Adam Schiff

Mr. SCHIFF

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, my colleagues continue to make the argument that the Ukrainians got the money. Yes, the President got caught, but they got the money. No harm, no foul. It is the equivalent of saying that if you are pulled over by a cop and you attempt to bribe the cop, and the cop doesn't take the money but arrests you, well, where is the crime in that? They didn't get the money. This is what my colleagues would have you accept. This is what my colleagues would have you accept, that because the President got caught in the act, we must look the other way. Of course, that is not the way the law works. That is not the way the Constitution works. That is not the way our oath of office works. Our oath of office requires us to impeach a President who abuses his power, whether he gets away with it or he gets caught. In this case, he got caught. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Norcross).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I would just remind my colleagues that Ambassador Volker said that the attacks on Joe Biden were meritless, and he tried to persuade Mr. Giuliani that there was no factual support for them. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis).

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

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Malinowski).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, Chairman Nadler, for yielding, and I thank him for the extraordinary job that he has done as chairman of the Judiciary Committee throughout these difficult proceedings. Madam Speaker, my colleagues, my fellow Americans, I rise to support the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. ``When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits--despotic in his ordinary demeanor--known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty--when such a man is seen to mount the hobbyhorse of popularity--to join in the cry of danger to liberty--to take every opportunity of embarrassing the general government and bringing it under suspicion--to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day--it may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'' These are the words of Alexander Hamilton written in 1792. Could we find a more perfect description of the present danger emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? The Framers crafted a Constitution that contemplated free and fair elections for the highest office in the land, but also afforded the Congress with a power to remove a President who abused the powers of his office for personal gain, who compromised the public trust by betraying our Nation's security or who sought to undermine our democratic system by seeking foreign intervention in the conduct of our elections. I would say that the Founders could have little imagined that a single President might have done all of these things, except that the evidence has sadly proved this is exactly what this President has done. Hamilton, among others, seems to have predicted the rise of Donald Trump with a staggering prescience. Having won freedom from a king, the drafters of our Constitution designed a government in which ambition was made to check ambition, in which no branch of government would predominate over another, and no man would be allowed to be above the law, including the President, especially the President, since with whom would the danger be greater than with the officer charged with being our Commander in Chief? Over the course of the last 3 months, we have found incontrovertible evidence that President Trump abused his power by pressuring the newly elected President of Ukraine to announce an investigation into President Trump's political rival, Joe Biden, with the hopes of defeating Mr. Biden in the 2020 Presidential election and enhancing his own prospects for reelection. He didn't even need the investigation to be undertaken, just simply announced to the public; the smear of his opponent would be enough. To effectuate this scheme, President Trump withheld two official acts of vital importance to a nation at war with our adversary, Vladimir Putin's Russia. The President withheld a White House meeting that Ukraine desperately sought to bolster its standing on the world stage. And even more perniciously, President Trump suspended hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid approved by this Congress to coerce Ukraine into doing his electoral dirty work. The President of the United States was willing to sacrifice our national security by withholding support for a critical strategic partner at war in order to improve his reelection prospects. But for the courage of someone willing to blow the whistle, he would have gotten away with it. Instead, he got caught. He tried to cheat, and he got caught. Now, this wasn't the first time. As a candidate in 2016, Donald Trump invited Russian interference in his presidential campaign, saying at a campaign rally, ``Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,'' a clear invitation to hack Hillary Clinton's emails. Just 5 hours later Russian Government hackers tried to do exactly that. What followed was an immense Russian hacking and dumping operation and a social media disinformation campaign designed to help elect Donald Trump. Not only did candidate Trump welcome that effort, but he made full use of it, building it into his campaign plan and his messaging strategy. And then he sought to cover it up. This Russian effort to interfere in our elections didn't deter Donald Trump. It empowered him. The day after Special Counsel Bob Mueller testified before Congress about Russia's sweeping and systematic effort to influence the outcome of our last election, the day after President Trump believed that the investigation into his first electoral misconduct had come to an end, the President was back on the phone urging yet another country, this time Ukraine, to help him cheat in another election. Three consecutive days in July tell so much of the story, three consecutive days in July of 2019: July 24, the day that Special Counsel Mueller testified before Congress and President Trump thought he was finally in the clear. July 25, the day that President Trump got on the phone with the Ukrainian President and, in the context of a discussion about military support for that embattled nation that the President had recently frozen, said, ``I would like you to do us a favor, though,'' and asked Ukraine to do two investigations to help his reelection efforts in 2020. That was July 25. And then we come to July 26, the day Gordon Sondland called President Trump on his cell phone from a restaurant in Ukraine. Gordon Sondland, not some anonymous ``never Trumper,'' but a million-dollar donor to the President's inauguration, and his hand-picked ambassador to the European Union. What does President Trump ask Sondland? The day after this call, what does President Trump ask? What does the President want to know? Did he ask about Ukraine's efforts to battle corruption? Of course not. Did he ask how the war with Russia was going? Not a chance. On the phone, his voice loud enough for others to hear, President Trump asked Sondland, ``So he is going to do the investigation?'' And the answer was clear. Sondland assured Trump that the Ukrainian president was ``going to do it'' and that ``he would do anything you ask him to.'' Madam Speaker, I say to my colleagues, if that wasn't telling enough, in a conversation that followed, an American diplomat dining with Sondland asked if it was true that President Trump didn't give a blank about Ukraine. Sondland agreed, saying, the President cared only about ``big stuff.'' The diplomat noted that there was big stuff in Ukraine, like a war with Russia. And Sondland replied that the President cared only about big stuff that benefits him personally, like the ``Biden investigation that Mr. Giuliani was pushing.'' In that short conversation, we learned everything we need to know about the 45th President of the United States. He doesn't care about Ukraine or the impact on our national security caused by withholding military aid to that country fighting for its democratic life. All that matters to this President is what affects him personally: an investigation into his political rival and a chance to cheat in the next election. As Professor Gerhardt testified before the Judiciary Committee 2 weeks ago: ``If what we are talking about is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable.'' Even as this body uncovered the facts of this Ukraine scheme, even as we opened an impeachment inquiry, even as we gathered evidence, President Trump continued his efforts to seek foreign help in the next election. ``Well, I would think,'' he said from the White House lawn on October 3, ``that, if they are being honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the Bidens. It is a very simple answer,'' he said. And he made it clear it is an open invitation to other nations as well, saying, ``China should start an investigation into the Bidens,'' too. President Trump sent his chief of staff to the White House podium, and he told the world that, of course, they had linked aid to investigations, and that we should just ``get over it.'' And even as these articles have made their way to this House floor, the President's personal attorney has continued pursuing these sham investigations on behalf of his client, the President. The President and his men plot on. The danger persists. The risk is real. Our democracy is at peril. But we are not without a remedy prescribed by the Founders for just these circumstances: impeachment. The only question is this: Will we use it? Or have we fallen prey to another evil that the Founders forewarned? The excess of factionalism, the elevation of party over country. Many of my colleagues appear to have made their choice: to protect the President, to enable him to be above the law, to empower this President to cheat again as long as it is in the service of their party and their power. They have made their choice, despite this President and the White House stonewalling every subpoena, every request for witnesses and testimony from this co-equal branch of government. They have made their choice, knowing that to allow this President to obstruct Congress will empower him and any other President that follows to be as corrupt, as negligent, or as abusive of the power of the Presidency as they choose. They have made their choice, and I believe they will rue the day that they did. When Donald J. Trump was sworn in on January 20, 2017, he repeated these words: ``I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.'' Has he lived up to that sacred obligation? Has he honored his oath of office? Has he preserved, protected, and defended the Constitution of the United States? The uncontested evidence provides the simple yet tragic answer: He has not. In America, no one is above the law. Donald J. Trump sacrificed our national security in an effort to cheat in the next election, and for that and his continued efforts to seek foreign interference in our elections, he must be impeached.

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney).

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gomez).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Adams) for a unanimous consent request. (Ms. ADAMS asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Haaland).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I have heard several of my colleagues in a row now, and it is interesting to see how very few of them want to address any of the facts of the President's misconduct. Apparently, Madam Speaker, I have struck a nerve. Nor do they wish to defend a President who would extort an ally, withhold military aid to help him cheat in an election. They don't want to defend that conduct, so, instead, they say: Oh, Democrats really want to impeach the President, or Democrats don't like the President. But what they can't say is that this President's conduct was ethical. What they can't say was that this President's conduct was legal. What they can't say was this President's conduct was constitutional. What they can't say is this President has upheld his oath of office. No, they can't say that. All they can say is: We don't like the process, or, Our colleagues are just too happy to impeach, or, It is overturning the will of the public when it is a Republican President. Interestingly, my colleagues who supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton did not think it was overturning the will of the people. Apparently, this impeachment provision only overturns the will of the people if it is a Republican President. I would like to give them more credit than that. What is the distinction here is the seriousness of the conduct. This remedy was put in the Constitution for a reason. It is not an unconstitutional remedy. It is part of the Constitution. The only way you can conceive of this remedy as being unconstitutional is if you believe, as the President does, that he is the state, that anything that opposes him opposes the state and is, by definition, anticonstitutional. But that, of course, is nonsense. But it is more than nonsense; it is dangerous nonsense. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Schrier).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Heck).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Swalwell).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. Wexton) for a unanimous consent request. (Ms. WEXTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Ms. Sewell).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Carson).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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