consolidate power and try to destroy political
opponents--then we are no longer living in America.
What happened here over the last 2 weeks is as much a corruption as
Trump's scheme was. This trial was simply an extension of Trump's
crimes--no documents, no witnesses. It was the first-ever impeachment
trial in the Senate without either. John Bolton, in his practically
begging to come here and tell his firsthand account of the President's
corruption, was denied--just to make sure that voters couldn't hear his
story in time for them to be able to pressure their Senators prior to
an impeachment vote.
This was a show trial--a gift-wrapped present for a grateful party
leader. We became complicit in the very attacks on democracy that this
body is supposed to guard against. We have failed to protect the
Republic.
What is so interesting to me is that it is not like the Republicans
didn't see this moment coming. In fact, many of my colleagues across
the aisle literally predicted it. Prior to the President's election,
here is what the Republican Senators said about Donald Trump.
One said:

He is shallow. He is ill-prepared to be Commander in Chief.
I think he is crazy. I think he is unfit for office.

Another said:

The man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the
difference between truth and lies.

Yet another Republican Senator said:

What we are dealing with is a con artist. He is a con
artist.

Now, you can shrug this off as election-year rhetoric, but no
Democrat has ever said these kinds of things about a candidate from our
party, and prior to Trump, no Republican had said such things about
candidates from their party either. The truth is the Republicans,
before Trump became the head of their party, knew exactly how dangerous
he was and how dangerous he would be if he won. They knew he was the
archetype of that bad man the Founders intended the Senate to protect
democracy from.
That responsibility seems to no longer retain a position of primacy
in this body today. The rule of law doesn't seem to come first today.
Our commitment to upholding decency and truth and honor is not the
priority today. In the modern Senate today, all that seems to matter is
party. What is different about this impeachment is not that the
Democrats have chosen to make it partisan. It is that the Republicans
have chosen to excuse their party's President's conduct in a way that
they would not have done and did not do 45 years ago. That is what
makes this moment exceptional.
Now, Congressman Schiff, in his closing argument, rightly challenged
the Democrats to think about what we would do if a President of our
party ever committed the same kind of offense that Donald Trump has. I
think it was a very wise query and one that we as Democrats should not
be so quick on the trigger to answer self-righteously.

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Would we have the courage to stand up to our base, to our political
supporters, and vote to remove a Democratic President who had chosen to
trade away the safety of the Nation for political help? It would not be
easy. No, the easy thing to do would be to just do what is happening
today--to box our ears, close our eyes, and just hope the corruption
goes away.
So I have thought a lot about this question over these past 2 days,
and I have come to the conclusion that, at least for me, I would hold
the Democrats to the same standard. I would vote to remove. But I admit
to some level of doubt, and I think that I need to be honest about that
because the pressures today to put party first are real on both sides
of the aisle, and they are much more acute today than they were during
Watergate.
It is with that reality as context that I prepare to vote today. I
believe that the President's crimes are worthy of removal. I will vote
to convict on both Articles of Impeachment.
But I know that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Ours is
an institution built to put country above party, and today we are
doing, often, the opposite. I believe within the cult of personality
that has become the Trump Presidency, the disease is more acute and
more perilous to the Nation's health on the Republican side of the
ledger, but I admit this affliction has spread to all corners of this
Chamber.
If we are to survive as a democracy--a fragile, delicate, constantly
in need of tending democracy--then this Senate needs to figure out a
way after today to reorder our incentive system and recalibrate our
faiths so that the health of one party never ever again comes before
the health of our Nation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The Senator from Utah.
Mr. ROMNEY. Mr. President, the Constitution is at the foundation of
our Republic's success, and we each strive not to lose sight of our
promise to defend it.
The Constitution established a vehicle of impeachment that has
occupied both Houses of our Congress these many days. We have labored
to faithfully execute our responsibilities to it. We have arrived at
different judgments, but I hope we respect each other's good faith.
The allegations made in the Articles of Impeachment are very serious.
As a Senator juror, I swore an oath before God to exercise impartial
justice. I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I
am. I take an oath before God as enormously consequential.
I knew from the outset that being tasked with judging the President--
the leader of my own party--would be the most difficult decision I have
ever faced. I was not wrong.
The House managers presented evidence supporting their case, and the
White House counsel disputed that case.
In addition, the President's team presented three defenses: first,
that there could be no impeachment without a statutory crime; second,
that the Bidens' conduct justified the President's actions; and third,
that the judgment of the President's actions should be left to the
voters. Let me first address those three defenses.
The historic meaning of the words ``high crimes and misdemeanors,''
the writings of the Founders, and my own reasoned judgment convinced me
that a President can indeed commit acts against the public trust that
are so egregious that, while they are not statutory crimes, they would
demand removal from office.
To maintain that the lack of a codified and comprehensive list of all
the outrageous acts that a President might conceivably commit renders
Congress powerless to remove such a President defies reason.
The President's counsel also notes that Vice President Biden appeared
to have a conflict of interest when he undertook an effort to remove
the Ukrainian prosecutor general. If he knew of the exorbitant
compensation his son was receiving from a company actually under
investigation, the Vice President should have recused himself. While
ignoring a conflict of interest is not a crime, it is surely very
wrong.
With regard to Hunter Biden, taking excessive advantage of his
father's name is unsavory but also not a crime.
Given that in neither the case of the father nor the son was any
evidence presented by the President's counsel that a crime had been
committed, the President's insistence that they be investigated by the
Ukrainians is hard to explain other than as a political pursuit. There
is no question in my mind that were their names not Biden, the
President would never have done what he did.
The defense argues that the Senate should leave the impeachment
decision to the voters. While that logic is appealing to our democratic
instincts, it is inconsistent with the Constitution's requirement that
the Senate, not the voters, try the President. Hamilton explained that
the Founders' decision to invest Senators with this obligation rather
than leave it to the voters was intended to minimize to the extent
possible the partisan sentiments of the public at large. So the verdict
is ours to render under our Constitution. The people will judge us for
how well and faithfully we fulfill our duty.
The grave question the Constitution tasks Senators to answer is
whether the President committed an act so extreme and egregious that it
rises to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor. Yes, he did. The
President asked a foreign government to investigate his political
rival. The President withheld vital military funds from that government
to press it to do so. The President delayed funds for an American ally
at war with Russian invaders. The President's purpose was personal and
political. Accordingly, the President is guilty of an appalling abuse
of public trust.
What he did was not ``perfect.'' No, it was a flagrant assault on our
electoral rights, our national security, and our fundamental values.
Corrupting an election to keep one's self in office is perhaps the most
abusive and destructive violation of one's oath of office that I can
imagine.
In the last several weeks, I have received numerous calls and texts.
Many demanded, in their words, that I ``stand with the team.'' I can
assure you that thought has been very much in my mind. You see, I
support a great deal of what the President has done. I have voted with
him 80 percent of the time. But my promise before God to apply
impartial justice required that I put my personal feelings and
political biases aside. Were I to ignore the evidence that has been
presented and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution
demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose
my character to history's rebuke and the censure of my own conscience.
I am aware that there are people in my party and in my State who will
strenuously disapprove of my decision, and in some quarters, I will be
vehemently denounced. I am sure to hear abuse from the President and
his supporters. Does anyone seriously believe that I would consent to
these consequences other than from an inescapable conviction that my
oath before God demanded it of me?
I sought to hear testimony from John Bolton, not only because I
believe he could add context to the charges but also because I hoped
that what he might say could raise reasonable doubt and thus remove
from me the awful obligation to vote for impeachment.
Like each Member of this deliberative body, I love our country. I
believe that our Constitution was inspired by providence. I am
convinced that freedom itself is dependent on the strength and vitality
of our national character.
As it is with each Senator, my vote is an act of conviction. We have
come to different conclusions, fellow Senators, but I trust we have all
followed the dictates of our conscience.
I acknowledge that my verdict will not remove the President from
office. The results of this Senate court will, in fact, be appealed to
a higher court--the judgment of the American people. Voters will make
the final decision, just as the President's lawyers have implored. My
vote will likely be in the minority in the Senate. But irrespective of
these things, with my vote, I will tell my children and their children
that I did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country
expected it of me.
I will only be one name among many--no more, no less--to future
generations of Americans who look at the record of this trial. They
will note merely that I was among the Senators

[[Page S898]]

who determined that what the President did was wrong, grievously wrong.
We are all footnotes at best in the annals of history, but in the
most powerful Nation on Earth, the Nation conceived in liberty and
justice, that distinction is enough for any citizen.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. President, over the past few weeks,
we have heard a lot of arguments, accusations, and anecdotes. Some very
skilled speakers on both sides have presented their case both for and
against impeachment.
I listened intently, hour after hour, day after day, to the House
managers and the President's lawyers, and the word that kept coming to
me, that I kept writing down in my notes was ``fairness'' because, you
see, here in America you are innocent until proven guilty.
As the President's defense team noted, ``[A]t the foundation of those
authentic forms of justice is fundamental fairness. It's playing by the
rules. It's why we don't allow deflated footballs or stealing signs
from the field. Rules are rules. They're there to be followed.''
You can create all the rhetorical imagery in the world, but without
the facts to prove guilt, it doesn't mean a thing. They can say the
President cannot be trusted, but without proving why he can't be
trusted, their words are just empty political attacks.
You can speak of David v. Goliath, but if you were the one trying to
subvert the presumption of innocence, if you were the one to will facts
into existence, you are not David; you have become Goliath.
Our job here in the Senate is to ensure a fair trial based on the
evidence gathered by the House. I have been accused, as have many of my
colleagues, of not wanting that fair trial. The exact opposite is true.
We have ensured a fair trial in the Senate after House Democrats abused
historical precedents in their zeal to impeach a President they simply
do not like.
During prior impeachment proceedings in the last 50 years--lasting
around 75 days or so in the House--the House's opposing party was
allowed witnesses and the ability to cross-examine. This time, House
Republicans were locked out of the first 71 of 78 days. Let me say that
differently. The ability to cross-examine the witnesses who are coming
before the House against the President, the House Republicans and the
President's team were not allowed to cross-examine those witnesses. The
ability to contradict and/or to cross-examine or have a conversation
about the evidence at the foundation of the trial? The White House
counsel and Republicans were not allowed. Think about the concept of
due process. The House Republicans and President's team, were not
allowed for 71 of 78 days in the House. This is not a fair process.
Does that sound fair to you?
Democrats began talking about impeachment within months of President
Trump's election and have made it clear that their No. 1 goal--perhaps
their only goal--has been to remove him from office. Does that sound
fair to you?
They have said: ``We are going to impeach the . . . '' and used an
expletive.
They said: ``We have to impeach him, otherwise he's going to win the
election.'' Now that might be the transparency we have been looking for
in this process--the real root or foundation of why we found ourselves
here for 60 hours of testimony. It might be because, as they said
themselves, if we don't impeach him, he might just win.
What an amazing thought that the American people and not Members of
Congress would decide the Presidency of the United States. What a novel
concept that the House managers and Congress would not remove his name
from the ballot in 2020, but we would allow the American people to
decide the fate of this President and of the Presidency.
They don't get it. They don't understand that the American people
should be and are the final arbiters of what happens. They want to make
not only the President vulnerable, but they want to make Republican
Senators vulnerable so that they can control the majority of the U.S.
Senate because the facts are not winning for them. The facts are
winning for us because when you look at the facts, they are not their
facts and our facts, they are just the facts. What I have learned from
watching the House managers who were very convincing--they were very
convincing the first day--and after that what we realized was, some
facts mixed with a little fiction led to 100 percent deception. You
cannot mix facts and fiction without having the premise of deceiving
the American public, and that is what we saw here in our Chamber.
Why is that the case? It is simple. When you look at the facts of
this Presidency, you come to a few conclusions that are, in fact,
indisputable. One of those conclusions is that our economy is booming,
and it is not simply booming from the top. When you start looking into
the crosstabs, as I like to say, what you find is that the bottom 20
percent are seeing increases that the top 20 percent are not seeing. So
this economy is working for the most vulnerable Americans, and that is
challenging to our friends on the other side.
When you think about the fact that the opportunity zone legislation
supported by this President is bringing $67 billion of private sector
dollars into the most vulnerable communities, that is challenging to
the other side, but those, too, are facts. When you think about the
essence of criminal justice reform and making communities safer and
having a fairer justice system for those who are incarcerated, that is
challenging to the other side, but it is, indeed, a fact, driven home
by the Republican Party and President Donald John Trump. These facts do
have consequences, just like elections.
Our friends on the other side, unfortunately, decided that if they
could not beat him at the polls, give Congress an opportunity to, in
fact, impeach the President. My friends on the left simply don't want a
fair process. This process has lacked fairness. Instead, they paint
their efforts as fighting on behalf of democracy when, in fact, they
are just working on behalf of Democrats. That is not fair. It is not
what the American people deserve.
House managers said over and over again, the Senate had to protect
our Nation's free and fair elections, but they are seeking to overturn
a fairly won election with absurd charges.
The House managers said over and over again that the Senate has to
allow new witnesses so as to make the Senate trial fair, but they
didn't bother with the notion of fairness when they were in charge in
the House.
Their notion of fairness is to give the prosecution do-overs and
extra latitude but not the defendants.
Actions speak louder than words, and the Democrats' actions have said
all we need to hear.
Let's vote no on these motions today and get back to working for the
American people.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, the last time this body--the last time the
Senate--debated the fate of a Presidency in the context of impeachment,
the legendary Senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd, rose and said:

I think my country sinks beneath the yoke. It weeps, it
bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds.

Our country today, as then, is in pain. We are deeply divided, and
most days, it seems to me that we here are the ones wielding the shiv,
not the salve.
The Founders gave this Senate the sole power to try impeachments
because, as Alexander Hamilton wrote: ``Where else than in the Senate
could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or
sufficiently independent?''
I wish I could say with confidence that we here have lived up to the
faith our Founders entrusted in us. Unfortunately, I fear, in this
impeachment trial, the Senate has failed a historic test of our ability
to put country over party.
Foreign interference in our democracy has posed a grave threat to our
Nation since its very founding. James Madison wrote that impeachment
was an ``indispensable'' check against a President who would ``betray
his trust to foreign powers.''
The threat of foreign interference remains grave and real to this
day. It is indisputable that Russia attacked our 2016 election and
interfered in it broadly. President Trump's own FBI Director and
Director of National Intelligence have warned us they are intent

[[Page S899]]

on interfering in our election this coming fall.
So, to my Republican colleagues, I have frankly found it difficult to
understand why you would continue to so fervently support a President
who has repeatedly and publicly invited foreign interference in our
elections.
During his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump looked straight into the
cameras at a press conference and said: Russia, if you're listening, I
hope you're able to find Secretary Clinton's 30,000 emails.
We now know with certainty that Russian military intelligence hackers
first attempted to break into Secretary Clinton's office servers for
the first time that very day. Throughout his campaign, President Trump
praised the publication of emails that Russian hackers had stolen from
his political opponent. He mercilessly attacked former FBI Director
Robert Mueller throughout his investigation into the 2016 election and
allegations of Russian interference.
Now we know, following this trial, that the day after Special Counsel
Mueller testified about his investigation to this Congress, President
Trump, on a phone call with the President of Ukraine, asked for a
favor. He asked President Zelensky to announce an investigation of his
chief political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and he asked
for an investigation into a Russian conspiracy theory about that DNC
server. In the weeks and the months since, he has repeated that Ukraine
should investigate his political opponent and that China should as
well.
During the trial here, after the House managers and President's
counsel made their presentation, Senators had the opportunity to ask
questions. I asked a question of the President's lawyers about a
sentence in their own trial brief that stated: ``Congress has forbidden
foreigners' involvement in American elections.''
I simply asked whether the President's own attorneys believed their
client, President Trump, agrees with that statement, and they refused
to confirm that he does. And how could they when he has repeatedly
invited and solicited foreign interference in our elections?
So, to my colleagues: Do you doubt that President Trump did what he
is accused of? Do you doubt he would do it again? Do you think for even
one moment he would refuse the help of foreign agents to smear any one
of us if he thought it was in his best political interest? And I have
to ask: What becomes of our democracy when elections become a no-holds-
barred blood sport, when our foreign adversaries become our allies, and
when Americans of the opposing party become our enemies?
Throughout this trial, I have listened to the arguments of the House
managers prosecuting the case against President Trump and of the
arguments of counsel defending the President. I engaged with colleagues
on both sides of the aisle and listened to their positions.
The President's counsel have warned us of danger in partisan
impeachments. They have cautioned that abuse of power--the first
article--is a difficult standard to define. They have expressed deep
concern about an impeachment conducted on the brink of our next
Presidential election.
I understand those concerns and even share some of them. The House
managers, in turn, warned us that our President has demonstrated a
perilous willingness to seek foreign interference in our elections and
presented significant evidence that the President withheld foreign aid
from a vulnerable ally, not to serve our national interest but to
attack a political opponent. They demonstrated the President has
categorically obstructed congressional investigations to cover up his
misconduct. These are serious dangers too.
We, then, are faced with a choice between serious and significant
dangers. After listening closely to the evidence, weighing the
arguments, and reflecting on my constitutional responsibility and my
oath to do impartial justice, I have decided today I will vote guilty
on both articles.
I recognize that many of my colleagues have made up their minds. No
matter what decision you have reached, I think it is a sad day for our
country. I myself have never been on a crusade to impeach Donald Trump,
as has been alleged against all Democrats. I have sought ways to work
across the aisle with his administration, but in the years that have
followed his election, I have increasingly become convinced our
President is not just unconventional, not just testing the boundaries
of our norms and traditions, but he is at times unmoored.
Throughout this trial, I have heard from Delawareans who are
frustrated the Senate refused to hear from witnesses or subpoena
documents needed to uncover all the facts about the President's
misconduct. I have heard from Delawareans who fear our President
believes he is above the law and that he acts as if he is the law. I
have also heard from Delawareans who just want us to find a way to work
together.
It is my sincere regret that, with all the time we have spent
together, we could not find common ground at all. From the opening
resolution that set the procedures for trial adopted on a party-line
basis, the majority leader refused all attempts to make this a more
open and more fair process. Every Democrat was willing to have Chief
Justice Roberts rule on motions to subpoena relevant witnesses and
documents. Every Member of the opposing party refused. We could not
even forge a consensus to call a single witness who has said he has
firsthand evidence, who is willing to testify and was even preparing to
appear before us.
When an impeachment trial becomes meaningless, we are damaged and
weakened as a body, and our Constitution suffers in ways not easily
repaired. We have a President who hasn't turned over a single scrap of
paper in an impeachment investigation. Unlike Presidents Nixon and
Clinton before him, who directed their senior advisers and Cabinet
officials to cooperate, President Trump stonewalled every step of this
Congress's impeachment inquiry and then personally attacked those who
cooperated. The people who testified to the House of Representatives in
spite of the President's orders are dedicated public servants and
deserve our thanks, not condemnation.
Where do we go from here? Well, after President Clinton's impeachment
trial, he said: ``This can be and must be a time of reconciliation and
renewal for [our country],'' and he apologized for the harm he had done
to our Nation.
When President Nixon announced his resignation, he said: ``The first
essential is to begin healing the wounds of this Nation.''
I wish President Trump would use this moment to bring our country
together, to assure us he would work to make the 2020 election a fair
contest; that he would tell Russia and China to stay out of our
elections; that he would tell the American people, whoever his opponent
might be, the fight will be between candidates, not families; that if
he loses, he will leave peacefully, in a dignified manner; and that if
he wins, he will work tirelessly to be the President for all people.
But at this point, some might suggest it would be hopelessly naive to
expect of President Trump that he would apologize or strive to heal our
country or do the important work of safeguarding our next election. So
that falls to us.
To my colleagues who have concluded impeachment is too heavy a hammer
to wield, if you believe the American people should decide the fate of
this President in the next election, what will you do to protect our
democracy? What will you do to ensure the American people learn the
truth of what happened so that they can cast informed votes? Will you
cosponsor bills to secure our elections? Will you insist they receive
votes on this floor? Will you express support for the intelligence
community that is working to keep our country safe? Will you ensure
whistleblowers who expose corruption are protected, not vilified? Will
you press this administration to cooperate with investigations and to
allow meaningful accommodations so that Congress can have its power of
oversight? Why can we not do this together?
Each day of this trial, we have said the Pledge of Allegiance to our
common Nation. For my Republican friends who have concluded the voters
should decide President Trump's fate, we need to do more together to
make that possible. Many of my Democratic friends, I know, are poised
to do their very best to defeat President Trump at the ballot box.
So here is my plea--that we would find ways to work together to
defend

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our democracy and safeguard our next election. We have spent more time
together here in the last few weeks than in the last few years. Imagine
if we dedicated that same time to passing the dozens of bipartisan
bills that have come over from the House that are awaiting action.
Imagine what we could accomplish for our States and our country if we
actually tackled the challenges of affordable healthcare and ending the
opioid crisis, making our schools and communities safer, and bridging
our profound disagreements.
What fills me with dread, to my colleagues, is that each day we come
to this floor and talk past each other and not to each other and fail
to help our constituents.
Let me close by paraphrasing our Chaplain--Chaplain Black--whose
daily prayers brought me great strength in recent weeks: May we work
together to bring peace and unity. May we permit Godliness to make us
bold as lions. May we see a clear vision of our Lord's desire for our
Nation and remember we borrow our heartbeats from our Creator each day.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, over the last several months and last
several weeks, the American people have watched Washington convulse in
partisan accusations, investigations, and endless acrimony. That
division reached its high watermark as the U.S. Senate carried out the
third Presidential impeachment trial in our Nation's history.
We saw, over the last 2 weeks, an impeachment process that included
the testimony of 17 witnesses, more than 100 hours of testimony, and
tens of thousands of pages of evidence, records, and documents, which I
successfully fought to make part of the record. I fought hard to extend
the duration of testimony to ensure that each side could be heard over
6 days instead of just 4. But what we did not see over the last 2 weeks
was a conclusive reason to remove the President of the United States--
an act which would nullify the 2016 election and rob roughly half the
country of their preferred candidate for the 2020 elections.

House managers repeatedly stated that they had established
``overwhelming evidence'' and an ``airtight'' case to remove the
President. Yet they also repeatedly claimed they needed additional
investigation and testimony. A case cannot be both ``overwhelming'' and
``airtight'' and yet incomplete at the same time. That contradiction is
not mere semantics.
In their partisan--their partisan--race to impeach, the House failed
to do the fundamental work required to prove its case, to meet the
heavy burden. For the Senate to ignore this deficiency and conduct its
own investigation would weaponize the impeachment power. A House
majority could simply short-circuit an investigation, impeach, and
demand the Senate complete the House's work--what they were asking us
to do.
The Founders were concerned about this very point. Alexander Hamilton
wrote, regarding impeachments: ``[T]here will always be the greatest
danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative
strength of parties, than by real demonstrations of innocence or
guilt.''
More recently, Congressman Jerry Nadler, one of the House managers in
the trial, said:

There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an
impeachment substantially supported by one of our major
political parties and largely opposed by the other. Such an
impeachment will lack legitimacy.

Last March, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: ``Impeachment is so divisive
to the country that unless there's something so compelling and
overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path,
because it divides the country.''
The Framers knew that partisan impeachments could lead to
impeachments over policy disagreements. Legal scholars like Charles
Black have written that policy differences are not grounds for
impeachment. But policy differences about corruption and the proper use
of tax dollars are at the very heart of this impeachment. Nevertheless,
that disagreement led the House to deploy this most serious of
constitutional remedies.
The reason the Framers were concerned about partisan or policy
impeachments was their concern for the American people. Removing a
President disenfranchises the American people. For a Senate of only 100
people, to do that requires a genuine, bipartisan, national consensus.
Here, especially only 9 months before an election, I cannot pretend the
people will accept this body removing a President who received nearly
63 million votes without meeting that high burden.
The House managers' other argument to remove the President--
obstruction of Congress--is an affront to the Constitution. The Framers
created a system of government in which the legislative, executive, and
the judiciary are evenly balanced. The Framers consciously diluted each
branch's power, making all three separate but equal and empowered to
check each other.
The obstruction charge assumes the House is superior to the executive
branch. In their zeal, the House managers would disempower the
judiciary and demand that the House's interpretation of the sole power
of impeachment be accepted by the Senate and the other branches without
question. They claim no constitutional privilege exists to protect the
executive branch against the legislature seeking impeachment. They go
further and claim that a single Justice--a single Justice--exercising
the Senate's sole power to try impeachments, can actually strip the
executive of its constitutional protections with a simple decree.
In Federalist 78, Hamilton wrote: ``[L]iberty can have nothing to
fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from
its union with either of the other departments.''
If the House managers prevail, the House would have destroyed our
constitutional balance, declaring itself the arbiter of constitutional
rights and conscripting the Chief Justice to do it.
To be clear, the executive branch is not immune from legislative
oversight or impeachment and trial, but that cannot come at the expense
of constitutional rights--certainly not without input from the
judiciary. After all, since Marbury v. Madison, ``[i]t is emphatically
the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.'' Without
this separation, nothing stops the House from seeking privileged
information under the guise of an impeachment inquiry.
But the House managers say that no matter how flimsy the House's
case, if the Executive tries to protect that information
constitutionally, that itself is an impeachable offense. That dangerous
precedent would weaken the stability of government--constantly
threatening the President with removal and setting the stage for a
constitutional crisis without recourse to the courts. With that
precedent set, the separation of powers would simply cease to exist.
Over the 244-year history of our country, no President has been
removed from office. The first Presidential impeachment occurred in
1868. The next was more than 100 years later. Now, 50 percent of
Presidents have been impeached in the last 25 years alone. A tool so
rarely used in the past is now being used more frequently. It is a
dangerous development, and the Senate stands as the safeguard as
passions grow even more heated.
These defective articles and the defective process leading to them
allow the House to muddy things and claim we are setting a destructive
precedent for the future.
Of course, bad cases make bad law. The House's decision to short-
circuit the investigation--moving faster than any Presidential
impeachment ever, and a wholly partisan one at that--certainly makes
for a bad case.
So, again, let me be clear about what this precedent does not do. At
the outset, this case does not set the precedent that a President can
do anything as long as he believes it to be in his electoral interest.
I also reject the claim that impeachment requires criminal conduct.
Rather, this shows, first, that House committees cannot simply assume
the impeachment power to compel evidence without express authority from
the full body and corresponding political accountability.
Second, the House should work in good faith with the Executive
through the accommodation process. If that process reaches an impasse,
the House should seek the assistance of the judicial branch before
turning to impeachment.

[[Page S901]]

Finally, when Articles of Impeachment come to the Senate along
partisan lines, when nearly half of the people appear unmoved and
maintain adamant support for the President and when the country is just
months away from an election, in these circumstances, the American
people would likely not accept removing the President, and the Senate
can wisely decline to usurp the people's power to elect their own
President.
It has been said in this trial that the American people cannot make
that decision for themselves. I couldn't disagree more. I believe in
the American people. I believe in the power of our people to evaluate
the President, to make their decision in November, and to move forward
in our enduring effort to form a more perfect union. I do not believe a
Senate nullification of two elections over defective Impeachment
Articles is in the Nation's best interest.
So let's move forward with the people's business and bring this
Nation back together. Let's rise up together, not fight each other. Not
all of us voted for President Trump. Not all of us voted for the last
President or the one before him. Yet we should work to make our Nation
successful regardless of partisan passions. Passion, positively placed,
will provide our Nation with the prosperity it has always been blessed
with. Partisan poison will prove devastating to our Nation's long-term
prosperity.
We must not allow our fractures to destroy our national fabric or
partisanship to destroy our friendships. If we come together, we will
succeed together, for surely we are bound together in this, the great
United States of America.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I entered the Senate in the wake of
Watergate in 1975, a time when the American people's faith in our
institutions was profoundly shaken. The very first vote I cast was in
favor of creating the Select Committee to Study Government Operations
with Respect to Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans--
that is, the Church Committee. Through that Committee's work, the
American public soon learned of years of abuses that had occurred at
the hands of the executive branch's intelligence agencies. In response,
the Senate passed sweeping reforms to rein in this overreach. In many
ways, this represented the best of the Senate: we came together across
party lines to thoroughly investigate, and ultimately curb, gross
executive branch abuses.
The Senate has never been perfect. And much has changed in the 45
years I have served in this body. Yet today we face a similar test:
whether the Senate, in the face of egregious misconduct directed by the
President himself, will rise again to serve as the check on executive
abuses our Founders intended us to be.
But today, and throughout this ``trial,'' we are failing this test
and witnessing the very worst of the modern Senate. After being
confronted with overwhelming evidence of a brazen abuse of executive
power, and an equally brazen attempt to keep that scheme hidden from
Congress and the American people, the Senate is poised to look the
other way. To simply move on. To pretend the Senate has no
responsibility to reveal the President's misconduct and, God forbid,
hold him to account.
Indeed we are being told the Senate has no constitutional role to
play, and only the American people should judge the President's
misconduct in the next election. This is despite the Senate's
constitutionally-mandated role, and despite the fact that the
President's scheme was aimed at cheating in that very election. And now
the Senate is cementing a cover-up of the President's misconduct, to
keep its extent hidden from the American people. How, then, will the
American people be equipped to judge the President's actions? How far
the Senate has fallen.
In some ways, President Nixon's misconduct--directing a break-in of
the Democratic National Committee headquarters to benefit himself
politically--seems quaint compared to what we face today. As charged in
Article I, President Trump secretly directed a sweeping, illegal scheme
to withhold $400 million in military aid from an ally at war in order
to extort that ally into announcing investigations of his political
opponent to boost his re-election. Then, instead of hiding select
incriminating records, as President Nixon did, President Trump
attempted to hide every single record from the American people. As
reflected in Article II, President Trump has the distinction of being
the only president in our nation's history to direct all executive
branch officials not to cooperate with a congressional investigation.
I want to be clear: I did not relish the prospect of an impeachment
trial. I have stark disagreements with this President on issues of
policy and the law, on morality and honesty. But it is for the American
people to judge a president on those matters. Today is not about
differences over policy. It is about the integrity of our elections,
and it is about the Constitution.
The Constitution cannot not protect itself. During this trial, the
words of Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Lincoln have
frequently been invoked on behalf of our Constitution. Now it is our
turn to record our names in defense of our democracy.
In Federalist No. 65, Alexander Hamilton described impeachment as the
remedy for ``the abuse or violation of some public trust.'' Although
that definition has guided the nation for 230 years, President Trump's
counsels would have us rely on a very different definition.
The central arguments presented by the President's defense team were
stunning. The President argues that we cannot convict him because abuse
of power is not impeachable. He can abuse his power to benefit his re-
election, and engage in improper quid pro quos, so long he believes his
re-election is in the national interest. King Louis XIV of France--who
famously declared ``I am the State''--might approve of that reasoning,
but the Senate should condemn it. The President and his attorneys even
argue that a president may welcome and even request foreign governments
to ``dig up dirt'' on their opponents with impunity. Yet not only are
such requests illegal, they violate the very premise of our democracy--
that American elections are decided only by Americans.
The Senate should flatly reject the President's brazen and dangerous
arguments. But an acquittal today will do the opposite. If you believe
that the President's outlandish arguments are irrelevant after today,
and will have no lasting impact on our democracy, remember this: The
President's counsel's claim that abuse of power is not impeachable is
largely--and mistakenly--based on the argument of another counsel,
Justice Benjamin Curtis, defending another president from impeachment,
President Johnson. That was 150 years ago.
What we do today will set a weighty precedent. An acquittal today--
despite the overwhelming evidence of guilt, and following a sham of a
trial--may fundamentally, and perhaps irreparably, distort our system
of checks and balances for another 150 years.
And what a sham trial it was. The fact that this body would not call
a uniquely critical witness who has declared his willingness to
testify, John Bolton, is beyond outrageous. And why? To punish the
House for not taking years to first litigate a subpoena and then
litigate every line of testimony? Or is it because testimony detailing
this corrupt scheme, no matter how damning, would not alter the
Majority Leader's pre-ordained acquittal?
The Senate had a constitutional obligation to try this impeachment
impartially. Yet the Senate willfully blinded itself to evidence that
will soon be revealed. Senate Republicans even defeated a motion merely
to consider and debate whether to seek critical documents and key
witnesses. The notion that the Senate could retain the title of the
``world's greatest deliberative body'' following this charade rings
hollow.
It is often said that history is watching. I expect that's true. But
in this moment we are not merely witnesses to history--we are writing
it. It is ours to shape. And let me briefly describe the dark chapters
we are inscribing in the story of our republic today.
In his farewell address, George Washington warned us that ``foreign
influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.''
Yet, as a candidate, President Trump famously requested that Russia
hack his political

[[Page S902]]

opponent's emails. Hours later, Russia did. The President then
weaponized Russia's criminal influence campaign, which resulted in an
investigation that uncovered a morass of inappropriate contacts with
Russians, lies to cover them up, multiple instances of the President's
obstruction of justice, and 37 other indictments and convictions. Yet,
after the saga concluded, the President felt liberated. Literally the
day after Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified, the President asked
the Ukrainian president ``for a favor.'' He has since publicly repeated
his request for Ukraine to intervene in our election, and made the same
request to China, on national television.
All of us must ask: If we acquit President Trump today, what will he
do tomorrow? None of us knows. But two things I am confident of:
President Trump's willingness to abuse his office, and his eagerness to
exploit foreign interference in our elections, will only grow. And,
crucially, Congress's capacity to do anything about it will be
crippled.
While the President's lawyers stood on the Senate floor and
admonished the House Managers for failing to litigate each subpoena in
court to exhaustion, he had other lawyers in court making the mutually
exclusive argument that Article III courts have no jurisdiction to
settle disputes between our two branches. Such duplicity would put the
two-faced Roman God Janus to shame. Meanwhile, the President's
Department of Justice claims not only that President Trump cannot be
indicted while in office, he cannot even be investigated.
But don't worry, the President's lawyers promise us, the President is
still not above the law because Congress can hold him in check through
our confirmation power and power of the purse. Neither would come close
to checking a lawless executive. It is well known that the President
has effectively stopped nominating senior officials in his
administration. He has now set a modern record for acting cabinet
secretaries. The President has said that he prefers having acting
officials, who bypass Senate scrutiny, because they are easier to
control.
More crucially, with this vote today, we inflict grave damage on our
power of the purse. I am the Vice Chairman of Appropriations, a
Committee on which I have served for 40 years. Members of this
Committee not only write the spending bills, they are the guardians of
this body's power of the purse, granted exclusively to Congress by the
Founders to counter ``all the overgrown prerogatives of the other
branches.'' The Framers, having broken free from the grip of a
monarchy, feared an unchecked executive who would use public dollars
like a king: as a personal slush fund. Yet this is precisely what
President Trump has done.
If we fail to hold President Trump accountable for illegally freezing
congressionally appropriated military aid to extract a personal favor,
what would stop him from freezing disaster aid to states hit by
hurricanes and flooding until governors or home state senators agree to
endorse him? What would stop any future president from holding any part
of the $4.7 trillion budget hostage to their personal whims? The answer
is nothing. We will have relinquished the very check that the Founders
entrusted to us to ensure a president could never behave like a king.
The President's defense team also argued that impeachment is
inappropriate unless it is fully bipartisan. Decades ago, I questioned
whether an impeachment would be accepted if not bipartisan. But this
argument has revealed itself to be painfully flawed. In 1974,
Republicans ultimately convinced President Nixon to resign; in 1999,
Democrats condemned President Clinton's private misconduct and
supported a formal censure. In contrast, with one important exception,
President Trump's supporters have thus far shown no limits in their
tolerance of overwhelming misconduct; they even chased out of their
party a Congressman who stood up to the President. Indeed, a
prerequisite for membership in the Republican Party today appears to be
the belief that he can do no wrong. Under this standard, claiming that
President Trump's impeachment would only be valid if it were supported
by his most unflinching enablers renders the impeachment clause null
and void.
That said, I do understand the immense pressure my Republican friends
are under to support this President. I know well how much easier it is
for me to express my disgust and disappointment that the President has
proven himself so unfit for his office. That is one reason why I feel
it is important to make a commitment right now. If any president,
Republican or Democrat, uses the power of his or her office to extort a
foreign nation to interfere in our elections to do the president's
domestic political bidding, I will support their impeachment and
removal. It is wrong, no matter the party. And we all should say so.
Before I close, I want to thank the brave individuals who shared
their testimony with both the House of Representatives and American
people. Each of these witnesses served this President in his
administration. And they have served their country. They witnessed
misconduct originating in the highest office in world, and they spoke
up. They did not hide behind the President's baseless order not to
cooperate. Most knew that by stepping forward they would be attacked by
the President and some of his vindictive defenders. Yet they came
forward anyway. We owe them our enduring appreciation. They give me
hope for tomorrow.
Yet today is a dark day for our democracy. And what frightens me most
is this: We are currently on a dangerous road, and no one has any idea
where this road will take us. Not one of us here knows. But we all know
our democracy has been indelibly altered.
The notion that the President has learned his lesson is farcical. The
President's lead counsel opened and closed this trial by claiming the
President did nothing wrong. The President himself describes his
actions as ``perfect.'' On 75 separate occasions, including yesterday,
he's claimed he's done nothing wrong. Lord help us if the Senate
agrees. The only lesson the President has learned from this trial is
how easily he can get away with egregious, illegal misconduct.
If the Senate does not recognize the gravity of President Trump's
``violation of the public trust,'' and hold him accountable, we will
have seen but a preview of what is to come. Foreign interference in our
elections. Total noncompliance with lawful congressional oversight.
Disregard of our constitutional power of the purse. Open, flagrant
corruption. I fear there is no bottom.
This is the tragic result of the Senate failing its constitutional
duty to hold a real trial. We will leave President Trump ``sacred and
inviolable'' and with ``no constitutional tribunal to which he is
amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving
the crisis of a national revolution.'' As Hamilton warned over two
centuries ago, that is not a president; that is a king. I, for one,
will not merely ``get over it.''
I have listened very carefully to both sides over the past two weeks.
The record has established, leaving no doubt in my view, that President
Trump directed the most impeachable, corrupt scheme by any president in
this country's history. To protect our constitutional republic, and to
safeguard our government's system of checks and balances, my oath to
our Constitution compels me to hold the President of the United States
accountable.
I will vote to convict and remove President Donald J. Trump from
office.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, over the past 2 weeks, my colleagues and I
have patiently listened to arguments from both the House managers and
the President's counsel right here in the Senate regarding a grave
allegation from the House that the President has committed an act
worthy of impeachment.
As a Senator, I believe that the first and perhaps most important
consideration is whether abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are
impeachable offenses as asserted by our House managers.
Impeachment is a necessary and essential component of our
Constitution. It serves as an important check on civil officers who
commit crimes against the United States. However, our Founding Fathers
were wise to ensure that the impeachment and the

[[Page S903]]

conviction of a sitting President would not be of partisan intent.
Since President Trump took office, many have sought to delegitimize his
Presidency with partisan attacks. We have heard this right here in the
Senate, and we have experienced it. This extreme effort to unseat the
President, I believe, is unjustified and intolerable.
Now that the Senate has heard and studied the arguments from both
sides, I believe the lack of merit in the House managers' case is
evident. The outcome of the impeachment trial is a foregone conclusion.
Acquittal is the judgment the Senate should and, I believe, will
render--and soon.
For my part, I have weighed the House managers' case and found it
wanting in fundamental aspects. I will try to explain.
I believe that their case does not allege an impeachable offense.
Even if the facts are as they have stated, the managers have failed, I
believe, as a matter of constitutional law, to meet the exceedingly
high bar for removal of the President as established by our Founding
Fathers, the Framers of the Constitution.
In their wisdom, the Framers rejected vague grounds for impeachment--
offenses like we have heard here, ``maladministration''--for fear that
it would, in the words of Madison, result in a Presidential ``tenure
during [the] pleasure of the Senate.''
``Abuse of power,'' one of the charges put forward here by the House
managers, is a concept as vague and susceptible to abuse, I believe, as
``maladministration.'' If you take just a minute or two to look at the
definitions of ``abuse'' and ``mal,'' they draw distinct similarities.
``Mal,'' a prefix of Latin origin, means bad, evil, wrong. ``Abuse,''
also of Latin origin, means to wrongly use or to use for a bad effect.
There is a kinship between ``mal'' and ``abuse.''
As the Framers rejected in their wisdom ``maladministration,'' I
believe that they, too, would reject the noncriminal ``abuse of
power.'' Instead, the Framers, as the Presiding Officer knows, provided
for impeachment only in a few limited cases: treason, bribery, and high
crimes and misdemeanors. Only those offenses justify taking the dire
step of removing a duly elected President from office and permanently
taking his name off the ballot.
This institution, the U.S. Senate, I believe, should not lower the
constitutional bar and authorize their theory of impeachment for abuse
of power. It is simply not an impeachable offense, in my judgment.
Their criteria for removal centers not on the President's actions but
on their loose perception of his motivations. If the Senate endorses
this approach, we will dramatically transform the impeachment power as
we have known it over the years. We will forever turn this grave
constitutional power into a tool for adjudicating policy disputes and
political disagreements among all of us. The Framers, in their wisdom,
cautioned us against this dangerous path, and I believe the Senate will
heed their warning.
The other article, the House managers' obstruction of Congress claim,
is similarly flawed. Congress's investigative and oversight powers are
critical tools, and we use them in ensuring our system of checks and
balances. But those powers are not absolute.
The President, too, as head of a coequal branch of government, enjoys
certain privileges and immunities from congressional factfinding. That
is his constitutional right and has been the right of former Presidents
from both parties. The President's mere assertion of privileges and
immunities is not an impeachable offense. Endorsing otherwise would be
unprecedented and would ignore the past practices of administrations of
both parties. Adopting otherwise would drastically undermine the
separation of powers enshrined in our Constitution.
This was not what our Framers intended. Nowhere in the Constitution
or in the Federal statute is abuse of power or obstruction of Congress
listed as a crime--nowhere. What constitutes an impeachable offense is
not left to the discretion of the Congress. We cannot expand, I
believe, on the scope of actions that could be deemed impeachable
beyond that which the Framers intended.
What we really have here, I believe, is nothing more than the abuse
of the power of impeachment itself by the Democratic House. Doesn't our
country deserve better? The President certainly deserves better.
Today I am proud to stand and repudiate those very weak impeachment
efforts, and I will accordingly vote to acquit the President on both
articles.
My hope is that, in the future, Congress will reject this episode
and, instead, choose to be guided by the Constitution and the words
from our Framers.
Basically, I believe it is a time to move on. We know that the
American economy is booming. The United States is projecting strength
and promoting peace abroad. The President is unbowed. I believe the
American people see all of this. At the end of the day, the ultimate
judgment rests in their hands. In my judgment, that is just as it
should be.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant Democratic leader.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Benjamin Franklin knew the strength of our
Constitution, but he also knew its vulnerability. His words, oft
repeated on this floor--``a republic, if you can keep it''--were a
stark warning. Franklin believed every generation could face the
challenge of protecting and defending our Nation's liberty-affirming
document.
We know this personally. Before we can legally serve as Senators, we
must publicly swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of
the United States. A trial of impeachment, more than any other Senate
assignment, tests the oath each one of us takes before the people of
this Nation.
The President's legal team warns us of the danger of impeachment and
conviction. They tell us to think carefully about what the removal of a
duly elected President could mean for our democracy. But if we should
have our eyes wide open to the danger of conviction, we also cannot
ignore the danger of acquittal. The facts of this impeachment are well
known, and many Republicans concede that they are likely true. They
believe as I do, that President Trump pressured the Ukrainian President
by withholding vital military aid and a prized White House visit in
return for the announcement of an investigation of the Bidens and the
Russian-concocted CrowdStrike fantasy.
Some of these same Republicans acknowledge that what the President
did was ``inappropriate.'' At least one has used the word
``impeachable.'' But many say they are still going to vote to acquit
him regardless. So let's open our eyes to the morning after a judgment
of acquittal. Facing a well-established election siege by Russia and
other enemies of the United States, we, the Senate, will have absolved
a President who continues to brazenly invite foreign interference in
our elections. Expect more of the same.
A majority of this body will have voted for the President's argument
that inviting interference by a foreign government is not impeachable
if it serves the President's personal political interests.
We will also have found for the first time in the history of this
Nation that an impeachment proceeding in the Senate can be conducted
without any direct witnesses or evidence presented on either side of
the case and that a President facing impeachment can ignore subpoenas
to produce documents or witnesses to Congress.
Alexander Hamilton described the Senate as the very best venue for an
impeachment trial because it is ``independent and dignified,'' in his
words. When the Senate voted 51 to 49 against witnesses and evidence,
those 51 raised into question any claim to independence or dignity.
In addition, an acquittal will leave the extreme views stated by the
President's defense counsel Alan Dershowitz unchallenged: first, that
abuse of power is not an impeachable offense; second, that the
impeachment charges against the President were constitutionally
insufficient; and, third, his most dangerous theory, that unless the
President has committed an actual crime, his conduct cannot be corrupt
or impeachable as long as he believes it was necessary for his
reelection.
By this logic, Professor Dershowitz would have excused Richard
Nixon's ordering of IRS audits of his political enemies. Mr. Dershowitz
has created an

[[Page S904]]

escape clause to impeachment, which is breathtaking in its impact and
unfounded in our legal history. We have all received a letter signed by
nearly 300 constitutional law scholars flatly rejecting the arguments
offered by the President's defense team.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the scholars'
letter.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

January 31, 2020.
To the United States Senate: The signatories of this letter
are professors of law and scholars of the American
constitution who write to clarify that impeachment does not
require proof of crime, that abuse of power is an impeachable
offense, and that a president may not abuse the powers of his
office to secure re-election, whatever he may believe about
how beneficial his continuance in power is to the country.

Impeachable conduct does not require proof of any crime

Impeachment for ``high Crimes and Misdemeanors'' under
Article II of the U.S. Constitution does not require proof
that a president violated any criminal law. The phrase ``high
Crimes and Misdemeanors'' is a term of art consciously
adopted by the drafters of the American constitution from
Great Britain. Beginning in 1386, the term was frequently
used by Parliament to describe the wide variety of conduct,
much of it non-criminal abuses of official power, for which
British officials were impeached.
The phrase ``high crimes and misdemeanors'' was introduced
into the American constitution by George Mason, who explained
the necessity for expanding impeachment beyond ``treason and
bribery'' by drawing his colleagues' attention to the ongoing
parliamentary impeachment trial of Warren Hastings. Hastings
was charged with a long list of abuses of power that his
articles of impeachment labeled ``high crimes and
misdemeanors,'' but which even his chief prosecutor, Edmund
Burke, admitted were not prosecutable crimes. On George
Mason's motion, the Philadelphia convention wrote into our
constitution the same phrase Parliament used to describe
Hastings' non-criminal misconduct.
No convention delegate ever suggested that impeachment be
limited to violations of criminal law. Multiple founders
emphasized the need for impeachment to extend to plainly non-
criminal conduct. For example, James Madison and George
Nicholas said that abuses of the pardon power should be
impeachable. Edmund Randolph believed that violation of the
foreign emoluments clause would be.
Thus, Alexander Hamilton's famous observation in Federalist
65 that impeachable offenses ``are of a nature which may with
peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate
chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself''
was not merely an advocate's rhetorical flourish, but a well-
informed description of the shared understanding of those who
wrote and ratified the Constitution.
Since ratification, one senator and multiple judges have
been impeached for non-criminal behavior. The first federal
official impeached, convicted, and removed for ``high crimes
and misdemeanors'' was Judge John Pickering, whose offenses
were making bad legal rulings, being drunk on the bench, and
taking the name of the Supreme Being in vain.
Among presidents, the tenth and eleventh articles of
impeachment against President Andrew Johnson charged non-
criminal misconduct. The first and second articles of
impeachment against President Richard Nixon approved by the
House Judiciary Committee allege both criminal and non-
criminal conduct, and the third alleges non-criminal
obstruction of Congress. Indeed, the Nixon House Judiciary
Committee issued a report in which it specifically rejected
the contention that impeachable conduct must be criminal.
The consensus of scholarly opinion is that impeachable
conduct does not require proof of crime.

abuse of power is an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor

It has been suggested that abuse of power is not an
impeachable high crime and misdemeanor. The reverse is true.
The British Parliament invented impeachment as a legislative
counterweight to abuses of power by the Crown and its
ministers. The American Framers inserted impeachment into our
constitution primarily out of concern about presidential
abuse of power. They inserted the phrase ``high crimes and
misdemeanors'' into the definition of impeachable conduct in
order to cover non-criminal abuses of power of the type
charged against Warren Hastings.
As Edmund Randolph observed at the Constitutional
Convention, ``the propriety of impeachments was a favorite
principle with him'' because ``[t]he Executive will have
great opportunities of abusing his power.'' In Federalist 65,
Hamilton defined ``high crimes and misdemeanors'' as ``those
offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or,
in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public
trust.''
This understanding has often been expressed in the ensuing
centuries. For example, in 1926, the House voted to impeach
U.S. District Judge George English. The Judiciary Committee
report on the matter reviewed the authorities and concluded:
Thus, an official may be impeached for offenses of a
political character and for gross betrayal of public
interests. Also, for abuses or betrayals of trusts, for
inexcusable negligence of duty [or] for the tyrannical abuse
of power.
Two of the three prior presidential impeachment crises have
involved charges of abuse of power. The eleventh article of
impeachment against President Andrew Johnson alleged that he
abused his power by attempting to prevent implementation of
reconstruction legislation passed by Congress in March 1867,
and thus violated Article II, Section 3, of the constitution
by failing to ``take care that the laws be faithfully
executed.'' The second article of impeachment against Richard
Nixon charged a litany of abuses of presidential power,
including ``interfering with agencies of the Executive
Branch.''
Even if no precedent existed, the constitutional logic of
impeachment for abuse of presidential power is plain. The
president is granted wide powers under the constitution. The
framers recognized that a great many misuses of those powers
might violate no law, but nonetheless pose immense danger to
the constitutional order. They consciously rejected the idea
that periodic elections were a sufficient protection against
this danger and inserted impeachment as a remedy.
The consensus of scholarly opinion is that abuse of power
is an impeachable ``high crime and misdemeanor.''

A PRESIDENT MAY NOT ABUSE HIS POWERS OF OFFICE TO SECURE HIS OWN RE-
ELECTION

Finally, one of President Trump's attorneys has suggested
that so long as a president believes his re-election is in
the public interest, ``if a president did something that he
believes will help get him elected, in the public interest,
that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in his
impeachment.'' It is true that merely because a president
makes a policy choice he believes will have beneficial
political effects, that choice is not necessarily
impeachable. However, if a President employs his powers in a
way that cannot reasonably be explained except as a means of
promoting his own reelection, the president's private
conviction that his maintenance of power is for the greater
good does not insulate him from impeachment. To accept such a
view would be to give the president carte blanche to corrupt
American electoral democracy.
Distinguishing between minor misuses of presidential
authority and grave abuses requiring impeachment and removal
is not an exact science. That is why the Constitution assigns
the task, not to a court, but to Congress, relying upon its
collective wisdom to assess whether a president has committed
a ``high crime and misdemeanor'' requiring his conviction and
removal.

SIGNATORIES

Frank O. Bowman, III; Michael Gerhardt; Laurence H. Tribe;
Brenda Wineapple; Timothy Naftali; Neal Kumar Katyal; Pamela
S. Karlan; Noah Feldman; Jack M. Balkin; David A. Strauss;
Martha Minow; Geoffrey R. Stone; Walter Dellinger; Charles
Fried; Erwin Chemerinsky.
Paul Butler; Ralph G. Steinhardt; Dawn Johnsen; Sanford
Levinson; John Mikhail; Michael C. Dorf; Julie R. O'Sullivan;
Girardeau A. Spann; Richard Primus; Corey Brettschneider;
Victoria Nourse; Robin West; Abbe Smith; James V. Feinerman;
Jane M. Spinak, Esq.
Peter L. Strauss; Jeffrey Fagan; Ira C. Lupu; David C.
Vladeck; Eric M. Freedman; Carol L. Chomsky; Jennifer Taub;
Naomi R. Cahn; Stephen I. Vladeck; Jed Shugerman; Ilya Somin;
Michael Diamond; Paul Litton; Charles G. Geyh; Prof. Joshua
Schwartz.
Alan B. Morrison; Deborah Epstein; Dale A. Whitman; Rodney
J. Uphoff; Barry Friedman; Greer Donley; Justin Levitt;
Barbara A. Atwood; Daniel J. Steinbock; Samantha Buckingham;
Maxwell Stearns; Lauren E. Willis; Kirsten Matoy Carlson;
Steven Alan Childress; Liz Ryan Cole.
Florence Wagman Roisman; Margo Kaplan; Mark A. Graber;
Sally Goldfarb; Carli N. Conklin; Kandice Johnson; Jeffrey O.
Cooper; John Lande; Mary M. Beck; Benjamin G. Davis; Randy
Diamond; Melanie DeRousse; Gerald S. Dickinson; Laura Rovner;
J. Amy Dillard; Martha Albertson Fineman; Nancy Ota; Ann F.
Thomas.
Prof. Dr. Jennifer A. Drobac; Cynthia Matson Adams; Denise
Platfoot Lacey, Esq.; David A. Fischer; Ann E. Freedman;
Michael A. Middleton; S. David Mitchell; Lance Gable; Julie
Goldscheid; Stuart Green; Alan K. Chen; Christopher
Hawthorne.
Joshua Aaron Jones, JD, LL.M.; David R. Katner; Nicole B.
Godfrey; Stefan H. Krieger; Sarah Lamdan; Laurie L. Levenson;
Ann E. Tweedy; Caroline Mala Corbin; Nicole K. McConlogue;
David S. Cohen; Perry Dane; Stephen Meili.
James May; Nancy Ota; Catherine J. Ross; April Dawson;
Professor Laura J. Hines; Jane C. Murphy; John T. Nockleby;
Professor Nancy Levit; Jonathan Oberman; Michele Gilman;
Katherine A. Perez; Stephen Loffredo; William D. Rich.
Joyce Saltalamachia; Dveera Segal; Liz Ryan Cole; Ann
Shalleck; Kate Shaw; Earl Singleton; Keith Werhan; Mary B.
Culbert; Robert Calhoun; Christine Minhee; Nancy Chi
Cantalupo; Professor Steven Zeidman; Kathleen Kim; Professor
Lisa Kelly; Alan Saltzman.
Prof. Karl Manheim; Jeffrey M. Feldman; Leah M Litman;
Elliott Milstein; Prof. Deborah A Ramirez; Stacy Hawkins;
Jeffrey T.

[[Page S905]]

Renz; Mary Crossley; Barbara S. Barron; Ira P. Robbins; Clark
B. Lombardi, JD, PhD; Penny M. Venetis; Michael Lawrence;
Joanna L. Grossman; Theo Liebmann.
Paul L. Tractenberg; Mikah K. Thompson; Professor Vernon
Valentine Palmer; Barbara Stark; Anya Bernstein; Ruti Teitel;
William D. Araiza; Lauren Gilbert, Esq.; Christopher E.
Czerwonka; James May; Kimberly West-Faulcon; Natalie Gomez-
Velez; Phyllis Goldfarb; Rachel Van Cleave; Arnold Rochvarg;
Lindsey Webb.
Ethan J. Leib; Carlton F.W. Larson; Natalie M. Chin; Heidi
K. Brown; Elizabeth McCormick; Bernard P. Perlmutter, Esq.;
Robert St. Martin Westley; John Burkoff; David Rudenstine;
Inge M. Van der Cruysse; James Levin; Babe Howell; Robert
Knowles; Yvonne Lindgren; Mae Kuykendall.
Marie A. Failinger; Katherine Mattes; Rebecca L. Brown;
David B. Cruz; Christoph Henkel; Jim Rowan; Elizabeth B.
Cooper; Debra Bechtel; Cornell Clayton; Paul Barron; Allie
Robbins; Wanda M. Temm; Jean C. Love; Rosemary Salomone;
Rachel Vorspan; Beryl Blaustone.
Susan Etta Keller; Tom I. Romero, II J.D., Ph.D.; Prof. Dr.
Frank Emmert, LL.M., FCIArb; Kiel Brennan-Marquez; Marcy
Strauss; David A. Harris; Catherine M. Grosso; Lissa Griffin;
Steven Mulroy; William W. Berry III; Richard D. Friedman;
Anthony M. Dillof; Leslie Rose; Arthur B. Lafrance; Pamela R.
Metzger.
Eric J. Miller; Marianne Wesson; Stephen F. Smith;
Professor Mark A. Dotson; Donna Coker; Janet Dolgin; Lynda G.
Dodd, J.D., Ph.D.; David B. Wexler; Prof. Deborah A Ramirez;
Ric Simmons; Matthew R. Hall; Miriam R. Albert; Jennifer A.
Gundlach; Michael M. O'Hear.
Robert Westley; Lolita Buckner Inniss; Margie Paris; Amy T.
Campbell; Prof. Bruce A. Boyer; Fabio Arcila, Jr.; Michael L.
Perlin, Esq.; Vincent M. Southerland; Robert M. Sanger;
Cynthia Godsoe; Caren Morrison; Daniel JH Greenwood; Paula C.
Johnson; Michael H. Hoffheimer.
Jenia I. Turner; Ben Trachtenberg; Catherine Powell; Ruth-
Arlene W. Howe; Charisa Kiyo Smith, Esq.; Dana Alicia
Thompson; Mark C. Modak-Truran, J.D., Ph.D.; Professor Irma
S. Russell; Nicholas W. Allard; Sarah E. Ricks; Daniel
Farber; M. Isabel Medina; Evan Caminker; Miguel Schor; Nina
Chernoff.
Rashmi Goel; Barbara Ann White; Monica Eppinger; Jimmy
Gurule; Odeana R. Neal; Gabriel J. Chin; Margaret Montoya,
J.D.; Anil Kalhan; Rebecca K. Stewart; Anthony Paul Farley;
Sahar Aziz; Jaya Ramji-Nogales; Amy Widman; Perry Dane; Maya
Manian.
Amanda Leiter; Paula Galowitz; Jesse A. Goldner; Anthony
Paul Farley; Elizabeth Nevins; Rick Wilson; Prof. Jonathan
Askin; James R. Maxeiner; Genevieve Byrne; Daniel L. Hatcher;
Fred B. Brown; Joseph Pileri; David Jaros; Mark N. Aaronson.
Sonia Gipson Rankin; Richard C. Reuben; Sam Erman; Katy
Ramsey; Janet M. Calvo; R. Wilson Freyermuth; Sarah Helene
Duggin; Danaya C. Wright; Charles S. Bobis; Kim D. Ricardo;
James Gray Pope; Chuck Henson; George W. Conk, M.A., J.D.

Mr. DURBIN. Yet a verdict of acquittal by the Senate blesses the
professor's torturous reasoning. An acquittal verdict would also give
President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani a pat on the back to
continue his global escapades, harassing American Ambassadors whose
service he distrusts, and lounging at European cigar bars with an
entourage of post-Soviet amigos.
More than anything, a verdict of acquittal says a majority of the
Senate believes this President is above the law and cannot be held
accountable for conduct abusing the powers of his office. And make no
mistake, this President believes that is true.
On July 23--2 days before his phone call with President Zelensky--
President Trump spoke to a group of young supporters and he said: ``I
have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as
president.''
This is the dangerous principle that President Trump and his lawyers
are asking us, with a verdict of acquittal, to accept. Under the oath I
have sworn, I cannot.
What does it say of this Congress and our Nation that in 3 years, we
have become so anesthetized to outrage that, for a majority in this
Senate, there is nothing--nothing--this President can do or say that
rises to the level of blushworthy, let alone impeachable?
Nearly 6 years ago, I traveled to Ukraine with a bipartisan group of
Senate colleagues led by John McCain. It was one of John's whirlwind
visits where we crammed 5 days' worth of meetings into 48 hours. We
arrived in Kyiv on March 14, 2014. It was bitterly cold. Ukrainians had
just ousted a corrupt, Russian-backed leader who looted the national
treasury and hollowed out their nation's military. They had done so by
taking to the streets, risking their lives for democracy and a better
future. More than 100 ordinary citizens in Kyiv had been killed by
security forces of the old government simply because they were
protesting for democracy.
Seeing Ukraine in a fragile democratic transition, Vladimir Putin
pounced on them, ordered an invasion and occupied Crimea. Putin and his
thinly disguised Russian thugs were on the verge of seizing Donetsk in
the east.
I asked the Prime Minister what Ukraine needed to defend itself. He
said:

Everything. We don't have anything that floats, flies or
runs.

Many may not appreciate how devastating Russia's war on Ukraine has
been to that struggling young democracy. Their costly battle with
Russia was for a principle that is really basic to America's national
security as well.
In a country with one-eighth of our population, more Ukrainian troops
have died defending Ukraine from Russia than American troops have
perished in Afghanistan.
During the months President Trump illegally withheld military aid, as
many as two dozen Ukrainian soldiers were killed in battle. By
withholding security aid from Ukraine for President Trump's personal
political benefit, he endangered the security of a fragile democracy.
Can there be any deeper betrayal of a President's responsibility than
to endanger our national security and the security of an ally for his
own personal political gain?
And to those of my colleagues who describe the President's conduct as
merely ``inappropriate,'' I disagree. Disparaging John McCain's service
to our country is disgusting and inappropriate. What this President has
done to Ukraine crosses that line. It is impeachable.
I will close by remembering two public servants who, like us, were
called by history to judge a President. Tom Railsback passed away as
this impeachment proceeding began. He was 2 days shy of his 88th
birthday. I knew Tom. I considered him a friend.
In 1974, Tom was a Republican Congressman from Moline, IL, and a
member of the House Judiciary Committee. He regarded President Nixon as
a political friend. He believed that Richard Nixon had achieved much
for America, including the opening of the door to China.
After studying the Watergate evidence closely, Congressman Railsback
came to believe that Richard Nixon had violated the Constitution. When
President Nixon refused to turn over records and recordings requested
by Congress, Tom Railsback took to the House floor to say: ``If the
Congress doesn't get the material we think we need and then votes to
exonerate, we'll be regarded as a paper tiger.''
When he voted to impeach President Nixon, Tom believed it was
probably the end of his career, but he was elected four more times. To
his dying day, Tom Railsback was proud of his vote. He voted for his
country above his party.
Bill Cohen--also a Republican--was a freshman Congressman at the time
and a member of the House Judiciary Committee. He studied the evidence
with Tom Railsback and then worked with him to draft Articles of
Impeachment.
Bill Cohen received death threats, and he thought his votes to
impeach President Nixon would be the end of his political career. But
he went on to a distinguished career in the House, three terms in the
Senate, and served as Secretary of Defense.
Listen to what Bill Cohen said recently of President's Trump's
actions:

This is presidential conduct that you want to be ashamed
of. He is corrupting institutions, politicizing the military,
and acts like he is THE law.

And then Cohen added:

If [the President's conduct] is acceptable, we really don't
have a Republic as we've known it any more.

May I respectfully say to my Senate colleagues, Ben Franklin warned
us of this day.
I will vote guilty on both Articles of Impeachment against President
Donald John Trump, on article I abuse of power and article II
obstruction of Congress. But at this moment of high constitutional
drama, I hope my last words can be a personal appeal to my Senate
colleagues.
Last night, many of us attended a State of the Union Address which
was as emotionally charged as any I have

[[Page S906]]

ever attended. As divided as our Nation may be and as divided as the
Senate may be, we should remember America has weathered greater storms
than this impeachment and our current political standoff.
It was Abraham Lincoln, in the darkness of our worst storm, who
called on us ``to strive on to finish the work we are in, to work to
bind the nation's wounds.''
After this vote and after this day, those of us who are entrusted
with this high office must each do our part to work to bind the wounds
of our divided nation. I hope we can leave this Chamber with that
common resolve.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, let me just begin with a note of optimism.
You are going to get to pick the next President, not a bunch of
politicians driven by sour grapes. I don't say that lightly. I didn't
vote for President Trump. I voted for somebody I wouldn't know if they
walked in the door. But I accepted the fact that he won. That has been
hard for a lot of people to do. And it is not like I am above the
President being investigated.
I supported the Mueller investigation. I had Democratic colleagues
come to me and say: We are afraid he is going to fire Mueller. Will you
stand with us to make sure Mueller can complete his investigation? And
I did--2 years, $32 million, FBI agents, subpoenas, you name it. The
verdict is in. What did we find? Nothing. I thought that would be it.
But it is never enough when it comes to President Trump. This sham
process is the low point in the Senate for me. If you think you have
done the country a good service by legitimizing this impeachment
process, what you have done is unleashed the partisan forces of Hell.
This is sour grapes.
They impeached the President of the United States in 78 days. You
cannot get a parking ticket, if you contested it, in 78 days. They gave
out souvenir pens when it was over.
If you can't see through that, your hatred of Donald Trump has
blinded you to the obvious. This is not about protecting the country;
this is about destroying the President.
There are no rules when it comes to Donald Trump. Everybody in
America can confront the witnesses against them, except Donald Trump.
Everybody in America can call witnesses on their behalf, except
President Trump. Everybody in America can introduce evidence, except
for President Trump. He is not above the law, but you put him below the
law. In the process of impeaching this President, you have made it
almost impossible for future Presidents to do their job.
In 78 days, you took due process, as we have come to know it in
America, and threw it in the garbage can. This is the first impeachment
in the history of the country driven by politicians.
The Nixon impeachment had outside counsel, Watergate prosecutors. The
Clinton impeachment had Ken Starr, who looked at President Clinton for
years before he brought it to Congress. The Mueller investigation went
on for 2 years. I trusted Bob Mueller. And when he rendered his
verdict, it broke your heart. And you can't let it go.
The only way this is going to end permanently is for the President to
get reelected. And he will.
So as to abuse of Congress, it is a wholesale assault on the
Presidency; it is abandoning every sense of fairness that every
American has come to expect in their own lives; it is driven by blind
partisanship and hatred of the man himself. And they wanted to do it in
78 days. Why? Because they wanted to impeach him before the election. I
am not making this up. They said that.
The reason the President never was allowed to go to court and
challenge the subpoenas that were never issued is because the House
managers understood it might take time. President Clinton and President
Nixon were allowed to go to article III court and contest the House's
action. That was denied this President because it would get in the way
of impeaching him before the election.
And you send this crap over here, and you are OK with it, my
Democratic colleagues. You are OK with the idea that the President was
denied his day in court, and you were going to rule on executive
privilege as a political body. You are willing to deal out the article
III court because you hate Trump that much.
What you have done is you have weakened the institution of the
Presidency. Be careful what you wish for because it is going to come
back your way.
Abuse of Congress should be entitled ``abuse of power by the
Congress.'' If you think Adam Schiff is trying to get to the truth, I
have a bridge I want to sell you. These people hate Trump's guts. They
rammed it through the House in a way you couldn't get a parking ticket,
and they achieved their goal of impeaching him before the election.
The Senate is going to achieve its goal of acquitting him in
February. The American people are going to get to decide in November
whom they want to be their President.
Acquittal will happen in about 2 hours; exoneration comes when
President Trump gets reelected because the people of the United States
are fed up with this crap. But the damage you have done will be long-
lasting.
Abuse of power. You are impeaching the President of the United States
for suspending foreign aid for a short period of time that they
eventually received ahead of schedule to leverage an investigation that
never happened. You are going to remove the President of the United
States for suspending foreign aid to leverage an investigation of a
political opponent that never occurred. The Ukrainians did not know of
the suspension until September. They didn't feel any pressure. If you
are OK with Joe Biden and Hunter Biden doing what they did, it says
more about you than it does anything else. The point of the abuse of
power article is that you made it almost impossible now for any
President to pick up the phone, if all of us can assume the worst and
impeach somebody based on this objective standard. He was talking about
corruption in the Ukraine with a past President.

And the Bidens' conduct in the Ukraine undercut our ability to
effectively deal with corruption by allowing his son to receive $3
million from the most corrupt gas company in the Ukraine. Can you
imagine how the Ukrainian Parliamentarian must have felt to be lectured
by Joe Biden about ending sweetheart deals?
What you have done is impeached the President of the United States
and willing to remove him because he suspended foreign aid for 40 days
to leverage an investigation that never occurred.
And to my good friend Dick Durbin, Donald Trump has done more to help
the Ukrainian people than Barack Obama did in his entire 8 years. If
you are looking for somebody to help the Ukrainian people fight the
Russians, how about giving them some weapons?
This is a sham. This is a farce. This is disgusting. This is an
affront to President Trump as a person. It is a threat to the office.
It will end soon. There is going to be an overwhelming rejection of
both articles. We are going to pick up the pieces and try to go
forward.
But I can say this without any hesitation: I worry about the future
of the Presidency after what has happened here. Ladies and gentlemen,
you will come to regret this whole process.
And to those who have those pens, I hope you will understand history
will judge those pens as a souvenir of shame.
Mr. President, this is my second Presidential impeachment. My first
was as a House manager for the impeachment of President Clinton. I
believe President Clinton corruptly interfered in a lawsuit filed
against him by a private citizen alleging sexual assault and
misconduct. It was clear to me that President Clinton tampered with the
evidence, suborned perjury, and tried to deny Paula Jones her day in
court. I believed then and continue to believe now that these criminal
acts against a private citizen by President Clinton were wholly
unacceptable and should have cost him his job. However, at the end of
the Clinton impeachment, I accepted the conclusions of the Senate and
said that a cloud had been removed from the Presidency, and it was time
to move on.
During the Clinton impeachment, I voted against one Article of
Impeachment that related to lying under oath regarding his sexual
relationship with

[[Page S907]]

Monica Lewinsky. While the conduct covered by that article was
inappropriate, to have made such conduct impeachable would have done
grave damage to the Presidency by failing to recognize that, in the
future, the office will be occupied by flawed human beings. It was
obvious to me that President Clinton's lying under oath about his
relationship with Monica Lewinsky, while wrong, was not a high crime or
misdemeanor and that many people in similar circumstances would be
inclined to lie to protect themselves and their families.
As to the impeachment of President Trump, I feel compelled to condemn
the impeachment process used in the House because I believe it was
devoid of basic, fundamental due process. The process used in the House
for this impeachment was unlike that used for Presidents Nixon or
Clinton. This impeachment was completed within 78 days and had a spirit
of partisanship and revenge that if accepted by the Senate will lead to
the weaponization of impeachment against future presidents.
President Trump was entirely shut out of the evidence gathering stage
in the House Intelligence Committee, denied the right to counsel, and
the right to cross-examine and call witnesses. Moreover, the great
volume of evidence gathered against President Trump by the House
Intelligence Committee consists of inadmissible hearsay. The House
Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings were, for lack of a better
term, a sham. And most importantly, the House managers admitted the
reason that neither the House Intelligence Committee nor the House
Judiciary Committee sought testimony in the House from President
Trump's closest advisers, including former National Security Adviser
John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Acting Chief of Staff
Mick Mulvaney, is because it would have required the House to go to
court, impeding their desire to impeach the President before the
election. It was a calculated decision to deal article III courts out
of President Trump's impeachment inquiry due to a political timetable.
The Senate must send a clear message that this can never, ever happen
again.
As to the substance of the allegations against President Trump, the
abuse of power charge as defined by the House is vague, does not allege
criminal misconduct, and requires the Senate to engage in a subjective
analysis of the President's motives and actions. The House managers
argued to the Senate that the sole and exclusive purpose of freezing
aid to Ukraine was for the private, political benefit of President
Trump. It is clear to me that there is ample evidence--much more than a
mere scintilla--that the actions of Hunter Biden and Vice President
Biden were inappropriate and undercut American foreign policy.
Moreover, there was evidence in the record that officials in Ukraine
were actively speaking against Candidate Trump and were pulling for
former Secretary of State Clinton. Based on the overwhelming amount of
evidence of inappropriate behavior by the Bidens and statements by
State Department officials about certain Ukrainians' beliefs that one
American candidate would be better than the other, I found it eminently
reasonable for the President to be concerned about Ukraine corruption,
election interference, and the behavior of Vice President Biden and his
son Hunter. It is hard to believe that Vice President Biden was an
effective messenger for reform efforts in Ukraine while his son Hunter
was receiving $3 million from Burisma, one of Ukraine's most corrupt
companies.
As Professor Dershowitz described, there are three buckets for
examining allegations of corrupt motive or action with regards to
impeachment. The first is where there is clearly only a public,
national benefit, as in the analogy of freezing aid to Israel unless it
stops building new settlements. The second is the mixed motive category
in which there is a public benefit--in this case, the public benefit of
exposing the Bidens' conduct in the Ukrainian energy sector--and the
possibility of a personal, political benefit as well. The third is
where there is clearly a pure corrupt motive, as when there is a
pecuniary or financial benefit, an allegation that has not been made
against President Trump.
It is obvious to me that, after the Mueller report, President Trump
viewed the House impeachment inquiry as a gross double standard when it
comes to investigations. The House launched an investigation into his
phone call with President Zelensky while at the same time the House
showed no interest in the actions of Vice President Biden and Hunter
Biden. The President, in my view, was justified in asking the
Ukrainians to look into the circumstances surrounding the firing of
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating
Burisma, and whether his termination benefited Hunter Biden and
Burisma.
It is clear to me that the phone call focused on burden-sharing,
corruption, and election interference in an appropriate manner. The
most vexing question was how the President was supposed to deal with
these legitimate concerns. The House managers in one moment suggest
that President Trump could not have asked the Attorney General to
investigate these concerns because that would be equivalent to
President Trump asking for an investigation of a political rival. But
in the next moment, the House managers declare that the proper way for
President Trump to have dealt with those allegations would have been to
ask the Attorney General to investigate. They cannot have it both ways.
I believe that it is fair to criticize President Trump's overreliance
on his private attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to investigate alleged
corruption and conflicts of interest regarding the Bidens and Burisma.
However, I do not find this remotely an impeachable offense, and it
would be beneficial for the country as a whole to find ways to deal
with such matters in the future.
Assuming the facts in the light most favorable to the House managers,
that for a period of time the aid was suspended by President Trump to
get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and election interference, I find
both articles fail as nonimpeachable offenses. I find this to be the
case even if we assume the New York Times article about Mr. Bolton is
accurate. The Ukrainians received the military aid and did not open the
requested investigation.

The abuse of power Article of Impeachment is beyond vague and
requires a subjective analysis that no Senator should have to engage
in. It also represents an existential threat to the Presidency.
Moreover, the obstruction of Congress article is literally impeaching
the President because he chose to follow the advice of White House
counsel and the Department of Justice and he was willing to use
constitutional privileges in a manner consistent with every other
President. This article must be soundly rejected, not only in this
case, but in the future. Whether one likes President Trump or not, he
is the President with privileges attached to his office.
The House of Representatives, I believe, abused their authority by
rushing this impeachment and putting the Senate in the position of
having to play the role of an article III court. The long term effect
of this practice would be to neuter the Presidency, making the office
of the President only as strong as the House will allow.
The allegations contained in this impeachment are not what the
Framers had in mind as high crimes or misdemeanors. The Framers, in my
view, envisioned serious, criminal-like misconduct that would shake the
foundation of the American constitutional system. The Nixon impeachment
had broad bipartisan support once the facts became known. The Clinton
impeachment started with bipartisan support in the House and ended with
bipartisan support in the Senate, even though it fell well short of the
two-thirds vote requirement to remove the President. In the case of
President Trump, this impeachment started as a partisan affair with
bipartisan rejection of the Articles of Impeachment in the House and,
if not rejected in the Senate, will lead to impeachment as almost an
inevitability, as future Presidents will be subject to the partisan
whims of the House in any given moment.
My decision to vote not guilty on both Articles of Impeachment, I
hope, will be seen as a rejection of what the House did and how they
did it. I firmly believe that article III courts have a role in the
impeachment process and that, to remove a President from office, the
conduct has to be of a nature

[[Page S908]]

that would shake the very foundation of our constitutional system. The
impeachment of President Trump was driven by a level of partisanship
and ends justify the means behavior that the American people have
rejected. The best way to end this matter is to allow the American
people to vote for or against President Trump in November, not to
remove him from the ballot.
These Articles of Impeachment must be soundly rejected by the Senate
because they represent an assault on the Presidency itself and the
weaponization of impeachment as a political tool. They must fail for a
variety of reasons. First, the conduct being alleged by House managers
is that there was a temporary suspension on military assistance to
Ukraine, which was eventually received ahead of schedule to leverage an
investigation that never occurred. This is not the constitutional
earthquake the Founders had in mind regarding bribery, treason, or
other high crimes and misdemeanors. Second, the articles as drafted do
not allege any semblance of a crime and require the Senate to make a
subjective analysis of the President's motives. Third, the record is
abundant with evidence that the President had legitimate concerns about
corruption, election interference emanating from the Ukraine, and that
Vice President Biden and his son undercut U.S. efforts to reform
corruption inside Ukraine.
The second article, alleging obstruction of Congress, is literally
punishing the President for exercising the legal rights available to
all Presidents as part of our constitutional structure. This article
must fail because the House chose their impeachment path based on a
political timetable of impeaching the President before Christmas to set
up an election year trial in the Senate. The Senate must reject the
theory offered by the House managers with regard to obstruction of
Congress; to do otherwise would allow the House in the future to deal
article III courts out of the impeachment process and give the House
complete control over the impeachment field in a way that denies
fundamental fairness.
Because it took the House 78 days from start to finish to impeach the
President of the United States and, during its fact-gathering process,
the House denied the President the right to counsel, to cross-examine
witnesses against him, and the ability to introduce evidence on his
behalf, the Senate must reject both Articles of Impeachment.
I am compelled to vote not guilty, to ensure impeachment will not
become the new normal.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the Articles of Impeachment before us
charged President Donald John Trump with offenses against the
Constitution and the American people.
The first Article of Impeachment charges that President Trump abused
the Office of the Presidency by soliciting the interference of a
foreign power, Ukraine, to benefit himself in the 2020 election. The
President asked a foreign leader to ``do us a favor''--``us'' meaning
him--and investigate his political opponents.
In order to elicit these political investigations, President Trump
withheld a White House meeting and hundreds of millions of dollars in
military assistance from an ally at war with Russia. There is extensive
documentation in the record proving this quid pro quo and the corrupt
motive behind it. The facts are not seriously in dispute. In fact,
several Republican Senators admitted they believe the President
committed this offense with varying degrees of ``inappropriate,''
``wrong,'' ``shameful.'' Almost all Republicans will argue, however,
that this reprehensible conduct does not rise to the level of an
impeachable offense.
The Founders could not have been clearer. William Davie, a delegate
to the Constitutional Convention, deemed impeachment ``an essential
security,'' lest the President ``spare no efforts or means whatever to
get himself reelected.''
James Madison offered a specific list of impeachable offenses during
a debate in Independence Hall:
A President ``might lose his capacity'' or embezzle public funds.
``A despicable soul might even succumb to bribes while in office.''
Madison then arrived at what he believed was the worst conduct a
President could engage in: the President could ``betray his trust to
foreign powers,'' which would be ``fatal to the Republic.'' Those are
Madison's words.
When I studied the Constitution and the Federalist Papers in high
school, admittedly, I was skeptical of George Washington's warning that
``foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican
government.'' It seemed so far-fetched. Who would dare? But the
foresight and wisdom of the Founders endure. Madison was right.
Washington was right.
There is no greater subversion of our democracy than for powers
outside of our borders to determine elections within them. If Americans
believe that they don't determine their Senator, their Governor, their
President, but, rather, some foreign potentate does, that is the
beginning of the end of democracy.
For a foreign country to attempt such a thing on its own is
contemptible. For an American President to deliberately solicit such a
thing--to blackmail a foreign country into helping him win an
election--is unforgivable.
Does this rise to the level of an impeachable offense? Of course it
does. Of course it does. The term ``high crimes'' derives from English
law. ``Crimes'' were committed between subjects of the monarchy. ``High
crimes'' were committed against the Crown itself. The Framers did not
design a monarchy; they designed a democracy, a nation where the people
were King. High crimes are those committed against the entire people of
the United States.
The President sought to cheat the people out of a free and fair
election. How could such an offense not be deemed a high crime--a crime
against the people? As one constitutional scholar in the House
Judiciary hearings testified: ``If this is not impeachable, nothing
is.'' I agree.
I judge that President Trump is guilty of the first Article of
Impeachment.
The second Article of Impeachment is equally straightforward. Once
the President realized he got caught, he tried to cover it up. The
President asserted blanket immunity. He categorically defied
congressional subpoenas, ordered his aides not to testify, and withheld
the production of relevant documents.
Even President Nixon, author of the most infamous Presidential
coverup in history, permitted his aides to testify in Congress in the
Watergate investigation. The idea that the Trump administration was
properly invoking the various rights and privileges of the Presidency
is nonsense. At each stage of the House inquiry, the administration
conjured up a different bad-faith justification for evading
accountability. There is no circumstance under which the administration
would have complied.

When I asked the President's counsel twice to name one document or
one witness the President provided to Congress, they could not answer.
It cannot be that the President, by dint of legal shamelessness, can
escape scrutiny entirely.
Once again, the facts are not in dispute, but some have sought to
portray the second Article of Impeachment as somehow less important
than the first. It is not. The second Article of Impeachment is
necessary if Congress is to ever hold a President accountable--again,
Democratic or Republican. The consequences of sanctioning such
categorical obstruction of Congress will be far-reaching, and they will
be irreparable.
I judge that President Trump is guilty of the second Article of
Impeachment.
The Senate should convict President Trump, remove him from the
Presidency, and disqualify him from holding future office. The guilt of
the President on these charges is so obvious that here, again, several
Republican Senators admit that the House has proved its case.
So instead of maintaining the President's innocence, the President's
counsel ultimately told the Senate that even if the President did what
he was accused of, it is not impeachable. This has taken the form of an
escalating series of Dershowitzian arguments, including ``Abuse of
power is not an impeachable offense''; ``The President

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can't be impeached for noncriminal conduct, but he also can't be
indicted for criminal conduct''; ``If a President believes his own
reelection is essential to the Nation, then a quid pro quo is not
corrupt.'' These are the excuses of a child caught in a lie.
Each explanation is more outlandish and desperate than the last. It
would be laughable if not for the fact that the cumulative effect of
these arguments would render not just this President but all Presidents
immune from impeachment and therefore above the law.
Several Members of this Chamber said that even if the President is
guilty and even if it is impeachable, the Senate still shouldn't
convict the President because there is an election coming up--as if the
Framers forgot about elections when they wrote the impeachment clause.
If the Founders believed that even when a President is guilty of an
impeachable offense, the next election should decide his fate, they
never would have included an impeachment clause in the Constitution.
That much is obvious.
Alone, each of the defenses advanced by the President's counsel comes
close to being preposterous. Together, they are as dangerous to the
Republic as this President--a fig leaf so large as to excuse any
Presidential misconduct. Unable to defend the President, arguments were
found to make him a King.
Let future generations know that only a fraction of the Senate
swallowed these fantasies. The rest of us condemn them to the ash heap
of history and the derision of first-year law students everywhere.
We are only the third Senate in history to sit as a Court of
Impeachment for the President. The task we were given was not easy, but
the Framers gave the Senate this responsibility because they could not
imagine any other body capable of it. They considered others, but they
entrusted it to us, and the Senate failed. The Republican caucus
trained its outrage not on the conduct of the President but on the
impeachment process in the House, deriding--falsely--an alleged lack of
fairness and thoroughness.
The conjured outrage was so blinding that the Republican majority
ended up guilty of the very sins it falsely accused the House of
committing. It conducted the least fair, least thorough, most rushed
impeachment trial in the history of this country.
A simple majority of Senators denied the Senate's right to examine
relevant evidence, to call witnesses, to review documents, and to
properly try the impeachment of the President, making this the first
impeachment trial in history that heard from no witnesses. A simple
majority of Senators, in deference to and most likely in fear of the
President of their party, perpetrated a great miscarriage of justice in
the trial of President Trump. As a result, the verdict of this kangaroo
court will be meaningless.
By refusing the facts, by refusing witnesses and documents, the
Republican majority has placed a giant asterisk--the asterisk of a sham
trial--next to the acquittal of President Trump, written in permanent
ink. Acquittal and an unfair trial with this giant asterisk--the
asterisk of a sham trial--are worth nothing at all to President Trump
or to anybody else.
No doubt, the President will boast he received total exoneration, but
we know better. We know this wasn't a trial by any stretch of the
definition. And the American people know it, too.
We have heard a lot about the Framers over the past several weeks,
about the impeachment clause they forged, the separation of powers they
wrought, the conduct they most feared in our chief magistrate. But
there is something the Founders considered even more fundamental to our
Republic: truth. The Founders had seen and studied societies governed
by the iron fist of tyrants and the divine right of Kings, but none by
argument, rational thinking, facts, and debate.
Hamilton said the American people would determine ``whether societies
of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from
reflection and choice, or . . . forever destined to depend on accident
and force.'' And what an astonishing thing the Founders did. They
placed a bet with long odds. They believed that ``reflection and
choice'' would make us capable of self-government; that we wouldn't
agree on everything, but at least we could agree on a common baseline
of fact and of truth. They wrote a Constitution with the remarkable
idea that even the most powerful person in our country was not above
the law and could be put on trial. A trial--a place where you seek
truth. The faith our Founders placed in us makes the failure of this
Senate even more damning.

Our Nation was founded on the idea of truth, but there was no truth
here. The Republican majority couldn't let truth into this trial. The
Republican majority refused to get the evidence because they were
afraid of what it might show.
Our Nation was founded on the idea of truth, but in order to
countenance this President, you have to ignore the truth. The
Republicans walk through the halls with their heads down. They didn't
see the tweet. They can't respond to everything he says. They hope he
learned his lesson this time. Yes, maybe, this time, he learned his
lesson.
Our Nation was founded on truth, but in order to excuse this
President, you have to willfully ignore the truth and indulge in the
President's conspiracy theories: Millions of people voted illegally.
The deep state is out to get him. Ukraine interfered in our elections.
You must attempt to normalize his behavior. Obama did it, too, they
falsely claim. The Democrats are just as bad.
Our Nation was founded on the idea of truth, but this President is
such a menace--so contemptuous of every virtue, so dishonorable, so
dishonest--that you must ignore--indeed, sacrifice--the truth to
maintain his favor.
The trial of this President--its failure--reflects the central
challenge of this Presidency and, maybe, the central challenge of this
time in our democracy. You cannot be on the side of this President and
be on the side of truth, and if we are to survive as a nation, we must
choose truth because, if the truth doesn't matter, if the news you
don't like is fake, if cheating in an election is acceptable, if
everyone is as wicked as the wickedest among us, then hope for the
future is lost.
The eyes of the Nation are upon this Senate, and what they see will
strike doubt in the heart of even the most ardent patriot.
The House managers established that the President abused the great
power of his office to try to cheat in an election, and the Senate
majority is poised to look the other way.
So I direct my final message not to the House managers, not even to
my fellow Senators, but to the American people. My message is simple:
Don't lose hope. There is justice in this world and truth and right. I
believe that. I wouldn't be in this government if I didn't. Somehow, in
ways we can't predict, with God's mysterious hand guiding us, truth and
right will prevail.
There have been dark periods in our history, but we always overcome.
The Senate's opening prayer yesterday was Amos 5:24: Let justice roll
down like water, righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
The long arc of the moral universe, my fellow Americans, does bend
toward justice. America does change for the better but not on its own.
It took millions of Americans hundreds of years to make this country
what it is today--Americans of every age and color and creed who
marched and protested, who stood up and sat in; Americans who died
while defending this democracy, this beautiful democracy, in its
darkest hours.
On Memorial Day in 1884, Oliver Wendell Holmes told his war-weary
audience: ``[W]hether [one] accepts from Fortune her spade, and will
look downward and dig, or from Aspiration her axe and cord, and will
scale the ice, the one and only success which it is [yours] to command
is to bring to [your] work a mighty heart.''
I have confidence that Americans of a different generation--our
generation--will bring to our work a mighty heart to fight for what is
right, to fight for the truth, and never, never lose faith.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the U.S. Senate was made for moments
like this. The Framers predicted that factional fever might dominate
House majorities from time to time. They knew the country would need a
firewall

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to keep partisan flames from scorching our Republic. So they created
the Senate--out of ``necessity,'' James Madison wrote, ``of some stable
institution in the government.''
Today, we will fulfill this founding purpose. We will reject this
incoherent case that comes nowhere near--nowhere near--justifying the
first Presidential removal in history. This partisan impeachment will
end today, but I fear the threat to our institutions may not because
this episode is one symptom of something much deeper.
In the last 3 years, the opposition to this President has come to
revolve around a truly dangerous concept. Leaders in the opposite party
increasingly argue that, if our institutions don't produce the outcomes
they like, our institutions themselves must be broken. One side has
decided that defeat simply means the whole system is broken, that we
must literally tear up the rules and write new ones.
Normally, when a party loses an election, it accepts defeat. It
reflects and retools--but not this time.
Within months, Secretary Clinton was suggesting her defeat was
invalid. She called our President ``illegitimate.'' A former President
falsely claimed: ``[President] Trump didn't actually win.'' ``He lost
the election,'' a former President said. Members of Congress have used
similar rhetoric--a disinformation campaign, weakening confidence in
our democracy.
The very real issue of foreign election interference was abused to
fuel conspiracy theories. For years, prominent voices said there had
been a secret conspiracy between the President's campaign and a foreign
government, but when the Mueller investigation and the Senate
Intelligence Committee debunked that, the delegitimizing endeavor
didn't stop. It didn't stop.
Remember what Chairman Schiff said here on the floor? He suggested
that if the American people reelect President Trump in November that
the election will be presumptively invalid as well. That was Chairman
Schiff, on this floor, saying, if the American people reelect President
Trump this November, the election will be presumptively invalid as
well.
So they still don't accept the American voters' last decision, and
now they are preparing to reject the voters' next decision if they
don't like the outcome--not only the last decision but the next
decision. Heads, we win. Tails, you cheated. And who can trust our
democracy anyway, they say?
This kind of talk creates more fear and division than our foreign
adversaries could achieve in their wildest dreams. As Dr. Hill
testified, our adversaries seek to ``divide us against each other,
degrade our institutions, and destroy the faith of the American people
in our democracy.'' As she noted, if Americans become ``consumed by
partisan rancor,'' we can easily do that work for them.
The architects of this impeachment claimed they were defending norms
and traditions. In reality, it was an assault on both.
First, the House attacked its own precedents on fairness and due
process and by rushing to use the impeachment power as a political
weapon of first resort. Then their articles attacked the Office of the
Presidency. Then they attacked the Senate and called us
``treacherous.'' Then the far left tried to impugn the Chief Justice
for remaining neutral during the trial.
Now, for the final act, the Speaker of the House is trying to steal
the Senate's sole power to render a verdict. The Speaker says she will
just refuse to accept this acquittal. The Speaker of the House of
Representatives says she refuses to accept this acquittal--whatever
that means. Perhaps she will tear up the verdict like she tore up the
State of the Union Address.
So I would ask my distinguished colleagues across the aisle: Is this
really--really--where you want to go? The President isn't the
President? An acquittal isn't an acquittal? Attack institutions until
they get their way? Even my colleagues who may not agree with this
President must see the insanity of this logic. It is like saying you
are so worried about a bull in a china shop that you want to bulldoze
the china shop to chase it out.
Here is the most troubling part. There is no sign this attack on our
institutions will end here. In recent months, Democratic Presidential
candidates and Senate leaders have toyed with killing the filibuster so
that the Senate could approve radical changes with less deliberation
and less persuasion.
Several of our colleagues sent an extraordinary brief to the Supreme
Court, threatening political retribution if the Justices did not decide
a case the way they wanted.
We have seen proposals to turn the FEC--the regulator of elections
and political speech--into a partisan body for the first time ever.
All of these things signal a toxic temptation to stop debating policy
within our great American governing traditions and, instead, declare
war on the traditions themselves--a war on the traditions themselves.
So, colleagues, with whatever policy differences we may have, we
should all agree this is precisely the kind of recklessness the Senate
was created to stop. The response to losing one election cannot be to
attack the Office of the Presidency. The response to losing several
elections cannot be to threaten the electoral college. The response to
losing a court case cannot be to threaten the judiciary. The response
to losing a vote cannot be to threaten the Senate.
We simply cannot let factional fever break our institutions. It must
work the other way, as Madison and Hamilton intended. The institutions
must break the fever rather than the other way around.
The Framers built the Senate to keep temporary rage from doing
permanent damage to our Republic.
The Framers built the Senate to keep temporary rage from doing
permanent damage to our Republic. That is what we will do when we end
this precedent-breaking impeachment.
I hope we will look back on this vote and say this was the day the
fever began to break.
I hope we will not say this was just the beginning.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, as Senators, we cast a lot of votes
throughout our tenure in this body. I have cast over 13,200 of them.
Each vote is important. A vote to convict or acquit the President of
the United States on charges of impeachment is one of the most
important votes a Senator could ever cast. Until this week, such a vote
has only taken place twice since the founding of our Republic.
The President has been accused of committing ``high Crimes and
Misdemeanors'' for requesting that a foreign leader launch an anti-
corruption investigation into his potential political opponent and
obstructing Congress's subsequent inquiry into his actions. For such
conduct, the House of Representatives asks this body to remove the
President from office and prohibit him from ever again serving in a
position of public trust. As both a judge and juror, this Senator asks
first whether the conduct alleged rises to the level of an offense that
unquestionably demands removal. If it does, I ask whether the House has
proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the conduct actually occurred.
The House's case clearly fails on the first of those questions.
Accordingly, I will vote not guilty on both articles.
The President's request, taken at face value, is not impeachable
conduct. A President is not prohibited by law or any other restriction
from engaging the assistance of a foreign ally in an anti-corruption
investigation. The House attempts to cure this defect by suggesting
that the President's subjective motive--political advantage--is enough
to turn an otherwise unimpeachable act into one that demands permanent
removal from office. I will not lend my vote in support of such an
unnecessary and irreversible break from the Constitution's clear
standard for impeachment.
The Senate is an institution of precedent. We are informed and often
guided, especially in times like this, by history and the actions of
our predecessors. While we look to history, however, we must be mindful
of the reality that our choices make history, for better or for worse.
What we say and do here necessarily becomes part of the roadmap for
future Presidential impeachments and their consideration by this body.
These days, that reality can be difficult to keep front and center.
Partisan fervor to convict or acquit a President of the United States
who has been impeached can lead to cut corners, overheated rhetoric,
and rushed

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results. We are each bound by the special oath we take while sitting as
a Court of Impeachment to ``do impartial justice according to the
Constitution and laws.'' But as President pro tempore, I recognize we
must also do justice to the Senate as an institution and to the
Republic that it serves.
This trial began with a full and fair opportunity to debate and amend
the rules that would guide our process. The Senate considered and voted
on 11 separate amendments to the resolution, over the span of nearly 13
hours. Consistent with precedent, the Senate adopted a resolution to
allow the same length of time for opening arguments and questions as
was agreed to unanimously in 1999 during the Clinton impeachment trial.
Consistent with precedent, the Senate agreed to table the issue of
witnesses and additional evidence until after the conclusion of
questions from Members. Consistent with precedent, the Senate engaged
in a robust and open debate on the necessity of calling witnesses and
pursuing additional evidence. We heard nearly 24 hours of presentation
from the House managers, nearly 12 hours of presentation from the
President's counsel, and we engaged in 16 hours of questioning to both
sides.
Up to today, the Senate has sat as a Court of Impeachment for a
combined total of over 70 hours. The Senate did not and does not cut
corners, nor can the final vote be credibly called a rushed result or
anything less than the product of a fair and judicious process. Future
generations, if faced with the toxic turmoil of impeachment, will be
better served by the precedent we followed and the example we set in
this Chamber. I cannot in good conscience say the same of the articles
before us today.
I have said since the beginning of this unfortunate episode that the
House's articles don't, on their face, appear to allege anything
satisfying the Constitution's clear requirement of ``Treason, Bribery,
or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.'' Yet I took my role as a juror
seriously. I committed to hear the evidence in the record and to
reflect on the arguments made. After 9 days of presentation and
questions and after fully considering the record as presented to the
Senate, I am convinced that what the House is asking us to do is not
only constitutionally flawed but dangerously unprecedented.
The House's first article, impeaching the President for ``abuse of
power,'' rests on objectively legal conduct. Until Congress legislates
otherwise, a President is well within his or her legal and
constitutional authority, as the head of state, to request that a
foreign leader assist with an anti-corruption investigation falling
outside of the jurisdiction of our domestic law enforcement
authorities. Short of political blowback, there is also nothing in the
law that prohibits a President from conditioning his or her official
acts upon the agreement by the foreign leader to carry out such an
investigation.
In an attempt to cure this fundamental defect in its charge, the
House's ``abuse of power'' article sets out an impermissibly flexible
and vague standard to justify removing the Chief Executive from office.
As the House's trial brief and presentation demonstrated, its theory of
the case rests entirely on the President's subjective motive for
carrying out objectively permissible conduct. For two reasons, this
cannot be sustained.
First, the House would seemingly have the Senate believe that motive
by itself is sufficient to prove the illegality of an action. House
managers repeatedly described the President's ``corrupt motive'' as
grounds for removal from office. But this flips basic concepts in our
justice system upside down and represents an unprecedented expansion of
the scope of the impeachment authority. With limited exception, motive
is offered in court to show that the defendant on trial is the one who
most likely committed the illegal act that has been charged. Jealously
might compel one neighbor to steal something from the other. But a
court doesn't convict the defendant for a crime of jealousy. Second,
let's assume, however, that motive could be grounds for impeachment and
removal. The House offers no limiting principle or clear standard
whatsoever of what motives are permissible. Under such an amorphous
standard, future Houses would be empowered to impeach Presidents for
taking lawful action for what the House considers to be the wrong
reasons.
The House also gives no aid to this institution or to our successors
on whether impeachment should rest on proving a single, ``corrupt''
motive or whether mixed motive suffices under their theory for removing
a President from office. In its trial brief presented to the Senate,
the House asserts that there is ``no credible alternative explanation''
for the President's alleged conduct. This formulation, in the House's
own brief, necessarily implies that the presence of a credible
alternative explanation for the President's conduct would defeat the
``abuse of power'' theory. But once the Senate heard the President's
counsel's presentation, the House changed its tune. Even a credible
alternative explanation--or multiple benign motives--shouldn't stop
this body from removing the President, so long as one ``corrupt''
motive is in the mix. This apparent shift in trial strategy seems less
indicative of a cohesive theory and more reflective of an ``impeach-by-
any-means-necessary'' mindset. But reshaping their own standard mid-
trial only served to undercut their initial arguments.
Simply asserting at least 63 times, as the House managers did, during
the trial that their evidence was ``overwhelming'' and that the
President's guilt was proven does not make the underlying allegations
accurate or prove an impeachable offense. Even in the midst of
questions and answers, after opening arguments had concluded, the House
managers started repeating the terms ``bribery'' and ``extortion'' on
the floor of the Senate, while neither appears anywhere in the House's
articles. These are serious, statutory crimes that have specific
elements of proof; they shouldn't be casually used as window dressing
to inflame the jury. And the House's attempts to shoehorn those charges
into their articles is itself a due process violation.
It is not the Senate's job to read into the House's articles what the
House failed or didn't see fit to incorporate itself. No more so is it
the job of a judge to read nonexistent provisions into legislation that
Congress passes and the President signs. Articles of Impeachment should
not be moving targets.
The Senate, accordingly, doesn't need to resolve today the question
of whether a criminal violation is necessary for a President's conduct
to be impeachable. The text of the Constitution and the Framers' clear
intent to limit the scope of the impeachment power counsels in favor of
such a brightline rule. And until this episode, no President has been
impeached on charges that didn't include a violation of established
law. Indeed, the only Presidential impeachments considered by this body
included alleged violations of laws, and both resulted in acquittals.
But the stated ambiguities surrounding the House's ``abuse of power''
theory, acknowledged even by the House managers, give this Senator
reason enough to vote not guilty. If we are to lower the bar of
impeachment, we better be clear on where the bar is being set.
The President himself, however, should not conclude from my vote that
I think his conduct was above reproach. He alone knows what his motives
were. The President has a duty to the American people to root out
corruption no matter who is implicated. And running for office does not
make one immune from scrutiny. But the President's request was poorly
timed and poorly executed, and he should have taken better care to
avoid even the mere appearance of impropriety. Had he done so, this
impeachment saga might have been avoided altogether. It is clear that
many of the President's opponents had plans to impeach him from the day
he took office. But the President didn't have to give them this
pretense.
The House's second article, impeaching the President for
``obstruction of Congress,'' is equally unprecedented as grounds for
removal from office and patently frivolous. It purports that, if the
President claims constitutional privileges against Congress,
``threatens'' to litigate, or otherwise fails to immediately give up
the goods, he or she must be removed from office.
I know a thing or two about obstruction by the executive branch under

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both Democrat and Republican administrations. Congressional oversight--
rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse--is central to my role as a Senator
representing Iowa taxpayers and has been for 40 years. If there is
anything as sure as death and taxes, it is Federal agencies resisting
Congress' efforts to look behind the curtain. In the face of
obstruction, I don't retreat. I go to work. I use the tools the
Constitution provides to this institution. I withhold consent on
nominees until I get an honest answer to an oversight request. I work
with my colleagues to exercise Congress's power of the purse. And when
necessary, I take the administration to court. That is the very core of
checks and balances. For years, I fought the Obama administration to
obtain documents related to Operation Fast and Furious. I spent years
seeking answers and records from the Obama administration during my
investigation into Secretary Clinton's mishandling of highly classified
information.
Under the House's ``obstruction of Congress'' standard, should
President Obama have been impeached for his failure to waive privileges
during the course of my and other committees' oversight investigations?
We fought President Obama on this for 3 years in the courts, and we
still didn't end up with all we asked for. We never heard a peep from
the Democrats then. So the hypocrisy here by the House Democrats is on
full display.
When I face unprecedented obstruction, I don't agitate to impeach.
Rather, my office aggressively negotiates, in good faith, with the
executive branch. We discuss the scope of questions and document
requests. We discuss the intent of the inquiry to provide context for
the requested documents. We build an airtight case and demand
cooperation. Negotiations are difficult. They take time.
In the case before us, the House issued a series of requests and
subpoenas to individuals within the White House and throughout the
administration. But it did so rather early in its inquiry. The House
learned of the whistleblower complaint in September, issued subpoenas
for records in October, and impeached the President by December, 4
months from opening the inquiry to impeachment for ``obstruction.'' As
one who can speak from experience, that is unreasonable and doesn't
allow an investigation to appropriately and reasonably run its course.
That timeline makes clear to me that the House majority really had one
goal in mind: to impeach the President at all costs, no matter what the
facts and the law might say. Most importantly, the House failed to
exhaust all legal remedies to enforce its requests and subpoenas. When
challenged to stand up for the legality of its requests in court, the
investigating committee simply retreated. Yet, now, the House accuses
the Senate of aiding and abetting a coverup, if we don't finish their
job for them. The evidence is ``overwhelming,'' yet the Senate must
entertain more witnesses and gather more records that the House chose
to forgo.
The House's failure to proceed with their investigation in an
orderly, reasonable, good-faith manner has created fundamental flaws in
its own case. They skipped basic steps. It is not the job of the Senate
to fix the fundamental flaws that directly result from the House's
failure to do its job. The House may cower to defend its own authority,
but it will not extort and demean this body into cleaning up a mess of
the House's own making.
For the myriad ways in which the House failed to exercise the
fundamentals of oversight, for the terrible new precedent the House
wants us to endorse, and for the risk of future generations taking it
up as the standard, I will vote not guilty on the obstruction article.
Now, there has been much discussion and debate about the
whistleblower whose complaint framed the House's inquiry in this case.
I have worked for and with whistleblowers for more than 30 years. They
shed light on waste, fraud, and abuse that ought to be fixed and that
the public ought to know about, all frequently at great personal cost.
Whistleblowers are patriots, and they are heroes. I believed that in
the 1980s. I believe it today. I have sponsored, cosponsored, and
otherwise strongly supported numerous laws designed to strengthen
whistleblowers protections. I have reminded agencies of the
whistleblowers' rights to speak with us and of their protection under
the law for doing so. And this is how it works. Of course, it is much
better to have firsthand information because it is more reliable.
However, whether it is firsthand information or secondhand, it is
possible to conduct a thorough investigation of a whistleblower's
claims and respect his or her request for confidentiality.
As I said in October of last year, attempts by anyone in government
or the media to ``out'' a whistleblower just to sell an article or
score a political point is not helpful. It undermines the spirit and
purpose of the whistleblower protection laws. I remember very well the
rabid, public lashing experienced by the brave whistleblowers who came
to me about the Obama administration's Operation Fast and Furious.
President Obama's Justice Department worked overtime to discredit them
and tarnish their good names in the press, all to protect an operation
that it tried to keep hidden from Congress and the American people, and
that resulted in the death of an American Border Patrol agent. That was
not the treatment those whistleblowers deserved. It is not the
treatment any whistleblower deserves, who comes forward in good faith,
to report what he or she truly believes is waste, fraud, or abuse.
But whistleblower claims require careful evaluation and follow up,
particularly because their initial claim frames your inquiry and forms
the basis for further fact finding. The questions you ask and the
documents and witnesses you seek all start there. Any investigator
worth their salt will tell you that part of the investigative process
involving a whistleblower, or indeed any witness, requires the
investigator to evaluate that individual's claim and credibility. It is
standard procedure. So we talk to the whistleblowers, we meet with them
when possible, we look at their documents. We keep them confidential
from potential retaliators, but not from the folks who need to speak
with them to do their jobs. When whistleblowers bring to us significant
cases of bipartisan interest, where we have initially evaluated their
claim and credibility and determined that the claim merits additional
follow up, we also frequently work closely with the other side to look
into those claims.
We have done many bipartisan investigations of whistleblowers' claims
over the years and hopefully will continue to do so. We trust the other
side to respect the whistleblower's confidence as well and treat the
investigation seriously. We have also worked with many witnesses in
investigations who want to maintain low profiles and who request
additional security measures to come and speak with us. We are flexible
on location. We have the Capitol Police. We have SCIFs. We have
interviewed witnesses in both classified and unclassified settings. We
are willing to work with those witnesses to make them comfortable and
to ensure they are in a setting that allows them to share sensitive
information with us.
I know the House committees, particularly the oversight committees,
have all taken that course themselves. They routinely work with
whistleblowers too. Both sides understand how to talk to whistleblowers
and how to respect their role and confidentiality. So why no efforts
were taken in this case to go through these very basic, bipartisan
steps is baffling. I do not under any circumstances support reprisal or
efforts to throw stones without facts. But neither do I support efforts
to skirt basic fundamental investigative procedures to try and learn
those facts. I fear that, to achieve its desired ends, the House
weaponized and politicized whistleblowers and whistleblower reporting
for purely partisan purposes. I hope that the damage done from all
sides to these decades-long efforts will be short lived.
Finally, throughout my time on the Judiciary Committee, including as
chairman, I have made it a priority to hold judicial nominees to a
standard of restraint and fidelity to the law. As judges in the Court
of Impeachment, we too should be mindful of those factors which counsel
restraint in this matter.
To start, these articles came to the Senate as the product of a
flawed, unprecedented and partisan process. For

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71 of the 78 days of the House's expedited impeachment inquiry, the
President was not permitted to take part or have agency counsel
present. Many of the rights traditionally afforded to the minority
party in impeachment proceedings were altered or withheld. And an
authorizing vote by the full House didn't occur until 4 weeks after
hearings had already begun. When the articles themselves were put to a
vote by the full House, just in time for Christmas, the only
bipartisanship we saw was in opposition. Moreover, the Iowa caucuses
have already occurred. The 2020 Presidential election is well underway.
Yet we are being asked to remove the incumbent from the ballot, based
on Articles of Impeachment supported by only one party in Congress.
Taken together, the Senate should take no part in endorsing the
dangerous new precedent this would set for future impeachments.
With more than 28,000 pages of evidence, 17 witnesses, and over 70
hours of open, transparent consideration by the Senate, I believe the
American people are more than adequately prepared to decide for
themselves the fate of this President in November. This decision
belongs to them.
When the Chief Justice spoke up at the start of this trial to defuse
some rising emotions, he challenged both sides addressing the Chamber
to ``remember where they are.'' We, too, should remember where we are.
The U.S. Senate has ably served the American people through trying
times. These are trying times. And when this trial adjourns, the cloud
of impeachment may not so quickly depart. But if there is any
institution best equipped to help bridge the divide and once again
achieve our common goals, it is this one.
Let's get back to work for the People.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the question before us is incredibly
serious, but it is also more than a little absurd. We are sitting as a
court, exercising the sole power to try impeachments, entrusted to us
by the Framers. The President of the United States has been charged
with high crimes--a constitutional charge of abuse of power that
includes in its text each of the elements of criminal bribery. The
President's lawyers have complained all week about the absence of sworn
testimony from officials with first-hand knowledge of the President's
actions and intent. They claim not to know when the President froze the
aid. They falsely claim there is no evidence the President withheld the
aid in exchange for his political errand--announcing an investigation
into his political rival. And yet whenever the President's counsels
have pled ignorance or claimed a lack of evidence, they ask not that we
pursue the truth; they ask instead that we look away.
The Senate simply cannot look away. In the 220 years this body has
served as a constitutional court of impeachment, we have never refused
to look at critical evidence sitting in front of us. We have never
raced to a pre-ordained verdict while deliberately avoiding the truth
or evaluating plainly critical evidence.
And when I say ``sitting in front of us,'' I mean that literally.
Just this morning, we learned that Pat Cipollone, lead counsel for the
President, along with Rudy Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney, was part of a
meeting where President Trump directed John Bolton to ``ensure
[President] Zelensky would meet with Mr. Giuliani.'' A meeting with the
President's personal lawyer is not subject to executive privilege; and
a meeting with Bolton and Mulvaney is not subject to attorney-client
privilege. And this afternoon we received a proffer from Lev Parnas's
attorney, claiming that Pamas could provide us with testimony
implicating several cabinet officials and members of Congress in the
President's scheme. I cannot say whether that is credible, but
shouldn't he at least be heard and cross-examined? The Senate cannot
turn a blind eye to such directly relevant evidence.
This slipshod process reminds me of another trial. That was the trial
of Alice in Wonderland. In that trial, the accusation was read, and the
King immediately said to the jury, ``Consider your verdict.'' But even
in that case it was acknowledged that ``There's a great deal to come
before that,'' and the first witness was called. With apologies to
Lewis Carroll, surely the United States Senate can at least match the
rigorous criminal procedure of Wonderland?
The oath that each of us swore just two weeks ago requires that we do
``impartial justice.'' Reasonable people can disagree about what that
means, but every single time this body has sat as a court--every single
time--it has heard from witnesses and weighed sworn testimony. We have
never been denied the opportunity to hear from critical witnesses with
firsthand information. During the Johnson trial, this court heard live
testimony from 41 witnesses, including private counsel for the
President and a cabinet secretary. During the Clinton trial, three
witnesses were deposed and we considered the grand jury testimony of
the President's chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, and White House
Counsel--plus the grand jury testimony of the President himself.
``Impartial justice'' cannot mean burying our collective heads in the
sand, and preventing relevant, probative testimony from being taken.
Briefly, I also want to address the arguments made against calling
witnesses. The President has said that ``Witnesses are up to the House,
not up to the Senate.'' But the Senate has never been, and should not
be now, limited to the House record. The Senate's constitutional
obligation to try impeachments stands independent of the House's
obligation. The Constitution does not allow the House's action or
inaction to limit the evidence and testimony the Senate can and must
consider. The last time we sat as a court we heard from 26 witnesses in
total, including 17 who had not testified before the House. Seventeen.
Some have also said that calling witnesses like John Bolton would
leave us tangled up in an endless court battle over executive
privilege. Not so. The Senate alone has the ``sole Power to try all
Impeachments,'' and the Chief Justice reminded us just a few years ago
in Zivotofsky v. Clinton that Article III courts cannot hear cases
``where there `is a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of
the issue to a coordinate political department.' '' And in Walter Nixon
v. United States, the Supreme Court expressly ruled out ``[j]udicial
involvement in impeachment proceedings, even if only for purposes of
judicial review.''
Moreover, and more simply, executive privilege cannot prevent
testimony from a private citizen like Bolton who is willing to testify.
And, in any event, the President has almost certainly waived any claim
to privilege by endlessly tweeting and talking to the media about his
conversations with Bolton. The Senate is not helpless. We are the only
court with jurisdiction. We can and should resolve these questions.
Let us conduct this trial with the seriousness it deserves--
consistent with Senate precedent, the overwhelming expectations of the
American people, and how every other trial across the country is
conducted every single day.
As Senators, we are here to debate and vote on difficult questions. I
understand this may be a difficult question politically--but it is
nowhere close to a difficult question under the law or common sense. I
do not believe for one second that any of us sought public office to
become an accomplice to what can only be described as a cover-up. As
the Chief Justice has reminded us, we have the privilege of serving in
the world's greatest deliberative body. So let's actually deliberate.
But if we adopt the rule--rejected even in Wonderland--of verdict
first, witnesses later, be assured those witnesses will eventually
follow. Whether through FOIA, journalism, or book releases, the
American people will learn the truth, likely sooner rather than later.
Maybe even over the upcoming weekend. What will they think of a Senate
that went to such extraordinary lengths--ignoring 220 years of
precedent, any notions of fairness or respect for facts, and indeed
ignoring our duties to the Constitution itself--to keep the truth
buried?
A vote to preclude witnesses will embolden this President to further
demean the Congress, this Senate, and the balance of power so carefully
established by the Framers in the Constitution. It will ratify the
President's shell game of telling the House it should sue to enforce
its subpoenas, and then telling courts that the House has no standing
to do so. Just today, after a week

[[Page S914]]

of his counsel arguing that the President cannot be impeached for
failing to respond to House subpoenas, the Justice Department argued in
court that the House can use its impeachment power to enforce its
subpoenas. It is up to all 100 of us to put a stop to this nonsense.
I have served in this body for 45 years. It is not often we face
votes like this--votes that will leave a significant mark on history,
and will shape our constitutional ability to serve as a check against
presidents for generations to come. I pray the Senate is worthy of this
responsibility, and of this moment. I fear the repercussions if it is
not.
I will vote to hear from witnesses. With deep respect, I ask my
fellow senators to do the same.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the trial of
President Trump.
After information from more than a dozen witnesses, over a hundred
questions, and days of oral arguments, I believe the House failed to
prove its case for the two Articles of Impeachment. The House's story
relies on too much speculation, guessing games and repetition. It fails
to hold up under scrutiny. The House claims to have proven its case,
but insists on more evidence. It was the House's responsibility to
ensure it had developed a complete record of the evidence it needed to
make its case, and it is not up to the Senate to start the process over
again.
There were contradictions in the House's case from the very
beginning. The House counted on repetition to make its claims seem
true, but often didn't provide the underlying evidence. For example,
the House managers relied on telephone records for timing, but
speculated on the content of the calls.
The House managers claimed the President wanted to influence an
election, but it is difficult to see how the House's rush to bring this
case in such a haphazard manner is nothing more than an attempt to
influence the 2020 election. The House managers asked the Senate to do
additional witnesses in 1 week, which could mean the Senate would
essentially have to start the trial all over.
I not only can't call their efforts adequate, I have to say they have
been entirely inadequate. Consequently, I did not vote for more
witnesses or more evidence and will vote to acquit the President on
both counts.
I hope we can learn from everything we do, especially in regard to
impeachment. The animosity toward President Trump is unprecedented, and
I believe it is the reason we have ended up where we are today. I
believe we should give each newly elected President a chance to show
what he or she can do. We should provide them the opportunity to prove
themselves and demonstrate our faith in our country and its leadership.
We have to give the President an opportunity to lead or even to fail.
Unfortunately, President Trump was promised an impeachment from the day
he was elected, before he even took his oath of office. On the day of
his inauguration, before any official act, there were riots where, and
I quote from the New York Times, ``protesters threw rocks and bricks at
police officers, set a car on fire and shattered storefront windows.''
I have never seen that kind of conduct before stemming from the result
of our democratic process. I hope to never see it again.
The obstruction continued as President Trump's nominations were held
up in an unprecedented way. This obstruction kept the new President
from getting his key people in place. The few nominations approved had
to work with career or hold-over staff from the previous
administration. We have read in news articles that some of those
staffers not only disliked their new bosses, but they tried to actively
undercut their policies. Sometimes they even delayed or used inaction
or gave adverse advice. These types of tactics were used to put blame
on their boss and on President Trump, and that ultimately hurt our
country, too.
Again, almost immediately after the election came the call for
investigations, ending with the appointment of Special Counsel Robert
Mueller. This investigation went on for almost 2 years. When the
Mueller investigation didn't yield the desired results, the President's
detractors returned to the continuing cry for an impeachment. The
volume and pitch increased even as the 2020 election got closer.
Eventually, the House of Representatives found its latest accusation.
Yet, not willing to conduct a thorough impeachment investigation and
wanting to reach a foregone conclusion as the election year approached,
the House of Representatives hurried its investigation so it would be
done before Christmas and the Senate would be forced to address these
articles as a new year started. Ironically, after all that rushing and
taking shortcuts, the House delayed sending the articles to the Senate
until the new year. All of this was just the latest example of the
efforts to block President Trump's agenda.
I have now served in two Presidential impeachment trials, one during
my first term and this one in my last. I have never underestimated the
responsibility of the task at hand or forgotten the oaths I took to
uphold the Constitution. There are few duties senators will face as
grave as deciding the fate of the President of the United States, but
just like 21 years ago, this decision is about country, not politics.
These experiences have helped refine my views, which I will now share.
Our Forefathers did well setting the trial in the Senate where it
takes a \2/3\ majority, currently 67 votes, to convict. They could see
the difficulty it would bring to the Nation if impeachment could easily
be convicted by a slight majority. Even though it is not the law, I
would counsel the House not to impeach without at least a \3/5\ vote in
their own body, and that should include some number from the minority
party.
I have also come to believe that impeachment should be primarily
about a criminal activity. Impeachment is inherently undemocratic
because it reverses an election, so in election years, the bar for
considering impeachment and removal goes even higher. Ultimately, the
American people should and will have the final say.
The House of Representatives must also be sure to complete its
investigation. It shouldn't send the Senate impeachment charges and
then expect the Senate to continue gathering more evidence. The House
should subpoena witnesses and deal with defense claims such as
privilege, even if that means going through the judicial process rather
than placing such a burden on the Senate.
The House cannot simply rely on repetition of possibilities of
violations, no matter how many times stated, to make their accusations
true. A complete investigation means the investigators don't rush to
judgment, don't speculate about the content of calls, and don't rely on
repetition of accusations about the content of such calls as a
substitute for seeking the truth.
During the initial investigation, witnesses should have already been
deposed by both sides before it comes to the Senate. The President's
counsel must be allowed to cross-examine all persons deposed by the
House. Then, and only then, can any of the witnesses be called to
testify at the Senate trial. The House investigation has to be
complete.
Finally, I would call for our outside institutions to also think
about how they contribute to the well-being of our country. I have
often said that conflict sells. It might even increase sales to
consumers of news for both parties, but I fear that we are all treating
this like a sport, speculating which team will win and which will lose.
I suspect that some venomous statements about this process have ended
some friendships and strained some families. In the end, if we lose
faith in our institutions, our friends and our families, we will all
lose.
We desperately need more civility. That is simply being nice to each
other. My mom said, ``Bad behavior is inexcusable.'' It violates the
Golden Rule as revised by my mom, ``Do what's right. Do your best.
Treat others as THEY wish to be treated.'' One of the first movies I
saw was the now-ancient animated picture, ``Bambi.'' I am reminded of
the little rabbit saying, ``My Mom always says, if you can't say
something nice, don't say anything at all!'' I believe we all agree on
at least 80 percent of most issues, but the trend seems to be shifting
to concentrate on the other 20 percent we don't agree on. That 20
percent causes divisiveness, opposition, venomous harsh words, and
anger.

[[Page S915]]

Too often, it feels like our Nation is only becoming more divided,
more hostile. I do not believe that our country will ever be able to
successfully tackle our looming problems if we continue down this road.
As we move forward from this chapter in our Nation's history, I hope
that we will focus more on our shared goals that can help our Nation,
and not the issues that drive us apart.
Mr. BURR. Mr. President, in my 25 years representing North Carolina
in Congress, I have cast thousands of votes, each with its own
significance. The ones that weigh most heavily are those that send our
men and women in uniform into armed conflict. Those are the votes I
spend the most time debating before casting--first and foremost because
of the human cost involved but secondly because they hold the power to
irrevocably set the course of American history.
With similar consideration, I have taken a sober and deliberate
approach to the impeachment proceedings of the last few weeks,
conscious of my constitutional responsibility to serve as an impartial
juror.
As the investigative body, the House has charged President Trump with
abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate's role is to
determine whether the House has proven its case beyond a reasonable
doubt and whether, if true, these charges rise to the level of removing
the President from office.
After listening to more than 70 hours of arguments from the House
managers and the President's counsel, I have concluded that the House
has not provided the Senate with a compelling reason for taking the
unprecedented and destabilizing step of removing the President from
office.
In my role as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I have
visited countries all over the world. What separates the United States
from every other nation on Earth is our predictable, peaceful
transitions of power. Every 4 years, Americans cast their ballots with
the confidence their vote will be counted and the knowledge that both
winners and losers will abide by the results.
To remove a U.S. President from office, for the first time in
history, on anything less than overwhelming evidence of ``Treason,
Bribery, or High Crimes and Misdemeanors'' would effectively overturn
the will of the American people.
As the Speaker said last year, ``Impeachment is so divisive to the
country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming
and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it
divides the country.''
I believe the Speaker was correct in her assessment. A year later,
however, the House went down that exact path, choosing to conduct a
highly partisan impeachment inquiry, with underwhelming evidence, in a
deeply flawed process.
The House had ample opportunity to pursue the answers to its inquiry
in order to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. They chose not
to do so. Instead, investigators followed an arbitrary, self-imposed
timeline dictated by political, rather than substantive, concerns.
For example, the House did not attempt to compel certain witnesses to
testify because doing so would have meant confronting issues of
executive privilege and immunity. They argued navigating executive
privilege--something every administration lays claim to--may have
caused some level of delays and involved the courts.
At the time, the House justified their decision by claiming the issue
was too important, too urgent, for any delays. Yet, after the House
voted on the Articles of Impeachment, the Speaker waited 4 full weeks
before transmitting the articles to the Senate. Those were weeks the
House could have spent furthering its inquiry, had it not rushed the
process. Instead, without a hint of irony, House leadership attempted
to use that time to pressure the Senate into gathering the very witness
testimony their own investigators chose not to pursue.
Additionally, in drafting the Articles of Impeachment, the House
stated President Trump committed ``Criminal bribery and honest services
wire fraud,'' two crimes that carry penalties under our Criminal Code.
Inexplicably, the House chose not to include those alleged criminal
misdeeds in the articles sent to the Senate, much less argue them in
front of this body.
At every turn, it appears the House made decisions not based on the
pursuit of justice but on politics. When due process threatened to slow
down the march forward, they took shortcuts. When evidence was too
complicated to obtain or an accusation did not carry weight, the House
created new, flimsy standards on the fly, hoping public pressure would
sway Senate jurors in lieu of facts.
The Founding Fathers who crafted our modern impeachment mechanism
predicted this moment, and warned against a solely partisan and
politically motivated process.
In Federalist 65, Alexander Hamilton wrote, ``In many cases
[impeachment] will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and
will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and
interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will
always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more
by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations
of innocence or guilt.''
Hamilton believed impeachment was a necessary tool but one to be used
when the evidence of wrongdoing was so overwhelming, it elevated the
process above partiality and partisanship. The House has failed to meet
that standard.
The Founders also warned against using impeachment as recourse for
management or policy disagreements with the President.
Prior to America's founding, impeachment had been used for centuries
in England as a measure to reprimand crown-appointed officials and
landed gentry. At the time, it included the vague charge of
``maladministration,'' as well.
During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, George Mason moved to
add ``maladministration'' to the U.S. Constitution's list of
impeachable offenses, asking: ``Why is the provision restrained to
Treason & bribery only? Treason as defined in the Constitution will not
reach many great and dangerous offences. Attempts to subvert the
Constitution may not be Treason as above defined.''
I submit for this body James Madison's response: ``So vague a term
will be equivalent to a tenure during the pleasure of the Senate.''
Madison knew that impeachment based purely on disagreements about
governance would turn the U.S. Congress into a parliamentary body, akin
to those tumultuous coalitions in Europe, which could recall a
President on little more than a whim. To do so would subordinate the
Executive to the Congress, rather than delineating its role as a
coequal branch of our Federal Government. And with political winds
changing as frequently then as they do now, he saw that every President
could theoretically be thus impeached on fractious and uncertain terms.
In a functioning democracy, the President cannot serve at ``the
pleasure of Senate.'' He must serve at the pleasure of the people.
Gouverneur Morris supported Madison's argument, adding at the time:
``An election every four years will prevent maladministration.''
Thus ``maladministration'' was not made an impeachable offense in
America, expressly because we have the recourse of free and fair
elections.
I bring up this story for two reasons. First, the Founder's decision
signals to me they felt strongly that an impeachable offense must be a
crime akin to treason, bribery, or an act equally serious, as defined
in the Criminal Code. Second, this story tells me the Founders believed
anything that does not meet the Constitutional threshold should be
navigated through the electoral process.
By that standard, I do not believe the Articles of Impeachment
presented to the Senate rise to the level of removal from office, nor
do I believe House managers succeeded in making the case incumbent upon
them to prove. Given the weak underpinnings of the articles themselves
and the House's partisan process, it would be an error to remove the
President mere months before a national election; therefore, I have
concluded I will vote to acquit President Donald J. Trump on both
articles of impeachment.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, today is a somber day for our country.

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As Senators, we are here as representatives of the American people. It
is our duty, as we each swore to do when we took our oath of office, to
support and defend the Constitution. We also took an oath, as judges
and jurors in this proceeding, to pursue ``impartial justice'' as we
consider these articles--including the serious charge that the
President of the United States leveraged the power of his office for
his own personal gain.
Those are the oaths that the Framers set out for us in the
Constitution, to guide the Senate in its oversight responsibilities.
The Framers believed that the legislative branch was best positioned to
provide a check on the Executive. They envisioned that the separation
of powers would allow each branch of government to oversee the other.
They also knew, based on their experience living under the British
monarchy, that someday a President might corrupt the powers of the
office. William Davie from North Carolina was particularly concerned
that a President could abuse his office by sparing ``no efforts or
means whatever to get himself reelected.''
So the Framers put in place a standard that would cover a range of
Presidential misconduct, settling on: ``Treason, Bribery, or other high
Crimes and Misdemeanors.'' As Alexander Hamilton explained in
Federalist 65, the phrase was intended to cover the ``abuse or
violation of some public trust'' and ``injuries done immediately to
society itself.'' The Framers designed a remedy for this public harm:
removal from public office. So now we are here as judge and jury to try
the case and to evaluate whether the President's acts have violated the
public trust and injured our democracy.
I am concerned of course that the Senate has decided that we must
make this decision without all the facts. With a 51 to 49 vote, the
senate blocked the opportunity to call witnesses with firsthand
knowledge or to get relevant documents. Fairness means evidence--it
means documents, and it means witnesses. In every past impeachment
trial in the Senate, in this body's entire 231-year history, there have
been witnesses. There is no reason why the Senate should not have
called people to testify who have firsthand knowledge of the
President's conduct, especially if, as some of my colleagues have
suggested, you believe the facts are in dispute.
During the question period, I asked about the impeachment of Judge
Porteous in 2010. I joined several of my colleagues in serving on the
trial committee. We heard from 26 witnesses in the Senate, 17 of whom
were new witnesses who had not previously testified in the House. What
possible reason could there be for allowing 26 witnesses in a judicial
impeachment trial and zero in a President's trial? How can we consider
this a fair trial if we are not even willing to try and get to the
truth?
We do not even have to try and find it. John Bolton has firsthand
knowledge about central facts in this case, and he said he would comply
with a subpoena from the Senate. We also know there are documents that
could verify testimony presented in the House, like records of emails
sent between administration officials in the days after the July 25
call. We cannot ignore this evidence--we have a constitutional duty to
consider it.
And since this trial began, new evidence has continued to emerge. One
way or another, the truth is going to come out. I believe that history
will remember that the majority in this body did not seek out the
evidence and instead decided that the President's alleged corrupt acts
did not even require a closer look.
But even without firsthand accounts and without primary documents,
the House managers have presented a compelling case. I was particularly
interested in the evidence that the managers presented showing that the
President's conduct put our national security at risk by jeopardizing
our support for Ukraine.
Protecting Ukraine's fragile democracy has been a bipartisan
priority. I went to Ukraine with the late Senator John McCain and
Senator Lindsey Graham right after the 2016 election to make clear that
the United States would continue to support our ally Ukraine in the
face of Russian aggression--that we will stand up for democracy. As the
House managers stressed, it is in our national security interest to
strengthen Ukraine's democracy. The United States has 60,000 troops
stationed in Europe, and thousands of Ukrainians have died fighting
Russian forces and their proxies.
Our Nation's support for Ukraine is critically needed. Ukraine is at
the frontline of Russian aggression, and since the Russians invaded
Crimea in 2014, the United States has provided over $1.5 billion in
aid. Russia is watching everything we do. So this summer, as a new
Ukrainian President prepared to lead his country and address the war
with Russia, it was critical that President Trump showed the world that
we stand with Ukraine. Instead, President Trump decided to withhold
military security assistance and to deny the Ukrainian President an
Oval Office meeting. In doing so, he jeopardized our national security
interests and put the Ukrainians in danger. But worse yet, he did so to
benefit himself.
Testimony from the 17 current and former officials from the
President's administration made it clear that the President leveraged
the power of his office to pressure Ukraine to announce an
investigation into his political rival. These brave public servants
defied the President's order and agreed to testify about what happened
despite the risks to their careers. Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine
Marie Yovanovitch showed particular courage, testifying before the
House even as the President disparaged her on Twitter. And I will never
forget when Lieutenant Colonel Vindman testified and sent a message to
his immigrant father, saying, ``Don't worry Dad, I will be fine for
telling the truth.''
As Manager Schiff said, in our country ``right matters.'' What is
right and wrong under our Constitution does not turn on whether or not
you like the President. It is not about whether the disregard for its
boundaries furthers policies that you agree or disagree with. It is
about whether it remains true that in our country, right matters.
Through his actions, the President compromised the security of our ally
Ukraine, invited foreign interference in our elections, and undermined
the integrity of our democratic process--conduct that I believe the
Framers would see as an abuse of power and violation of his oath of
office.
The Articles of Impeachment include a second charge: that the
President used the powers of his office to prevent Congress from
investigating his actions and attempted to place himself above the law.
Unlike any President before him, President Trump categorically
refused to comply with any requests from Congress. Even President Nixon
directed ``all the president's men'' to comply with congressional
requests. Despite that history, President Trump directed every member
of his administration not to comply with requests to testify and also
directed the executive branch not to release a single document.
The President's refusal to respect the Congress's authority is a
direct threat to the separation of powers. The Constitution gives the
House the ``sole power of impeachment,'' a tool of last resort to
provide a check on the president. By refusing to cooperate, the
President is attempting to erase the Congress's constitutional power
and to prevent the American people from learning of his misconduct. As
we discussed during our questions, the President is asserting that his
aides have absolute immunity, a proposition that Federal courts have
consistently rejected. Manager Demings warned, ``absolute power
corrupts absolutely.''
But this President has taken many steps to place himself above the
law. This administration has taken the position that a sitting
President cannot be indicted or prosecuted. This President has argued
that he is immune from State and criminal investigations. And now we
are being asked to say that the Constitution's check on a President's
power, as set out by the Framers, cannot prevent a President from
abusing his power and covering it up.
During the trial, we have heard this directly from the President's
defense. In the words of Alan Dershowitz, ``If a president does
something which he believes will help him get elected--in the public
interest--that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in
impeachment.'' These echo the words of

[[Page S917]]

an impeached President, Richard Nixon, who said: ``When the president
does it, that means it is not illegal.'' We cannot accept that
conclusion. In this country the President is not King, the law is King.
But if the Senate looks past the President's defiance of Congress, we
will forever undermine our status as a coequal branch and undermine the
rule of law.
So as we consider these Articles of Impeachment, I ask my colleagues
to think about the consequences. Our system, designed by the Framers
232 years ago, is one not of absolute power but of power through and by
the people. We are, in some ways, faced with the same question the
Founders faced when they made the fateful decision to challenge the
unchecked power of a King.
When signing the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock signed his
name large and said, ``There must be no pulling different ways. We must
all hang together.'' Benjamin Franklin replied, ``Yes, we must, indeed,
all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.''
We have the opportunity today to stand together and say that the
Constitution, that these United States, are stronger than our enemies,
foreign and domestic, and we, together, are stronger than a President
who would corrupt our democracy with an abuse of power and an attempt
to deny the rights of a coequal branch of government. We do not have to
agree on everything today or tomorrow or a year from now, but surely we
can agree on the same basic principles: that this is a government of
laws, not of men-and women; that in this country, no one is above the
law. If we can agree on that much, then I submit to my colleagues that
the choice before us is clear.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, an impeachment trial of a sitting
President of the United States is not a matter to be taken lightly. A
President should not and must not be impeached because of political
disagreements or policy differences. That is what elections are for.
Instead, an impeachment trial occurs when a President violates the oath
he or she swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
Therefore, there are two questions for me to answer as a juror in the
impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump: whether President Trump
is guilty of abusing his power as President for his own political gain
and whether he obstructed Congress in their investigation of him.
The first Article of Impeachment charges President Trump with abuse
of power when he ``solicited the interference of a foreign government,
Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election.'' Based on
the evidence I heard during the Senate trial, Trump ``corruptly
solicited'' an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and
his son in order to benefit his own reelection chances. To increase the
pressure on Ukraine, President Trump then withheld approximately $400
million in military aid from Ukraine. Finally, according to the
charges, even when Trump's scheme to withhold aid was made public, he
``persisted in openly and corruptly urging and soliciting Ukraine to
undertake investigations for his personal political benefit.'' So on
this first Article of Impeachment, it is my view that the President is
clearly guilty.
The second Article of Impeachment asserts that Trump obstructed
Congress in its investigation of Trump's abuse of power, stating that
Trump ``has directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate
defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant
to its `sole Power of Impeachment.' '' According to the warped logic of
the arguments presented by the President's counsel, there are almost no
legal bounds to anything a President can do so long as it benefits his
own reelection. If a President cannot be investigated criminally or by
Congress while in office, then he or she would be effectively above the
law. President Trump, who raised absurd legal arguments to hide his
actions and obstruct Congress, is clearly guilty here as well.
Now, frankly, while the House of Representatives passed two Articles
of Impeachment, President Trump could have been impeached for more than
just that.
For example, it seems clear that Donald Trump has violated both the
domestic and foreign emoluments clauses. In other words, it appears
Trump has used the Federal Government over and over to benefit himself
financially.
In 2018 alone, Trump's organization made over $40 million in profit
just from his Trump hotel in DC alone. And foreign governments,
including lobbying firms connected to the Saudi Arabian Government,
have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at that hotel. That appears
to be corruption, pure and simple.
In addition, as we all know, there is significant evidence that
Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice with regard to the Robert
Mueller investigation by, among other actions, firing the FBI Director,
James Comey.
One of the difficulties of dealing with President Trump and his
administration is that we cannot trust his words. He is a pathological
liar who, according to media research, has lied thousands of times
since he was elected. During the trial, I posed a question to the House
impeachment managers: Given that the media has documented President
Trump's thousands of lies while in office--more than 16,200 as of
January 20, 2020--why would we be expected to believe that anything
President Trump says has credibility? The answer is that, sadly, we
cannot.
Sadly, we now have a President who sees himself as above the law and
is either ignorant or indifferent to the Constitution. And we have a
President who clearly committed impeachable offenses.
The evidence of Trump's guilt is so overwhelming that the Republican
Party, for the first time in the history of Presidential impeachment,
obstructed testimony from witnesses--even willing witnesses. It defies
basic common sense that in a trial to determine whether the President
of the United States is above the law, the Senate would not hear from
the people who could speak directly to President Trump's behavior and
motive. Leader Mitch McConnell's handling of this trial, unfortunately,
was nothing more than a political act.
Yet this impeachment trial is about more than just the charges
against President Trump. What this impeachment vote will decide is
whether we believe that the President, any President, is above the law.
Last week, Alan Dershowitz, one of President Trump's lawyers, argued
to the Senate that a President cannot be impeached for any actions he
or she takes that are intended to benefit their own reelection. That is
truly an extraordinary and unconstitutional assertion. If Trump is
acquitted, I fear the repercussions of this argument would do grave
damage to the rule of law in our country.
Imagine what such a precedent would allow an incumbent president to
get away with for the sake of their own reelection. Hacking an
opponent's email using government resources? Soliciting election
interference from China? Under this argument, what would stop a
President from withholding infrastructure or education funding to a
given State to pressure elected officials into helping the President
politically?
Let me be clear: Republicans will set a dangerous and lawless
precedent if they vote to acquit President Trump. A Republican
acquittal of Donald Trump won't just mean that the current President is
above the law; it will give a green light to all future Presidents to
disregard the law so long as it benefits their reelection.
It gives me no pleasure to conclude that President Donald Trump is
guilty of the offenses laid out in the two Articles of Impeachment. I
will vote to convict on both counts. But my greater concern is if
Republicans acquit President Trump by undercutting the very rule of
law. That will truly be remembered as a sad and dangerous moment in the
history of our country.
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the House Articles
of Impeachment against President Donald Trump.
In 1999, then-Senator Joe Biden of Delaware asked the following
question during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton: ``[D]o
these actions rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors
necessary to justify the most obviously antidemocratic act the Senate
can engage in--overturning an election by convicting the president?''
He answered his own question by voting against removing President
Clinton from office.

[[Page S918]]

It is this constitutionally grounded framework--articulated well by
Vice President Biden--that guided my review of President Trump's
impeachment and, ultimately, my decision to oppose his removal.
House Democrats' impeachment articles allege that President Trump
briefly paused aid and withheld a White House meeting with Ukraine's
President to pressure Ukraine into investigating two publicly reported
corruption matters. The first matter was possible Ukrainian
interference in our 2016 election. The second was Vice President
Biden's role in firing the controversial Ukrainian prosecutor
investigating a company on whose board Vice President Biden's son sat.
When House Democrats demanded witnesses and documents concerning the
President's conduct, he invoked constitutional rights and resisted
their demands.
The President's actions were not ``perfect.'' Some were
inappropriate. But the question before the Senate is not whether his
actions were perfect; it is whether they constitute impeachable
offenses that justify removing a sitting President from office for the
first time and forbidding him from seeking office again.
Let's consider the case against President Trump: obstruction of
Congress and abuse of power. On obstruction, House Democrats allege the
President lacked ``lawful cause or excuse'' to resist their subpoenas.
This ignores that his resistance was based on constitutionally grounded
legal defenses and immunities that are consistent with longstanding
positions taken by administrations of both parties. Instead of
negotiating a resolution or litigating in court, House Democrats rushed
to impeach. But as House Democrats noted during President Clinton's
impeachment, a President's defense of his legal and constitutional
rights and responsibilities is not an impeachable offense.
House Democrats separately allege President Trump abused his power by
conditioning a White House meeting and the release of aid on Ukraine
agreeing to pursue corruption investigations. Their case rests entirely
on the faulty claim that the only possible motive for his actions was
his personal political gain. In fact, there are also legitimate
national interests for seeking investigations into apparent corruption,
especially when taxpayer dollars are involved.
Here is what ultimately occurred: President Trump met with Ukraine's
President, and the aid was released after a brief pause. These actions
happened without Ukraine announcing or conducting investigations. The
idea that President Trump committed an impeachable offense by meeting
with Ukraine's President at the United Nations in New York instead of
Washington, DC is absurd. Moreover, the pause in aid did not hinder
Ukraine's ability to combat Russia. In fact, as witnesses in the House
impeachment proceedings stated, U.S. policy in support of Ukraine is
stronger under President Trump than under President Obama.
Even if House Democrats' presumptions about President Trump's motives
are true, additional witnesses in the Senate, beyond the 17 witnesses
who testified in the House impeachment proceedings, are unnecessary
because the President's actions do not rise to the level of removing
him from office, nor do they warrant the societal upheaval that would
result from his removal from office and the ballot months before an
election. Our country is already far too divided and this would only
make matters worse.
As Vice President Biden also stated during President Clinton's
impeachment trial, ``[t]here is no question the Constitution sets the
bar for impeachment very high.'' A President can only be impeached and
removed for ``Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and
Misdemeanors.'' While there is debate about the precise meaning of
``other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,'' it is clear that impeachable
conduct must be comparable to the serious offenses of treason and
bribery.
The Constitution sets the impeachment bar so high for good reasons.
Removing a President from office and forbidding him from seeking future
office overturns the results of the last election and denies Americans
the right to vote for him in the next one. The Senate's impeachment
power essentially allows 67 Senators to substitute their judgment for
the judgment of millions of Americans.
The framework Vice President Biden articulated in 1999 for judging an
impeachment was right then, and it is right now. President Trump's
conduct does not meet the very high bar required to justify overturning
the election, removing him from office, and kicking him off the ballot
in an election that has already begun. In November, the American people
will decide for themselves whether President Trump should stay in
office. In our democratic system, that is the way it should be.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, voting to find the President guilty in the
Senate is not simply a finding of wrongdoing; it is a vote to remove a
President from office for the first time in the 243-year history of our
Republic.
When they decided to include impeachment in the Constitution, the
Framers understood how disruptive and traumatic it would be. As
Alexander Hamilton warned, impeachment will ``agitate the passions of
the whole community.''
This is why they decided to require the support of two-thirds of the
Senate to remove a President we serve as a guardrail against partisan
impeachment and against removal of a President without broad public
support.
Leaders in both parties previously recognized that impeachment must
be bipartisan and must enjoy broad public support. In fact, as recently
as March of last year, Manager Adam Schiff said there would be ``little
to be gained by putting the country through'' the ``wrenching
experience'' of a partisan impeachment. Yet, only a few months later, a
partisan impeachment is exactly what the House produced. This meant two
Articles of Impeachment whose true purpose was not to protect the
Nation but, rather, to, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, stain the
President's record because ``he has been impeached forever'' and ``they
can never erase that.''
It now falls upon this Senate to take up what the House produced and
faithfully execute our duties under the Constitution of the United
States.
Why does impeachment exist?
As manager Jerry Nadler reminded us last week, removal is not a
punishment for a crime, nor is removal supposed to be a way to hold
Presidents accountable; that is what elections are for. The sole
purpose of this extraordinary power to remove the one person entrusted
with all of the powers of an entire branch of government is to provide
a last-resort remedy to protect the country. That is why Hamilton wrote
that in these trials our decisions should be pursuing ``the public
good.''
Even before the trial, I announced that, for me, the question would
not just be whether the President's actions were wrong but ultimately
whether what he did was removable. The two are not the same. It is
possible for an offense to meet a standard of impeachment and yet not
be in the best interest of the country to remove a President from
office.
To answer this question, the first step was to ask whether it would
serve the public good to remove the President, even if the managers had
proven every allegation they made. It was not difficult to answer that
question on the charge of obstruction of congress. The President
availed himself of legal defenses and constitutional privileges on the
advice of his legal counsel. He has taken a position identical to that
of every other administration in the last 50 years. That is not an
impeachable offense, much less a removable one.
Negotiations with Congress and enforcement in the courts, not
impeachment, should be the front-line recourse when Congress and the
President disagree on the separation of powers. But here, the House
failed to go to court because, as Manager Schiff admitted, they did not
want to go through a yearlong exercise to get the information they
wanted. Ironically, they now demand that the Senate go through this
very long exercise they themselves decided to avoid.
On the first Article of Impeachment, I reject the argument that abuse
of power can never constitute grounds for removal unless a crime or a
crime-like action is alleged. However, even if the House managers had
been able to prove every allegation made in article I,

[[Page S919]]

would it be in the interest of the Nation to remove the President?
Answering this question requires a political judgment--one that takes
into account both the severity of the wrongdoing they allege and the
impact removal would have on the Nation.
I disagree with the House Managers' argument that, if we find the
allegations they have made are true, failing to remove the President
leaves us with no remedy to constrain this or future Presidents.
Congress and the courts have multiple ways by which to constrain the
power of the Executive. And ultimately, voters themselves can hold the
President accountable in an election, including the one just 9 months
from now.
I also considered removal in the context of the bitter divisions and
deep polarization our country currently faces. The removal of the
President--especially one based on a narrowly voted impeachment,
supported by one political party and opposed by another and without
broad public support--would, as Manager Nadler warned over two decades
ago, ``produce divisiveness and bitterness'' that will threaten our
Nation for decades. Can anyone doubt that at least half of the country
would view his removal as illegitimate--as nothing short of a coup
d'etat? It is difficult to conceive of any scheme Putin could undertake
that would undermine confidence in our democracy more than removal
would.
I also reject the argument that unless we call new witnesses, this is
not a fair trial. First, they cannot argue that fairness demands we
seek witnesses they did little to pursue. Second, even if new witnesses
would testify to the truth of the allegations made, these allegations,
even if they had been able to prove them, would not warrant the
President's removal.
This high bar I have set is not new for me. In 2014, I rejected calls
to pursue impeachment of President Obama, noting that he ``has two
years left in his term,'' and, instead of pursuing impeachment, we
should use existing tools at our disposal to ``limit the amount of
damage he's doing to our economy and our national security.''
Senator Patrick Leahy, the President pro tempore emeritus, once
warned, ``[A] partisan impeachment cannot command the respect of the
American people. It is no more valid than a stolen election.'' His
words are more true today than when he said them two decades ago. We
should heed his advice.
I will not vote to remove the President because doing so would
inflict extraordinary and potentially irreparable damage to our already
divided Nation.
Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I am glad that this unfortunate chapter
in American history is over. The strength of our Republic lies in the
fact that, more often than not, we settle our political differences at
the ballot box, not on the streets or battlefield and not through
impeachment.
Just last year, Speaker Pelosi said that any impeachment ``would have
to be so clearly bipartisan in terms of acceptance of it.'' And in
1998, Representative Nadler, currently a House impeachment manager,
said, ``There must never be . . . an impeachment substantially
supported by one of our major political parties and largely opposed by
the other . . . Such an impeachment would lack legitimacy, would
produce divisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come .
. .''
And yet, that is exactly what House Democrats passed. I truly wish
Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Nadler, and their House colleagues would have
followed their own advice.
As I listened to the House managers' closing arguments, I jotted down
adjectives describing the case they were making: angry, disingenuous,
hyperbolic, sanctimonious, distorted--if not outright dishonest--and
overstated; they were making a mountain out of a molehill.
Congressman Schiff and the other House managers are not stupid. They
had to know that their insults and accusations--that the President had
threatened to put our heads on a pike, that the Senate was on trial,
that we would be part of the coverup if we didn't cave to their demand
for witnesses--would not sway Republican Senators. No, they had another
goal in mind. They were using impeachment and their public offices to
accomplish the very thing they accused President Trump of doing,
interfering in the 2020 election.
Impeachment should be reserved for the most serious of offenses where
the risk to our democracy simply cannot wait for the voters' next
decision. That was not the case here.
Instead, the greater damage to our democracy would be to ratify a
highly partisan House impeachment process that lacked due process and
sought to impose a duty on the Senate to repair the House's flawed
product. Caving to House managers' demands would have set a dangerous
precedent and dramatically altered the constitutional order, further
weaponizing impeachment and encouraging more of them.
Now that the trial is over, I sincerely hope everyone involved has
renewed appreciation for the genius of our Founding Fathers and for the
separation of powers they incorporated into the U.S. Constitution. I
also hope all the players in this national travesty go forward with a
greater sense of humility and recognition of the limits the
Constitution places on their respective offices.
I am concerned about the divisiveness and bitterness that Chairman
Nadler warned us about. We are a divided nation, and it often seems the
lines are only hardening and growing farther apart. But hope lies in
finding what binds us together--our love of freedom, our faith, our
families.
We serve those who elect us. It is appropriate and necessary to
engage in discussion and debate to sway public opinion, but in the end,
it is essential that we rely upon, respect, and accept the public's
electoral decisions.
In addition, I ask unanimous consent that my November 18, 2019,
letter to Congressmen Nunes and Jordan, and the January 22, 2020, Real
Clear Investigations article written by Paul Sperry be printed in the
Record following my remarks.
The November 18, 2019, letter responds to Nunes' and Jordan's request
to provide information regarding my firsthand knowledge of events
regarding Ukraine that were relevant to the impeachment inquiry. The
January 22, 2020, article was referenced in my question to the House
managers and counsel to the President during the 16-hour question and
answer phase of the impeachment trial. Specifically, that question
asked: ``Recent reporting described two NSC staff holdovers from the
Obama administration attending an `all hands' meeting of NSC staff held
about two weeks into the Trump administration and talking loudly enough
to be overheard saying, `we need to do everything we can to take out
the president.' On July 26, 2019, the House Intelligence Committee
hired one of those individuals, Sean Misko. The report further
describes relationships between Misko, Lt. Col. Vindman, and the
alleged whistleblower. Why did your committee hire Sean Misko the day
after the phone call between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, and what
role has he played throughout your committee's investigation?''
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Hon. Jim Jordan,
Ranking Member,
Committee on Oversight and Reform.
Hon. Devin Nunes,
Ranking Member, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Dear Congressman Jordan and Congressman Nunes: I am writing
in response to the request of Ranking Members Nunes and
Jordan to provide my first-hand information and resulting
perspective on events relevant to the House impeachment
inquiry of President Trump. It is being written in the middle
of that inquiry--after most of the depositions have been
given behind closed doors, but before all the public hearings
have been held.
I view this impeachment inquiry as a continuation of a
concerted, and possibly coordinated, effort to sabotage the
Trump administration that probably began in earnest the day
after the 2016 presidential election. The latest evidence of
this comes with the reporting of a Jan. 30, 2017 tweet (10
days after Trump's inauguration) by one of the
whistleblower's attorneys, Mark Zaid: ``#coup has started.
First of many steps. #rebellion. #impeachment will follow
ultimately.''
But even prior to the 2016 election, the FBI's
investigation and exoneration of former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, combined with Fusion GPS' solicitation and
dissemination of the Steele dossier--and the FBI's
counterintelligence investigation based on that dossier--laid
the groundwork for future sabotage. As a result, my first-
hand knowledge and involvement in this

[[Page S920]]

saga began with the revelation that former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton kept a private e-mail server.
I have been chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGAC) since January 2015.
In addition to its homeland security portfolio, the committee
also is charged with general oversight of the federal
government. Its legislative jurisdiction includes federal
records. So when the full extent of Clinton's use of a
private server became apparent in March 2015, HSGAC initiated
an oversight investigation.
Although many questions remain unanswered from that
scandal, investigations resulting from it by a number of
committees, reporters and agencies have revealed multiple
facts and episodes that are similar to aspects of the latest
effort to find grounds for impeachment. In particular, the
political bias revealed in the Strzok/Page texts, use of the
discredited Steele dossier to initiate and sustain the FBI's
counterintelligence investigation and FISA warrants, and
leaks to the media that created the false narrative of Trump
campaign collusion with Russia all fit a pattern and indicate
a game plan that I suspect has been implemented once again.
It is from this viewpoint that I report my specific
involvement in the events related to Ukraine and the
impeachment inquiry.
I also am chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe and
Regional Security Cooperation of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. I have made six separate trips to Ukraine starting
in April 2011. Most recently, I led two separate Senate
resolutions calling for a strong U.S. and NATO response to
Russian military action against Ukraine's navy in the Kerch
Strait. I traveled to Ukraine to attend president-elect
Volodymyr Zelensky's inauguration held on May 20, and again
on Sept. 5 with U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy to meet with Zelensky
and other Ukrainian leaders.
Following the Orange Revolution, and even more so after the
Maidan protests, the Revolution of Dignity, and Russia's
illegal annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine,
support for the people of Ukraine has been strong within
Congress and in both the Obama and Trump administrations.
There was also universal recognition and concern regarding
the level of corruption that was endemic throughout Ukraine.
In 2015, Congress overwhelmingly authorized $300 million of
security assistance to Ukraine, of which $50 million was to
be available only for lethal defensive weaponry. The Obama
administration never supplied the authorized lethal defensive
weaponry, but President Trump did.
Zelensky won a strong mandate--73%--from the Ukrainian
public to fight corruption. His inauguration date was set on
very short notice, which made attending it a scheduling
challenge for members of Congress who wanted to go to show
support. As a result, I was the only member of Congress
joining the executive branch's inaugural delegation led by
Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Special Envoy Kurt Volker, U.S.
Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, and Lt.
Col. Alexander Vindman, representing the National Security
Council. I arrived the evening before the inauguration and,
after attending a country briefing provided by U.S. embassy
staff the next morning, May 20, went to the inauguration, a
luncheon following the inauguration, and a delegation meeting
with Zelensky and his advisers.
The main purpose of my attendance was to demonstrate and
express my support and that of the U.S. Congress for Zelensky
and the people of Ukraine. In addition, the delegation
repeatedly stressed the importance of fulfilling the election
mandate to fight corruption, and also discussed the priority
of Ukraine obtaining sufficient inventories of gas prior to
winter.
Two specific points made during the meetings stand out in
my memory as being relevant.
The first occurred during the country briefing. I had just
finished making the point that supporting Ukraine was
essential because it was ground zero in our geopolitical
competition with Russia. I was surprised when Vindman
responded to my point. He stated that it was the position of
the NSC that our relationship with Ukraine should be kept
separate from our geopolitical competition with Russia. My
blunt response was, ``How in the world is that even
possible?''
I do not know if Vindman accurately stated the NSC's
position, whether President Trump shared that viewpoint, or
whether Vindman was really just expressing his own view. I
raise this point because I believe that a significant number
of bureaucrats and staff members within the executive branch
have never accepted President Trump as legitimate and resent
his unorthodox style and his intrusion onto their ``turf.''
They react by leaking to the press and participating in the
ongoing effort to sabotage his policies and, if possible,
remove him from office. It is entirely possible that Vindman
fits this profile.
Quotes from the transcript of Vindman's opening remarks and
his deposition reinforce this point and deserve to be
highlighted. Vindman testified that an ``alternative
narrative'' pushed by the president's personal attorney, Rudy
Giuliani, was ``inconsistent with the consensus views of
the'' relevant federal agencies and was ``undermining the
consensus policy.''
Vindman's testimony, together with other witnesses' use of
similar terms such as ``our policy,'' ``stated policy,'' and
``long-standing policy'' lend further credence to the point
I'm making. Whether you agree with President Trump or not, it
should be acknowledged that the Constitution vests the power
of conducting foreign policy with the duly elected president.
American foreign policy is what the president determines it
to be, not what the ``consensus'' of unelected foreign policy
bureaucrats wants it to be. If any bureaucrats disagree with
the president, they should use their powers of persuasion
within their legal chain of command to get the president to
agree with their viewpoint. In the end, if they are unable to
carry out the policy of the president, they should resign.
They should not seek to undermine the policy by leaking to
people outside their chain of command.
The other noteworthy recollection involves how Perry
conveyed the delegation concern over rumors that Zelensky was
going to appoint Andriy Bohdan, the lawyer for oligarch Igor
Kolomoisky, as his chief of staff. The delegation viewed
Bohdan's rumored appointment to be contrary to the goal of
fighting corruption and maintaining U.S. support. Without
naming ``Bohdan, Secretary Perry made U.S. concerns very
clear in his remarks to Zelensky.
Shortly thereafter, ignoring U.S. advice, Zelensky did
appoint Bohdan as his chief of staff. This was not viewed as
good news, but I gave my advice on how to publicly react in a
text to Sondland on May 22: ``Best case scenario on COS:
Right now Zelensky needs someone he can trust. I'm not a fan
of lawyers, but they do represent all kinds of people. Maybe
this guy is a patriot. He certainly understands the
corruption of the oligarchs. Could be the perfect guy to
advise Zelensky on how to deal with them. Zelensky knows why
he got elected For now, I think we express our concerns, but
give Zelensky the benefit of the doubt. Also let him know
everyone in the U.S. will be watching VERY closely.''
At the suggestion of Sondland, the delegation (Perry,
Volker, Sondland and me) proposed a meeting with President
Trump in the Oval Office. The purpose of the meeting was to
brief the president on what we learned at the inauguration,
and convey our impressions of Zelensky and the current
political climate in Ukraine. The delegation uniformly was
impressed with Zelensky, understood the difficult challenges
he faced, and went into the meeting hoping to obtain
President Trump's strong support for Zelensky and the people
of Ukraine. Our specific goals were to obtain a commitment
from President Trump to invite Zelensky to meet in the Oval
Office, to appoint a U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who would
have strong bipartisan support, and to have President Trump
publicly voice his support.
Our Oval Office meeting took place on May 23. The four
members of the delegation sat lined up in front of President
Trump's desk. Because we were all directly facing the
president, I do not know who else was in attendance sitting
or standing behind us. I can't speak for the others, but I
was very surprised by President Trump's reaction to our
report and requests.
He expressed strong reservations about supporting Ukraine.
He made it crystal clear that he viewed Ukraine as a
thoroughly corrupt country both generally and, specifically,
regarding rumored meddling in the 2016 election. Volker
summed up this attitude in his testimony by quoting the
president as saying, ``They are all corrupt. They are all
terrible people. . . . I don't want to spend any time with
that.'' I do not recall President Trump ever explicitly
mentioning the names Burisma or Biden, but it was obvious he
was aware of rumors that corrupt actors in Ukraine might have
played a part in helping create the false Russia collusion
narrative.
Of the four-person delegation, I was the only one who did
not work for the president. As a result, I was in a better
position to push back on the president's viewpoint and
attempt to persuade him to change it. I acknowledged that he
was correct regarding endemic corruption. I said that we
weren't asking him to support corrupt oligarchs and
politicians but to support the Ukrainian people who had given
Zelensky a strong mandate to fight corruption. I also made
the point that he and Zelensky had much in common. Both were
complete outsiders who face strong resistance from entrenched
interests both within and outside government. Zelensky would
need much help in fulfilling his mandate, and America's
support was crucial.
It was obvious that his viewpoint and reservations were
strongly held, and that we would have a significant sales job
ahead of us getting him to change his mind. I specifically
asked him to keep his viewpoint and reservations private and
not to express them publicly until he had a chance to meet
Zelensky. He agreed to do so, but he also added that he
wanted Zelensky to know exactly how he felt about the
corruption in Ukraine prior to any future meeting. I used
that directive in my Sept. 5 meeting with Zelensky in
Ukraine.
One final point regarding the May 23 meeting: I am aware
that Sondland has testified that President Trump also
directed the delegation to work with Rudy Giuliani. I have no
recollection of the president saying that during the meeting.
It is entirely possible he did, but because I do not work for
the president, if made, that comment simply did not register
with me. I also remember Sondland staying behind to talk to
the president as the rest of the delegation left the Oval
Office.
I continued to meet in my Senate office with
representatives from Ukraine: on June

[[Page S921]]

13 with members of the Ukrainian Parliament's Foreign Affairs
Committee; on July 11 with Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S.
and secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense
Council, Oleksandr Danyliuk; and again on July 31 with
Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly. At no time
during those meetings did anyone from Ukraine raise the issue
of the withholding of military aid or express concerns
regarding pressure being applied by the president or his
administration.
During Congress' August recess, my staff worked with the
State Department and others in the administration to plan a
trip to Europe during the week of Sept. 2 with Senator Murphy
to include Russia, Serbia, Kosovo and Ukraine. On or around
Aug. 26, we were informed that our requests for visas into
Russia were denied. On either Aug. 28 or 29, I became aware
of the fact that $250 million of military aid was being
withheld. This news would obviously impact my trip and
discussions with Zelensky.
Sondland had texted me on Aug. 26 remarking on the Russian
visa denial. I replied on Aug. 30, apologizing for my tardy
response and requesting a call to discuss Ukraine. We
scheduled a call for sometime between 12:30 p.m. and 1:30
p.m. that same day. I called Sondland and asked what he knew
about the hold on military support. I did not memorialize the
conversation in any way, and my memory of exactly what
Sondland told me is far from perfect. I was hoping that his
testimony before the House would help jog my memory, but he
seems to have an even fuzzier recollection of that call than
I do.
The most salient point of the call involved Sondland
describing an arrangement where, if Ukraine did something to
demonstrate its serious intention to fight corruption and
possibly help determine what involvement operatives in
Ukraine might have had during the 2016 U.S. presidential
campaign, then Trump would release the hold on military
support.
I have stated that I winced when that arrangement was
described to me. I felt U.S. support for Ukraine was
essential, particularly with Zelensky's new and inexperienced
administration facing an aggressive Vladimir Putin. I feared
any sign of reduced U.S. support could prompt Putin to
demonstrate even more aggression, and because I was convinced
Zelensky was sincere in his desire to fight corruption, this
was no time to be withholding aid for any reason. It was the
time to show maximum strength and resolve.
I next put in a call request for National Security Adviser
John Bolton, and spoke with him on Aug. 31. I believe he
greed with my position on providing military assistance, and
he suggested I speak with both the vice president and
president. I requested calls with both, but was not able to
schedule a call with Vice President Pence. President Trump
called me that same day.
The purpose of the call was to inform President Trump of my
upcoming trip to Ukraine and to try to persuade him to
authorize me to tell Zelensky that the hold would be lifted
on military aid. The president was not prepared to lift the
hold, and he was consistent in the reasons he cited. He
reminded me how thoroughly corrupt Ukraine was and again
conveyed his frustration that Europe doesn't do its fair
share of providing military aid. He specifically cited the
sort of conversation he would have with Angela Merkel,
chancellor of Germany. To paraphrase President Trump: ``Ron,
I talk to Angela and ask her, `Why don't you fund these
things,' and she tells me, `Because we know you will.' We're
schmucks. Ron. We're schmucks.''
I acknowledged the corruption in Ukraine, and I did not
dispute the fact that Europe could and should provide more
military support. But I pointed out that Germany was opposed
to providing Ukraine lethal defensive weaponry and simply
would not do so. As a result, if we wanted to deter Russia
from further aggression, it was up to the U.S. to provide it.
I had two additional counterarguments. First, I wasn't
suggesting we support the oligarchs and other corrupt
Ukrainians. Our support would be for the courageous
Ukrainians who had overthrown Putin's puppet, Viktor
Yanukovich, and delivered a remarkable 73% mandate in
electing Zelensky to fight corruption. Second, I argued that
withholding the support looked horrible politically in that
it could be used to bolster the ``Trump is soft on Russia''
mantra.
It was only after he reiterated his reasons for not giving
me the authority to tell Zelensky the support would be
released that I asked him about whether there was some kind
of arrangement where Ukraine would take some action and the
hold would be lifted. Without hesitation, President Trump
immediately denied such an arrangement existed. As reported
in the Wall Street Journal, I quoted the president as saying,
``(Expletive deleted)--No way. I would never do that. Who
told you that?'' I have accurately characterized his reaction
as adamant, vehement and angry--there was more than one
expletive that I have deleted.
Based on his reaction, I felt more than a little guilty
even asking him the question, much less telling him I heard
it from Sondland. He seemed even more annoyed by that, and
asked me, ``Who is that guy''? I interpreted that not as a
literal question--the president did know whom Sondland was--
but rather as a sign that the president did not know him
well. I replied by saying, ``I thought he was your buddy from
the real estate business.'' The president replied by saying
he barely knew him.
After discussing Ukraine, we talked about other unrelated
matters. Finally, the president said he had to go because he
had a hurricane to deal with. He wrapped up the conversation
referring back to my request to release the hold on military
support for Ukraine by saying something like, ``Ron, I
understand your position. We're reviewing it now, and you'll
probably like my final decision.''
On Tuesday, Sept. 3, I had a short follow up call with
Bolton to discuss my upcoming trip to Ukraine, Serbia and
Kosovo. I do not recall discussing anything in particular
that relates to the current impeachment inquiry on that call.
We arrived in Kyiv on Sept. 4, joining Taylor and Murphy
for a full day of meetings on Sept. 5 with embassy staff,
members of the new Ukrainian administration, and Zelensky,
who was accompanied by some of his top advisers. We also
attended the opening proceedings of the Ukrainian High Anti-
Corruption Court. The meetings reinforced our belief that
Zelensky and his team were serious about fulfilling his
mandate--to paraphrase the way he described it in his speech
at the High Anti-Corruption Court--to not only fight
corruption but to defeat it.
The meeting with Zelensky started with him requesting we
dispense with the usual diplomatic opening and get right to
the issue on everyone's mind, the hold being placed on
military support.
He asked if any of us knew the current status. Because I
had just spoken to President Trump, I fielded his question
and conveyed the two reasons the president told me for his
hold. I explained that I had tried to persuade the president
to authorize me to announce the hold was released but that I
was unsuccessful.
As much as Zelensky was concerned about losing the military
aid, he was even more concerned about the signal that would
send. I shared his concern. I suggested that in our public
statements we first emphasize the universal support that the
U.S. Congress has shown--and will continue to show--for the
Ukrainian people. Second, we should minimize the significance
of the hold on military aid as simply a timing issue coming a
few weeks before the end of our federal fiscal year. Even if
President Trump and the deficit hawks within his
administration decided not to obligate funding for the
current fiscal year, Congress would make sure he had no
option in the next fiscal year--which then was only a few
weeks away. I also made the point that Murphy was on the
Appropriations Committee and could lead the charge on
funding.
Murphy made the additional point that one of the most
valuable assets Ukraine possesses is bipartisan congressional
support. He warned Zelensky not to respond to requests from
American political actors or he would risk losing Ukraine's
bipartisan support. I did not comment on this issue that
Murphy raised.
Instead, I began discussing a possible meeting with
President Trump. I viewed a meeting between the two
presidents as crucial for overcoming President Trump's
reservations and securing full U.S. support. It was at this
point that President Trump's May 23 directive came into play.
I prefaced my comment to Zelensky by saying, ``Let me go
out on a limb here. Are you or any of your advisers aware of
the inaugural delegation's May 23 meeting in the Oval Office
following your inauguration?'' No one admitted they were, so
I pressed on. ``The reason I bring up that meeting is that I
don't want you caught off-guard if President Trump reacts to
you the same way he reacted to the delegation's request for
support for Ukraine.''
I told the group that President Trump explicitly told the
delegation that he wanted to make sure Zelensky knew exactly
how he felt about Ukraine before any meeting took place. To
repeat Volker's quote of President Trump: ``They are all
corrupt. They are all terrible people. . . . I don't want to
spend any time with that.'' That was the general attitude
toward Ukraine that I felt President Trump directed us to
convey. Since I did not have Volker's quote to use at the
time, I tried to portray that strongly held attitude and
reiterated the reasons President Trump consistently gave me
for his reservations regarding Ukraine: endemic corruption
and inadequate European support.
I also conveyed the counterarguments I used
(unsuccessfully) to persuade the president to lift his hold:
(1) We would be supporting the people of Ukraine, not corrupt
oligarchs, and (2) withholding military support was not
politically smart. Although I recognized how this next point
would be problematic, I also suggested any public statement
Zelensky could make asking for greater support from Europe
would probably be viewed favorably by President Trump.
Finally, I commented on how excellent Zelensky's English
was and encouraged him to use English as much as possible in
a future meeting with President Trump. With a smile on his
face, he replied, ``But Senator Johnson, you don't realize
how beautiful my Ukrainian is.'' I jokingly conceded the
point by saying I was not able to distinguish his Ukrainian
from his Russian.
This was a very open, frank, and supportive discussion.
There was no reason for

[[Page S922]]

anyone on either side not to be completely honest or to
withhold any concerns. At no time during this meeting--or any
other meeting on this trip--was there any mention by Zelensky
or any Ukrainian that they were feeling pressure to do
anything in return for the military aid, not even after
Murphy warned them about getting involved in the 2020
election--which would have been the perfect time to discuss
any pressure.
Following the meeting with Zelensky and his advisers,
Murphy and I met with the Ukrainian press outside the
presidential office building. Our primary message was that we
were in Kyiv to demonstrate our strong bipartisan support for
the people of Ukraine. We were very encouraged by our
meetings with Zelensky and other members of his new
government in their commitment to fulfill their electoral
mandate to fight and defeat corruption. When the issue of
military support was raised, I provided the response I
suggested above: I described it as a timing issue at the end
of a fiscal year and said that, regardless of what decision
President Trump made on the fiscal year 2019 funding, I was
confident Congress would restore the funding in fiscal year
2020. In other words: Don't mistake a budget issue for a
change in America's strong support for the people of Ukraine.
Congress came back into session on Sept. 9. During a vote
early in the week, I approached one of the co-chairs of the
Senate Ukraine Caucus, U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin. I briefly
described our trip to Ukraine and the concerns Zelensky and
his advisers had over the hold on military support. According
to press reports, Senator Durbin stated that was the first
time he was made aware of the hold. I went on to describe how
I tried to minimize the impact of that hold by assuring
Ukrainians that Congress could restore the funding in fiscal
year 2020. I encouraged Durbin, as I had encouraged Murphy,
to use his membership on the Senate Appropriations Committee
to restore the funding.
Also according to a press report, leading up to a Sept. 12
defense appropriation committee markup, Durbin offered an
amendment to restore funding. On Sept. 11, the administration
announced that the hold had been lifted. I think it is
important to note the hold was lifted only 14 days after its
existence became publicly known, and 55 days after the hold
apparently had been placed.
On Friday, Oct. 4, I saw news reports of text messages that
Volker had supplied the House of Representatives as part of
his testimony. The texts discussed a possible press release
that Zelensky might issue to help persuade President Trump to
offer an Oval Office meeting. Up to that point, I had
publicly disclosed only the first part of my Aug. 31 phone
call with President Trump, where I lobbied him to release the
military aid and he provided his consistent reasons for not
doing so: corruption and inadequate European support.
Earlier in the week, I had given a phone interview with
Siobhan Hughes of the Wall Street Journal regarding my
involvement with Ukraine. With the disclosure of the Volker
texts, I felt it was important to go on the record with the
next part of my Aug. 31 call with President Trump: his
denial. I had not previously disclosed this because I could
not precisely recall what Sondland had told me on Aug. 30,
and what I had conveyed to President Trump, regarding action
Ukraine would take before military aid would be released. To
the best of my recollection, the action described by Sondland
on Aug. 30 involved a demonstration that the new Ukrainian
government was serious about fighting corruption--something
like the appointment of a prosecutor general with high
integrity.
I called Hughes Friday morning, Oct. 4, to update my
interview. It was a relatively lengthy interview, almost 30
minutes, as I attempted to put a rather complex set of events
into context. Toward the tail end of that interview, Hughes
said, ``It almost sounds like, the way you see it, Gordon was
kind of freelancing and he took it upon himself to do
something that the president hadn't exactly blessed, as you
see it.'' I replied, ``That's a possibility, but I don't know
that. Let's face it: The president can't have his fingers in
everything. He can't be stage-managing everything, so you
have members of his administration trying to create good
policy.''
To my knowledge, most members of the administration and
Congress dealing with the issues involving Ukraine disagreed
with President Trump's attitude and approach toward Ukraine.
Many who had the opportunity and ability to influence the
president attempted to change his mind. I see nothing wrong
with U.S. officials working with Ukrainian officials to
demonstrate Ukraine's commitment to reform in order to change
President Trump's attitude and gain his support.
Nor is it wrong for administration staff to use their
powers of persuasion within their chain of command to
influence policy. What is wrong is for people who work for,
and at the pleasure of, the president to believe they set
U.S. foreign policy instead of the duly elected president
doing so. It also would be wrong for those individuals to
step outside their chain of command--or established
whistleblower procedures--to undermine the president's
policy. If those working for the president don't feel they
can implement the president's policies in good conscience,
they should follow Gen. James Mattis' example and resign. If
they choose to do so, they can then take their disagreements
to the public. That would be the proper and high-integrity
course of action.
This impeachment effort has done a great deal of damage to
our democracy. The release of transcripts of discussions
between the president of the United States and another world
leader sets a terrible precedent that will deter and limit
candid conversations between the president and world leaders
from now on. The weakening of executive privilege will also
limit the extent to which presidential advisers will feel
comfortable providing ``out of the box'' and other frank
counsel in the future.
In my role as chairman of the Senate's primary oversight
committee, I strongly believe in and support whistleblower
protections. But in that role, I am also aware that not all
whistleblowers are created equal. Not every whistleblower has
purely altruistic motives. Some have personal axes to grind
against a superior or co-workers. Others might have a
political ax to grind.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General acknowledges
the whistleblower in this instance exhibits some measure of
``an arguable political bias.'' The whistleblower' s
selection of attorney Mark Zaid lends credence to the ICIG's
assessment, given Zaid's tweet that mentions coup, rebellion
and impeachment only 10 days after Trump's inauguration.
If the whistleblower's intention was to improve and
solidify the relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine, he or
she failed miserably. Instead, the result has been to
publicize and highlight the president's deeply held
reservations toward Ukraine that the whistleblower felt were
so damaging to our relationship with Ukraine and to U.S.
national security. The dispute over policy was being resolved
between the two branches of government before the
whistleblower complaint was made public. All the complaint
has accomplished is to fuel the House's impeachment desire
(which I believe was the real motivation), and damage our
democracy as described above.
America faces enormous challenges at home and abroad. My
oversight efforts have persuaded me there has been a
concerted effort, probably beginning the day after the
November 2016 election, to sabotage and undermine President
Trump and his administration. President Trump, his
supporters, and the American public have a legitimate and
understandable desire to know if wrongdoing occurred directed
toward influencing the 2016 election or sabotaging Trump's
administration. The American public also has a right to know
if no wrongdoing occurred. The sooner we get answers to the
many unanswered questions, the sooner we can attempt to heal
our severely divided nation and turn our attention to the
many daunting challenges America faces.
Sincerely,
Ron Johnson,
United States Senator.
____

[From RealClearInvestigations, Jan. 22, 2019]

Whistleblower Was Overheard in '17 Discussing With Ally How To Remove
Trump

(By Paul Sperry)

Barely two weeks after Donald Trump took office, Eric
Ciaramella--the CIA analyst whose name was recently linked in
a tweet by the president and mentioned by lawmakers as the
anonymous ``whistleblower'' who touched off Trump's
impeachment--was overheard in the White House discussing with
another staffer how to remove the newly elected president
from office, according to former colleagues.
Sources told RealClearInvestigations the staffer with whom
Ciaramella was speaking was Sean Misko. Both were Obama
administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on
foreign policy and national security issues. And both
expressed anger over Trump's new ``America First'' foreign
policy, a sea change from President Obama's approach to
international affairs.
``Just days after he was sworn in they were already talking
about trying to get rid of him,'' said a White House
colleague who overheard their conversation.
``They weren't just bent on subverting his agenda,'' the
former official added. ``They were plotting to actually have
him removed from office.''
Misko left the White House last summer to join House
impeachment manager Adam Schiff's committee, where sources
say he offered ``guidance'' to the whistleblower, who has
been officially identified only as an intelligence officer in
a complaint against Trump filed under whistleblower laws.
Misko then helped run the impeachment inquiry based on that
complaint as a top investigator for congressional Democrats.
The probe culminated in Trump's impeachment last month on a
party-line vote in the House of Representatives. Schiff and
other House Democrats last week delivered the articles of
impeachment to the Senate, and are now pressing the case for
his removal during the trial, which began Tuesday.
The coordination between the official believed to be the
whistleblower and a key Democratic staffer, details of which
are disclosed here for the first time, undercuts the
narrative that impeachment developed spontaneously out of the
``patriotism'' of an ``apolitical civil servant.''
Two former co-workers said they overheard Ciaramella and
Misko, dose friends and Democrats held over from the Obama
administration, discussing how to ``take out,'' or remove,
the new president from office within days of Trump's
inauguration. These co-workers said the president's
controversial Ukraine phone call in July 2019 provided the

[[Page S923]]

pretext they and their Democratic allies had been looking
for.
``They didn't like his policies,'' another former White
House official said. ``They had a political vendetta against
him from Day One.''
Their efforts were part of a larger pattern of coordination
to build a case for impeachment, involving Democratic leaders
as well as anti-Trump figures both inside and outside of
government.
All unnamed sources for this article spoke only on
condition that they not be further identified or described.
Although strong evidence points to Ciaramella as the
government employee who lodged the whistleblower complaint,
he has not been officially identified as such. As a result,
this article makes a distinction between public information
released about the unnamed whistleblower/CIA analyst and
specific information about Ciaramella.
Democrats based their impeachment case on the whistleblower
complaint, which alleges that President Trump sought to help
his re-election campaign by demanding that Ukraine's leader
investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son
Hunter in exchange for military aid. Yet Schiff, who heads
the House Intelligence Committee, and other Democrats have
insisted on keeping the identity of the whistleblower secret,
citing concern for his safety, while arguing that his
testimony no longer matters because other witnesses and
documents have ``corroborated'' what he alleged in his
complaint about the Ukraine call.
Republicans have fought unsuccessfully to call him as a
witness, arguing that his motivations and associations are
relevant--and that the president has the same due-process
right to confront his accuser as any other American.
The whistleblower's candor is also being called into
question. It turns out that the CIA operative failed to
report his contacts with Schiff's office to the intelligence
community's inspector general who fielded his whistleblower
complaint. He withheld the information both in interviews
with the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, and in writing,
according to impeachment committee investigators. The
whistleblower form he filled out required him to disclose
whether he had ``contacted other entities''--including
``members of Congress.'' But he left that section blank on
the disclosure form he signed.
The investigators say that details about how the
whistleblower consulted with Schiff's staff and perhaps
misled Atkinson about those interactions are contained in the
transcript of a closed-door briefing Atkinson gave to the
House Intelligence Committee last October. However, Schiff
has sealed the transcript from public view. It is the only
impeachment witness transcript out of 18 that he has not
released.
Schiff has classified the document ``Secret,'' preventing
Republicans who attended the Atkinson briefing from quoting
from it. Even impeachment investigators cannot view it
outside a highly secured room, known as a ``SCIF,'' in the
basement of the Capitol. Members must first get permission
from Schiff, and they are forbidden from bringing phones into
the SCIF or from taking notes from the document.
While the identity of the whistleblower remains
unconfirmed, at least officially, Trump recently retweeted a
message naming Ciaramella, while Republican Sen. Rand Paul
and Rep. Louie Gohmert of the House Judiciary Committee have
publicly demanded that Ciaramella testify about his role in
the whistleblower complaint.
During last year's closed-door House depositions of
impeachment witnesses, Ciaramella's name was invoked in
heated discussions about the whistleblower, as
RealClearInvestigations first reported Oct. 30, and has
appeared in at least one testimony transcript. Congressional
Republicans complain Schiff and his staff counsel have
redacted his name from other documents.
Lawyers representing the whistleblower have neither
confirmed nor denied that Ciaramella is their client. In
November, after Donald Trump Jr. named Ciaramella and cited
RCI's story in a series of tweets, however, they sent a
``cease and desist'' letter to the White House demanding
Trump and his ``surrogates'' stop ``attacking'' him. And just
as the whistleblower complaint was made public in September,
Ciaramella's social media postings and profiles were scrubbed
from the Internet.

`Take Out' the President

An Obama holdover and registered Democrat, Ciaramella in
early 2017 expressed hostility toward the newly elected
president during White House meetings, his co-workers said in
interviews with RealClearInvestigations. They added that
Ciaramella sought to have Trump removed from office long
before the filing of the whistleblower complaint.
At the time, the CIA operative worked on loan to the White
House as a top Ukrainian analyst in the National Security
Council, where he had previously served as an adviser on
Ukraine to Vice President Biden. The whistleblower complaint
cites Biden, alleging that Trump demanded Ukraine's newly
elected leader investigate him and his son ``to help the
president's 2020 reelection bid.''
Two NSC co-workers told RCI that they overheard Ciaramella
and Misko--who was also working at the NSC as an analyst--
making anti-Trump remarks to each other while attending a
staff-wide NSC meeting called by then-National Security
Adviser Michael Flynn, where they sat together in the south
auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part
of the White House complex.
The ``all hands'' meeting, held about two weeks into the
new administration, was attended by hundreds of NSC
employees.
``They were popping off about how they were going to remove
Trump from office. No joke,'' said one ex-colleague, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive
matters.
A military staffer detailed to the NSC, who was seated
directly in front of Ciaramella and Misko during the meeting,
confirmed hearing them talk about toppling Trump during their
private conversation, which the source said lasted about one
minute. The crowd was preparing to get up to leave the room
at the time.
``After Flynn briefed [the staff] about what `America
first' foreign policy means, Ciaramella turned to Misko and
commented, 'We need to take him out,' '' the staffer
recalled. ``And Misko replied, `Yeah, we need to do
everything we can to take out the president.' ''
Added the military detailee, who spoke on condition of
anonymity: ``By `taking him out,' they meant removing him
from office by any means necessary. They were triggered by
Trump's and Flynn's vision for the world. This was the first
`all hands' [staff meeting] where they got to see Trump's
national security team, and they were huffing and puffing
throughout the briefing any time Flynn said something they
didn't like about `America First.' ''
He said he also overheard Ciaramella telling Misko,
referring to Trump, `We can't let him enact this foreign
policy.' ''
Alarmed by their conversation, the military staffer
immediately reported what he heard to his superiors.
``It was so shocking that they were so blatant and
outspoken about their opinion,'' he recalled. ``They weren't
shouting it, but they didn't seem to feel the need to hide
it.''
The co-workers didn't think much more about the incident.
``We just thought they were wacky,'' the first source said.
``Little did we know.''
Neither Ciaramella nor Misko could be reached for comment.
A CIA alumnus, Misko had previously assisted Biden's top
national security aide Jake Sullivan. Former NSC staffers
said Misko was Ciaramella's closest and most trusted ally in
the Trump White House.
``Eric and Sean were very tight and spent nearly two years
together at the NSC,'' said a former supervisor who requested
anonymity. ``Both of them were paranoid about Trump.''
``They were thick as thieves,'' added the first NSC source.
``They sat next to each other and complained about Trump all
the time. They were buddies. They weren't just colleagues.
They were buddies outside the White House.''
The February 2017 incident wasn't the only time the pair
exhibited open hostility toward the president. During the
following months, both were accused internally of leaking
negative information about Trump to the media.
But Trump's controversial call to the new president of
Ukraine this past summer--in which he asked the foreign
leader for help with domestic investigations involving the
Obama administration, including Biden--gave them the opening
they were looking for.
A mutual ally in the National Security Council who was one
of the White House officials authorized to listen in on
Trump's July 25 conversation with Ukraine's president leaked
it to Ciaramella the next day--July 26--according to former
NSC co-workers and congressional sources. The friend,
Ukraine-born Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, held Ciaramella's
old position at the NSC as director for Ukraine. Although
Ciaramella had left the White House to return to the CIA in
mid-2017, the two officials continued to collaborate through
interagency meetings.
Vindman leaked what he'd heard to Ciaramella by phone that
afternoon, the sources said. In their conversation, which
lasted a few minutes, he described Trump's call as ``crazy,''
and speculated he had ``committed a criminal act.'' Neither
reviewed the transcript of the call before the White House
released it months later.
NSC co-workers said that Vindman, like Ciaramella, openly
expressed his disdain for Trump whose foreign policy was
often at odds with the recommendations of ``the
interagency''--a network of agency working groups comprised
of intelligence bureaucrats, experts and diplomats who
regularly meet to craft and coordinate policy positions
inside the federal government.
Before he was detailed to the White House, Vindman served
in the U.S. Army, where he once received a reprimand from a
superior officer for badmouthing and ridiculing America in
front of Russian soldiers his unit was training with during a
joint 2012 exercise in Germany.
His commanding officer, Army Lt. Col. Jim Hickman,
complained that Vindman, then a major, ``was apologetic of
American culture, laughed about Americans not being educated
or worldly and really talked up Obama and globalism to the
point of [It being] uncomfortable.''
``Vindman was a partisan Democrat at least as far back as
2012,'' Hickman, now retired, asserted. ``Do not let the
uniform fool you. He is a political activist in uniform.''
Attempts to reach Vindman through his lawyer were
unsuccessful.

[[Page S924]]

July 26 was also the day that Schiff hired Misko to head up
the investigation of Trump, congressional employment records
show. Misko, in turn, secretly huddled with the whistleblower
prior to filing his Aug. 12 complaint, according to multiple
congressional sources, and shared what he told him with
Schiff, who initially denied the contacts before press
accounts revealed them.
Schiff's office has also denied helping the whistleblower
prepare his complaint, while rejecting a Republican subpoena
for documents relating to it. But Capitol Hill veterans and
federal whistleblower experts are suspicious of that account.
Fred Fleitz, who fielded a number of whistleblower
complaints from the intelligence community as a former senior
House Intelligence Committee staff member, said it was
obvious that the CIA analyst had received coaching in writing
the nine-page whistleblower report.
``From my experience, such an extremely polished
whistleblowing complaint is unheard of,'' Fleitz, also a
former CIA analyst, said. ``He appears to have collaborated
in drafting his complaint with partisan House Intelligence
Committee members and staff.''
Fleitz, who recently served as chief of staff to former
National Security Adviser John Bolton, said the complaint
appears to have been tailored to buttress an impeachment
charge of soliciting the ``interference'' of a foreign
government in the election.
And the whistleblower's unsupported allegation became the
foundation for Democrats' first article of impeachment
against the president. It even adopts the language used by
the CIA analyst in his complaint, which Fleitz said reads
more like ``a political document.''

Outside Help

After providing the outlines of his complaint to Schiff's
staff, the CIA analyst was referred to whistleblower attorney
Andrew Bakaj by a mutual friend ``who is an attorney and
expert in national security law,'' according to the
Washington Post, which did not identify the go-between.
A former CIA officer, Bakaj had worked with Ciaramella at
the spy agency. They have even more in common: like the 33-
year-old Ciaramella, the 37-year-old Bakaj is a Connecticut
native who has spent time in Ukraine. He's also contributed
money to Biden's presidential campaign and once worked for
former Sen. Hillary Clinton. He's also briefed the
intelligence panel Schiff chairs.
Bakaj brought in another whistleblower lawyer, Mark Zaid,
to help on the case. A Democratic donor and a politically
active anti-Trump advocate, Zaid was willing to help
represent the CIA analyst. On Jan. 30, 2017, around the same
time former colleagues say they overheard Ciaramella and
Misko conspiring to take Trump out, Zaid tweeted that a
``coup has started'' and that ``impeachment will follow
ultimately.''
Neither Bakaj nor Zaid responded to requests for an
interview.
It's not clear who the mutual friend and national security
attorney was whom the analyst turned to for additional help
after meeting with Schiff's staff. But people familiar with
the matter say that former Justice Department national
security lawyer David Laufman involved himself early on in
the whistleblower case.
Also a former CIA officer, Laufman was promoted by the
Obama administration to run counterintelligence cases,
including the high-profile investigations of Clinton's
classified emails and the Trump campaign's alleged ties to
Russia. Laufman sat in on Clinton's July 2016 FBI interview.
He also signed off on the wiretapping of a Trump campaign
adviser, which the Department of Justice inspector general
determined was conducted under false pretenses involving
doctored emails, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and
other malfeasance. Laufman's office was implicated in a
report detailing the surveillance misconduct.
Laufman could not be reached for comment.
Laufman and Zaid are old friends who have worked together
on legal matters in the past. ``I would not hesitate to join
forces with him on complicated cases,'' Zaid said of Laufman
in a recommendation posted on his LinkedIn page.
Laufman recently defended Zaid on Twitter after Trump
blasted Zaid for advocating a ``coup'' against him. ``These
attacks on Mark Zaid's patriotism are baseless, irresponsible
and dangerous,'' Laufman tweeted. ``Mark is an ardent
advocate for his clients.''
After the CIA analyst was coached on how to file a
complaint under Intelligence Community whistleblower
protections, he was steered to another Obama holdover--former
Justice Department attorney-turned-inspector general Michael
Atkinson, who facilitated the processing of his complaint,
despite numerous red flags raised by career Justice
Department lawyers who reviewed it.
The department's Office of Legal Counsel that the complaint
involved ``foreign diplomacy,'' not intelligence, contained
``hearsay'' evidence based on ``secondhand'' information, and
did not meet the definition of an ``urgent concern'' that
needed to be reported to Congress. Still, Atkinson worked
closely with Schiff to pressure the White House to make the
complaint public.
Fleitz said cloaking the CIA analyst in the whistleblower
statute provided him cover from public scrutiny. By making
him anonymous, he was able to hide his background and
motives. Filing the complaint with the IC inspector general,
moreover, gave him added protections against reprisals, while
letting him disclose classified information. If he had filed
directly with Congress, it could not have made the complaint
public due to classified concerns. But a complaint referred
by the IG to Congress gave it more latitude over what it
could make public.

Omitted Contacts With Schiff

The whistleblower complaint was publicly released Sept. 26
after a barrage of letters and a subpoena from Schiff, along
with a flood of leaks to the media.
However, the whistleblower did not disclose to Atkinson
that he had briefed Schiff's office about his complaint
before filing it with the inspector general. He was required
on forms to list any other agencies he had contacted,
including Congress. But he omitted those contacts and other
material facts from his disclosure. He also appears to have
misled Atkinson on Aug. 12, when on a separate form he
stated: ``I reserve the option to exercise my legal right to
contact the committees directly,'' when he had already
contacted Schiff's committee weeks prior to making the
statement.
``The whistleblower made statements to the inspector
general under the penalty of perjury that were not true or
correct,'' said Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Republican member of
the House Intelligence Committee.
Ratcliffe said Atkinson appeared unconcerned after the New
York Times revealed in early October that Schiff's office had
privately consulted with the CIA analyst before he filed his
complaint, contradicting Schiff's initial denials. Ratcliffe
told RealClearlnvestigations that in closed door testimony on
Oct. 4, ``I asked IG Atkinson about his `investigation' into
the contacts between Schiff's staff and the person who later
became the whistleblower.'' But he said Atkinson claimed that
he had not investigated them because he had only just learned
about them in the media.
On Oct. 8, after more media reports revealed the whistle
blower and Schiff's staff had concealed their contacts with
each other, the whistleblower called Atkinson's office to try
to explain why he made false statements in writing and
verbally, transgressions that could be punishable with a fine
of up to $10,000, imprisonment for up five years, or both,
according to the federal form he signed under penalty of
perjury.
In his clarification to the inspector general, the
whistleblower acknowledged for the first time reaching out to
Schiff's staff before filing the complaint, according to an
investigative report filed later that month by Atkinson.
``The whistleblower got caught,'' Ratcliffe said. ``The
whistleblower made false statements. The whistleblower got
caught with Chairman Schiff.''
He says the truth about what happened is documented on
pages 53-73 of the transcript of Atkinson's eight-hour
testimony. Except that Schiff refuses to release it.
``The transcript is classified `Secret' so Schiff can
prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions,''
Ratcliffe told RCI.
Atkinson replaced Charles McCullough as the intelligence
community's IG. McCullough is now a partner in the same law
firm for which Bakaj and Zaid work. McCullough formerly
reported directly to Obama's National Intelligence Director,
James Clapper, one of Trump's biggest critics in the
intelligence community and a regular agitator for his
impeachment on CNN.

Hidden Political Agenda?

Atkinson also repeatedly refused to answer Senate
Intelligence Committee questions about the political bias of
the whistleblower. Republican members of the panel called his
Sept. 26 testimony ``evasive.'' Senate investigators say they
are seeking all records generated from Atkinson's
``preliminary review'' of the whistleblower's complaint,
including evidence and ``indicia'' of the whistleblower's
``political bias'' in favor of Biden.
Republicans point out that Atkinson was the top national
security lawyer in the Obama Justice Department when it was
investigating Trump campaign aides and Trump himself in 2016
and 2017. He worked closely with Laufman, the department's
former counterintelligence section chief who's now aligned
with the whistleblower's attorneys. Also, Atkinson served as
senior counsel to Mary McCord, the senior Justice official
appointed by Obama who helped oversee the FBI's Russia
``collusion'' probe, and who personally pressured the White
House to fire then National Security Adviser Flynn. She and
Atkinson worked together on the Russia case. Closing the
circle tighter, McCord was Laufman's boss at Justice.
As it happens, all three are now involved in the
whistleblower case or the impeachment process.
After leaving the department, McCord joined the stable of
attorneys Democrats recruited last year to help impeach
Trump. She is listed as a top outside counsel for the House
in key legal battles tied to impeachment, including trying to
convince federal judges to unblock White House witnesses and
documents.
``Michael Atkinson is a key anti-Trump conspirator who
played a central role in transforming the `whistleblower'
complaint into the current impeachment proceedings,'' said
Bill Marshall, a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, the
conservative government watchdog group that is suing the
Justice Department for Atkinson's internal communications
regarding impeachment.

[[Page S925]]

Atkinson's office declined comment.

Another `Co-Conspirator'?

During closed-door depositions taken in the impeachment
inquiry, Ciaramella's confederate Misko was observed handing
notes to Schiff's lead counsel for the impeachment inquiry,
Daniel Goldman--another Obama Justice attorney and a major
Democratic donor--as he asked questions of Trump
administration witnesses, officials with direct knowledge of
the proceedings told RealClear Investigations. Misko also was
observed sitting on the dais behind Democratic members during
last month's publicly broadcast joint impeachment committee
hearings.
Another Schiff recruit believed to part of the clandestine
political operation against Trump is Abby Grace, who also
worked closely with Ciaramella at the NSC, both before and
after Trump was elected. During the Obama administration,
Grace was an assistant to Obama national security aide Ben
Rhodes.
Last February, Schiff recruited this other White House
friend of the whistleblower to work as an impeachment
investigator. Grace is listed alongside Sean Misko as senior
staffers in the House Intelligence Committee's ``The Trump-
Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report'' published last month.
Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert, who served on one of the
House impeachment panels, singled out Grace and Misko as
Ciaramella's ``co-conspirators'' in a recent House floor
speech arguing for their testimony.``These people are at the
heart of everything about this whole Ukrainian hoax,''
Gohmert said. ``We need to be able to talk to these people.''
A Schiff spokesman dismissed Gohmert's allegation.
``These allegations about our dedicated and professional
staff members are patently false and are based off false
smears from a congressional staffer with a personal vendetta
from a previous job,'' said Patrick Boland, spokesman for the
House Intelligence Committee. ``It's shocking that members of
Congress would repeat them and other false conspiracy
theories, rather than focusing on the facts of the
president's misconduct.''
Boland declined to identify ``the congressional staffer
with a personal vendetta.''
Schiff has maintained in open hearings and interviews that
he did not personally speak with the whistleblower and still
does not even know his identity, which would mean the
intelligence panel's senior staff has withheld his name from
their chairman for almost six months. Still, he insists that
he knows that the CIA analyst has ``acted in good faith,'' as
well as ``appropriately and lawfully.''
The CIA declined comment. But the agency reportedly has
taken security measures to protect the analyst, who has
continued to work on issues relating to Russia and Ukraine
and participate in interagency meetings.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have a
statement I prepared concerning the impeachment trial be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Senator Richard Blumenthal--Statement for the Record

impeachment trial of donald john trump

The case for impeachment presented by the House managers is
overwhelming. Donald Trump held taxpayer-funded military aid
hostage from an ally at war while demanding a personal,
political favor. He tried to cheat, got caught, and worked
hard to cover it up. His actions constitute a shocking,
corrupt abuse of power and betrayal of his oath of office.
Just as a sheriff cannot delay responding to calls for help
until the callers endorse his re-election, the President is
not entitled to withhold vital military assistance from a
foreign ally until they announce an investigation to smear
his political rival. The proof shows precisely the type of
corruption that the Framers sought to prevent through the
Impeachment Clause, including foreign interference in our
election.
Two further points are significant. First, the President is
guilty of the crime of bribery, which is specifically listed
in the Constitution as a grounds for impeachment.\1\ Second,
the President's unprecedented campaign to obstruct the
impeachment inquiry compels us to conclude that the evidence
he is hiding would provide further proof of his guilt.
I. The President committed the federal crime of bribery
There is no question--based on the original meaning of the
Constitution, the elaboration of the impeachment clause in
the Federalist Papers, historical precedent, and common
sense--that the President need not violate a provision of any
criminal code in order to warrant removal from office.\2\ The
President's argument that he must violate ``established law''
to be impeached would be laughable if its implications were
not so dangerous.
But there is no reasonable doubt that the President has
violated established law. The Constitution specifically
states that a President who commits bribery should be
impeached.\3\ The evidence before us establishes that
President Trump has committed the crime of bribery as it
existed at the time of the framers and now. Therefore, even
using the President's own standard, the Senate has no choice
but to convict.
The evidence shows that the President solicited
interference in the 2020 election for his own benefit by
pressuring Ukraine to announce an investigation into his
political opponents in return for releasing nearly $400
million in taxpayer-funded military aid Ukraine desperately
needed, as well as a meeting with President Zelensky at the
White House. He sought, indeed demanded, a personal benefit
in exchange for an official act.
Section 201 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code criminalizes
``bribery of public officials and witnesses.'' A public
official is guilty under this section when they seek
``anything of value'' in exchange for any ``official act''
and do so with corrupt intent. The code even specifies that
punishment for this crime may include disqualification ``from
holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the
United States.'' \4\

A. The requested investigations constitute ``things of value''

The investigations that President Trump requested into his
political enemies and to undermine claims that Russia
illegally helped him get elected are clearly ``things of
value.'' \5\ By all accounts, he was obsessed with them.
According to multiple reports, Trump cared more about the
investigations than he did about defending Ukraine from
Russia. Ambassador Gordon Sondland even testified that the
President ``doesn't give a s**t'' about Ukraine and only
cares about ``big stuff'' like the announcement of the
investigations he requested.\6\
Courts have consistently applied a broad and subjective
understanding of the phrase ``anything of value.'' All that
matters is that the bribe had value in the eyes of the
official accepting or soliciting it. The Second Circuit has
determined that ``anything of value'' includes stock that,
although it had no commercial value at the time, had
subjective value to the defendant.\7\ Similarly, the Sixth
Circuit held that loans that a public official would have
been otherwise unable to receive were ``thing[s] of value.''
\8\ The Eighth Circuit has similarly emphasized that
``anything of value'' should be interpreted ``broadly'' and
``subjectively.'' \9\
Further, the ``thing'' need not be tangible, and it need
not be immediately available. For example, the Sixth Circuit
held that a promise of ``future employment'' is a thing of
value.\10\ A D.C. district court found that travel and
entrance to various events that Tyson Foods gave to the
Agriculture Secretary's girlfriend counted as things of
value, despite the fact that they were not given directly to
the Secretary and were not tangible items.\11\ Campaign
contributions also count as ``things of value,'' even
contributions made to Super PACs, despite Supreme Court
precedent holding that independent expenditures do not have
sufficient value to candidates to justify placing limits on
them.\12\ In other contexts, the courts have interpreted the
phrase ``thing of value'' to encompass a tip about the
whereabouts of a witness,\13\ information about government
informants,\14\ and the testimony of a government
witness.\15\ The courts have roundly rejected the proposition
that this phrase ``covers only things having commercial
value;'' intangibles, including information itself, can
certainly be a ``thing of value.'' \16\ The relevant inquiry
is not the objective value of the thing offered, but
``whether the donee placed any value on the intangible
gifts.'' \17\
Here, President Trump clearly placed value on the
announcement of investigations. During the July 25 phone
call, Trump stated that it was ``very important'' that
Zelensky open these investigations.\18\ Over several months,
Trump and Rudy Giuliani had made repeated public statements
about how important they thought the investigations were.
Since at least April, 2017, President Trump has been publicly
promoting the debunked conspiracy theory that a California-
based cybersecurity company, CrowdStrike, worked with the
Democratic National Committee to fabricate evidence that
Russia interfered in the 2016 election and hide the proof of
their actions in Ukraine. Rudy Giuliani, the President's
personal attorney, has been promoting a conspiracy theory
about Joe and Hunter Biden since at least January, 2019.\19\
Days after Zelensky was elected, Trump stated on air that he
would be directing Attorney General Barr to ``look into'' the
CrowdStrike conspiracy theory.\20\ In May, 2019, Rudy
Giuliani, with the knowledge and consent of President Trump
and acting on the President's behalf,\21\ planned to travel
to Ukraine to ask for these investigations, which he said
would be ``very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out
to be helpful to my government.'' \22\ On July 10, top
Ukrainian officials met with Energy Secretary Perry, John
Bolton, Kurt Volker, and Ambassador Sondland at the White
House where Sondland made clear that an official White House
visit with Zelensky was important to the President.\23\
Further, the electoral value to President Trump of
investigations that would smear Joe Biden and the DNC while
casting doubt on Russian interference in the 2016 election is
obvious. President Trump was elected in a shocking and narrow
victory after polls showed him trailing his opponent until
officials announced that she was under investigation.\24\ The
announcement of an investigation into his political opponents
clearly had tremendous value to him personally.
The President's counsels claim that Trump demanded
investigations of his political rival as part of a perfectly
legitimate anti-

[[Page S926]]

corruption effort. In short, they want the Senate to leave
our common sense at the door. At least four undisputed facts
decisively disprove the claim that President Trump's actions
were motivated by the public interest and not his own.
First, as one of my colleagues has put it,\25\ it ``strains
credulity'' to suggest that President Trump was pursuing the
public interest and not his political benefit when the only
corruption investigations he could think to demand involved
his political opponents.\26\ President Trump's counsel have
claimed throughout this trial that the President believed
corruption in Ukraine to be widespread. Yet he did not
suggest a single investigation or programmatic action other
than the two investigations of his political rivals.
Second, President Trump did not actually want Ukraine to
conduct the investigations he only wanted Zelensky to
announce them.\27\ If he really did want to get to the bottom
of a legitimate concern, a public announcement of the
investigation would not further that interest. Any good
investigator knows that, if you actually want to get to the
truth, you do not prematurely tip off the subject of the
investigation. Indeed, federal prosecutors are instructed to
not even ``respond to questions about the existence of an
ongoing investigation or comment on its nature or progress
before charges are publicly filed.'' \28\ While announcing
the investigations could only harm any legitimate law
enforcement objective, it would obviously benefit President
Trump's political goals.
Third, President Trump never sought the investigations
through ordinary, official channels, or if he did seek them
the Justice Department declined to pursue them. If President
Trump wanted bona fide investigations, as opposed to
politically-motivated announcements, he would have charged
the Department of Justice with conducting an official
investigation, and the Department would have sought
cooperation from the Ukrainian government through the U.S.-
Ukraine Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT). Legitimate
requests made pursuant to an MLAT allow DOJ to take
testimony, obtain records, locate persons, serve documents,
transfer persons into U.S. custody, execute searches and
seizures, freeze assets, and engage in any other lawful
actions that the state can take.\29\ Trump claims that he
just wanted to root out criminality and corruption. But he
did not ask domestic U.S. law enforcement to look into the
matter; to date, there is no criminal investigation of Hunter
Biden. Instead, Trump tried to coerce a foreign government to
investigate a U.S. citizen without any formal coordination
with the U.S. Justice Department. In other words, there was
not a sufficient basis for a bona fide, domestic criminal
investigation, so Trump had to go elsewhere. The fact that
Trump asked a foreign government to investigate Hunter Biden
is not evidence that he cared about corruption; it is
evidence that he was engaged in corruption.
In fact, Ukraine ultimately resisted President Trump's
requests for investigations precisely because the President
had failed to rely on the usual channels used to prevent
political interference with law enforcement.\30\ If Trump
actually wanted a legitimate investigation, and wanted to
ensure that DOJ would be privy to relevant information, he
would have sought formal assistance through the U.S.-Ukraine
MLAT. DOJ has confirmed that he did no such thing.\31\
Instead, President Trump acted through his personal attorney,
Rudy Giuliani, a man who made clear that he was duty bound to
pursue his boss's personal interests and not those of the
public.\32\ The only reasonable explanation for the
President's decision to completely bypass the Justice
Department is that he knew that his conspiracy theories could
not withstand scrutiny and he set out to circumvent law
enforcement officials. They were solely intended to serve
Trump's personal, political interests.
Finally, as the American Intelligence Community has
unanimously concluded,\33\ the CrowdStrike conspiracy is not
supported by any evidence. It is difficult to fathom how
propagating Russian-generated propaganda that implicates
American public figures and companies is in the national
interest of the United States. Even if his motives were
mixed, and he cared peripherally about corruption generally,
his predominant goal was to smear a political opponent.

B. The release of the hold on military aid and the promised White House
visit constitute ``official acts''

The two acts the President agreed to perform--releasing the
hold on military aid and setting up an official White House
meeting with Zelensky--constitute ``official acts.'' The
bribery statute defines ``official act'' broadly to include
``any decision or action on any question, matter, cause,
suit, proceeding or controversy, which may at any time be
pending, or which may by law be brought before any public
official, in such official's official capacity, or in such
official's place of trust or profit.'' \34\ Military
assistance and an official White House visit were within his
control only because of his tenure in elective office. In
fact, both receiving foreign dignitaries and providing
foreign assistance are in the President's official,
constitutional job description.\35\
Actions authorized by statute, such as the ones President
Trump took here, are particularly clear examples of official
acts.\36\ Congress has specifically authorized, and
circumscribed, the President's ability to award military
assistance to foreign countries. This process has been
codified since the early 1960s, and there is an enormous
federal apparatus devoted to evaluating the needs of foreign
nations, how those needs intersect with legitimate U.S.
foreign policy interests, and how to award foreign aid in
line with those interests.\37\ Further, when the President
placed a hold on the aid, he was acting on behalf of the
United States, not in his personal capacity. It defies reason
to argue that the President's decision to award, or fail to
execute, a foreign aid determination is not an ``official
act'' under the bribery statute.
Similarly, an official White House meeting is an ``official
act'' because the President is specifically ``assigned by
law'' \38\--in both the Constitution and numerous statutes--
with receiving representatives from foreign governments.\39\
Indeed, the authority to receive ambassadors and recognize
foreign governments is considered so core to the office of
the President that the Supreme Court has struck down statutes
that interfere with it.\40\

C. The President corruptly sought a quid pro quo

President Trump made an agreement with the specific intent
to be influenced in his decision whether to lift the hold on
the military aid and to host a White House meeting. In United
States v. Sun-Diamond Growers of California, the Supreme
Court held that a bribe made or solicited ``in return for''
an official act entails an exchange, a quid pro quo.\41\ In a
seminal case, the D.C. Circuit reasoned that the term
``corruptly'' means that the official act would not be
undertaken (or undertaken in a particular way) without the
thing of value.\42\
Department of Justice guidance on the issue, citing the
standard jury instructions that numerous courts have upheld,
indicates that ``corruptly'' denotes ``nothing more than . .
. acting `with bad purpose' to achieve some unlawful end.''
\43\ The guidance further explains that, ordinarily, this
``bad purpose'' is ``a hope or expectation of either
financial gain or other benefit to one's self, or some aid or
profit or benefit to another.''\44\ In other words, the
intent merely to be influenced in the way prohibited by the
bribery statute itself is sufficient to find that the
defendant acted ``corruptly.''
Further, the Supreme Court unanimously held in 2016 that
the quid pro quo demand ``need not be explicit,'' the
official ``need not specify the means that he will use to
perform his end of the bargain,'' nor must the official
actually intend to follow through for a prosecutor to succeed
in making her case that the defendant is guilty of
bribery.\45\ In a Seventh Circuit case, the court made clear
that the context of a communication can be determinative:
evidence of a quid pro quo can emerge from ``the often
clandestine atmosphere of corruption with a simple wink and a
nod if the surrounding circumstances make it clear that
something of value will pass to a public official if he takes
improper, or withholds proper, action.'' \46\ While the
defendant in that case never made an explicit offer and never
relayed a specific amount of money, the court nonetheless
upheld his conviction for bribery.\47\
Trump's actions clearly qualify as a quid pro quo. Less
than a month prior to this phone call, President Trump had
put a hold on hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid
to Ukraine and had previously set in motion, but not
committed to, an official White House visit with Ukraine's
new president, Volodomyr Zelensky. When Trump and Zelensky
spoke on July 25, Trump set the terms of the conversation by
making clear that he felt Ukraine owed him for America's
generosity. And as soon as Zelensky mentioned that Ukraine
was interested in receiving American anti-tank missiles, the
President immediately stated that he would like Zelensky to
``do us a favor though,'' and explicitly asked Zelensky to
investigate the Biden conspiracy theory and alleged Ukrainian
interference in the 2016 election. As soon as Zelensky
appeared to agree to open the requested investigations, Trump
almost immediately assured the Ukrainian President that
``whenever you would like to come to the White House, feel
free to call.'' \48\ Text messages sent by Special Envoy
Volker indicate that it had also been made clear to the
Ukrainians prior to the call that the official White House
visit was also conditioned upon Zelensky complying with
Trump's request for these investigations.\49\ Gordon
Sondland, the American ambassador to the EU, testified that
the President's proposal to lift the hold in exchange for the
investigations was as clear as ``two plus two equals four.''
\50\ Trump's acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, confessed
during a press conference that there was a quid pro quo
exchange and suggested that the public should just ``get over
it.'' \51\
The implication of Trump's message to Zelensky on the July
25 phone call is that Trump would not lift the hold or have
the White House meeting unless Zelensky opened the requested
investigations. The obvious political value to the President
of opening these investigations constitutes sufficient
grounds for a jury to determine that he had a ``bad motive''
in making this request. Trump is guilty of quid pro quo
bribery.

D. Trump's defenses are not persuasive

Trump attempts to absolve his behavior by arguing that his
subjective intent is irrelevant to whether he committed an
impeachable offense, that there is no quid pro quo because
Ukraine never announced the infamous investigations, and
that, even if he did commit a quid pro quo, he cannot be
impeached

[[Page S927]]

because the articles do not accuse him of bribery. Even
setting aside that these defenses ignore the fact that Trump
still has not held a White House meeting with Zelensky, these
arguments are wholly unpersuasive in their own right.

1. Trump's subjective intent is eminently relevant

Trump claims that his subjective intent is irrelevant; that
he cannot be impeached based on the reasons for which he
sought the investigations.\52\ This argument is specious for
at least three reasons. First, the two offenses that the
Constitution explicitly mentions as requiring removal from
office--treason and bribery--hinge on the subjective reasons
that the official acted. If the Commander-in-Chief orders the
military to take certain actions with the purpose of
benefiting an enemy of the United States, then the President
has committed treason, even if the President generally has
the authority to command the armed forces. If the President
vetoes a law because someone has paid him a large bribe, then
he has committed bribery, even if the President generally has
the authority to veto laws. When we are prohibited from
scrutinizing the President's reasons for acting, we lose the
ability to protect our democracy from tyrants and traitors.
Second, the President maintains that he needs to have
violated ``established law'' in order to be impeached.\53\
Using the President's own standard, then, in evaluating
whether he violated the federal bribery statute, we must
evaluate whether he acted with corrupt intent. If the
President wants to be scrutinized using the standards of the
federal criminal code, then he must concede that his
subjective intent is at issue.
Third, even if Trump had other reasons for releasing the
aid, it was still a crime for him to even ask for the
investigations. Section 201(c) of Title 18 prohibits public
officials from demanding anything of value ``for or because
of any official act.'' \54\ The courts have been clear that
even if the official act ``might have been done without'' the
bribe, the defendant is still guilty under section
201(c).\55\ Even if Trump never actually intended to maintain
a hold on the aid, even if he decided to release the aid for
entirely legitimate reasons, the fact that he requested the
investigations as a ``favor'' \56\--because of how generous
the President was in agreeing to conduct a White House visit
or lifting the hold on the military aid--means that the
President committed a crime.
Even if a legislator would have voted for a piece of
legislation because he thinks it is in the public interest,
he still commits bribery if he takes a payoff to do it. As
the courts have made clear, an illegal bribe under this
section may take the form of ``a reward [. . .] for a past
act that has already been taken.'' \57\ Thus, the fact that
the President continued to ask for the investigations after
the hold was finally released \58\ does not absolve him; it
further incriminates him.

2. Trump completed his crime the moment he solicited the bribe

It is undisputed that the President, either directly or
indirectly, demanded investigations into Joe Biden and a
conspiracy theory involving the Democratic National
Committee. The President's only response is that he cannot be
liable because he did not receive what he requested. Under
federal law, however, a corrupt official need not receive the
benefit he demands or perform the official acts in question;
``it is enough that the official agreed to do so.'' \59\ It
is the solicitation of a private benefit in and of itself
that constitutes the crime.\60\ All a prosecutor would have
to demonstrate is that the President made an agreement or
offer to exchange official acts for a thing of value.
We know from the memorandum of the July 25 phone call, from
Volker and Sondland's texts, and from Sondland's testimony
that Trump had agreed to lift the hold and conduct the White
House meeting in exchange for the investigations.\61\ We also
know that there is additional evidence out there that speaks
to the President's communications--both directly and through
his agents--with Ukraine regarding his illegal scheme. We
know, at the very least, of the existence of diplomatic
cables from the Ukrainian embassy about the hold on the
military assistance and communications with the State
Department about the hold.\62\ The head of the agency that
placed the hold on the military assistance has refused to
respond to a lawful subpoena, under the instruction of the
White House.\63\ As discussed below, when a party fails to
produce or obstructs access to relevant evidence, that
failure ``gives rise to an inference that the evidence is
unfavorable to him.'' \64\ In this case, although the
evidence already presented proves the crime of bribery, the
Senate should infer that the evidence that the executive
branch has hidden about these communications would provide
further evidence that Trump agreed to this illicit exchange.

3. Senators must convict if they conclude that the President committed
the crime of bribery, whether or not the term `bribery' appears in the
articles

The first article of impeachment accuses the President of
``corruptly solicit[ing]'' the public announcement of
investigations that were in his ``personal political
benefit,'' in exchange for ``two official acts.'' \65\ In
response to questions from Senators, Trump's counsel has
argued that because the article did not explicitly refer to
the crime of bribery, Trump was provided inadequate notice.
This argument is absurd.
Trump has received plenty of notice that he stands accused
of bribery. Trump's actions, as described in the article,
clearly align with the elements of the federal crime of
bribery: he solicited a thing of value in exchange for
official acts and did so with corrupt intent.\66\ Further,
the House Judiciary Committee report adeptly explained why
the President is guilty of bribery under the criminal
code.\67\ Lawmakers have been discussing the President's
misdeeds in terms of bribery for months now.\68\ His lack of
a defense is due not to lack of notice but to lack of facts.
The historical record confirms the common sense notion that
the articles need not name specific crimes. In 1974, the
House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of
impeachment against President Nixon, none of which referenced
any provisions of any criminal code.\69\ Many of my
colleagues were presented with similarly drafted articles of
impeachment against Judge Porteous in 2010. In that instance,
the House adopted four articles of impeachment, none of which
explicitly referenced the criminal code.\70\ The first
article described conduct that amounts to bribery--claiming
that Judge Porteous ``solicited and accepted things of
value'' in exchange for ruling in favor of a particular
party--but never used the term ``bribe'' or mentioned the
federal bribery statute.\71\ The Senate unanimously convicted
Judge Porteous on this article and voted to forever
disqualify him from holding office.\72\ No one seriously
entertained the notice argument then, and there is no good
reason to do so now. This bad faith defense is a red herring,
and we must not let it distract us from the issue before us:
the President's crimes.
Trump's claim that he cannot be removed for a crime unless
the crime is specifically mentioned in the articles of
impeachment--coupled with his claim that there must be proof
of a crime--is simply untenable. By Trump's flawed logic, if
he had been impeached for ``shooting someone on Fifth
Avenue,'' he could not be removed for ``murder'' unless that
word was specifically included in the articles. We have not
been called to sit in judgment of the House of
Representatives' diction; we sit in judgment of the
President's actions--carefully and precisely described in the
articles of impeachment as a clear-cut case of bribery.

II. The President's unprecedented campaign to obstruct access to
relevant evidence compels us to conclude that the evidence is against
him.

The House of Representatives has made a very strong case
that the President's refusal to engage in any way with their
investigation is unlawful and constitutionally offensive. But
make no mistake--this conflict is more than a dispute between
the branches of government. The House of Representatives and
a number of Senators have raised the alarm bells not for our
own sake, but because when the President hides from Congress,
he hides from the American people. The separation of powers
does not exist to benefit members of Congress; it exists to
curb the excesses of enormously powerful government
officials.
Throughout this entire ordeal--from the moment the call
transcript was improperly placed on a classified server \73\
to the time when Trump threatened to unlawfully assert
executive privilege over any testimony requested by the
Senate \74\--the President has sought to keep his illegal
scheme secret from the very people the scheme was designed to
manipulate: the American electorate.
Indeed, the withholding of aid itself was concealed, unlike
with other similar pauses or suspensions of military
assistance.
The law and historical precedent are clear--when the
President stifles Congress' investigative authority, whether
during an impeachment inquiry or when Congress is exercising
its broader mandate to investigate the executive branch, he
has exceeded the bounds of the law. Because Trump has flouted
congressional inquiry in such a brazen and unhinged manner,
this violation alone requires us to vote to remove him from
office.
Separately, this egregious campaign of obfuscation
strengthens the case against the President for abuse of
power. As a matter of law, when a party to a case improperly
withholds relevant evidence, courts can instruct juries to
make an adverse inference--to assume that the evidence would
be unfavorable to the withholding party. In this case, Trump
has withheld every single piece of evidence that the House
requested. The facts before us confirm the underlying logic
of the adverse inference rule--that when a party hides
something, it is because they have something to hide.
Applying that rule here, the already overwhelming evidence
against Trump becomes an avalanche.

A. Trump's obstruction requires us to infer that all the evidence is
against him, which only strengthens the case for removal for abuse of
power

It is a long-established rule of law that when a party
``has relevant evidence within his control which he fails to
produce, that failure gives rise to an inference that the
evidence is unfavorable to him.'' \75\ Importantly, this rule
applies even in the absence of a subpoena and, in fact, ``the
willingness of a party to defy a subpoena in order to
suppress the evidence strengthens the force of the
preexisting inference,'' because in that scenario ``it can
hardly be doubted he has some good reason for his
insistence on suppression.'' \76\ Indeed, the courts have
recognized that the adverse inference rule is essential to

[[Page S928]]

prevent intransigent parties from abusing ``costly and
time consuming'' court proceedings to subvert their legal
duty to produce relevant evidence.\77\ The Supreme Court
has specifically applied this rule against a party who
selectively provided weak evidence and failed to allow
those persons with the most relevant knowledge to testify,
noting that ``the production of weak evidence when strong
is available can lead only to the conclusion that the
strong would have been adverse.'' \78\ As the Court put
it, in circumstances like this, ``silence then becomes
evidence of the most convincing character.'' \79\
We know that the Trump administration has relevant evidence
that it refuses to produce. As an initial matter, the
President has failed to comply with a single request from the
House of Representatives, and, following the President's
orders, the White House, the office of the Vice President,
the Office of Management and Budget, the State Department,
the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy
refused to produce a single document in response to 71
specific requests issued by the House of Representatives.\80\
But we also know of specific pieces of evidence that go to
the heart of the House's case and that Trump is concealing.
Mark Sandy testified that in August, OMB produced a
memorandum recommending that the President's hold on the
Ukraine military assistance be released.\81\ William Taylor
testified that on August 29, he sent a first person cable to
Secretary Pompeo, relaying his concerns about the ``folly I
saw in withholding military aid to Ukraine at a time when
hostilities were still active in the east and when Russia was
watching closely to gauge the level of American support for
the Ukrainian Government.'' \82\ Mr. Taylor also testified
that he had exchanged WhatsApp messages with Ambassadors
Volker and Sondland as well as with Ukrainian officials. The
White House has refused to release any of these documents. We
therefore must infer that they demonstrate that there was no
interagency process to review the best use of the funds--that
this rationale was pre-textual.
The White House maintains that Ukraine was not even aware
of the hold on the military assistance until after it was
reported on publicly. But we have testimony to the contrary--
testimony that includes reference to specific documents that
the President is withholding. Laura K. Cooper, the American
deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and
Eurasia, testified that her staff received two emails on July
25th that directly undermine Trump's claim. The first,
received at 2:31 PM, stated that the Ukrainian embassy was
asking about the security assistance. The second, received at
4:25 PM, stated that the Ukrainian embassy knew that the
foreign military financing assistance had been held up.\83\
At the behest of President Trump, the State Department has
not released these emails. Unless and until the
administration produces these documents and any others
bearing on when Ukraine first learned about the hold, we
should assume that they demonstrate that Ukraine knew about
the hold when Trump spoke to Zelensky on July 25.

B. The evidence that has emerged despite Trump's intransigence has only
bolstered the case against him

Based on the above analysis alone, the Senate is more than
entitled to infer that the mountain of evidence that Trump is
withholding would demonstrate his guilt. But two further
points compel us to make such an inference. First, Trump
confessed on national television to having ``all the
materials'' and bragged about how he had kept them from
Congress.\84\ We cannot let this gleeful boast stand without
inferring that the materials in question speak to Trump's
guilt.
Second, as the House managers repeatedly cautioned us would
happen, the evidence that Trump has been hiding has started
to come out. And each newly revealed tape or record has been
unfavorable to the President's case. The assumption that the
law compels us to make about the contents of these
materials--that they demonstrate the President's guilt--is
confirmed each and every time they come out into the light.
Most damning has been the leak of a draft of John Bolton's
forthcoming book, which confirms that the President ``told
his national security adviser in August that he wanted to
continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to
Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into
Democrats including the Bidens,'' as well as details about
the involvement of various senior cabinet officials in
Trump's illegal scheme.\85\ And this is only the most recent
revelation in a rapidly growing series of records that have
come to light. On January 14, 2020, Lev Parnas, a former
associate of Rudy Giuliani, released documents which
demonstrate both that the President was orchestrating a deal
to get Zelensky to ``announce that the Biden case will be
investigated,'' and that Marie Yovanovitch was the subject of
an illegal intimidation campaign.\86\ On January 25, 2020, a
tape from April, 2018 was publicly released of a private
dinner with top donors where Trump is heard yelling: ``Get
rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out
tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it,'' in reference to
Ambassador Yovanovitch.\87\ The President is also heard
specifically asking how long Ukraine would last in a war
against Russia absent U.S. support--in other words, inquiring
how much Ukraine is at the mercy of the United States.\88\
Not only does this tape provide further evidence of a
coordinated campaign against the Ambassador; it also
undermines ``earlier defenses by the White House that Trump
wasn't aware of what was taking place in the early phase of
the Ukraine affair.'' \89\ This tape suggests that Trump not
only knew about the Ukraine affair, but also that ``he may
have been directing events'' as early as April 2018.\90\
The steady drip of damning evidence leaking from the
President's associates, combined with Trump's own public
confession to concealing relevant evidence, compels us to
conclude what the law already instructs us to infer: that the
mountain of evidence Trump is hiding proves his guilt.
Conclusion
It is clear to me that Trump is guilty of bribery and that
his campaign to obstruct any investigation into his
wrongdoing only strengthens the case against him. Trump's
actions require us to vote to remove him from office. When
the Framers included the impeachment power in the
Constitution, they knew that there would be a presidential
election every four years--and they also knew that this was
an insufficient check against a President who abuses the
power of his office to cheat his way to re-election. Trump's
misdeeds are a case study in the need for impeachment.
Throughout the impeachment trial, I have been moved by the
grave moral purpose that the Senate is charged with
pursuing--of sustaining America as an idea, of our
Constitution as a living document that gives substance to our
identity as the world's leading democracy. As we sit in
judgment of a President who has demonstrated nothing but
contempt for our laws and our values, history sits in
judgment of the Senate. By failing to remove Trump from
office, we will have failed our country.

ENDNOTES

1. U.S. Const. art. II. Sec. 4 (``The President [. . .]
shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and
Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and
Misdemeanors'').
2. See generally, Jared P. Cole & Todd Garvey, Cong. Res.
Serv., R44260, Impeachment and Removal (2015); see also Paul
Leblanc, Democrats Play 1999 Video of Lindsey Graham Talking
About Impeachment to Bolster Case Against Trump, CNN, Jan.
23, 2020, available at https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/23/
politics/impeachment-managers-lindsey-graham-video/index.html
(quoting then-Representative Graham's statement during the
Clinton impeachment that an impeachable offense ``[d]oesn't
even have to be a crime. It's just when you start using your
office and you're acting in a way that hurts people, you have
committed a high crime''); Steven J. Harper, Why Did Alan
Dershowitz Say Yes to Trump?, N.Y. Times, Jan. 22, 2020,
available at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/opinion/alan-
dershowitz-impeachment.html (quoting Alan Dershowitz's 1998
comments regarding the Clinton impeachment that ``[i]t
certainly doesn't have to be a crime if you have somebody who
completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses
trust and who poses great danger to our liberty. You don't
need a technical crime. We look at their acts of state. We
look at how they conduct the foreign policy. We look at
whether they try to subvert the Constitution'').
3. U.S. Const. art. II Sec. 4.
4. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 201(b).
5. The President does not contest that he is a ``public
official,'' and the law confirms that it would be foolish to
claim otherwise. The courts have found that a wide array of
officials are subject to the bribery statute: from a cook at
a federal prison, U.S. v. Baymon, 312 F. 3d 725, 728 (5th
Cir. 2002), to a private in the United States army, U.S. v.
Kidd, 734 F. 2d 409, 411-12 (9th Cir. 1984), to a housing
eligibility technician employed by an independent public
corporation, U.S. v. Hang, 75 F. 3d 1275, 1280 (8th Cir.
1996). It would defy reason to argue that a cook at a federal
prison is a public official but the President of the United
States is not.
6. Tom Porter, Ambassador Sondland Said Trump Doesn't `Give
a S--' about Ukraine Except When it Benefits Him Personally,
Official Testifies, Business Insider, Nov. 19, 2019,
available at https://www.businessinsider.com/sondland-said-
trump-doesnt-give-a-s-about-ukraine-official-2019-11. This
attitude to Ukraine is amplified by a statement made by
Secretary of State Pompeo, who has refused to testify before
the House of Representatives, when he recently asked a NPR
political reporter whether she thought Americans gave a
[expletive] about Ukraine. Mary Louise Kelly, Encore: NPR's
Full Interview with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, NPR, Jan.
25, 2020, available at https://www.npr.org/2020/01/25/
799470712/encore-nprs-full-interview-with-secretary-of-state-
mike-pompeo.
7. United States v. Williams, 705. F2d. 603, 602-23 (2d
Cir. 1983) (``Corruption of office occurs when the
officeholder agrees to misuse his office in the expectation
of gain, whether or not he has correctly assessed the worth
of the bribe.'').
8. U.S. v. Gorman, 807 F.2d 1299, 1304-05 (6th Cir. 1986)
(explaining that ``anything of value'' should be ``broadly
construed'' with a ``focus . . . on the value which the
defendant subjectively attaches to the items received'').
9. U.S. v. Renzi, 769 F.3d 731, 744 (8th Cir. 2014) (citing
Williams and Gorman in explaining importance of subjective
test for ``anything of value'').

[[Page S929]]

10. Gorman, 807 F. 2d 1299 at 1299.
11. Williams, 7 F. Supp. 2d 40 at 52-51.
12. U.S. v. Menendez, 132 F. Supp. 3d 635 (D.N.J. 2015);
see Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm'n, 558 U.S. 310,
357 (2010) (``The absence of prearrangement and coordination
of an expenditure with the candidate or his agent [. . .]
undermines the value of the expenditure to the candidate,''
and therefore the government was not justified in placing
limits on independent expenditures.)(internal citations and
quotations omitted).
13. U.S. v. Sheker, 618 F. 2d 607, 609 (9th Cir. 1980);
14. U.S. v. Girard, 601 F. 2d 69, 70 (2d Cir. 1979).
15. U.S. v. Zouras, 497 F. 2d 1115, 1121 (7th Cir. 1974).
16. Sheker, 618 F. 2d at 609.
17. U.S. v. Williams, D.D.C.1998, 7 F.Supp.2d 40, vacated
in part 240 F.3d 35, 345 U.S.App.D.C. 111 (emphasis added).
18. Memorandum of Telephone Conversation: Telephone
Conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine 3 (July 25,
2019).
19. Ryan Lucas, House Committees Subpoena Rudy Giuliani in
Impeachment Inquiry, NPR, Oct. 1, 2019, available at https://
www.npr.org/2019/10/01/765986709/house-committees-subpoenae-
rudy-giuliani-in-impeachment-inquiry.
20. Tamara Keith, Trump, Ukraine and the Path to the
Impeachment Inquiry: A Timeline, NPR, Oct. 12, 2019,
available at https://www.npr.org/2019/10/12/768935251/trump-
ukraine-and-the-path-to-the-impeachment-inquiry-a-timeline.
21.Ichael Biesecker, Mary Clare Jalonick & Eric Tucker,
Giuliani Associate Names Trump, Pence, More in Ukraine Plan,
Associated Press, Jan. 17, 2020, available at https://
apnews.com/708b81d4c77 038eb0b751c 30f72ff315 (quoting letter
from Giuliani requesting a meeting with Zelensky ``as
personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge
and consent'').
22. Kenneth P. Vogel, Rudy Giuliani Plans Ukraine Trip to
Push for Inquiries that Could Help Trump, N.Y. Times, May 9,
2019, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/us/
politics/giuliani-ukraine-trump.html.
23. See Keith, Trump, supra n. 23.
24. Amy Chozick & Patrick Healy, `This Changes Everything':
Donald Trump Exults as Hillary Clinton's Team Scrambles, N.Y.
Times, Oct. 28, 2016, available at https://www.nytimes.com/
2016/10/29/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html.
25. Benjamin Wood, Mitt Romney Says Everybody Knows It `Is
Wrong' to Ask a Foreign Government to Probe a Political
Rival, Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 11, 2019, available at https:/
/www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2019/10/10/mitt-romney-says-he-
hasnt/. Sen. Romney made this statement in regard to Trump's
request, made live on national television, that China
investigate the Bidens. But the logic of the Senator's claim
applies with equal force to Trump's demand that Ukraine
investigate the Bidens.
26.hile CrowdStrike is not actually a Trump political
opponent, Trump was accusing them of conspiring with the
Democratic National Committee and did not suggest any illegal
conduct on their part unrelated to President Trump's
political past and future.
27. Zach Beauchamp, Trump Didn't Want an Investigation into
Biden. He Wanted a Political Show., Vox, Nov. 20, 2019,
available at https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/
20/20974201/gordon-sondland-impeachment-hearing-testimony-
biden-show-trump.
28. See United States Attorneys' Manual 1-7.400--Disclosure
of Information Concerning Ongoing Criminal, Civil, or
Administrative Investigations, 1997 WL 1944080. Only in
special circumstances are U.S. attorneys permitted to make
public statements about ongoing investigations, such as when
necessary to ensure public safety.
29. Treaty of Mutual Legal Assistance, Ukraine-U.S., art. 1
cl.2, July 22, 1998, T.I.A.S. No. 12978.
30. The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report: Report
for the H. Perm. Select Comm. On Intelligence Pursuant to H.
Res. 660 in Consultation with the H. Comm. On Oversight and
Reform and the H. Comm. On Foreign Affairs at 122, 116th
Cong. (2019).
31. Department of Justice, Statement, Sept. 25, 2019 (``The
President has not asked the Attorney General to contact
Ukraine--on this or any other matter. The Attorney General
has not communicated with Ukraine--on this or any other
subject.'')
32. See Kenneth P. Vogel, Rudy Giuliani Plans Ukraine Trip
to Push for Inquiries that Could Help Trump, N.Y. Times, May
9, 2019, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/us/
politics/giuliani-ukraine-trump.html (quoting Giuliani, in
response to questions about his travel to Ukraine, noting
that ``this isn't foreign policy--I'm asking them to do an
investigation [. . .] because that information will be very,
very helpful to my client [Donald Trump], and may turn out to
be helpful to my government.'') (emphasis added).
33. Miles Parks & Brian Naylor, Trump Did `Nothing Wrong,'
His Legal Team Says in First Day of Impeachment Defense, NPR,
Jan. 25, 2020, available at https://www.npr.org/2020/01/25/
797321065/president-trumps-legal-team-to-begin-impeachment-
defense?utm-source= twitter.com&utm-term=nprnews &utm-
campaign= npr&utm-medium= social (``American intelligence
agencies have been unanimous in their assessment that it was
Russia that interfered in the last presidential race'').
34. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 201(a)(3).
35. See U.S. Const. art. II Sec. 2 (The President ``shall
receive ambassadors and other public ministers,'');
Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Kerry, 576 U.S. 1, 135 S.
Ct. 2076, 2086 (2015)(the Reception Clause ``assigns the
President means to effect recognition on his own
initiative'').
36. Cf. U.S. v. Birdsall, 233 U.S. 223, 231 (1914) ([I]t is
sufficient that [the act] was governed by a lawful
requirement of the executive department under whose authority
the officer was acting; and such requirement need not have
been prescribed by a written rule or regulation, but might
also be found in an established usage which constituted the
common law of the department.'').
37. See Marian L. Lawson & Emily M. Morgenstern, Cong. Res.
Serv., R40213, Foreign Aid: An Introduction to U.S. Programs
and Policy (2019).
38. McDonnell v. U.S., 136 S. Ct. 2355, 2373. The meetings
that the Court considered in McDonnell are not comparable.
Nowhere in Virginia's constitution or statutes is the
governor tasked with arranging meetings, hosting parties, or
engaging in unofficial conversations with other government
officials. The Court took issue with a jury instruction which
stated that an official act need not have been taken
``pursuant to responsibilities explicitly assigned by law,''
whereas the President's actions here clearly are assigned by
law.
39. See U.S. Const. art. II Sec. 2 (The President ``shall
receive ambassadors and other public ministers'');
Zivotofsky, 135 S. Ct. at 2086 (2015)(the Reception Clause
``assigns the President means to effect recognition on his
own intiative''); 22 U.S.C. Sec. 2754; 22 U.S.C.
Sec. 2311(a).
40. See Zivotofsky 135 S. Ct. at 2096.
41. 526 U.S. 398, 404 (1999).
42. U.S. v. Brewster, 506 F. 2d 62, 71 (D.C. Cir. 1974). In
contrast, with a bribe under 201(c), the thing of value need
not be a reason that the official performed the act at all.
See infra 14-15.
43. Department Of Justice, Criminal Resource Manual, 834.
Intent Of The Parties, available at https://www.justice.gov/
jm/criminal-resource-manual-834-intent-parties.
44. Id.
45. McDonnell, 136 S. Ct. at 2371.
46. United States v. Synowiec, 333 F. 3d 786, 789 (7th Cir.
2003).
47. Id. at 789-90.
48. Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, supra n. 21 at 5.
49. Charlie Savage & Josh Williams, Read the Text Messages
Between U.S. and Ukrainian Officials, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 4,
2019, available at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/
10/04/us/politics/ukraine-text-messages-volker.html.
50. Lisa Mascare, Mary Clare Jalonick & Eric Tucker, Watch:
Ambassador Gordon Sondland Testifies Trump Directed Ukraine
Quid Pro Quo, Associated Press, Nov. 19, 2019, available at
https://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2019/11/19/watch-
live-eu-ambassador-gordon-sondland-2-others-testify-on-day-4-
of-impeachment-hearings.
51. Jessica Taylor, `Get Over It': Politics is Part of
Foreign Policy, Mulvaney Says, NPR, Oct. 17, 2019, available
at https://www.npr.org/2019/10/17/770979659/watch-white-
house-holds-now-rare-press-briefing-amid-impeachment-syria-
conflicts.
52. See Trial Memorandum of President Donald J. Trump at
27-28 (Jan. 20, 2020) (rebutting ``radical claim that a
President can be impeached and removed from office solely for
doing something he is allowed to do, if he did it for the
`wrong' subjective reasons [. . .] By eliminating any
requirement for wrongful conduct, House Democrats have tried
to make thinking the wrong thoughts an impeachable offense'')
(emphasis in original).
53. As discussed supra pp. 1-2, it is eminently clear that
the President need not have violated ``established law'' in
order to have committed an impeachable offense.
54. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 201(c).
55. Brewster, 506 F. 2d at 72.
56. Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, supra n. 21 at 3.
57. Sun-Diamond Growers, 526 U.S. at 404.
58. See Kevin Breuninger, Trump Says China Should
Investigate the Bidens, Doubles Down on Ukraine Probe, CNBC,
Oct. 3, 2019, available at https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/03/
trump-calls-for-ukraine-china-to-investigate-the-bidens.html
(quoting President Trump, in response to question about what
he wanted Ukraine to do, stating that ``[i]f they were honest
about it, they would start a major investigation into the
Bidens'').
59. McDonnell v. U.S. 136 S. Ct. 2355, 2371 (2016).
60. Id. at 2370-71 (2016); see also United States v.
Hawkins, 37 F. Supp. 3d 964 (N.D. Ill. 2014), aff'd in part,
vacated in part on other grounds, remanded, 2015 WL 309520
(7th Cir. 2015)(``What is required to make the act corrupt is
not an intent to take a specific action, but the holding out
of the performance of the duties of one's office for
sale.'').
61. See supra pp. 12-13.
62. Andrew E. Kramer, Ukraine Knew of Aid Freeze in July,
Says Ex-Top Official in Kyiv, N.Y. Times, Dec. 3, 2019,
available at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/world/europe/
ukraine-impeachment-military-aid.html; Transcript: Laura
Cooper and David Hale's Nov. 20 Testimony to House
Intelligence Committee, Washington Post, Nov. 20, 2019,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/20/
transcript-laura-cooper-david-hales-nov-testimony-house-
intelligence-committee/. Any statement to the contrary by
Zelensky is not reliable for the simple reason that Ukraine's
future depends on remaining in Trump's good graces. As
Catherine Croft, who testified that the Ukrainians knew about
the hold much earlier than

[[Page S930]]

she expected to, stated, the Ukrainians did not want the hold
publicized because it ``would be a really big deal in
Ukraine, and an expression of declining U.S. support for
Ukraine.'' Charlotte Butash, Summary of Catherine Croft's
Deposition Testimony, Lawfare, Nov. 16, 2019, available at
lawfareblog.com/summary-catherine-crofts-deposition-
testimony.
63. Peter Baker, Mulvaney Will Defy House Impeachment
Subpoena, N.Y. Times, Nov. 12, 2019, available at https://
www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/politics/mulvaney-impeachment-
subpoena.html.
64. Interstate Circuit v. U.S., 306 U.S. 208, 226 (1939);
see infra Part II.
65. H. Res. 755, 116th Cong. Sec. 1 (2019).
66. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 201(b); see supra pp. 2-13.
67. See Report of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary,
Impeachment of Donald John Trump, President of the United
States at 120-26, 116th Cong. (2019).
68. See Patricia Zengerle, Karen Freifeld & Richard Cowan,
Pelso Says Trump Has Admitted to Bribery as Impeachment Probe
Intensifies, Reuters, Nov. 14, 2019, available at https://
www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-impeachment/pelosi-says-
trump-has-admitted-to-bribery-as-impeachment-probe-
intensifies-idUSKBN1XO1HD; Jessica Taylor, Rep. Adam Schiff:
Trump's Potentially Impeachable Offenses Include Bribery,
NPR, Nov. 12, 2019, available at https://www.npr.org/2019/11/
12/778380499/rep-adam-schiff-trumps-potentially-impeachable-
offenses-include-bribery (explaining that Rep. Schiff
believes ``there's a clear argument to be made that Trump
committed `bribery' and `high crimes and misdemeanors'--both
explicitly outlined in the Constitution as impeachable
offenses--when pressuring the Ukrainian government to
investigate former Vice President Joe Biden's son in exchange
for long-promised military aid''); Sean Collins, A Republican
Memo Details the Party's Impeachment Inquiry Defenses. They
Aren't Very Strong, Vox, Nov. 12, 2019, available at https://
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/12/20961073/trump-
impeachment-hearings-republican-testimony-strategy (quoting
Rep. Speier: ``[t]he president broke the law. He went on a
telephone call with the president of Ukraine and said `I have
a favor, though,' and then proceeded to ask for an
investigation of his rival. And this is a very strong case of
bribery'').
69. H. Doc. No. 109-153, Jurisdictional History of the
Judiciary Committee: The Committee and Impeachment, at 124-
27.
70. See H. Res. 1031, 111th Cong. (2010).
71. Id. at Sec. 1.
72. Jennifer Steinhauer, Senate, for Just the 8th Time,
Votes to Oust a Federal Judge, N.Y. Times, Dec. 8, 2010,
available at https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/us/politics/
09judge.html.
73. Carol D. Leonnig, Tom Hamburger, & Greg Miller, White
House Lawyer Moved Transcript of Trump Call to Classified
Server after Ukraine Adviser Raised Alarms, Washington Post,
Oct. 30, 2019, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/
politics/white-house-lawyer-moved-transcript-of-trump-call-
to-classified-server-after-ukraine-adviser-raised-alarms/
2019/10/30/ba0fbdb6-fb4e-11e9-8190-6be4deb56e01_story.html.
74. Jennifer Haberkorn, Trump Will Try to Block Bolton
Impeachment Testimony; Senate to Get Case Next Week, Pelosi
Says, L.A. Times, Jan. 10, 2020, available at https://
www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-01-10/pelosi-trump-
impeachment-case.
75. International Union, United Auto., Aerospace and Agr.
Implement Workers of America (UAW) v. N.L.R.B., 459 F. 2d
1329, 1336 (D.C. Cir. 1972) (noting that ``this rule can be
traced as far back as 1722); United States v. Roberson, 233
F. 2d 517, 519 (5th Cir. 1956) (``Unquestionably the failure
of a defendant in a civil case to testify or offer other
evidence within his ability to produce and which would
explain or rebut a case made by the other side may, in a
proper case, be considered as a circumstance against him and
may raise a presumption that the evidence would not be
favorable to his position.'').
76. International Union, 459 F. 2d at 1338 (emphasis
added).
77. Id. at 1339.
78. Interstate Circuit, 306 U.S. at 226.
79. Id.
80. Sharon Lafontaine, House Managers Asks: Where are the
Documents, N.Y. Times, Jan. 24, 2020, available at https://
www.nytimes.com/live/2020/impeachment-trial-live-01-24.
81. Jeff Stein & Josh Dawsey, In New Legal Memo, White
House Budget Office Defends Withholding Aid to Ukraine,
Washington Post, Dec. 12, 2019, available at https://
www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-new-legal-memo-
white-house-budget-office-defends-withholding-aid-to-ukraine/
2019/12/11/0caa030e-1b95-11ea-826b-14ef38a0f45f_story.html.
82. Jeremy Herb & Manu Raju, Top US Diplomat Said John
Bolton Opposed Call Between Trump and Ukrainian President,
CNN, Oct. 22, 2019, available at https://www.cnn.com/
politics/live-news/impeachment-inquiry-10-22-2019/
h_a1a8938b60cfd525c6768fd7dc207e6d.
83. Transcript: Laura Cooper and David Hale's Nov. 20
Testimony to House Intelligence Committee, Washington Post,
Nov 20, 2019, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/
politics/2019/11/20/transcript-laura-cooper-david-hales-nov-
testimony-house-intelligence-committee/.
84. Peter Wade, Trump Brags About Concealing Impeachment
Evidence: We Have All the Material, They Don't, Rolling
Stone, Jan. 22, 2020, available at https://
www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-
impeachment-evidence-we-have-all-the-material-they-dont-
941140/.
85. Maggie Haberman & Michael S. Schmidt, Trump Tied
Ukraine Aid to Inquiries He Sought, Bolton Book Says, N.Y.
Times, Jan. 26, 2020, available at https://www.nytimes.com/
2020/01/26/us/politics/trump-bolton-book-ukraine.html.
86. Greg Sargent, Four Big Takeaways from the Explosive Lev
Parnas Documents, Washington Post, Jan. 15, 2020, available
at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/15/four-
big-takeaways-explosive-lev-parnas-documents/.
87. Rosalind S. Helderman, Tom Hamburger & Josh Dawsey,
Listen: Trump Tells Associates to `Get Rid Of' U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine, Washington Post, Jan. 25, 2020,
available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/
recording-of-trump-calling-for-yovanovitchs-ouster-appears-
to-corroborate-parnass-account/2020/01/24/77326098-3ed3-11ea-
baca-eb7ace0a3455_story.html.
88. Josh Lederman, Trump Appears on Audio to Demand
Yovanovitch's Ouster Without Knowing Her Name, NBC News, Jan.
25, 2020, available at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/
politics-news/trump-appears-audio-demand-yovanovitch-s-
ouster-without-knowing-her-n1123171.
89. Philip Ewing, Trump Impeachment Recap: Dems Wrap With
Exhortation to Act, NPR, Jan. 24, 2020, available at https://
www.npr.org/2020/01/24/799426878/trump-impeachment-recap-
dems-wrap-with-exhortation-to-act.
90. Id.

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, when I was elected to serve in the U.S.
Senate, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the
United States. Every U.S. Senator takes the same oath. The Constitution
makes clear that no one is above the law, not even the President of the
United States.
Over the past 2 weeks, the Senate has heard overwhelming evidence
showing that the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump,
abused the power of his office to pressure the President of Ukraine to
dig up dirt on a political rival to help President Trump in the next
election. The President then executed an unprecedented campaign to
cover up his actions, including a wholesale obstruction of Congress's
effort to investigate his abuse of power.
The Constitution gives the Senate the sole power to conduct
impeachment trials. A fair trial is one in which Senators are allowed
to see and hear all of the relevant information needed to evaluate the
Articles of Impeachment, including relevant witnesses and documents.
The American people expected and deserved a fair trial, but that is not
what they got. Instead of engaging in a pursuit for the truth, Senate
Republicans locked arms with the President and refused to subpoena a
single witness or document. They even refused to allow the testimony of
the President's former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, who
possesses direct evidence related to the issues at the heart of the
trial, even as more evidence continued to come to light and as Bolton
repeatedly volunteered to share what he knows.
This trial boils down to one word: corruption--the corruption of a
President who has repeatedly put his interests ahead of the interests
of the American people and violated the Constitution in the process;
the corruption of this President's political appointees, including
individuals like U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland,
who paid $1 million for an ambassadorship; the corruption running
throughout our government that protects and defends the interests of
the wealthy and powerful to the detriment of everyone else.
Americans have a right to hear and see information that further
exposes the gravity of the President's actions and the unprecedented
steps he and his agents took to hide it from the American people. But
more importantly, Americans deserve to know that the President of the
United States is using the power of his office to work in the Nation's
interest, not his own personal interest.
I voted to convict and to remove the President from office in order
to stand up to the corruption that has permeated this administration
and that was on full display with President Trump's abuse of power and
obstruction of Congress. I will continue to call out this corruption
and fight to make this government work not just for the wealthy and
well-connected but to make it work for everyone.
Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I swore an oath to defend the Constitution

[[Page S931]]

both as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and as a U.S. Senator.
At the beginning of the impeachment trial, I swore an oath to keep an
open mind, listen carefully to the facts, and in the end deliver
impartial justice.
After carefully listening to the arguments presented by both House
managers and the President's lawyers, I believe the facts are clear.
President Trump stands accused by the House of Representatives of
abusing his power in an attempt to extort a foreign government to
announce a trumped up investigation into a political rival and thereby
put his personal interest ahead of national security and the public
trust.
The President illegally withheld congressionally approved military
aid to an ally at war with Russia and conditioned its release on
Ukraine making an announcement the President could use to falsely
discredit a likely political opponent.
When the President's corrupt plan was brought to light, the White
House engaged in a systematic and unprecedented effort to cover up the
scheme.
The President's complete refusal to cooperate with a constitutionally
authorized investigation is unparalleled in American history.
Despite the extraordinary efforts by the President to cover up the
facts, the House managers made a convincing case.
It is clear.
The President's actions were not an effort to further official
American foreign policy.
The President was not working in the public interest.
What the President did was wrong, unacceptable, and impeachable.
I expected the President's lawyers to offer new eyewitness testimony
from people with firsthand knowledge and offer new documents to defend
the President, but that did not happen.
It became very clear to me that the President's closest advisers
could not speak to the President's innocence, and his lawyers did
everything in their power to prevent them from testifying under oath.
Witness testimony is the essence of a fair trial. It is what makes us
a country committed to the rule of law.
If you are accused of wrongdoing in America, you have every right to
call witnesses in your defense, but you also don't have the right to
stop the prosecution from calling a hostile witness or subpoenaing
documents.
No one in this country is above the law--no one--not even the
President.
If someone is accused of a crime and they have witnesses who could
clear them of any wrongdoing, they would want those witnesses to
testify. In fact, not only would they welcome it, they would insist on
it.
All we need to do is use our common sense. The fact that the
President refuses to have his closest advisers testify tells me that he
is afraid of what they will say.
The President's conduct is unacceptable for any official, let alone
the leader of our country.
Our Nation's Founders feared unchecked and unlimited power by the
President. They rebelled against an abusive monarch with unlimited
power and instead created a republic that distributed power across
different branches of government.
They were careful students of history; they knew unchecked power
would destroy a democratic republic.
They were especially fearful of an unchecked Executive and
specifically granted Congress the power of impeachment to check a
President who thought of themselves as above the law.
Two years ago, I had the privilege of participating in an annual
bipartisan Senate tradition reading President George Washington's
farewell address on the Senate floor.
In that address, President Washington warned that unchecked power,
the rise of partisan factions, and foreign influence, if left
unchecked, would undermine our young Nation and allow for the rise of a
demagogue.
He warned that we could become so divided and so entrenched in the
beliefs of our particular partisan group that ``cunning, ambitious and
unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and
to usurp for themselves the reins of government.''
I am struck by the contrast of where we are today and where our
Founders were more than 200 years ago.
George Washington was the ultimate rock star of his time. He was
beloved, and when he announced he would leave the Presidency and return
to Mount Vernon, people begged him to stay.
There was a call to make him a King, and he said no. He reminded
folks that he had just fought against a monarch so that the American
people could enjoy the liberties of a free people.
George Washington, a man of integrity and an American hero, refused
to be anointed King when it was offered to him by his adoring
countrymen. He chose a republic over a monarchy.
But tomorrow, by refusing to hold President Trump accountable for his
abuses, Republicans in the Senate are offering him unbridled power
without accountability, and he will gleefully seize that power.
And when he does, our Republic will face an existential threat.
A vote against the Articles of Impeachment will set a dangerous
precedent and will be used by future Presidents to act with impunity.
Given what we know, that the President abused the power of his office
by attempting to extort a foreign government to interfere with an
American election, that he willfully obstructed justice at every turn,
and that his actions run counter to our Nation's most cherished and
fundamental values, it is clear the President betrayed the trust the
American public placed in him to fully execute his constitutional
responsibilities.
This betrayal is by definition a high crime and misdemeanor. If it
does not rise to the level of impeachment and removal, I am not sure
what would.
The Senate has a constitutional responsibility to hold him
accountable.
If we do not stand up and defend our democracy during this fragile
period, we will be allowing this President and future Presidents to
have unchecked power.
This is not what our Founders intended. The oath I swore to protect
and defend the Constitution demands that I vote to preserve the future
of our Republic. I will faithfully execute my oath and vote to hold
this President accountable for his actions.
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I will soon join a majority of the Senate
in voting down the Articles of Impeachment brought against the
President by his partisan opponents. The time has come to end a
spectacle that has elevated the obsessions of Washington's political
class over the concerns and interests of the American people.
This round of impeachment is just the latest Democratic scheme to
bring down the President. I say ``this round'' because House Democrats
have tried to impeach President Trump at least four times--first, for
being mean to football players; then for his transgender military
policy; next for his immigration policy. And those are just the
impeachment attempts. Along the way, Democrats also proclaimed that
Robert Mueller would drive the President from office. Some even
speculated that the Vice President and the Cabinet would invoke the
25th amendment to seize power from the President--a theory that sounds
more like resistance fan fiction than reality.
What is behind this fanaticism? Simply put, the Democrats have never
accepted that Donald Trump won the 2016 election, and they will never
forgive him, either.
It is time for the Democrats to get some perspective. They are
claiming that we ought to impeach and remove a President from office
for the first time in our history for briefly pausing aid to Ukraine
and rescheduling a meeting with the Ukrainian President, allegedly in
return for a corruption inquiry. But the aid was released after a few
weeks and the meeting occurred, yet the inquiry did not--even though, I
would add, it remains justified by the Biden family's obvious, glaring
conflict of interest in Ukraine.
Just how badly have the Democrats lost perspective? The House
managers have argued that we ought to impeach and remove the President
because his meeting with the Ukrainian President happened in New York,
not Washington.
When most Americans think about why a President ought to be impeached
and removed from office for the first time in our history, I suspect
that pausing aid to Ukraine for a few weeks is pretty far down the
list. That is not exactly ``treason, bribery, or other

[[Page S932]]

high crimes and misdemeanors.'' And that is especially true when we are
just months away from the election that will let Americans make their
own choice. Indeed, Americans are already voting to select the
President's Democratic challenger. Why not let the voters decide
whether the President ought to be removed?
The Democrats' real answer is that they are afraid they will lose
again in 2020, so they designed impeachment to hurt the President
before the election. As one Democratic congressman said last year,
``I'm concerned that if we don't impeach this president, he will get
reelected.'' Or, as minority leader Chuck Schumer claimed earlier this
month, impeachment is a ``win-win'' for Democrats; either it will lead
to the President's defeat or it will hurt enough Republican Senators in
tough races to hand Democrats the majority. Or maybe both.
The political purpose of impeachment was clear from the manner in
which House Democrats conducted their proceedings. If impeachment was
indeed the high-minded, somber affair that Speaker Nancy Pelosi
claimed, House Democrats would have taken their time to get all the
facts from all relevant witnesses. Instead, they barreled ahead with a
slipshod and secretive process, denying the President's due-process
rights, gathering testimony behind closed doors, leaking their findings
selectively to the press, and ignoring constitutional concerns such as
executive privilege.
The impeachment vote itself contradicted the pretensions of House
Democrats. Speaker Pelosi said last year that she wouldn't support
impeachment unless there was something ``so compelling and overwhelming
and bipartisan'' that it demanded a response. Likewise, Congressman
Jerry Nadler said that the House had to ``persuade enough of the
opposition party voters'' before it voted to impeach. Democrats failed
on both counts. Indeed, the only bipartisan aspect of the whole
proceeding is that both Republicans and Democrats voted against
impeaching the president. Not a single Republican voted for either
article of impeachment in the House, resulting in the first party-line
impeachment of a President in our Nation's history.
So instead of doing their work, House Democrats simply impeached the
President and declared their job complete. Yet after piously declaring
the urgency of this impeachment, they waited a month to send the
articles over to the Senate. Maybe they had to wait for the gold-
encrusted souvenir pens to arrive for Speaker Pelosi's ``signing
ceremony.''
And once in the Senate, the political theater continued. The House
Democrats repeatedly asserted a bizarre logical fallacy: their case was
both ``overwhelming'' and in need of more evidence. Yet we heard from
17 witnesses--all hand-selected by the House Democrats--and received
more than 28,000 pages of documents. The House could have pursued more
witnesses during its impeachment, yet it instead chose to rush ahead
rather than subpoena those witnesses or litigate issues in Federal
court. In fact, when one of the House's potential witnesses asked a
Federal court to rule on the issue, the House withdrew its subpoena and
asked to dismiss the case. The House Democrats complain that the courts
would have taken too long. Yet they expected the Senate to delay our
work to finish theirs. And in a final, remarkable stunt, Congressman
Adam Schiff suggested that we depose witnesses--only his, of course,
not the President's--with Chief Justice Roberts ruling on all questions
of evidence and privilege, dragging him into this political spectacle.
But the curtain will soon come down on this political theater. The
Senate will perform the role intended for us by the Founders, of
providing the ``cool and deliberate sense of the community,'' as it
says in Federalist 63, over and against an inflamed and transient House
majority. Were we to do otherwise, were the Senate to acquiesce to the
House, this process might have dragged on for many weeks, even for
months, shutting down the normal legislative business of Congress even
longer than it already has.
Even worse, by legitimizing the House's flawed, partisan impeachment,
we would be setting a grave precedent for the future. Just consider how
many times we heard about the impeachment trial of President Andrew
Johnson during this trial. The Founders didn't intend impeachment as a
tool to check the Executive over policy disagreements or out of
political spite. And the House has never before used impeachment in
this way, not when the Democrats claimed that President George W. Bush
misled the country into the Iraq war or when President Barack Obama
broke the law by releasing terrorists from Guantanamo Bay in return for
the release of an American deserter, Bowe Bergdahl. Indeed, the
Republican House did not impeach President Obama for, yes, withholding
aid from Ukraine for 3 full years.
No House in the future should lead the country down this path again.
By refusing to do this House's dirty work, the Senate is stopping this
dangerous precedent and preserving the Founders' understanding that
Congress ought to restrain the executive through the many checks and
balances still at our disposal. More fundamentally, we are preserving
the most important check of all--an election. It is time to teach that
lesson to this House and to all future Houses, of both parties.
Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff have failed, but the American people
lost. Now it is time to get back to doing the people's business.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the
impeachment of Donald J. Trump.
The Democratic House managers, who are prosecuting the case against
the President, emphasized that history is watching. That is true. Every
action taken by the House and the Senate during this impeachment sets a
precedent for our country and our institutions of government, whether
good or bad.
For that reason, it is our job as Senators to look at the entire
record of this proceeding--from what happened in the House to final
arguments made here in the Senate. It is also our duty to look at the
whole picture, the flawed process in the House, the purely partisan
nature of the articles of impeachment, the President's actions that led
to his impeachment, and the impact of all of this on our constitutional
norms.
Most importantly, we must weigh the impact on our Nation and on the
legitimacy of our institutions of government, if the Senate were to
agree with the House managers' demands to overturn the 2016 election
and remove the President from the 2020 ballot. This has never happened
in our country's 243-year history.
It is also our job as Senators during an impeachment trial to be
guided by ``a deep responsibility to future times.'' This is a quote
from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, two centuries ago, but it
couldn't be more relevant today. With this grave constitutional
responsibility in mind, and considering the important factors listed
above, I will vote to acquit the President on both charges brought
against him.
It may surprise some, but if you listened to all the witnesses in
this trial and you examine the sweep of American history, one strong
bipartisan point of consensus has emerged: Purely partisan impeachments
are not in the country's best interest. In fact, they are a danger
which the Framers of the Constitution clearly feared.
Alexander Hamilton's warning from Federalist No. 65 bears repeating:
``In many cases [impeachment] will connect itself with the pre-existing
factions, and will inlist all their animosities, partialities,
influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases
there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be
regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real
demonstrations of innocence or guilt . . . Yet it ought not to be
forgotten that the demon of faction will, at certain seasons, extend
his sceptre over all numerous bodies of men.''
The reason for this ``greatest danger'' is obvious: the weaponization
of impeachment as a regular tool of partisan warfare will incapacitate
our government, undermine the legitimacy of our institutions, and tear
the country apart. Until this impeachment, our country's
representatives largely understood this. During the Clinton
impeachment--Democrats, including Minority Leader Schumer and House
Managers Lofgren and Nadler, argued that a purely partisan impeachment
would be ``divisive,'' ``lack the legitimacy of a national consensus,''
and

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``call into question the very legitimacy of our political
institutions.''
Less than a year ago, Speaker Pelosi said: ``Impeachment is so
divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and
overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path
because it divides the country.''
Yet here we are. Against the weight of bipartisan consensus and the
wisdom of the Framers, the House still took this dramatic and
consequential step, the first purely partisan impeachment in U.S.
history. Only Democrats in the House voted to impeach the President,
while a bipartisan group of House members opposed.
This was done through rushed House proceedings that lacked the most
basic due process procedures afforded Presidents Clinton and Nixon
during their impeachment investigations. A significant portion of the
House proceedings last fall took place in secret, where the President
was not afforded counsel, the ability to call his own witnesses, or
cross-examine those of the House Democrats. Certain testimonies from
these secret hearings were then selectively leaked to a pro-impeachment
press. This happened in America. In my view, it sounds like something
more worthy of the Soviet Union, not the world's greatest
constitutional republic.
Yet here we are. A new precedent has been set in the House. When
asked several times if these precedents and the partisan nature of this
impeachment should concern us, the House managers dodged the questions,
and my Senate colleagues, who in 1999 were so strongly and correctly
and vocally against the dangers of purely partisan impeachments, have
all gone silent.
Perhaps it is too late. Perhaps the genie is now out of the bottle.
Perhaps the danger that Hamilton so astutely predicted 232 years ago is
upon us for good. I hope not. No one thinks that partisan impeachments
every few years would be good for our great Nation.
The Senate does not have to validate this House precedent, and a
Senate focused on ``deep responsibility to future times'' shouldn't do
so.
In addition to unleashing the danger of purely partisan impeachments,
the House's impeachment action and their arguments before the Senate,
if ratified, have the potential to undermine other critical
constitutional norms, such as the separation of powers and the
independence of our judiciary.
These traditions exist to implement the will of the people we
represent and to protect their liberty. And yet so much of what has
already been done in the House and what has now been argued in the
Senate has little or no precedent in U.S. history, thereby threatening
many of the constitutional safeguards that have served our country so
well for over two centuries.
Take, for example, the debate we recently had on whether to have the
Senate seek additional evidence for this impeachment trial. The House
Managers claim that, by not doing so, we are undermining a ``fair
trial'' in the Senate. The irony of such a claim should not be lost on
the American people.
Throughout this trial, and in their briefs, the House managers have
claimed dozens of times that they have ``overwhelming evidence'' on the
current record to impeach the President, thereby undermining their own
rationale for more evidence.
And in terms of fairness, it is well documented that the Democratic
leadership in the House just conducted the most rushed, partisan, and
fundamentally unfair House impeachment proceedings in U.S. history.
A Senate vote to pursue additional evidence and witnesses would have
turned the article I constitutional impeachment responsibilities of the
House and Senate on their heads. It would have required the Senate to
do the House's impeachment investigatory work, even when the House
affirmatively declined to seek additional evidence last fall, such as
subpoenaing Ambassador John Bolton, because of Speaker Pelosi's
artificial deadline to impeach the President by Christmas.
A vote by the Senate to pursue additional evidence that the House
consciously chose not to obtain would incentivize less thorough and
more frequent partisan impeachments in the future, a danger that should
concern us all.
Another example of the House's attempt to erode long-standing
constitutional norms is found in its second Article of Impeachment,
obstruction of Congress. This article claims that the President
committed an impeachable offence by resisting House subpoenas for
witnesses and documents, even though the House didn't attempt to
negotiate, accommodate, or litigate the President's asserted defenses,
such as executive privilege and immunity, to provide such evidence.
These defenses have been utilized by administrations, Democrat and
Republican, for decades and go to the heart of the separation of powers
within the article I and article II branches of the Federal Government
and even implicate a defendant's right to vigorously defend oneself in
court. Indeed, the Supreme Court acknowledged in United States v. Nixon
that the President has the right to assert executive privilege.
Nevertheless, the House managers argued that the mere assertion of
these constitutional rights is an impeachable offense, in essence
claiming the unilateral power to define the limits and scope of
executive privilege, while simultaneously usurping that power from the
courts, where it has existed for centuries.
Indeed, the House managers even argued that merely asserting these
defenses is evidence of guilt itself. This is a dangerous argument that
demonstrates a lack of understanding of basic constitutional norms. As
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brandeis stated in his famous dissent in
Myers v. United States, ``The doctrine of the separation of powers was
adopted by the convention of 1787 not to promote efficiency but to
preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was not to avoid
friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the
distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to
save the people from autocracy.'' If allowed to stand by the Senate,
the implications of these House precedents for our Nation and the
individual liberties of the people we represent are difficult to
discern, but would be profound and likely very negative.
Similarly concerning were the attempts, both subtle and not so
subtle, to inject Chief Justice Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court into
this trial. The smooth siren song of House Manager Schiff, casually
inviting the Senate and Chief Justice into a constitutional labyrinth
for which there may have been no exit, was a recurring theme of this
trial.
``We have a perfectly good judge here,'' Schiff said over and over
again, ``whom you all trust and have confidence in.'' Let him quickly
decide all the weighty legal and constitutional issues before the
Senate, the relevance of witnesses, claims of immunity and executive
privilege, what House Manager Nadler described on day 1 of the trial as
``executive privilege, and other nonsense.''
Moreover, the Chief Justice could do this all within a week, Schiff
told us. It all seemed so simple, rational, and efficient. But our
Constitution doesn't work this way. The Chief Justice, in an
impeachment of the President, sits as the Presiding Officer over the
Senate, not as an article III judge. And while the Senate can delegate
certain trial powers to him, it cannot delegate matters, such as a
President's claims of executive privilege, over which the Senate itself
does not have constitutional authority.
The quick and efficient fix Schiff was tempting the Senate with might
have ended up as a form of constitutional demolition. And as the trial
proceeded, it became apparent that it was more than just claims of
efficiency behind the invitation to draw the Chief Justice fully into
the trial.
There was something else afoot, a subtle and not so subtle attempt by
some to attack the credibility and independence of the Chief Justice
and the Court he leads. The junior Senator from Massachusetts' question
for the House managers, which drew an audible gasp from those watching
in the Senate after the Chief Justice read it, made this clear, when
she asked about ``the loss of legitimacy of the Chief Justice, the
Supreme Court, and the Constitution,'' so too did Minority Leader
Schumer's parliamentary inquiry about the precedent from the
impeachment of President Johnson 150 years ago, on the role of the
Chief Justice in breaking ties on 50-50 votes in

[[Page S934]]

the Senate during Presidential impeachments. Chief Justice Roberts'
cogent, historically accurate, and constitutionally, based answer to
this inquiry will set an important precedent on this impeachment issue
for generations to come.
Perhaps it is all a coincidence, but as these attempts to diminish
the Chief Justice's credibility by more fully dragging him into this
impeachment trial were ongoing, much more harsh political ads directly
attacking him in this regard were being launched across the country.
Members of the Senate noticed, and we were not impressed.
The independence of the Federal judiciary as established in our
Constitution is a gift to our Nation that has taken centuries to
develop. The overreach of the House managers and certain Democratic
Senators seeking to undermine this essential constitutional norm was a
disappointing and even dangerous aspect of this impeachment trial.
When historians someday write about this divisive period of American
history, they would do well to focus on these subtle and not so subtle
attacks on the Chief Justice's credibility--and by extension the
credibility of the Supreme Court--for it was clearly one of the
important reasons why the Senate voted last week, 51 to 49, to no
longer prolong the trial phase of this impeachment.
The impeachment articles do not charge the President with a crime.
Although there was much debate in the trial on whether this is
required, it is undisputed that in all previous presidential
impeachments--Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton--the President was charged
with having violated a criminal statute. And there was little dispute
that these charges were accurate. Lowering the bar to non-criminal
offenses has set a new precedent. However, whether a crime is required
is still debatable. Instead, the House impeachment charged the
President with an abuse of power based on speculative interpretation of
his intent.
So what about the President's actions that were the primary focus of
this impeachment trial and the basis of the House's first Article of
Impeachment claim that he abused his power? The House managers argued
that the President abused his power by taking actions that on their
face appeared valid--withholding aid to a foreign country and
investigating corruption--but were motivated by ``corrupt intent.''
One significant problem with this argument is that it is vague and
hinges on deciphering the President's intent and motives, a difficult
feat because it is subjective and could be--and was indeed in this
case--defined by a partisan House. Further, the House managers argue
essentially that there could be no legitimate national interest in
pursuing investigations into interference of the U.S. 2016 elections by
Ukraine and corruption involving Burisma.
I believe all Presidents have the right to investigate interference
in U.S. elections and credible claims of corruption and conflicts of
interest, particularly in countries where America sends significant
amounts of foreign aid, like Ukraine, and where corruption is endemic,
like Ukraine.
Were the President's actions perfect? No. For example, despite having
the authority to investigate corruption in Ukraine and with Burisma, I
believe he should have requested such an investigation through more
official and robust channels, such as pursuing cooperation through the
U.S. Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with Ukraine, with the Department
of Justice in the lead. I also believe that the role of Mr. Giuliani
has caused confusion and may have undermined the Trump administration's
broader foreign policy goals with regard to Ukraine.
But none of this even remotely rises to the level of an offense that
merits removing the President from office. It is difficult to imagine a
situation requiring a higher burden of proof. The radical and dangerous
step that the House Democrats are proposing seems to have been lost in
all of the noise.
What they are asking the Senate to do is not just overturn the
results of the 2016 election--nullifying the votes of millions of
Americans--but to remove the President from the 2020 ballot, even as
primary voting has begun across the country.
Such a step, if ever realized, would do infinitely more damage to the
legitimacy of our constitutional republic and political system than any
mistake or error of judgment President Trump may have made.
An impeachment trial is supposed to be the last resort to protect the
American people against the highest crimes that undermine and threaten
the foundations of our Republic, not to get rid of a President because
a faction of one political party disagrees with the way he governs.
That is what elections are for.
I trust the Alaskan and American people, not House Democrats, with
the monumental decision of choosing who should lead our Nation.
And soon, they will decide, again, who should lead our Nation. In
churches, libraries, and school cafeterias, the people all across the
country will vote for who they want to represent them.
And I am convinced that the American people will make their choices
wisely.
Let me conclude by saying a few words about where we should go from
here.
Right before this impeachment trial began, I was at an event in
Wasilla, AK, where many of Alaska's military veterans attended. A proud
veteran approached me with a simple but fervent request. ``Senator
Sullivan,'' he said, ``Protect our Constitution.''
So many of us, including me, have heard similar pleas over the past
few months from the people we represent, but there was something about
the way he said it, something in his eyes that truly got my attention.
I realized that something was fear. That man, a brave Alaskan who had
served in the military to protect our constitutional freedoms, was
afraid that the country he knows and he loves was at risk. And I have
to admit that I have had similar fears these past weeks.
But I look around me, on this floor, and I continue to see hope for
our Nation.
I see my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--my friends--who
are willing to work with me on so many issues to find solutions sorely
needed for the country.
And back home, I see my fellow Alaskans, some of them fearful, but
also so hungry to do their part to help heal the divides.
We should end this chapter, and we should take our cues from them,
the people whose spirit and character guides this great Nation. They
want us to protect our Constitution. They need us to work together to
do that and address America's challenges.
It's time to get back to the work Alaskans want the Congress to focus
on: growing our economy, improving our infrastructure, rebuilding our
military, cleaning up our oceans, lowering healthcare costs and drug
prices, opening markets for our fishermen, and taking care of our most
vulnerable in society like survivors of sexual assault and domestic
violence and those struggling with addiction.
That is what I am committed to do.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, the decision I make today is not an
easy one, nor should it be.
I have approached this serious task with an open and impartial mind,
as my trial oath required. I have studied the facts and the evidence of
the case before me.
I have been an attorney for over two decades, and I was the attorney
general of Nevada for 8 years. And I keep coming back to what I learned
in the courtroom. The law is a technical field, but it is also based on
common sense.
You don't have to study the law for years to know that stealing and
cheating are wrong. It is one of the first things we learn in our
formative years.
And you don't have to be a law school professor to realize that a
President should not be using the job the American people gave him to
benefit himself personally.
Abraham Lincoln reminded us that our Nation was founded on the
essential idea of government ``of the people, by the people, for the
people.''
As I sat on the Senate floor thinking about President Lincoln and
listening to the arguments in President Trump's impeachment trial, I
thought of the awesome responsibility our Founding Fathers entrusted to
each Senator.
I also thought about all of the Nevadans I represent--those who voted
for President Trump and those who did not. For those who did, I put
myself in

[[Page S935]]

their shoes and considered how I would respond if the President were
from my political party.
The removal of a sitting President through impeachment is an
extraordinary remedy. It rarely occurs, and no Senator should rush into
it.
Yet impeachment is a key part of our constitutional order. When our
Founding Fathers designed the Office of the Presidency, the Framers of
the Constitution had just gotten rid of a King, and they didn't want
another one.
They were afraid that the President might use his extensive powers
for his own benefit.
To prevent this, the Framers provided for impeachment by the House
and trial by the Senate for ``treason, bribery, or other high crimes
and misdemeanors.''
They didn't have to do things this way. They could have left it up to
the courts to hold the trial of a President accused of wrongdoing.
But they wanted to make sure each branch of government could be a
check on the other, which would bring balance to our system of
government.
And the Framers were specifically concerned with the idea of an all-
powerful Executive who might abuse his power and invite foreign
interference in our elections.
This concern is reflected in the Articles of Impeachment laid out by
the House managers.
Putting aside the biases I heard coming from both political parties,
I focused on getting to the truth of the case--like any trial attorney.
The truth in any case that I have been involved with starts with the
facts.
For 2 weeks I listened to the arguments presented by both sides, took
notes, posed questions, and identified the facts that were supported
and substantiated and those that were not.
With a heavy heart and great sadness, I became convinced by the
evidence that President Trump intentionally withheld security
assistance and a coveted White House meeting to pressure Ukraine into
helping him politically, even though Ukraine was defending itself from
Russia.
This wasn't an action ``of the people, by the people, for the
people.''
President Trump used the immense power of the U.S. Government not for
the people but, rather, for himself.
We know these facts from President Trump's own words in a phone call
to Ukrainian President Zelensky in July and in statements to the press
in October.
We also know it through the testimony of 17 American officials--many
of them appointed by the President himself.
Those officials indicated that over the spring and summer of 2019,
through both his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and through American
diplomats, President Trump asked Ukraine to publicly announce
investigations that would influence the 2020 elections in his favor.
We also know through testimony provided during the House
investigation that President Trump tried to pressure Ukraine to
announce those investigations, first by conditioning a visit by
President Zelensky to the White House on them and later by denying $391
million in security assistance to Ukraine.
Some of my colleagues don't dispute these facts.
President Trump's actions interfere with the fundamental tenets of
our Constitution. Citizens do not get to govern themselves if the
officials who get elected seek their own benefit to the detriment of
the public good.
The Framers knew this. They were very aware that officials could
leverage their office to benefit themselves.
In Federalist No. 65, Alexander Hamilton explained why we had the
impeachment power in the first place: it was to respond to ``those
offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other
words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.''
With the undisputed facts condemning the president, I listened to the
President's counsel argue that the Articles of Impeachment were
defective because abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are not
crimes.
However, many constitutional scholars soundly refuted this argument,
and precedent supports them. The Impeachment Articles in President
Nixon's case included abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
During this impeachment investigation, the President blocked all
members of his administration from testifying in response to
congressional committee requests and withheld all documents.
This action is absolutely unprecedented in American history. Even
Presidents Nixon and Clinton allowed staff to testify to Congress
during impeachment investigations and provided some documents.
The executive branch has no blanket claim to secrecy. It works for
the American people, as do Members of Congress.
In the Senate, the President's counsel argued that the House
investigators should have fought this wholesale obstruction in court.
Yet at the same time, in a court down the street, other administration
lawyers contended that the courts should stay out of disputes between
Congress and the President.
The President's counsel also argued that the American people should
decide in the next election whether to remove President Trump for his
actions. But if this were the standard, then the impeachment clause
could only ever be utilized in the second term of a Presidency, when no
upcoming election would preserve the country.
Most importantly, isn't the impeachment clause pointless if a
president can abuse his power in office and then completely refuse to
comply with a House impeachment investigation and a Senate trial in
order to delay until the next election?
The Framers themselves actually argued about whether Americans could
rely on elections to get rid of bad presidents. They decided that if
they didn't put the impeachment power into the Constitution, a corrupt
President would be willing to do anything to get himself reelected.
James Madison said that without impeachment, a corrupt President
``might be fatal to the Republic.''
And through my oath of office as a Senator, I swore to protect not
just Nevadans but also our great Republic.
Our country, unfortunately, has never been more divided along party
lines. It played out in the House impeachment investigation and in the
Senate trial. The Senate rules for the trial were not written by all of
the Senators with bipartisan input. Instead, they were written behind
closed doors by one man in coordination with the President. In so
doing, the Senate has abdicated its powerful check on the executive
branch.
Without this important check, I am concerned about what the President
will do next to put our Republic in jeopardy.
We have seen that President Trump is willing to violate our
Constitution in order to get himself reelected. He has disrespected
norms and worked to divide our country for his own political gain. He
has undermined our standing in the world and put awesome pressure on
foreign leaders to benefit himself, rather than to advance the
interests of our country.
I have also learned from this trial that the President is willing to
take any action, including cheating in the next election, to serve his
personal interest.
No act in our country is more sacred and solemn for democracy than
voting, and nothing in our system of government is more vital to the
continued health of our democracy than its elections. No American
should stand for foreign election interference, much less invite it.
American elections are for Americans.
That is why I cannot condone this President's actions by acquitting
him.
Finding the President guilty of abuse of power and obstruction of
Congress marks a sad day for our country and not something I do with a
light heart.
But I was sent to Congress not just to fight for all Nevadans but
also to fight for our children and their future. To leave them with a
country that still believes in right and wrong, that exposes corruption
in government and holds it accountable, that stands up to tyranny at
home and abroad.
In my view, President Trump has fallen far, far short of those lofty
ideals and of the demands of our Constitution.
That requires the rest of us, regardless of party, creed, or
ethnicity, to work together all the more urgently to defend our
democracy, our elections, and our national security.

[[Page S936]]

I have faith in Americans because I have seen time and time again in
Nevada our ability to come together and work with one another for our
common good.
America is more than just one person, and like President Lincoln's,
my faith will always lie with the people.
Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, I didn't come to the Senate expecting to
sit as a juror in an impeachment trial. I have participated in this
trial with an open mind, determined to evaluate the President's actions
outside of any partisan lens, and with a focus on my constitutional
obligations. I listened to the arguments, took detailed notes, asked
questions, and heard both sides answer questions from my colleagues.
After thorough consideration, based on the evidence presented, sadly, I
find I have no choice but to vote to remove the President from office.
The first Article of Impeachment charges the President with abuse of
power, specifically alleging that the President used the powers of his
public office to obtain an improper political benefit. I can now
conclude the evidence shows that this is exactly what the President did
when he withheld critically important security assistance from Ukraine
in order to persuade the Ukrainian Government to investigate his
political rival. I understand that foreign policy involves
negotiations, leveraging advantages, and using all the powers at our
disposal to advance U.S. national security goals. But this was
different. The President sent his personal attorney, whose obligation
is to protect the personal interests of the President, not the United
States, to meet and negotiate with foreign government officials from
Ukraine to get damaging information about the President's rivals,
culminating in the July 25 phone call between the U.S. and Ukrainian
Presidents, during which the President made clear his intent to
withhold aid until a political favor was completed. In doing so, the
President put U.S. national security and a key alliance against Russian
aggression at risk, all so he could benefit politically from the
potential fallout from an investigation into a possible opponent.
While I would like to hear more from witnesses and see the documents
the administration is withholding, the evidence presented is compelling
and not in doubt. The President withheld military aid in order to
coerce an ally to help him politically. This is no mere policy
disagreement; this is about whether the President negotiates with
foreign governments on behalf of the United States; or on his own
behalf. No elected official, regardless of party, should use public
office to advance his or her personal interests, particularly to the
detriment of U.S. national security, and in the case of the President
of the United States, such conduct is particularly dangerous. As
elected officials, we have no more important responsibility than
ensuring our national security, and that includes protecting the Nation
from future threats. The President's conduct here sets a dangerous
precedent that must not be repeated in the future and requires a firm
response by the representatives of the people. After hearing evidence
that the President heldup congressionally approved military assistance
to an ally fighting Russia in order to exact concessions from Ukraine
that benefited him personally, we cannot trust the President to place
national security over his own interests. It is therefore with sadness
that I conclude that the President must be removed from office under
article I and I will vote to convict him of abuse of power.
With respect to the second Article of Impeachment charging
obstruction of Congress, the President's behavior suggests that he
believes he is above the law. Certainly, there may be documents and
testimony that are subject to executive privilege or are confidential
for some other reason. But here, the President directed every agency,
office, and employee in the executive branch not to cooperate with the
impeachment inquiry conducted by the U.S. House of Representatives. As
a Member of Congress, I take my oversight role seriously. It is how we
ensure transparency in government, so the people of Nevada can know how
their tax dollars are spent and whether their elected officials are
acting legally, ethically, and in their best interests. The President's
refusal to negotiate in good faith with the House investigators over
documents and testimony and instead to impede any investigation into
his official conduct can only be characterized as blatant obstruction.
More importantly, it suggests that he will continue to operate
outside the law, and if he believes he can ignore lawful subpoenas from
Congress, it will be impossible to hold him accountable. For these
reasons, I will vote to convict the President of obstruction of
Congress, as delineated in article II.
Impeachment is a grave constitutional remedy, not a partisan
exercise. To fulfill my constitutional role as a juror, I asked myself
how I would view the evidence if it were any President accused of this
conduct. Based on the facts and arguments presented, I conclude that no
President of the United States, regardless of party, can trade
congressionally approved and legally mandated military assistance for
personal political favors. No one is above the law, not this President
or the next President. Having exercised my constitutional duty, I will
continue what I have been doing over the course of this trial and have
done since I first came to Congress, to look past partisanship and
develop commonsense, bipartisan solutions that help hard-working
families in Nevada and across the country.

____________________