for a reason, for a man who would sell out his country for a political field for an a for a man who threatens the integrity of our elections and for a man who would invite foreign interference into our affairs and for a man who would undermine our national security and that of our allies, or a man like donald j trump. they gave you a remedy and they meant for you to use it. they gave you an oath and they meant for you to observe it we have proven donald trump guilty. do impartial justice and convict him. i yield back. >> the majority leader is recognized. >> mr. chief justice, i ask unanimous consent of the senate

sitting as a court of impeachment will stand adjourned under the previous order. >> without objection, so ordered. >> i suggest the absence of a quorum. ... ...

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the senate impeachment trial of president donald j. trump has completed -- concluded i should say with both sides completing their arguments for and against the articles of impeachment. adam schiff the lead manager on the house management team just wrapping up his comments. the house now and probably one

of the more unique quorum policies as a chief justice leaves and the senate will resume shortly in a period good morning business allowing senators to speak up to ten minutes each on any issue, likely on impeachment. they will get the same amount of time or a similar period tomorrow business ahead of vote on friday at 4 p.m. on wednesday rather, 4 p.m. on the articles of impeachment. as this quorum calls continue where doing a couple of things. keeping our eyes on micro positions. we will take you live now for a couple of the house -- >> as the president team concludes its case in the house managers conclude their case with closing arguments today i think we finish what we started. they failed factually, failed legally. they failed constitutionally. there was a bipartisan support for impeachment over in the

house and there won't be bipartisan support or removal here in the senate. and with that i will yield to -- >> in the house there was bipartisan opposition to the impeachment, and hopefully if the senate democrats want to do the right thing, hopefully we will see a least one or more senators choose with the president. that would be the right in. we've been through a long process. started with almost a dozen and a half or so depositions that took place in the house in a setting that unfortunately resulted in a lot of cherry picked leaks, withholding faqs, outright lies to the american public. the house had open public hearings that took place in the committee hearing. so from a closed-door depositions through those republican intelligence committee hearings, the president's counsel wasn't invited in the room, wasn't allowed to call witnesses to cross-examine witnesses, , to present evidence.

it's been a long road. for our country asked for two or we are today, america is ready to move forward. not just move on but move forward. as we saw videos in played during closing arguments of republicans and democrats and house and senate working together on key bipartisan priorities, i think substantively that's what america needs. we need to move on from this. the president should be acquitted and i'd be glad to answer any questions you may have. >> what do you expect of a state that union tomorrow? you think you should bring up impeachment or move on? >> i think the president has been uniting the country by the things he's been doing, the things he's been out while this impeachment trial has been going on, getting usmca across the finish line, a trade deal with china, still focusing on border security and immigration, trying to move forward with prescription drug costs, all the things that are important to

americans. the president has been focused on those things. the division has come from democrats particularly in the house that had been focus for three years on impeaching the president. fortunately that comes to an end on wednesday. >> how many democrats defect could vote to acquit the president on one of these charges? >> i would expect with regard to the second article, , the idea f obstruction of congress, i will be very surprised if there are not more than just a few democrats that vote to acquit on that. >> do you think that's possible, a couple democrats to vote with the president? >> the evidence is so strong with regard to both articles but when you constitutional scholars that are democrats saying it's essentially an admission of constitutional illiteracy to say that the separation of powers is an impeachable offense, i think you'll see a number of democrats p law. that was -- both articles were stretched but that was a stretch and jump by house democrats. >> thank you.

>> you bet. >> a couple of the republican house members, part of the president defense team. the senate is still in session as the senate impeachment trial concludes. they're in a period good morning business and we expect will hear senators on the floor, they can speak up to ten minutes each on any issue probably about impeachment. same for tuesday's will. the senate will come in, no legislative work expected but it would be in a period good morning business ahead of the state of union tomorrow night and state of the union tomorrow night live over on c-span. coverage beginning at 8:00 eastern with the speech itself at nine. 202-748-8920 is allied to call if you think 20 is allied to call if you think the president is guilty of the articles of impeachment. 202-748-8921 not guilty.

i decided 202-7488 and 20 q 488922 and you contact us at (202)748-8903. again we will go back to the chamber as we usually do when we cover the senate when senators come up and speak but it is largely cleared out. tables are still there. the the president stefanski is . expect several democratic senators are actually leaving the capital for the iowa caucuses. senator sanders, warren and senator klobuchar heading to iowa. senator bennet is not. he's heading to the hampshire. let's hear from mary, asheville, north carolina, you are up first. go ahead. >> caller: yes. >> host: you are on the air. go ahead, yes. i'm a total with the last senator -- which his name? adam schiff. >> host: let you go. chuck schumer. >> majority whip. >> mr. president, i would ask

consent the quorum call be suspended. >> without objection for our asking unless consent journal via printed it. >> without objection. -- the journal be approved to date. >> host: that was senator thune on the floor and senator schumer is speaking to republicans. >> under the previous order the senate will be in a period of morning business where senators permitted therein to speak up to ten minutes each? >> adjust the absence of a quorum. >> the clerk will call the roll. >> the house did a lot of things wrong. i don't think they did. the house managers rebutted all of that but they can't .2 what's wrong with the articles of impeachment. they can't rebut the arguments for witnesses and documents.

they can't rebut that the president did something that rises to the level of impeachment and in the second argument they make is wait for the election and that's stairs in the face of the obvious, if the founding fathers wanted the president to be one way to hold presidents accountable. >> i would ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business. >> the senate is in a quorum call. >> i would ask to initiate the quorum call and speak as if in morning business. >> without objection. >> mr. president and all of my colleagues in the senate, throughout this impeachment trial i thought a lot about what this country stands for. and for me as the son of an immigrant whose family came to the united states from germany in the 1930s, america stands as a beacon of liberty, equal justice and democracy.

we are a nation forged by a revolution against a monarchy and its absolute power. we are a nation founded by the ratification of the most radically democratic document in history, the constitution of the united states of america. under the constitution we are governed not by monarchs who act with impunity and without accountability, but elected officers who answer to and work for we the people. generations of americans have struggled and sacrifice their lives to defend that audacious vision. the senate has a duty and a moral responsibility to uphold that vision. over the last two weeks i fear that the senate has failed in that duty. i am deeply disappointed that nearly all of my republican

colleagues refused to allow for the kind of witness testimony, documentary evidence that any legitimate trial would include. you cannot conduct a fair trial without witnesses. and in my view, you also can't have a legitimate acquittal without a fair trial. that the senate refused to shed more light on the facts is truly astonishing. despite the facts as we know them are clear and plain. president trump pressure the government of ukraine, an american ally, not for our national security interests but for his own selfish and corrupt political interests. when he was caught, he sought to cover it up by suppressing documents and preventing witnesses from testifying before congress and the american

people. the president defense team had every opportunity to present us with evidence that would explain his actions or give us reasons to doubt this clear pattern of fact. and instead they shifted their defense away from the damning facts and embraced an extreme legal philosophy that would allow any president to abuse their power and ignore the law.

and stood up to him, that president nixon finally resigned. we are not in yet another time with our chief executive has failed us. and our nation requires more leadership and conscious from the united states senate. unfortunately, my republican colleagues are unwilling to deliver that kind of moral leadership. president donald trump has proven to be unfit for the office occupies here he abused his powers and continues to engage in a cover-up. he presents a clear and present danger to our national security, and more fundamentally, to our democracy itself. that is why my conscience and my duty to defend our constitution compels me to vote to convict donald trump. i hope the rest of you will join in this vote but i am not naïve. i understand however -- how

president donald trump operates. i know how it can become if you dare to challenge him. but your fear of this holy cannot outweigh your duty to the american people. your fear cannot bind you to how you will be viewed by history. what you should really fear is what will happen when there are no limits on any president, , en when he's risking our national security and our foreign alliances to illegitimately maintain his grip on power. what we should all fear is what president trump will do next if the senate does not hold him accountable for the clear abuses of power he has already committed. this is the same president who praised dictators and desperate and jeopardizes our international alliances. this is the same president who

dole billions of dollars from construction funds to pay for his monument for division and racism. this is the same president who is more focused on lobbying insults and spreading russian conspiracy theories on twitter and is on his own intelligence briefing. let me just say, i pay close attention to the intelligence that i'm allowed to see. and from isis on both the armed services and intelligence committee, i am acutely aware of the threats to our nation faces. they include and embolden north korea, the iranian regime, the terrorist organizations across several continents. russia and china are acting aggressively to assert their authoritarian influence and provoke american interests and our allies, including the ukraine.

finally, with the 2020 presidential election near months away, rush is once again targeting our election system and manipulating our democratic discourse. right now patriotic americans working in the state department, foreign intelligence agency, serving in the military are defending us from those very threats. these americans pledged to obey the orders of the commander-in-chief. they trust that the commander-in-chief loyalty and sole focus is squarely on the best interest of the united states of america. i don't say this lightly. president trump has betrayed that trust. he promised us that he would put america first. instead, he put himself first. throughout our history the

defense of our nation has depended on the leadership of men whose names we now remember when we visit their memorials, names like lincoln and washington and roosevelt. these men all swore the same oath president trump did when they assumed our nations most powerful office. our president swore to faithfully execute the office of president of the united states and to preserve, , protect and defend the constitution of the united states. president trump has violated that both. so i asked us once again, what does america stand for? in considering the question i think of dr. martin luther king, jr., the only man who did not serve as president that we recognize on the memorial international mall. more than 50 years after his assassination, dr. king's lights

work to make our nation were fully come to live to our founding principle, still resonates. these are the same principles that compelled my father's family to come to this country, liberty, equal justice, democracy, while fighting for those principles dr. king wrote in his letter from a birmingham jail, the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy. my colleagues, this is one of those times. two years after writing a the birmingham jail letter, dr. king led thousands on a five day, 54-mile march on selma to montgomery for our fundamental american rights, the right to vote in free and fair elections.

remember that right is what president trump has threatened by inviting foreign interference in our elections. upon reaching the steps of the alabama state capital dr. king claimed we must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscious. i sincerely hope that those of us in this body can keep seeking that society, that america. now before i finished i also want to address americans have watched this trial unfold and are rightly disappointed by the cover-up that it has become. i would urge you to remember what dr. king said about accepting finite disappointment, but never losing infinite hope. despite what the senate is about to do, and the danger i i feart

will bring about, i will never lose hope in what america stands for. because we the people, not any king or dictator still holds immense power in this nation, and it is up to all of us now to wield the power. i yield back, mr. president. >> as senators we cast many votes during our time here. i have cast over 13,200. each one of those votes is important. but a boat to convict or acquit the president on charges of impeachment is perhaps the most important vote a senator could ever cast. until now, it's happened only

twice in our nation's history, and it's something that should never be taken lightly. now, president trump has been charged of committing, according to the constitution and in these articles, high crimes and misdemeanors, for requesting a foreign leader investigating his potential political opponent, and number two, obstructing congress is inquiry into those actions. for a this, we are asking to permanently remove him from office. as a judge and your, as we all are, i first ask do the charges rise to an offense that unquestionably demand removal from office? if so, i didn't ask whether the

house proved beyond a reasonable doubt that it actually occurred. the house's case fails on the first of those questions. the president's request is not impeachable conduct under our constitution. a president is a prohibited by law from engaging the assistance of a foreign ally in an anti-corruption investigation. the house tries to make up for this hurdle by subjecting -- that by suggesting that subjecting motive. in other words, political advantage can turn on an otherwise unimpeachable act into an act that commands removal from office.

i won't support such an irreversible break from the constitution standards for impeaching the president. the senate is an institution of precedent. we are informed and guided by history and the actions of our predecessors. but our choices also actually make history. these days that can be difficult to keepd. in mind. arise to convict or acquit, convict or acquit can lead to cut corners and overheated rhetoric. we are each bound by oath to do impartial justice. as president pro tempore of this institution, i recognize that we

must also do justice to the senate and to the republic that the senate serves. this trial again with a full and fair debate on the rules to guide our process. we considered and vote on 11 amendments over nearly 13 hours. r arguments and questions as was agreed to unanimously in 1999 clinton impeachment. consistent with precedent, we engaged in a robust debate on calling witnesses and pursuing additional evidence. we sat as a court of impeachment for over 70 hours. the final vote will be the product of a fair and judicious

process consistent with precedent of the senate. i cannot say the same of the articles of impeachment that we're considering today from the house of representatives which has the sole power of impeachment. after nine days of presentation and questions and after fully considering the record, i'm convinced that what the house is asking the senate to do is constitutionally flawed and dangerously unprecedented. the house's abuse of power article rests on objectively legal conduct. until congress legislate otherwise, a president is within his authority to request that a

foreign leader assist with anticorruption efforts. to make up for this, the house of representatives abuse of power theory rests entirely on the president's subjective motive. this very vague standard cannot be sustained. the house offers no limiting principle of what motives are allowed. so under such a flexible standard, future house of representatives could impeach presidents for taking lawful action for what a majority thinks are the wrong reasons. the house also gives no guidance whatsoever on whether conviction rests on proving a single correct motive or whether mixed

motives suffice under their theory. in its trial brief, the house of representatives argues there's no credible alternative explanation, that's their words, for the president's alleged conduct. but once the senate heard from the president's counsel in defense, then all of a sudden, the house changed its tune. now even a credible alternative explanation shouldn't stop the senate from removing the president. reshaping their own standard mid-trial only serves to undercut their initial arts many and sim -- arguments. and simply asserting at least 63

times that i counted that their evidence was quote, unquote, overwhelming doesn't make the house of representatives' allegations accurate or prove an impeachable offense. even after arguments had concluded, the house managers started repeating the terms bribery and extortion on the floor of the senate while neither terms appears anywhere in their articles of impeachment. so you get down to this point. it's not the senate's job to read into house articles what the house failed or didn't see fit to incorporate itself. articles of impeachment shouldn't be moving targets like moving a goalpost. the ambiguity surrounding the

house's abuse of power theory, give this senator reason enough to vote not guilty. if we're to lower the bar of impeachment, and that's what the house of representatives is trying to do, we better be clear on where the bar is being set. now, the house's second article, impeaching the president for what they call obstruction of congress, is equally unprecedented and equally patently frivolous. this senator takes great pride in knowing a thing or two about obstruction by the executive branch from both republican presidents and democrat presidents in the 40 years that i've been doing oversight. congressional oversight, like rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, is central to my role as

a senator representing iowa taxpayers. in the face of obstruction, i use the tools the constitution provides to this institution. now that is the very core of the checks and balances of our governmental system. for example, i fought the obama administration to obtain documents related to operation fast and furious under the house's obstruction standard should president obama have been impeached for his failure to waive privileges during the course of that investigation? we fought president obama on this for three years in the courts, and we still didn't end up with all that we asked for. now, we never heard a peep from the democrats when obama pulled that trick. so the hypocrisy here by the

house democrats is on full display for the last two weeks. in the case before us, the house issued a series of requests and subpoenas to the executive branch, but the house failed to enforce those requests. when challenged to stand up for its subpoena in court, the investigating committee simply retreated. the house may cower at defending its own authority, but the senate shouldn't have to clean up the mess of the house's own making. for the many ways in which the house failed in the fundamentals of oversight and for the terrible new precedent this obstruction article would set, i'll vote not guilty. another point, there's been debate about the whistle-blower

whose complaint motivated the house's impeachment inquiry. i've worked for and with whistle-blowers for more than 30 years. i sponsored numerous laws to strengthen whistle-blower protections. attempts by anyone to out a whistle-blower just to sell an article or score a political point, those are not helpful at all. it's not the treatment any whistle-blower deserves. however, it's important for investigators to talk to whistle-blowers, to evaluate their claims and credibility because those claims form the basis of an inquiry under checks and balances of government. my office does this all the time. when whistle-blowers bring a significant case of bipartisan interest, we frequently work closely before democrats to look into those claims.

i know the house committees have followed that course in the past. both parties understand how to talk to whistle-blowers and respect confidentiality. but why no efforts were taken in this case to take these very basic bipartisan steps is very baffling to me. i fear that to achieve its desired goal, the house majority weaponized and politicized whistle-blowers for purely partisan purposes. i hope that the damage done will be short lived. otherwise separation of powers under our constitution will be weakened. finally, i've always made it a priority to hold judicial nominees to a standard of restraint and fidelity to the law, and as judges in this case

which every senator is, we should consider those factors which counsel restrain. these articles came to the senate as a product of a flawed, unprecedented, and partisan process. when the articles were voted by the i full house, the only bipartisanship was those in opposition. moreover, tonight the iowa caucuses will be finished. the 2020 presidential election is under way. yet we all are asked to remove the incumbent from the ballot based on an impeachment supported by only one party of the congress. the senate should take no part in endorsing the very dangerous

new precedent this would set for future impeachments. we know we need no new normal when it comes to impeaching a president. we've got precedence of the past that should be followed and they haven't been followed. we've had more than 28 pages of evidence. we've had 17 witnesses and over 70 hours of open transparent consideration by the senate. the american people are more than adequately prepared to decide for themselves the fate of the president in november. this decision belongs to the voters. it's time to get the senate back to work for the american people on issues of substance. i yield the floor.

mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: mr. president, i have been in the senate now for two presidential impeachment trials, and i can tell you this is never a situation i want to find our country in. not back then, certainly not today when the odds of bipartisan cooperation even on responsibilities as solemn as these are brutally low. in spite of this, i called for impeachment proceedings to begin in the house in july of this past year, and i did so because of the gravity of the threats to our democracy outlined in special counsel mueller's report. at the time i felt if we did not fully explore those threats, we would fall short of our constitutional duty. and set a precedent of congressional indifference to potentially flagrant violations of our constitution, ones that could jeopardize our core democratic institutions.

after hearing both sides' presentations and reviewing every available source of information and testimony, i believe it is painfully clear the president of the united states has abused his power and obstructed congress and he should be removed from office. i want to talk about how i reached this conclusion which i did not do lightly and take a few minutes to reflect on the consequence of the decision each of us is individually about to make. throughout the trial, the contrast between the presentations by the house managers and the president's defense team could not have been starker or more damning for the president. the house managers built an ironclad case showing the president abused his power and obstructed congress in ways that present grave, urgent threats to our national security and to the rule of law.

over the course of their arguments, it became undeniablably clear that the corruption we have learned so much about in recent months starts at the very top with the president of the united states. president trump demanded a foreign government to intervene in our elections for his own political gain, and he did so by withholding american taxpayer dollars and ignoring congressional authority. the president's associates acted with his full knowledge and consent, and he himself pressured ukraine's leader knowing how much ukraine depends on united states support. these actions have already made us less secure as a nation. by delaying vital military aid to ukraine, a key partner, president trump has emboldened russia, one of our chief adversaries. he's undermined our credibility with other allies worldwide.

and critically the president has also given every indication he will continue to put his own interests ahead of american interests, including in our upcoming elections and has time and time again refused to recognize congress' constitutional authority to oversee the executive branch. in addition, information continues to come out further implicating the president and demonstrating not only his intent to abuse the power of our highest office but his direct personal engagement in efforts to do so. to summarize, the house's arguments made it impossible to ignore a reality our founders deeply feared, a president who betrays our national security for his own personal benefit and disregards the system of checks and balances on which our

democratic institutions depend, who believes he is above the law contrary to the most fundamental american principles. the president's defense did not directly refute those charges against the president or the thorough case that the house presented. in fact, the president's defense only served to illustrate how indefensible the president's actions are. we heard complaints from the president's defense about the house process which the president refused to engage in. we heard a debunked conspiracy theory about ukranian election interference, even though the president's own advisors repeatedly explained to him that russia, not ukraine, interfered in our 2016 election. we heard denial of a quid pro quo that as the house managers laid out in excruciating detail was borne out not only on the president's july 25 call with president zelensky but in

hundreds of documents from before and after that call. we did not, however, hear any substantive defense of the president's actions and tellingly, the president's defense vehemently opposed requests for the president's own key aides to testify and for consideration of his aides' documents as part of this trial. if the president was as innocent as he claims, surely his aides and his administration's materials would bear those claims out and he would want them considered. he and his team do not. i said in 1999 that if we were to remove a sitting president, none of us should have any doubts. today based on the facts we have heard and the distraction and obfuscation offered in response, none of us should have any doubts the president committed the impeachable offenses of which he's accused. what we now know is the president of the united states demanded a foreign government

interfere in our elections to help him win his upcoming campaign, and that truth is indisputable. and the question is, what does each of us as individuals do with that information? sit be here i've been refinded this -- sitting here i've been reminded this trial is larger than any one of us, larger than any political party and much larger than president trump. it is fundamentally about whether we will stand up for the institutions that secure our autonomy as a people, institutions we hope to leave stronger for our children and grandchildren, and to go a step further, really this trial is about freedom in our country because if the president feels he owes his office to a foreign government, not americans, then who does the president truly serve? how can he be trusted? if foreign governments can skew our elections in their favor, if

they interfere with americans at the ballot box this november, then our -- then are americans truly represented in the white house? is there any american really free if a president can owe their election to an entity outside and aside from the american people and foreign governments can help decide who is in our highest office? these questions and their chilling answers have led me to my final decision, and i hope others consider them carefully as they make their own. and i also want to speak for a minute about fear. there are really two different kinds at work in this moment. one is a fear of political consequences. i remember how many members of congress felt compelled to vote for the war in iraq. the political pressure was palpable. today that kind of political fear is palpable again. but fear of political consequences must never supersede concern for our country.

and today we should be fearful for our country. we should be fearful for our future, for our safety, and the rule of law if the evidence we've heard cannot persuade this body to act on the painful truth before us. our president has betrayed the public trust. fragrantly violated our laws, and proved himself a threat to our national security. so i ask my colleagues how they want to feel not in this moment here today but in the years ahead and as part of our nation's history. as more information continues to come out about this administration and it will, as we get closer to an election we still have a unique opportunity to help protect, and as we explain this difficult but pivotal time to our grandchildren, looking back what will you want to have stood for? this president or our country? i believe as representative

schiff said so simply and powerfully that in america, quote, right matters. but i also notoriety matters only because so many people have throughout our history stood up for what is right even when, especially when it may be difficult. today each united states senator called to do the same. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. ms. stabenow: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i rise today to speak during a sad and perilous moment in our nation's history. our nation was founded on an important -- on important basic

principles, that all men and women are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. with rights, of course, always come responsibilities. america is a nation of laws, and no person -- not even the president of the united states -- is above these laws. no person, not even the president of the united states, is above these laws. that's been true since our nation was founded, and it is still true today. unfortunately, president donald trump has abused his power and acted as if he is above the law. he did this by holding up critical military aid to

pressure a new foreign leader to investigate a political rival for his own political benefit. then he did everything he could to try and cover it up after he got caught. as united states senators, it's our constitutional duty to fairly and thoughtfully consider articles of impeachment, listen to the evidence, and make a decision that honors our nation's values and our fundamental belief that no one is above the law. that is exactly what i did, and it's why i will vote to convict president trump and remove him from office. the facts show the president did everything he could to cover up the truth, put our elections under even greater risk of

foreign interference, and damage the constitutional checks and balances essential to our democracy. let's be clear. we are here because of one person. we are here because of one person, president donald j. trump. the president was provided multiple opportunities to prove his innocence, as he should be. the house made countless requests for documents during the impeachment inquiry. the white house ignored them. the house issued 42 subpoenas. the white house refused to comply and even went so far as to threaten and intimidate those people who chose to appear. yet even with this unprecedented level of obstruction, the house made a strong case for

impeachment. once impeachment moved to the senate, the president again had numerous opportunities to defend himself. the american people and the people of michigan strongly supported having additional documents and relevant witnesses, firsthand witnesses who could speak to the articles of impeachment. that's what a trial is supposed to be about. yet the senate did not hear from people who clearly have key relevant information, including former national security advisor john bolton, who's willing to testify and in fact it's just a matter of time and we will hear publicly all of us what he would have said to the senate; acting white house chief of staff and director of the office of management and budget, mick

mulvaney; o.m.b. associate director of programs, michael duffey, and white house national security aide robert blair. common sense -- common sense says that if president trump's top staff have evidence of his innocence, he would have insisted that we hear from them, as we should. they would have rushed into this chamber. unfortunately, the exact opposite happened, lending strong support for the evidence presented by the house of representatives. instead, the president's defense team argued that abuse of power is not a crime and, therefore, not an impeachable offense. and it became clear that they believe, as the president himself has said on many

occasions, that he has power to do anything he wants under article 2 of the constitution. they also argued that if the president thinks his reelection is in the public interest and if he does anything to benefit his reelection, including getting help from a foreign country, then that, too, is in the public trt and not an abuse of power -- public interest and not an abuse of power. common sense would tell us otherwise. keep in mind that these are far from mainstream legal arguments, even if conservative legal circles. these arguments have been made up to protect president trump and cover up his wrongdoing. these arguments are nothing short of appalling, and i'm alarmed at what they suggest

president trump could do next week, next month, in november, or what any president in the future could do. is it now okay for the president of the united states to ask a foreign leader to investigate a member of congress or any citizen if it helps him get reelected? and, thus, in his mind, benefits the country? is it now okay for the president of the united states to tell a governor that they're not getting any critical disaster relief until they endorse him in the next election? is it now okay for the president of the united states to ask foreign leaders to give campaign contributions or other political help in exchange for official visits? i don't think any of this is okay. the people in michigan don't think any of this is okay.

and i intend to do everything i can to ensure that it doesn't become our new normal. the founders were smart. they lived under a king, and they had no intention of doing so ever again. i have to wonder why so many of my republican colleagues seem so eager to give it a try. this is the united states of america. in our country, no president is above the law. and it is illegal for a candidate or any elected official to receive political help from a foreign government. americans must decide american elections. this is fundamental to our democracy and worth continuing to fight for, which i intend to do.

having said that, i am also deeply concerned about the divisions in our country, in our families, in our communities. it's critical that we find ways to listen to each other, respect differences it, and find common ground so that we can address the important issues affecting our families and our country. these are indeed serious and perilous times. it's up to all of us to stand up for what we believe is right and to work to strengthen our democracy by coming together as americans, by finding ways to work together, to solve problems. our children and our

grandchildren are counting on us. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: for the past two weeks, the president's defense team has spun bizarre legal arguments, conspiracy theories, and flat-out lies that are unbecoming of the office of the president of the united states. the country knows the facts. the president pursued his personal and political interests in a way that harmed the national security of america. he smeared our own ambassador to the ukraine. he promoted kremlin propaganda on 2016 election interference. he sent his personal lawyer and

willing members of his administration to trade official acts in exchange for fabricated dirt on a political rival. he stopped $391 million in aid from going to the ukraine. and when the ukrainians made clear they were desperate for that aid to come through, he made his demands. come up with dirt on the bidens. find or invent the server. donald trump's defense team has claimed the president wanted to fight corruption in ukraine, but they have produced zero hard evidence to support that claim. never in the history of our government has the president pursued a policy end without generating what usually is mountains of paper, and yet here there are no memos, no meeting records, no communiques on

anticorruption -- nothing. this defense is fiction. it's fiction because the president was not fighting corruption in ukraine, he was causing it. we also know the president was telling the people around him to do what he wanted with respect to the ukraine. he was telling them to talk to his personal lawyer, talk to rudy, because the president had forgotten what's good for the american people, he ignored the needs of our allies and forgiven theattacks on american democracy. the only thing this administration was after was a corrupt favor for the personal benefit of donald trump. this favor was to get a foreign government to target and

american citizen when our own intelligence services were legally prohibited from doing so , an action that even trump's own secretary of state, mike pompeo, once admitted is illegal. mike pompeo said it's not lawful to outsource that which we cannot do. yet that's what the president was seeking. that was not the only illegal action. the g.a.o. has said that holding up the ukraine aid was a violation of the impoundment control act, and when the aid eventually went through in september of last year, it wasn't because they suddenly had a whole lot of new respect for the constitutional powers of the congress. it was because they got caught. when this abuse came to light, donald trump's response was, i

pretty much can do what i want. i'm above the law. on the south lawn of the white house, he confirmed that he wanted ukraine to smear the bidens. smear them by announcing investigations. he said he wanted the same thing from china. in a white house press briefing, mick mulvaney, the chief of staff, confirmed that the scheme had been politically motivated. a reporter who was clearly stunned at the mulvaney admission asked for some clarification and mulvaney said -- and i quote -- i've got news for everybody. get over it. and that, i would submit, is what this trial is all about. whether the senate and the country have to simply get over it. i know some senators are apparently prepared to do exactly that. but let's consider the precedent

that just getting over it sets. if this ends in an acquittal, it signals that politicians can get away with selling out american interests to foreign coconspirators to rig an election. what's to stop the russians from approaching a future president with their own proposition -- dial back your support for the balkan states, and we'll take down your opponent in the reelection? what would prevent a senator from approaching a party and offering fabricated dirt on a senator of the other party in order to smooth the way for a sweetheart trade deal? what if the president hands the saudis an enemies list of political opponents to hack in exchange for a military attack and a few regiments of american soldiers in yemen and ending in

acquittal without hearing from any witnesses or getting any new evidence says that the president can rig impeachment trials as well. every impeachment trial, every one included witness testimony. that's just good government 101. it's what americans expect. it's what i heard in all town hall meetings in oregon, from counties donald trump won panned counties that hillary clinton won. the republican senate majority is apparently ready to acquit the republican president without even going through the motions, ignoring what the american people expect. how will we sustain a functioning democracy when our leaders are allowed to rig an election and there are no consequences? the congress is going to struggle to unwind that

precedent. it could outlive all of us. so after the long days of arguments and questioning, in my view, this comes down to two simple questions. first, the president swears an oath just like we do to protect and defend our revered constitution. does the president's oath of office mean anything? when a president puts his own interests first, when he exports fabricated dirt from a foreign government for his political gain, he is obviously in violation of his oath. he's not protecting the constitutional right of americans to choose their own leaders in free and fair elections. what he's doing is protecting himself and his own power. what does the president's oath of office mean if violating it carries no consequences? if his oath means nothing and he cannot be charged with a crime, then he is bound by nothing, and

if we will not hold him to his oath, are we not surrendering our own oath, our own oath to protect and defend the constitution? the second question is do we believe that this is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people? because the president's lawyers stood on the floor right over there and said in short it is not. alan dershowitz argued that nothing the president does to get reelected could be impeachable as long as he believes his reelection is in the public interest. and the president's counsel continued to build on that argument even after they claimed it was misunderstood. this from the same administration that holds that the president cannot be charged with a crime, that he exists on a plain, literally a plain above the law as it applies to everyone else. if the president can commit crimes while in office and cheat

in an election to stay in power, then it is no longer a government of, by, and for the people. this is a government of, by, and for donald trump. the proposition of free and fair elections in america is gone, replaced by elections that happen on terms set by donald trump. or on terms set by a future president with the same sort of boost from a foreign power. putting aside whatever political fallout there may be in the days and weeks ahead, we have to ask how can the senate accept this degradation of the sanctity, the security of our elections? isn't this institution supposed to protect our elections and defend our constitution? the president's attempt to cheat in the election and the extreme lengths he has gone to cover it up is obviously dangerously wrong. what he did is a violation of his oath. it's a betrayal of the system of

democratic government set forth by the founders, and we have no choice. he is guilty. he must be convicted. madam president, i yield the floor.

mr. manchin: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. manchin: i request to make remarks today, if i may, until i conclude. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. manchin: madam president, i rise today to speak on the impeachment trial of president donald john trump. i know this was not a difficult decision for many of my friends and colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but it is one that has weighed heavily on me. voting whether or not to remove a sitting president is no easy decision, and it shouldn't be. as the consequences for our nation are severe. a moderate centrist democrat from west virginia with one of the most bipartisan voting records in the senate, i have approached every vote i have cast in this body with an open mind and pride myself with working across the aisle to bring my republican and democrat friends together to do what is best for our country. where i come from, party politics is more often overruled by just plain old common sense. and i have never in over 35 years of public service

approached an issue with premeditated thoughts that my republican friends are always wrong and my democrat friends are always right. the people of west virginia sent me here in 2010 and i have never foregoaten the oath i -- forgotten the oath i took to defend the constitution. it is by the constitution that we sit here today as a court for the trial of impeachments. it -- it is the constitution that gives us what hamilton called the awful discretion to remove the president from office. at the start of this trial, my colleagues and i took an oath, swearing, swearing to do impartial justice. i have taken this oath very seriously throughout this process, and i would like to think that my colleagues have done the same. because, as the house managers and our former colleague, republican senator john warner from virginia said, it is not just the president who is on trial here, but the senate

itself. the framers of the constitution chose the senate for this great task because, according to hamilton, they expected senators to be able to preserve uninfluenced the necessary impartiality. to discharge this awesome responsibility fairly, without flinching. the framers knew this would not be easy, but that is why they gave the job to us, the senators. they believed the senate was more likely to be impartial and independent, less influenced by political passion, less likely to portray our oaths, and more certain to vote on facts and evidence. this process should be based simply on our love and commitment to our country, not the relationship any of us might have with this president. i have always wanted this president and every president to succeed, no matter what their party affiliation, but i deeply love our country and must do what is best for the nation. the constitution refers to the impeachment trials and says the

senate must try impeachments. the framers chose their words carefully. they knew what a trial was and what it meant to try a case. by using the term standards of judicial fact finding, it calls on us to do what courts do every day and receive relevant evidence and examine witnesses. sadly, the senate has failed to meet its constitutional obligation set forth by the framers to hold a fair trial and do impartial justice, and we have done so in the worst way, by letting tribal politics rule the day. i supported president trump's calls for a fair trial in the senate, which he suggested himself would include witnesses, but instead this body has shortchanged -- this body was shortchanged with a majority of my republican colleagues, led by the majority leader, voting to move forward without relevant witnesses and evidence necessary for a fair trial as our framers

intended. history will judge the senate harshly for failing in its constitutional duty to try this case and do the impartial justice to defend the constitution and to protect our democracy. sadly, this is the legacy we leave to our children and grandchildren. removing a president from the office to which the people have elected him is a grave step to take, but the framers gave the senate this solemn responsibility to protect the constitution and the people of this nation. over the duration of this trial, i have listened carefully to both the house managers and the white house counsel make their case for and against the articles of impeachment. i commend both sides for their great and grueling work in defending their respective positions. the house managers have presented a strong case with an overwhelming display of evidence and shows what the president did was wrong. the president asked a foreign

government to intervene in our upcoming election and to harm a domestic political rival. he delayed much-needed security aid for ukraine to pressure a newly elected president zelensky to do him a favor, and he defied lawful subpoenas from the house of representatives. however, the president's counsel, too, defended their actions by laying out their case of the president's actions. they pointed to the unclassified transcript of president trump's july 25 call with newly elected ukrainian president zelensky to make the argument that trump discussed burden sharing with other european countries and a mutual interest in rooting out corruption. they presented their views that the president was not given due process in the house of representatives and highlighted the expedited nature of the house's proceedings. finally, they argued if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected and reelected to the

public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment. over the long days and nights of this trial, i have listened to both sides present their case and answer our questions. i remain undecided on how i will vote, but these points i believe to be true. first, it was not a perfect call. a newly elected president zelensky with no experience in international politics gets a call from the leader of the free world, asking for a favor related to u.s. domestic political affairs? no one, no one, regardless of political party, should think that the president did and what he did was right. it was just simply wrong. pressuring a nato ally who is actively fighting off russian aggression in its country is wrong. president zelensky or anyone else should never feel beholden to the superpower of the world

for a favor before it can receive military aid. it's not who we are as a country. we stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies, and never, ever condition our support of democracy for a political favor. of all the arguments we have heard from the house managers and white house counsel during the long days and nights that we have set here, the most dangerous, the most troubling to me is the false claim that the president can do no wrong, that he is above the law, and if it's good for the reelection of the president, then it's good for our country. that is simply preposterous. that is not who we are as americans. that is not how i was raised in the small coal mining town of farmington, west virginia. where i was raised, no one believed they were better than anyone else and could act with total disregard for the well-being of their neighbor if it was for their best interests. that is not why over 230 years ago, the founding generation rebelled against a king and

refused to crown a new one in this republic. so let me be clear -- no one, not even the president, is above the law. finally, the purpose of impeachment is not to punish the president, but to protect the public. the ultimate question is not whether the president's conduct warrants its -- his removal from office but whether our nation is better served by his removal by the senate now with impeachment or by the decision of voters -- the voters will make in november. as hamilton warned us, impeachment seldom failed to agitate the passions of the whole community. they divide us on party lines and inflame our animosities. never before in the history of our republic has there been a purely partisan impeachment vote of a president. removing this president at this time would not only further divide our deeply divided nation but also further poison our already-toxic political

atmosphere. in weighing these thoughts and of all the arguments brought forward in the case, i must be realistic. i see no path to the 67 votes required to impeach president trump and haven't since this trial started. however, i do believe a bipartisan majority of this body would vote to censure president trump for his actions in this matter. censure would allow this body to unite across party lines, and as an equal branch of government to formally denounce the president's actions and hold him accountable. his behavior cannot go unchecked by the senate, and censure would allow a bipartisan statement condemning his unacceptable behavior in the strongest terms. history will judge the senate for how we have handled this solemn constitutional duty, and without bipartisan action, the fears of the great senator byrd will come true. as he said during the clinton impeachment, the senate will sink further into the mire because of this partisanship. there will be no winners on this

vote, byrd said. each senator has not only taken a solemn oath to support and defend the constitution, but also to do impartial justice, to help the nation, so help me god. that oath does not say anything about political party. politics should have nothing to do with it. i am truly struggling with this decision and will come to a conclusion reluctantly as voting whether or not to remove a sitting president is the most consequential decision that i or any u.s. senator will ever face. but regardless of my decision, in the absence of 67 votes, i am reminded again of the words of senator byrd. the house and senate, republicans and democrats, and the president must come together to heal the open wounds, bind up the damaged trust, and by our example again unite our people for the common good, we must now put aside the bitterness that has infected our nation. we must begin by putting behind

us the distrust and bitterness caused by this sorry episode and search for common ground instead of shoring up the divisions that have eroded decency and goodwill and dimmed our collective vision. it is not the legacy of the individual senators that we should be concerned about, but it is the legacy of this great institution, the united states senate, that we leave for generations to come. i want to thank you, and i want to ask the good lord to continue to bless this great country of ours during this trying time. thank you, madam president. mrs. blackburn: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mrs. blackburn: before i begin, i want to take a moment to thank our friend and majority leader mcconnell for the manner in which he has worked to make this trial run so smoothly. i also thank our colleagues for their perseverance and of course

the staff that has worked diligently and has been so patient as we have worked through this process. the impeachment trial of president donald j. trump was a moment in history that should have been -- should have been shrouded in the gravity of its potential consequences. instead, day by day, we endured hyperbole in its most unserious form. it's easy to forget that america's appetite for scandal fades quickly once you exit the beltway around washington, d.c., but i encourage my colleagues to recognize that the enthusiasm with which the house managers have sought president trump's removal is completely and inarguably divorced from reality in the heartland. as it appeared to my fellow

tennesseans, the intentional mishandling of the house of representatives' constitutional duty was nothing more than an attempt to prelitigate the 2020 election. that's correct, to prelitigate the 2020 election, and to remove president trump from office and thereby remove him from the ballot. our partisan friends had decided on the outcome that was necessary for them. they just needed to find a path that was going to get them there. so they had their outcome. they needed a path. we saw house democrats freeze out the president's counsel, refusing them an opportunity to fairly participate in the house intelligence committee's

investigation. house manager schiff created the supposed conversations he falsely attributed to the president and waited to see if his assertions would be questioned or if they were going to be accepted as fact. let me tell you something. i'm a mom, and i am a grandmother. and i will tell you this -- i don't think there is any mother on earth who would stand for it if her child did such a thing to a coach or a teacher or a scout leader. or a minister. they would not stamped for it. and yet, -- they would not stand for it. and yet, the senate was expected to indulge this unseemly behavior. this is something that it is appropriate that we question. the house managers relied heavily on the assertions of a

whistle-blower, but refused to reveal anything about the circumstances that led to the whistle-blower's report. so here we are at the end of the trial. do we know if the whistle-blower is a person or if it's a group of people? does the report represent a consensus of ideas or just biased opinion? was it prepared by an individual or prepared by a committee? no one can answer that question except house manager schiff and his staff from the house intel committee. but that's not something they wanted to come down and talk about. when it became clear that the white house would push back on witness subpoenas seeking testimony protected by executive privilege, house democrats chose

to move on rather than fight as hard as they could for their case. they looked at those subpoenas, thought about the evidence that might come from them, and decided it's not worth the trouble. instead, they tried to rely on the pandemonium created by a historic moment to convince their colleagues and the american people that justice demanded a do-over, a do-over for the house impeachment. when that strategy failed, they blamed the members of the u.s. senate for our unwillingness to go in and clean up their mess. this wasn't a pressure tactic. it was a manipulation tactic aimed right at the hearts of the american people. unfortunately for the house managers, the people see with dazzling clarity what has transpired within the four walls

of this chamber. the house managers have asked us to go on the record and rubber stamp history's first -- history's first impeachment inquiry to be filled solely on the basis of partisan politics. first one, they've asked us to ignore how quickly they moved to impeach president trump and to not compare their time line to the time lines from the nixon or the clinton impeachment. colleagues, i did my constitutional due diligence. i read the us managers' brief and those reports prepared by the house republicans and the president's counsel. i saw it all in black and white. and it was my due diligence that has led me to support acquittal. now when i was serving in the house, there were times when i became frustrated with president

bush or then with president obama. and when we as members of the house at that point in time were faced with president obama's apology tour, his senseless pursuit of government-run health care, and his involvement in the fast and furious scandal or the daca executive memo, my colleagues and i discussed the possibilities of impeachment. what are we going to do about this? we looked at all the facts and ultimately we chose a different path, a different path that respected the american people. we litigated our policy differences in the court where those battles belong. so, madam president, i ask my colleagues that when the time comes, they exercise the same restraint and i implore every

member of this body to recognize the supremacy of the constitution over partisan spin. vote to acquit. vote to reject the two articles of impeachment. i yield the floor. i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: madam president, is there a quorum call? the presiding officer: there is. ms. cantwell: i ask that it be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: thank you, madam president. i come to the floor to join my colleagues speaking about what's transpired the last several weeks and also to say something that i think is maybe not as obvious as that people realize. and that is that election interference is the issue of our day. it's not because we just spent 11 days talking about it and what might have happened in the oval office about interference in the upcoming 2020 election. it is the issue of our day because we live in an information age and weaponizing

misinformation has become a lethal campaign tool. that is to say that if you tarnish your opponent enough with misinformation, accuse them of corruption, then you can either score by wounding them fatally, that is, by getting people not to vote for them, or by disincenting people to vote at all. claiming corruption seems to be a pretty good tool these days to wound anybody, to wound institutions, the free press, a legitimate government oversight, but most seriously, it wounds our democracy by sowing doubt into free and fair elections. once voters believe the election results are corrupt, it's hard to have faith in them and it's hard to make tough decisions that we need to make as a society to move forward. that is why voting in and of itself does give us confidence as a nation because when we know there are free and fair elections, we know the public has spoken and the results are

legitimate. i am personally grateful to my predecessor senator slade gordon for how he handled the 2000 election. after a three-week recount and a margin of less than one half of 1% with control of the senate, a 50-50 split to be decided, he conceded. since then and even at that time some states tried to suppress provisional ballots. but senator gordon not only believed that provisional ballots were legitimate, but he believed that the election was correctly decided. that must have been a tough moment for him as he saw a shift in public sentiment in the state of washington as we have he moved more towards a different direction. but today we live a world of disinformation where distrust can be served up like your own personal cocktail. after consuming and analyzingly

endless amounts of personal data about you, someone knows exactly what disinformation tactic will work best with you. it's almost like disinformation on steroids. our adversaries, the russians, are especially sowing these seeds of distrust into our democracy trying to dissuade people from even voting and more seriously trying to divide us as a nation and tarnish our democracy. i don't know if this is some payback from president putin who believes that the united states helped in the demise of the soviet union or if russia is just trying to undermine american and european trust and free and open democratic systems or if russia is trying to divide europe so it can dominate european energy supplies and exert its influence over european policies. i just know this. we are not the first act of this play. this has been going on for many

years and in many places. they have interfered in russian elections. a 2018 report shows, quote, the europeans launched several multilateral and region article initiatives to build and collect defenses against discrimination, cyber attacks, including cross border cooperation and applying sanctions against malicious actors. the russians interfered in our 2016 election, our own intelligence agencies agreed. quote, the special counsel's investigation established russia interfered in the 2016 election principally through two operations. first, a russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored president candidate donald j. trump and disparaged presidential candidate hillary clinton and second, a russian intelligence service conducted

computer intrusions and operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working for the hillary clinton campaign and released stolen documents. end quote. we must fight back against russia or anyone who interferes in our elections. protecting our elections should be a bipartisan effort and we should listen to what the intelligence community says because they're warning us now that russia will interfere again in the 2020 elections. that is why i take so seriously the house charges that president trump was involved in a scheme over a long period of time involving ma enpeople to ask the ukraines to interfere in our election. as federal election commissioner ellen winefrob said let me make something 100% clear to the

american people and anyone running for office. it is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything from value from a foreign national in connection with a u.s. election. this is not a novel concept. end quote. so why has president trump continued to sow distrust in our elections? he thought it was okay to ask the russians to interfere in 2016, and he seems to be inviting ukranian interference in 2020. as one of my former campaign staffers asked last weekend, are campaigns now going to be commune caiptions -- communications directors, and now foreign operations directors? you know, those people who go around and seek influence, perhaps dark money or endorsements from foreign governments? will this become some sort of norm because we're not acting? i know we already know what the

dark, murky world of paul manafort looks like. that is why it is so important for us to be clear here. seeking, requesting, and accepting interference in a u.s. campaign is wrong. it's not inappropriate, it's not just improper, it is illegal. by calling it improper or turning a blind eye in this case is enabling more election interference. what is not clear is who are all the president's men in this administration who are helping him abuse this power. is he using this office for political gain and how are they accomplishing this task for him? it is so disappointing to see that this might be happening in our nation.

where will the abuse stop? i know this. as a young girl i remember the saturday night massacre, the time when bill uklehouse and elliot richardson stood up to illegal behavior. my father at the time, definitely a democrat, but he wanted me to understand this lesson. people of the other party might not share the same philosophy, but they did share the same constitution and the scales of justice are balanced. yes, it's probably no harder task than to stand up to the president of your own party, but that is what bill ruckelshaus and elliot richards did. i remember that lesson and called bill after jeff sessions recused himself and was fired. bill's advice was prophetic. he said, you should use this

opportunity now to make sure the next attorney general will be an independent and help rein in this president's abuse of power. well, we obviously did not get that done and we all know what that outcome has been. it occurred to me last weekend that maybe the saturday night massacre in this case has happened. maybe john bolton and fiona hill will turn out to be those people who stood up to the abuse of power. i know this. it's important to have listened to them. twice in this gallery over the last several weeks i heard a young baby cry. i thought how unusual that somebody would bring a child to an event like this. probably their parents wanted to be part of history. and then i thought about what that child would say probably over the rest of their life, that they had been at this

impeachment trial. but what i want to know is that the reflections 30 or 40 years from now will we be remembered for rooting out illegal activity, stopping interference in our elections, or will this moment have been forgotten? i know my constituents have been clear about this, and i don't mean my constituents that support the president or my constituents that don't support the president. i mean my constituents who want to know that we are going to enforce the law. they don't care about what the outcome is in the next election and how it might benefit either party. and it's clear that either party could overstep in this situation. they want know if we are going to uphold the oath of office and hold people accountable for wrongdoings that they pursue. i hope that we have taken this

election interference issue serious. i plan to work with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to get more laws passed on election security and to stop interference. i have been a loud and consistent spoarks person for -- spokesperson for better cybersecurity. i am not going to let our democracy be eroded by the fact that foreign interest want to erode what is so precious in our nation. i will be voting on both articles and for impeachment. i thank the president and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii is recognized. mr. schatz: thank you, mr. president.

the american experiment was a radical one. it imagined equal justice under the law. it imagined equal protection under the law. it imagined a cumbersome system in which tyranny could be avoided by the constant struggle between elected and appointed leaders and it intentionally sacrificed speed, efficiency and convenience to avoid the abuse of power. and so it is with unending regret that i see what is happening. i grieve for the senate, an institution both hallowed and flawed. an elite place in the worst sense of the word and still the main place where american problems are to be solved. to paraphrase winston churchill, the senate is the worst legislative body except for all of the others. there are millions of americans who have formed a basic expectation about how a trial is

to function based on hundreds of years of laws and based on their common sense. and so make no mistake, what the senate did was an affront to the basic idea of a trial, and for all the crocodile tears of my colleagues, all of the fake outrage of the accusation, we must call this what it was. it was a cover-up. i don't know what mulvaney, bolton or pompeo will say or what the documents will illuminate and i believe it is very dangerous to ascribe motives to fellow senators when criticizing their vote, but it is impossible for me to escape the conclusion that they don't want to know. that they wanted to get this over with before the super bowl, of all things. they are afraid of this house of cards falling all the way down. as i look at the republican side of the chamber, i know this moment in history has made their

particular jobs extraordinarily difficult, requiring uncommon courage. they have to risk the score of their voters, their social circle, their colleagues, and their president in order to do the right thing. on one level i knew the likely outcome, but the bitter taste of injustice lingers in my mouth and on behalf of everyone who couldn't get away with an unpaid traffic fine and is in jail who is -- for stealing groceries, who can't get a job because of medical debt. i say shame on anyone who places this president or any president above the law. the president is not above the law. no one is above the law. the president is guilty on both counts. the constitution gives extraordinary powers to the president under article 2, and that makes sense because without

a powerful maj is trait -- maj magistrate, the government can't function. they decided that a president could be controlled to greater or lesser degrees by the legislature, the judiciary, and the voters, but the framers couldn't contemplate this level of polarization when even in the face of the overwhelming evidence of high crimes, one party would not just exonerate him for it, but in fact ratify these crimes. they didn't imagine that one party would be so uniformly loyal to the president that it would have a hammer lock on the senate, preventing 67 votes ever being available for removal. i don't think we're in danger of the impeachment process becoming routine. i think we're in much greater danger of making the impeachment

process moot. and if so, god help us all. but all is not lost. we remain a government of, by, and for the people, and if people across the country find this as odious to our basic values as we do, in eight months, the american public can render its own verdict on the united states senate. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

mr. inhofe: is a quorum call in progress? the presiding officer: yes it is. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. the senior senator from oklahoma is recognized. mr. inhofe: thank you. i ask unanimous consent to be allowed to speak as if in morning business for whatever time i shall consume. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: thank you. mr. president, nearly 20 years ago i was here in this exact spot, i remember it so well, deliberating the guilt and innocence of a president. it happened at that time it was president clinton from your state of arkansas. at that time i said that i thought it would probably be the most important vote i'd cast as a united states senator, but i was wrong because i think my vote on wednesday, the day after tomorrow, to acquit president trump will be the most important

vote of my career. i really believe that. over the past few weeks we considered impeachment. there's been a lot made of the fact that i was willing to vote to convict president clinton 20 years ago and yet to vote the other way about -- in the current process that we're under right now. now, putting morality question aside, this supposed debate highlights the central point of the differences in the impeachment process and why president trump should not be impeached. before clinton was even -- was even impeached, he admitted to the crime of perjury. this is a big difference because we have a president right now who has not admitted that. in fact, there's not really been accusations to be in that position. our debate then was about whether or not perjury was a high crime or misdemeanor. i believe it was, as i said

then, the president should be held to the highest standard. but that was substantially different than the question before us today. the question put to us by the house managers is an evidentiary one. it's one that asks the question if, according to the evidence presented, there is a determination that president trump is guilty of a crime. and the answer is no. presidents should be held to the highest standard, but that standard can't be a false moving standard that isn't based on evidence or is established by a court of public opinion. and here's why i will vote to acquit. -- the president. the whole impeachment inquiry was initiated on the basis that president trump orchestrated the quid pro quo with ukraine's president during a phone call on july 25 of 2019.

it's kind of confusing. a lot of people don't really understand what that's all about. but ukraine has had serious problems. you know what's happened -- the russians have been there mass murdering the ukraines for a long period of time. we've watched that happen. so they've put this thing together saying, well, there was an arrangement made, by president trump, well, if they would withhold the aid, and this would have been military aid to ukraine unless there was a deal they could make and, simply stated by the president of ukraine. now, the house managers spent 75% of their time on this point in driving home the importance of our partnership with ukraine, in talking about the russian aggression. now, that was plain wrong, but worse its hypocritical because there was nothing wrong with president trump's phone call with president zelensky. you might wonder how i can be so

sure. it's simple. the house democrats' allegations were second-ed hand -- and that means -- they were hearsay. there was not one direct witness. in fact, they had 17 witnesses in the house of representatives and not one of them would make that assertion. now, the transcript speaks for itself. no evidence of a quid pro quo of any wrongdoing whatsoever, just as a president who understands both the importance of ukraine as an ally and the importance of rooting out corruption. now, president zelensky said publicly that he felt no pressure. he testified to this, that trump to investigate anything in exchange for foreign aid. now, you have to keep in mind that we have a very conservative president. he doesn't just dish out to everybody the foreign aid that they need. in this case, there was a

necessity to have it. military aid, we couldn't get any military aid from president obama. all he wanted to send was blankets and k-rations -- well, they don't have k-rations anymore. they call them something else. but, nonetheless, there wasn't going to be military aid to them, so the trump administration placed a brief, temporary hold on the aid to ukraine to ensure that the american tax dollars -- taxpayers were not going to be abused. now, this is very significant. he did this to ukraine, making sure that the amount of money that was sent in there is going to be used properly and the amount of aid that we are -- military aid was going to be used. but, at the same time, you got to keep in mind he was doing that with everybody else, too. he's just not a fast-spending president. he's going to make sure that things have to be made in accordance with the needs. in fact, in other times, he

withheld the same type of thing, financial aid, to afghanistan, south korea, el salvador, honduras, guatemala, lebanon, and pakistan. so the fact that he did with ukraine was consistent with his other policies. this is what i does and what he's always done. i'm confident that this is because i've talked to president trump directly about it. see, i'm the chair of the senate armed services committee. the committee is responsible for authorizing lethal aid to ukraine. and i've been working on securing that lethal aid for a long period of time, dating back to 2014. 2014 we had a different president. it was president obama. and then the ukraine president, poroshenko, i can remember being in ukraine with poroshenko and talking to him about this and why it was necessary. and this is at the same time that russia was in ukraine and was mass-killing the ukraines.

so i went to president obama to get help. and he wouldn't do t he didn't want to send any kind of military aid. instead, as he said is over and over again, we talk about blankets and k-rations. well, when president trump came into office, he changed it all. he is the first president to extend lethal aid to ukraine. he has been a partner with them helping them withstand aggression. i bring this up because during the first days of the presentation by the house managers, about 75% of that time was spent on this issue talking about his lack of support for ukraine when this president has been supporting ukraine. and the house managers that were serving in the house at that time, this is significant. of the house managers, seven or eight of them -- however many that was -- that would have been sitting right over here for the last week, they were all talking about things they wanted to do for ukraine and yet the first

vote that was taken was the senate armed services committee vote of 2016. and it happened to be that the democrats, the very three democrats that were serving at that time voted against it. they didn't vote for it. so this is the type of thing you get when this hate-motivated stuff was going on for such a long period of time. the house didn't approve -- didn't prove trump committed a crime. i'm the first to admit i'm not a lawyer. sometimes i think that plays to my advantage. i look at things in a different way. i try to just inject a little bit of common sense. i listened to the lawyers and quite frankly, some of them i didn't understand what they were saying. but i do know pretty much what's going on around here. and in this case, the reasons behind why the president should not be impeached are common sense. he didn't commit a crime. in that -- and that came not just from me.

you'd expect me to say that. but that came from others that were well-respected attorneys that were involved on each side of this case. and each of the -- in each of the past impeachment cases, the house of representatives accused the president, johnson, nixon, and clinton of committing a crime. now, this president didn't commit a crime. but nixon did. he admitted he did. so all those things that have happened in the recent history has -- they have been crimes. but not this president. the democrats have wanted to impeach president trump since before he took office. i think it was a witness that we had today -- i believe it was today. they were talking about -- and they had kind of a visual up here that showed all the people who have been trying to impeach

president trump ever since he took office. i'm talking about the first week he was in office. it was all documented up there. so they're still at it and i have no doubt they'll continue to do that. but it's not going to work. it didn't work in this case. democrats have wanted to impeach him since he took office. "the washington post" reported the concerted effort by the left-wing advocacy groups to move toward impeachment of the president only minutes after his inauguration. so they've been looking, looking, looking for a reason to impeach president trump. now, i think that one of the stars of this testimony that went on was this alan dershowitz. he's one who's held in the highest regard. he's law professor at the -- at harvard university, and he -- he is a strong democrat. he is not a republican. the first thing he did was admit that he voted for hillary clinton in 2016.

so that qualifies him in a different way than most of the people who are here as witnesses. he was direct in his presentation and shredded the democrats' case. he made it clear, abuse of power should be a political weapon suited for a campaign, not impeachment, as abuse of power is not a crime or impeachable conduct. dershowitz also explained that virtually every president since president washington could have been accused of impeachment if they used the criteria that the house managers -- the ones that were sitting over here -- were using. they said that -- and so that was a level that could not be used or it would have affected every other president, had it been used at that time. he also had an important comment on whether or not we needed to hear sworn testimony from john bolton. this is what he said. this is a quote by dershowitz. he said, nothing in the bolton revelations, even if true, would

rise to the level of abuse of power or an impeachable offense, unquote. that's alan dershowitz. it's clear that the president -- that president trump must be acquitted of the charges -- the charge of abuse of power on its merits. a vote to convict in this case would be a dangerous precedent. so i would say time and time again the trial of the house managers have preached at us that truth matters, that the facts matter, that we must convict the president and remove him from office. in fact, the house managers' closing arguments tried to keep -- i tried to keep count of every time they made the accusations using the words "cheat, obstruction, crimes" and so many times i never did -- i lost track. but truth matters, not just because you say the president has committed a crime. it doesn't make it true. so here is what is true.

this has been a partisan process from the start -- from start to finish. compare that to the past. the impeachment inquiry against president nixon was authorized by a vote of 410-4 in the united states congress, an overwhelming bipartisan vote. same thing was true in clinton. they had 31 democrats voted to impeach the president. yet in the vote of the impeachment inquiry, the final vote to impeach president trump was strictly partisan. not a single house member voted to impeach the president on the contrary every house democrat did. no republicans did. the house democrats did. it is right down party lines. i have listened to the facts and i've listened to the evidence, and i'm convinced president trump has not committed a crime. all the legal minds that were in testimony pretty much agreed with that, including dershowitz.

i think, though, it has to be said there is a hatred for trump. we have to admit it. there's something about him a lot of people don't like, yet it's his demeanor, it's his style. i understand that. but when you listen to the substance -- when you look at what he has done, right now rebuilding the military, including killing the top terrorist. you know, i'm particularly sensitive to this because this is my committee that we watched him -- what's he has done to the military. back during the obama administration, using constant dollars, during the last five years of his eight-year tenure, he actually reduced the spending of the military by 25%. i don't think that's ever been done in the history of this country, except maybe immediately following world war ii. and yet there he is rebuilding the military and we're right now back where we are competitive now. i have to admit, though, that during those last five years of obama, that we really hurt

ourselves in terms of our relationships, in terms of china and russia taking the leadership positions that they have taken. confirming constitutional judges. 1867 judges in the -- 187 judges in the last three years. that's a record. hasn't been done before. oddly enough, these are judges that have actually read the constitution. that's a novel idea. the best economy we've had in decades. i would say -- last week we went through 3.5% urge employment. we used to consider 4% unemployment as being fully employed. and yet we have not been down -- i don't even have a memory as to when it's been down to 3.5%. the new trade deal that we did. that's new. it shows that we are getting things done. we have more americans working today than ever before. and the median household income is the highest it's ever been.

so we're going to have a vote, a very significant vote, ons wednesday. i think you know how i'm going to vote. i'm going to vote to acquit the president on both articles of impeachment. and that will be a very significant vote. with that, i'll yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i ask unanimous consent that my full statement be included in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, constitutional experts will be debating president trump's misconduct for generations to come. but i think they'll reach consensus as to the misconduct of the united states senate in the trump impeachment. this is the first time in the history of impeachment that no witnesses and documents were allowed to be called by the united states senate. it violates the constitution in the impeachment trial of donald trump but its failure to hold a constitutionally fair trial.

i had the opportunity to present, as a house manager, an impeachment case here in the united states senate son a direct court judge by the name of nixon. i remember when i appeared before the senate, i was cautioned immediately, even though judge nixon had been convicted in a criminal court of a bribery type of offense, that it was incumbent for us to present the witnesses and documents in the united states senate, that the senate would conduct its own record in regards to the proceedings. and yet here we are not having witnesses in the president impeachment trial. we have some help from the supreme court on this. and the nixon case, the richard nixon versus the u.s. case, there was a concurring opinion by justice white. justicjustice white said that tm try as used in article 1, section 3, clause 6 meant the senate should conduct a proceeding in a manner that is a

reasonable judge would deem a trial. we failed to conduct a constitutionally fair trial here in the united states senate. and we can look to the president's own counsel here for help in evaluating our own conduct of this trial. house counsel -- president's counsel philbin said that you need to cross-examine witnesses in order to get to the truth. we had no witnesses under oath, no witnesses cross-examined. and the tragedy here, if the president is acquitted, it will always be a question as to whether this was a legitimate trial here in the united states senate. let me just spend a moment to compare the impeachment proceedings on president clinton versus those of president trump. in president clinton there was a trial in the senate. it was acknowledged to be fair. witnesses were called. president clinton and his administration officials had

testified under oath subject to cross-examination. president clinton showed remorse for his conduct and apologized for his misconduct. and president clinton's misconduct was personal in nature. compare that to president trump. he blocked all witnesses and documents and then through counsel prevented the senate trial from calling any witnesses or producing any documents. he has never shown any remorse, even though most senators here know that what he did was wrong. he has shown no remorse whatsoever. and his misconduct was the abuse of his office for personal gain to get a foreign power to help in his election campaign. let me go through article 1 briefly. article 1 states that he solicited a foreign government, ukraine, to interfere in the 2020 elections by publicly announcing investigations that would benefit his reelection conditioned on official u.s. government acts of significant value to ukraine. now, the house managers have

submitted a voluminous amount of information that supports that, and i refer to that in my attached statements. i won't spend the time here to go through that. but even the full record which is enough to establish the charges, there's other issues that add to the president committing these acts. first, the president issued, as i've mentioned before, a blanket obstruction to any witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the president's conduct in these articles from providing testimony here in the united states senate. yes, we can iniffer that the president had excult toar witness, he would have produced those exculpatory witnesses. secondly, the president's impeachment attorney, mr. sekulow said, and i'm going to quote, you cannot view this case in vacuum. end quote. and i agree. the president has consistently misrepresented the facts and defamed anyone who challenges him. let me just give you one concrete example, the mueller

investigation which has been cited in this impeachment trial. the president denies russia's initial involvement into our elections. he resisted efforts to hold russia accountable. he defamed the reputation of the special counsel. he willfully impeded the investigation. he attacked the integrity of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies. and he claimed wrongfully that the investigation exonerated him. he's done it over and over again. the findings in the report speak to a contrary conclusion. it says russia interfered in our elections, 2016 elections in a sweeping and systematic fashion. it says, and i quote, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. there's numerous instances where the president may have obstructed justice but we left the further pursuit of that to congress or a prosecutor after he leaves office. the president's pattern since he's taken office is to mislead,

misstate facts and act as a bully against those who have anything to say against him that he does not like. it makes it easier for us to understand how the scheme, the illegal scheme in article 1 unfolded. i have one additional fact of why this points to establishing the facts. the president consistently has shown no remorse. he continually tells us that the summary of the july 25 shows a perfect call. we know how controversial that call was. it was far from perfect. now, the next hurdle was is this an impeachable offense. i concluded that it was, that it's an abuse of power which is an abuse of trust which is clearly what our founders intended as a high crime and misdemeanor in office. now, the president's own analysis of this leads that the only conclusion that abuse of power must be an impeachable offense. i say that because we had the president's counsel once again,

professor dershowitz, who tells us that if it's not an abuse of power, it's not an impeachable offense, where could that lead and professor dershowitz said your election is in the public interest. if the 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. well, that's an absurd situation if you adopt the logic of the president's counsel that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. it clearly is an impeachable offense. the president's conduct has jeopardized america's global leadership and -- our values are our strength. i this thought it was telling the conversation of ambassador volker with andriy yermak who is counsel to president zelensky of ukraine when ambassador volker said don't start an investigation of ukraine on your opponent in your election because that will -- sow this

division in your community. and mr. yermak responded, you mean like asking us to investigate clinton and biden? the president -- president trump's conduct has endangered our national security, our global leadership on american values. now, in order cal -- in article 2, this is a lot easier, obstruction of congress, because the facts clearly establish that the president's blanket obstruction which he orchestrated denying any access to individuals or documents in order to facilitate a cover-up of what was uncovered under article 1 of the articles of impeachment. it's essential for congress to carry out our responsibilities to be able to get that type of information from the president. it's exactly what the framers of our constitution when they developed the checks and balances in our system intended, that there would be no branch that would have absolute power. we do not have a monarch.

so president trump has crossed the line. his personal interests over the country's interests. he used the power of his office for his own personal benefit. no one is above the law. we must act to protect the constitution and our democratic system of government. it's with a heavy heart i will support both articles of impeachment. i yield the floor. mrs. loeffler: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mrs. loeffler: i am honored and humble to stand before you today as georgia's and our country's newest united states senator. as the 100th senator, i have spent the least time in washington, but as the least senior senator, i am also the most recently attached to the private sector where the vast majority of americans live and work. i am intensely aware of the needs and the expectations that americans hold for us. just two months ago, i left nearly a three decade business

career to serve the great people of georgia and our nation, but being here in this respected, historic chamber is a very long way from where i started. i was born and raised as the fourth generation of corn and soybean farmers and i grew up working in our fields and with our cattle in the feed lot. i waitressed and sold watches and shoes to put myself through school. and then i moved around the country to pursue my dream of a business career. i've been a job seeker and a job creator. i haven't spent my life trying to get to washington. but i worked hard to stand where i am today. i have lived the american dream and each day i remember where i came from and i am proud of my beginnings. while i'm an outsider to politic, i'm not new to getting results. i came here to get things done for the people of georgia.

so why does all of this matter today? in this historic moment, right now, just two days from my vote to acquit president trump? because for months and sadly years for many, members of congress who were meant to serve the american people have been tied up in a political game. there is much to regret here. the house's fault urgency to push through deficient articles only to ask for more time, more evidence, more testimony, the deception of the house managers who are more focused on political power than they are on pursuing the facts, the media who ran with the narrative democrats planted with selective unlawful leaks, for the last 132 days congress has been neglecting the american people. i came here to get things done for georgians, but for the last two weeks we've been stuck in the senate chamber working on something that most americans

have little interest in. as my notebook filled up, i thought to myself, how did this case even make it to the senate? when i've been around the state, it's very clear this is not what people at home care about. georgians aren't losing sleep over a call the president made or questioning his constitutional right to conduct foreign policy. they're concerned with taking care of their families, their jobs, their freedom to chef the american dream, and live the lives they imagined. i think of young kids whether in the inner city or on a farm or in the suburbs, what example are we setting in washington? why should employers feel that washington cares about job creation when there's a neglect of the engine that makes america strong? why are we here? we are public servants charged with protecting the constitution and our country, and i hope in the process bettering the lives of all americans.

despite this monumental distraction, this administration has worked tirelessly to move our country forward. last week the president signed into law the unite united states-mexico-canada agreement and sadly this sat on the desk of speaker pelosi for one year denying american farmers and workers untold economic opportunity. last month the administration completed a phase one deal with china now holding china accountable for unfair trade practices and adding to our thriving economy. and for three years as president -- as democrats focused on taking down a duly elected president, president trump's pro-growth policies have given us a booming economy. these policies have resulted in record employment, seven million new job, a blue-collar boom that is lifting up hardworking americans. this administration charges on but it needs congress' support if america is to move on with

the american dream for all. with that in mind, i say enough. let's put our trust in the american people. they are the ones who should make the judgment about the president and they will do that in nine months. let's not be so arrogant as to take that decision away from the american people. instead, let's focus all of our energies on improving their lives. impeachment does not do that. it's time to move on. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. a senator: mr. president, thank you for the recognition.

today i come before this body with a deep sadness that this institution has failed the constitution and failed the american people. mr. udall: we have reached a low point in our history. we failed to hold a fair and honest impeachment trial. and we are nearing a vote where we will fail to hold the president accountable for his abuse of power and a cover-up. thanks to the senate republican majority, this body is complicit in that cover-up. refusing to call witnesses and obtain documents to get the full truth. how can we turn a blind eye to the truth? as we cast one of the most important votes we will ever take. yes, mr. president, we are approaching a sad day for this body and for this country. but to those across the country who feel profoundly angry and

saddened by this miscarriage of justice, my message is this. do not give up. do not stop fighting to save our democracy. because america is worth the fight. america is worth the fight. make no mistake try as they might to cover it up, the full truth will come out, and the facts have already been -- the facts that have already been revealed have damning. the president's handpicked ambassador, gordon sondland, testified, quote, everyone was in the loop, end quote. the more we find out, the more revealing his testimony becomes. not only is the president implicated, so is the vice president and the secretary of

state and the attorney general and the president's acting chief of staff and his former energy secretary and even the white house counsel, the lead lawyer in this very proceeding. this is a pandora's box the republican party is fighting to keep shut. but it will not stay shut. the president's misdeeds and his wide circle of accomplices will go down as one of the ugliest episodes in america's history. even now, the evidence gathered by the house that the president abused his office and taxpayer funds for personal gain is staggering. ambassador sondland didn't sugarcoat the truth. was there a quid pro quo? the answer is yes. that was his quote. using official power for personal gain, that is the very

essence of abuse of power. and that's precisely what this president did. that's hardly even ins spews. the evidence -- that's hardly even in dispute. the evidence is overwhelming. the president first withheld a coveted meeting until the ukrainian president would announce investigations into the bidens and the debunked conspiracy theory that ukraine, not russia, interfered in our 2016 election. the president next withheld congressionally appropriated military aid illegally to try and force the ukrainian president into making the announcement of the investigations. the independent government accountability office confirmed that the president acted illegally. the president threatened our national security, the security of an ally, and the integrity of

our next presidential election. how much more could be at stake? ukrainian officials began asking about the aid only hours after the president's now-infamous july 25 call with president zelensky. that's according to laura cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine, and eurasia. a former deputy foreign minister in ukraine reports ukraine knew of the freeze in july, and the whole world knew once the story broke the news on august 28. fortunately, the president got caught and was forced to release the aid. he got caught red-handed and immediately commenced a scorched-earth blockade in congress and the courts to cover

up his grave misdeeds. again, the facts are not in dispute. so, mr. president, knowing that these are some of the most serious and solemn words i will ever say or utter on this floor, i will vote to convict the president on both articles of impeachment. he is guilty by any standard. if he is allowed to act with impunity, he will be a continuing threat to the sanctity of our democracy. he is patently unfit to hold the highest office in our land. while the senate may vote to acquit him, he will not be exonerated, not by this sham trial. while the senate may vote to acquit the president, history will not. now, snow showers on the other

side now, senators on the other side of the aisle are admitting they believe the president is guilty, that the house managers proved their case but these same senators did not vote to hear witnesses and get documents. they will fail to hold the president accountable for the wrongdoing they now say he is guilty of. this is one of the worst abuses of presidential power in our nation's history. this is as bad as or worse than nixon's president nixon's. nixon tried to corrupt the 1972 election and cover it up, but he didn't try to extort an ally or invite foreign interference in our election. at that time members of his party, with courage, refused to turn a blind eye. the republican party of today bears no resemblance to the party of howard baker, who insisted on getting to the truth.

howard asked, what did the president know and when did he know it? it bears no resemblance to the party of barry goldwater and hugh scott who went to nixon to tell him the republican party could no longer protect him from impeachment and removal. i'm grateful to the honorable officials who had the courage to act this time around, who defied the president's order not to come forward -- ambassador yovanovitch, lieutenant colonel vindman, ambassador taylor, mr. kent, and the others. they risked their careers and even their personal safety. we should at least -- at least -- show the same courage because the consequences of failing to hold this president to account could not be graver. the guardrails have been taken off. the president invited russian

interference in the 2016 election and invited chinese interference in the upcoming 2020 election. he said on national television he would probably take foreign interference again. he is unapologetic and unrepent and the. -- and the unrepen tant. what is he going to do next once the senate republicans let him get away with this abuse, once we show that we are no longer a coequal branch? we have never ceded so much power to the executive. you can rest assured this president, of all presidents, will use that power and abuse it. take his word for it. he said, and i quote, article 2 allows me to do whatever i want, end quote. pulitzer prize-winning

presidential historian jon meacham said that the president is now -- and this is his quote -- quote, functionally a monarch, end quote. that is stunning. again, mr. president, these are sad days for our nation. but as i said at the outset, we cannot and will not cede our democracy, concede our democracy. we cannot and will not concede the values and principles that make this nation strong. we must restore the balance of power in our government. we must restore accountability. most importantly, we must start doing the work the american people sent us here to do. our institutions are not representing what the american people want. senate republicans refusal -- senate republicans' refusal to hold a fair impeachment trial, which is what 75% of the american people wanted, is just

the latest example. so while the senate and the constitution took a terrible battering the last two weeks, i'm even more committed to breathing life into our shared principles of representative government. i'm going to continue the fight to take obscene amounts of secret money out of our elections, to make it easier to vote, and to bring power back to the american people and not hand it over to an imperial presidency. the senate will have future opportunities to restore our constitutional system. the only question is whether senators will rise to the occasion. mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mrs. gillibrand: mr. president, i'd like to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection, the senator from new york is recognized. mrs. gillibrand: colleagues, over the past few weeks, we have conducted the third impeachment trial in our entire nation's history for a president. let's be perfectly clear about something. democrats did not want to impeach president trump. from the start, efforts to begin an impeachment inquiry in the house were met with resistance -- until the president's reckless behavior and unprecedented actions forced the speaker's hand. the speaker could not sit idly by after the president withheld congressionally approved military aid to a u.s. ally in order to orchestrate foreign interference in our upcoming

election. we have worked hard to find common ground with this president, and at times democrats have worked together to get good bipartisan legislation accomplished. but president trump's brazen misconduct forced this issue. his misdeeds posed a moral challenge to every single member of congress. how much corruption should we stomach? how much of our integrity should we sacrifice? how much malfeasance should we tolerate? will we look the other way, as the president flaunts our laws and ignores the constitution? sometimes it can seem far easier to just stay silent. all of us know that it can be

easier to avoid angry phone calls, but think about how much harder it would be to explain this moment in history to our children and our grandchildren? think about how painful it will be to explain if you knew what president trump did was wrong and you did nothing. if you knew what president trump did was wrong under the constitution that you swore to uphold, that you knew it was wrong but you voted to acquit anyway because of your ambition, because of your political party. and lest you think you can convince them otherwise, let me dispel this fiction. history's record of this time

will be very clear. the american people can see through these lies. they recognize the inconsist sis and the doublespeak. the american people are not naive. they are not stupid. they're not immoral. my republican colleagues aren't naive or ignorant or immoral either. they're good men and women. they love their children, their neighbors and our country. i can consider many of them my friends. when we have dinner together, when we go to visit the troops overseas, we don't do it as democrats and republicans. we do it as colleagues. as friends. as peers in this body. we do so as elected members of

congress, as senators, representing our states and our country. and it should be the very same when we judge president trump. in first john chapter 2 verse 21, john writes it to a group of believers who are in turmoil. he wrote i do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. this trial had the goal of accomplishing one thing, to discover the truth, to know what happened, to hold the president accountable. we pledged to listen to receive that evidence fairly, and to judge honestly. we swore to defend the

constitution, not to defend a man or a political party. and we should all remember this when we cast our votes, because president trump is not like you. he's not honest, kind, or compassionate. he doesn't have integrity or moral conviction. he's neither fair nor decent. we as senators, who swore to uphold the constitution, should based on the facts laid before us vote to convict, hold president trump accountable for what he has done. we have to show the american people ourselves that president trump does not represent our values, that we still believe that we must fight for what's right, for truth, for justice, for honesty, for integrity, that laws mean

something, that we don't put ourselves before the law. and those who lack courage in this moment, those who are unwilling to do what they know in their heart of hearts, in their conscience, in their deepest thoughts to be right, if they do not do what they know they should, they will be remembered as complicit. they will be remembered as not telling the truth. they will not be remembered well. i urge you to vote your conscience. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum

call:

quorum call clo quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized.

mr. mcconnell: i ask consent the further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: boab. mr. mcconnell: -- without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that the to join in the like committee on the part of the house of representatives to he's escourt the president to the house of representatives. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent to modify the order of january 31 to allow senators to have until wednesday, february 26, 2020. that would be the wednesday after we come back to have a printed statements and opinions in the congressional record if they choose explaining their votes and include those in the documentation of the impeachment proceedings. timely, i ask that the two-page room be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr

mr. mcconnell: now, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. tuesday, february 4. further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that following leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: so between there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of senators murkowski and cortez masto. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

ms. murkowski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from the great state of alaska. ms. murkowski: mr. president, i request that proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: mr. president, i rise this evening toll address the trial -- to address the trial of donald john trump. the founders gave this body the

sole power to try all impeachments. in exercising that power, we all know is a weighty, weighty responsibility. this is only the third time in the history of our country that the senate convened to handle a presidential impeachment and only the second in the past 150 years. i was part of a small group that worked to secure a fair and honest and a transparent structure for the trial, and we based it on how this chamber handled the trial of president clinton some 20 years ago. so there were 24 hours of arguments for each side, 16 hours of questions from members with the full house record admitted as evidence. that should have been more than enough to answer the questions.

do we need to hear more? should there be additional process? mr. president, the structure we built should have been sufficient, but the foundation upon which it rested was rotted. the house rushed through what should have been one of the most serious consequential undertakings of the legislative branch simply to meet an artificial self-imposed deadline. prior presidential impeachments resulted from years of investigation where subpoenas were issued and they were litigated, where there were massive amounts of documents that were produced and witnesses deposed, where resistance from the executive was overcome through court proceedings and

through accommodations. the house failed in its responsibilities. the house failed in its responsibilities. and the senate, the senate should be ashamed by the rank partisanship that has been on display here. we cannot be the greatest deliberative body when we kick things off by issuing letters to the media instead of coming together to set the parameters of the trial and negotiate in good faith on how we should proceed. and for all the talk of impartiality, it is clear to me that few in this chamber approach this with a genuinely open mind. some, some have been calling for the president to be impeached for years. indeed, we saw just today clips

that indicate headlines 19 minutes after the president was sworn into office calling for his impeachment. others, others in this chamber saw little need to even consider the arguments from the house before stating their intentions to acquit. over the course of the past few weeks we've all seen the videos from 20 years ago where members who were present during the clinton trial took the exact opposite stance than they take today. that level of hypocrisy is astounding even for a place like washington, d.c. the president's behavior was shameful and wrong. his personal interests do not

take precedent over those of this great nation. the president has the responsibility to uphold the integrity and the honor of the office not just for himself but for all future presidents. degrading the office by actions or even name-calling weakens it for future presidents, and it weakens our country. all of this rotted foundation of the process, all of this led to the conclusion that i reached several days ago that there would be no fair trial. while this trial was held here in this senate, it was really litigated in the court of public opinion. for half the country, they had

already decided there had been far too much process. they considered the entire impeachment inquiry to be baseless and they thought that the senate should have just dismissed the case as soon as it reached us. and then for the other half, no matter how many witnesses were summoned or deposed, no matter how many documents were produced, the only way, the only way the trial could have been considered fair was if it resulted in the president's removal from office. during the month that the house declined to transmit the articles to the senate, the demon of faction extended his scepter. the outcome became clear. and a careless media cheerfully tried to put out the fires with

gasoline. we debated witnesses instead of the case before the senate. rather than the president's conduct, the focus turned to how a lack of additional witnesses could be used to undermine any final conclusion. and what started with political initiatives that degraded the office of the president and left the congress wallowing in partisan mud, it threatened to drag the last remaining branch of government down along with us. mr. president, i've taken tough votes before to uphold the integrity of our courts, and when it became clear that a tie vote here in the senate would simply be used to burn down our third branch of government for partisan political purposes, i

said enough. just enough. the response to the president's behavior is not to disenfranchise nearly 63 million americans and remove him from the ballot. the house could have pursued censure and not immediately jumped to the remedy of last resort. i cannot vote to convict. the constitution provides for impeachment but does not demand it in all instances. an incremental first step to remind the president that as montesquieu said, political virtue is a renunciation of one's self, and this requires a, quote, continuous preference of the public's interest over one's own. removal from office and being barred from ever holding another office of honor, trust, or

profit under the united states is the political death penalty. the president's name is on ballots that have already been cast. the voters will pronounce a verdict in nine months, and we must trust their judgment. this process has been the apeotheosis of congressional abdication. through the refusal to exercise war powers or relynn -- relinquishing the power of the purse, selective oversight and unwillingness to check emergency declarations designed to skirt congress, we have failed, we have failed time and again. we as a legislative branch cannot continue to cede

authority to the executive. the question that we must answer given the intense polarization in our country is where do we go from here. where do we go from here? and i wish, i wish that i had that magic wand, but sadly i have no definitive answers. but i do have hope because we must have hope. as i tried to build consensus over the past few weeks, i had many private conversations with colleagues, and so many, so many in this chamber share my sadness for the present state of our institutions. it's my hope that we finally found bottom here, that both sides can look inward and reflect on the apparent willingness that each has to

destroy not just each other, but all of the institutions of our government. and for what? because it may help win an election? at some point, mr. president, at some point for our country, winning has to be about more than just winning or we will all lose. with that, mr. president, thank you. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.

tuesday senators will continue debating the articles of impeachment with final votes scheduled for wednesday at 4:00 o'clock eastern. you can follow blood senate coverage here on "c-span2". [roll call]. >> the articles agreed to. >> article one adopted. >> the president crimes are impeachable printed. >> note like the guy. november 2016. make it be very clear that this president will be held accountable. and no one is above the law. the question is now whether senator mcconnell will allow a fair trial in the senate.

>> the houses hour is over and the sentence time is at hand. it. >> each of us will face a choice about whether to be given this trial in search of the truth, or the service of the president's desire to cover up. >> do you solemnly swear that all things pertaining 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. >> says the president was sworn into office, there was a desire to see him removed. >> the impeachment of president trump, watch unfiltered coverage on "c-span2". live with same day air. follow the process on demand. cspan.org/impeachment. i listen on the go, using the free c-span radio app.

the democratic presidential candidates of campaign throughout iowa, both at leading up to the iowa caucuses. now it is time for the results. watch our live coverage on the ivory iowa caucuses today. starting at 7:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. on line at cspan, or listen live on the free c-span radio app. the senate impeachment trial of president trump continued today with the deliberations on the articles. in the impeachment managers in the present as a defense team made a closing argument. a formal vote on whether to convict or acquit resident trump is set for wednesday. day after the president delivers his state of the union address. >> the senate will convene in the chaplain will lead us in prayer.

>> let us pray. araiza lord, as we enter the final arguments phase of this impeachment trial. mighty god, we continue to keep our eyes on you, on whom our faith depends. from start to finish it may ouro senators embrace your promise to do for them in measurably abundantly, above all that they can ask or imagine. lord help our lawmakers to start your promises in their hearts and permit you to keep them from stumbling. grant that they will leave a

legacy of honor as they seek your will in all they do. we pray in your amazing name amen. >> amen. >> juice joint . dot . dot