[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 33 (Monday, February 22, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S768-S769]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMPEACHMENT
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, every President swears an oath to
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Every President has a solemn duty to uphold the rule of law and to
preserve our democratic system. No one is above the law, not even a
President.
President Trump violated his oath. He promulgated lies about the
election, used his office to try to interfere with election officials
doing their job, and failed to protect our Capitol from a mob that
clearly intended to cause physical harm to elected officials and to
stop the lawful certification of election results.
For months, President Trump used his platform as President--at
rallies, on Twitter, and in press interviews--to spread disinformation,
making unsubstantiated and false claims about voting by mail, vote
rigging, and fraud in counting ballots. President Trump pressured State
and local officials across the country to reject election results
without evidence. He called Georgia Secretary of State Brad
Raffensperger to pressure him to find the votes he needed to win the
State. Even after President Trump lost 61 election-related cases in
State and Federal courts, he continued to insist the election was
stolen from him. In the process, President Trump sowed doubt and
provoked his supporters.
President Trump summoned his supporters to Washington, DC, on January
6. They included known domestic violent extremists, including the Proud
Boys, the Oath Keepers, and other White supremacists and far-right
militia groups. Federal law enforcement had warned about the threat of
violence from armed members of these groups. Nevertheless, President
Trump urged his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol and to fight
and told them they will ``never take back our country with weakness.''
He said he would march with them.
Instead of trying to stop them, President Trump continued to support
actions by the insurrectionists even after they breached the Capitol
Building, overwhelmed and unleashed violence against law enforcement,
and put at risk the lives of the Vice President, Members of Congress,
Capitol Police officers, and staff members. Four insurrectionists died.
In all, 140 law enforcement personnel were injured and 1 police
officer, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, was killed. Two more
police officers later died as a result of the insurrection.
Many of the insurrectionists said they were there at the direction of
President Trump. And the President did not call on his followers to
stand down or send reinforcements to help the overwhelmed law
enforcement at the Capitol. Instead, we know from a statement from
Washington Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler entered into the trial
record that President Trump refused to help bring an end to the
insurrection even after House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy urged
him to act.
In this moment and in the weeks and months leading up to the
insurrection, President Trump violated his duty to the Constitution and
his oath of office. There must be accountability. Without
accountability, we are setting a dangerous precedent--one that says
that the President is above the law and did not uphold his oath to
ensure the peaceful transfer of power.
It is also important to recognize that the events that unfolded on
January 6 did not occur in isolation. They were the culmination of
years of President Trump stoking the flames of racial tension and
division, as the House impeachment managers have concisely laid out.
Throughout President Trump's time in office, hate crimes rose to
levels not seen in over a decade. The rise in domestic violent
extremism has been publicly acknowledged by President Trump's own FBI
Director, Christopher Wray, who identified it as the most severe threat
to the homeland. Director Wray has testified that racially-motivated
violent extremists make up the largest aspect of domestic violent
extremist cases, often involving militia groups, such as the ones who
were present during the January 6th insurrection.
In the Northwest we have faced threats from racially-motived
extremists and armed anti-government militia groups for decades,
including the siege of Ruby Ridge, ID, in 1992, the Aryan Nations
compound near Hayden Lake, ID, and the attempted bombing of Spokane's
Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial march in 2011. Groups that were among
the insurrectionists on January 6, including the Three Percenters, the
Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers, all have a significant presence in my
State. In the last 4 years, their activity has been on the rise.
Following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, they threatened State
capitals around our country, including in my State. An armed mob
breached the gates outside of the Governor's mansion in Olympia,
surrounding Governor Inslee's residence on the capitol complex while
his family was inside. This wasn't the first time, however, that these
armed extremist groups have showed up to demonstrations in my State.
As this Senate trial has clearly shown, President Trump has
repeatedly inflamed these groups and others. He encouraged violence at
his rallies, called White nationalists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville
``very fine people,'' refused to clearly condemn White supremacy during
a Presidential debate, told the Proud Boys hate group to ``stand back
and stand by,'' and told the January 6th insurrectionists that he
``loves them and they are very special'' after they had already laid
siege to our Capitol and committed heinous acts of violence. That
encouragement has had consequences, as we saw in Charlottesville and on
January 6.
President Trump's responsibility is clear. He violated his oath of
office and tried to overturn the results of the election. Free and fair
elections are the bedrock of democracy. Generations of Americans gave
their lives for our freedom, for our right to vote, and for the
peaceful transfer of power. I voted to hold President Trump accountable
for committing a high crime against our governmental system and to
safeguard the future of democracy in the United States of America.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, 1 year ago, I said upon the conclusion of
President Trump's first impeachment trial,``Unchallenged evil spreads
like a virus,'' and that acquittal would lead to worse behavior. The
events of January 6--seven dead, the first siege of our Capitol in over
200 years, the disruption of the peaceful transfer of power--are the
direct result of that first acquittal. I voted to convict because seven
needlessly died and hundreds were injured by a former President's
egregious lies. So many risked all to protect us. The least we can do
is protect them by voting to condemn and thus prevent behavior that
should never be repeated.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, just minutes after the attack of January 6
began, I said it was not only unpatriotic, it was un-American. I do not
need to be convinced that what happened on that day was the disgraceful
work of a treasonous criminal mob. But seeing images of that attack
stirred up anger in me, anger that our Nation was embarrassed in the
eyes of the world by our own citizen; anger that Capitol Police
officers that my family and I know personally had to deal with these
low-lives; anger that janitorial and food service staff I have gotten
to know--many who came to America to get away from countries with
political violence--had to clean up the mess left behind by these
cretins.
But, if we have learned anything this week, it should be how
dangerous it is to allow anger to influence actions.
The lead House Manager argued today that this trial isn't about
Donald
[[Page S769]]
Trump, that it was about our country, and that those who refuse to vote
to convict are condoning the actions of a violent mob and failing to
defend the honor of our Capitol and the people who work here. This is a
ridiculous and insulting argument.
Impeachment is not a way of sending a message or taking symbolic
action. Impeachment exists for one principal reason: to remove from
office an officeholder guilty of wrongdoing. And claiming that anyone
who doesn't vote to convict someone no longer in office is the
equivalent of supporting a criminal mob is nothing but hyperpartisan
politicians masquerading as highminded prosecutors trying to smear
their political opponents.
The Senate does not have the constitutional power to convict a former
official, and even if we did, we should be very reluctant to use it. In
the 244-year history of our Republic, we have never convicted and
disqualified a former official in an impeachment trial. Doing so now
would create a new precedent, and it would weaponize impeachment in a
way we will come to regret.
The day will come when a future Congress, one with a new majority in
the House filled with new Members elected on the promise of holding
accountable leaders of the opposite part, will give in to these
passions and impeach a former official. The Senate will then find
itself conducting a trial of that former official, a trial justified by
the precedent we are asked to set here today, and a Senate tempted to
convict by the tantalizing opportunity to disqualify that official from
future public office.
My fear of creating dangerous precedents is not new. Two years ago, I
was accused by some in my party of being a traitor because I opposed
using an emergency declaration to fund a border wall that I supported.
I warned then that a future Democratic President would do the same
thing to fund a Green New Deal. And now, just 2 years later, leading
Democrats are calling for that very thing.
The lead manager admitted today that, for the Democrats and their
enablers working in the legacy media, the purpose of this trial was not
to hold the former President accountable. The real purpose of this
trial was to tar and feather not just the rioters, but anyone who
supported the former President and any Senator who refuses to vote to
convict.
I voted to acquit former President Trump because I will not allow my
anger over the criminal attack of January 6 nor the political
intimidation from the left to lead me into supporting a dangerous
constitutional precedent.
The election is over. A new President is in the White House, and a
new Congress has been sworn in. Let history and, if necessary, the
courts judge the events of the past. We should be focused on the
serious challenges of the present and preparing our country to confront
the serious tests it will face in the future.
Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, during this impeachment trial, our country
has re-lived the chilling and un-American assault on the foundations of
our democracy. New video footage reinforced both the brutality of the
rioters and also the heroism of members of law enforcement who--just
barely--prevented further loss of life. The personal threat of that
day, however, is not nearly as troubling as the threat to our
democracy.
After listening to the arguments from the House Managers and former
President Donald Trump's defense, I voted to convict the former
President. As dangerous as Donald Trump's actions were over the course
of the months, days, and hours leading up to the violent insurrection,
my vote was less about holding Trump as an individual accountable than
it was about protecting our country from similar threats in the future,
at his hands or at the hands of others.
Impeachment is not designed to punish--it was included in our
Constitution to protect the Republic from abuses of power and tyranny.
I voted to protect the America that we know and love because January 6,
2021, will be our future if we tolerate what the impeachment trial
showed was Trump's concerted campaign to prevent the peaceful
transition of power.
Of all the things former President Trump did, it is actually what he
did not do once he knew the Capitol was being attacked and his own Vice
President, among others, was being threatened that was most troubling.
Should there be any doubt that Trump intended to disrupt the
certification of votes and encourage the violence that desecrated the
Capitol, his decision to allow it to continue for hours should dispel
that uncertainty.
If he had not intended the violence when it began, his failure to
exercise his power to secure the Capitol and protect those inside was
itself a violation of his oath of office and merits conviction and
disqualification from holding future office.
Before Trump's refusal to engage in the peaceful transfer of power,
the public could gather outside the Capitol; families could play soccer
on the weekends, and tourists could take photos of this temple of
democracy. Before COVID, the public could even walk right in, after
being properly screened. But throughout the impeachment trial, we came
to work through fences and barbed wire. There was no open space for the
public because we have lost the common understanding that the Capitol
is place where we spar with words, not physical violence.
It is fitting that the trial concluded right before we mark the
birthday of George Washington, who helped establish some of the bedrock
principles of our democracy not simply through his service as our first
President, but by voluntarily surrendering the office, peacefully.
Our union that Washington helped birth and that Lincoln managed to
preserve is still fragile, and it cannot be taken for granted. We will
need to continue the work of investigating what led to the grim events
of January 6 as well as what happened on that day, and we will need to
take steps to make clear that acts of tyranny will not be tolerated in
our country.
We have considerable work ahead to bring our country together and
strive for greater opportunity for all, both in the face of this
pandemic and beyond. I am committed to continuing that work and showing
the American people and the world that we are resilient, strong, and
willing to renew our commitment to government of, for, and by the
people.
Thank you.
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