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

[Page S431]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMPEACHMENT

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, today the Senate begins in earnest our 
efforts to determine if our colleagues in the House of Representatives 
have compiled sufficient evidence to justify removing a sitting 
President from office. This is no small task, and it will be made more 
difficult by the swirl of commentary that has engulfed the impeachment 
inquiry since well before it was officially initiated.
  Much has been made of our debate over the inclusion of additional 
witness testimony into the prosecution's case against President Donald 
John Trump--so much, in fact, that many of my colleagues are inclined 
to allow that testimony in the name of bipartisan compromise. How 
misguided of them. Such a move would open the floodgates to a parade of 
politically-motivated testimony, a protracted legal battle, and 
ultimately unjustified impeachment proceedings in the U.S. Senate.
  The Democratic Members of the House of Representatives spent a great 
deal of their time and energy holding hearings, interviewing witnesses, 
and putting together what they have insisted is their best, ironclad 
case against President Trump. I encourage my colleagues to resist 
allowing an additional, cathartic airing of grievances and instead 
accept that it is now the Senate's turn to listen to the facts as they 
are presented, deliberate, and cast a final vote.

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