January 21, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 12 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Pages S395-S406]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                RECESS SUBJECT TO THE CALL OF THE CHAIR

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Chief Justice, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senate stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair.
  There being no objection, at 4:48 p.m., the Senate, sitting as a 
Court of Impeachment, recessed until 5:16 p.m.; whereupon the Senate 
reassembled when called to order by the Chief Justice.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The amendment is arguable by the parties for 2 
hours equally divided.
  Mr. Manager Schiff, are you a proponent or an opponent?
  Mr. Manager SCHIFF. Proponent, Mr. Chief Justice.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. Thank you.
  And Mr. Cipollone?
  Mr. Counsel CIPOLLONE. Opponent.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. Mr. Schiff, you have an hour, and you will be able 
to reserve time for rebuttal.
  Mrs. Manager DEMINGS. Chief Justice Roberts, Senators, counsel for 
the White House, I am Val Demings from the State of Florida.
  The House managers strongly support the amendment to issue a subpoena 
for documents to the State Department.
  As we explained, the first Article of Impeachment charges the 
President with using the power of his office to solicit and pressure 
Ukraine to announce investigations that everyone in this Chamber knows 
to be bogus. The President didn't even care if an investigation was 
actually conducted, just that it was announced. Why? Because this was 
for his own personal and political benefit. The first article further 
charges that the President did so with corrupt motives and that his use 
of power for personal gain harmed the national security of the United 
States.
  As the second Article of Impeachment charges, the President sought to 
conceal evidence of this conduct. He did so by ordering his entire 
administration--every office, every agency, every official--to defy 
every subpoena served in the House impeachment inquiry. No President in 
history has ever done anything like this. Many Presidents have 
expressly acknowledged that they couldn't do anything like this.
  President Trump did not take these extreme steps to hide evidence of 
his innocence or to protect the institution of the Presidency. As a 
career law enforcement officer, I have never seen anyone take such 
extreme steps to hide evidence allegedly proving his innocence, and I 
do not find that here today. The President is engaged in this coverup 
because he is guilty, and he knows it. And he knows that the evidence 
he is concealing will only further demonstrate his culpability.
  Notwithstanding this effort to stonewall our inquiry, the House 
amassed powerful evidence of the President's high crimes and 
misdemeanors--17 witnesses, 130 hours of testimony, combined with the 
President's own admissions on phone calls and in public comments, 
confirmed and corroborated by hundreds of texts, emails, and documents.
  Much of that evidence came from patriotic, nonpartisan, decorated 
officials in the State Department. They are brave men and women who 
honored their obligations under the law and gave testimony required by 
congressional subpoena in the face of the President's taunts and 
insults. These officials described the President's campaign to induce 
and pressure Ukraine to announce political investigations; his use of 
$391 million of vital military aid--taxpayer money appropriated on a 
bipartisan basis by Congress--as leverage to force Ukraine to comply; 
and his withholding of a meeting desperately sought by the newly-
elected President of Ukraine.
  This testimony was particularly compelling because the State 
Department is at the very center of President Trump's wrongdoing. We 
heard firsthand from diplomatic officials who saw up close and personal 
what was happening and who immediately--immediately--sounded the 
alarms.
  Ambassador William Taylor, who returned to Ukraine in June of last 
year as Acting Ambassador, texted other State Department officials: ``I 
think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a 
political campaign.''
  Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who was delegated 
authority over Ukraine matters by none other than President Trump, 
testified: ``We knew these investigations were important to the 
President'' and ``we followed the President's orders.''
  David Holmes, a senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, said: 
``[I]t was made clear that some action on a Burisma/Biden investigation 
was a precondition for an Oval Office meeting.''
  During their testimony, many of these State Department officials 
described specific documents--including text messages, emails, former 
diplomatic cables, and notes--that would corroborate their testimony 
and shed additional light on President Trump's corrupt scheme.

  For instance, Ambassador Taylor, who raised concerns that military 
aid had been conditioned on the President's demand for political 
investigations, described a ``little notebook'' in which he would 
``take notes on conversations'' he had with key officials.
  Ambassador Sondland referred by date and recipient to emails 
regarding the President's demand that Ukraine announce political 
investigations. As we will see, those emails were sent to some of 
President Trump's top advisers, including Acting White House Chief of 
Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, and Secretary 
of Energy Rick Perry.
  Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, who oversaw Ukraine 
policy matters in Washington for the State Department, wrote at least 
four memos to file to document concerning conduct he witnessed or 
heard.
  Ambassador Kurt Volker, the Special Representative for Ukraine 
Negotiations, provided evidence that he and other American officials 
communicated with high-level Ukrainian officials--including President 
Zelensky himself--via text message and WhatsApp about the President's 
improper demands and how Ukrainian officials would respond to them.
  Based on the testimony we received and on evidence that has since 
emerged, all of these documents and others that we will describe bear 
directly on the allegations set forth in the first Article of 
Impeachment. They would help complete our understanding of how the 
President's scheme unfolded in real time. They would support the 
conclusion that senior Ukrainian officials understood the corrupt 
nature of President Trump's demand. They would further expose the 
extent to which Secretary Pompeo, Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, 
and other senior Trump administration officials were aware of the 
President's plot and helped carry it out.
  We are not talking about a burdensome number of documents; we are 
talking about a specific, discrete set of materials held by the State 
Department--documents the State Department has already collected in 
response to our subpoena but has never produced. We know these 
materials exist, we know they are relevant, and we know the President 
is desperately trying to conceal them.
  As I will describe, the Senate should subpoena the following: No. 1, 
WhatsApp and other text message communications; 2, emails; 3, 
diplomatic cables; and 4, notes.
  Given the significance and relevance of these documents, the House 
requested that they be provided. When these requests were denied--when 
our requests were denied--the House issued subpoenas commanding that 
the documents be turned over, but at the President's direction, the 
Department of State unlawfully defied that subpoena.
  As I stand here now, the State Department has all these documents in 
its possession but refuses, based on the President's order, to let them 
see the light of day. This is an affront to the House, which has full 
power to see these documents. It is an affront to the Senate, which has 
been denied a full record on which to judge the President's guilt or 
innocence. It is an affront to the Constitution, which makes clear that 
nobody, not even the President, is above the law. It is an affront to 
the American people, who have a right to know what the President and 
his allies are hiding from them and why it is being hidden.
  In prior impeachment trials, this body has issued subpoenas requiring

[[Page S396]]

the recipient to hand over relevant documents. It must do so again 
here, and it must do so now at the beginning of the trial, not the end.
  Of course the need for a Senate subpoena arises because, as I have 
noted, the President ordered the State Department to defy a subpoena 
from the House. At this point, I would like to briefly describe our own 
efforts to get those materials. I will then address in a more detailed 
fashion exactly what documents the State Department has hidden from the 
American people and why the Senate should require it to turn them over.
  On September 9, exercising their article I oversight authority, the 
House investigating committee sent a document request to the State 
Department. The committee sought materials related to the President's 
effort to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into his 
political rival, as well as his dangerous, unexplained withholding of 
millions of dollars in vital military aid.
  After the State Department failed to produce any documents, the House 
Committee on Foreign Affairs issued a subpoena to the State Department 
on September 27.
  In a letter on October 1, Secretary Pompeo acknowledged receipt of 
the subpoena. At that time, he stated that he would respond to the 
committee's subpoena for documents by the return date, October 4, but 
his response never came.
  Instead, on October 8, President Trump's lawyer--writing on the 
President's behalf--issued a direction confirming that the 
administration would stonewall the impeachment inquiry.
  To date, the State Department has not produced a single document--not 
a single document--in response to the congressional subpoena, but 
witnesses who testified indicated that the State Department had 
gathered all of the records and was prepared to provide them before the 
White House directed it to defy the subpoena.
  Notwithstanding this unlawful obstruction, through the testimony of 
brave State Department employees, the House was able to identify, with 
remarkable precision, several categories of documents relevant to the 
first Article of Impeachment that are sitting right now--right now--the 
documents are sitting right now at the State Department.
  I would like to walk you through four key categories of documents 
that should be subpoenaed and which illustrate the highly relevant 
documents the State Department could produce immediately to this trial.
  The first category consists of WhatsApp and other text messages from 
State Department officials caught up in these events, including 
Ambassadors Sondland and Taylor and also Deputy Assistant Secretary 
George Kent, all three of whom confirmed in their testimony that they 
regularly use WhatsApp to communicate with each other and foreign 
government officials.
  As Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent explained, WhatsApp is the 
dominant form of electronic communication in certain parts of the 
world. We know that the State Department possesses records of WhatsApp 
and text messages from critical eyewitnesses to these proceedings, 
including from Ambassadors Sondland and Taylor and Deputy Assistant 
Secretary Kent.
  We know that the Department is deliberately concealing these records 
at the direction of the President, and we know that they could contain 
highly relevant testimony about the President's plan to condition 
official Presidential acts on the announcement of investigations for 
his own personal and political gain.
  We know this not only from testimony but also because Ambassador 
Volker was able to provide us with a small but telling selection of his 
WhatsApp messages. Those records confirm that a full review of these 
texts and WhatsApp messages from relevant officials would help to paint 
a vivid, firsthand picture of statements, decisions, concerns, and 
beliefs held by important players unfolding in real time.
  For example, thanks to Ambassador Volker's messages, we know that 
Ambassador Sondland--a key player in the President's pressure campaign 
who testified in the House about a quid pro quo arrangement--texted 
directly with the Ukrainian President, President Volodymyr Zelensky. 
This image produced by Ambassador Volker appears to be a screenshot of 
a text message that Ambassador Sondland exchanged with President 
Zelensky about plans for a White House visit--the very same visit that 
President Zelensky badly needed and that President Trump later withheld 
as part of the quid pro quo described by Ambassador Sondland in his 
testimony.
  This body and the American people have a right to know what else 
Ambassador Sondland and President Zelensky said in this and other 
relevant exchanges about the White House meeting or about the military 
aid and the President's demands, but we don't know exactly what was 
conveyed and when. We don't know it because President Trump directed 
the State Department to conceal these vital records. These are records 
that the State Department would have otherwise turned over if not for 
the President's direction and desire to cover up his wrongdoing.
  To get a sense of why texts and WhatsApp messages are so vital, just 
consider yet another piece of evidence we have gleaned from Ambassador 
Volker's partial production.
  On July 10, after the White House meetings at which Ambassador 
Sondland pressured Ukrainian officials to announce investigations of 
President Trump's political opponents, a Ukraine official texted 
Ambassador Volker: ``I feel that the key for many things is Rudi and I 
ready to talk with him at any time.''
  This is evidence that, immediately following Ambassador Sondland's 
ultimatum, Ukrainian officials recognized that they needed to appease 
Rudy Giuliani by carrying out the investigations. Of course, Mr. 
Giuliani had publicly confirmed that he was not engaged in ``foreign 
policy'' but was instead advancing his client's--the President's--own 
personal interests.
  Further, in another text message exchange provided by Ambassador 
Volker, we see evidence that Ukraine understood President Trump's 
demands loud and clear.
  On the morning of July 25, half an hour before the infamous call 
between President Trump and President Zelensky, Ambassador Volker wrote 
to a senior Ukrainian official:

       Heard from White House--assuming President Z convinces 
     trump he will investigate/``get to the bottom of what 
     happened'' in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to 
     Washington. Good luck! See you tomorrow--Kurt.

  Ambassador Sondland confirmed that this text accurately summarized 
the President's directive to him earlier that morning.
  After the phone call between President Trump and President Zelensky, 
the Ukrainian official responded, pointedly: ``Phone call went well.'' 
He then discussed potential dates for a White House meeting.
  Then, the very next day, Ambassador Volker wrote to Rudy Giuliani: 
``Exactly the right messages as we discussed.''
  These messages confirm Mr. Giuliani's central role, the premeditated 
nature of President Trump's solicitation of political investigations, 
and the pressure campaign on Ukraine waged by Mr. Giuliani and senior 
officials at President Trump's direction.
  Again, this is just some of what we learned from Ambassador Volker's 
records. As you will see during this trial presentation, there were 
numerous WhatsApp messages in August while Ambassadors Volker and 
Sondland and Mr. Giuliani were pressuring President Zelensky's top aide 
to issue a statement announcing the investigation that President Trump 
wanted. Ambassador Taylor's text that you saw earlier about withholding 
the aid further reveals how much more material there likely is that 
relates to the Articles of Impeachment.
  There can be no doubt that a full production of relevant texts and 
WhatsApp messages from other officials involved in Ukraine and in touch 
with Ukrainian officials--including Ambassador Sondland, Ambassador 
Taylor, and Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent--would further illuminate 
the malfeasance addressed in our first article.
  This leads to the second category of documents that the State 
Department is unlawfully withholding--emails involving key State 
Department officials

[[Page S397]]

concerning interactions with senior Ukrainian officials and relating to 
military aid, a White House meeting, and the President's demand for an 
investigation into his rivals.
  For example, on July 19, Ambassador Gordon Sondland spoke directly 
with President Zelensky about the upcoming July 25 call between 
President Trump and President Zelensky.
  Ambassador Sondland sent an email updating key officials, including 
Secretary Pompeo, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mulvaney, and his 
senior adviser, Robert Blair. In this email, he noted that he 
``prepared'' President Zelensky, who was willing to make the 
announcements of political investigations that President Trump desired. 
Secretary Perry and Mick Mulvaney then responded to Sondland, 
acknowledging they received the email and recommending to move forward 
with the phone call that became the July 25 call between the Presidents 
of the United States and Ukraine.
  We know all of this not because the State Department provided us with 
critical documents but, instead, because Ambassador Sondland provided 
us a reproduction of the email.
  In his further testimony, Ambassador Sondland quite correctly 
explained that this email demonstrated ``everyone was in the loop.''
  (Text of Videotape presentation:)

       Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret. Everyone was 
     informed via email on July 19th, days before the Presidential 
     call. As I communicated to the team, I told President 
     Zelensky in advance that assurances to run a fully 
     transparent investigation and turn over every stone were 
     necessary in his call with President Trump.

  Mrs. Manager DEMINGS. Even viewed alone, this reproduced email is 
damning. It was sent shortly after Ambassador Sondland personally 
conveyed the President's demand for investigations to Ukrainians at the 
White House, leading several officials to sound alarms. It was said 
just a few days before the July 25 call, where President Trump asked 
for a ``favor,'' and, by itself, this email shows who was involved in 
President Trump's plan to pressure the Ukrainian President for his own 
political gain.
  But it is obvious that the full email chain and other related emails 
to this key time period would also be highly relevant. We don't have 
those emails because the State Department is hiding them, at the 
direction of the President. The Senate should issue the proposed 
subpoena to ensure a complete record of these and other relevant 
emails.
  Any doubt that the State Department is concealing critical evidence 
from this body was resolved when the State Department was recently 
ordered to release documents, including emails, pursuant to a lawsuit 
under the Freedom of Information Act. These documents are heavily 
redacted and are limited to a very narrow time period, but, 
nevertheless, despite the heavy redactions, this highly limited glimpse 
into the State Department's secret records demonstrates that those 
records are full of information relevant to this trial.
  For example, several of these newly released emails show multiple 
contacts between the State Department, including Secretary Pompeo, and 
Mr. Giuliani throughout 2019. This is an important fact.
  Mr. Giuliani served as the President's point person and executed his 
corrupt scheme. Mr. Giuliani repeatedly emphasized that his role was to 
advance the President's personal agenda--the President's political 
interests, not to promote the national security interests of the United 
States. The fact that the President's private attorney was in contact 
at key junctures with the Secretary of State, whose senior officials 
were directed by the President to support Mr. Giuliani's efforts in 
Ukraine, is relevant, disturbing, and telling.
  For example, we know that on March 26, as Mr. Giuliani was pursuing 
the President's private agenda in Ukraine, and just 1 week after The 
Hill published an article featuring Mr. Giuliani's Ukraine conspiracy 
theories, Secretary Pompeo and Mr. Giuliani spoke directly on the 
phone.
  That same week, President Trump's former personal secretary was asked 
by Mr. Giuliani's assistant for a direct connection to Secretary 
Pompeo.
  Based on these records, it is also clear that Secretary Pompeo was 
already actively engaged with Mr. Giuliani in early spring of 2019. It 
also appears that these efforts were backed by the White House, given 
the involvement of President Trump's personal secretary.

  This body and the American people need to see these emails and other 
files at the State Department, flushing out these exchanges and the 
details surrounding Mr. Giuliani's communications with Secretary 
Pompeo. Moreover, based on call records lawfully obtained by the House 
from this period, we know that from March 24 to March 30, Mr. Giuliani 
called the White House several times and also connected with an 
unidentified number numerous times.
  These records show that on March 27, Mr. Giuliani placed a series of 
calls--series of calls--to the State Department switchboard, Secretary 
Pompeo's assistant, and the White House switchboard in quick 
succession, all within less than 30 minutes.
  Obtaining emails and other documents regarding the State Department 
leadership's interaction with President Trump's private lawyer in this 
period, when Mr. Giuliani was actively orchestrating the pressure 
campaign in Ukraine related to the sham investigation into Vice 
President Biden and the 2016 election, would further clarify the 
President's involvement and direction at this key juncture in the 
formation of a plot to solicit foreign interference in our election.
  We also know, based on recently obtained documents from Lev Parnas, 
an associate of Rudy Giuliani who assisted him in his representation of 
President Trump, that Giuliani likely spoke with Secretary Pompeo about 
Ukraine matters even earlier than previously understood.
  According to documents obtained from Mr. Parnas, Mr. Giuliani wrote 
in early February of 2019 that he apparently spoke with Secretary 
Pompeo about the removal of the U.S. Ambassador in Ukraine, Marie 
Yovanovitch. Mr. Giuliani viewed her as an impediment to implementing 
the President's corrupt scheme and orchestrated a long-running smear 
campaign against her. Here is what Mr. Parnas said about this just last 
week.
  (Text of Videotape presentation:)

       Ms. MADDOW. Do you believe that part of the motivation to 
     get rid of Ambassador Yovanovitch, to get her out of post, 
     was she was in the way of this effort to get the government 
     of Ukraine to announce investigations of Joe Biden?
       Mr. PARNAS. That was the only motivation.
       Ms. MADDOW. That was the only motivation?
       Mr. PARNAS. There was no other motivation.

  Mrs. Manager DEMINGS. These are just some of the email communications 
that we know to exist, but there are undoubtedly more, including, for 
example, Ambassador Yovanovitch's request for the State Department to 
issue a statement of support of her around the time that Mr. Giuliani 
was speaking directly with Secretary Pompeo, but that statement never 
came.
  The State Department has gathered these records, and they are ready 
to be turned over pursuant to a subpoena from the Senate. It would not 
be a time-consuming or lengthy process to obtain them, and there are 
clearly--clearly--important and relevant documents to the President's 
scheme. If we want the full and complete truth, then we need to see 
those emails.
  The Senate should also seek a third item that the State Department 
has refused to provide, and that is Ambassador Taylor's extraordinary 
first-person diplomatic cable to Secretary Pompeo, dated August 29 and 
sent at the recommendation of the National Security Advisor, John 
Bolton, in which Ambassador Taylor strenuously objected to the 
withholding of military aid from Ukraine, as Ambassador Taylor 
recounted in his deposition.
  (Text of Videotape presentation:)

       Ambassador TAYLOR. Near the end of Ambassador Bolton's 
     visit, I asked to meet him privately, during which I 
     expressed to him my serious concern about the withholding of 
     military assistance to Ukraine while the Ukrainians were 
     defending their country from Russian aggression. Ambassador 
     Bolton recommended that I send a first-person cable to 
     Secretary Pompeo directly relaying my concerns.
       I wrote and transmitted such a cable on August 29th, 
     describing the folly I saw in withholding military aid to 
     Ukraine at a time when hostilities were still active in the 
     east and when Russia was watching closely to gauge the level 
     of American support for

[[Page S398]]

     the Ukrainian Government. The Russians, as I said at my 
     deposition, would love to see the humiliation of President 
     Zelensky at the hands of the Americans. I told the Secretary 
     that I could not and would not defend such a policy.
       Although I received no specific response, I heard that soon 
     thereafter the Secretary carried the cable with him to a 
     meeting at the White House focused on security assistance for 
     Ukraine.

  Mrs. Manager DEMINGS. While we know from Ambassador Taylor and Deputy 
Assistant Secretary Kent that the cable was received, we do not know 
whether or how the State Department responded, nor do we know if the 
State Department possesses any other internal records relating to this 
cable.
  This cable is vital for three reasons. First, it demonstrates the 
harm that President Trump did to our national security when he used 
foreign policy as an instrument of his own personal, political gain. 
Second, on the same day the cable was sent, President Zelensky's senior 
aide told Ambassador Taylor that he was ``very concerned'' about the 
hold on military assistance. He added that the Ukrainians were ``just 
desperate'' for it to be released. In other words, President Trump's 
effort to use military aid to apply additional pressure on Ukraine was 
working.
  Finally, based on reporting by the New York Times, we now know that 
within days of Ambassador Taylor sending this cable, President Trump 
discussed Ukrainian security assistance with Secretary Pompeo, Defense 
Secretary Esper, and National Security Advisor Bolton. The 
investigation uncovered testimony that Secretary Pompeo brought 
Ambassador Taylor's cable to the White House; perhaps it was during 
this meeting. There, perhaps prodded by Ambassador Taylor's cable, all 
three of them pleaded--pleaded--with the President to resume the 
crucial military aid. Yet the President refused.
  This body has a right to see Ambassador Taylor's cable, as well as 
the other State Department records addressing the official response to 
it. Although it may have been classified at the time, the State 
Department could no longer claim that the topic of security assistance 
remains classified today in light of the President's decision to 
declassify his two telephone calls with President Zelensky and Mr. 
Mulvaney's public statements about security assistance.
  The fourth category of documents that the Senate should subpoena are 
contemporaneous, first-person accounts from State Department officials 
who were caught up in President Trump's corrupt scheme. These 
documents, which were described in detail by Deputy Assistant Secretary 
Kent, Ambassador Taylor, and political officer David Holmes, would help 
complete the record and clarify how the President's scheme unfolded in 
realtime and how the Ukrainians reacted.
  Mr. Kent wrote notes or memos to file at least four times, according 
to his testimony. Ambassador Taylor took extensive notes of nearly 
every conversation he had--some in a little notebook. David Holmes, the 
Embassy official in Ukraine, was a consistent notetaker of important 
meetings with Ukrainian officials.
  (Text of Videotape presentation:)

       Mr. GOLDMAN. Did you take notes of this conversation on 
     September 1st with Ambassador Sondland?
       Ambassador TAYLOR. I did.
       Mr. GOLDMAN. And did you take notes related to most of the 
     conversations, if not all of them, that you recited in your 
     opening statement?
       Ambassador TAYLOR. All of them, Mr. Goldman.
   . . .
       Mr. GOLDMAN. And you are aware, I presume, that the State 
     Department has not provided those notes to the committee. Is 
     that right?
       Ambassador TAYLOR. I am aware.
       Mr. GOLDMAN. So we don't have the benefit of reviewing them 
     to ask you these questions.
       Ambassador TAYLOR. Correct. I understand that they may be 
     coming, sooner or later.
       Mr. GOLDMAN. Well, we would welcome that.

  Mrs. Manager DEMINGS. The State Department never produced those 
notes.
  As another example, Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent testified about a 
key document that he drafted on August 16, describing his concerns that 
the Trump administration was attempting to pressure Ukraine into 
opening politically motivated investigations.
  (Text of Videotape presentation:)
  [Ms. SPEIER.] I'd like to start with you, Mr. Kent. In your 
testimony, you said that you had--``In mid-August, it became clear to 
me that Giuliani's efforts to gin up politically motivated 
investigations were now infecting U.S. engagement with Ukraine, 
leveraging President Zelensky's desire for a White House meeting.'' Mr. 
Kent, did you actually write a memo documenting your concerns that 
there was an effort under way to pressure Ukraine to open an 
investigation to benefit President Trump?

       Mr. KENT. Yes, ma'am. I wrote a memo to the file on August 
     16th.
       Ms. SPEIER. But we don't have access to that memo, do we?
       Mr. KENT. I submitted it to the State Department, subject 
     to the September 27th subpoena.
       Ms. SPEIER. And we have not received one piece of paper 
     from the State Department relative to this investigation.

  Mrs. Manager DEMINGS. Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent also 
memorialized a September 15 conversation in which Ambassador Taylor 
described a Ukrainian official accusing America of hypocrisy for 
advising President Zelensky against investigating a prior Ukrainian 
president. Mr. Kent described that conversation during his testimony. 
He said:

       But the more awkward part of the conversation came after 
     Special Representative Volker made the point that the 
     Ukrainians, who had opened their authorities under Zelensky, 
     had opened investigations of former President Poroshenko. He 
     didn't think that was appropriate.
       And then Andriy Yermak said: What? You mean the type of 
     investigations you're pushing for us to do on Biden and 
     Clinton?

  The conversation makes clear the Ukrainian officials understood the 
corrupt nature of President Trump's request and therefore doubted 
American credibility on anti-corruption measures.
  Records of these conversations--and other notes and memorandum by 
senior American officials in Ukraine--would flesh out and help complete 
the record for the first Article of Impeachment. They would tell the 
whole truth to the American people and to this body. You should require 
the State Department to provide them.
  To summarize, the Senate should issue the subpoena proposed and the 
amendment requiring the State Department to turn over relevant text 
messages and WhatsApp messages, emails, diplomatic cables, and notes. 
These documents bear directly on the trial of this body--the trial that 
this body is required by the Constitution to hold. They are immediately 
relevant to the first Article of Impeachment. Their existence has been 
attested to by credible witnesses in the House, and the only reason we 
don't already have them is that the President has ordered his 
administration, including Secretary Pompeo, to hide them.
  The President's lawyers may suggest that the House should have sought 
these materials in court or awaited further lawsuits under the Freedom 
of Information Act, a.k.a. FOIA lawsuits. Any such suggestion is 
meritless.
  To start, the Constitution has never been understood to require such 
lawsuits, which has never occurred--never occurred--in any previous 
impeachment.
  Moreover, the President has repeatedly and strenuously argued that 
the House is not even allowed to file a suit to enforce its subpoenas.
  In the Freedom of Information Act cases, the administration has only 
grudgingly and slowly produced an extremely small set of materials but 
has insisted on applying heavy and dubious redactions.
  FOIA lawsuits filed by third parties cannot serve as a credible 
alternative to congressional oversight. In fact, it is still alarming 
that the administration has produced more documents pursuant to Freedom 
of Information Act lawsuits by private citizens and entities than 
congressional subpoenas.
  Finally, as we all know, litigation would take an extremely long 
time--likely years, not weeks or months--while the misconduct of this 
President requires immediate attention. The misconduct of this 
President requires immediate attention.
  If this body is truly committed to a fair trial, it cannot let the 
President play a game of ``keep away'' and dictate what evidence the 
Senators can

[[Page S399]]

and cannot see bearing on his guilt or innocence. This body cannot 
permit him to hide all the evidence while disingenuously insisting on 
lawsuits that he doesn't actually think we can file--ones that he knows 
will not be resolved until after the election he is trying to cheat to 
win. Instead, to honor your oaths to do impartial justice, we urge each 
Senator to support a subpoena to the State Department. And that 
subpoena should be issued now, at the beginning of the trial, rather 
than at the end so these documents can be reviewed and their importance 
weighed by the parties, by the Senate, and by the American people. That 
is how things work in every courtroom in the Nation, and it is how they 
should work here, especially because the stakes, as you all know, are 
so high.
  The truth is there. Facts are stubborn things. The President is 
trying to hide it. This body should not surrender to his obstruction by 
refusing to demand a full record. That is why the House managers 
support this amendment.
  Mr. Chief Justice, the House managers reserve the balance of our 
time.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. Mr. Cipollone.
  Mr. Counsel CIPOLLONE. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice.
  In the interest of time, I will not repeat all of the arguments we 
have made already with respect to these motions. I would say one thing 
before I turn it over to my cocounsel. Mr. Schiff came here and said he 
is not asking you to do something he wouldn't do for himself, and the 
House manager said: We were not asking you to do our jobs for us.
  Mr. Schiff came up here and said: ``I call Ambassador Bolton.'' 
Remember Paul Harvey? It is time for the rest of the story. He didn't 
call him in the House. He didn't subpoena Ambassador Bolton in the 
House.
  I have a letter here from Ambassador Bolton's lawyer. He is the same 
lawyer that Charlie Kupperman hired. It is dated November 8. He said: I 
write as counsel to Dr. Charles Kupperman and to Ambassador John Bolton 
in response to, one, the letter of November 5 from Chairman Schiff, 
Chairman Engel, and Acting Chair Maloney, the House chairs, withdrawing 
the subpoena to Dr. Kupperman--I mentioned that earlier--and to recent 
published reports announcing that the House chairs do not intend to 
issue subpoenas to Ambassador Bolton.
  He goes on to say: ``We are dismayed that committees have chosen not 
to join in seeking resolution from the Judicial Branch of this 
momentous Constitutional question.'' He ends the letter by saying: ``If 
the House chooses not to pursue through subpoena the testimony of Dr. 
Kupperman and Ambassador Bolton, let the record be clear: that is the 
House's decision.''
  They made that decision. They never subpoenaed Ambassador Bolton. 
They didn't try to call him in the House. They withdrew the subpoena 
for Charles Kupperman before the judge could rule, and they asked that 
the case be mooted. Now they come here, and they ask you to issue a 
subpoena for John Bolton. It is not right.
  I yield the remainder of my time to Mr. Sekulow.
  Mr. Counsel SEKULOW. Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the Senate, the 
managers said facts are a stubborn thing. Let me give you some facts. 
It is from the transcripts.
  Ambassador Sondland actually testified unequivocally that the 
President did not tie aid to investigations. Instead, he acknowledged 
that any leak he had suggested was based entirely on his own 
speculation, unconnected to any conversation with the President.
  Here is the question:

       What about the aid? Ambassador Volker says that the aid was 
     not tied.
       Answer. I didn't say that they were conclusively tied 
     either. I said I was presuming it.
       Question. OK. And so the President never told you they were 
     tied?
       Answer. That is correct.
       Question. So your testimony and Ambassador Volker's 
     testimony is consistent, and the President did not tie 
     investigations, aid to investigations?
       Answer. That is correct.

  Ambassador Sondland also testified that he asked President Trump 
directly about these issues, and the President explicitly told him that 
he did not want anything from Ukraine. He said:

       I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. 
     Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.

  Similar comments were made to Senator Johnson.
  Those are the facts--stubborn, but those are the facts.
  No one is above the law. Here is the law. As every Member of Congress 
knows and is undoubtedly aware, separate from even state sacred 
privileges is the Presidential communication executive privilege to 
communications in performance of a President's responsibilities. The 
Presidential communication privilege has constitutional origins. Courts 
have recognized a great public interest in preserving the 
confidentiality of conversations that take place in the President's 
performance of his official duties because such confidentiality is 
needed to protect the effectiveness of the Executive decisionmaking 
process. That is In re Sealed Case, which was decided in the District 
of Columbia Court of Appeals.
  The Supreme Court found such a privilege necessary to guarantee the 
candor of Presidential advisers and to provide a President and those 
who assist him with freedom to explore alternatives in the process of 
ultimately shaping policies and making decisions and to do so in a way 
many would be unwilling to express except in private. For these 
reasons, Presidential conversations are presumptively privileged.
  There is something else about this privilege. Communications made by 
Presidential advisers--again quoting courts--and by the way, lawyer 
lawsuits? Lawyer lawsuits? We are talking about the impeachment of a 
President of the United States, duly elected, and the Members and the 
managers are complaining about lawyer lawsuits? The Constitution allows 
lawyer lawsuits. It is disrespecting the Constitution of the United 
States to even say that in this Chamber, ``lawyer lawsuits.''
  Here is the law. Communications made by Presidential advisers in the 
course of preparing advice for the President come under the 
Presidential communications privilege even when these communications 
are not made directly to the President--even when they are not made 
directly to the President--adviser to adviser. Given the need to 
provide sufficient elbow room for advisers to obtain information from 
all knowledgeable sources, the privilege must apply both to 
communications which these advisers solicited and received from others, 
as well as those they authorized themselves.
  The privilege must also extend to communications authored or received 
in response to solicitation by members of a Presidential adviser's 
staff since in many instances advisers must rely on their staffs to 
investigate an issue and formulate advice given to the President.
  Lawsuits, the Constitution--it is a dangerous moment for America when 
an impeachment of a President of the United States is being rushed 
through because of lawyer lawsuits. The Constitution allows it, if 
necessary. The Constitution demands it, if necessary.
  Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. Mrs. Demings, you have 13 minutes for rebuttal, or 
Mr. Schiff.
  Mr. Manager SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice.
  Let me respond to some of my colleague's points, if I can.
  First, counsel said: Well, the House would like to call John Bolton, 
but the House did not seek his testimony during its investigation.
  Well, first of all, we did. We invited John Bolton to testify. Do you 
know what he told us? He said:

       I am not coming. And if you subpoena me, I will sue you.

  That was his answer: ``I will sue you.''
  Mr. Bolton is represented by the same lawyer who represents Dr. 
Kupperman, who actually did sue us when he was subpoenaed. So we knew 
that John Bolton would make good on that threat.
  Mr. Sekulow said something about lawyer lawsuits. I have to confess, 
I wasn't completely following the argument, but he said something about 
lawyer lawsuits and that we are against lawyer lawsuits. I don't know 
what that means, but I can tell you this: The Trump Justice Department 
is in court in that case and in other cases arguing that Congress 
cannot go to court to enforce its subpoenas. So when they say

[[Page S400]]

something about lawyer lawsuits and they say there is nothing wrong 
with the House suing to get these witnesses to show up and they should 
have sued to get them to show up, their own lawyers are in court saying 
that the House has no such right. They are in court saying that you 
can't have lawyer lawsuits. That argument cannot be made in both 
directions.
  What is more, in the McGhan issue, which tested this same bogus 
theory of absolute immunity--once again, that lawsuit involving the 
President's lawyer, Don McGahn, the one who was told to fire the 
special counsel and then to lie about it, that lawsuit to get his 
testimony--Judge Jackson ruled on that very recently when they made the 
same bogus claim, saying that he is absolutely immune from showing up.
  The judge said:

       That is nonsense. There is no support for that--not in the 
     Constitution, not in the case. That is made out of whole 
     cloth.

  But the judge said something more that was very interesting. What we 
urged John Bolton's lawyer was, you don't need to file a lawsuit. Dr. 
Kupperman, you don't need to file a lawsuit. There is one already filed 
involving Don McGahn that is about to be decided. So unless your real 
purpose here is delay, unless your real purpose here is to avoid 
testimony and you just wish to give the impression of a willingness to 
come forward, you just want to have the court's blessing--if that is 
really true, agree to be bound by the McGahn decision.
  Well, of course, they were not willing because they didn't want to 
testify. Now, for whatever reason, John Bolton is now willing to 
testify. I don't know why that is. Maybe it is because he has a book 
coming out. Maybe it is because it would be very hard to explain why he 
was unwilling to share important information with the Senate; that he 
couldn't show up for a House deposition or interview because he would 
need court permission to do it, but he could put it in the book. I 
don't know. I can't speak to his motivation. I can tell you he is 
willing to come now, if you are willing to hear him.

  Of course, they weren't willing to be bound by that court decision in 
McGahn, but the court said something very interesting, because one of 
the arguments they happened to make--one of the arguments that John 
Bolton's lawyer had been making as to why they needed their own 
separate litigation was, well, John Bolton and Dr. Kupperman, they are 
national security people, and Don McGahn is just a White House Counsel. 
No offense to the White House Counsel, but apparently it had nothing to 
do with the national security so they couldn't be bound by what the 
court in the McGahn case said. Well, the judge in the McGahn case said 
this applies to national security stuff too.
  So we do have the court decision. What is more, we have the court 
decision in the Harriet Miers case, in the George W. Bush 
administration, where, likewise, the court made short shrift of this 
claim of absolute, complete, and total immunity.
  Now, there were also comments made about Ambassador Volker's 
testimony by Mr. Cipollone, and they were along these lines: Ambassador 
Volker said the President never told him that the aid was being 
conditioned or that the meeting was being conditioned on Ukraine doing 
the sham investigation. So I guess that is case closed--unless the 
President told everyone, called them into the office and said: Hey, I 
am going to tell you now; and then: I am going to tell you now. If he 
didn't tell everyone, I guess it is case closed.
  Well, you know who the President did tell, among others? He told Mick 
Mulvaney. Mick Mulvaney went out on national television and said, yes, 
they discussed it, this investigation, this Russian narrative that it 
wasn't Ukraine that intervened in 2016; it was Russia. I am sorry. It 
wasn't Russia; it was Ukraine. Yes, that bogus 2016 theory; yes, they 
discussed it; yes, it was part of the reason why they withheld the 
money.
  When a reporter said: Well, you are kind of describing a quid pro 
quo, his answer was: Yes, get used to it--or get over it. We do it all 
the time.
  Now, they haven't said they want to hear from Mick Mulvaney. I wonder 
why. The President did talk to Mick Mulvaney about it. Wouldn't you 
like to hear what Mick Mulvaney has to say? If you really want to get 
to the bottom of this, if they are really challenging the fact that the 
President conditioned $400 million in military aid to an ally at war, 
if Mick Mulvaney has already said publicly that he talked to the 
President about it, and this is part of the reason why, don't you think 
we should hear from him? Wouldn't you think impartial justice requires 
you to hear from him?
  Now, counsel also referred to Ambassador Sondland and Sondland 
saying: Well, the President told me there was no quid pro quo. Now, of 
course, at the time the President said to Sondland no quid pro quo, he 
became aware of the whistleblower complaint, presumably by Mr. 
Cipollone. So the President knew that this was going to come to light. 
On the advice, apparently, of Mr. Cipollone, or maybe others, the 
Director of National Intelligence, for the first time in history, 
withheld a whistleblower complaint from Congress, its intended 
recipient. Nonetheless, the White House was aware of that complaint. We 
launched our own investigations.
  Yes, they got caught. In the midst of being caught, what does he say? 
It is called a false exculpatory. For those people at home, that is a 
fancy word of saying it is a false, phony alibi. No quid pro quo. He 
wasn't even asked the question was there a quid pro quo. He just 
blurted it out. That is the defense? The President denies it? What is 
more interesting, he didn't tell you about the other half of that 
conversation where the President says no quid pro quo. He says: No quid 
pro quo, but Zelensky needs to go to the mike, and he should want to do 
it, which is the equivalent of saying no quid pro quo, except the quid 
pro quo, and here is what it is. The quid pro quo is he needs to go to 
the mike, and he should want to do it. That is their alibi?
  They didn't also mention, of course--and you will hear about this 
during the trial, if we have a real trial. Ambassador Sondland also 
said: We are often asked was there a quid pro quo, and the answer is, 
yes, there was a quid pro quo. There was an absolute quid pro quo.
  What is more, when it came to the military aid, it was as simple as 
two plus two. Well, I will tell you something. We are not the only 
people who can add up two plus two. There are millions of people 
watching this who can add up two plus two also. When the President 
tells his Chief of Staff: We are holding up the aid because of this, as 
the Chief of Staff admitted; when the President gives no plausible or 
other explanation for holding up aid that you all and we all supported 
and voted on in a very bipartisan way, has no explanation for it; when 
in that call he never brings up corruption except the corruption he 
wants to bring about, it doesn't take a genius, it doesn't take Albert 
Einstein to add up two plus two. It equals four. In this case, it 
equals guilt.
  Now, you are going to have 16 hours to ask questions. You are going 
to have 16 hours. That is a long time to ask questions. Wouldn't you 
like to be able to ask about the documents in that 16 hours? Would you 
like to be able to say: Counsel for the President, what did Mick 
Mulvaney mean when he emailed so-and-so and said such and such? What is 
your explanation for that because that seems to be pretty damning 
evidence of exactly what the House is saying. What is your explanation 
of that? Mr. Sekulow, what is your explanation?
  Wouldn't you like to be able to ask about the documents or ask the 
House: Mr. Schiff, what about this text message? Doesn't that suggest 
such--what the President is arguing? Wouldn't you like to be able to 
ask me that question, or one of my colleagues? I think you would. I 
think you should.
  But the backward way this resolution is drafted, you get 16 hours to 
ask questions about documents you have never seen. You know what is 
more? If you do decide at that point, after the trial is essentially 
over, that you do want to see the documents after all and the documents 
are produced, you don't get another 16 hours. You don't get 16 minutes. 
You don't get 16 seconds to ask about those documents. Does that make 
any sense to you? Does that make any sense at all?
  I will tell you something I would like to know that may be in the 
documents. You probably heard before about the

[[Page S401]]

three amigos. My colleague has mentioned two of the three amigos: Amigo 
Volker and Amigo Sondland. These are two of the three people whom the 
President put in charge of Ukraine policy. The third amigo is Secretary 
Rick Perry, former Secretary of Energy. We know from Amigo Sondland's 
testimony that he was certainly in the loop, knew exactly all about 
this scheme, and we knew from Ambassador Volker's testimony and his 
text messages and his WhatsApps that that amigo was in the loop.
  What about the third amigo? Wouldn't you like to know if the third 
amigo was in the loop? Now, as my colleagues will explain when we get 
to the Department of Energy records, well, surprisingly, we didn't get 
those either. Any communication between the Department of Energy and 
the Department of State is covered by this amendment. Wouldn't you like 
to know? Don't you think the American people have a right to know what 
the third amigo knew about this scheme? I would like to know. I think 
you should be able to ask questions about it in your 16 hours.
  At the end of the day, I guess I will finish with something Mr. 
Sekulow said. He said this was a dangerous moment because we are trying 
to rush through this somehow. It is a dangerous moment, but we are not 
trying to rush through this trial. We are actually trying to have a 
real trial here. It is the President who is trying to rush through 
this.
  I have to tell you that whatever you decide here--maybe this is a 
waste of breath and maybe it is already decided, but whatever you 
decide here--I don't know who the next President is going to be; maybe 
it will be someone in this Chamber, but I guarantee you this: Whoever 
that next President is, whether they did something right or they did 
something wrong, there is going to come a time where you, in this body, 
are going to subpoena that President and that administration. You are 
going to want to get to the bottom of serious allegations. Are you 
prepared to say that that President can simply say: I am going to fight 
all the subpoenas. Are you prepared to say and accept that President 
saying: I have absolute immunity. You want me to come testify? Senator, 
do you want me to come testify? No, no. I have absolute immunity. You 
can subpoena me all you like. I will see you in court. And when you get 
to court, I am going to tell you, you can't see me in court.
  Are you prepared for that? That is what the future looks like. Don't 
think this is the last President, if you allow this to happen, who is 
going to allow this to take place.
  Mr. Chief Justice, I yield back.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The majority leader is recognized.


                            Motion to Table

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Chief Justice, I send a motion to the desk to 
table the amendment.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The question is on agreeing to the motion to 
table.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. Are there any Senators in the Chamber wishing to 
vote or change their vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 53, nays 47, as follows:

                         [Rollcall Vote No. 16]

                                YEAS--53

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Loeffler
     McConnell
     McSally
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--47

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Jones
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden
  The motion to table is agreed to; the amendment is tabled.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The Democratic leader is recognized.


                           Amendment No. 1286

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Chief Justice, I send an amendment to the desk to 
subpoena certain Office of Management and Budget documents, and I ask 
that it be read.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The clerk will read the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New York [Mr. Schumer] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 1286.

(Purpose: To subpoena certain Office of Management and Budget documents 
                              and records)

       At the appropriate place in the resolving clause, insert 
     the following:
       Sec. ___.  Notwithstanding any other provision of this 
     resolution, pursuant to rules V and VI of the Rules of 
     Procedure and Practice in the Senate When Sitting on 
     Impeachment Trials--
       (1) the Chief Justice of the United States, through the 
     Secretary of the Senate, shall issue a subpoena to the Acting 
     Director of the Office of Management and Budget commanding 
     him to produce, for the time period from January 1, 2019, to 
     the present, all documents, communications, and other records 
     within the possession, custody, or control of the Office of 
     Management and Budget, referring or relating to--
       (A) the actual or potential suspension, withholding, 
     delaying, freezing, or releasing of United States foreign 
     assistance, military assistance, or security assistance of 
     any kind to Ukraine, including but not limited to the Ukraine 
     Security Assistance Initiative (referred to in this section 
     as ``USAI'') and Foreign Military Financing (referred to in 
     this section as ``FMF''), including but not limited to--
       (i) communications among, between, or referring to Director 
     Michael John ``Mick'' Mulvaney, Assistant to the President 
     Robert Blair, Acting Director Russell Vought, Associate 
     Director Michael Duffey, or any other Office of Management 
     and Budget employee;
       (ii) communications related to requests by President Trump 
     for information about Ukraine security or military assistance 
     and responses to those requests;
       (iii) communications related to concerns raised by any 
     Office of Management and Budget employee related to the 
     legality of any hold on foreign assistance, military 
     assistance, or security assistance to Ukraine;
       (iv) communications sent to the Department of State 
     regarding a hold or block on congressional notifications 
     regarding the release of FMF funds to Ukraine;
       (v) communications between--

       (I) officials at the Department of Defense, including but 
     not limited to Undersecretary of Defense Elaine McCusker; and
       (II) Associate Director Michael Duffey, Deputy Associate 
     Director Mark Sandy, or any other Office of Management and 
     Budget employee;

       (vi) all draft and final versions of the August 7, 2019, 
     memorandum prepared by the National Security Division, 
     International Affairs Division, and Office of General Counsel 
     of the Office of Management and Budget about the release of 
     foreign assistance, security assistance, or security 
     assistance to Ukraine;
       (vii) the Ukrainian government's knowledge prior to August 
     28, 2019, of any actual or potential suspension, withholding, 
     delaying, freezing, or releasing of United States foreign 
     assistance, military assistance, or security assistance to 
     Ukraine, including all meetings, calls, or other engagements 
     with Ukrainian officials regarding potential or actual 
     suspensions, holds, or delays in United States assistance to 
     Ukraine;
       (B) communications, opinions, advice, counsel, approvals, 
     or concurrences provided by any employee in the Office of 
     Management and Budget regarding the actual or potential 
     suspension, withholding, delaying, freezing, or releasing of 
     security assistance to Ukraine including legality under the 
     Impoundment Control Act;
       (C) Associate Director Michael Duffey taking over duties 
     related to apportionments of USAI or FMF from Deputy 
     Associate Director Mark Sandy or any other Office of 
     Management and Budget employee;
       (D) all meetings related to the security assistance to 
     Ukraine including but not limited to interagency meetings on 
     July 18, 2019, July 23, 2019, July 26, 2019, and July 31, 
     2019, including any directions provided to staff 
     participating in those meetings and any readouts from those 
     meetings;
       (E) the decision announced on or about September 11, 2019, 
     to release appropriated foreign assistance, military 
     assistance, or security assistance to Ukraine, including but 
     not limited to any notes, memoranda, documentation or 
     correspondence related to the decision;
       (F) all draft and final versions of talking points related 
     to the withholding or release of foreign assistance, military 
     assistance, or security assistance to Ukraine, including

[[Page S402]]

     communications with the Department of Defense related to 
     concerns about the accuracy of the talking points; and
       (G) all meetings and calls between President Trump and the 
     President of Ukraine, including documents, communications, 
     and other records related to the scheduling of, preparation 
     for, and follow-up from the President's April 21 and July 25, 
     2019, telephone calls, as well as the President's September 
     25, 2019, meeting with the President of Ukraine in New York; 
     and
       (2) the Sergeant at Arms is authorized to utilize the 
     services of the Deputy Sergeant at Arms or any other employee 
     of the Senate in serving the subpoena authorized to be issued 
     by this section.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The majority leader is recognized.


                                Program

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Chief Justice, first a scheduling note: As the 
parties are ready to debate this amendment, I suggest we go ahead, get 
through the debate, and vote before we take a 30-minute recess for 
dinner.
  I remind everyone that I will be moving to table the amendment. It is 
also important to remember that both the evidence and witnesses are 
addressed in the underlying resolution.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The amendment is arguable by the parties for 2 
hours, equally divided.
  Mr. Manager Schiff, are you a proponent or opponent of this motion?
  Mr. Manager SCHIFF. Proponent, Mr. Chief Justice.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. Mr. Cipollone, are you a proponent or opponent?
  Mr. Counsel CIPOLLONE. Mr. Chief Justice, we are an opponent.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. Mr. Schiff, your side will proceed first, and you 
will be able to reserve time for rebuttal.
  Mr. Manager CROW. Mr. Chief Justice, before I begin, the House 
managers will reserve the balance of our time to respond to the counsel 
for the President.
  Mr. Chief Justice, Senators, counsel for the President, and the 
American people, I am Jason Crow from the great State of Colorado.
  The House managers strongly support this amendment to subpoena key 
documents from the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB. These 
documents go directly to one of President Trump's abuses of power: his 
decision to withhold vital military aid from a strategic partner that 
is at war to benefit his own personal reelection campaign. Why should 
that matter? Why should anybody care? Why should I care?
  Before I was a Member of Congress, I was an American soldier serving 
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although some years have passed since that 
time, there is still some memories that are seared in my brain. One of 
those memories was scavenging scrap metal on the streets of Baghdad in 
the summer of 2003, which we had to bolt onto the side of our trucks 
because we had no armor to protect against roadside bombs.
  When we talk about troops not getting the equipment they need, when 
they need it, it is personal to me. To be clear here, we are talking of 
$391 million of taxpayer money intended to protect our national 
security by helping our strategic partner, Ukraine, fight against 
Vladimir Putin's Russia, an adversary of the United States.
  The President could not carry out this scheme alone. He needed a lot 
of people to help him. That is why we know as much about it as we do 
today. But there is much more to know. That is what trials are for, to 
get the full picture.
  We know there is more because President Trump needed the Office of 
Management and Budget to figure out how to stop what should have been a 
routine release of funds mandated by Congress--a release of funds that 
was already under way.
  The people in this Chamber don't need me to tell you that because 87 
of you in this room voted for those vital funds to support our partner 
Ukraine.
  Witnesses before the House testified extensively about OMB's 
involvement in carrying out the hold. It was OMB that relayed the 
President's instructions and implemented them. It was OMB that 
scrambled to justify the freeze.
  OMB has key documents that President Trump has refused to turn over 
to Congress. It is time to subpoena those documents. These documents 
would provide insight into critical aspects of the military aid hold. 
They would show the decision-making process and motivations behind 
President Trump's freeze. They would reveal the concerns expressed by 
career OMB officials, including lawyers, that the hold was violating 
the law. They would expose the lengths to which OMB went to justify the 
President's hold. They would reveal concerns about the impact of the 
freeze on Ukraine and U.S. national security. They would show that 
senior officials repeatedly attempted to convince President Trump to 
release the hold.
  In short, they would show exactly how the President carried out the 
scheme to use our national defense funds to benefit his personal 
political campaign.
  We are not speculating about the existence of these documents. We are 
not guessing what the documents might show. During the course of the 
investigation in the House, witnesses who testified before the 
committees identified multiple documents directly relevant to the 
impeachment inquiry that OMB continues to hold to this day.
  We know these documents exist, and we know that the only reason we do 
not have them is because the President directed OMB not to produce them 
because he knows what they would show.
  To demonstrate the significance of the OMB documents and the value 
they would provide in this trial, I would like to walk you through some 
of what we know exists for which the Trump administration has refused 
to turn over.
  As we have discussed, the Trump administration has refused to turn 
over any documents to the House in response to multiple subpoenas and 
requests. Based on what is known from the testimony and the few 
documents that have been obtained through public reporting and 
lawsuits, it is clear that the President is trying to hide this 
evidence because he is afraid of what it would show. The documents 
offer stark examples of the chaos and confusion that the President's 
scheme set off across our government and made clear the importance of 
the documents that are still being concealed by the President.
  We know that OMB has documents that reveal that as early as June, the 
President was considering holding military aid for Ukraine. The 
President began questioning military aid to Ukraine after Congress 
appropriated and authorized the money--$250 million in DOD funds and 
$140 million in State Department funds. This funding had wide 
bipartisan support because, as many witnesses testified, providing 
military aid to Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression 
also benefits our own national security. Importantly, the President's 
questions came weeks after the Department of Defense already certified 
that Ukraine had undertaken the anti-corruption reforms and other 
measures mandated by Congress as a condition for receiving that aid. 
There is a process for making sure that the funds make it to the right 
place and to the right people--a process that has been followed every 
year that we have been providing that security assistance to Ukraine, 
including the first 2 years under the Trump administration.
  Nonetheless, the President's questions came days after DOD issued a 
press release on June 18, announcing they would provide its $250 
million portion of the taxpayer-funded military aid to Ukraine. 
According to public reporting, the day after DOD's press release, a 
White House official named Robert Blair called OMB's Acting Director, 
Russell Vought, to talk about the military aid to Ukraine. According to 
public reports, Mr. Blair told Vought: ``We need to hold it up.''
  OMB has refused to produce any documents related to this 
conversation. The Senate can get them by passing the amendment and 
issuing a subpoena.
  But there is more. The same day Blair told Vought to hold up the aid, 
Michael Duffey, a political appointee at OMB who reports to Vought, 
emailed Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Elaine McCusker and told her 
that the President had questions about the aid. Duffey copied Mark 
Sandy, a career official at OMB, who told us about the email in his 
testimony before the House.
  Like all others, that email was not produced by the Trump 
administration in the House impeachment investigation. We know this 
email exists, however, because in response to a Freedom of Information 
Act lawsuit, the Trump

[[Page S403]]

administration was forced to release a redacted email consistent with 
Sandy's description.
  But OMB provided none of those documents to the House. With this 
proposed amendment, the Senate has an opportunity to obtain and review 
the full record that can further demonstrate how and why the President 
was holding the aid. These documents would also shed light on the 
President's order to implement the hold.
  On July 3, the State Department told various officials that OMB 
blocked it from dispensing $141 million in aid. OMB had directed the 
State Department not to send a notification to Congress about spending 
the money, and without that notification, the aid was effectively 
blocked. Why did OMB block the congressional notification? Who told 
them to do it? What was the reason? The Senate would get those answers 
if it issued this subpoena.
  But there is more. On July 12, Blair--the White House official who 
had called Vought on June 19 and said ``We need to hold it up''--sent 
an email to Duffey at OMB. Blair said: ``The President is directing a 
hold on military support funding for Ukraine.''
  We haven't seen this email. The only reason we know about it is from 
the testimony of Mark Sandy, the career OMB official who followed the 
law and complied with his subpoena. As you can see from the transcript 
excerpt in front of you, Sandy testified that the July 12 email did not 
mention concerns about any other country or any other aid packages, 
just Ukraine. So of the dozens of countries we provide aid and support 
for, the President was only concerned about one of them--Ukraine. Why? 
Well, we know why. But OMB has still refused to provide a copy of this 
July 12 email and has refused to provide any documents surrounding it, 
all because the President told OMB to continue to hide the truth from 
Congress and the American people.
  What was he afraid of? A subpoena issued by the Senate would show us.
  OMB also has documents about a key series of meetings triggered by 
the President's order to hold military aid. In the second half of July, 
the National Security Council convened a series of interagency meetings 
about the President's hold on military aid. OMB documents would show 
what happened during those meetings. For example, on July 18, the 
National Security Council staff convened a routine interagency meeting 
to discuss Ukraine policy. During the meeting, it was the OMB 
representative who announced that President Trump placed a hold on all 
military aid to Ukraine.
  Ambassador Bill Taylor, our most senior diplomat to Ukraine, 
participated in that meeting, and he described his reaction at his own 
hearing.
  (Text of Videotape presentation:)

       Mr. TAYLOR. In a regular NSC secure video conference call 
     on July 18, I heard a staff person from the Office of 
     Management and Budget say that there was a hold on security 
     assistance to Ukraine but could not say why. Toward the end 
     of an otherwise normal meeting, a voice on the call--the 
     person was off-screen--said that she was from OMB and her 
     boss had instructed her not to approve any additional 
     spending on security assistance for Ukraine until further 
     notice.
       I and others sat in astonishment. The Ukrainians were 
     fighting the Russians and counted on not only the training 
     and weapons but also the assurance of U.S. support. All that 
     the OMB staff person said was that the directive had come 
     from the President, to the Chief of Staff, to OMB. In an 
     instant, I realized that one of the key pillars of our strong 
     support for Ukraine was threatened.

  Mr. Manager CROW. It is hard to believe OMB would not have any 
documents following this bombshell announcement. It surely does. It was 
the agency that delivered the shocking news to the rest of the U.S. 
Government that the President was withholding the vital military aid 
from our partner, and we would see these documents if the Senate issued 
a subpoena.
  The July 18 meeting was just the first in a series of meetings where 
OMB held the line and enforced the President's hold on the aid. But 
there was a second meeting on July 23, where we understood agencies 
raised concerns about the legality of OMB's hold on the aid and then a 
third meeting, at a more senior level, on July 26. Witnesses testified 
that at that meeting, OMB struggled to offer an explanation for the 
President's hold on the aid. Then there was a fourth meeting on July 
31, where the legal concerns about the hold were raised. At each of 
these meetings, there was confusion about the scope and the reasons for 
the hold. Nobody seemed to know what was going on. But that was exactly 
the point.
  All of the agencies--except OMB, which was simply conveying the 
President's order--supported the military aid and argued for lifting 
the hold. OMB did not produce a single document providing information 
about his participation, preparation, or followup from any of these 
meetings.
  Did these OMB officials come prepared with talking points for these 
meetings? Did OMB officials take notes during any of these meetings? 
Did they exchange emails about what was going on? Did OMB discuss what 
reasons they could give everyone else for the hold? By issuing this 
subpoena, the Senate can find out the answers to all of those questions 
and others like them. The American people deserve answers.
  OMB documents would also reveal key facts about what happened on July 
25. On July 25, President Trump conducted his phone call with President 
Zelensky, during which he demanded ``a favor.'' This favor was for 
Ukraine to conduct an investigation to benefit the President's 
reelection campaign. That call was at 9 a.m. Just 90 minutes after 
President Trump hung up the phone, Duffey, the political appointee at 
OMB who is in charge of national security programs, emailed DOD to 
``formalize'' the hold on the military aid, just 90 minutes after 
President Trump's call--a call in which the President had asked for ``a 
favor.''
  That email is on the screen in front of you. We have a redacted copy 
of this email because it was recently released through the Freedom of 
Information Act. It was not released by the Trump administration in 
response to the House's subpoena.
  In this email, Duffey told DOD officials that, based on the guidance 
it received, they should ``hold off on any additional DOD obligations 
of these funds.'' He added that the request was ``sensitive'' and that 
they should keep this information ``closely held,'' meaning, don't tell 
anybody about it.
  Why did Duffey consider the information sensitive? Why didn't he want 
anyone to learn about it? Answers to those questions may be found in 
OMB emails--emails that we could all see if you issue a subpoena.
  But there is more. Remember, the administration needed to create a 
way to stop funding that was already underway. The train had already 
left the station and something like this had never been done before. 
Later in the evening of July 25, OMB found a way, even though DOD had 
already notified Congress that the funds would be released.
  Here is how this scheme worked. OMB sent DOD a funding document that 
included a carefully worded footnote directing DOD to hold off on 
spending the funds ``to allow for an interagency process to determine 
the best use.'' Remember that language, ``to allow for an interagency 
process to determine the best use.''
  Let me explain that. The footnote stated that this ``brief pause'' 
would not prevent DOD from spending the money by the end of the fiscal 
year, which was coming up on September 30. OMB had to do this because 
it knew that not spending the money was illegal, and they knew that DOD 
would be worried about that. And they were right; DOD was worried about 
it. Mr. Sandy testified that in his 12 years of experience at OMB, he 
could not recall anything like this ever happening before. The drafting 
of this unusual funding document and the issuance of the document must 
have generated a significant amount of email traffic, memos, and other 
documentation at OMB--memos, email traffic, and documentation that we 
would all see if the Senate issued a subpoena.
  What was the result from this series of events on July 25? Where was 
Mr. Duffey's guidance to implement the hold coming from? Why was the 
request ``sensitive''? What was the connection between OMB's direction 
to DOD and the call President Trump had with President Zelensky just 90 
minutes before? Did agency officials communicate about the questions 
coming from Ukrainian officials?
  The American people deserve answers. A subpoena would provide those 
answers.
  OMB documents also would reveal information about the decision to 
have a political appointee take over Ukraine funding responsibility. 
The tensions

[[Page S404]]

and chaos surrounding the freeze escalated at the end of July, when 
Duffey, a political appointee at OMB with no relevant experience in 
funding approvals, took authority for releasing military aid to Ukraine 
away from Sandy, a career OMB official. Sandy could think of no other 
explanation of a political appointee's taking on this responsibility. 
Sandy was given no reason other than Mr. Duffey wanted to be ``more 
involved in daily operations.''

  During his deposition, Sandy confirmed that he was removed from the 
funding approval process after he had raised concerns to Duffey about 
whether the hold was legal under the Impoundment Control Act. Needless 
to say, OMB has refused to turn over any documents or communications 
involving that decision to replace Mr. Sandy.
  Why did Duffey--a political appointee with no relevant experience in 
this area--take over responsibility for Ukraine's funding approval? Was 
the White House involved in that decision? Was Sandy removed because he 
had expressed concerns about the legality of the hold?
  By August 7, people in our government were worried, and when people 
in the government get worried, sometimes what they do is they draft 
memos, because when they are concerned about getting caught up in 
something that doesn't seem right, they don't want to be a part of it.
  So, on that day, Mark Sandy and other colleagues at the OMB drafted 
and sent a memo about Ukraine military aid to Acting Director Vought. 
According to Sandy, the memo advocated for the release of the funds. It 
said that the military aid was consistent with American national 
security interests, that it would help to oppose Russian aggression, 
and that it was backed by strong bipartisan support. But President 
Trump did not lift the hold.
  Over the next several weeks, the OMB continued to issue funding 
documents that kept kicking the can down the road, supposedly to allow 
for more of this ``interagency process'' while inserting those 
footnotes throughout the apportionment documents, stating that the 
delay wouldn't affect the funding. But here is the really shocking 
part: There was no interagency process. They made it up. It had ended 
months before. They made it up because nobody could say the real reason 
for the hold. In total, the OMB issued nine of these documents between 
July 25 and September 10.
  Did the White House respond to the OMB's concerns and recommendation 
to release the aid? Did the White House instruct the OMB to continue 
creating a paper trail in an effort to justify the hold? Who knew what 
and when the OMB documents would shed light on the OMB's actions as the 
President's scheme unraveled? Did the White House direct the OMB to 
continue issuing the hold? What was OMB told about the President's 
reasons for releasing the hold? What communications did the OMB 
officials have with the White House around the time of the release? As 
the President's scheme unraveled, did anyone at the OMB connect the 
dots for the real reason for the hold? The OMB documents would shed 
light on all of these questions, and the American people deserve 
answers.
  I remember what it feels like to not have the equipment you need when 
you need it. Real people's lives are at stake. That is why this 
matters. We need this information so we can ensure that this never 
happens again. Eventually, this will all come out. We will have answers 
to these questions. The question now is whether we will have them in 
time and who here will be on the right side of history.
  I reserve the balance of our time for an opportunity to respond to 
the President's argument.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. Thank you.
  Mr. Sekulow.
  Mr. Counsel SEKULOW. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice and Members of the 
Senate.
  Manager Crow, you should be happy to know that the aid that was 
provided to Ukraine over the course of the present administration 
included lethal weapons. Those were not provided by the previous 
administration. The suggestion that Ukraine failed to get any equipment 
is false. The security assistance was not for funding Ukraine over the 
summer of 2019. There was no lack of equipment due to the temporary 
pause. It was for future funding.
  Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Defense, who oversaw the U.S. aid 
shipment, said: ``The hold went and came so quickly they did not notice 
any change.''
  Under Secretary of State David Hale explained: ``The pause to aid was 
for future assistance, not to keep the army going now.''
  So the made-up narrative that security assistance was conditioned on 
Ukraine's taking some action on investigations is further disproved by 
the straightforward fact that the aid was delivered on September 11, 
2019, without Ukraine's taking any action on any investigation.
  It is interesting to note that the Obama administration withheld $585 
million of promised aid to Egypt in 2013, but the administration's 
public message was that the money was not officially on hold as, 
technically, it was not due until September 30--the end of the fiscal 
year--so that then they didn't have to disclose the halt to anyone.
  It sounds like this may be a practice of a number of administrations. 
In fact, this President has been concerned about how aid is being put 
forward, so there have been pauses on foreign aid in a variety of 
contexts.
  In September of 2019, the administration announced that it was 
withholding over $100 million in aid to Afghanistan over concerns about 
government corruption. In August of 2019, President Trump announced 
that the administration and Seoul were in talks to substantially 
increase South Korea's share of the expense of U.S. military support 
for South Korea. In June, President Trump cut or paused over $550 
million in foreign aid to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala because 
those countries were not fairly sharing the burden of preventing mass 
migration to the United States.
  It is not the only administration. As I said, President Obama 
withheld hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to Egypt.
  To be clear--and I want to be clear--Ambassador Yovanovitch herself 
testified that our policy actually got stronger under President Trump, 
largely because, unlike the Obama administration, ``this administration 
made the decision to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine to help Ukraine 
fend off Russian aggression.'' She testified in a deposition before 
your various committees that it actually had felt, ``in the 3 years 
that I was there, partly because of my efforts but also the interagency 
team and President Trump's decision to provide lethal weapons to 
Ukraine, that our policy actually got stronger.''
  Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent, whose name has come up a couple of 
times, agrees that Javelins are incredibly effective weapons at 
stopping advance and that the Russians are scared of them.
  Ambassador Volker explained that President Trump approved each of the 
decisions made along the way, and as a result, America's policy toward 
Ukraine strengthened.
  So when we want to talk about facts, go to your own discovery and 
your own witnesses that you called.
  This all supposedly started because of a whistleblower. Where is that 
whistleblower?
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The House managers have 35 minutes remaining.
  Mr. Manager CROW. Mr. Chief Justice, in war, time matters; minutes 
and hours can seem like years. So the idea that, well, it made it there 
eventually just doesn't work. And, yes, the aid was provided. It was 
provided by Congress--this Senate and the House of Representatives--
with the President's signature. The Congress is the one that sends the 
aid, and millions of dollars of this aid would have been lost because 
of the delay had Congress not actually passed another law that extended 
that deadline to allow the funds to be spent. Let me repeat that. The 
delay had jeopardized the expenditure of the money to such an extent 
that Congress had to pass another law to extend the deadline so that 
the money and the equipment got to the people on the frontlines.
  Need I also reiterate, as to the supposed interagency process--the 
concerns that the President and his counsel continue to raise about 
corruption and making sure that the process went right--there was no 
interagency process. The whole thing was made up. It

[[Page S405]]

was a phantom. There was a delay, and delays matter.
  Mr. Chief Justice, I reserve the balance of my time for Mr. Schiff.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. Mr. Schiff.
  Mr. Manager SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice.
  There are just a few additional points I would like to make on this 
amendment and on my colleagues' arguments.
  First of all, Mr. Sekulow makes the point that the aid ultimately got 
released. They ultimately got the money, right? Yes, they got the money 
after the President got caught, after the President was forced to 
relieve the hold on the aid. After he got caught, yes, but even then, 
they had held on to the aid so long that it took a subsequent act of 
Congress to make sure it could all go out the door.
  So, what, is the President supposed to get credit for that--that we 
had to intervene because he withheld the aid for so long and that this 
is the only reason Ukraine got all of the aid we had approved in the 
first place?
  My colleagues have glossed over the fact that what they did was 
illegal, that the GAO--independent watchdog agency--found that that 
hold was illegal. So it not only violated the law, it not only took an 
act of Congress to make sure they ultimately got the aid, but this is 
supposed to be the defense as to why you shouldn't see the documents? 
Is that what we are to believe?
  Now, counsel also says, well, he is not the first President to 
withhold aid. And that is true. After all, counsel says: Well, 
President Obama withheld aid to Egypt. Yes. It was at the urging of the 
Members of Congress. Senators McCain and Graham urged that that aid be 
withheld. And why? Because there was a revolution in Egypt after it was 
appropriated. It was not something that was hidden from Congress. That 
was a pretty darned good reason to think, do we still want to give aid 
to this government after this revolution?
  We are not saying that aid has never been withheld--that is absurd--
but I would hope and expect this is the first time aid has been 
withheld by a President of the United States to coerce an ally at war 
to help him cheat in the next election. I think that is a first, but 
what we do here may determine whether it is the last.
  There is one other thing about this pause in aid, right? It is the 
argument: Well, no harm, no foul. OK. You got caught. They got the aid. 
What is the big deal?
  Well, as we heard during the trial, it is not just the aid. Aid is 
obviously the most important thing, as Mr. Crow mentioned--you know, 
without it, you can't defend yourself--and we will have testimony as to 
just what kind of military aid the President was withholding. But we 
also had testimony that it was the fact of the aid itself that was so 
important to Ukraine, the fact that the United States had Ukraine's 
back. And why? Because this new President of Ukraine--this new, 
untested, former comedian President of Ukraine who was at war with 
Russia was going to be going into a negotiation with Vladimir Putin 
with an eye to ending that conflict, and whether he went into that 
negotiation from a position of strength or a position of weakness would 
depend on whether we had his back.
  And so when the Ukrainians learned and the Russians learned that the 
President of the United States did not have his back, was withholding 
this aid, what message do you think that sent to Vladimir Putin? What 
message do you think it sent to Vladimir Putin when Donald Trump 
wouldn't let Volodymyr Zelensky, our ally, in the door at the White 
House but would let the Russian Foreign Minister? What message does 
that send?
  So it is not just the aid, and it is not just when the aid is 
delivered, it is not just if all of the aid is delivered, it is also 
what message does the freeze send to our friend and, even more 
importantly, to our foe, and the message it sent was a disaster--was a 
disaster.
  Now, you might ask yourself because counselors said: Hey, President 
Trump has given lethal weapons to Ukraine--you might ask yourself, if 
the President was so concerned about corruption, why didn't he do that 
in 2017, and why didn't he do that in 2018? Why was it only 2019 that 
there was a problem? Was there no corruption in Ukraine in 2017? Was 
there no corruption in Ukraine in 2018?
  No. Ukraine has always battled corruption. It wasn't the presence or 
lack of corruption in one year to another; it was the presence of Joe 
Biden as a potential candidate for President. That was the key change 
in 2019. That made all the difference.
  Let's get back to one of the key moments in this saga. A lot of you 
are attorneys--you are probably much better attorneys than I am--and I 
am sure you had the experience in cases you tried where there was some 
vignette, some conversation, some document. It may not have been the 
most important on its face, but it told you something about the case 
that was much larger than that conversation.
  For me, one of those conversations was not on July 25 between 
President Trump and President Zelensky but on July 26, the very next 
day.
  Now, you may have watched some of the House proceedings or you may 
not have, and people watching may have seen it and maybe they didn't, 
but there is this scene in a Ukrainian restaurant--a restaurant in 
Kyiv--with Gordon Sondland. Now, bear in mind it was Gordon Sondland 
who said there was absolutely quid pro quo and two plus two equals 
four. This is not some Never Trumper. This is a million-dollar donor to 
the Trump inauguration. OK? If there is a bias there, it is clearly in 
a million-dollar bias in favor of this President, not against him.
  So there is the scene in Kyiv, in this restaurant. Sondland has a 
cell phone, and he is sitting with David Holmes, who is a career 
diplomat--U.S. diplomat--in the Ukraine Embassy. Gordon Sondland takes 
out his phone, and he calls the White House. Gordon Sondland calling 
for the White House. Gordon Sondland holding for the President. And it 
takes a while to be connected, but he is connected to the President. 
That is pretty impressive, right? This isn't some guy with no 
relationship to the President. The President may say: Gordon Sondland, 
I barely know him, or something to that effect, but this is a guy who 
picked up his cell phone, and he can call the President of the United 
States from a restaurant in Kyiv, and he does.
  And the President's voice is so loud that David Holmes, this 
diplomat, can hear it. And what does the President say? Does he say: 
How is that reform coming? How is the attack on corruption going?
  No. He just says: Is he going to do the investigation? Is Zelensky 
going to do the investigation? And Sondland says: Yes. He will do 
anything you want. He loves your ass.
  This is the extent of the President's interest in Ukraine. They go on 
to talk about other things, and then they hang up. And David Holmes 
turns to the Ambassador and says--in language which I will have to 
modify to remove an expletive--says something along the lines of: Does 
the President give a ``blank'' about Ukraine? And Sondland says: No. He 
doesn't give a ``blank'' about Ukraine. He only cares about the big 
stuff, like the investigation of the Bidens that Giuliani wants.
  This is a million-dollar donor to the Trump inaugural admitting the 
President doesn't care about Ukraine. He doesn't care whether they get 
military dollars to defend themselves. He doesn't care about what 
position Zelensky goes into in these negotiations with Putin. He 
doesn't care about that.
  Isn't that clear? It is why he didn't care about corruption in 2017 
or 2018, and he certainly didn't care about it in 2019. All he cared 
about was the big stuff that affected him personally, like this 
investigation that he wanted of the Bidens.
  So we do ask: Do you want to see these documents? Do you want to know 
if these documents corroborate Ambassador Sondland? Will the documents 
show, as we fully expect they will, that the only thing he cared about 
was the big stuff that affected him?
  David Holmes' response was: Well, you know, there is some big stuff 
going on here, like the war with Russia. This isn't withholding aid 
because of a revolution in Egypt. This is withholding aid from a 
country in which 15,000 people have died fighting the Russians, and as 
Ambassador Taylor said and others: You know, Russia is fighting to 
remake the map of Europe by dint of military force.
  If we think that is just about Ukraine's security, we are very 
deceived. It is about our security. It is

[[Page S406]]

about the tens of thousands of troops we have in Europe. And if we 
undercut our own ally, if we give Russia reason to believe we will not 
have their back, that we will use Ukraine as a play thing or worse to 
get them to help us cheat in an election, that will only embolden Putin 
to do more.
  You said it as often as I have--the only thing he respects is 
strength. You think that looks like strength to Vladimir Putin? I think 
that looks like something that Vladimir Putin is only too accustomed 
to, and that is the kind of corruption that he finds and perpetuates in 
his own regime and pushes all around the world.
  My colleague Val Demings made reference to a conversation which I 
think is one of the other key vignettes in this whole sad saga, and 
that is a conversation that Ambassador Volker had with Andriy Yermak, 
one of the top aides to President Zelensky.
  This is a conversation in which Ambassador Volker is doing exactly 
what he is supposed to be doing, which is he is telling Yermak: You 
know, you guys shouldn't really do this investigation of your former 
President Poroshenko because it would be for a political reason. You 
really shouldn't engage in political investigations. And as 
Representative Demings said: What is the response of the Ukrainians? 
Oh, you mean like the one you want us to do of the Bidens and the 
Clintons. Threw it right back in his face. Ukraine is not oblivious to 
that hypocrisy.
  Mr. Sekulow says: What are we here for? You know, part of our 
strength is not only our support for our allies, it is not only our 
military might, it is what we stand for.
  We used to stand for the rule of law. We used to champion the rule of 
law around the world. Part of the rule of law is, of course, that no 
one is above the law.
  But to be out in Ukraine or anywhere else in the world championing 
the rule of law and saying don't engage in political prosecutions and 
having them throw it right back in our face: Oh, you mean like the one 
you want us to do--that is why we are here. That is why we are here. 
That is why we are here.
  I yield back.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Chief Justice.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The majority leader is recognized.


                            Motion to Table

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Chief Justice, I send a motion to the desk to 
table the amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The result was announced--yeas 53, nays 47, as follows:

                         [Rollcall Vote No. 17]

                                YEAS--53

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Loeffler
     McConnell
     McSally
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--47

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Jones
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. On this vote, the yeas are 53, the nays are 47. 
The motion to table is agreed to; the amendment is tabled.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The Democratic leader is recognized.


                           Amendment No. 1287

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Chief Justice, I send an amendment to the desk to 
issue a subpoena to John Michael ``Mick'' Mulvaney, and I ask that it 
be read.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:
       The Senator from New York [Mr. Schumer] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 1287.

         (Purpose: To subpoena John Michael ``Mick'' Mulvaney)

       At the appropriate place in the resolving clause, insert 
     the following:
       Sec. ___.  Notwithstanding any other provision of this 
     resolution, pursuant to rules V and VI of the Rules of 
     Procedure and Practice in the Senate When Sitting on 
     Impeachment Trials, the Chief Justice of the United States, 
     through the Secretary of the Senate, shall issue a subpoena 
     for the taking of testimony of John Michael ``Mick'' 
     Mulvaney, and the Sergeant at Arms is authorized to utilize 
     the services of the Deputy Sergeant at Arms or any other 
     employee of the Senate in serving the subpoena authorized to 
     be issued by this section.
  The CHIEF JUSTICE. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Chief Justice, I ask unanimous consent for a 30-
minute recess before the parties are recognized to debate the Schumer 
amendment.
  Following the debate time, I will once again move to table the 
amendment because those witnesses and evidence, as I repeatedly said, 
are addressed in the underlying resolution.

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