Doug Collins

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, two facts just came out right here, and again, we are going to hear in just a moment, but they are facts. Undoubtedly the mics are not working on the other side, on the majority side. We have talked about the facts. There is not overwhelming evidence. We have discussed this over and over until we are blue in the face, but it doesn't matter because this is a political impeachment. This has nothing to do with the facts. We have shown that there was nothing done wrong, but that does not matter. When the train is on the tracks, the whistle is blowing, impeachment matters, and the only thing that matters on the timeline, the only real emergency here is that there is a 2020 election in which the Democrats can't stand to see the fact this President is going to win again. They can't stand the fact of who they have got running, so what do we do? We impeach him, as they said, for life. That is wrong. Vote ``no.'' Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I will take it back. Madam Speaker, give me the time one more time.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, then the gentleman is not ready to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, there are no speakers? A closing is no other speakers.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, there are no other speakers?

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I appreciate that. Madam Speaker, is the gentleman from New York ready to close?

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy).

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This impeachment process has been flawed from the outset. It resembles not a congressional action; it resembles, more, a Dr. Seuss book, knowing not which way it goes. On September 24, the Speaker declared at a press conference the House was conducting an impeachment inquiry. However, contrary to the Speaker's decree that we were all of a sudden in an impeachment inquiry, the House did not authorize the impeachment inquiry until October 30 by adopting H. Res. 660. It was said just a moment ago that the Speaker has been leading the fight for a fair trial in the Senate. I wish the Speaker had been leading for a fair hearing in the House instead of trashing our rules. For those 71 out of 78 days, from the time it was announced at a press conference to the time we finished, the President was not permitted to participate in these meetings. Think of that: 71 days out of 78 in which we actually did something on impeachment, he was not presented the ability to cross-examine fact witnesses, present counterarguments, no due process at all in those 71 days. When presented with the opportunity, when it came to the Judiciary Committee, instead of the Judiciary Committee stepping up and actually acting like the Judiciary Committee, the committee of impeachment, we punted. We had some law professors who already had their basic talking points. He could have cross-examined them. That would have done a lot of good. Then we could have had witnesses of staffers who testified--again, a lot of good. Where were the fact witnesses? Instead of the rubber stamp that we were warned about 20 years ago by the current chairman, we became the rubber stamp. Democrats repeatedly violated House rules and blatantly abused the rules they wrote in H. Res. 660. Even to this day, we will pass this out in violation of H. Res. 660. They used inflammatory rhetoric haunting them because this is what they had to do. One Democrat said: I call for impeachment today because it is one heck of an emergency. Another said: We have a crime in progress. We have an emergency in our national election that is going on right now. But my favorite, in December: It is a crime spree in progress. Oh, the hyperbole just reeks in this room. When we understand this, if it was such an emergency, if it was in lieu to finding a 911 call, then why did we hold this for almost a month? Well, we have been told that it is to help have a Senate fair trial--be damned the House inappropriate process we had. But even now that the process was bad, I am going to go back, and let's make sure the facts are here because they still haven't changed: A phone call that was put out in a transcript in which no pressure was applied, there was no conditionality on anything given in that call or since to do that. There was also nothing given by the Ukrainians to actually get this money that was released, by the way, before--it was actually a statutory deadline of September 31. They did nothing. They got the money anyway. But the problem is they want the Senate to do their job for them. But that is not how it works. You see, the Speaker--and what I have heard today even from folks giving 1-minutes, Madam Speaker, is this was all they wanted. It was a political impeachment. They have said he is impeached for life. This shows the true motivation, I believe, of the other side. It is their dislike for this President and the good work he is doing. So, Madam Speaker, before I reserve here for a moment, this has always been a political impeachment. Even today, on the floor, the talk of the President being forever impeached and this always being a stain forgets the Senate trial. I hope this ends this political impeachment and this body never sees it again. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize President and CEO of the Church Music Publishers Association's (CMPA) Action Fund, Mr. Elwyn Raymer, for his 50-year career dedicated to bettering the music publishing industry. In 1966, Raymer moved to Music City and became Music Editor for Broadman Records and Music at the Baptist Sunday School Board, currently known as Lifeway. During his time as Music Editor, he produced and published the musical Celebrate Life. This musical touched the lives of millions nationwide and sold more than 600,000 copies. As Executive Vice President of Triune Music and Triangle Records and President of Lorenz Creative Services, Raymer focused on his advocacy for songwriters, artists, and publishers. In 1990, Raymer joined Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) where he helped establish the group's entry and success into Contemporary Christian Music. During his tenure at BMG, he became a leader for his ability to carry out acquisitions and attract talented musicians and songwriters. While at BMG, Raymer redefined and expanded the group's scope by overseeing the purchase of Reunion Records and Music and the acquisition of half of the Sparrow Music catalogues. As a direct result, BMG went on to unleash a new era in the groups chapter of music making with songs such as Change the World, which was performed by Eric Clapton and won the Grammy Award for ``Song of the Year'' in 1996. In 2001, Raymer retired from BMG after spending over 20 years leading the group's development, but he never stopped fighting for artists, songwriters, and publishers. After retiring from BMG, Raymer became President and CEO of the Church Music Publishers Association's (CMPA) Action Fund, where he worked to protect the intellectual property rights of songwriters and publishers. Throughout his five decades of work in the music industry, Raymer has received numerous awards for his work, including The Arnold Broida Award for Copyright Advocacy, CMPA Founders Award, the NSAI President's Award, and countless other recognitions from ASCAP, BMI, Sparrow Records, BMG, and the CMPA. It is my honor to congratulate Raymer on his retirement and to thank him for being a tireless advocate for songwriters and publishers. I wish him and his wife, Linda, all the best as they enter this new season of life.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, a few weeks ago just off of this floor, I said that a dark cloud was descending upon this body. And today, because of the clock and the calendar, it is closing. It is amazing to me what I just heard from the majority leader: that Mr. Schiff and Mr. Nadler presented a compelling case for impeachment. If this is a compelling case for impeachment, I am not sure why we are here right now. It is not anywhere close to compelling. But you know what is interesting is what I have heard today. The majority leader just spoke and said that the President was given every opportunity to come prove his innocence. I tell you what, Madam Speaker, let me have just a few minutes, stop the clock, and let me go around to the press corps and everybody here and I am going to accuse you of something. You did it. You did it. You did it. You did it. Now prove it is wrong. You did it. Guess what? You don't want to, because deep down, you know that that is turning the entire jurisprudence of this country upside down. You are not guilty until you are proven innocent. You are innocent. And today from this floor, we have heard the majority leader say this President is guilty, and not the other way around. He is innocent, and these articles come nowhere close to proving it. But what is left of this body? Let's have an honest conversation, Madam Speaker. What we have found over the past few weeks is that it is okay for the majority to tear down a foreign leader because they can't make their case. They have called him a liar or weak or worse, or as he was called in the committee, he even looked like a battered wife. It is below the dignity of this body and this majority to tear down a foreign leader because they can't make their case against this one. We have broken rules in this House, even to this moment. Chairman Schiff and the others have broken H. Res. 660 by not turning over the things that they should be turning over. I still have not gotten a transcript and the White House still has not gotten their stuff. I guess to the minority here, the rules today don't matter either. You see, there is a problem here, because we are going to vote on this tonight while breaking the rules. What a shameful incident. But we also found a creative interpretation of minority rights. We saw the rise of partisanship, because of the things that have been done even further. We have even seen Members smeared in reports by drive-by political hacks when they match phone numbers of the ranking member and members of the press. That ought to concern every one of you as much as it concerns every one of us. Nothing but a drive-by hit. But you know something? This majority leader also just said wherever law ends, tyranny begins. But I will say this: In this House, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule actually begin, and the majority has taken that to a new level. It has been said today, where is bravery? I will tell you where bravery is found and courage is found: It is found in this minority, who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority saying, Be damned with anything else, we are going to impeach and do whatever we want to do. Why? Because we won an election. I guarantee you, one day you will be back in the minority, and it ain't going to be that fun. Because when you look at it, when you actually trash the rules of this House, you want to really look at: What did you gain at the end by trashing the institution you claim to love? Those are the things we have found out so far. But you know they are really careful in saying, Oh, you want to deal with process and process. As I said last night in the Rules Committee--where they didn't want to listen--I will win on process and I will win on facts, because we have the truth on our side. Let me remind you that here is what the facts actually say. There was no pressure. Look at the call between President Zelensky and President Trump: no pressure. There was no conditionality. There was nothing done to get the aid, and the aid actually came. There were five meetings, but when you look at it right now, none of which matter, because right now the dark cloud is descending upon this House. I am fearful, Madam Speaker, when I look out into that abyss. I don't know what I see, but I tell you what I do see. I see coming up a President who will put his head down, even through this sham impeachment, and he will do his job. He will put the American people first. He will tell them, I care about you. He will still put the economy first, and he will make sure that this country stands strong. That is what I see in this abyss. That is where we are going. Madam Speaker, it is with that hope in the future that I recognize right now that I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the Republican leader of this House.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the minority whip.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Mullin) for a unanimous consent request. (Mr. MULLIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Budd) for a unanimous consent request. (Mr. BUDD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Walorski) for a unanimous consent request. (Mrs. WALORSKI asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wittman) for a unanimous consent request. (Mr. WITTMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I would ask the gentleman if he is ready to close.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Palazzo) for a unanimous consent request. (Mr. PALAZZO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman) for a unanimous consent request. (Mr. NORMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, we are here today to enter into a debate that should surprise no one. This has not been a surprise, and it is not even something that we would not have thought about. From the very moment that the majority party in this House won, the inevitability that we would be here today was only a matter of what date they would schedule it, nothing else. In fact, how it even began to look even further was, on September 24, the Speaker announced an impeachment inquiry even before seeing the call transcript that we are going to hear so much about today. You know, it is not about what this body can do and its constitutional oath, and there has been a lot of ``constitutional'' and ``Founders'' thrown around and will be all day today. But there is one thing that I will mention all along, and that is, also, the Founders were very concerned about a partisan impeachment in which politics or the majority, who have their strength, can do what they want to do, regardless of any facts. In fact, I have said it before, and I will say it again, I do not believe, no matter what was said today and even what has been said-- this is not a solemn occasion. When you go looking for something for 3 years, and especially this year since January, you ought to be excited when you find it, but they can't because I know what has now happened. It took me till last night, but I was thinking about it. Why do we keep calling this a solemn occasion when you have been wanting to do this ever since the gentleman was elected? The President came forward and did what he saw fit for the American people, but yet they wanted to impeach him. And it hit me. Now I know. The reason they wanted to is now they are realizing what I told them and have been telling them for the last few weeks, that the clock and the calendar are terrible masters. The clock and the calendar are terrible masters. They do not care about anything except getting the time done and the calendar fixed. They do not care about facts. They do not care about time. And one day, the clock and the calendar will hang along this body in a very detrimental way. How do I know this? Because one of our Members, Ms. Tlaib, said on the night she was sworn in: We are going to impeach. Well, you know the rest. In May 2019, Al Green said: I am concerned if we don't impeach this President, he will get reelected. That is probably the most prescient thing said by the majority in the last year is that they said: We can't beat him if we don't impeach him. There is a reason behind the impeachment. Even Speaker Pelosi said it would be dangerous to leave it to voters to determine whether President Trump stays in office. Really? After we just said the Pledge of Allegiance, we go back to the Speaker's own words and she said it would be dangerous to leave it to the voters. I will tell you right now, Madam Speaker, we on the Republican side have no problem taking our case to the majority and to the people of this country because they elected Donald Trump, and it is a matter for the voters, not this House, not in this way, not in the way this is being done. It has trampled everything this House believes in. I said it yesterday, and I believe this to be true today, I will fight this on process, which has been deplorable, to use a word of the majority. It has been awful. The calendar and the clock make it impressive that we actually do it quickly. We don't care about rules. We don't care about minority hearing days. We don't care about giving the opportunity for witnesses to be called because the chairman gets to determine what is relevant. Wow, that is pretty good. Let the accuser determine what is relevant to the one being accused. The people of America see through this. The people of America understand due process, and they understand when it is being trampled in the people's House. You see, it is also not a matter of process, which will be discussed today. It is a matter of actual facts. I will fight the facts all day long because what we have found here today is a President who did not do as being charged. In fact, they had to go to abuse of power, this amorphous term that you are going to hear many arguments about that abuse of power, except for one thing, the call itself, the two parties say no pressure. Nothing was ever done to get the money. In fact, they didn't even know the money was held. But there is something that very much bothers me about the facts. There were five meetings--we will hear about those today--in which there was never a linkage made. There was one witness who is depended on over 600 times in the majority's report that, in the end, after questioned, had to say: Well, that was my presumption of what was happening. You see, this is an impeachment based on presumption, basically also a poll-tested impeachment on what actually sells to the American people. Today is going to be a lot of things. What it is not is fair. What it is not is about the truth. What is true today, and I just heard it just a moment ago in the articles themselves where it said--and the Speaker, I believe, actually talked about this, that the President weakened a foreign leader. Do you know what the truth of the matter is, Madam Speaker? The most interesting and deplorable thing that I have heard over the last few weeks is the actual attack by the majority on President Zelensky because they realize the whole crux of their case is that if he was not pressured, their house of cards falls. By the way, it has already fallen. But if we can't show pressure, then we either have to call him a liar, a world leader, or we have to make up names to call him. That is exactly what happened in the Judiciary Committee when a Member of the majority actually compared him to a battered wife. That is below the dignity of this body, to take a world leader and, when he doesn't make your case for you, to belittle him, especially, as is going to be often said by the majority, that they are in the middle of a hot war with Russia. You see, President Trump actually did give them offensive weapons. President Trump did nothing wrong. We are going to talk about that all day long today. We went on process, and we went on facts. Why? Because the American people will see through this. Before I close this first part, I will have to recognize that even the minority leader in the Senate recognizes that the House did not do their job because he can't make the case to his own Members so he is having to ask for witnesses, ask for more time. You see, and even yesterday, it was sort of funny. I thought it was hilarious that the minority leader in the Senate went out and did a press conference and said: They denied my witnesses. They denied my requests. Well, welcome to the club, Mr. Schumer. That is exactly what has happened over here for the last 3 months. Today, we are going to talk a lot about impeachment. We are going to talk a lot about our President. We are going to talk about two Articles of Impeachment, abuse of power because they can't actually pin anything of factual basis on him--the President did nothing wrong in this issue--and then they are going to talk about obstruction of Congress. You know, obstruction of Congress, as I have said before, is like petulant children saying we didn't get our way when we didn't ask the right way, and we didn't actually go after it and try to make a case. You know why, Madam Speaker? The clock and the calendar are terrible masters. The majority will own that problem today because to the clock and the calendar, facts don't matter. The promises to the base matter, and today is a promise kept for the majority--not a surprise, a fact. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner).

Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I wish, as the gentlewoman just said, that they would examine the factual conduct, but I guess that is not going to happen. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Johnson).