quorum call:

mr. carper: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes. mr. carper: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carper: thank you. madam president, 233 years ago our founding fathers gathered in philadelphia, a few miles north of us in delaware. 11 years earlier, we declared our independence from the british crown, the most powerful empire in the world. despite long odds, david overgame golith. would this new nation endure? when the founders gathered, they began to debate a new form of government. at times the differences between our founders, southern states, northern states, small states,

large states, seemed irreconcilable, and an agreement was reached, the constitution of the united states. nebraska senator william jennings bryant remarked, destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. our constitution has endured longer than any other on earth in large part because we did not leave our destiny to chance. and today our constitution remains the longest lasting constitution in the world. our founders, despite their many disagreements, made the crucial choice that this new constitution would not lead to the -- to an all-powerful king. the constitution created three separate coequal branches of

government, executive, legislative branch and judicial branch. this system would ensure that a future president with the impulses of a king would be restrained by the other two branches. the constitution also provided another backstop against abuses from a future president who committed treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. that constitutional backstop is called impeachment. as we consider the impeachment of donald john trump, i want to ask my colleagues to remember that while we are here today because of the conduct of one man, the constitution that guides us through these choppy waters, some 233 years later is the triumph and wisdom of many men. we are here because of patriots like washington, adams, jefferson, franklin, madison, hamilton, and many others who lived under the harsh rule of a

king and fought for the freedom to govern themselves. our constitution gives the house of representatives the sole power of impeachment while the senate has the sole power to conduct a trial in the event the house impeaches the sitting president. we're now at the end of the impeachment trial of donald john trump. it is not the trial that many of us had hoped for. we had hoped for a fair trial. the american people deserve a fair trial. a fair trial has witnesses. a fair trial has evidence. i don't believe that history will be kind to those who have and continue to prevent the truth from coming to light during this trial. the american people deserve to know the truth. as does this jury, the members of the united states senate. president lincoln once said and i quote him, i am a firm believer in the people.

if given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. thomas jefferson said something similar to that. if people know the truth, it they won't make a mistake. the same is true of the united states senate. if given the truth, we too can be depended upon to meet this crisis and do the right thing. i believe the truth will not only set us free but keep us free. we now have an obligation to consider the evidence presented by house managers and the president's defense team related to two articles of impeachment, one abuse of power, two, obstruction of congress. the house managers have presented a case that is the result of a three-month long investigation during which the house intelligence committee issued scores of subpoenas with documents and testimony. donald trump obstructed this process from the start. no president, not even president richard nixon during watergate

has ever issued an order to direct a witness to refuse to cooperate in an impeachment inquiry. as a result of this unprecedented obstruction, the trump administration did not provide a single document to the house of representatives. not one. fortunately, though, 17 brave public servants, many of whom risked their careers, came forward to testify under oath. and here's what we learned from them. donald trump used the powers of his office to pressure the gofort government of ukraine to smear his most feared political opponent, our former colleague, former vice president joe biden. donald trump did this by illegally with holding funds appropriated by congress to help an ally, ukraine, in the midst of a hot war against russia. donald trump did this by withholding a coveted white

house meeting from the newly elected president of ukraine, president zelensky. this president illegally held the funds until president zelensky merely announced sham investigations involving vice president joe biden and a debunked conspiracy theory that ukraine, not russia, interfered in the 2016 election. and when he got caught in the midst of this corrupt scheme, president trump even called for other foreign nations to interfere on his behalf in the upcoming 2020 election. while i believe the evidence against donald trump is overwhelming, like any criminal defendant, he is entitled to a robust defense. many of us listened carefully to the president's defense team over the course of this two-week trial. not once did the president's defense team rebut the facts of the case. not once did they defend their client's character or call an

eyewitness who could contradict the assertions made by witnesses who testified under oath. not once did we hear the president's defense team say, of course the president wouldn't use the weight of the federal government to smear his political rival. what do we hear? instead we heard distractions, conspiracy theories, unfounded smears about vice president biden, our former colleague and his family. instead we heard a far-fetched legal theory that presidents cannot be impeached for soliciting foreign interference in our elections if they believe their own reelection is in the national interest. i believe the house managers proved their case and there now appears to be some bipartisan agreement that the president abused his power. still does this american convehicle -- removal from office. think about that. the constitution agreed to in 1787 sought to establish a more

perfect union, not a perfect union, a more perfect union. the hard work toward a more perfect union did not end when delaware became the first state to ratify the constitution on december 7, 1787. in truth it had only just begun. we went on as a nation to enact a bill of rights, abolish slavery, give women the right to vote and much, much more. throughout our history each generation of americans have sought to improve our government and our country because after all, we're not perfect. in the words of senator bryan, we do not leave our destiny to chance. we make it a matter of choice. and we choose to make this a more perfect union, a reflection that the hard work begun in philadelphia in 1787 is never, never truly complete. our constitution has weathered a civil war, world war i, world

war ii, vietnam, watergate, the great depression, great recession, death of presidents, assassination of presidents, and, yes, impeachments of presidents. our constitution will weather this storm, too. but a vote to acquit this president is not -- does not exonerate this president. a vote to acquit effectively legalizes the corruption of our elections, the very foundation of our democratic process. a vote to acquit says to this president and to all who follow that you may use the powers of the office to solicit foreign interference in our elections,s very thing that the founding fathers feared. a vote to acquit is the realization of our founders' worst fears leaving a president with the impulses of a king unchecked by the other coequal branches of government and undeterred by the prospect of impeachment. donald trump violated his oath. he broke the law.

he attempted to cheat in the 2020 election and when he got caught, he left little doubt that he will cheat again. that is not the conduct we expect of an american president. that is the conduct of someone who believes that he or she is above the law. donald trump is our president. he is not our king. colleagues, if our destiny is to remain the most enduring democracy in the history of the world, we must not leave this to be a matter of chance. we must choose to preserve and protect our constitution and to do so we must convict donald trump on both articles of impeachment and remove him from office. as he left the constitutional convention in 1787, benjamin franklin was asked this question. we heard asked several times in the last two weeks on this floor. here's the question. he was asked, what do we have? what do we have here?

a monarchy or a republic? franklin answered famously, a republic, if you can keep it. today i want to pose the same question to all of us, to our colleagues in this chamber. what do we have here? a monarchy or a republic? and i guess we can all answer for ourselves but i want to leave you with my answer today. and here it is. we have a republic and i intend to keep it. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: madam president, i rise also to discuss the pending matter, the serious matter of impeachment. president trump schemed to get ukraine to help him win the 2020 election by strom arming its new -- strong arming its new president to announce a bogus investigation against a

political opponent. to carry out his scheme, he smeared, fired, and threatened a dedicated career ambassador, thwarted congress by secretly withholding appropriated military aid over the advice of his national security team, violated two laws in order to hide his actions, outsourced critical foreign policy to a rogue private attorney, hurt an american ally, gratified an adversary, and overturned long-standing precedent regarding the relationship between the executive and legislative branches. the scheme was so repellent that numerous members of his own administration fought against it and then when they could not stop it themselves, courageously

brought it to light. the house managers have proven both articles of impeachment. but i have struggled during the senate process which cannot be called a trial due to the shocking refusal to allow key witnesses and documents with a basic question. is it an abuse of trust for a president to behave exactly as expected? president trump's behavior has been appalling, but it has not been a surprise. the american public knew that donald trump would seek foreign help to win an election. he publicly did so in 2016 by appealing to russia for help at the same time as our chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said

russia was america's chief adversary, that he is doing so again is no surprise. the american public knew that donald trump would target political opponents with false attacks. he publicly did so in 2016. by leading crowds in chants of lock her up, that he will again target perceived opponents, democrats and republicans, ambassadors or whistle-blowers, representatives or senators, war heroes or teenage environmental activists is no surprise. the american public new donald trump would obstruct the release of information. he publicly did so in 2016 when he violated long-standing practice by refusing to release his tax returns.

that he will continue to obstruct congress, the media, and the american public is no surprise. his bigotry is no surprise. his lying is no surprise. his lack of ethics is no surprise. his xenophobia is no surprise. his massage any -- misogyny is no surprise. his excessive selfishness is no surprise. his hateful, divisive and ignorant rhetoric is no surprise. but presidential impeachment was not designed to remove an amoral leader that the nation had knowingly and willingly elected. it was designed to rescue the nation from a leader who abuses

the public trust. can one abuse the public trust by behaving exactly as expected? the senate impeachment process answered my question. in 1974 senators of both parties were willing to condemn extreme presidential misconduct. in 1999, senators of both parties were able to distinguish between unacceptable personal behavior and high crimes and misdemeanors. but in 2020, the senate majority engineered an effort to conceal the truth rather than find the truth. some describe their motives as let the people decide even as they voted to hide critical evidence from the american

people. while the president's actions have not been surprising, the senate's capitulation has surprised me. and last friday as the majority repeatedly blocked the effort to consider witnesses and documents, i had a sad epiphany. unchallenged evil spreads like a virus. we have allowed a toxic president to infect the senate and wharp its behavior. and now the senate's refusal to allow a fair trial threatens to spread a broader anxiety about whether impartial justice is a hallow fiction. an acquittal will lead to worst

conduct. i will not be part of this continual degradation of public trust. thus i will vote to convict. an acquittal will, however, underscore a higher principle. the removal of a man will not remove the moral void he exemplifies. instead everyday people of goodwill must engage as never before and show to ourselves and to the world that americans still have the capacity to choose right over wrong, service over self, fact over fiction, and decency over malice. with that, madam president, i yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. cruz: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cruz: i ask unanimous consent that we vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cruz: madam president, tomorrow afternoon the senate will vote to acquit president trump in these impeachment proceedings. that's the right thing to do. that is the decision that comports with both the facts and the law. these impeachment proceedings began in the house of representatives in a thoroughly partisan affair, driven by house democrats without allowing the president to participate in cross-examining witnesses and calling defense witnesses. when the matter came to the

senate, the senate was obligated to do much better. we had an obligation under the constitution to conduct a fair trial and that's what the senate has done. over the course of the last two weeks, we have heard hour upon hour upon hour of argument. the house proceeding heard testimony from 18 different witnesses. the senate saw 193 video clips of witness testimony presented here on the senate floor. the senate posed 180 separate questions from senators to the house managers or the white house defense team. and within the record were over 28,000 pages of documents, including the single most important evidence in this case, which is the actual transcript

of the conversation at issue between president trump and the president of ukraine. the trump administration, to the astonishment of everyone, declassified that transcript and released it to the world so that we can read precisely what was said in that conversation. the reason that acquittal is the right decision is because the house managers failed to prove their case. they failed to demonstrate that they satisfied the constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors. the text of the constitution provides that a president may be impeached for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. the house managers fell woefully short of that standard. indeed, in the articles of impeachment they sent over here, they don't allege any crime whatsoever. they don't even allege a single federal law that the president violated.

an awful lot of americans looking at these proceedings have heard a lot of noise, have heard a lot of screaming, but are left wondering, what was this all about? you examine the substance, there are two things that the house managers allege the president did wrong. one, they allege that the president wrongfully delayed aid to ukraine and, two, they allege that the president wrongfully asked for an investigation into a political rival. both of those are legitimate ends. let me address them one at a time, because there is a deep irony in the argument of the house managers. both of those objectives are consistent with law, are permissible and legal, and both of those objectives have been done by any measure substantially worse by the

preceding administration, by the obama administration. let's take delaying aid to ukraine. madam president, i am a big believer in america's standing with ukraine. i traveled to ukraine. i meant to the maiden square and stood with row test histories had been shot down by the government as protesters stood for their freedom. i believe military aid to ukraine is a good thing, and it is true that the trump administration temporarily delayed aid to ukraine. that is their right to do so. presidents have delayed foreign aid before. the trump administration has done so with regard to a number of countries. the obama administration did so before that. previous administrations have done that. but we heard hour upon hour of the house managers trying to establish the proposition that aid to ukraine was delayed when president trump admits aid to ukraine was delayed. there's no dispute about it. and we heard testimony about how

ukrainians died because aid was delayed. here's the irony, madam president. if you support aid to ukraine, as i do, military aid to ukraine, as they stand up to russia, there is no dispute whatsoever that for the entirety of his presidency, president obama refused to give lethal military aid, defensive aid, to ukraine. despite the fact that i and many other members of this body called on president obama to give aid to ukraine. madam president, i remember when we all went to the in regard of the house of representatives to hear a speech to the joint session of congress from president poroshenko, then the president of ukraine, because they were sending blankets and m.r.e.'s, meals. and president poroshenko rightly said, you can't fight a russian tank with a blanket. so if the house managers are right that there's something

improper about delaying military aid, the obama administration did so for the entirety of the administration. and what did president trump do? he did something obama never did. he provided lethal, defensive military aid, javelin missiles that can take out russian tanks. the first ground they allege of delaying aid is legal and permissible and by any measure the trump administration's record on it is much, much better than the obama administration. how about the second ground -- directing an investigation into your political rival. madam president, the most important legal question in this proceeding, the question that resolves this proceeding, is does a president have the constitutional authority to investigate credible allegations of corruption? the house managers built their case on the proposition that seeking an investigation into

burisma, the corrupt ukrainian natural gas company, and joe biden and hunter biden, seeking any investigation into whether there was corruption there was, in the words of the house managers, baseless, a sham, and utterly without merit. in their opening argues, the house -- in their opening arguments, the house managers spent over two hours trying to make that case. and i will say on the face of it, that proposition is objectively absurd. the white house legal defense team laid out in considerable detail that there was very substantial evidence of corruption. burisma is a company that was built on corruption. the oligarch who started burisma, mr. zlochevsky, was the sit being energy minister in ukraine, and he amassed his millions by giving gas licenses to his own company that he was

heading. that's where burisma made their money. it was a company built on corruption from day one. i think it's worth pausing and examining the time line of what occurred because, remember, the house managers' case is as baseless a sham to even investigate corruption. in early 2014, vice president biden was named the point person for the obama administration on ukraine. in april -- on april 13 of 2014, devon archer, business partners with the son of joe biden, joined the board of burisma, and began being paid $1 million a year. april 28, britain's security fraud bureau freezes $23 million in accounts controlled by zlochevsky, the oligarch who owned burisma, and then just two weeks later, on may 12, hunter biden, the son of joe biden, is named to the board and paid $1

million a year despite having no background in oil and gas and no discernible background in ukraine. hunter biden gets paid $1 million a year and joe biden, actively, aggressively, vigorously leads the obama administration's policies on ukraine. now, the house managers were asked in questioning, what exactly did hunter biden do for his million dollars a year? they refused to answer that. that is a perfectly reasonable question to ask, if you're investigating corruption. so biden is seen on video not just admitting but bragging that he told the president of ukraine he would personally block a billion dollars in foreign aid loan guarantees unless ukraine fired the prosecutor that was investigating burisma, the company paying his son a million dollars a year. and as joe biden bragged on that

video, well, son of a bitch, they fired him. now, that on its face raises significant issues of potential corruption. we don't know for sure if there was in fact corruption. but when president trump asked that it be investigated to get to the bottom of what happened, the president has the authority to investigate corruption, and there was more than sufficient basis to do so. and, of course, the house managers are right that it is somehow illegitimate, it is somehow inappropriate, it is in fact impeachable to seek the investigation of your political rival. we know for a fact that the obama administration not only sought the investigation but aggressively led an investigation marred by abuse of power going after then-candidate trump, including wiretaps, including fraudulently obtained court documents -- court

warrants from the fisa court. madam president, impeachment is an extraordinary remedy. it is not designed for when you disagree. it's not designed for when you have political differences or policy differences. it's designed for when a president crosses the constitutional threshold. you know, on february 6, 1974, the democratic judiciary committee chairman peter rodino, democrat from new jersey, who led the impeachment inquiry into richard nixon, told his colleagues, quote, whatever the result, whatever we learn or conclude, let us now proceed with such care and decency and thoroughness and honor that the vast majority of the american people and their children after them will say, this was the right course. there was no other way. that was the standard that led to an overwhelming bipartisan vote to open the impeachment proceedings against richard

nixon. that standard was not remotely followed by the house managers. this was a partisan impeachment, and we are right now in an election year. the voters are voting, and it is up to the voters to decide which policies they want to continue. the house managers have abused the constitutional process by trying to use impeachment to settle a partisan score. that is divisive to the country, and i'm proud that this body will vote, i hope, in a bipartisan way to reject these articles of impeachment, to acquit the president, and to find president trump not guilty of the articles the house has sent over. i yield the floor. mr. kennedy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: thank you, madam president. i will vote against each of the house democrats' articles of impeachment, and i would like to

explain why. the house democratic -- house democrats' impeachment proceedings and their articles of impeachment were and are fatally flawed. my friends, the house democrats say that the president is out of control. what they really mean is that the president is out of their control, and that is not grounds for impeachment. first, the process. the house democrats' impeachment proceedings were rigged. speaker pelosi and the house democratic leadership decided before they even began to give

president trump a fair and impartial firing squad. speaker pelosi's and the house democrats' judicial philosophy from the very beginning was guilty. that's why much of the proceedings was held in secret. democracy, they say, dies in darkness, and i believe it. that's why the house democrats give the identity of the original accuser, the so-called whistle-blower -- hid the identity of the original accuser, the so-called whistle-blower, thus preventing the american people from being able to judge the motives. that's also, madam president, why the house democrats prevented the president and his

counsel from cross-examining the house democrats' witnesses, from offering his own witnesses, from offering rebuttal evidence, and from even being able to challenge the house democrats' evidence. the house democrats wouldn't even allow the president or his counsel to attend critical parts of the impeachment proceedings. the united states senate -- the united states senate cannot and should not consider an impeachment based on such a deficient record. it is true that in america no one is above the law. but no one is beneath it either. and fairness matters in our country. the house democrats' impeachment

is also flawed because it is a partisan impeachment. its genesis is partisan rage. not a single solitary house republican voted for the articles of impeachment. not one. the house democrats made a conscience decision to turn impeachment into a routine washington, d.c., political weapon. to normalize it. our country's founders were concerned about impeachments based on partisan rage, and our country's founders were add mont -- were opposed. that's why in the constitution

they required a two-thirds vote by the senate to impeach. now a word about the substance of the house democrats articles of impeachment. the house democrats accused the president of obstruction of justice. why? because he chose to assert executive privilege and testimonial immunity when the house democrats sought testimony and documents from some of the president's closest aides. anyone -- anyone who knows a law book from a j. crew catalog does not take this charge seriously. executive privilege and testimonial immunity are well

established, constitutionally based presidential and executive branch privileges that every president at one time or another has asserted. the proper course -- the proper course by the house democrats in the face of the assertion of these privileges was to seek judicial review. go see a judge. the secret judicial review from our third branch of government, which then would have balanced the policies underlining the privileges against the public interest of overriding the privileges. but the house democrats chose not to do that. they cannot now complain. the house democrats also accused president trump of abuse of

power. and if you listen carefully to their allegations, you will see that they don't really argue that the president of the united states did not and does not have the inherent authority to pause united states foreign aid to ukraine until ukraine agreed to investigate corruption. that's clearly within the authority of the president of the united states. instead the house democrats, claiming to be able to read the president's mind, say that the president did it with a corrupt motive because the investigation of corruption was against former president joe biden, a political

rival. but the president didn't get joe biden's name out of a phonebook. why did the president ask for an investigation involving former vice president biden? four words, hunter biden and burisma. now, madam president, these are the facts. president obama put vice president biden in charge of the foreign affairs of our country for two other countries, ukraine and china. and in both instances the former vice president's son, hunter biden, promptly walked away with millions -- millions of dollars entercontracts from -- in

contracts from politically connected countries, including burisma holdings. the message -- the message that this behavior sent to the world was that america's foreign policy can be bought like a sack of potatoes. no fair-minded person can argue that an investigation of this possible corruption was not in the national interest. madam president , the house democrats' impeachment proceedings and their articles of impeachment are an example of swamped up washington, d.c., both procedurally and substantively. on the -- on the basis of

partisan rage -- part rage coarsing through their veins, the house democrats seek to annul the 134 million americans who voted in the 2016 presidential election, which resulted in the trump presidency. and to do so when a new presidential lobbist is just -- presidential election is just ten months away. no one in the milky way who is fair-minded can believe this is good for america. a nation as great as ours deserves better. so to my democratic friends, here's what i say. the 2016 presidential election is over. let it go.

put aside your partisan rage. stop regretting yesterday and instead let's try working together and creating tomorrow. because, after all, the future is just a bunch of things we do right now strung together. madam president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: will the senator withhold his request? mr. kennedy: i beg your pardon, madam president. the presiding officer: will the senator withhold his request for a quorum call? mr. kennedy: i will. mr. perdue: madam president, in federalist paper 65, which we referred to quite a bit in the past few weeks, alexander hamilton warned, the impeachment

process should never be used as a partisan political weapon. he said impeachment can, and i quote, connect itself with the preexisting factions and enlist all of their partialities, influences and interests on one side or the other. in such cases, there will will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of the parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt. today, unfortunately, over two centuries later, hamilton's fears have become reality. this current impeachment process has never been about the truth, justice, or the rule of law. from my colleagues across the aisle is about overturning the 2016 election, taking over the

2020 election an gaining senate majority. from the start this house process has been totally illegitimate. the articles of impeachment that the house of representatives presented to us last month were nothing more than the fruit of a poison tree. in america we believe in the rule of law. in america, we believe in due process. in america, we believe anyone has a right to a fair trial. in america, we believe anyone is innocent until proven guilty. however, house democrats violated each of these foundational precepts in using the impeachment process as a partisan political weapon. throughout the course of the house impeachment investigation, democrats repeatedly denied president trump due process in the fundamental rights of the accused in america. simply put, what they did was not fair. they denied him the right to have counsel, the right to have

witnesses, the right to cross-examine their witnesses, the right to see the evidence, and lastly, the right to face his accuser. contrast that with the last two presidents to face impeachment. the grand jury investigation of clinton and the watergate investigation of nixon were conducted in a fair manner with rights for the accused. no action was taken by the house of representatives until the facts were clear and indisputable in both of those trials. when these investigations were complete and those two presidents were found to have committed a crime, impeachment had bipartisan support, unlike this time. this investigation is entirely different. it was rushed and was totally partisan with not one single house republican voting for these two pitiful articles of impeachment. the impeachment trial in the senate has been going on for the

past 11 days. unlike in the house the senate upheld its constitutional duty to conduct a fair trial. democratic house managers had the opportunity to present their case. then for the first time in this sad affair, the president and his team -- his lawyers had an opportunity to present their case, their defense. neither article 1, abuse of power, nor article 2, obstruction of congress, qualify as constitutional reasons for impeachment. it's pretty simple. i'm not a lawyer, but if you look at the facts, it's very direct. the constitution clearly lays out four explicit reasons for impeaching a president. even corruption does in the qualify unthese definitions. it's very clear they itemized treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors. and they explained to us in hearings another translation in modern terms using the old

english is it's another word for crime. the charges against president trump don't come close to any of these specified requirements. it is as simple as that. the house was making up new constitutional law. each of the other three presidents that was faced with impeachment was charged with committing a crime. president trump was the first president to face impeachment that was never accused of any crime in these proceedings whatsoever. these two articles of impeachment do not qualify as reason to impeach any president. further, democratic houses did not prove their case for either of the two articles of impeachment. the entire case is centered around the june 25, 2019 phone call between president trump and president zelensky of ukraine. the democrats allege president trump only asked for help in investigating the burisma situation for political gain. it's clear now, after hearing

all the testimony, that the primary investigation to look at zelensky was to root out corruption in ukraine. ukraine had a long history of corruption and this president was well within his rights to ask for help in rooting out this fairly obvious example of corruption. democrats completely failed to prove the president's request was for political gain only. regarding the obstruction of congress article, every president has the right to exert executive privilege to protect our national interest and the separation of powers. honestly, this article should have never been received in the senate in the first place. we should have dismissed this article out of hand. it simply is absurd, arguing president trump obstructed congress by claiming his rights is unacceptable and would fundamentally weaken this right for future presidents. when president trump exerted

executive privilege, his right, democrats could have pursued subpoenas, that's the way the founders laid it out. they could have pursued the subpoenas in court. for some reason the house democrats chose not to do that. house democrats were in such a rush that they sent the senate an incomplete case. that's why i believe the senate should not have accepted them in the first place because the process was illegitimate, inappropriate, and incomplete. bottom line, house democrats simply did not do their job. in the clinton investigation, the house investigated for over 400 days before they brought articles of impeachment. there was a conviction. in this case, barely 100. the democratic house managers brought the articles of impeachment and claimed they had overwhelming proof immediately in their opening statement, they had overwhelming proof. however, right away, even with that, they immediately demanded the senate call witnesses that the house had already chosen not to call, like john bolton.

they could have easily called him, but decided not to claiming it would take too long. instead they called for additional witnesses not in the house investigation. the constitution requires that the house conduct the investigation, including calling witnesses, conducting investigations, collecting evidence. the senate is charged to rule based on the evidence the house provides. this was designed this way for a very specific reason, very practical reason. in the house, committees can investigate these charges while the rest of the house continues to do their legislative work. unfortunately, in the senate, when articles of impeachment are brought and sent to the senate, the senate by constitutional law must stop what it's doing, must open an impeachment hearing, and while in an informal -- and while a formal, a formal impeachment hearing, the senate cannot do anything else by law. it goes into legislative

shutdown by law. in this case, if we were to call additional witnesses, then we would be setting a dangerous precedent for every future case. the house could theoretically make up any flimsy charge they wanted with no investigation, no witnesses, no testimony, no evidence whatsoever, and then send the articles to the senate and expect the senate to do their job. that's not what the founders wrote. that's not what they had in mind. it would open up a pandora's box, shut the senate down indefinitely, and you can see why the founders did not want to go down that road. that's not how they built this process. for the sake of our very system of government, we cannot yield to this unconstitutional effort. the house actually did call 17 witnesses. they sent over 193 videos. 28,000 pages of documents. ultimately, a majority in this body concluded it was unnecessary to hear from any of those witnesses again. on top of that, the impeachment

rules do not require the senate to call witnesses. that's the house job. it's just that simple. let's be very clear. this entire impeachment process has been a purely partisan political stunt, perpetrated by house democrats. it truly is an embarrassment. and exactly what alexander hamilton warned us all against. it's no secret, democrats have been trying to obstruct this president from day one. on the day president trump was inaugurated, the headline of "the washington post" right here in town claimed that the campaign to impeach this president has already begun. house democrat manager adam schiff in his opening remarks said you can't trust elections. that's why we have impeachments. really? really? that's absurd. the president has done nothing to warrant this impeachment process. he must be acquitted. if we let house democrats get away with that today, we're

setting a dangerous precedent for the future. already, we're in an era of impeachment. in the first 180 years, we only had one case, one impeachment case that came to the senate. and investigated in the house. in the last 45 years, we have had three investigated in the house, and two have actually made it to the senate. if we let democrats improperly use the impeachment process as a partisan political weapon, then it will only get worse in the future. i call on my colleagues today, i plead with my colleagues today to reject this unconstitutional effort and vote to acquit donald j. trump of the illegitimate and unconstitutional articles of impeachment. with that, madam president, i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: madam president, i rise today in the very chamber where just three presidential impeachment trials have been held over the course of our nation's history. president johnson in 1868, president clinton in 1999, and now trump. in fact, i sat -- and now president trump. in fact, i sat at this desk the past two weeks listening to over 65 hours of trial proceedings, and during that time, we heard from 13 witnesses, we viewed 193 video clips, 28,000 pages-plus of documentation, and senators during that 16-hour period asked over 180 questions. in the senate, we took our

solemn duty very seriously, and if there is one thing to be remembered from this trial, for generations to come, it is this -- sadly, over the course of our country's 244-year history, never has our nation faced such a partisan abuse of power. never has the senate been faced with articles of impeachment that allege no crimes in an attempt to remove a duly elected president of the united states from office. never before have we seen such a partisan presidential impeachment process. in 1974, when president nixon faced impeachment, nixon, a republican, 177 house republicans joined democrats in support of the impeachment inquiry. during president clinton's impeachment, a democrat, 31

democrats joined house republicans. but with president trump, there were zero. not one republican supported it. in fact, there were some democrats that opposed it. so to be clear, there was actually bipartisan opposition. this impeachment is an unprecedented, purely partisan threat to the constitution. our founding fathers, the framers of our great constitution, they understood what the power of impeachment meant when they gave it to congress, after great deliberation. alexander hamilton and james madison feared, they feared the congressional abuse of power and legislative tyranny as they debated whether to include the power of impeachment in the constitution. because the founders knew the removal of a president from office amounted to a political

death sentence. in federalist 65, hamilton warns the house could be intemperate, was the word he used, and abuse their majority. he proclaimed then the united states senate would be the -- and i used his words -- unawed and uninfluenced, the independent institution to determine whether a house impeachment was warranted. the founders had the wisdom to establish a two-thirds senate vote threshold to help ensure that removal could not be achieved by mere partisan politics. the founders established that the thermonuclear option of impeachment must be bipartisan to safeguard not just the president from unwanted removal, but -- unwarranted removal, but to protect the will of the american people who elected the president in the first place.

unfortunately, nancy pelosi, adam schiff, house democrats, have done exactly what the founding fathers feared. they have ignored what house manager and the chairman of the house judiciary committee jerrold nadler himself correctly observed during the 1998 impeachment proceedings where he stated, and i quote, there must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an impeachment substantially supported by one of our major political parties and largely opposed by the other. such an impeachment would lack legitimacy. that was jerry nadler in 1998. unfortunately, nancy pelosi's house of representatives discarded nadler's very wise words, and they stubbornly defied historical precedent by rushing these articles of

impeachment driven by a christmas deadline on a purely partisan vote and sending it to the united states senate. the democrats' decision was a mistake, and it's only further divided our nation during a time when we need to be working together. it was wrong, and it's damaged our country. we now need to fear for future presidents, democrats or republicans, who will hold the oath of office in this newly hyperpartisan era, and importantly for the first time in our nation's history, the articles of presidential impeachment passed by nancy pelosi's house accuse president trump of no crimes, let alone demonstrate the president's actions warranted removal from office. this partisan and weak case from the house managers proves what this impeachment has always been about. it's about pure partisan plings.

-- partisan politics. this impeachment has been nothing more than an attempt to overturn the 2016 presidential election and to severely impact the 2020 election. by the way, if we were to convict the president of either one of these articles, one or both, he literally is removed not only from office but from the 2020 bloolt. speaking of the 2020 ballot, the 2020 election is already under way. just yesterday, americans cast their votes in iowa for president of the united states. in fact, last friday, montanans submitted signatures and filed the paperwork to place president trump on the montana ballot for the 2020 election. and sadly, it's no surprise that we're in the situation today. you see, the democrats have been obsessed with impeaching president trump before he was even sworn in office.

they could not accept the fact that donald trump won the 2016 election. on december 15, 2016, just five weeks following the 2016 presidential election, there was a headline from "vanity fair," and i quote it, democrats are paving the way to impeach donald trump. on january 20, -- now, when i think of january 20, 2017, i think about the day the president was inaugurated, which it was. "the washington post" headline read, and i quote, the campaign to impeach president trump has begun. this article was posted 19 minutes, just 19 minutes after president trump was sworn into office. and it gets worse. ten days later, on january 30,

2017, the attorney for the whistle-blower that was talked about during the trial, the whistle-blower's attorney ten days after president trump was inaugurated back in 2017, he said this in a tweet, and i quote -- coup has started, first of many steps. rebellion. impeachment will follow immediately. that was the attorney for the whistle-blower that really started this entire impeachment process. we have even seen some house democrats publicly state that the only way to beat president trump in the next election is to impeach him. our founding fathers would be grieved by the careless use of this most powerful tool against the presidency. impeachment is not a tool to overturn the result of the past election. it is not a tool to change the

outcome of an upcoming election. you see, in america, the power of our government, it doesn't come from 100 senators in this body or a handful of lawmakers. our power is derived from the people whom we serve. this grand american experiment of our democratic republic is built upon the idea of a government of, by, and for the people. montanans elected me to represent them in the united states senate, to be their voice on this floor and in washington, d.c. montanans overwhelmingly oppose this impeachment. n montanans -- montanans stand with president trump. in fact, president trump won montana by over 20 points in the 2016 election. and supporting this impeachment means ignoring the voices of montanans who voted for president trump in the last election, and it means silencing

montanans who plan to vote for president trump in the 2020 election. keep in mind, never before has the united states senate ever removed a president from office. and it's not going to happen now. i am voting to acquit president donald j. trump for the good of our country, let it be seared in our minds forever more, impeachment must never, ever again be used as a partisan weapon. i encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to fully understand the magnitude of what this would mean for our country. this is the first purely partisan impeachment in our nation's history, and it must be our last. it should be up to the american people to decide who their next president is, not the united states senate.

the answer is an election, not an impeachment. madam president, i yield back. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. rounds: today i rise on whether to remove the president from office based on the articles of impeachment sent to us by the house of representatives. our founding fathers included impeachment effectively overturning the will of the american electorate to be used only as a last resort. they trusted the senate, requiring more solemn judgment than their counterparts in the house to decide whether an allegation by the house has the substantiality to require removal from office. according to commentaries on the constitution by joseph story,

framers saw the senate as a tripe biewnl removed -- tribunal removed from popular power and passions and from the more dangerous influence of mere party spirit guided by a deep responsibility to future times. this impeachment process, driven by partisan desire, was rushed and lacked any proper form and substance. this is an attempt by the house to undo the results of the 2016 election and impact the 2020 election. article 2, section 4, of the constitution states, and i quote, the president, vice president, and all civil officers of the united states shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, end of quote. during the debates at the federal convention of 1787,

james madison, alexander hamilton and others relied heavily on sir william back stone's work, commentaries on the laws of england which madison described as, and i quote, a book which is in every man's hand. with his work blackstone discussed high misdemeanors which included many crimes against the king and government including maladministration. according to blackstone, maladministration applied to high officers in public trust and employment and was punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment. it is from this understanding that the framers selected high crimes and misdemeanors for the impeachment clause in our constitution. the term high crimes and misdemeanors had a limited and technical meaning that was well known to the framers. it was a term of art. as early as 14th century england, high crimes and misdemeanors were a category of plit crimes against the state

and were tried in parliamentary impeachments. it should be understood that the word high in high crimes and misdemeanors is a modifying adjective and also applies to the word misdemeanors. high misdemeanors was applied in impeachment proceedings conducted by parliament long before there was such a crime as a misdemeanor as we know it today. misdemeanors alone referred to criminal sanctions for private wrongs. high crimes and misdemeanors were charged against officers of the highest rank and favor with the crown or who were in judicial or executive offices. and because of their stations were unindictable by ordinary rules of justice. for those individuals who were not indictable by the ordinary rules of justice, the founding fathers in their subtle brilliance sought to have something akin to crimes and

misdemeanors that allowed them to impeach for great and dangerous crimes committed against the state. as we know, the founding fathers specifically adopted the phrase high crimes and misdemeanors. the emphasis on high misdemeanors is important l in this context because the house of representatives has not alleged treason, they have not alleged bribery. their case rests on whether the articles charged are the types of high crimes and high misdemeanors intended by our framers. in defining high misdemeanors blackstone stated, and i quote, the first and principle is the maladministration of such high officers, end of quote. however, the founding fathers specifically chose not to include maladministration as a basis for impeachment. when george mason and james madison debated the specific language of the impeachment clause, mason stated, and i

quote, why is the provision restrained to treason and bribery only? treason as defined in the constitution will not reach many great and dangerous offenses. hastings is not guilty of treason. attempts to subvert the constitution may not be treason as above defined, end of quote. mason then moved to add after bribery or maladministration to which madison replied, and i quote, so vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the senate, end of quote. the framers knew what they were adopting when they chose high crimes and misdemeanors. they explicitly rejected maladministration and other vague terms in favor of more specific allegations which had a limited and technical meaning. in the first article of impeachment before the senate, the question is whether abuse of

power as a charge on its own is an impeachable offense. the answer is no. abuse of power does not have a limited meaning and is as vague as maladministration. the framers actually discussed abuse of power and rejected it. at the virginia ratifying convention, james iredell, one of the first justice of the supreme court stated, and i quote, no power of any kind or degree can be given but what may be abused. we have, therefore, only to consider whether any particular power is absolutely necessary. if it be, the power must be given, and we must run the risk of abuse, end of quote. in the first article of impeachment, the house has claimed that the abuse of power is within the scope of high crimes and misdemeanors. i believe the founding fathers saw abuse of power as an

inherent risk within the delegation of that authority. the framers did not intend impeachment proceedings to be brought every time an abuse of power is alleged. in the second article of impeachment the house alleges the president obstructed congress when he refused to comply with congressional subpoenas. the president rejected the legitimacy of those subpoenas. the house then failed to pursue through the courts, rejecting the court's rightful role in settling disputes between the two branches of government. the separation of powers doctrine recognizes executive privilege as a lawful exercise for the president to protect both presidential and deliberative process communications. the house showed a deliberate disregard for the proper role of the judicial branch and now expects the senate to gather

evidence after they have already impeached. alleging an obstruction of congress charge before the house exhausted its remedy for judicial relief would change the balance of power between our coequal branches of government and ignore the rightful place the courts hold in arbitrating differences between the executive and legislative branches. no branch of government is above the constitution. we are obligated under oath of office to support and defend it. article 1, sections 2 and 3 of the constitution state, and i quote, the house shall have the sole power of impeachment, and the senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. the framers intentionally separated these authorities. a senate does not have the authority to impeach. however, the senate does have the authority to judge the

sufficiency of articles presented to it. the senate as a trier of facts should not overstep its role. it is the house's responsibility to bring the evidence to make their case, not simply make an allegation. this does not mean that the senate cannot call witnesses. but it most certainly should not be the senate's obligation to do so because the house failed to do so in the first place. upon the founding of the senate, james madison explained that the senate would be a necessary fence against the fickleness and passion that tended to influence the attitudes of the general public and members of the house of representatives. george washington is said to have toamed thomas jefferson that the framers created the senate to cool house legislation just as a saucer was used to cool hot tea.

for impeachment, there can be no difference. when the house is ignited by partisan passions eager to reach a desired result, the senate must be cool and firm in its heightened review. in recognizing the haste and halfhearted attempt by our colleagues in the house, the senate must also recognize these articles of impeachment to be wholly insufficient and not warranting a removal from office. let this decision lie in its rightful place with the electorate. the senate has conducted a fair impartial trial. we did our due diligence and fulfilled our constitutional duty, and now it is time to bring this process to a close and get on with the business of the american people who sent us here. i will vote against the articles of impeachment, and in keeping with the constitutional intent

our framers expected. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and ask unanimous consent that citations from my remarks be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: i come to the floor this afternoon to express my profound disappointment. this is a sad moment in our nation's history. i, like all of us in the senate, came to this body to try to make a difference for our constituents, to address the kitchen table issues that affect their everyday lives.

lowering prescription drug costs, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, making college morning college -- morning business affordable, protecting our veterans, supporting our small businesses, so many of the things that i and others here have worked on. now critics have argued that the impeachment process is nothing more than a political attack orchestrated by those who wanted to remove this president since his election. i flatly reject that argument. i have repeatedly expressed my reluctance to the use of impeachment. unfortunately it is this president's disturbing actions that have put us in this position. president trump went to great lengths to try and force the ukranian president to help smear joe biden, his political rival. this scheme included withholding military aid and withholding a

meeting at the white house with the ukranian president. each of us here took an oath to support and defend the constitution, and the constitution requires us to do this job. it tells us that the senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments, and after the power to declare war, the power to impeach is among the most serious and consequential powers granted to congress by our founding document. when we all stood here at the beginning of this trial, we took an oath to do, and i quote, impartial justice. that should mean a commitment to seek all of the facts. a fair trial means documents and witnesses, facts that will help us better understand the truth. previous senates understood this. in fact, every senate impeachment trial in history

included witnesses. most recently in the george porteous impeachment trial in 2010, when i was one of the senators who served on that impeachment committee, we heard from 26 witnesses, 17 of whom had not testified before in the house. we believed then that senate witnesses were important for an impeachment of a district court judge -- federal district court judge, so why wouldn't we want witnesses in something as important as an impeachment of a sitting president? we know that documents exist that could help shed more light on this case. we also know of other witnesses with additional firsthand information that we have yet to hear from. we have one witness in particular, former national security advisor john bolton, who has told the world he has relevant information, and he's willing to testify.

and yet despite all of that, the senate on a partisan vote, refused to listen to ambassador bolton or any other witnesses. members of this institution have willfully turned their backs on important, relevant firsthand information. on the articles of impeachment before us, i've listened to the extensive arguments from both the house managers and the defense counsel for the president. i believe the evidence clearly shows that the president abused his power, which has been acknowledged by several republican senators, and he obstructed congress, which is why i will be supporting both articles of impeachment. on the first article of impeachment, it is my strong view that the house managers have proved that president trump

withheld military aid at a -- and a white house meeting from the government of ukraine to further his own political interests in the upcoming presidential election. and to damage the candidacy of his opponent. the evidence presented to the senate was overwhelming, further supporting the house managers' case, the independent government accountability office, the g.a.o., concluded that the withholding of military aid to ukraine was improper and illegal under the law. the nature of the president's offenses outlined in the article strike at the very heart of our democratic system. our founding fathers were very concerned about both foreign interference in our democracy and the executive abusing the powers of the office for electoral gain. james madison warned of a

president that, quote, might betray his trust to foreign powers, end quote. george washington in his farewell address warned us all, quote, to be constantly awake since history and experience proved that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government, end quote. as a senator who sits on the armed services and foreign relations committees, i am keenly aware of the serious national security interests that are at stake here. this body, the senate, has been deeply supportive of an independent ukraine and a strong u.s.-ukraine relationship, and i joined with senators from both sides of the aisle in support of providing lethal assistance to help ukraine better defend itself from russian aggression. we continue to do so, because it is in our direct national

security interests to support our partner in the midst of an active war with russia, our adversary, and we know that russia has serious designs on eastern europe. they're looking at ways to influence european countries, former soviet republics where they think they can make inroads and ukraine is standing at the wall between eastern europe and russia. i also join the bipartisan leadership of the ukraine caucus in writing a letter expressing deep concerns over reports that aid to ukraine was being held up. this september, 2019, letter stated that the administration's hold on assistance would do lasting damage to the ukrainian military and would undo the progress made by ukraine to defend itself. that was a bipartisan letter. putting our national security at risk in order to secure personal

political favors is an unacceptable abuse of power, and that is why we are here today. in response to the overwhelming evidence presented by the house managers, the president's counsel failed to refute these serious allegations. their arguments that president trump was focused only on the national interests are not supported by the facts. the president has never demonstrated interest in rooting out corruption in ukraine and has a troubling pattern of personally seeking political dirt from foreign governments. i worry that this behavior will continue. the 2020 election is nine months away, and the president continues to suggest that he would consider receiving political help from foreign governments. just recently, the president suggested that china should also investigate the bidens. now, with respect to the second

article dealing with obstruction of justice, the house managers have also presented overwhelming evidence that president trump obstructed the investigation into his conduct toward ukraine. the president has repeatedly denied the house of representatives constitutional authority to conduct an impeachment inquiry. the president ordered federal agencies and officials to ignore all requests for documents and all subpoenas. those agencies obeyed the president's order and not a single document was turned over to the house. in total, nine witnesses called by the house followed president trump's order and refused to testify under subpoena in the impeachment proceedings. this is an unprecedented attempt to thwart congress' constitutional authority to exercise the impeachment power. even president nixon instructed his white house staff to

voluntarily appear before congress and to testify under oath. despite the administration's stonewalling, many courageous officials did come forward to testify, at great personal and professional expense. i want to thank those who testified. their bravery and commitment to the truth should be commended, but if the president is allowed to completely stone wall congressional impeachment investigations into executive branch abuses, then the congressional power of impeachment is meaningless. as a senator, i never imagined i would have to participate in an impeachment trial of a sitting president. these proceedings cause strain and division, not just here in congress but across the country. i would much prefer that congress be engaged in the critical bipartisan work that's needed on important issues,

thanks that can improve lives across this country and move our nation forward. i hope that this body will move on from this disappointing day and will get back to the business of the country. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call: mrs. feinstein: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. feinstein: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to speak on morning business. the presiding officer: the senate? a quorum call. mrs. feinstein: i ask the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. feinstein: thank you very much. madam president, the decision to remove a president at any point

in their term, particularly nine months before an election, is not something we should take lightly. impeachment should not be a tool that congress uses to settle policy or personal disagreement. instead, it should only be used if a president engages in misconduct so egregious that their conviction and removal is necessary and in the nation's best interest. alexander hamilton wrote in federalist 65 that the founders chose the senate as the most fit dismosttory of this important trust -- dismosttory of this important trust. they actually had faith that this body could rise above pure partisanship to conduct a fair trial and reach a just verdict. in this case, however, we could not reach bipartisan agreement, not even on how to conduct the trial. it is a fact that for the first

time in this nation's history the senate will render a verdict in an impeachment proceeding without hearing from a single witness and without reviewing key documents that have been withheld which the executive branch. as recently as last friday, o.m.b. admitted it continues to withhold key documents. let me provide an example. in a court filing, an o.m.b. lawyer wrote that 24 white house e-mails were being withheld because they, quote, reflect communications, end quote, by the president, vice president, or top advisors on the, quote, scope, duration, and purpose of the hold on military assistance to ukraine, end quote. proceeding without such vital evidence is a real mistake. i came to this trial with an

open mind, to listen to the case presented by both sides, and then to make a determination based on the facts. after hearing the house managers' case, it is clear that president trump withheld u.s. aid in an effort to obtain ukraine's assistance to win reelection by asking that ukraine launch and make public an investigation into joe biden, mr. trump's political opponent. the president's legal team tried to argue that this didn't happen, but without seeing key documents and hearing from key fact witnesses such as john bolton and mick mulvaney, top advisors with firsthand knowledge of the president's conduct and motives, their arguments were not persuasive. so, after weighing the evidence available to us and considering the president's pattern of

similar misconduct, i will vote yes on the articles of impeachment. the house presented a compelling factual case. congress appropriated nearly $400 million in foreign aid to ukraine, an ally engaged in a war with a major power, russia. it was signed into law by president trump, who knew what he was signing and what it entailed. president trump also knew that ukraine desperately needed the aid and america's partnership in its efforts against a huge power, russia. he used that vulnerability to his advantage. he privately demanded that in exchange for united states aid and a white house meeting for ukraine's newly elected president, ukraine's leaders had to publicly announce an investigation that would damage

his political rival, vice president joe biden. the president relayed those same demands to senior ukrainian officials through both private and official government channels. this was a clear quid pro quo. and it's at the heart of the argument in the first article of impeachment, abuse of power. president trump took this action to benefit himself personally and not for the good of the nation. he violated the law by withholding appropriated funds in order to benefit himself and not our country. president trump did not withhold these funds because of corruption -- because of concern about corruption generally. instead, he demanded just two specific investigations -- burisma and biden, both intended

to help him win reelection in 2020. after hearing the house managers' presentation, i think we've got to really ask ourselves, how can this president deal with any foreign nation after compromising himself in such a fashion? how can he be trusted to ensure that american elections are free from foreign interference? other countries are watching. after the president compromised himself this way with ukraine, what's to keep them, or any other country, from seeking benefits from the president in exchange for political or personal assistance? so, if the senate refuses to correct this precedent now, the door to foreign political influence in our elections will be opened. the house managers also

presented a strong case on the second article of impeachment, obstruction of congress. here the facts themselves are not ins dispute. president trump ordered his administration to withhold all documents and ordered executive branch witnesses not to testify before the house began its inquiry. the president's legal team countered that he has a right to defy congressional subpoenas as a matter of executive privilege. but there's no precedent for their sweeping claim of absolute immunity from congressional oversight, particularly in the context of impeachment proceedings. president trump has taken the position that there are no checks on his presidential

authority, effectively placing himself above the law, and i don't believe the senate can let this stand. unfortunately, the president's actions are not isolated incidents. both articles of impeachment point to this. the articles note, and i quote, these actions were consistent with president trump's previous invitations of foreign interference in u.s. elections and with, quote, previous efforts to undermine united states government investigations into foreign interference in united states elections, end quote. during the 2016 campaign, president trump welcomed russia's assistance to defeat his opponent, hillary clinton. the mueller report detailed exactly how the trump campaign

sought to work with russia to improve his electoral chances, including providing internal campaign polling data to a russian operative, inviting russia to hack hillary clinton after russia had already successfully hacked the democratic national committee, and obtaining information about upcoming releases of e-mails stolen by russian agents, and weaponizing these stolen documents to harm hillary clinton. when this conduct came under question, president trump obstructed the investigation. special counsel mueller cataloged not one or two but ten clear instances where president trump sought to interfere in

this investigation. this isn't my view; this isn't anyone else's view; it's a catalog of a group of legal professionals indicating ten clear instances where trump sought to interfere in the investigation. this egregious pattern of soliciting foreign interference and blocking any effort to investigate continues to this day. as recently as october, while the house impeachment inquiry was going on, president trump stood on the white house lawn and asked china to investigate the biden family. this trial must do impartial justice, as is required by the oath we all took. after listening to the arguments of both sides, it's clear the house managers have proven their

case. the president's conduct with respect to ukraine has mirrored other parts of the his presidency, and it's all about what is best for president trump. if we vote to acquit and allow president trump's behavior, we will set a dangerous precedent, one that has the strong possibility of inflicting lasting damage on our country. we will be saying that any president, republican or democrat, can leverage their office for personal political gain. we will be inviting more foreign interference into our elections and saying it's acceptable to use the presidency to solicit that assistance. his defense counsel admitted as much. and we'll be accepting the president's extreme view that

article 2 of the constitution gives him the right to do whatever he wants. i'm convinced this is a rare instance where this senate has no choice but to vote to convict and remove this president. i reached this conclusion reluctantly and with deep concern but with the belief that this action is necessary and cannot and should not be ignored. madam president, i ask unanimous consent that this statement be printed in the final record, and i thank you. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. feinstein: thank you. i yield the floor. mr. warner: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: madam president, before i get started on my comments, i want to commend my colleague from california, who has served in this body with great distinction for a long time, who was present during the

proceeding -- impeachment proceeding under president clinton, who time and again -- and i've had the honor of following in her shoes on the intelligence committee -- has always been a voice that stood up for what's right, for what's correct, oftentimes what may not be politically expedient but what she thinks is right and appropriate, and it's with great honor that i follow her, as i make my statement as well on this most serious of matters, the impeachment of donald j. trump. so i thank my friend, the senior senator from california, for her comments, and i will echo many of her thoughts. madam president, i want to begin my remarks the way we began this trial -- with the oath we each took to do impartial justice.

now, any other day we walk into this chamber as republicans and democrats, but in this trial, we have a much greater responsibility. the allegations against this president are grave. the house managers presented a compelling case. based on the testimony of more than a dozen witnesses, and the remarkable thing about the dozen witnesses that we saw clips of, all of these witnesses were either appointees, political appointees, of president trump or career public servants. the fact that these dozen-plus witnesses had the courage to speak truth to power when they knew that their careers, their

reputations would be sullied, in many ways speaks volumes. their testimony and the house managers' case presents a clear fact pattern. a fact pattern that even many of my republican colleagues acknowledge is true. this evidence reflects a corrupt scheme to solicit foreign interference in support of this president's reelection. the president both unlawfully withheld aid to an ally with war with russia and he withheld a white house meeting that would have strengthened our relationship with the democratically elected leader of

ukraine, a leader that was trying to prevent further russian occupation of his country. the president used these powerful tools of american foreign policy as leverage, not leverage to further advance america's national interest but leverage to secure investigations into a political opponent. he also used these as an opportunity to try to expound on the so-called crowdstrike conspiracy theory, a notion that has been repeatedly debunked by president trump's law enforcement an intelligence agency -- and intelligence agency heads, that somehow it

was ukraine and not russia that attacked our elections in 2016, which continues to be promoted by the russian spy services. since this information came to light, the president has attempted to confound the house of representatives constitutional role in the impeachment process. the white house issued a blanket refusal to provide any witnesses or documents without any historical precedent or sound legal argument to support this position. for this reason, president trump is also charged with obstruction of congress. frankly, i understand some of the points the president's defense team has raised

concerning this second article of impeachment. there are legitimate questions to consider about executive privilege and separation of powers. but we cannot accept the absolute immunity arguments this white house has invented. this absolute stance and the evidence we've seen about the president's corrupt actions and intentions do not reflect a principled good-faith defense of executive privilege. later, it suggests an effort to deny congress the constitutional authority to investigate presidential wrongdoing and ultimately to prevent exposure of president's conduct. in reviewing this evidence, i've tried to stick to my oath of

impartiality. i've tried to keep an open mind about what witnesses like john bolton and mick mulvaney, people who were in the room with the president, could tell us. if anyone can provide new information that further explains the president's actions, it is them. but i don't see how the white house's desperate efforts to block witnesses is anything but an admission that what they'd say under oath would not be good for this president. and i'm deeply disappointed that the senate could not achieve the majority necessary for a full, fair trial. so consequently, the defense and the president that we're lift is

thin, legalistic, and, frankly, cynical. instead of disputing the core facts, which are damning on their own terms, the president's lawyers have resorted to remarkable legal gymnastics. the notion that even if the president did what he's accused of, abuse of power is not impeachable. that foreign interference is not a crime. that even calling witnesses to seek the truth about the president's actions and motivations might somehow endanger the republic. and then when professor dershowitz made his bizarre argument that abusing president yalg power to aid your reelection, if you believe your own election to be in the national interest, i'd pay close

attention -- closer attention to what professor dershowitz said in this chamber than i paid when i was in his class back in 1977. but you don't need a harvard law school degree to understand what utter nonsense that argument is and where it could take us if we followed it to a logical conclusion. the framers wrote impeachment into the constitution precisely because they were worried about the abuse of presidential power. and if an abuse of power is what the framers had in mind when they crafted impeachment, then the two questions remaining in our deliberations are simple. did president trump abuse his power? and should he be removed from office? the house managers had presented a compelling case that the president did pressure ukraine

to announce politically motivated investigations. again, a number of my republican colleagues have acknowledged these facts, acknowledged that what the president did was wrong. and, frankly, it's clear why he did it. does anyone here honestly believe that donald trump wanted an investigation into the bidens for any other reason than to damage joe biden politically, and therefore aid in his own reelection? time and again this president has shown a willingness to attack anyone who stands in his way. republicans, democrats, members of his staff, members of this body, nobody is off limits. there is nothing out of character about this president using every available tool to damage an opponent regardless of their political party.

now, i don't find fault for the president in his unorthodox style. that is not an impeachable offense. the long list of things i disagree with this president on are not impeachable offenses either, but the constitution draws a line that is much clearer than the president's lawyers have tried to argue. the president crossed it. he abused his power. he come men deared -- commandeered america's foreign policy not to advance america's interest but to advance donald trump's political interests and despite his efforts to cover it up, he got caught. now, each one of us must vote guilty or not guilty. i will vote to convict the president because i swore an oath to do impartial justice and the evidence proves the charges against him are true. there must be consequences for

abusing the power of the presidency, to solicit foreign interference in our election. if the senate fails to hold him accountable, we will be setting a dangerous precedent. we will be giving the green light to foreign adversaries and future presidents that this kind of behavior is okay. i will vote to convict the president because it is the senate's constitutional responsibility to uphold this bedrock american principle that no one is above the law, not even the president, and especially not the president. thank you, madam president. and i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: thank you, madam president. i'm going to read a statement and then i'm going to go back through the information i used to make a decision to be able to write this statement. montana sent me to the u.s. senate toll hold government

accountable. i fought to allow this trial to allow documents and testimony from witnesses with first hand knowledge against the president, regardless of whether they were incriminating or exculpatory so the senate could make its decision on the best information available. unfortunately my republican colleagues and the administration blocked this information, rob r robbing the american people of their legitimate right to hold their elected officials accountable. based on the evidence available to me at this trial, i believe president trump abused his power by withholding aid from an political ally for political gain and obstructed political oversight by a he could equal branch -- coequal branch of government. it is sad day. not even the president of the united states is above the law.

how did i get to this point? just a little over two weeks ago we came into this chamber and we started hearing testimony. that testimony resulted in these two note books full of notes because, quite frankly, the house managers laid out a compelling case. the defense made their arguments, but the case of the house was incredibly compelling. an impeachment is a solemn time. it's not something we should be taking without -- without the deepest and most serious consideration. i compare it to a vote to send our people to war. but in this particular case there was very little transparency and none if the president would have had it his way of information coming to this body during this trial. this, fact, is the shortest impeachment trial of a president

ever. and if we're going to have information to make good decisions, and i always said if you have good information, you can make good decisions, the president really needed to open up and cooperate just a little bit. this is the first time ever we've had a trial with no witnesses and no documents, a trial in the senate. no information from the executive branch. and i get it. i get executive privilege, and i think there are times when executive privilege has got to be used because the information is sensitive. but i've got to tell you the williams letter is a priesm example -- a prime example. if there is something in there that needs to be classified, you've got me. the information in that letter was information i knew before i went in the scif. it's the same with many of the

e-mails, if not all of the e-mails that the president has requested to be classified and kept away from this body, and kept away from the press, and that's not the way this democracy should work. this should be open. if things are done, the people should be allowed to know. now, there are moments in time when documents have to be classified on sensitive information, but i am here to tell you i've seen none of that. and i think many of the foia requests that have been brought forth show heavily redacted e-mail messages and when we found out what was in them, there was no need for that redaction. so when it comes to the obstruction of congress, the article 2 impeachment, i don't think there's any doubt that the president obstructed our ability, the senate of the united states, to do its job as a coequal branch to make sure that the executive branch is being honest and forthright.

now let's talk about the abuse of power. there's a lot of information that was brought forth during this -- this trial about what the president did. it's been stated many times on this floor over the last nearly three weeks. the fact of the -- the fact of the matter is there is little doubt that the president withheld aid to an ally for the purpose of creating a position where they had to do an investigation if they were going to get that money, or at least announce that investigation, on a united states citizen who happened to be a political foe to corrupt our next election. there's no doubt about that. many of the folks who are not going to vote for impeachment have already said that the president has wrongdoing, but it's not an impeachable offense. and i'm here to tell you if

anybody in this country, especially the president of the united states, corrupts an election, and that's not an impeachable offense for the president of the united states, i don't know what is. fair elections are a foundational issue for this country. and to corrupt our elections is something that we need to hold people accountable if they have done it, and i will tell you that the prosecution proved that point beyond a shadow of a doubt. i would also say that if you take a look at the episodes that happened before we got to this point, that have actually nothing to do with the impeachment, but it does have something to do with the point that the defense said about folks have been calling for impeachment since the president got in office, i would offer you this -- freedom of speech is something that is very important

to this country. and i can tell you that when the president first got in the office and he got in a fight with the prime minister of australia and the prime minister of sweden and got in a fight with the prime minister of the best friend the united states has in canada, i was critical of the president. when the president pushed back on nato, it embraced every dictator in the world from putin to erdogan to xi to kim jong-un, yes, i was critical of the president. when the president pulled troops out of northern syria and left our allies, the kurd, on the field alone, i was critical of the president. and when the president did his trade wars that put american farmers, family farmers and main street businesses at risk of closure, i was critical of the president. and we should be. that had nothing to do with the

impeachment, but it absolutely has everything to do with our free speech. and today -- tomorrow, i should say, we're going to vote on whether to convict or acquit the president on taking taxpayer dollars and withholding to an ally who was at war with an adversary for his own personal and political good. and we're going to vote on whether to convict the president of withholding information from the entire executive branch and the only ones that testified were those patriotic americans that defied his order, and we're going to vote whether he obstructed congress. this is a no-brainer. he absolutely, unequivocally is guilty of both article 1 and article 2 of the impeachment. so the question is this -- if it goes as predicted tomorrow and the president gets acquitted, where do we go from here? i am very concerned about where

we go from here, because the next president will use this precedence to not give any information to a coequal branch of government when we question them. the next president will use this as if it's guide for me in my election, it's good for the country, as dershowitz said, so katy bar the door. and as chairman schiff said yesterday, if you think this president is going to stop doing these actions, you're living on a different planet than i'm living on. this will empower him to do anything he wants. and at some point in time, if we want to listen to what the framers said, at some point in time, we're going to have to do our constitutional duty. it doesn't appear we're going to do it at this time. i yield the floor. ms. collins: madam president.

the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: madam president, for more than 200 years after our constitution was adopted, only one president faced an impeachment trial before the united states senate. that was andrew johnson in 1868. but now we are concluding our second impeachment trial in just 21 years. while each case must stand on its own facts, this trend reflects the increasingly acrimonious partisanship facing our nation. the founders warned against excessive partisanship, fearing that it would lead to instability, injustice, and confusion, ultimately posing a mortal threat to our free

government. to protect against this, the founders constructed an elaborate system of checks and balances to prevent factions from sacrificing both the public good and the rights of other citizens. impeachment is part of that elaborate system. the founders set a very high bar for its use, requiring that the president may only be removed by a two-thirds vote of the senate. the framers recognized that in removing a sitting president, we would be acting against not only the officeholder, but also the voters who entrusted him with that decision. thus, the senate must consider whether misconduct occurred, its nature, and the traumatic and

disruptive impact that removing a duly elected president would have on our nation. in the trial of president clinton, i argued that in order to convict, we must conclude from the evidence presented to us with no room for doubt that our constitution will be injured and our democracy suffer should the president remain in office one moment more. the house managers adopted a similar threshold when they argued that president trump's conduct is so dangerous that he must not remain in power one moment longer. the point is impeachment of a president should be reserved for conduct that poses such a series

threat to our governmental institutions as to warrant the extreme step of immediate removal from office. i voted to acquit president clinton even though the house managers proved to my satisfaction that he did commit a crime because his conduct did not meet that threshold. i will now discuss each of the articles. in its first article of impeachment against president trump, the house asserts that the president abused the power of his presidency. while there are gaps in the record, some key facts are not disputed. it is here from the july 25, 2019, phone call between president trump and ukrainian

president zelensky that the investigation into the bidens' activities requested by president trump was improper and demonstrated very poor judgment. there is conflicting evidence in the record about the president's motivation for this improper request. the house managers stated repeatedly that president trump's actions were motivated solely for his own gain in the 2020 campaign. yet the president's attorneys argued that the president had sound public policy motivations, including a concern about widespread corruption in ukraine. regardless, it was wrong for

president trump to mention former vice president biden on that phone call, and it was wrong for him to ask a foreign country to investigate a political rival. the house judiciary committee identified in its report crimes that it believed the president committed. article 1, however, does not even attempt to assert that the president committed a crime. i sought to reconcile this contradiction between the report and the articles in a question i posed the house managers, but they failed to address that point in their response. while i do not believe that the conviction of a president requires a criminal act, the high bar for removal from office

is perhaps even higher when the impeachment is for a difficult-to-define noncriminal act. in any event, the house did little to support its assertion in article 1 that the president will remain a threat to national security of the constitution if allowed to remain in office. as i concluded in the impeachment trial of president clinton, i do not believe that the house has met its burden of showing that the president's conduct, however flawed, warrants the extreme step of immediate removal from office, nor does the record support the assertion by the house managers that the president must not remain in office one moment

longer. the fact that the house delayed transmitting the articles of impeachment to the senate for 33 days undercuts this argument. for all of the reasons i have discussed, i will vote to acquit on article 1. article 2 seeks to have the senate convict the president based on a dispute over witnesses and documents between the legislative and executive branches. as a general principle, an objection or privilege asserted by one party cannot be deemed invalid, let alone impeachable simply because the opposing party disagrees with it. before the house even authorized

its impeachment inquiry, it issued 23 subpoenas to current and former administration officials. when the house and the president could not reach an accommodation, the house failed to compel testimony and document production. the house actually withdrew a subpoena seeking testimony from dr. charles kupperman, a national security aide, once he went to court for guidance. and the house chose not to issue a subpoena to john bolton, the national security advisor whom the house has identified as the key witness. at a minimum, the house should have pursued the full extent of its own remedies before bringing impeachment charges, including

by seeking the assistance of a neutral third party, the judicial branch. in making these choices, the house substituted some political preference for speed over finality. the house managers described impeachment as the last resort for the congress. in this case, however, the house chose to skip the basic steps of judicial adjudication, and instead led straight to impeachment as a first resort. therefore, i will vote to acquit on article 2. madam president, this decision is not about whether you like or dislike this president. or agree with or oppose his

policies. or approve or disapprove of his conduct in other circumstances. rather, it is about whether the charges meet the very high constitutional standards of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. it has been 230 years since george washington first took the oath of office, and there are good reasons why during that entire time the senate has never removed a president. such a move would not only affect the sitting president but could have unpredictable and potentially adverse consequences

for public confidence in our electoral process. it is my judgment that except when extraordinary circumstances require a different result, we should entrust to the people the most fundamental decision of a democracy. mainly, who should lead their country. thank you, madam president. mr. booker: madam president. promise the senator from new jersey. mr. booker: thank you very much. after the house judiciary committee voted to improve

articles of impeachment against president nixon, chairperson peter rodino of my home state of new jersey, a lifelong newark resident of my home city who had been thrust into the high-profile position only the previous year, returned to his office and called his wife. when she answered the phone, this chairman, this longtime congressman, wroak -- broke down in tears and cried. 46 years later our nation has found itself under similar duress. i agree with my fellow newarker, impeaching a president is a profoundly sad time for our nation. it is a painful time no matter what party. if you love your country, then this is heartbreaking.

when we think about our history as americans, so many of us have reverenced for our founding fathers and our founding documents, they represented imperfect genius. we talk about the declaration of independence. we hail the constitution. these documents literally bent the arc of not just our own history, but human history for democratic governance on the planet. and while these were milestones in the past of our nation's relatively brief existence, the governing document that came before, between the declaration of independence and our constitution is often overlooked, the articles of confederation. with the benefit of hindsight,

it's easy to view the development of our nation as preordained inevitable, as if it was an expected march towards the greatness we now collectively hail, that this was somehow a perfectly plotted path towards a more perfect union. but it wasn't. in 1787 as our founders gathered in philadelphia, our fledgling country was in crisis and at crossroads. and its future, like in so many moments of our past, was deeply uncertain. you see, when the framers designed our system of government in the articles of confederation, you could say they overcompensated with the tyranny of king george, george iii fresh in their minds, they created a government with power so diffuse and decentralized that nothing could really get

done. instead of one nation, we were operating essentially as 13 independent states. the federal government could not tax its citizens. it could not raise money. it lacked a judiciary and an executive branch. so when our framers arrived in philadelphia in that hot summer, they would have to thread a difficult needle providing for a strong central government that represented the people and one that also guarded against the corrupt tendencies that come when power is cons straighted like they well knew was in a monarchy. our democratic republic was their solution. them needed a powerful executive, yes, but that executive needed guardrails. and its power needed to be checked and balanced.

so the framers created what we almost take for granted, three coequal branches of government, the legislative, executive and judicial. each branch would have the ability to check the power of the other branches to ensure, as james madison so profoundly argued, that ambition would be made to counter act ambition. but this system of checks and balances was not enough for our founders. still reeling from their experiences under the oppressive rule of the king, many feared an unaccountable autocratic leader. and so the founders created a mechanism of last resort -- impeachment. george mason prophetically asked the founders to wrestle with the concept of impeachment at the

constitutional convention saying, i quote, shall any man be above justice. the founders answered that question with a resounding no. the constitution made clear that any federal officers, even the president, would be subject to impeachment and removal. no one, no one, no one is above the law. this was seen as the ultimate safeguard, and it's only been invoked twice before in american history. this is the third. i sat in this very spot and listened to the evidence presented honoring my oath to be objective. and based on the evidence that was presented in hour after hour after hour of presentations, i've concluded that the

president, donald john trump, is guilty of committing high crimes and misdemeanors against the united states of america, against the people. i believe he abused the awesome power of his office for personal and political gain to pressure a foreign power to interfere in the most sacred institution of our democracy -- our elections. he then engaged in a concerted far-reaching and categorical effort to cover up his transgressions and block any effort for the people's representatives to have at the truth. it brings me no satisfaction to come to this conclusion. i feel that sadness of my predecessor. yet, we have sworn oath to

protect and defend the constitution of the united states. this is not a moment that should call for partisan passions. it is not a moment that we think of in the limitlessness, in the limitness of personal ambition. this is a patriotic moment. it's about putting principle above party. it's about honoring this body and the senate's rightful place in our constitutional system of check and balance. it's about fulfilling the enormous trust the founders placed in this body as an impartial court of impeachment and a necessary check on what they foresaw as the potential for grave abuses by the executive. if we fail to hold this president accountable, then we fail the founders' intent.

we fail our democracy. and i fear the injury that will result. when our grandchildren and their children read about this chapter in the history books, a time far into the future when this president is a memory, along with those of us serving in this chamber, it will not be seen through the eye of politics or partisanship. they will read about how this body acted in their moment of constitutional crisis. and i fear that their unflinching eye, at a time when the full body of evidence will be out in the public domain, they will see clearly how this body abdicated its constitutional responsibilities, surrendering

them to partisan passions. they will read about how the senate shut its doors to the truth, even though it was within easy reach. how for the first time in our history with impeachment proceedings for judges and for past presidents, that the world's greatest deliberative body conducted an impeachment trial without demanding a single witness and without subpoenaing a single document, how even as new evidence during the trial continued to be uncovered, its members of this body failed to even view it. they failed to pursue even the, with even the faintest effort those things that would have easily and more perfectly revealed the breadth and the depth of the president's misconduct. we know across the street in the

supreme court the saying is that justice is blind, but that means that no one is above the law. it does not mean that this body should abdicate i want responsibilities, that it should abandon its senses and even abandon common sense. if there is evidence that we know about that could speak beyond a reasonable doubt to this president's alleged crimes and misconduct, it makes no sense whatsoever that we should deny in this deliberative body the truth, the truth, this kind of willful ignorance, this metaphorical closing of our eyes and ears, it is a grave danger to any democracy. it is the rot from within, when the ideals of truth and justice fall victim to the toxic tyranny

of absolute partisanship. this president has claimed authoritarian power that our constitution was explicitly designed to prevent. he has literally said that article 2 allows him to do whatever he wants. and that outrageous statement tomorrow could be given life within this democracy. ep has declared himself unaccountable to and above the law. he has shred the very governing ideals of this great republic, and we the senate, the body designed to check such abuses to power, that quote dignified independent, unawed and uninfluenced tribunal, as hamilton so famously wrote in federalist paper number 65, we have been enablers to this

destructive instinct. this is a sad day. this is a sad moment in the history of this body and in our nation, and i fear that it is emblematic, that it is a symptom of deeper challenges to this nation, challenges that are being exploited by our enemies abroad and by opportunists here at home. the factionalism that our founders warned us of deepened beyond mere partisanship to a sex destructive tribalism -- self-destructive tribalism, quote, cunning men seeking to subvert the power of the people as washington predicted in his profound and prophetic farewell

address, these powers have found their season to flourish here in our time. many in our society now hate other americans not because of the content of their character or their virtue and values that they hold dear, but we as americans now more and more see hate proliferating in our country between fellow americans because of what party we belong to. we have failed to listen to the words that come out of each other's mouth, failed to listen to the ideals or the principles or the underlying facts because we now simply listen to partisanship. this nation was founded with great sacrifice, the blood and sweat and tears of our ancestors gave life and strength to this nation. this is now being weakened and

threatened by what our very first president warned us of. and so, yes, today is a sad moment, but as we as a nation have never been defined by our darkest hours. we have always been defined by how we respond to our challenges, how we have refused to surrender to cynicism. how we've refused to give into despair. and so i fear, as senator after senator today gets up and speaks, i fear that mere words in this time are impotent and ineffective. it may mark where we as individuals stand for the record, but the challenge demands more from all of us in this time.

we've already seen on this senate floor that sound arguments have been dismissed as partisanship. we have heard speech after speech and seen how they will not cure this time. they will not save this republic from our deepening divides. so i ask, what will? how -- how do we heal? how do we meet this crisis? i know that this president is incapable of healing this nation. i've never seen a leader in high office ever take such glee in meanness. he considers it some kind of high badge of virtue in the way he demeans and degrades his political adversaries. he demonizes others, often the weak in our society, and i firmly believe that he has shown that he will even conspire with

foreign nations to defeat his adversaries and then defend himself, not with any truth or transparency but by trying to heighten and ignite even more partisan passions. and so the question is really, how do we heal this nation? how do we meet this challenge that is not embodied in any individual? it was a man far greater than me named lerned hand who said, and i quote, liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. the spirit of liberty is a spirit which is not too sure that it's right. the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand

the minds of other men and women. the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs the interests, their interests alongside its own without bias. i continue to quote this great judge, our dangers, as it seems to me, are not from the outrageous but from the conforming, not those who rarely and understand the lord glare of obliquity upset our moral complacence or shock us with unaccustomed conduct but from those, the mass of us, who take their virtues and their tastes like their shirts and their furniture from the limited patterns which the market offers.

i love our nation's history, and i'm telling you right now, we have seen that the true test of our democracy will not come simply from the low actions from our leaders on most high. the true test of our democracy will not turn alone on the actions of this body because presidents before and this body before have failed us in dark times. they've failed the ideals of freedom when time and time again they defended slavery. this body has failed the ideals of liberty when time and time again it rejected civil rights. this body has failed the ideals in the past of equality when it voted down again and again suffrage for women.

low presidents before and the senate before has failed this nation in the darkest of times, as the songs my ancestors have said, the paths have been watered with the tears and blood of ancestors. how do we heal? how do we move forward? i say on this dark day that the hope of this nation lies with its people. as learned hand said, the spirit of liberty is not embodied in the constitution. other nations have constitutions that have failed. the hope of this nation will always lie with its people. and so we will not be cured today. and i tell you, tomorrow's vote, it is a defeat. but we as the people facing

other defeats in this body, we must never be defeated. just like they beat us down at stonewall. they beat us back in selma. the hope of this nation lies with the people who face defeats but must never be defeated. and so my prayer for our republic now, yet in another crisis in the senate, is that we cannot let this be leading us further and further into a treacherous time of partisanship and tribalism. where we tear at each other, where we turn against each other. now is the time in america where we must begin in the hearts of people to turn to each other, to begin to find a way out of this dark time to a higher ground of hope.

this is not a time to simply point blame at one side or another. this is a time to accept responsibility, like our ancestors in the past so understood that change does not come from washington; it must come to washington. as i was taught as a boy, we didn't get civil rights because strom thurmond came to the senate floor one day and pronounced that he'd seen the light. no, this body responded to the demands of people and now is a time that we must demand to the highest virtues of our land and see each other for who we are, our greater hope and our greatest promise. we are a weary people in america again. we are tired. we are frustrated.

but we cannot give up. that flag over there, we who swear an oath to it and don't just parrot words or say them with some kind of perfunctory obstacles, but those who swear --s perfunctory obligation, but those who swear an oath to this nation must now act with a greater unyielding conviction. we must act to do justice. we must act to heal harms. we must act to walk more humbly. we must act to love one another. unconditionally. and now, more than ever, perhaps we need to act in the words of a great abolitionist, the former slave who in a dark difficult time when america was failing to live up to its promise gave forth a sentiment in his actions captured in the poetry of

languageston hughes -- longston hughes. he declared through his work and sacrifice that america never was america to me and yet i swear this oath: america will be. may we as a nation in this difficult time, when we face the betrayal of a president, the surrender of obligation by a body, may we meet this time with our actions of goodwill, of a commitment to love and to justice and to yet again elevating our country so that we, too, may be like as it says in that great text, a light unto all nations. thank you. mr. portman: mr. president? mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: i'm here today to talk about the senate trial and the factors i've considered in

making my decision on the articles of impeachment from the house. i've now read hundreds of pages of legal briefs and memos, including the testimony of 17 witnesses. here on the senate floor i've reviewed more than 190 witness videos and listened carefully to more than 65 hours of detailed presentations. as cofounder of the ukraine caucus and someone who's proud to represent many ukrainian ohioans in ohio, i have a been active in helping uukraine o.a.s. it has said freedom and independence since the 2014 revolution of dignity that saw the corrupt russian-backed government of victor replaced with western leaders. since first seeing the transcript of the phone call i've consistently said that the

president asking ukraine for an investigation of joe biden was inappropriate and wrong. i've also said since then that any actions taken by members of the administration or those outside the administration to try to delay military assistance or a white house meeting pending an investigation by ukraine were not appropriate either. but while i don't condone this behavior, these actions do not rise to the level of removing president trump from movingst office and taking him off the ballot in a presidential election year that is already well under way. i first looked to the fact that the founders meant for impeachment of a president to be extremely rare, reserved for only, and i quote, treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. end quote. any fair reading of what the founders meant in the constitution and in "the federalist" papers in the

contest of history and just plain common sense makes it clear that removing a duly elected president demands that those arguing for conviction meet a high standard. as an example, for good reason there's never been a presidential impeachment that didn't allege a crime. in the clinton impeachment, the independent counsel concluded that president clinton committed not one but two crimes. in this case, no crime is alleged. let me repeat, in the two articles of impeachment that came over to us from the house,ness no criminal law violation -- there is no criminal law violation alleged. although i don't think that that's always necessary, there could be circumstances where a crime isn't necessary in an impeachment, without a crime, it's a even bar for those who advocate for a conviction, and that high bar is not met here. what's more, even though it was

delayed, the president ultimately did provide the needed military assistance to ukraine. and he provided it before the september 30 budget deadline. and the requested investigations by ukraine were not undertaken. it's an important point to make. the aid went, the investigations did not occur. the military assistance is particularly important to me as a strong supporter of ukraine. in fact, i was one of those senators who fought to give president obama and his administration the authority to provide badly needed lethal military assistance to ukraine in response to the russian aggression that came right after the revolution of dignity in 2014. i must say, i strongly urged the obama administration to use that authority and, like ukraine, i was deeply disappointed when they did not. i strongly supported president trump's decision to change course and provide that assistance shortly after he came into office.

while visiting ukrainian troops on the front lines in the donbass region of ukraine, i've seen firsthand how much those soldiers need the military assistance president trump alone has provided. beyond whether the president's conduct met the high bar of impeachment, there is also the underlying issue of the legitimacy of the house impeachment process. the house democrats sent the? the a flawed case, on what constitutional law professor jonathan turley calls, quote, the shortest proceeding with the thinnest evidentiary record and the narrowest grounds ever used to impeach a president. end quote. instead of usings tools available to compel the administration to compel documents and witnesses, the house followed a self-imposed and entirely political deadline for voting on the articles of impeachment before christmas.

after the rushed vote, the house then inexplicably stalled, keeping those articles from being delivered here in the senate for 28 days. time they could have used to subpoena witnesses and resolve the disagreements about whether evidence was privileged or not. they didn't even bother to subpoena witnesses they then wanted the senate to subpoena for them. the house process was also lacking in fundamental fairness and due process in a number of respects. it is incomprehensible to me that the president's counsel did not have the opportunity to cross-examine fact witnesses and that the house selectively leaked deposition testimony from closed-door sessions. rushing an impeachment case through the house without due process and giving the senate a half-baked cake to finish sets a very dangerous precedent. if the senate were to convict, it would send the wrong message

and risk making this kind of quick, partisan impeachment in the house a regular occurrence moving forward. that would be terrible for the country. less than a year ago, speaker nancy pelosi said, and i quote, impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is something so compelling and bipartisan, i don't think we should go down that path. end quote. she was right. it's better to let the people decide. early voting has already stated in some states and in the iowa caucuses, it occurred last night. armed with all of -- with all of the information, we should let the voters have their say at the ballot box. 21 years ago during the last impeachment, congressman jerry nadler said there must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or one supported by one political party and largely opposed by the

other. such impeachment would lack legitimacy, end quote. in this case the impeachment wasn't substantially supported by democrats, it was only supported by democrats. a few democrats voted with all of the republicans to oppose the impeachment. found alexander hamilton feared that impeachment could easily fall pray to partisan politics. that's exactly what happened here. with the only purely partisan impeachment in the history of our great country. for all these reasons, i'm voting against the articles of impeachment tomorrow. it's time to move on. and to move on to focus on bipartisan legislation to help the families that we represent. unlike the house, the senate is blocked from conducting its regular business during impeachment. my colleague from new jersey asked a moment ago, how do we heal? how do we heal the wounds?

our country is divided and i think the impeachment is further divided an already polarized country. i think we heal in part by surprising the people and coming out from our partisan corners and getting stuff done, stuff they care about that affects the families we were sent here to represent. while in the impeachment trial, we were kept from doing the important legislative work that our constituents expect like lowering drug costs, like rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, and addressing the new addiction crisis, addressing issues with pure crystal meth coming from mexico. it is an opportunity for us to pass legislation to give workers the skills they need to meet the jobs that are out there. those are just a few ideas that are ready to go. ideas the president supports, republicans support, democrats support. i've been working on bipartisan

initiatives like the jobs act to provide in a needed skills training, the restore our parks act to deal with the infrastructure of our national parks, and the industrial saving, which promotes energy efficiency, something we should be able to agree on across the aisle. all of these have been sitting idle this year as we have grappled with impeachment. how do we heal? how do we heal the wounds? well, in part, let's do it by working together to pass legislation people care about. back home i've seen that the impeachment process has indeed further divided an already polarized country. a conviction in the senate, removing donald trump from office and taking his name off the ballot would dangerously deepen that growing rift. that's one reason i'm glad we're not likely to see a conviction because i do care about our

country and bringing it together. instead my hope is that lessons have been learned. that we can heal some wounds for the sake of the country. that we can turn to the bipartisan work most americans expect us to do, and that we can allow american voters exercising the most important constitutional check and balance of all, to have their say in this year's presidential election. i believe this is what the constitution requires and what the country needs. i yield back my time. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. cassidy: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, as i rise today to discuss this impeachment trial, i'm reminded of an inscription above the front door of the finance building in harrisburg, pennsylvania, from the 1930's. here is the inscription, quote, all public service is a trust

given in faith and accepted in honor. i believe that president trump in every -- and every public official in america must earn that trust every day. that sacred trust is given to us, as the encryption says -- inscription says, by faith by virtue of our election. the question for our president and every elected official is this, will we accept this trust by our honorable conduct? the trust set forth in the inscription is an echo of alexander hamilton words in federalist number 65, where hamilton articulated the standard for impeachment as, quote, offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust, unquote.

over the past two weeks i've listened carefully to the argument put forward by the president's defense lawyers and the house managers. in light of the substantial record put forth by the managers in this case, i've determined that the managers have not only met but exceeded their burden of proof. president trump violated his duty as a public servant by corruptly abusing the -- his power to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, and by repeatedly obstructing congress's constitutionally based investigation into his conduct. president trump's clearly established pattern of conduct indicates he will continue to be, quote, a threat to national security and the constitution if allowed to remain in office. unquote. for these reasons, i will vote

guilty on both article 1 and article 2. this impeachment was triggered by the president's conduct. we're here because the president abused his power, the awesome power of his office to demand that an ally investigate a political opponent, proving his contempt for the constitution and his duties as a public official. the house managers provided substantial evidence of wrongdoing. first, as to article 1 regarding abuse of power. many of the facts here are undisputed. for example, there is no dispute that the president has said when referring to the constitution lficle 1 -- article 2 allows me to do whatever i want, unquote. so said the president of the united states of america.

then he withheld congressionally authorized military assistance to ukraine in a white house meeting ukrainian president zelensky -- a meeting with president zelensky and continued that military assistance -- and condition that military assistance and the meeting on ukraine publicly announcing investigations into vice president biden and his son as well as a debunked conspiracy theory about the 2016 election interference. the memorandum of theul which pt trump asked president zelensky, quote, to do us a favor though after zelensky brought up in the conversation military assistance, that evidence is compelling, evidence of wrongdoing. the president reiterated on the white house lawn on october 3 that ukraine should, quote,

start a major investigation into the bidens, unquote. before adding that china should also, quote, start an investigation into the bidens, unquote. president trump's own politically appointed ambassador to the european union, gordon sondland, explicitly testified that the meeting and the assistance were conditioned on announcing -- announcing the investigations. the president's defense lawyer first insisted on this floor that he, quote, did absolutely nothing wrong, unquote. but later, after even republican senators would not make that claim, the new justification for his misconduct was, quote, corruption and, quote, burden sharing, unquote. if the president was so concerned about corruption in ukraine, why did he dismiss one

of our best corruption-fighting diplomats, marie yovanovitch? the defense department in may also certified that ukraine had taken, quote, substantial actions, unquote, to decrease corruption. if there were legitimate foreign policy concerns about corruption, the president would not have released aid to ukraine without delay in 2017 and in 2018 only to delay it in 2019 after joe biden announced his run for president. if there were legitimate foreign policy concerns, the president would not have been interested in pursuing investigations based on, as dr. fiona hill testified, a, quote, fictional narrative that is being perpetrated and propagated by the russian security services, unquote, to raise doubts about russia's own

culpability in the 2016 election interference and to harm the relationship between the united states and ukraine. furthermore, as the president's defense team would have us believe that -- that he legitimately asserted executive privilege over the house's well-founded impeachment inquiry, despite the fact that he never actually asserted a privilege over a single document or witness. rather he issued a blanket directive in which he refused to cooperate entirely with the house investigation. this action not only obstructed the house's constitutional responsibility of oversight, it also sought to cover up the president's corrupt abuse of power. at the time of the drafting of the constitution, the framers understanding of, quote, high crimes and misdemeanors,

unquote, was informed by centuries of english legal precedent. this understanding was reflected in the language of federalist number 65 that i referred to earlier, regarding, quote, an abuse or violation of some public trust, unquote. based on this history, both chambers of congress have consistently interpreted, quote, high crimes and misdemeanors, unquote, broadly to mean, quote, serious violations of the public trust, unquote. the president's defense lawyers argue that impeachment requires the violation of a criminal statute to be constitutionally valid. this argument is offensive, dangerous, and not supported by historical precedent, credible scholarship or common sense about the sake red notion of the -- sacred negotiation of the public trust. when applying the impeachment standard of a, quote, abuse or

violation of some public trust, it is clear that president trump's conduct exceeded that standard. any effort to corrupt our next election must be met with swift accountability as provided for in the impeachment clause in the constitution. there is no other remedy to constrain a president who has acted time and again to advance his personal interests over those of the nation. furthermore, as demonstrated through special counsel mueller's report regarding russia interference in the 2016 election and the substantial evidence presented in this impeachment trial and the house proceedings, president trump has engaged -- has engaged in ongoing efforts to solicit foreign interference in our elections. as "the washington post" reported on september 21, in a

story written by three reporters who have covered the president for several years, the president's conduct on the ukraine phone call revealed a, quote, -- and i'm quoting "the washington post," a, quote, president convinced of his own invincibility, apparently willing and even eager to wield the vast powers of the united states to taint a political foe and confident that no one could hold him back. unquote. this president will abuse his power again. now, at the outset of this trial and throughout the proceedings, senate democrats and 75% of the american people have repeatedly called for relevant witnesses and relevant documents to be subpoenaed to ensure a full and fair trial for all parties.

for example, we saw testimony from former national security advisor john bolton whose unpublished manuscript indicates that the president explicitly told bolton that he wanted to continue the delay in military assistance to ukraine until it announced the political investigations he was seeking. 51 senate republicans refused to examine this or other relevant evidence, thereby rigging this trial to the benefit of the president. fair trials have witnesses and documents. cover-ups have neither. this is the third presidential impeachment trial in our country's history, and it's the only one, the only one to be conducted without calling a single witness. in fact, every completed impeachment trial in history has included new witnesses that were

not even interfered in the house of representatives. senate republicans slammed the door shut on relevant testimony, contrary to the national interest. mr. president, our founders had the foresight to ensure that the power of the president was not unlimited and that congress could, if necessary, hold the executive accountable for abuses of power through the impeachment process. this trial is not simply about grave presidential abuse of power. it's about our democracy, the sanctity of our elections, and the very values that the founders agreed should guide our nation. i go back to the beginning in that inscription. quote, all public service is a trust given in faith and accepted in honor. president trump dishonored that

public trust and thereby abused his power for personal political gain. in order to prevent continuing interference in our upcoming election and blatant obstruction of congress, i will vote guilty on both articles. mr. president, i would yield the floor. mr. boozman: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. boozman: i rise today to address this topic that has consumed this body for the past several weeks, which is of course the impeachment trial of the president of the united states. after the passage of two impeachment articles in the house, speaker pelosi waited nearly a month to transmit the articles to the senate. once she finally did, the trial

took precedence and the wheels were set in motion to conduct the proceedings and render a verdict. since it became clear that the house would vote to impeach the president, i have taken my constitutional duty to serve as a juror in the impeachment trial with the seriousness and the attention that it demands. in light of the extensive coverage this situation received, it was impossible not to take notice of the process that unholded in the house over the course of its investigation. its inquiry was hasty, flawed, and clearly undertaken under partisan pretenses. having rushed to impeach the president ahead of an arbitrary deadline, as well as failing to provide adequate opportunities for the president to defend himself, the impeachment investigation in this case

specifically was contrived at least partially and was a vehicle to fulfill the fierce desire among the many president's' detractors that has existed since before he was even sworn in to remove him from office. be that as it may, the constitution makes clear that the senate has a duty to try all the impeachments. as such, the chief concern i had, as i know many of my colleagues also shared, was for the process in this body to be fair. it was clear to me that what transpired in the house was incredibly partisan and unfair. i believe the senate must and would rise to the occasion to conduct a trial that was fair, respectful, and faithful to the design and intent of our founders. i police chief that the -- i believe that the organizing

resolution that we passed was sufficient in establishing a framework for the trial and also would address the outstanding issues at the appropriate times. throughout the course of the trial, i stayed attentive and engaged, taking in the arguments and the evidence presented to the senate, which included the testimony of over a dozen witnesses and thousands of documents as part of the house investigation. the house impeachment managers were emphatic that their case against the president was overwhelming, uncontested, convincing, and proven. the president's counsel made an equally forceful case in his defense, countering the claims made by the house and underscoring the grounds on which the senate should reject the articles and by necessity the attempt to expel him from office and a future ballot. based on the work done by the house or maybe more accurately

the work not done and inherently flawed and the partisan nature of the product it presented to the senate, i was skeptical that it could prove its case and convince anybody, apart from the president's long-time, most severe critics, that his behavioral -- his behavior merited removal from office. after two weeks of the proceedings in the senate, my assessment of the situation has not been swayed, nor has it changed. that's why i will vote to acquit the president and reject the weaponization of congress' authority to impeach the duly elected president of the united states. to be clear, the partisan nature of this impeachment process potentially sets the stage for more impeachments along strictly partisan lines, a development that would be terrible for our country. the constitution lays out justifications for impeachment which include, quote, treason,

bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, unquote. as a united states senator, there is perhaps no more important a decision that i am asked to make, aside from voting to send americans to war. that's exactly why i treated this impeachment trial with the gravity and the thoughtfulness i believed that it deserved. the accusations explicitly made by the house impeachment managers echoed by some on the other side that the senate is engaging in a cover-up is wrong on the merits and further drags this process down into the rhetoric of partisan political warfare. i regret that it's descended to such a place. fulfilling my constitutional obligation after drawing my own conclusions is far from a cover-up. the attempt to turn the impeachment power into a weapon of political convenience will be far more damaging than any other aspect of this chapter in our

nation's history. at the end of the day, this partisan process yielded a product built on inadequate foundation, in addition to being clearly motivated by the desire to remove the president who some vocal activists have viewed as illegitimate since the election day in 2016. not even a year ago, speaker pelosi was still attempting to stem the push for impeachment within our own party, arguing that, i quote, the impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, i don't think we should go down that path, end quote. she was right. this impeachment process is felled by -- has failed by each of these metrics. the case has divided the country. the case is certainly not overwhelming. and it has been anything but bipartisan. in fact, the vote against impeaching the president in the

house was bipartisan, and as a result of senate rules and precedents, it has also brought the legislative process nearly to a grinding halt. but as the trial reaches its conclusion, i believe we must move on and return to doing the work and trying to get things done for the american people. the average arkansan, like many other americans, is looking for results and asking how the elected leaders they have chosen are trying to help make their lives better and move our country forward. they are nod interested in the political games and theater that have consumed much of washington since september. it is my hope that we will return to that real pressing work in short order. in just a few months, the voters of this country will get to decide who they prefer to lead our country. i trust them to make that decision, and i trust that the

process by which we choose our president and other leaders will remain free and fair and at the outcome will represent the will of the people. the hardworking men and women of our intelligence, law enforcement, and national security communities will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that this is the case, and i have every confidence they will succeed in that endeavor. it's time to get back to the important work before us and to remember that those we represent are capable of judging for themselves how this impeachment was conducted and maybe just as importantly how we conducted ourselves as a public. we have -- as a body. we have the responsibility to lead by example and for my colleagues to join me in committing to getting back to doing the hard and necessary work before us when this impeachment trial reaches its conclusion. with that, mr. president, i

yield back. mr. lankford: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: we're at the third week of the impeachment trial right now. after thousands of documents being reviewed, over a dozen witnesses that we've heard, well over a hundred video testimony clips that we have gone through, we're nearing the end. the country is deeply divided on multiple issues right now. the impeachment trial is both a symptom of our times and another example of our division.

the nation didn't have an impeachment inquiry for almost 100 years, until 1868, with the partisan impeachment of andrew johnson. another impeachment wasn't conducted for over 100 years after that when the house began a formal impeachment inquiry into president nixon with an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 410-4. just a little over two decades later, there was another partisan impeachment process. president clinton, when he was impeached, on an almost straight partisan vote. tomorrow i will join many others in a vote to acquit the president of the united states. his actions certainly do not rise to the level of removal from office. this is clearly another one of our partisan impeachments, now the third in our history. over the past three years, the house of representatives has voted four times to open an impeachment inquiry, once in

2017, once in 2018, and twice in 2019. only the second vote in 2019 actually passed and turned it from -- into an actual impeachment inquiry. for four months, the country has been consumed with impeachment hearings and investigations. first rumors of issues with ukraine arose in august -- on august 28 when "politico" wrote a story about u.s. aid being slowwalked for ukraine. and then september 18 when "the washington post" released a story about a whistle-blower report that claimed president trump pressured an unnamed foreign head of state to do an investigation for his campaign. within days of "the washington post" story, before the whistle-blower report came out, before anything was known, speaker pelosi announced the house would begin hearings to impeach the president, which led to a formal house vote to open an impeachment inquiry on october 31 and a formal vote to impeach the president on december 18. the house sent over two articles of impeachment, asking the

senate to decide if the president should be removed from office and barred from running from any future office in the united states, one on abuse of power, the second on obstruction of congress. let me take those in order. the abuse of power argument hinges on two things. did the president of the united states use official funds to compel the ukranian government to investigate joe biden's son and his work for the corrupt natural gas company in the ukraine, burisma? did the president withhold a meeting with president zelensky until president zelensky agreed to investigate joe biden's son? to be clear, the theory of the funds being withheld from ukraine in exchange for an investigation doesn't originate from that infamous july 25 call. there's nothing in the text of the call that threatens the withholding of funds for an investigation. the theory originates from the belief of an ambassador of the european union, gordon sondland, what he said, presumption, and he repeated that over and over again, presumption that the aid must

have been held because the president's desire to get to the biden investigation to be able to get it done, since the president's private attorney rudy giuliani was working to find out more about the biden investigation in burisma. ambassador sondland told multiple people about his theory but when he called president trump and asked him directly about it, the president responded there wasn't any quid pro quo. he said he wanted the president of ukraine to do what he ran on and to do the right thing. interestingly enough, that's the same thing that president zelensky said and his defense minister said and his chief of staff said. the aid was held because there was a legitimate concern about the transition of a brand-new president in ukraine and his administration early days of his presidency. an unknown on the world stage was elected, president zelensky, on april 21. his swearing-in date was may 21. during his swearing-in, he also

abolished parliament and called for snap elections. no one knew what he was going to do or what was going to happen. those elections happened july 21 in ukraine where an overwhelming number of president zelensky's party won in parliament. there was an amazing transition in a relatively short period of time in ukraine and there were a lot of questions. i was in ukraine in late may of 2019, and our state department officials there certainly had questions on the ground on the rapid transition that was happening in ukraine. it is entirely p reasonable for there to be able to be a pause in that time period. those concerns were resolved by august and early september when the new parliament started passing anticorruption laws and vice president pence sat down face-to-face with president zelensky on september 1 in poland to discuss their progress on corruption and their progress on getting other nations to help supply more aid to ukraine. as for the meeting with the

president that being withheld, as i mentioned, the vice president of the united states met with president zelensky on september 1. that meeting was originally scheduled to be with the president of the united states, and all the planning had gone into it and there's documentation for that that there was a meeting happening between president zelensky, which is actually the place and date that he asked for, to meet with president trump. except in the final moments of that and the final days leading up to it hurricane dorwan approached the united states and that meeting had to be called off with the president while he stayed here and so the vice president went in his stead. there was no quid pro quo in a meeting. that meeting that was requested actually occurred. it's interesting to note when i research the notes the dates for the ukraine for the past few years in 2019 the aid arrived in september. the years 2016, 2017, 2018

also went to ukraine in september. it's easy to create an intricate story on the hold to foreign aid, it's also clear president trump held foreign aid from multiple countries over the past two years including afghanistan, pakistan, honduras, guatamala, lebanon and others. there is no question a president can hold aid for a short period of time but it has to be released by september 30, which it was to ukraine on time. the hold did occur. there are messages back and forth to be able to hold, but it's entirely reasonable to have the hold, and it was such a short period of time and the aid arrest rieferred at the same -- arrived at the same time it usually did each of the past three years that the minister of defense for ukraine actually stated that the hold was so short they didn't even know it. what's interesting about this is, this is stretched from not just an abuse of power but also

a, quote-unquote, obstruction of congress, the second article of impeachment. the house argument was the president didn't turn over every document and allow every witness without submitting everything to congress immediately. they argued that if the president challenged any subpoena, he was stalling, he was acting guilty and so it was grounds for impeachment. remember how fast this all happened. the investigation started september 24. the official start of impeachment started october 31 and ended on december 18 with a partisan vote in the house for impeachment. if president trump obstructed congress because he didn't turn over documents that didn't even have a legal subpoena, within two months, then i would say president obama was not impeached but maybe he should have been -- though i don't think he should have been. but if you argue in that same way because president obama did not honor legal subpoenas for three years on the fast and furious investigation when that

happened. three years he stalled out. there was no consideration for impeaching president obama because he shouldn't have been impeached. it was working through the court system as things moved. this is a serious issue that became even more serious when the house managers moved not just to say that this is obstruction of congress if the president doesn't immediately submit, but they took this to a different level by saying the president should not have access to the courts at all. literally stating, does the constitution give the legislative branch the power to block the executive branch from the judicial branch? house managers said yes. they could rapidly move through a trial and bring the case to the senate and have it only partially investigated and then try to use the power of the senate to block the executive branch from ever going to court to resolve any issue. that has not been done in the past, nor should it be.

the president, like every other citizen of the united states, should have access to the courts, and it is not grounds for contempt of congress to not -- to block the president from ever trying to go to court to resolve issues that need to be resolved. every other president has had that right. this one should have had that right as well. this tale that president trump thinks he's a king and doesn't want to follow the law begs reality. let me remind everyone of the mueller investigation. 2,800 subpoenas that were done over two and a half years. 500 witnesses including the president's, many of the president's inner circle. all of those were provided. none of those were blocked by the administration. and after two and a half years, the final conclusion was there was no conspiracy between the president's campaign and the russians. the president did honor those subpoenas. the president has been very clear on multiple court cases that he did not like and did not

agree with. he's been outspoken on those, but he's honored each court decision. it would be a terrible precedent for the congress to remove a president from office because they couldn't agree that congress couldn't take away his rights in court like every other american. the difficulty in this process as with every impeachment process is separating out facts and the politics of it. there are facts in this case we took a lot of time to go through. each of us sat for hour upon hour for two and a half weeks listening to testimony and going through the record. we all spent lots of time being able to read on our own through the facts and details. that was reasonable to be able to do. what we have to examine at the end of the day what's a fact-based issue that's been answered and each of the key facts raised by the house all have answers. and what is a politics issue. to say in an election year what is being presented by the house

to say what can we do to slow down this process and to try to give the president a bad name during the middle of an election time period. to separate out those two is not a simple process. but to begin with the most basic element of do the facts line up with the accusations made by the house. they do not. are there plenty of accusations? yes, there are. and my fear is in the days ahead there will be more and more accusations as we go. there have been for the last three years. but at this moment, in the facts of this time, in the partisan rancor from the house and into the senate, i'm going to choose to acquit the president of the united states. this certainly does not rise to the level of removal from office and forbidding him to run for any other office in the future. it certainly doesn't rise to that level. in the days ahead, as more facts come out, all of history will be able to see how this occurred and the details and

what happens next. i look forward actually to that to continue to be able to come out so all can be known. with that, i yield back. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. mr. king: mr. president, i'd like to share my remarks not only with my colleagues today but more so with those who will come after us. and i want to touch on four issues. the trial itself, the president's actions as outlined in articles 1 and 2 of the articles of impeachment and finally and most importantly, in my mind, the implications of our decision this week on the future of our government and our country. first the trial. weeks ago i joined my colleagues in swearing an oath to do impartial justice. and since that time i've done everything possible to fulfill

that responsibility. i paid full attention, taken three legal pads worth of notes, reviewed press accounts, and had conversations with my colleagues and citizens in my home state of maine. the one question i got most frequently back home was how we could proceed without calling relevant witnesses and securing the documents that would confirm or deny the charges against the president which are at the heart of this matter. but for the first time in american history, we failed to do so. we robbed ourselves and the american people of a full record of this president's misuse of his office. this failure stains this institution, undermines tomorrow's verdict and creates a precedent that will haunt those who come after us and indeed will haunt the country. but now we're here left to make this decision without the facts

concealed by the white house and left concealed by the votes of this body last friday. this was not a trial in any real sense. it was instead an argument based upon a partial but still damning record. how much better it could have been had we had access to all the facts, facts which will eventually come out but too late to inform our decisions. as to the articles themselves, i should begin by saying i have always been a conservative on the subject of impeachment. for the better part of the last it three years i have argued both publicly and privately against the idea. impeachment should not be a tool to remove a president on the basis of policy disagreements. the president's lawyers are right when they argue that this would change our system of government and dangerously

weaken any president. but this reluctance must give way, if it requires my turning a blind eye to what happened last summer. the events of last summer were no policy disagreement. they were a deliberate series of acts whereby the president sought to use the power of his office in his own personal and political interest. specifically, by pressuring a government of a strategic partner, a partner, by the way, significantly dependent upon our moral and financial support. pressuring that government to take action against one of the president's political rivals and thereby undermine the integrity of the coming american election. and this last point is important. in normal circumstances the argument of the president's defenders that impeachment is not necessary because the

election is less than a year away would be persuasive. i could understand that. but the president in this matter was attempting to undermine that very election, and he gives every indication that he will continue to do so. he has expressed no understanding that he did anything wrong, let alone anything resembling remorse. impeachment is not a punishment. it's a prevention, and the only way, unfortunately, to keep an unrepentant president from repeating his wrongful actions, is removal. and this president has made it plain that he will listen to nothing else. article 1 charges a clear abuse of power in inviting foreign interference with the upcoming election, inviting foreign interference with the upcoming election. the president tasked his personal attorney to work with a foreign head of state