John Thune

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, today we are taking up a War Powers Resolution ostensibly aimed at hostilities with Iran. The impetus for this resolution was the strike the President authorized to take out Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. Iran has a long history of fomenting violence and conflict in the Middle East, and General Soleimani was always right in the center of that. As head of the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, Soleimani masterminded Iran's terrorist activities for two decades. Iran has been linked to one in six U.S. military deaths in Iraq, notably through the IEDs that have become so emblematic of the War on Terror. This was Soleimani's work. He is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers and countless innocent civilians, and the threat Iran poses to U.S. personnel is an ongoing threat. At the end of December, an Iran-backed militia fired more than 30 rockets at an Iraqi military base, killing an American contractor and wounding four U.S. troops. Days later, Iran-backed protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, conducting a 2-day siege of the Embassy before withdrawing. The strike on General Soleimani wasn't just based on these recent attacks or on Soleimani's long reign of terror in the Middle East. The President authorized the strike on Soleimani because there was credible intelligence that Soleimani was planning imminent attacks against U.S. interests. That was the conclusion not of the President but of the U.S. intelligence community and nonpartisan experts like the CIA Director and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. It was in response to this conclusion from the intelligence community that the President ordered the strike. The War Powers Resolution coming before the Senate was introduced out of concern that taking out Iran's top terrorist leader would lead to escalation, but that has not happened. The perspective provided by the nearly 6 weeks that have passed since Soleimani's killing underscores the one-off nature of the strike. The President has not escalated this conflict or used Soleimani's death as an excuse to send troops into action against Iran. In fact, this strike was designed to check escalation in the region--specifically, increasing aggression and imminent attacks by Iran. We live in a dangerous world. The United States must be able to respond to imminent threats to our security. I support the robust interpretation of Congress's constitutional prerogatives when it comes to the declaration of war and the deployment of U.S. troops, but I also believe that the President has the authority and, indeed, the responsibility to protect the United States from imminent threats. The strike against Qasem Soleimani has reminded those hostile to the United States that we will not stand idly by while U.S. personnel are threatened. It has removed the top terrorist leader from the arena, a leader responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans. It has reduced, although certainly not eliminated, the risk to our men and women in uniform deployed in the Middle East. I believe that the President's action was justified, and I think this resolution is an ill-advised and potentially problematic response to the President's action. With Soleimani's evil influence removed from the Middle East, Iran has the chance to chart a new course, to rethink its participation in terrorism and its oppression of its own people. I hope that Iran will moderate its activities, but, of course, we have to be prepared for the likelihood that it will not. We have to continue to ensure that our words and actions make Iran and any other hostile nation think twice before attacking American citizens. We have to continue to ensure that our military and intelligence community have the resources they need to identify and to defeat any threat. I will continue to work to ensure that our military is the best prepared, best equipped fighting force in the world and that our intelligence professionals have the resources they need to protect our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, last Tuesday, the President delivered his State of the Union Address. He discussed some of our biggest accomplishments over the past 3 years, and, of course, chief among those accomplishments is the economic progress we have made. During the Obama administration, our economy spent years in the doldrums. American families and American workers struggled to advance in a historically slow recovery that left some experts predicting that a weaker economy would be the new normal. Yet Republicans didn't believe we should be resigning ourselves to that future. In fact, we knew that the real strength of the American economy, American business, and American workers was still there. But we also knew that burdensome regulations and an outdated tax code were preventing our economy from thriving the way it should, so we took action. We cut burdensome regulations and passed historic reform of our Tax Code. We cut tax rates for families, doubled the tax credit, and nearly doubled the standard deduction. Then we took aim at the parts of the Tax Code that were holding back American workers and American businesses. We lowered tax rates across the board for owners of small and medium-sized businesses, farms, and ranches. We lowered our Nation's massive corporate tax rate, which was the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. We expanded business owners' ability to recover the costs of investments they make in their businesses, which frees up cash they can reinvest in their operations and their workers. We brought the U.S. international tax system into the 21st century so that American businesses are not operating at a competitive disadvantage next to their foreign counterparts. Tax reform is working. Unemployment is near its lowest level in 50 years--50 years. Think about that. For the past 12 months, unemployment has been below 4 percent, a record that was last achieved in the 1960s. African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans all saw record low unemployment in 2019. Strong economic growth has also given discouraged workers the confidence to come off of the sidelines and to join the workforce. Currently, the labor force participation rate is at its highest level in 7 years. Last month, the economy created 225,000 jobs, well above market expectations. All told, the economy has created an average of 171,000 jobs per month over the past 12 months--a strong number. Wages are growing. For the past 18 months, wage growth has been at or above 3 percent. And as the President said in his State of the Union Address, this is a ``blue-collar boom.'' In contrast to the Obama administration, in this economy, it is blue-collar workers who are seeing the strong wage growth. Gains in the stock market have been good news for American workers' 401(k)s and pensions. The list goes on. Of course, while we have made a lot of progress, our work isn't done. While our economy as a whole has thrived, our Nation's farm economy continues to struggle. Low commodity and livestock prices, natural disasters, and protracted trade disputes have made the last few years challenging ones for farmers and ranchers. One of the most important things we can do to help the farm economy is negotiate trade deals that expand markets for American agriculture products and give our farmers and ranchers certainty about what markets will look like going forward. That is why I pushed for passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, which the President signed last month. This agreement will maintain and expand farmers' and ranchers' access to the two biggest markets for American agricultural products and provide certainty about what these markets will look like for the foreseeable future. I am particularly pleased about the improvements the agreement makes for the dairy industry, which is a growing industry in my State of South Dakota. We need to conclude more strong trade agreements going forward that will expand markets for American agriculture products. The President also mentioned the trade agreement we are negotiating with China. The President recently signed phase one of the agreement, which includes a pledge from China to substantially increase its imports of American agriculture products. That is excellent news for farmers and ranchers, but we need to make sure that China actually lives up to its commitments. As we know, China doesn't have the best record in this regard, and it is important that the United States make clear that any agreements must be honored. We have made a lot of progress for the American people over the past 3 years, but, as I said, there is more work to be done. I hope to work with my colleagues of both parties this year to continue to build on the economic progress we have made and create more opportunities for American workers. I will continue to make the needs of our Nation's farmers and ranchers one of my top priorities. I am committed to seeing our Nation's farm economy catch up to our economy as a whole. I am proud that Republican economic policies have made life better for American workers. I will continue to work to ensure that every American has access to the benefits of our strong economy. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Hoeven), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Scott), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Hoeven) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, tomorrow we will be voting on the two impeachment articles sent over to us by the House of Representatives, a process, as the leader pointed out, that really started from the very day this President took office. I will be voting to acquit the President for several reasons. First and foremost, I do not believe the facts in this case rise to the high bar that the Founders set for removal from office. The Founders imposed a threshold for impeachment of ``Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors''--in other words, very serious violations of the public trust. The Founders were deliberate in their choice of words. They wanted to be clear that impeachment was a severe remedy to be deployed only for very serious violations. When George Mason proposed adding the term ``maladministration'' to the impeachment clause during the Constitutional Convention, the Framers rejected the proposal because, as Madison pointed out, the term was too vague and would be ``equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate.'' The Founders recognized that without safeguards, impeachment could quickly degenerate into a political weapon to be used to turn over elections when one faction or another decided they didn't like the President. That is why the Founders split the impeachment power, giving the House the sole authority to impeach and the Senate the sole authority to try impeachments. As a final check, the Founders required a two-thirds supermajority vote in the Senate to remove a President from office. All of these things show just how seriously the Founders regarded removing a duly elected President. They intended it as an extreme remedy to be used only in very grave circumstances. I do not believe that the charges the House has leveled against the President meet that high bar. The House managers' presentation, which stretched over 22 hours, included testimony from more than a dozen witnesses. We also heard from the House managers during more than 16 hours of questions from Senators--in all, about 180 questions--and we received more than 28,000 pages of testimony, evidence, and arguments from the House of Representatives. I considered all the evidence carefully, but ultimately I concluded that the two charges presented by the House managers--abuse of power and obstruction of Congress--did not provide a compelling case for removing this President. According to public reporting, House Democrats toyed with charging the President with bribery, believing that it polled well, but they didn't have the evidence to prove that charge or, indeed, to prove any actual crime. While allegations of specific criminal conduct may not be constitutionally required, they anchor impeachment in the law, and their absence is telling. Lacking evidence of a specific crime, the House decided to use the shotgun approach and throw everything under the catchall ``abuse of power'' umbrella. Abuse of power is vaguely defined and subject to interpretation. In fact, I don't believe there has been a President in my lifetime who hasn't been accused of some form of abuse of power. For that reason, abuse of power seemed to me a fairly weak predicate on which to remove a democratically elected President from office. During the Clinton impeachment, I voted against the abuse of power article precisely because I believed it did not offer strong grounds for removing the duly elected President. With respect to the second article, obstruction of Congress, the House took issue with the President's assertion of legal privileges, including those rooted in the constitutional separation of powers. Of course, every President in recent memory has invoked such privileges-- for example, when the Obama administration cited executive privilege to deny documents to Congress during the Fast and Furious gunrunning investigation. The House could have challenged the President's privilege claims by going through the traditional channels to resolve disputes between the executive and legislative branches, that being, of course, the courts. That is what was done in previous impeachment inquiries, like the Clinton impeachment. But the House skipped that step in the hopes that the Senate would bail them out and compel testimony and documents that the House, in its rush to impeachment, was unwilling to procure. Again, it seemed like a very thin basis on which to remove a duly elected President from office. The facts in the case are that aid to Ukraine was released prior to the end of the fiscal year. No investigation of the scandal-plagued firm Burisma or the Bidens was ever initiated. While we can debate the President's judgment when it comes to his dealings with Ukraine or even conclude that his actions were inappropriate, the House's vague and overreaching impeachment charges do not meet the high bar set by the Founders for removal from office. My second consideration in voting to acquit the President is the deeply partisan nature of the House's impeachment proceedings. The Founders' overriding concern about impeachment was that partisan majorities could use impeachment as a political weapon. In Federalist 65, Alexander Hamilton speaks of the danger of impeachment being used by ``an intemperate or designing majority in the House of Representatives.'' By limiting the House's power to impeaching the President and not to removing him from office, the Founders hoped that the Senate would act as a check on any attempt by the House to use the power of impeachment for partisan purposes. Unfortunately, the Founders' concerns about partisanship were realized in this impeachment process. For the first time in modern history, impeachment was initiated and conducted on a purely partisan basis. While the Nixon impeachment proceedings in the House are held up as an example of bipartisanship, even the impeachment of President Clinton was initiated with the support of more than 30 Democrats. By contrast, in this case, House Democrats drove ahead in a completely--completely-- partisan exercise. Then they rushed through the impeachment process at breakneck speed, rejecting a thorough investigation because they wanted to impeach the President as fast as possible. Then they expected the Senate to take on the House's investigative responsibility. House Democrats paid lip service to the idea that they regretted having to impeach the President, but their actions told a different story. The Speaker of the House--the Speaker--distributed celebratory pens when she signed the Articles of Impeachment and then went on TV and celebrated the impeachment with a fist bump. It doesn't require much work to imagine the damage that could be done to our Republic if impeachment becomes a weapon to be used whenever a political party doesn't like a President. Pretty soon, Presidents would not be serving at the pleasure of the American people but at the pleasure of the House and the Senate. We need to call a halt before we have gone too far to turn back. Endorsing the House's rushed, partisan, and slipshod work would encourage future Houses to use impeachment for partisan purposes. Both parties need to learn that partisan impeachments are perilous. Finally, I believe that except in the most extreme circumstances, it should be the American people, and not Washington politicians, who decide whether a President should be removed from office. Presidential primary voting, as we learned yesterday in Iowa, is already underway. We have a Presidential election in November, when the people of this country can weigh in and make their voices heard. I think we should leave the decision up to them. Indeed, given the deep divisions plaguing our country, as reflected in the starkly different views about this impeachment, removing the President from office and from the ballots for the upcoming election would almost certainly plunge the country into even greater political turmoil. I am deeply troubled by the events of the past few months. I have always believed that we can differ here in Congress while still respecting and working with those who disagree with us, but Democrats have increasingly sought to demonize anyone who doesn't share their obsession with impeaching this President. One of the House managers in this trial went so far as to suggest that any Senator who voted against them was treacherous. At one point, a Senator asked whether the Chief Justice's constitutionally required participation in the trial was contributing to ``the loss of legitimacy of the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution,'' with the clear suggestion that the only way for the Supreme Court to maintain its legitimacy would be for it to agree with the Democratic Party. We have sunk pretty low when we have come to the point of suggesting that disagreement is unconstitutional. But for all this, I remain hopeful. Congress has been through contentious times before, and we have gotten through them. There is no question that this partisan impeachment has been divisive, but I do believe we can move on from this. I am ready to work with all of my colleagues, both Democrat and Republican, in the coming weeks and months as we get back to the business of the American people. And for the Nation that we all love, I pray that proves possible. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Journal of proceedings be approved to date.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. I send a question to the desk on behalf of myself and Senators Moran, Daines, Ernst, Scott of Florida, and Crapo.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. Chief Justice.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. I have a question to send to the desk.

Mr. THUNE. I have a question for the President's counsel.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. Chief Justice.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. Chief Justice, I ask for yeas and nays.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe).

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, later today, the President will sign phase one of the trade agreement we are negotiating with China. Of particular importance to my State, phase one includes a pledge from China to substantially increase its imports of American agriculture products. That is good news for South Dakota. It is good news for farmers and ranchers who have been struggling in a tough ag economy. Low commodity and livestock prices, natural disasters, and protracted trade disputes have made the last few years challenging ones for farmers and ranchers around the country. I spend a lot of time in South Dakota, talking to our farmers and ranchers. One thing they always emphasize is the need for trade deals that will open up new markets or expand current markets for their products. The China deal should significantly increase demand for American agricultural products and boost the farm economy. But while this agreement is excellent news, we do need to make sure that China will actually live up to its commitments. China doesn't have the best record in this regard, so it is important the United States make clear that any agreements must be honored. As we wait for the China deal to take effect, one piece of definite good news on the trade front is the arrival in the Senate of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. After months of delay by House Democrats, USMCA is finally--finally--moving through Congress. Here in the Senate, it is advancing rapidly through the required committees, and I expect it will be received for final Senate consideration in the next few days. Last week, I voted in support of this agreement in the Senate Finance Committee, and just this morning--a few minutes ago, in fact--I voted for this agreement in a meeting of the Senate Committee on Commerce. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement has been a big priority of mine over the past year, in particular because of the ways the agreement would benefit farmers and ranchers. Canada and Mexico are the No. 1 and No. 2 markets for American agriculture products, and this agreement will preserve and expand farmers' access to these two critical export markets and give farmers certainty about what these markets are going to look like going forward. I am particularly pleased about the ways that USMCA will benefit dairy farmers. If you drive the I-29 corridor north of Brookings, SD, you can see firsthand the major dairy expansion South Dakota has experienced over the past several years. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will preserve U.S. dairy farmers' role as a key dairy supplier to Mexico, and it will substantially expand market access to Canada. The U.S. International Trade Commission estimates that the agreement will boost U.S. dairy exports by more than $277 million. The agreement will also expand market access for U.S. poultry and egg producers. It will make it easier for American producers to export wheat to Canada and much more. Of course, the benefits of this agreement are not limited to farmers and ranchers. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement will benefit virtually every sector of the economy, from manufacturing to digital services to the automotive industry. It will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, boost our economic output, and increase wages for workers. The agreement also breaks new ground by including a chapter specifically focused on small and medium-sized businesses--the first time a U.S. trade agreement has ever included a dedicated chapter on this topic. Roughly, 120,000 small and medium-sized businesses around our country export goods and services to Mexico and Canada, including a number of businesses in my home State of South Dakota. The United States-Mexico- Canada Agreement will make it easier for these businesses to successfully export their products. South Dakota businesses and consumers will also benefit from the fact that the agreement maintains the current U.S. de minimis threshold, which is something I fought hard to protect. It is too bad farmers and ranchers had to wait so long for the USMCA trade agreement. This agreement was concluded well over a year ago, and it could have been taken up much sooner. But House Democrats have, unfortunately, been more focused on playing political games than on working with Republicans to do the American people's business. I am very glad we are taking up this agreement now, though, and I look forward to voting for final passage of USMCA in the very near future. We should get this agreement to the President's desk without delay. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.