join their colleagues in a joint session. about that, the hill writes it could prove to be an awkward state of the union address. sitting behind president trump and elevated on the dias is speaker nancy pelosi who initially resisted impeachment efforts before eventually signing off on them. trump and pelosi haven't spoken since a contentious october meeting, and adam schiff and fellow impeachment managers as well as senate democrats who will vote unsuccessfully to remove trump from office less than 24 hours after his speech. as the senate delivers two impeachment articles senatorers have taken to the floor to say their positions and how this'll vote. and senator lisa murkowski on her announcement on the floor that she'll vote to acquit the president. and that comes on the heels of her statement she would not support calling new witnesses on the senate as some this

thought. she had sharply criticized the president in her speech calling his behavior shameful and wrong. the voters will pronounce a verdict in nine months, we must trust their judgment, she said. as we've been telling you, the senate about to gavel in, and time continues to be set aside for the senators to talk. 10 minutes each. yesterday we heard from 15, including joe manchin who floated the idea of a censure for the president. normally on tuesdays, the senate would recess for the weekly party caucus luncheon and while those are scheduled the senate had not announced a recess. live coverage of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer.

the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, we offer you our hearts. guide our lawmakers. may they strive to permit justice to roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. grant that they will join you in your messianic thrust to bring good news to the marginalized, to announce freedom for those who suffer, and to give sight to the ethically, morally, and spiritually blind. lord, inspire our senators to

live pure and blameless lives, seeking to bring the greatest glory to you. we pray in your strong name, amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., february 4, 2020. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable mike lee,

a senator from the state of utah, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: chuck grassley, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, these past weeks, the senate has grappled with the gravest subject as we ever consider -- a request from the majority in the house to remove the president. the framers took impeachment extremely seriously, but they harbored no illusions that these trials would always begin for the right reasons. alexander hamilton warned the

demon of faction would extend his scepter over the house of representatives at certain seasons. he warned that an intemperate or designing majority in the house might misuse impeachment as a weapon of ordinary politics rather than an emergency tool of last resort. the framers knew impeachment might begin with overheated passions and short-term factionalism. but they knew those things could not get the final say. so they placed the ultimate judgment not in the fractious lower chamber but in the sober and stable senate. they wanted impeachment trials to be fair to both sides. they wanted them to be timely, avoiding the procrastinated determination of the charges. they wanted us to take a deep breath and decide which outcome

would reflect the facts, protect our institutions, and advance the common good. they called the senate, quote, the most fit depository of this important trust. tomorrow we'll know whether that trust was well-placed. the drive to impeach president trump did not begin with the allegation before us. here was reporting in april of 2016. this is before the president was the nominee. donald trump isn't even the republican nominee yet, but impeachment is already on the lips of pundits, newspaper editorials, constitutional scholars, and even a few members of congress. here was "the washington post" headline minutes after president trump's inauguration. the campaign to impeach president trump has begun, "the washington post" said. the articles of impeachment before us were not even the

first ones house democrats introduced. this was a go-around number -- this was a go-around number of roughly seven. those previously alleged high crimes and misdemeanors, mr. president, included things like being impolite to the press and to professional athletes. it insults the intelligence of the american people to pretend this was a solemn process reluctantly begun because of withheld foreign aid. no, washington democrats' position on this president has been clear literally for years. their position was obvious when they openly rooted for the mueller investigation to tear our country apart and were disappointed -- disappointed -- when the facts proved otherwise. it was otherwise when they sought to impeach the president over and over.

here is their real position, mr. president. washington democrats think president donald trump committed a high crime or misdemeanor the moment -- the moment -- he defeated hillary clinton in the 2016 election. that is the original sin of this presidency, that he won and they lost. ever since, the nation has suffered through a grinding campaign against our norms and institutions from the same people who keep shouting that our norms and institutions need defending. a campaign to degrade our democracy and delegitimize our elections from the same people who shout that competence in our -- confidence in our democracy must be paramount. we watched a major american political party adopt following

absurd proposition -- we think this president is a bull in a china shop, so we're going to drive a bulldozer through the china shop to get rid of him. this fever led to the most rushed, least fair, and least thorough presidential impeachment inquiry in american history. the house inquiry under president nixon spanned many months. the special prosecutor's investigation added many more months. with president clinton, the independent counsel worked literally for years. it takes time to find facts. it takes time to litigate executive privilege, which happened in both those investigations. litigating privilege questions is a normal step that investigators of both parties understood was their sponse. but this time, no investigation, no serious inquiry. the house abandoned its own

subpoenas. they had an arbitrary political deadline to meet. they had to impeach by christmas. they had to impeach by christmas. so in december, house democrats realized the framers' nightmare. a purely partisan, majority-approved two articles of impeachment over bipartisan opposition. and after the speaker of the house delayed for a month in a futal effort to dictate senate process to senators, the articles finally arrived over here in the senate. over the course of the trial, senators have heard sworn video testimony from 13 witnesses, over 193 video clips. we have entered more than 28,000 pages of documents into evidence, including 17 depositions.

and our members asked 180 questions. in contrast to the house proceedings, our trial gave both sides a fair platform. our process tracked with the structure that senators adopted for the clinton trial 20 years ago. just as democrats such as the current democratic leader and joe biden argued in 1999, we recognized that senate practicedditions impose no obligation -- no obligation -- to hear new live witness testimoniment, -- testimony, if it is not necessary to decide the case. if it is not necessary to decide the case, let me emphasize. the house managers themselves said over and over that additional testimony was not necessary to prove their case. they claimed dozens of times that their existing case was, quote, overwhelming.

and incontrovertible. that was the house managers saying their evidence was overwhelming and incontrovertible. at the same time they were arguing for more witnesses. but in reality both of the house accusations are constitutionally incoherent. the obstruction of congress charge is absurd and dangerous. house democrats argued that any time the speaker invokes the sole power of impeachment, the senate must do whatever the house demands. no questions asked. invoking executive branch privileges and immunities becomes an impeachable offense itself. chairman schiff said in october, any action that forces us to litigate or have to consider litigation will be considered further evidence of obstruction of justice.

that, mr. president, is nonsense impeachment. that is nonsense. impeachment is not some magical constitutional trump card that melts away the separations the branches of government. the framers did not leave the house a secret constitutional steamroller that everyone somehow overlooked for 230 years. when congress subpoenas executive branch officials with questions of privilege, the two sides either reach an accommodation or they go to court. that's the way it works. so can you imagine if the shoe were on the other foot? how would democrats and the press have responded if house republicans had told president obama, we don't want to litigate our subpoenas over fast and furious, so if you make us set

foot in court, we'll just impeach you. we'll just impeach you. of course that's not what happened. the republican house litigated its subpoenas for years until they prevailed. so much for obstruction of congress. and the abuse of power charge is just as unpersuasive and dangerous. by passing that article house democrats gave into a temptation that every previous house has resisted. they impeached a president without even alleging a crime known to our laws. now, mr. president, i do not subscribe to the legal theory that impeachment requires a violation of a criminal statute. but there are powerful reasons why for 230 years every presidential impeachment did, in fact, allege a criminal

violation. the framers expressly -- explicitly rejected impeachment for maladministration, a general charge under english law that basically encompasses bad management, a sort of general vote of no confidence, except in the most extreme circumstances, except for acts that overwhelmingly shock the national conscience, the framers decided presidents must serve at the pleasure of the electorate and not at the pleasure of house majorities. as hamilton wrote, it is one thing to be subordinate to the laws and another to be dependent on the legislative body. so house democrats sailed into the new and dangerous waters, the first impeachment unbound by the criminal law. any house that felt it needed to take this radical step owed the country the most fair and pain

steaking -- painstaking process, the most rigorous investigation, the most bipartisan effort. instead we got the opposite, the exact opposite. the house managers argued that the president could not have been acting in the national interest because he acted inconsistently with their own conception of the national interest. let me say that again. the house managers were basically arguing that the president could not have been acted in the national interest because he acted inconsistently with their conception of the national interest, a conception shared by some of the president's subordinates as well. this does not even approach a case for the first presidential removal in american history. it doesn't even approach it. such an act cannot rest alone on the exercise of a constitutional

power combined with concerns about whether the president's motivations were public or personal and a disagreement over whether the exercise of power was in the national interest. the framers gave our nation an ultimate tool for evaluating president's character and policy decisions. they are called elections. they are called elections. if washington democrats have a case to make against the president's reelection, they should go out and make it. let them try to do what they failed to do three years ago and sell the american people on their vision for the country. i can certainly see why given president trump's remarkable achievements over the past three years, democrats might feel a bit uneasy about defeating him at the ballot box. but they don't get to rip the choice away from the voters just because they are afraid they

might lose again. they don't get to strike president trump's name from the ballot just because, as one house democrat put it, quote, i'm concerned that if we don't impeach him, he'll get reelected. the impeachment power exists for a reason. it is no nulity, but invoking it on a partisan whim to settle three-year-old political scores does not honor the framers' design. it insults the framers' design. frankly, it's hard to believe that house democrats ever really thought this reckless and precedent-breaking process would yield 67 votes to cross the rubicon. was their vision so clouded by partisanship that they really believed -- they really believed this would be anywhere near enough for the first

presidential removal in american history? or was success beside the point? was this all an effort to hijack our institutions for a months-long political rally? either way, mr. president, the demon of faction has been on full display. but now it is time for him, the demon, to exit the stage. we have, indeed, witnessed an abuse of power, a grave abuse of power by just the kind of house majority that the framers warned us about. so tomorrow -- tomorrow the senate must do what we were created to do. we've done our duty. we considered all the arguments. we've studied the, quote, mountain of evidence, end quote.

and tomorrow we will vote. we must vote to reject the house abuse of power, vote to protect our institutions, vote to reject new precedents that would reduce the framers' design to rubble. vote to keep factional fever from boiling over and scorching our republic. i urge every one of our colleagues to cast the vote on the common good clearly required, vote to acquit the president of these charges. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk should call the roll.

quorum call: the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. schumer: mr. president, thank you very much. i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, there -- the majority leader can come up on the floor and repeat his talking points but there are some salient spoints that are remember refutable. the first, this is the first impeachment trial of a president or an impeachment trial of anybody else that was completed with no witnesses and no documents. the american people are just amazed that our republican friends would not even ask for witnesses and documents. i thought the house did a very good job. i thought they made a compelling case. but even if you didn't, the idea that that means you shouldn't have witnesses and documents when we're doing something as august, as important as an impeachment trial fails the laugh test. it makes people believe, correctly in my judgment, that the administration, its top people and senate republicans are all hiding the truth. they are afraid of the truth. second, the charges are extremely serious.

to interfere in an election, to blackmail a foreign country, to interfere in our elections gets at the very core of what our democracy is about. if americans believe that they don't determine who is president, who is governor, who is senator, but some foreign country out of reach can join us on elections, that's the beginning of the end of democracy. it's a serious charge. the republicans refused to get the evidence because they were afraid of what it would show and that's all that needs to be said. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk should call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. thune: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: madam president, is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: it is. mr. thune: i would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: madam president, tomorrow we will be voting on the two impeachment articles sent over to us by the house of representatives, a process, as the leader pointed out, really started from the very day this president took office. i will be voting to acquit the president for several reasons. first and foremost, i do not believe that the facts in this case rise to the high bar that the founders set for removal from office. the founders imposed a threshold for impeachment of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. in other wordses, very serious violations of the public trust. the founders were deliberate in their choice of words. they wanted to be clear that impeachment was a severe remedy to be deployed only for very serious violations.

when george mason proposed adding the term maladministration to the impeachment clause during the constitutional convention, the framers rejected the proposal because, as madison pointed out, the term was too vague and would be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the senate. the founders recognized that without safeguards, impeachment could quickly degenerate into a political weapon to be used to overturn elections when one faction or another decided that it didn't like the president. that's why the founders split the impeachment power giving the house the sole authority to impeach and the senate the sole authority to try impeachments. and as a final check, the founders required a two-thirds supermajority vote in the senate to remove a president from office. all of these things, madam president, show just how seriously the founders regarded removing a duly elected president. they intended it as an extreme

remedy to be used only in very grave circumstances. and i do not believe that the charges the house has leveled against the president meet that high bar. the house managers' presentation was stretched over 22 hours and included testimony from more than a dozen witnesses. we also heard from the house managers during more than 16 hours of questions from senators. in all about 180 questions. and we received more than 28,000 pages of testimony, evidence, and arguments from the house of representatives. i considered all the evidence carefully but ultimately i concluded that the two charges presented by the house managers, abuse of power and obstruction of congress, did not provide a compelling case for removing this president. according to public reporting, house democrats toyed with charging the president with bribery believing that it polled well. but they didn't have the evidence to prove that charge or

indeed to prove any actual crime. while allegations of specific criminal conduct may not be constitutionally required, they anchor impeachment in the law and their absence is telling. lacking evidence of a specific crime the house decided to use the shotgun approach and throw everything under the catchal abuse of power umbrella. abuse of power, madam president, is vaguely defined and subject to interpretation. in fact, i don't believe there has been a president in my lifetime who hasn't been accused of some form of abuse of power. for that reason abuse of power seemed to me a fairly weak predicate on which to remove a democratically elected president from office. during the clinton impeachment, i voted against the abuse of power article precisely because i believed it did not offer strong grounds for removing the duly elected president. with respect to the second article, obstruction of congress, the house took issue

with the president's assertion of legal privileges, including those rooted in the constitutional separation of powers. of course every president in recent memory has invoked such privileges. for example, when the obama administration cited executive privilege to deny documents to congress during the fast and furious gun-running investigation. the house could have challenged the president's privileged claims by going through the traditional channel to resolve disputes between the executive and legislative branches, that being, of course, the courts. that's what was done in previous impeachment inquiries like the clinton impeachment. but the house skipped that step, madam president, in hopes that the senate would bail them out and compel testimony and documents that the house in its rush to impeachment was unwilling to procure. again it seemed like a very thin basis on which to remove a duly elected president from office. the facts of the case are that aid to ukraine was released prior to the end of the fiscal

year. no investigation of the scandal plagued firm burisma or the bidens was ever initiated. while we can debate the him's judgment when it comes to his dealings with ukraine or even conclude that his actions were inappropriate, the house's vague and overreaching impeachment charges do not meet the high bar set by the founders for removal from office. my second consideration, madam president, in voting to acquit the president is the deeply partisan nature of the house's impeachment proceedings. the founders overriding concern about impeachment was that partisan majorities could use impeachment as a political weapon. in federalist 65, alexander hamilton speaks of the danger of impeachment being used by, and i quote, an intemperate or designing majority in the house of representatives. end quote. by limiting the house's power to impeaching the president and not to removing him from office, the

founders hoped that the senate would act as a check on any attempt by the house to use the power of impeachment for partisan purposes. unfortunately the founders' concerns about partisanship were realized in this impeachment process. for the first time in modern history, impeachment was initiated and conducted on a purely partisan basis. while the nixon impeachment proceedings in the house are held up as an example of bipartisanship, even the impeachment of president clinton was initiated with the support of more than 30 democrats. by contrast in this case, house democrats drove ahead in a completely, completely partisan exercise. then they rushed through the impeachment process at breakneck speed rejecting a thorough investigation because they wanted to impeach the president as fast as possible. and then they expected the senate to take on the house's

investigative responsibility. madam president, house democrats paid lip service to the idea that they regretted having to impeach the president, but their actions told a different story. the speaker of the house, the speaker distributed celebratory pins when she signed the articles of impeachment and then went on tv and celebrated the impeachment with a fist bump. madam president, it doesn't require much work to imagine the damage that can be done to our republic if impeachment becomes a weapon to be used whenever a political party doesn't like a president. pretty soon presidents would be serving not at the pleasure of the american people but at the pleasure of the house and the senate. we need to call a halt before we've gone too far to turn back. endorsing the house's rushed partisan and slip shod work would encourage future houses to use impeachment for partisan

purposes. both parties need to learn that partisan impeachments are perilous. finally, madam president, i believe that except in the most extreme circumstances, it should be the american people and not washington politicians who decide whether or not a president should be removed from office. presidential primary voting, as we learned yesterday in iowa is ready under way. we have a presidential election in november where the people of this country can weigh in and make their voices heard. i think we should leave the decision up to them. indeed given the deep divisions plaguing our country as reflected in the starkly different views about this impeachment, removing the president from office and -- and from the ballots for the upcoming election would almost certainly plunge the country into even greater political turmoil. madam president, i am deeply troubled by the events of the past few months. i've always believe we can

differ here in congress while still respecting and working with those who disagree with us. but democrats have increasingly sought to demonize anyone who doesn't share their obsession with impeaching this president. one of the house managers in this trial went so far as to suggest that any senator who voted against them was treacherous and at one point a senator asked whether the chief justice's constitutionally required participation in the trial was contributing to, quote, the loss of legitimacy of the chief justice, the supreme court, and the constitution. end quote. with the clear suggestion that the only way for the supreme court to maintain its legitimacy would be for it to agree with the democratic party. we sunk pretty low. we've come to the point of suggesting that disagreement is unconstitutional. but for all this, madam president, i remain hopeful. congress has been through contentious times before and we've gotten through them. there's no question that this

partisan impeachment has been divisive, but i do believe we can move on from this. and i'm ready to work with all, all of my colleagues, both democrat and republican, in the coming weeks and months as we get back to the business of the american people. for the nation that we all love, i pray that that proves possible. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. cassidy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. cassidy: madam president, the senate must determine whether to remove a president duly elected by the people, a decision of such magnitude deserves full consideration of the procedures. two, merits of the charges, and three, the ramifications removal would have on our republic. the framers of the constitution granted the house of representatives impeachment powers yet cautioned against using that power unless absolutely necessary. impeachment negates an election in which americans choose their leader. if substantial number of americans disagree with removing

the president, removal damages civic society. it follows that the house should conduct thorough and complete investigations even if time consuming before impeaching. a thorough investigation educates americans that a president should be impeached and removed. failing to convince the people invites anger towards, disdain for and abandonment of the democratic priority. the senate also requires two-thirds senate majority for removal to prevent partisanship so removal only occurs after the house convinces its own members the senate and the american people. the watergate investigation, for example, convinced americans that president nixon committed crimes forcing his resignation with overwhelming support for removal in the house and the senate. in the case against president trump, the house declined to call witnesses it felt relevant, arguing that the courts would take too long and the president was an imminent threat to our

republic. house managers blamed legal resistance from the resistance of witnesses. dr. kupperman to sue. it also rang hollow when adam schiff said we could not wait until the next election after speaker pelosi held the articles for 37 days. that smacks of partisan political motivations. the partisanship the founders warned against was reflected in the house vote with the only bipartisan votes being against impeachment. house manner schiff, nadler and lofgren once said that impeachment would divide the nation. they never explained why their opinions changed. the role of the senate, though, is to judge the house's evidence. house managers stated their case was overwhelming and compelling. having not pursued further

witness testimony in building the case, their cakes the house managers demanded the senate call witnesses the house did not call. additional witnesses however would not have changed material facts. but allowing the house to poorly develop a case, sacrificing thoroughness for political timing would have forever changed the dynamics of the chambers respective to each's role in the impeachment process. should the senate acquiesce in this manipulation of the process, it welcomes the house to use impeachment as a political weapon whatever the merits of its case. now, i've been speaking of procedure. i want to emphasize procedure matters. justice frank furtherer once wrote, the history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards. if the appropriate use of impeachment is to be preserved, procedural safeguards must be observed. moving now to charges, in

article 2, house managers argue the president obstructed congress for acting on the advice of legal counsel to resist subpoenas. the judiciary resolves disputes between the executive and legislative branches. the house should have exhausted judicial remedies before bringing this charge. i shall vote against article 2. in article 1, abuse of power, three issues must be addressed -- one, the legal standard of guilt by which to judge the president; two, whether the president committed a crime and if so, three, whether that crime warrants removal from office. first, the standard of guilt was never established. legal standards for conviction vary from the lower, more probable-than-not threshold to the higher, which is beyond a reasonable doubt, which is used in criminal cases. since house managers charge, quote, something akin to a crime, beyond a beyond a reasonable doubt seems most appropriate, the higher threshold. and as senator jay rockefeller

stated during president clinton's impeachment, beyond a reasonable doubt means that it is proven to a moral certainty that the case is clear, that the case is concise. second, house managers allege that the president held military aid to ukraine to leverage an investigation into former vice president biden as a quid pro quo. although they did not charge president trump with the crime of requiring a quid pro quo or of bribery. the president's defense team cast reasonable doubt on this allegation. for example, regarding the july 25 phone call, which was reported by the whistle-blower and which triggered the house impeachment proceedings, the president raised the issue of corruption in ukraine. president trump has always been skeptical of foreign aid and especially when he thinks it is wasted. hunter biden was mentioned but no connection was made with the release of aid to ukraine. other defense arguments included that ambassador kurt volker denied a connection between aid

and corruption investigations, president zelensky and ukrainian officials denied feeling pressured, president trump denied a quid pro quo to ambassador sondland and told senator ron johnson when asked if there was some sort arrangement, no way, i would never do that. and aid to ukraine was released before the statutory deadline and meetings occurred without an announced investigation. it is also important to note that the release of aid on september 11 followed new anticorruption measures which included swearing in a new reform parliament and installing a new prosecutor general and the newly established high anticorruption court meeting for the first time september 5. now, the third issue regarding article is, aboul of power is that the term is a nebulous one which does not define a specific crime. contrast this with the impeachment of president nixon when the house drafted an

article of impeachment alleging abuse of power but which enumerated five specific criminal and noncriminal offenses against president nixon. the constitution speaks of treason, bribery, or other high crimessances misdemeanors, because high crimes and misdemeanors are not specifically defined, it is reasonable to assume that the framers meant for impeachment to occur only if a crime approached levels as severe as treason and bribery. since the house managers allege president trump committed something akin to a crime in deciding whether abuse of power is a high crime or misdemeanor shall the prudent decision is to apply the principle of leanty. this principle relied upon which supreme court justice marshal and justice frankfurter stays if a law is ambiguous it is better to narrowly interpret the words of the law in favor of the defendant. now, although the proceeding

discussion finds that the house managers failed to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, failed to define the crime, thereby invoking the principle of lean yenty, it is still a question that if a crime was committed, was it an impeachable crime? in 1998 then-democratic congressman ed markey argued that even though president clinton, as cleave law enforcement officer of the land, lied under orientation the crime was not impeachable. the senate agreed establishing the precedent that to remove a president, the crime must preach a high threshold of severity. the allegation against president trump was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt and it does not meet that high threshold. i shall vote against article 1. i end by speaking of the ramifications for you are a republic. in 1998 then-congressman chuck schumer said of the clinton impeachment, quote, i suspect history will show that we have lowered the bar on impeachment so much, we have broken the seal on this extreme penalty so cavalierly that it will be used

as a routine tool to fight political battles. my fear is that when a republican wins the white house, democrats will demand payback. mr. schumer was a prophet. this must stop. with that, i yield. ms. ernst: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. ms. ernst: madam president, i want to first thank the house managers and the counsel for the president for their time, their hard work, and patience these past few weeks. yes, folks, we have had a robust and at times a rancorous trial. some days i left here feeling angry, and some days i left more hopeful. frankly, it is likely that many

americans and in many case iowans from every political stripe will feel hurt by this process at some level. but we are all representatives of the ideals and beliefs of the people we are here to represent. like all of you, i have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution, and i take that oath very seriously. there have been a lot of arguments presented about what the constitution says regarding the threshold for impeaching a president. it's clear to me that the constitution goes out of its way to make it a high bar for removing the president. this is because the founders were rightfully concerned that impeachment might be used to

upend the electoral will of the american people. absent restraint, the impeachment process would be all too tempting for those that hop a sitting president to -- that oppose a sitting president to simply use it as a tool to achieve political advantage. each of us had one job -- one job during this process: to decide based on the evidence whether the president committed an impeachable offense. upon reviewing the record containing the testimony of 17 witnesses and over 28,000 pages, as well as hearing from both sides on their arguments presented throughout this process, i will vote against both articles of impeachment.

the arguments of the house managers simply did not demonstrate that the president's actions rise to an impeachable offense. given the constitutional requirements, voting any other way on these articles would remove the ability of the american people to make their own decision at the ballot box in november. this process was fraught from the start with political aims and partisan innuendos that simply cannot be overlooked. the house managers' arguments have argued that the american people cannot be trusted to render their own judgment on this president. i reject this premise, the complete distrust of the american people, with everything in my heart. to do this would set a new and dangerous precedent in american history. as we sit here today, we believe

we are experiencing a unique and historical event. however, if the case presented by the house of representatives is allowed to be the basis for the removal of this president, i'm afraid that impeachment will become just another tool used by those who play partisan politics. this is not what the founders intended, and this is a very dark path to go down. under the constitution, impeachment wasn't designed to be a litmus test on every action of the president. elections were designed to be that check. further, the issue of foreign affairs has historically been fraught with peril for presidents. foreign affairs is an art, not a

science, and trying to insert a formula into every presidential interaction with a foreign leader is a path towards ineffectiveness. the senate is about to close this chapter in american history. i pray that we do not allow this to become the norm. i also pray earnestly that we will shift into a spirit of cohesiveness, coming together to get our work done for the american people. our people, our founders, our country, and my great state of iowa deserve better than this. thank you, and i yield the floor. mr. wicker: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from the great state of mississippi. mr. wicker: thank you, madam

president. tomorrow i will cast my vote against the removal of our duly elected president. i will do so based upon my understanding of the duty conferred upon me by the constitution of the united states. i do not believe the house managers have proved the allegations contained in the articles of impeachment, nor do i believe the articles allege conduct that may be used for grounds of removal. i find the president's counsel to be persuasive in this regard. significantly, much of the american public, without the benefit of learned constitutional instruction, have come to the same conclusion. during the two and a half weeks of this trial, we have received more than 28,000 pages of documents. we've seen 192 video clips of 13 different witnesses. we had the opportunity to question each side for a total of 16 hours, and we have

listened to literally hours and hours of argument. clearly, i'm unable to discuss every aspect of the trial in the time allotted me. some facts in this case are in dispute, but many are not. here's what we all know beyond a doubt. first, we know that voices on the left have been calling for the impeachment of donald trump since one -- literally day one. "the washington post" on januarn article titled, the campaign to impeach president trump has begun, on inauguration day. secondly, we know that the year's long, $32 million mueller investigation failed to reveal sufficient ammunition for those who desired impeachment. third, the impeachment of this president in the house was the result of a narrowly partisan

vote with no republican representatives, zero, voting in favor of the articles. and, fourth, a guilty verdict this week would not only immediately remove the president from office but it would also remove his name from the ballot in an election which is already going on. the first caucuses of which were conducted only yesterday. the words are right there in articles 1 and 2 on pages three and four of the resolution, disqualification to hold any office. the founders of this country entrusted congress with the power of impeachment as a check and balance on the executive branch. this power was never intended to settle policy differences or political disagreements, even intense disagreements. it was not designed to that congress could get rid of a president they found odious or

obnoxious or with whom they vehemently disagreed. the constitution gives congress this remedy for what it calls high crimes and misdemeanors, and making it clear what an extreme action impeachment is, the constitution requires the support of two-thirds in this chamber in order to convict. these standards intentionally set a very high bar to prevent abuse of the impeachment process. meeting these standards requires this process be used to try only the most serious allegations and requires broad consensus in the senate. members of both parties have in the past warned about the dangers of a narrowly partisan impeachment. as late as last year, house speaker nancy pelosi cautioned,

impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, i don't think we should go down that path because it divides the country. congressman nadler, one of the impeachment managers, said in 1998, there must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an impeachment supported by one political party and opposed by the other. such impeachment would lack legitimacy, would produce divisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come. this wide approach has been supported in the past by zoe lofgren, by joe biden, by our own colleagues senator menendez who feared it would become a

routine tool. these leaders had good company. in federalist number 65, alexander hamilton warned of the danger that the decision to impeach woulding regulated more been i combative strength of the parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. many of our democratic friends who once sided with hamilton have apparently changed their minds. they also reversed thements on the urgency of doing so. a rather sudden and abrupt change of heart on that question. house advocates of impeachment have argued that president trump is willing to cheat in the ongoing election, amounting to such an imminent threat to our democracy that he must be removed at once unless he's out of office and out quickly, they assert, we cannot have any confidence that the 2020

election results will be trustworthy. i ask, madam president, does any senator really believe that? that america could not have a fair election if donald trump is in the white house? but that alleged danger was the reason for the abbreviated house procedure. the lead house manager, congressman schiff, said in an interview said that the timing of the impeachment was driven by the urgency of removing the president. congressman nadler agreed saying nothing could be more urgent. speaker pelosi said the same thing many times to explain the rushed process in the house and why there was not enough time to give the president a fair hearing. senators heard the words repeated and repeated on video clips shown during this trial, urgent, urgency. but what happened to that urgency once the house voted? did the speaker then rush the

papers to the senate so we could address this imminent threat? hardly. speaker pelosi held the articles for more than a month. if this trial was so urgent, why not send the articles without delay? some might conclude that by withholding the articles, the speaker supposed that this case was not so urgent. perhaps it was an effort to influence our procedural decisions. madam president, i do not impugn motives here, our rules prohibit me from doing so. i merely noted an obvious change for whatever reason. as i consider the high bar of impeachment tomorrow, i will vote not to convict. i will do so because there's not overwhelming evidence because no high crimes are shown because there's not a broad consensus among my countrymen, only

articles passed on a narrowly partisan basis. and because removing president trump on these charges at this time would set a dangerous precedent. i conclude by reminding my colleagues, we are the trustees of the constitution of 1787. we have the privilege and responsibility of standing on the shoulders of our remarkably perceptive founders. but we also act as trustees for our republic on behalf of future generations. with that in mind, we have an enhanced obligation to be careful, to resist the passions of the moment, to remember that what we do today establishes precedence for decades and centuries to come. manager schiff closed his remarks yesterday with an on

muss -- om necessary reference threatening the freedom of welfare to americans. his hopeful conclusion was that it is midnight in america but the sun will rise tomorrow, a sentiment i happen to share though my concept of what it amounts to a beautiful sunrise may differ from his. over a century ago during the depths of world war i, there was a composition, abraham lincoln walks at midnight. imagine a sleepless abraham lincoln walking the streets in europe. let us ask ourselves today do madison and hamilton and franklin walk these venerable halls at midnight?

do these founding fathers traverse the corridors of these great building, this symbol of stability and rule of law? if they do, they caution us, as they always have, to be careful, to avoid rash decisions, to resist the urges of partisanship, to let the constitution work. i hope my colleagues will heed their conscience. i yield the floor.

mr. blumenthal: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, madam president. madam president, as we think back over these last weeks when we have sat together on the floor considering evidence and sitting in judgment as jurors and judges, spending countless hours deliberating, i often think about what i will remember from these days on a very

personal level. it has been an historic event, but in some ways the human element strikes me as the most memorable. i will remember vividly the bravery of dedicated public servants who had everything to lose and nothing to gain by telling the american people the truth about donald trump and his scheme to corruptly use power for his personal benefit. their courage, their grace under pressure, their dignity and unshakable honesty should be a model for all of us. i will remember, for example, colonel alexander vindman whose

video appeared for us. a man who was brought to the united states at the age of 3, and grew to love this country so much that he put his life at risk in combat and then his career at risk by coming before the congress. i'll remember fiona hill, daughter of a coal miner and nurse who proceeded to get a ph.d., swear an oath to this country serving in both republican and democratic administrations, warning us not to pedal the, quote, fictional narrative, end quote, perpetrated and propagated, and i'm quoting, by the russian security services themselves about this supposed ukrainian effort to meddle in our election. i will remember very vividly

ambassador william taylor, a west point graduate, decorated vietnam war veteran who testified he thought it was, quote, crazy to, quote, withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. end quote. and i will remember the whistle-blower who came forward to express shock and alarm that the president of the united states would attempt to extort a vulnerable fledgling democracy to help him cheat in the next election in exchange for the foreign military aid they so desperately needed to fight their adversary, russia, our adversary, russia, attacking and killing their young men and women. i have met some of those young

men and women who came to connecticut to the burn center at bridgeport hospital. so badly injured they could barely talk. and the stories of their suffering and hardship came back to me as i sat on the floor here and their courage and their bravery and strength also will stay with me. i'll remember the moment that we raised our hands, took an oath to be impartial, all hundred of us -- 99 -- at a same time in a historic moment when the weight of that responsibility shook me like a rock. and i will remember also the shame and sadness that i felt when this body, supposedly the greatest deliberative body in

the history of the world, voted to close its eyes, to put on blinders to evidence, witnesses, and documents, firsthand knowledge, eyes and ears on the president, black and white. documents don't lie. that were necessary to understand the complete story and give the american people the committee truth. -- give the american people the complete truth. that moment, unfortunately a moment of dismay and disappointment, will stay with me as well after aspiring so long to be part of this body chl i respected and reveerve -- body which i respected and reveerved. so out -- revered. so utterly disappointing right

now, this crisis. and i will remember the audible gasp, some laughs raised eyebrows when professor alan dershowitz made the incredible, shocking argument that a president who believes that his own reelection serves the public interest can do anything he wants and his actions are not impeachable. the implications of that argument for the future of our democracy are simply indiscribbable. i've been -- i spent most of my career in and out of the courtrooms so i can argue the legalities, but i'm not here to rehash the legal arguments because culpability here seems pretty clear to me.

the president solicited a bribe when he sought a personal benefit, an investigation of his political opponent, a smear of his rival in exchange for an official act, in fact two official acts, the release of military funding for an ally and a white house meeting in return for that personal benefit. those actions are a violation of section 201-18 united states code today. they were a very laition of criminal law at the time of the framers. and that's why they put it in the constitution, bribery and treason specifically mentioned. bribery is included as an abuse of power as it was when judge

protecproteous was impeached. many voted to impeach him although bribery was never mentioned in the articles charging him with the abuse of power. the idea that bribery or any crime has to be mentioned for there to be an abuse of power is clearly preposterous. the elements of bribery have been proved, in my view, beyond a reasonable doubt and there is no excuse for that criminal conduct. i'm going to submit a detailed statement for the record that makes the legal case but clearly bribery has been committed by this president. what strikes me perhaps looking beyond the legalities as most telling here is the constant

theme of secrecy. the fact that the president kept his reasons for withholding aid secret, unlike other suspensions of aid to other countries, like the northern triangle in central america or egypt where it was announced publicly and congress was notified. here he kept it secret. he operated through his personal attorney, rudy giuliano, in secret. not through the state department, not through the department of justice. despite all his claims of corruption and wrongdoing by hunter or joe biden, he either never went to the department of justice or they declined to investigate because there was no there there. instead he sought secretly the investigation of political rival

through a foreign government targeting a u.s. citizen secretly. his refusal to provide a single document to congress, allow a single witness to testify, keeping their testimony and that evidence secret, concealing it, his defiance of every subpoena in court effectively neutering congress' oversight authority, our oversight authority to check any of these abuses, all of it for the purpose of secrecy. his claim of absolute immunity totally discredited and rejected by the courts because, as the court said in mcgahn case, he is not a king. his claim of executive privilege as the reason for keeping that evidence secret -- well, he never really invoked executive

privilege. but executive privilege cannot be invoked to conceal criminal conduct. it fits within the crime fraud exception. while the president's lawyers argued before this body that the house should have gone to court to enforce those subpoenas instead of resorting to the remedy of impeachment, they had then the awe audacity to same fe yawsly -- simultaneously at exactly the same time argue in court that congress cannot seek a judicial remedy to enforce subpoenas because it has the remedy of impeachment. no jurisdiction because of impeachment and at the same time no access to evidence necessary for impeachment because supposedly you can go to court. this duplicity is absolutely stunning.

and i will say just again on a personal note as prosecutor, it's a dead giveaway. he's guilty. regardless of what we do tomorrow, we know for sure in this great democracy the truth will come out. it always does. it's just a question of when. it comes out about all of us at some point. and for this president the truth is coming out in real time as we speak on this floor, as we vote tomorrow. the revelations in "the new york times" about what john bolton has written in his book indicate the truth is going to come out in mid-march with john bolton's book assuming the president doesn't try to censor it and tie

him up in court or exercise some prior restraint. it will come out in congressional investigations. when john bolton and others testify, it will come out because there are courageous men and women like ambassador taylor and fiona hill and colonel vindman and others who are willing to put country ahead of their personal careers. when my children grow up and they are pretty well grown, i hope they will be more like them than like the president, and i never ever thought i would say that in the senate of the united states let alone anywhere. because this president has shown

that he will take advantage of every opportunity for self-enrichment and self-aaggrandizement, whether it's violating the emollients clause. i have sued him along with 199 of my colleagues on that issue, making money from the presidency, profiting and putting profit ahead of his official duties or seeking to smear a political rival and soliciting a bribe, even if the aid went through and even if the investigation was never announced, it's still a crime. putting that kind of self-benefit ahead of his duty to the country and our national security, the welfare and fight of an ally at the tip of the spear against a common adversary who is seeking to destroy

western democracies. he is someone who has said show me the boundaries of the law and i'll push them. and if i can successfully cross them, i will do it again. and he will do it again. everyone in this chamber knows it. so as we make this momentous decision, i implore each of my colleagues to think about the gravity of what we will do if we fail to convict this president. the message that we send to countries struggling to overcome corruption. because america is more than just a country. america is an idea and an ideal. when we implore them to fight

corruption, our credibility is shredded when we condone it at home. the framers in their wisdom knew that elections every four years were an inadequate check against any president who corruptly abuses power for personal gain, and this situation and this president is exactly what they feared when our young, infant country was struggling to avoid foreign interference in our election. it was their worst nightmare. foreign interference, the threat of foreign meddling, exactly what this president has invited. it was delegate william davey of north carolina who said, quote, if he be not impeachable while

in office, he will spare no efforts or means whatever to get himself reelected. it was precisely cheating in a future election, foreign interference in our domestic affairs that the framers established impeachment to prevent. that's why the remedy exists. and that's why we must use it now. history will judge us harshly if we fail in this historic challenge. history will haunt the colleagues who fail to meet this challenge, who lack the courage that was demonstrated by those heroes, taylor, vindman, hill,

cooper, others. and they will continue to serve our country. and the truth will come out. the heroes of this dark era will be our independent judiciary and our free press. they will continue uncovering the truth. they will continue providing freedom of information material under the law. they will continue to protect civil rights and civil liberties. they will continue their vigilance, even if we fail in ours. but we have this task now. history will sit in judgment of us and the future of our republic will be in jeopardy if we fail tomorrow to do the right thing. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland is recognized. mr. van hollen: madam president, it is the constitutional duty of each senator to weigh the evidence before us and render a final verdict on the two articles of impeachment. on the charge of abuse of power, the house managers have presented overwhelming evidence, a, quote, mountain of evidence, as senator alexander has conceded. with anyone with eyes and ears to hear, president trump undoubtedly used the power of the presidency to withhold vital taxpayer-funded military aid from ukraine to extort its government into helping him in his reelection campaign. he did so even though fighting russian aggression is in our

national interest. and make no mistake, the fact that he got caught before his scheme succeeded is no defense. the house has also proved its case on the charge of obstruction of congress. president trump has engaged in unprecedented stonewalling, a blanket cover-up that makes president nixon look like an amateur. not a single document produced, nor a single witness. those who did testify, did so despite the president's order not to show up. they raised their right hands and swore to tell the truth. they included trump political appointees and a major donor to his campaign. individuals who served our country in war, dedicated public servants who took an oath to

defend the constitution. dismissing them as anti-trumpers and democratic witnesses is wrong, as were the president's attempts to bully and intimidate them. with the facts proven, the senate must now ask, do these charges meet the standard for impeachment? the president claims impeachment requires charging him with a statutory crime. but that is a fringe view with patently absurd results. their lead lawyer making this argument, alan dershowitz, did not hold this view during the clinton impeachment, nor does trump's attorney general, william barr, nor does jonathan turley, trump's constitutional law expert at the house judiciary committee hearing. nor does the authority cited by the president's own lawyers here

in the senate and referenced nine times in their legal briefs. that authority, entitled "impeachment: a handbook" states, and i quote, the limitation of impeachable offenses to those offenses made generally criminal by statute is unwarranted, even absurd, unquote. this suggested standard has been roundly dismissed because it leads to ridiculous conclusions. for example, that a president could withhold taxpayer-funded disaster assistance to the people of a state until their governor endorsed the president for reelection. even alan dershowitz recognized the folly of his own argument, so he switched to saying impeachment requires criminal-like conduct. well, the president's actions here have all the markings of

criminal-like conduct, including what the founders would consider bribery and extortion. moreover, as made clear by the nonpartisan legal opinion i requested from the g.a.o., the president and his team broke the impoundment control law as part of his overall extortion scheme. in fact, the toxic mix of misconduct we find here -- a president corruptly using his office in a manner that compromises our national security to get a foreign government to help him stay in power -- is exactly the kind of abuse of power our founders most feared. yet the president shows no sign of remorse or regret. his refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing is an ongoing threat to our country and our constitution. even as this impeachment process

has proceeded, he has continued to solicit other countries, including china, to help his reelection effort. as he says, the constitution gives him -- and i quote -- the right to do whatever i want as president -- unquote. let's be honest. president trump sees the constitution not as a check on his powers but as a blank check to abuse power. and he won't change. his ongoing betrayal of the oath of office represents a clear and present danger to our constitution, our democracy, and the rule of law. those who argue we must not remove the president before the next election ignore the fact that the founders included an impeachment clause in the same constitution that establishes four-year terms for the president. and they wrote the impeachment

clause for exactly this moment, to prevent a corrupt president from enlisting a foreign power to help him cheat in an election. president trump has committed high crimes and misdemeanors against the constitution, and we must use the founders' remedy. we must find him guilty and remove him from office. failure to convict will send a terrible signal that this president and any future president can commit crimes against the constitution and the american people and get away with it. but it is not only the president who has violated his duty under the constitution. so, too, has this senate, not because of the ultimate conclusion expected tomorrow but because of the flawed way the senate will reach that decision.

while i strongly disagree with acquittal, that verdict might be accepted by most americans if reached through a real and a fair trial. but this senate did not hold a real trial. it held the first impeachment proceeding in our history not to call a single witness or seek a single document. president trump's former national security advisor, john bolton, offered us important information about the charges against the president. the senate voted not to hear from him. president trump said he wanted his acting chief of staff, mick mulvaney, to testify at the senate trial, but then he changed his mind and senate republicans voted not to hear from him. i offered to have the chief justice make decisions about relevant witnesses and documents, just as impartial judges dozen in trials every --

judges do in trials every day across earthquake in. unlike in every courtroom, it preserved the right for the senate to overturn the chief justice's decision by majority vote. that is obviously a fair process for the president, but every republican senator voted against it. and why? because they're afraid of getting to the truth -- the whole truth and nothing but the truth. they know that as more incriminating facts come out, it becomes harder to acquit. by joining the president's cover-up, they have become his accomplices. while the decision on the president will come tomorrow, the verdict on this senate is already in. guilty. guilty of dereliction of its constitutional duty to conduct an impartial trial. and because the trial was a farce, the final result will be

seen by most of the country as illegitimate, the product of a tainted trial. and president trump must understand this -- there is no exoneration, no vindication, no real acquittal from a fake trial. in failing to adhere to the principles of our constitution and the values of our country, i fear we have done grievous injury to the nature of our democracy. i only hope america will find the resilience to repair the damage in the years to come. madam president, i yield the remainder of my time. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the

senator from michigan is recognized. mr. peters: madam president, i swore an oath to defend the constitution, both as an officer in the united states navy reserve, and as a united states senator, and at the beginning of this impeachment trial, i swore an oath to keep an open mind, listen carefully to the facts, and in the end deliver impartial justice. after the carefully listening to the arguments presented by both house managers and the president's lawyers, i believe the facts are clear. president trump stands accused by the house of representatives of abusing his power in an attempt to extort a foreign government to announce a trumped-up investigation into a political rival and thereby put his personal interests ahead of national security and the public trust. the president illegally withheld congressionally approved military aid to an ally at war with russia and conditioned its

release on ukraine making an announcement the president could use to falsely discredit a likely political opponent. when the president's corrupt plan was brought to light, the white house engaged in a systematic and unprecedented effort to cover up the scheme. the president's complete refusal to cooperate with a constitutionally authorized investigation is unparalleled in american history. despite the extraordinary efforts by the president to cover up the facts, the house managers made a convincing case. it is clear the president's actions were not an effort to further official american foreign policy. the president was not working in the public interest. what the president did was wrong, unacceptable, and impeachable. i expected the president's lawyers to offer new eyewitness testimony from people with firsthand knowledge and offer

new documents to defend the president. but that did not happen. it became very clear to me that the president's closest advisors could not speak to the president's innocence. and his lawyers did everything in their power to prevent them from testifying under oath. no one in this country is above the law, no one, not even the president. if someone is accused of a crime and they have witnessed that could clear them of any wrongdoing, they would want those witnesses to testify. in fact, not only would they welcome it, they would insist on it. all we need to do is use some common sense. the fact that the president refuses to have his closest advisors testify tells me that he is afraid of what they will say. the president's conduct is unacceptable for any official, let alone the leader of our country. our nation's founders feared unchecked and unlimited power by

the president. they rebelled against an abusive monarch with unlimited power. they were careful students of history. they knew unchecked power would destroy a democratic republic. they were especially fearful of unchecked executive and specifically granted congress the power of impeachment to check a president who thought of themselves as above the law. two years ago i had the privilege of participating in an annual bipartisan senate tradition, reading president george washington's farewell address to the senate. in that address, president washington warned that unchecked power, the rise of partisan factions and foreign influence, if left unchecked, would undermine our young nation and allow for the rise of a demagogue. he warned that we could become so divided and so entrenched in

the beliefs of our particular partisan group that, quote -- and i quote -- cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the rainn of government. i am struck by the contrast of where we are today and where our founders were more than 200 years ago. george washington was the ultimate rock star of our time and beloved. when he announced he would leave the presidency and return to mount vernon, people begged him to stay. there was a call to make him a king, and he said, no. he reminded folks that he had just fought against a monarch so the american people could enjoy the liberties of a free people. george washington, a man of integrity and an american hero, refused to be anointed king when it was offered to him by his

adoring countrymen. he chose a republic over a monarchy. but tomorrow, by refusing to hold president trump accountable for his abuses, republicans in the senate are offering him unbiedled -- unbridled power and he will gleefully cease that. a vote against the articles of impeachment will set a dangerous precedent and will be used by future presidents to act with impunity. given what we know, that the president abused his power in office by attempting to extort a foreign government to interfere with an american election, that he willfully obstructed justice at every turn and his actions run counter to our nation's most cherished and fundamental values, it is clear that the president betrayed the trust of the american public placed in

him to execute his constitutional sponts. this betrayal is, by definition, a high crime and misdemeanor. if it does not rise to the level of impeachment an removal, i am not sure what would. the senate has a constitutional responsibility to hold him accountable. if we do not stand up an defend our democracy during this fragile period, we will be allowing the president and future presidents to have unchecked power. this is not what our founders intended. the oath i swore to protect and defend the constitution demands that i vote to preserve the future of our republic. i will faithfully execute my oath and vote to hold this president accountable for his actions. madam president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island is recognized. mr. whitehouse: is the senate presently in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. whitehouse: may i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: and may i say that it is a pleasure to speak to the senate with the new senator from georgia presiding for the first time at least that i've had this occasion. well, here we are. the impeachment outcome is settled as it was from day one. in my view the facts are clear. the conduct impeachable and the obstruction unprecedented. in my view this impeachment process ran into a partisan wa wall. and the senate's part was to deny the american people the most basic elements of a fair

trial, witnesses and evidence. alexander hamilton years ago warned us of what he called the greatest danger in impeachments. quote, that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. end quote. in my view that danger has met us. as a boy i often sang a hymn with the stanza that to every man at nation comes a moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood for the good or evil side. in my view the senate chose the wrong side. we are obviously going to disagree about a lot here so let me focus on two thoughts that

perhaps we can agree on. one is that what we have done here should carry little weight as precedent. politics cast very long shadows over this proceeding. this was not our finest hour by any stretch and much of what was said and done here should not be repeated let alone treated as precedent. i hope history treats this episode as an aberration, not a precedent. too many things that are right and proper had to be bent or broken to get to the preordained result. and too much of what was said by white house counsel was not only wrong but disgraceful. the presentation in this chamber by white house counsel was

characterized by smarminess, smear, outright misstatement and various dishonest rhetorical tricks that i doubt they would dare pull before judges. knowing that we were a captive and silent audience, knowing the outcome was predetermined in their favor, and grandstanding for a tv audience, particularly an audience of one, they delivered a performance that leaves a stain on the pages of the senate record. perhaps there will be consequences for some of their conduct in our chamber. i ask that my further remarks on this subject be attached as an appendix to this statement. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: so enough of my professional disgust with their performance but let us agree that this out not be precedent. let us also agree on something

else. there is one particular argument the white house made that we should trample, discard, and put out in the trash. the notion that a united states district court can supervise our senate impeachment proceeding. i truly hope we can agree on this. as a court of impeachment, we are constituted at the founders' command. the chief justice presided in that seat at the founders' command. we convened as a body at the founders' command. and at the founders' command, the senate, the senate has the sole power to try all impeachments. every sing natural from the constitution -- signal from the constitution directs that we try impeachments and no part of the

senate's power to do so is conferred anywhere else in the government. it's on us. the president's counsel proposed that they may interrupt the senate's trial of impeachment, delay the senate's trial of impeachment. in order to go down the street to the united states district court to litigate our trial determinations about evidence and privilege, determinations in our proceeding. there are three arguments against that proposition. the most obvious one is the constitution. the constitution puts the trial in the hands of the senate sitting as a court of impeachment and makes no mention of any role for any court to supervise or pass on the senate's conduct of this trial. it is simply not in the

constitution. the second argument is the improbability, the improbability that the founders would convene the united states senate as a court of impeachment. bring the managers of the united states house of representatives every here to present their charges. put the chief justice of the united states supreme court into that chair to preside over the trial. give the senate the sole power to try the impeachment and then allow a defendant to run down the street to a district judge and interrupt the proceedings? that idea is contrary to common sense as well as constitutional order. the impeachment provisions of the constitution were adopted by the founders in 1787 after that long, hot summer. and ratified with the constitution in 1788.

the judiciary act establishing lower courts did not pass until 1789. it is hard to imagine that the founders meant the proceedings and determinations of our senate court of impeachment to be subject to the oversight of a judge down the road from us whose office did not even exist at the time. the founders in the constitution put this squarely on us. no one else is mentioned. it is our sole power. it is the duty of the chief justice under the constitution to preside over this trial. it is his duty to make appropriate rulings, and it is on us to live with that -- unless, as we may, we choose to overrule the chief justice as a body by recorded vote and live with that. we run this trial.

the senators, the senate. no one else. we are responsible to the people of the united states to run this trial. we were trusted by the founders to live up to those responsibilities. when we sit as a court of impeachment, it is all on us. the founders put it squarely on us, and we took that job when we took our oaths. that means we control the trial rulings, the timing, the evidence determinations, and the privileges we will accept. we can accept the rulings of the chief justice or we can reverse them, but it's our job. previous impeachments record the senate making just such rulings.

never -- never has the senate referred such a ruling to a court. indeed, in walter nixon v. united states, reported at 506 u.s. 224, a 19923 decision, the supreme court held that federal courts have no power to review procedures used by the senate in trying impeachments, that it was a non-justicable question and that to question the decision, the judiciary and the supreme court in particular were not chosen to have any role in impeachments. the supreme court in that decision even foresaw the delays that white house counsel threatened us with and saw them as an argument against any

judicial role. the court said, and i quote here, opening the door of judicial review to the procedures used by the senate in trying impeachments would expose the political life of the country to months or perhaps years of chaos, end quote. and the court immediately went on to particularly highlight that concern with respect to the impeachment of a president. it would have been nice if white house counsel, when they were in this chamber arguing for their threatened delays, would have addressed this supreme court decision. the constitution, common sense, and our impeachment precedents all put the responsibility for a senate trial of impeachment squarely on us.

we should not -- we should never shirk that responsibility. this has been a sad and sordid moment for the senate. it has done harm enough. let it not provide any credit to this false white house argument, and let this not be precedent for future presidential misconduct. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota is recognized. ms. smith: this morning i let minnesotans know that i will vote to remove president donald trump from office, and i rise today because on this historic vote, i want minnesotans to understand why and where i think

we go from here. so i was reluctant to go down the path of impeachment. while i strongly disagree with the president on many issues, i see impeachment as a last resort, and i feared that leaping to impeachment would only serve to drive us even further into our political corners. this changed when i read the whistle-blower report, which alleged nothing less than the president's corrupt abuse of power, an abuse that had the potential to undermine our elections in 2020. for me,this left no choice but for the house to fully investigate these allegations. and when the house sent the two articles of impeachment to the senate, it became my job to do impartial justice according to the constitution and the law. and i take that oath as seriously as anything i have ever done. this impeachment trial has been about whether the president's corrupt abuse of power, power

that he used for his own personal political benefit while betraying the trust, is a high crime and misdemeanor as defined by the founders of our constitution. i believe that it is. and i also believe that to condone up-to-behavior such as this -- and i also believe that to condone corrupt behavior such as this undermines the values of the nation, that no one is above the law, including and most especially the president. over the past several weeks, i have listened carefully to hundreds of hours of presentations and questions and answers and read thousands of pages of documents. and through it all the facts underlying the case against the president were never really refuted. the president, working through his personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, withheld ukrainian security assistance and a prestigious meeting in the white

house in an effort to persuade president zelensky to announce that he was investigating joe biden and the theory that ukraine investigated in our 2016 elections. in order to improve his prospects for election, trump directed that vital assistance be withheld until ukraine announced investigations into a baseless conspiracy theory that originated as russian propaganda. he only released the aid when he was found out. and then when the house sought to investigate these actions, the trump white house categorically blocked any and all subpoenas for documents and witnesses. no u.s. president has ever categorically rejected the power of congress to investigate and do oversight of the executive branch -- not nixon, not clinton. this obstruction fractures the balance of power between the legislative and executive branch. how can our constitutional system work if we allow the

president to decide if and how congress can investigate the president's misconduct? it can't. if we say that the president can decide when he cooperates with a congressional investigation, we are saying that he is above the law. while evidence of the president's wrongdoing is substantial, i advocated every way i could fora trial that would be fair for both sides, which means hearing from witnesses with direct knowledge of the president's actions. i am greatly disappointed that almost all of my republican colleagues in the senate abandoned the historical bipartisan precedent of hearing from witnesses in every senate impeachment trial. ultimately, when so many people know the truth of what happened here, the complete truth will come out. yet the senate abandons its responsibilities when it blocked efforts to get the complete

truth here in this chamber. as a result, there will be a permanent cloud over these proceedings. the president may be acquitted, but without a fair trial, he cannot claim to be exonerated. the core question of this impeachment trial is this -- do we say that it is okay for the president to use his office to advance his personal political interests while ignoring or damaging the public good? and nigh answer is no -- and my answer is no. corrupting soliciting a foreign government to interfere in our elections and to announce an investigation to damage a political rival and an american citizen at the expense of free and fair elections and our national security -- that is the definition of an abuse of power. this is what alexander hamilton was talking about when he wrote that impeachment proceedings should concern, quote, the abuse or violation of some public trust. now, some have argued that what

the president did is wrong but his conduct does not rise to the level of impeachment. they agree that the president used his power to secure an unfair advantage in our elections. but think that abuse of power -- this abuse of power isn't that bad, it isn't bad enough to remove him from office. it is that bad. trump's abuse of power are grave offenses that threaten the constitutional balance of power and the core value that no, especially the president -- that no one, especially the president, is above the law. the president's abuse of power undermines the integrity of our next election and call into question whether our elections will be free and fair. his abuses of power damage national security by undermining the moral stature of united states as a trusted ally and as a fighter against corruption. for me, one of the saddest moments of this trial was the testimony from american diplomats who urged ukrainian leaders not to engage in political investigations.

according to the testimony, the ukrainians responded by saying, in effect, do you mean like the investigations you're asking us to do with the bidens and the clintons? some have said that we should wait and let the american people decide in the next election only months away, but when the president has solicited foreign nations to influence our elections with disinformation and has prevented the american people from hearing a full and fair accounting of that effort, our duty to defend the constitution requires that we act now. a vote to remove the president from office protects our next election. when leader mcconnell refuses to allow the senate to consider election security legislation and when the president shows no remorse and says publicly that he is ready to do it again, we have no choice but to act. when the president says that the constitution allows him to do

whatever he wants, congress must act. the president's conduct is a threat to our elections and our national security. what's more, if we fail to check this president, future presidents may be emboldened to pursue even more shameless schemes. lots of countries have high-minded constitutions full of powerful words and strong enunciations of rights that don't really mean anything. as house manager adam schiff pointed out, russia has a constitution like this. but our constitution is different. it is not some dry historic document that we keep behind glass in a museum. it is the big idea of our system of government that no one is above the law and people, not monarchs, are the source of power. everything -- everything flows from this great idea, realized in the lives of minnesotans who every day seek the freedom and

the opportunities they need to build the lives that they want. there is nothing inevitable about democracy. it's not a natural state. it's a state that we have to fight for. the fight for democracy and our constitution has chosen us in this moment, and it is our job to rise to this moment. after the senate vote, the work of reinforcing the american values of fairness and justice will continue. we have a lot of work to do. but democracy is hard work. and i know that minnesotans are up to it. the truth is that i see more signs of common ground and hope and determination in minnesota than i do the fractures of division and distrust and partisanship, and that is a foundation for us all to build on going forward. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor.

mr. paul: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: the great irony of the last several weeks in the impeachment trial is that the democrats accused the president of using his governmental office to go after his political opponent. the irony is they then used the

impeachment process to go after their political opponent. in fact, as you look at the way it unfolded, they admitted as much. as the impeachment proceedings unfolded, they said we didn't have time for witnesses, we had to get it done before christmas because we wanted it done and ready to go for the election. we had to get it done, the entire process needed to be completed before the election. they didn't have time for the process. they didn't have time for due process. they didn't have time for the president to call his own witnesses or cross-examine their witnesses. the great irony is they did exactly what they accused the president of. they used the government and the government's process to go after their political opponent. what is the evidence that is partisan? they didn't convince one republican. not one elected republican decided that any of their arguments were valid or that the president should be impeached. they made it into a sham.

they made it into a political process because they didn't like the results of the election. when did this start? did the impeachment start with a phone call to the ukrainian president? no, the impeachment and the attacks on the president started six months before he was elected. we had something truly devastating to our republic happen. we had, for the first time in our history, a secret court decide to investigate a campaign. at the time when those of us who criticized this secret court for spying on the trump campaign, they said, oh, it's just a conspiracy theory, none of this is happening. there's no there there. but now that we've investigated it, guess what. the fisa court admits they were lied to. the f.b.i. has been proven to have lied 17 times. we've got a half a dozen people at the top level of our intelligence community who have

admitted to having extreme bias. you've got peter stock and lisa paige talking about taking down the president, having an insurance policy about him succeeding and becoming president. you've got clapper. you remember james clapper. the one who came to the senate and when asked by senator wyden, are you storing, are you gathering information from americans by the millions and storing it on government computers, james clapper said no. he lied to congress. nobody chose to impeach him, but he lied to congress and committed a felony. is he in jail? no, he's making millions of dollars as a contributor on television now using and peddling his national security influence for dollars after having committed a felony and lying to us. these are the people who plotted to bring the president down. these are the people who continue to blot to bring the

president -- plot to bring the president down. before all of this started, i was a contradict of the secret courts, i was a critic of fisa, i was a critic of them abusing civil liberties, i was a critic of them invading our privacy, recording the lengths of our phone calls, who we talked to. sometimes recording conversations. all of this done supposedly to go after terrorists, but americans by the millions are caught up in this web. for the first time it is not just american self-liberties being abiewd -- abused, it is the entire campaign. men are not arrangeles. that's why we have restrictions on government. we can't allow secret courts to investigate campaigns. this started before the election. it went on for the last three years through the mueller investigation. they thought they had the

president and they would bring him down through investigation. so initially the spying didn't work, mueller investigation didn't work, they went seamlessly into the impeachment. the question for the american public is will they go on, will they start up hearings in the house that will be partisan hearings again? i suspect they will. they've had their day in the sun and loved it and i think they will do it time and time and time again. now, during the proceedings i asked a question that was disallowed and i'm going to ask that question again this morning because the constitution does protect debate and does protect the asking of questions. i think they made a big mistake not allowing my question. my question did not talk about anybody who was a whistle-blower. my question did not accuse of anybody being a whistle-blower it did not make a statement believing someone was a whistle-blower. i simply named two people's names because i think it's very important to know what happened.

we're now finding out that the fisa investigation was predicated upon 17 times by people at high levels bias against the president and it turns out it was an illegitimate investigation. everything they did about investigating the president was untrue and abused government to do something they never should have done in the first place. so i asked this question, and this is my question. my exact question. we'll put it up here. are you aware that the house intelligence committee staffer, sean misko, had a close relationship with eric ciarmella when at the national security council together, and are you aware and how do you respond to the reports that ciaramell a&m isko may have worked together to plot impeaching the president. why did i ask?

there are two people, one who worked with adam schiff and one who worked with the person at the national security council that they knew each other and had been overheard talking about impeaching the president in the first month in office. in january 2017, they were already plotting the impeachment. you say, well, we should protect the whistle-blower, and the whistle-blower deserves anonymity. he does not. he's not supposed to be fired. i'm for that. but when you get into the details about talking about whistle-blowers, there's a variety of opinions around here. the greatest whistle-blower in american history in all likelihood was edward snowden. what do people want to do with him? half the people want to put him to death and the other half want to put him in jail forever. it depends on who you blow the whistle on. i'm not for retributions for the whistle-blower.

i don't want him to go to jail. i don't want him to lose his job. but if six people who all worked together at the national security council knew each other and gamed the system knowing they would get these protections, they gamed the system in order to try to bring down the president, we should know about that. if they had extreme bias going into the impeachment, we should know about that. so i think the question is an important one, and i think beshould -- we should get to the bottom of it. we were plotting to bring down -- were people plotting to bring down the president? were they plotting during the election, were they plotting to bring down the president? you've got two vindman brothers who know eric ciaramela who also know sean misk oorched two other people working on adam schiff's staff and adam schiff throws his hands up and says, i don't know who the whistle-blower is.

i never met him. i have no idea who he is. if he doesn't know who he is, how does the chief justice of the united states know who the whistle-blower is. i have no independent confirmation as to who the whistle-blower is. how am i prevented from asking a question when nobody seems to admit they even know who this person is? my point is by having such protection, such overzealous protection, we don't get to the bottom of it. when the intelligence community with all of the power to listen to every phone conversation you have has political bias and can game the system to go after you, as it real worry. it's a real worry that they spied on the president but what if you're an average ordinary american or a supporter of president trump or a republican or conservative? are we not concerned that secret courts could allow for warrants

to listen to your phone calls to tap into your e-mails to read your text messages? i'm very concerned about that. so we're going to have this discussion go on. it isn't really about the whistle-blower so much, it's about reforming government. it's about limiting the power of what they can do with secret courts. i think fisa court, the fisa court should be restricted from ever investigating campaigns. if you think a campaign has done something wrong, call the f.b.i., go to a regular court where judges get to appear on both sides and if you want to subpoena somebody or tap the phone, all right. we can do it. but it's got to be an extraordinary thing. think about it. think about the danger. the other side said there's danger to democracy. think about the danger to democracy with letting your government tap the phones of people you disagree with politically. i don't care whether it's republican or democrat. weep cannot allow the

intelligence community, secret courts like the fisa court to go after political campaigns. and i mean that sincerely. republican or democrat. we need to change the rules. we cannot have secret courts trying to reverse the elections. i feel very strongly about this. i was for this reform before donald trump ever came on the scene, before any of this happened. i've been for having more significant restrictions on these secret courts, more significant restrictions on the intelligence community to make sure they don't abuse the rights of americans. this is a big deal and if we're going to get something good out of this, if there's going to be some positive aspect to have having -- to having to go through this nightmare we have been through the last several months or years now, the -- the blessing in disguise here would we be actually reform the system so this never happens to anyone else ever again. thank you, and i yield back.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mrs. fischer: i have two requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mrs. fischer: mr. president, i rice to voas my opposition to --

rise to voice my opposition to the articles of impeachment. i want the people of nebraska to know how and why. i took an oath to uphold the constitution and i have a responsibility to be an impartial juror during the trial. i have given fair consideration to the evidence prenld during this -- presented during the trial and engaged in the questioning process. this is a process that should be about facts and fairness, and that's what the senate has done its very best to do. but the reality is that the house of representatives didn't do its job. under the constitution and by precedent, the impeachment investigation is the responsibility of the house, not the senate. hearings in the house inquiry during the nixon impeachment investigation lasted for 14

months. the clinton impeachment house inquiry relied on years of prior investigation and overwhelming amounts of testimony from firsthand witnesses. president trump's inquiry in the house was deeply partisan and it lasted only 12 weeks. disturbingly, there was a lack of due process during this house investigation. the president was not allowed to have his lawyers cross-examine witnesses at the house intelligence committee hearings and depositions. this is the committee that was the lead on the investigative hearings. shockingly, the president of the united states was prevented from participating in the house's impeachment for 71 of the 78 days of investigation.

our founding document protects the rights of the accused. the constitution explicitly states that no one should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. our blueprint for freedom protects all individual rights, whether that person is a truck driver, a farmer, a businesswoman, or the president of the united states. the third branch of government, our court system, is of foundational importance, and we have it for a reason. that reason is to provide every american with the opportunity to have justice in a fair way in accordance with the constitution and the rule of law. but because house democrats were in a rush to impeach the president before their holiday

break, they decided to abandon the courts completely. it was the house's constitutional right to subpoena witnesses. it was the president's constitutional right to assert privilege. and it was the courts' constitutional right to enforce subpoenas. the house did not petition the court to enforce subpoenas. short circuiting the process led to an incomplete investigation by the house. article 1, section 3 of the constitution provides that the senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. if the senate were to become the factfinder in an impeachment investigation, it would completely change the role of the senate from this point

forward. this hallowed chamber, the world's greatest deliberative body in the world, it would become an investigative arm of the house. setting this precedent would have a devastating effect on our political institution. transforming the very nature of the senate during impeachment hearings for generations to come. the senate is supposed to conduct a fair trial, protect the constitution, and guarantee due process of law. my republican colleagues and i understand the gravity of these proceedings. the record shows that president clinton's impeachment trial was met with a motion filed by senator byrd to mismiss -- to dismiss the articles of impeachment early on. this time not a single senator filed such a motion. we approached this process with the seriousness it deserves.

senate republicans supported a resolution that gave the house managers more than ample time to lay out their case. since then we've heard an extraordinary amount of information over the last two weeks. the house managers presented 191 video clips with testimony from 13 witnesses and submitted more than 28,000 pages of documents. senators then submitted 180 questions. after two weeks of trial argument, the house managers failed to make a compelling case that the president should be removed from office. therefore, i will vote for the president's acquittal. i firmly believe it is time for the senate to move forward and return to the people's business. it's time to refocus our attention on our bipartisan work

providing for our service members, caring for our veterans, funding research to cure diseases that cut short too many lives, fighting the opioid addiction, and improving our criminal justice system. so i speak to nebraskans and all americans in urging every senator in this chamber to have the courage, the heart, and the vision to move past this process and work together towards a brighter future for generations to come. that should be our mindset at this pivotal moment. that should be our mindset in everything we do. i urge my colleagues to take the long view and fulfill our constitutional role. let's reunite around our common

goals and our values. let's bring this process to an end and advance policies that will make life better for nebraskans and better for all americans. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mrs. capito: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to discuss why i will be voting to acquit president trump on both articles of impeachment tomorrow afternoon. our constitution makes clear that only a particularly grave act, treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors would justify a senate voting to reverse the will of the people and the voters and remove from office the person they chose to lead this nation. besides making clear just how

serious an offense needs to be in order to warrant impeachment, our founding document allows the president to remain in office unless two-thirds of our body, the senate, votes for impeachment. that to me underscores the need for a national consensus that runs across partisan lines for undoing an election. the senate has never in our history removed a president from office following an impeachment trial. and our founding fathers recognized that impeachment should not be used as a blunt partisan instrument. president trump was duly elected by the people of this country president of the united states in 2016. nothing that i have heard in this process has come close to providing a reason that would justify me voting to overturn the choice made by nearly half a million west virginians and tens of millions of other americans

and even further, even further to remove him from the ballot in 2020. there is no doubt that the house impeachment process was partisan, politically driven, and denied president trump some of his most basic rights of due process. at the same time, the product that was brought to our chamber was obviously flimsy, rushed, and contained incomplete evidence. time and again the house managers demanded that we do things here in the senate that they neglected to do themselves during their house proceedings, such as calling witnesses which they refused to call the witnesses that they were now asking us to bring forward. regardless of the failings of the house managers, it is the senate's job and indeed our oath to do impartial justice. in keeping with that oath, i supported a trial process that was modeled after the senate's

precedent in 1999 when it received the approval with 100 senators. i'm glad that we conducted this trial under that process because i felt that it was fair to both sides. both the managers and the president's attorneys were given three full days in the senate to present their respective cases. and senators spent two full days, 16 hours asking questions and receiving answers from the party, and actually i found that very instructive. the senate heard testimony from witnesses in 192 video segments, some of them repetitive. and received more than 28,000 pages of documents. the house record which we received here in the senate included the testimony of 17 witnesses. so there were witnesses. the house brought the witness testimony into the senate. i keenly listened to these presentations with an open mind.

and i have concluded that the arguments and evidence do not provide me with the sufficient rationale for reversing the 2016 election as removing president trump from the ballot in 2020. that is especially true considering the partisan nature of this impeachment process. in the cases of president nixon and president clinton, there was significant support from house members of the president's party for opening impeachment inquiries. the impeachment inquiry into president nixon was supported by more than 400 members of the house, many of those overwhelming number of those, from his own party. and 31 house democrats voted to open an impeachment inquiry into their president, the democratic president, president clinton. by contrast in this case, not a single member of the president's party voted in the house of representatives to start an

impeachment inquiry or to adopt either article of impeachment against the president. many of the president's political opponents want and have wanted for years to have him removed from office while virtually no one in his own party supports this impeachment. we have a mechanism in this country for dealing with issues that divide along party lines. that mechanism is not impeachment or removal. that mechanism, quite simply, is an election, and we have one in nine months. so beginning yesterday -- we think -- and in nine months, we will have theceptor everyone desires -- the certainty everyone desires. and in the meantime, i am casting a no vote in this chamber tomorrow. i'm voting no on both of these articles, but you know what? i'm also going to do something else. i'm going to take this opportunity to rededicate myself to the principles that this

united states senate stands for. i'm going to take this opportunity to look at those principles and appreciate that these are the principles that are tied to making america better each and every day and together we can do this as republicans and democrats. during the impeachment process, republicans approached me -- west virginians approached me all the time, regardless of party, to ask why we were spending all of this time on a wasted process. they asked me questions like, why don't you just get on with the business of giving america the confidence that you're working ons things that we -- on the things that we care about? this is the butcher in the grocery store asked me this very question. our families, making our families and lives and jobs more permanent. when we rid ourselves of the shackles of politics, we can truly work together on issues like transportation, broadband, energy, ending the drug crisis,

or strengthening our military. these are the issues that affect all of us. these are the issues that transcend the day-to-day lives of all the people that we represent. they also transcend the day-to-day sound bites we hear from the constant, the constant barrage of both positive and negative media that we are so attuned to. no one has been served by this intense and at times sensationalized and very divisive proceeding. when we rid ourselves of the poisonous venom of partisan politics, we see more clearly. we know that we don't always agree. that's pretty clear. but we can certainly find common ground, and we do, as was envisioned by our founders. so let's all just take a deep breath, move on from here. let's listen to our better voices. those are the americans that we

help, who remind us every day how important our freedom and our futures are to the country and to the constitutional institutions that gird our values. we sure have work to do. the american public expects us to do better. we should expect that of ourselves. and after these wayward few weeks, there is no question we will need to rebuild that confidence. you know? i'm in this for the long haul, as i know the president of the as soon as -- the president of the senate is. the one where west virginians see better days ahead for them, the one where west virginians, texans and americans who drive to work every day hear the congress is doing is their job. they were sent to congress to deliver results, to rise above our own parties and make life

better. i've always been humbled by the confidence that has been placed in me by my fellow west virginians. it is truly an honor to serve and it is one that comes with great responsibility. we need to roll up our sleeves and stop the bickering and deliver. i'm looking at a lot of young people here in the hall of the senate, and i'm thinking, we got to do better for you all. that's where our future lies. so you know i'm an eternal optimist. always have been. but i'm optimistic that we can find the solutions that move our country forward. sure, there are going to be differences of opinion. there will probably be some harsh and sharp words a long the way and ditches in our philosophies -- and differences in our philosophies. but americans expect we bridge those gaps. it is going to take a lot of hard but i am ready for the challenge, and i hope you will join me. thank you. i yield back..

mr. roberts: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. roberts: i'm assuming we are in a situation where i should say i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: we are not in a quorum call. mr. roberts: so i may begin, mr. president? the presiding officer: yes. mr. roberts: thank you. mr. president, tomorrow on this floor the senate will reconvene again as a court to vote on two articles of impeachment against president trump. now, after performing my due diligence, along with many others, and considering all assertions by the house and senate managers, i believe the president should be acquitted from both charges.

i do not believe that removal from office is warranted, especially during an election year. i, like everyone in this body, listened to 12 days of debate with testimony -- heard testimony covering nearly 90 hours. i spent time with my fellow senators to reach a conclusion that was one, fair, two, met our constitutional mandates and, three, would best serve our nation. now, i did not seek that responsibility, however, i have tried to carry it out to the best of my ability. as a senate major, i was asked to -- juror i was asked to weigh whether the articles of impeachment charging the president with obstruction and abuse had merit, and if two, if it rose to the level that

requires the president to be removed from office. again, during an election year. and like many of us, i am troubled by multiple factors. quite frankly, i am troubled with the house managers' demand that we in the senate fill in the gaps of their investigation and call more witnesses, something they failed to execute themselves. the job of the senate is to be an honest jury, if you will, and not take up the role of prosecutor or prosecution. nonetheless, after hearing how managers' statements, it was clear this is exactly the role they insisted that we do. i am troubled that countless times the house managers made senators feel as if we were the ones on trial. i believe that house managers

were both incorrect and demanding, constantly stating that senators had no choice but to agree with their line of reasoning, and if we did not, then we would deal with the consequences. a veiled threat yet to be defined. now, look, i served in the house 16 years. 12 years before that i was a chief of staff for a house millimeter. i know the house. i truly enjoyed my service there. but you don't come to the senate and point fingers at senate members and have the insinuation that we are on trial if we do not do the right thing as they have concluded. enough of that. additionally my top concern was

what precedence would be set for future presidents and their expectations of privacy in conversation with their advisors. not to mention the future with regards of this situation once again with our nation finding itself in a whirlpool of partisan impeachment. i've been most troubled that the house managers have not put cause before personal animus. i -- i -- i would think back in the day perhaps, mr. president, that they had a bearable, like a -- barrel, like a rain barrel, to catch the excess water off of the roof. i know we had one in dodge city, it's flowing over with animus. we need to get back to our

business. i deeply regret that. as has been stated frequently, alexander hamilton described it best, the charges against the president will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or amen being aable to the to the accused. in many cases it will deck itself with the preexisting factions and will elicit all parties, and in such cases there will always be the danger to the nation that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties than by the real demonstration over innocence and guilt. i don't know how many senators, for that matter, the distinguished professor from

harvard, professor dershowitz said that over and over again. unfortunately, the warning of alexander hamilton and our founders have come to fruition today. it is infectious and harming our ability to function as a united states senate where the threads of comity are already getting frayed. in this regard i appreciated yesterday when the white house counsel showed clips of major bills important to the american people that we have done in a bipartisan fashion despite the animus in the senate. especially highlighting something called the farm bill where we achieved 86 votes with the support, by the way, of the distinguished president. we don't always agree on every issue on the ag committee, but we can get together and

accomplish great thing for america and we did that, along with senator stabenow. we are the least distinguished committee in the body. that is what we do on behalf of our farmers, ranchers, growers, and everybody throughout rural small town america, and we had to get it done. just what the white house has done on a number of occasion, we used threats of comity to get these things done. so i ask, has president trump's actions risen to the level envisioned by our founding fathers in the constitution as high crimes and misdemeanors, warranting removal from office? our constitution requires that the threshold for that judgment must be set by each senator sitting as a juror. all of us in this senate have concerns about the direction of

this country -- concerns about the direction this country is heading. but let me just stress that we have come through time and time again through dark times. these are not the worst of times. when i first arrived here as chief of staff for senator frank carlson, it was within weeks that we had the tragedy of the assassination of martin luther king. washington was burning, marines were on the capitol steps. that was tough. vietnamer to the -- tore the country apart, so did iran contra. # this nation -- this nation was hn placed in jeopardy again. the house managers are in a situation the framers were trying to avoid, the remarks of alexander hamilton, as they revise the impeachment mechanism

to remove a sitting president. however, as we did back then, we will once again come together. as i said, these are not the worst of times and we have always pulled it together. we are a strong nation because we have strong people. we are a strong nation because it is in our nature to work together even as we disagree among ourselves. so i have made my choice very clear. and my plea is let us restore the threads comity in this distinguished body. work together. we must. we will emerge strong because we will. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president.

the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. hoeven: mr. president, i rise today regarding the impeachment of president trump. the senate has listened for more than two weeks as the house managers and president's counsel presented their cases. testimony from 17 witnesses gathered as part of the house investigation were made part of the senate record. over the course of two days senators asked 180 questions from the house managers and the white house counsel. the senate took its constitutional duty very seriously. after carefully listening to the house managers, president's counsel, reviewing the documents, and testimony and asking questions, it is clear to me that the house should not have impeached president trump and the senate should vote to acquit the president. the house process did not provide the president with important due process rights.

on the other hand, the senate trial was conducted using past precedent of the clinton trial as the framework. at the start of the senate trial, the senate agreed that the house evidence could be admitted into the record. we provided ample opportunity for both the house managers and white house counsel to make their arguments and ensured that senators had substantial time to ask their questions. as i said, in fact, senators asked 180 questions over two full days and received lengthy answers from both, and detailed answers from both president's counsel and the house managers. the american public has seen the transcript of the call between president trump and president zelensky. president zelensky has said on several occasions that he did not feel pressure to do anything in return for the security assistance. further, the military aid was provided to ukraine without any

investigations being conducted. given these facts, the house's allegations do not rise to the level of an impeach annual offense. our founding -- peachable offense. our founding fathers feet that impeachment should not be used as a partisan. it should be up to the american people to decide who will lead the country. we need to put this impeachment behind us. we need to get back to work advancing measures to help improve the lives of americans. these legislative priorities delayed while the house and senate focused its attention on partisan impeachment, colluding important items like addressing our nation's infrastructure, lowering prescription drug costs, providing middle-class tax relief, supporting our military and veterans, upholding our trust and securing our borders, and continuing to fight

for our farmers and our ranchers. these should all be areas where we can work together on a bipartisan basis for the american people. with these important priorities in mind, i look forward to getting back to work for the american people. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. reed: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from -- mr. menendez: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: i rise today as an unwavering believer in the checks and balances laid out by the framers of our constitution with three coequal branches of government at times working with each other and at times working as a check against each other. it is this system of checks and balances that safeguards our republic against tyranny and ensures that our government by the people, for the people as abraham lincoln said does not perish from the earth. my colleagues, what the facts of this trial have shown and what every member of this body knows

is that president trump did exactly what the house has accused him of and these two articles of impeachment, abusing his power and obstructing congress. these articles strike at the very heart of a republic ruled not by men but by laws an the very notion of a government elected by and for the people. i took my constitutional oath to do impartial justice seriously. i came to the trial with an open mind. i listened to both sides. i waited for the facts to persuade me. but in all the many hours i sat through this trial, not once did i hear the president's team make a compelling defense. instead i heard a damning case from the house managers detailing how president trump's subverted our national security and solicited foreign interference in our election for his own personal political benefit. the facts show the president used u.s. security assistance and an official white house meeting, two of ukraine's

highest priorities, not to advance our national security but rather his own 2020 reelection effort. and in so doing, he violated the law known as the impoundment control act that undermined congress' constitutional authority. as a ranking member of the senate foreign relations committee, i want to make something clear. when a foreign adversary like russia interferes in our elections, it is not for the benefit of the united states. it is for the benefit of russia. the united states provides foreign assistance to countries all over the world because it benefits america's interests. we help ukraine in their fight against russian aggression because it is the right thing to do for our national security. but when u.s. officials tell ukraine that in order to get the oval office meeting their president wants and the security assistance it urgently needs, their government must first announce investigation into president trump's political opponents. that's not advancing our

national security. that's corrupting it. that's forcing a foreign country to choose between their own security and getting perversely involved in another country's elections. when we use u.s. foreign assistance as a political pawn, we weaken our standing and credibility in the world. ukraine needed our help. and yet when it sought our military assistance instead of sending it right away, the president of the united states said, well, i'd like you to do us a favor though. the damaging of that message cannot be undone. and if we don't hold this president accountable, then we are saying it's okay to do it again. i fear the consequences of the president's actions and i fear the consequences of our own inaction. not just for today or this year but for years to come when we have to explain to our allies trust us, we'll be there, or when we tell the american people trust us, we're doing this in the name of u.s. national

security. or when we press other countries about strengthening the rule of law and holding free and fair elections. if we do not rein in this conduct, if we do not call it the abuse of power that it is, then we have failed to live up the ideals of our republic. and i fear we have already let the american people and our constitution down by failing to hold a fair trial. there's no american across this country who would call a trial without witnesses and documents a fair trial. they would call it a sham. and by refusing witnesses and documents, the senate is complicit in the president's obstruction of congress, the essence of the house's second article of impeachment. the house had a constitutional prerogative to conduct an impeachment and oversight investigation. yet president trump engaged in unprecedented obstruction in order to cover up his misconduct by blocking witnesses with

firsthand knowledge, by denying access to any documents, by publicly disparaging and threatening, threatening those with the courage to defy his orders and testify publicly. by casting aside a coequal branch of government as if we can really do as he himself has said whatever he wants. when a president tries to extort a foreign government for his own political aims and in doing so ignores the law and the constitution, the only remedy can be that which our framers gave us, impeachment and remov removal. the framers knew this day would come. they knew the threat of an executive who welcomed or solicited foreign interference in our elections is real. what the framers of our constitution never could have imagined is that there would come a day when the united states senate would shrink in the face of a president who would behave like a king, not out of principle but out of willful ignorance and blind

party loyalty. our failure to conduct a fair trial cast doubt on the very verdict rendered by this body. this is not an exoneration of a president. it is the coronation of a king. i believe that the day we fail to remove this president will go down in history as a day of constitutional infamy. it will be remembered as a dark day for our democracy, for our national security, and for our constitutional order. i ask my colleagues, what future damage will we enable if this body says that it's okay for a president to subvert our national security interests and solicit foreign interference in our elections. what will be left of our system of checks and balances if there are no consequences for obstructing investigations, blocking witnesses, and withholding evidence from congress? if we do not remove this president, can we pull ourselves back to a place where the rule of law matters? how much more shredding of the

constitution as a nation can we possibly endure? we already know president trump thinks he can go to war without a congressional authorization. he believes he can misuse congressionally appropriated funds for whatever he wants, like taking billions from the department of defense to spend on a border wall that every day proves to be a colossal waste. and through it all the compliant and complicit majority has further emboldened this president by eliminating the 60-vote threshold for judges and the goliath role of which we serve as a check on vast executive power. if the senate is prepared to say that this president and all future presidents of either party can misuse congressionally appropriated funding to extract political favors from a foreign power, can deny all witnesses, can withhold all relevant documents, can openly threaten

ambassadors, career public servants and members of congress, if a president can commit all of these gross abuses of power as he were above the law, then the very essence of our democracy is broken and what we must ask ourselves is what is left. what is left of our constitution if we're not prepared to defend it? what is left other than lawlessness? we need republicans of conscience and character to say more than just, yes, the president did it and it was wrong. we need our republican colleagues to be intellectually honest. we need them to speak the truth and say it's impeachable so we can mount a bipartisan defense of the constitution and all that america stands for. i for one am prepared to defend our constitution. i will vote guilty on the articles of impeachment not because of loyalty to any party, not because of how it will or won't play in any upcoming election. i will vote for impeachment and removal not because i hate this

president, because i don't, but because i love our country more. i took an october to uphold the constitution. and with this vote i intend to do so. with that, madam president, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. markey: madam president, i thank you. over the course of this trial, we have heard nothing less than a blistering, scalding indictment of president trump's conduct. the house managers put forward a

compelling, indeed overwhelming case that donald trump engaged in impeachable conduct. he withheld both congressionally approved eight to our ally ukraine and an oval office meeting desperately sought by ukraine's new president, two official acts in exchange for personal favors that would benefit him politically. trump sought an announcement by ukraine, a baseless investigation into bogus corruption allegations against joe biden whom donald trump most feared as an opponent in the 2020 presidential election. he also wanted ukraine to announce an investigation into the discredited and debunked conspiracy theory that ukraine, not russia, interfered in the 2016 presidential election. at every turn donald trump refused to cooperate with and actively obstructed congress' investigation into his wrongdoing. his obstruction was in the words

of the articles of impeachment, quote, unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate. i listened carefully to the president's lawyers as they presented their defense case. like my lawyers, i took pains of notes -- pages of notes. my colleagues were very patiently trying to hear each argument that was being made by the defense counsel. i took notes. they took notes. and as i sat at this desk with the seriousness and sanctity of the proceedings thick in the air, i waited for the president's lawyers to rebut the avalanche of evidence against their client. and i waited and i waited. and at the end of the case, i was still waiting. and that's because the president's lawyers did nothing to rebut any of the facts in this case, nothing because they could not.

they knew what we all knew after we heard the house managers' case. donald trump did it. he did it. he did exactly what he was alleged to have done. he abused his power. he committed impeachable crimes. he's guilty. there's no question about it. no question at all. there is no doubt that president trump used his personal attorney, rudy giuliani, to solicit ukraine's interference in the 2020 ex-will. there is no doubt that president trump froze the $391 million in taxpayer dollars in ukraine security assistance that congress authorized and appropriated. there is no doubt that president trump conditioned the release of that aid on the ukrainian government's announcement of politically motivated investigations. there is no doubt that in a vul25, 20 -- july 25, 2019 phone call president trump directly solicited investigations from ukrainian president zelensky as

to partial transcript memorialize in his act -- and his acting white house chief of staff mick mulvaney admitted. flouses doubt that president trump released the aid to ukraine only after a patriot within the intelligence community blew the whistle on him and after several house committees announced a joint investigation into the president's coercive scheme. there is no doubt that the president directed and orchestrated a cover-up and the wholesale obstruction of congress' investigation into his wrongdoing. donald trump has shown no re, who no contrition, no recognition whatsoever that his conduct was wrong. instead, he has doubled down on his abuses, gaslighting us repeatedly with the assertion that his call with president zelensky was, quote, perfect, and by publicly urging ukraine and china to investigate his

political rivals. the question now before the united states senate is not what are the facts. we know the facts. no reasonable person can dispute them. no, the question for the senate is, what, in the pursuit of impartial justice, as our oaths require, must we do with these facts? to me, the answer is clear. we must vote to convict donald trump and remove him from office. all the evidence shows that he has committed impeachable offenses and is a clear and present danger to our democracy and our national security. but if we fail to remove donald trump from office, we are left with an equally consequential question -- what will prevent an acquitted donald trump from abusing his power again? we all know that the answer is nothing -- nothing will. that's the answer i received

from the house managers when i asked this question during the trial. in fact, we know that an acquittal will only embolden him. we know that donald trump's phone call with ukrainian president zelensky took place the day after special counsel mueller testified in the house of representatives. the special counsel found and explained in his house testimony that there was evidence of a criminal conspiracy between members of the trump campaign and russia, but the evidence was not sufficient to bring charges. robert mueller never said there was no evidence of such a conspiracy. there was evidence. it was merely insufficient for a prosecution. and we know that donald trump took this as a green light to invite further foreign interference in our elections, which he did the very next day. donald trump has no shame. he cannot help himself. if we acquit president trump, he

will believe himself to be accountable to no one. and when -- not if but when he is again faced with a choice between the public interest and his personal interest, he will choose his personal interest. and it will, in part, be a reckoning of our own making. a majority in this chamber will have made president trump a dictator. and then what will we tell the american people? how will we convince them that we still have a democracy that they should have faith in, a system of checks and balances that ensures accountability, that no one is above the law? this weekend i asked some of my constituents what they would say on the floor of the senate if they could make remarks in this trial. jennifer baker jones said it perfectly. quote, wednesday's vote won't be a vindication of trump but an end to the right of congress to

push back on the president. they are giving up their balance of power. it will be difficult because we have already ceded much of our authority and indeed betrayed the public's faith in us by the conduct of this trial. hope anderson in lowell, massachusetts, told me, we need to not only hold our leaders and ourselves accountable but seek 10 maintain and repair the public's trust. we're not here simply to protect one election in 2020. we're here to protect all elections. at the beginning of this trial, we each took an oath to do impartial justice. but then we held a trial without witnesses or documents. we moved to vote on the articles of impeachment without hearing from john bolton, a witness whose firsthand knowledge directly cuts the heart out of the president's case. without hearing from mick mulvaney, whose fingerprints are

all over this scheme, without the e-mails, texts, and other documents we know exist, writings that memorialize communications about the actions at issue here. a trial is a search for the truth. the full truth, the whole truth. that search for the truth requires hearing from relevant witnesses and seeing relevant documents so that the factfinders understand the entire story. by not pursuing this evidence, the senate, the factfinders, have told the american people that the truth does not matter. they deserve better from us. our constitution demands it. our democracy demands it. and i believe that the vast majority of my republican colleagues do understand what donald trump did here and know that it is very, very wrong. they know the house managers proved their case. some are even saying that out

loud. i believe that the vast majority of my republican colleagues recognize that abuse of power is an impeachable offense and that the president is not above the law, but, unfortunately, i also believe that they are simply too afraid of donald trump to do what they know is right. every senator needs to consider this question -- if what donald trump did here is not impeachable, extorting foreign interference in our free and fair elections and then covering it up, then what is impeachable? we have to have accountability. that is our duty. we cannot give future presidents carte blanche to tear down our constitution and interfere with free and fair elections, period. that has to be our standard. and i will end my remarks with the answer i got from my constituent, matthew murray, in gloucester, to what he would say

if he were here. he said, i urge you, my fellow senators, to deliberate in accordance to your consequence sense and the oath you took when you were -- to your conscience and the oath you took when you were elected and vote to remove this dangerous president from office. this is the choice we must make. duty to this president or duty to democracy. for this reason, i will be voting to remove president trump from office. this is an historic moment. i do not think that this body has a choice. i thank you, madam president. and i yield back. and i question the presence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: