[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 27 (Monday, February 10, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S957-S959]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMPEACHMENT

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today following 
Senate acquittal in the impeachment trial of President Trump.
  After a 2-week trial, the U.S. Senate has delivered impartial 
justice. Make no mistake: Senate acquittal is the final judgment, 
forever clearing President Trump.
  The House clearly made serious mistakes. Never before has a President 
been impeached with no underlying crime, no defense counsel, and not a 
single Republican vote. It was purely partisan and totally political.
  The House overstepped its authority. The Senate, however, according 
to the Constitution, has the final word. The Senate followed the law. 
The Senate held a fair trial. We used the bipartisan Clinton trial 
format. These rules ensured both sides full and equal time.
  Let's not forget: In the House, the President's rights were ignored. 
He had no voice, no due process, no defense. The Senate allowed the 
President to defend himself, and his defense team presented a fact-
based case. White House lawyers detailed the President's legitimate, 
long-held concerns over Ukraine corruption. The President's legal team 
made a strong case against the House impeachment articles.
  House managers, meanwhile, failed to prove their case. Rather than 
focus on facts, they appeared to be playing to the cameras. Incredibly, 
House managers attacked the Senate jury, accusing Republicans of 
``corruption'' and ``cover-up.'' House managers played for time, 
repeating speeches, demanding more witnesses we didn't need. In 
reality, it was a weak case. There were no offenses that rose to the 
Constitution's requirement of ``Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes 
and Misdemeanors.''
  The House process was one-sided from the start. For political 
purposes, Speaker Pelosi rushed the impeachment vote by Christmas, 
claiming urgency. Then her sense of urgency disappeared. She proceeded 
to delay the Senate trial for 4 weeks. The Speaker waited 33 days to 
send us the Articles of Impeachment. This begs the question: Why delay 
the removal of a President the Democrats in the House claim is 
``dangerous''?
  Still, the Speaker insisted this spectacle was ``solemn,'' even 
prayerful. Then came her strangely irreverent signing ceremony. Nothing 
says solemn like souvenir signing pens.
  The bottom line is: Partisan impeachment is poison--poison--for our 
democracy. Senate acquittal is the antidote. Impeachment has hurt and 
divided this country. It has also delayed important work on behalf of 
the American people. Congress needs to now come together and move 
forward.
  Look at the incredible results we are already seeing under this 
President. Thanks to tax and regulatory relief, our economy is booming. 
American workers are winning.
  We are seeing record job growth: 7 million new jobs, 500,000 new 
manufacturing jobs, and 50-year-low unemployment. Middle-class and 
blue-collar wages are rising. Household wealth is soaring. Consumer 
confidence is at record highs. Add to that the President's America-
first trade deals. The

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U.S.-Mexico-Canada deal, deals with China, Japan, they are a boon for 
our farmers and for our workers. What is more, we have unleashed 
American energy. The U.S. is now No. 1 in oil and in natural gas. We no 
longer need Middle East oil. We have also confirmed 187 highly 
qualified Federal judges. Above all, we are keeping the country safe 
and secure. President Trump has completely rebuilt our military.
  Yet partisan impeachment has blocked progress. Congress has learned 
its lesson: Impeachment, if it is to ever happen again, must be 
bipartisan, fair, and rare. Senate acquittal is the final judgment.
  Now, we are back to work for the American people. We are looking 
forward to the important work ahead, to continuing our progress on 
priorities like lowering prescription drug costs, securing our border, 
and fixing our aging roads and bridges.
  The 2020 Presidential election is fast approaching. In fact, voting 
has already occurred in Iowa. It is time for the American people to 
decide who serves as President. It is time for Congress to get back to 
work. Thank you.
  Ms. McSALLY. Mr. President, on Wednesday, I voted against convicting 
President Trump of the two Articles of Impeachment. The Senate has 
spent the last 3 weeks in a Presidential impeachment trial for only the 
third time in our Nation's 244-year history. Adam Schiff and House 
Democrats demanded that the Senate overturn the results of the 2016 
Presidential election, remove President Trump from office, and take him 
off the 2020 ballot. These outcomes would be deeply disruptive to the 
functioning of our government, would further divide our Nation, and 
would prevent the American people from deciding who their President 
should be at the ballot box. The American people collectively are 
better fit to judge Donald Trump's Presidency as a whole than the 
partisan politicians in Washington who brought forth this impeachment. 
Despite the celebrations by Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats, this is a 
grave and serious matter with implications far beyond this President, 
this Congress, and this generation.
  During the trial, I have remained committed to my oath to administer 
impartial justice with the same seriousness as my oath to protect the 
Constitution that I put my life on the line for in uniform. I listened 
carefully to the presentations by both the House managers and the 
President's counsel. I researched the law, reviewed historical 
precedents, and asked questions. I discussed the evidence and the 
issues with colleagues, and I came to my own conclusion.
  The text, history, and purpose of the Constitution support acquittal. 
Our founding document gives the House the sole power of impeachment and 
the Senate the sole power to try all impeachments. Further, it requires 
a two-thirds vote to convict and remove any President. The Founding 
Fathers were concerned that impeachment would be frequently used as a 
partisan political weapon. Because of this concern, they deliberated 
whether to include Presidential impeachment at all. Then, they 
considered the scope of the offenses subject to the grievous, divisive, 
and disruptive punishment of decapitating one branch of our government. 
At the constitutional convention, the Founders rejected vague, 
standard-less terms like ``malpractice,'' ``neglect of duty,'' and 
``maladministration.'' James Madison, the father of our Constitution, 
objected that vague terms would be ``equivalent to a tenure during the 
pleasure of the Senate.'' Madison's view prevailed, and the framers 
settled on ``treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors'' 
to minimize the risk of partisan abuse of impeachment.
  Madison and the other Founders intended impeachment to be an 
extremely disruptive last resort to save the Republic. What our 
constitutional text and tradition teach us is that no President should 
be impeached and removed from office without the support of both 
parties and the American people. The reason that President Andrew 
Johnson avoided conviction in his trial was that a mixed group of both 
Democrats and Republicans voted to find the President not guilty. 
Richard Nixon's impeachment inquiry vote passed the House 410 to 4. 
Senator Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi used to agree. ``I 
expect history will show that we've lowered the bar on impeachment so 
much, we've broken the seal on this extreme penalty so cavalierly--that 
it will be used as a routine tool to fight political battles,'' Schumer 
said in 1998. ``My fear is that when a Republican wins the White House, 
Democrats will demand payback.'' Likewise, Speaker Pelosi stated last 
March: ``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.'' Before a 
few months ago, the consensus--articulated well by Senator Schumer and 
Speaker Pelosi, was that a partisan impeachment is not a proper 
impeachment.
  The first Article of Impeachment for ``abuse of power'' does not 
warrant removal from office and the ballot. The President is not 
perfect, and the way in which he evidently attempted to address his 
legitimate concerns about corruption involving the Bidens was 
inappropriate. But even if all that the House Democrats allege in fact 
occurred, even if John Bolton supports their allegations in his book, 
even if other negative information comes out in the future, this does 
not rise anywhere near the level of throwing the President out of 
office or off the ballot for the first time in American history. Abuse 
of power is a vague offense that the House managers have failed to 
define with precision, but even accepting all the House managers' facts 
as true, the alleged conduct does not justify conviction.
  The second Article of Impeachment for ``obstruction of Congress'' is 
frivolous and dangerous for the separation of powers that is 
foundational to our Republic. Presidential clashes with Congress are 
not just routine but are baked into our constitutional DNA. The 
separation of powers painstakingly negotiated by our Founders is 
working--and that is a positive thing. The Framers designed tension 
between the coequal executive and legislative branches of our 
government. Congress often wants access to everyone and everything in 
the executive branch. The executive branch, in contrast, has legitimate 
grounds to prevent certain advisors or documents from being hauled 
before Congress. This article, if legitimized, would cede unprecedented 
power to one Chamber and would permit the House to remove a President 
from office any time that it does not get what it wants from the 
President, exactly as James Madison feared.
  Not only do the two articles fail, but I also cannot in good 
conscience vote to convict because every step of this slapdash 
impeachment process has been characterized by a lack of fundamental 
fairness. I am troubled by the speed and cheerful eagerness with which 
the House Democrats railroaded through their investigation and vote on 
the articles. Unlike the Nixon and Clinton impeachments, the 
investigation into the alleged wrongdoing was hastily conducted and 
sloppily executed. The House Democrats made it clear that their 
objective was to impeach the President by Christmas, and they trampled 
over fairness and well-established legal processes on the way. After 
initially failing to vote to authorize the inquiry, they went from a 
vote authorizing an inquiry to impeaching the President in just 48 
days.
  What is more, the House Intelligence Committee failed to afford the 
President with procedural rights. The House should have voted to 
authorize the impeachment before investigating and should have 
attempted the usual accommodation process to resolve the tensions with 
the executive branch. The fundamentals of due process also include the 
right to have counsel present during interviews with investigators, the 
right to cross-examine witnesses, the right to call your own witnesses, 
and the right to submit evidence. Here, House Democrats called only 
their preferred witnesses, and they denied President Trump's counsel 
the opportunity to be present for examinations. The Democrats 
conducting the investigation also failed to subpoena individuals whom 
they now claim are key witnesses. If Adam Schiff genuinely wanted to 
hear from John Bolton, he should have subpoenaed him, should have 
allowed the President to assert immunity, and should have gone to the 
courts to sort out the competing claims. But that wouldn't have fit the 
House Democrats' rushed timeline or narrative.

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  Once the process was handed over to the House Judiciary Committee, 
House Democrats had a single hearing with law professors on December 4 
before announcing on December 5 that they were committed to drafting 
Articles of Impeachment. The committee approved the articles on 
December 13. To put this in perspective, this meant that the relevant 
committee spent 1 week drafting the articles before Speaker Pelosi 
spent 4 weeks sitting on the articles. And on the Senate side, I am 
likewise concerned that Adam Schiff, House Democrats, and Chuck Schumer 
demanded that the Senate do the House's job and clean up the House's 
shoddy work. Democrats have insisted that the Senate subpoena witnesses 
that the House refused to call and that the Senate shut itself down for 
weeks or months to allow for an investigation that the House should 
have conducted before proceeding to a final impeachment vote. The House 
Democrats showed testimony of 13 witnesses during the trial and 
submitted 28,000 pages of documents. Having repeatedly stated that 
their evidence was overwhelming, they then claimed that they needed 
more witnesses and documents to make their case. You can't have it both 
ways.
  I am particularly troubled that in the Senate, the House managers 
sought to have the Senate address issues of executive privilege in a 
way that it has never done before. Executive privilege is a right--
asserted by all Presidents of different parties for decades--to prevent 
close advisers from divulging confidential communications. But now, for 
the first time in our Nation's history, the Democrats sought to have 
the Senate displace the judiciary and resolve, by majority vote, highly 
complicated questions on executive privilege--a task that would raise 
substantial constitutional and institutional questions.
  Even more disturbing was the House and Senate Democrats' casual 
attempt to drag the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court into this 
process. With a straight face, Adam Schiff repeatedly called for the 
Chief Justice to be the decisionmaker on serious and complex issues, as 
if attempting to remove a President and adjust the relationship between 
the House and the Senate forever weren't enough. On top of this, 
Democrats tried to bring the third branch of government into this 
partisan political exercise with no concern for the seismic 
implications for our Republic.
  Although my vote against convicting President Trump lies with the 
failure of House Democrats to prove impeachable conduct, I would be 
remiss if I did not emphasize one crucial fact: The historical record 
is clear that President Obama was weak on Russia and trivialized the 
geopolitical threat posed by Putin. In 2009, Obama's Secretary of State 
presented the Russian Foreign Minister with a ``reset'' button, 
grinning alongside him in a photo opportunity. That year, President 
Obama, at Russia's request, cancelled plans to build a missile defense 
system in Eastern Europe. In 2011, an open microphone caught Obama 
telling Russian President Medvedev that he would ``have more 
flexibility'' with easing pressure on Russia--``particularly with 
missile defense''--after the Presidential election. During the 2012 
election, President Obama mocked his opponent for expressing 
geopolitical concern about Russia. ``The 1980s are now calling to ask 
for their foreign policy back,'' Obama said. Two years later, Russia 
annexed Crimea and then invaded eastern Ukraine. Obama refused to 
provide lethal aid to Ukraine to defend itself and his policies toward 
Russia were a national security disaster.
  In contrast, President Trump has placed unprecedented sanctions on 
Russia and provided lethal weapons like the Javelin anti-tank missile 
to Ukraine to defend itself. Several of the House managers who 
attempted to remove President Trump for a minor delay in security-
assistance funding, which was separate from the Javelin missile 
purchases, voted against providing lethal aid to Ukraine in multiple 
defense authorization and funding bills. Should we have impeached Obama 
for not providing lethal aid to Ukraine? No. It was bad policy and weak 
compared to what Trump has done but not impeachable.
  This Presidential impeachment is historic for dangerous reasons. It 
is the first partisan House impeachment with bipartisan opposition. It 
is the first to deny procedural fairness protections to the President 
during the House inquiry. It is disturbing because this entire matter 
should have been handled via the normal oversight processes available 
to Congress with subpoena disputes resolved in the courts.
  With all the above in mind, I conclude that the President did not 
engage in conduct rising to the level of treason, bribery, or other 
high crimes and misdemeanors. Democrats have been trying to impeach 
President Trump repeatedly since he was elected. They filed eight 
impeachment resolutions for everything from undermining the freedom of 
the press to using insulting language.
  Our country has a Presidential election in 9 months, with the first 
votes in Iowa already completed. The American people deserve to be 
represented by the President they elected. They also deserve to choose 
who is the President for the next 4 years. While I have concerns about 
the upcoming 9 months, I am likewise concerned about the next 90 years. 
Looking at the process that unfolded in the House and the 
constitutional contortionism that the Democrats displayed in the 
Senate, it would be a dangerous precedent to normalize how House 
Democrats have carried out this process. If rewarded, this precedent 
would trivialize impeachment, distort the relationship between the two 
Chambers, and forever alter the relationship among the three branches. 
In the future, any House controlled by the opposite party of the 
President could trample on due process, ram through an unfair 
impeachment for vague accusations, and demand that the Senate shut down 
its legislative work to investigate on behalf of the House. No future 
House of Representatives run by Democrats or Republicans should take 
this path.
  I have heard it said repeatedly throughout this trial that Benjamin 
Franklin left Americans ``a Republic--if you can keep it.'' I vote to 
keep it.

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