Political Quotes

“I rise to explain my votes in relation to the impeachment of Judge G. Thomas Porteous, Jr. I take my role in the rare process of impeachment seriously, and welcome the opportunity to explain my reasoning for voting guilty on all four Articles of Impeachment and to clarify for the record the limited precedential value that I believe the conviction on Article IV should provide. When considering the evidence presented by the House and Judge Porteous, I first had to establish what standard of proof I would use to determine his guilt or innocence on each Article of Impeachment passed by the House of Representatives. The Senate has never adopted a standard of proof like 'beyond a reasonable doubt' from the criminal context or 'a preponderance of the evidence' from a civil dispute context; rather, the Senate has allowed individual Senators to decide for themselves what standard is most appropriate. I ultimately settled on the standard suggested by the House Manager, that I be convinced of the truthfulness of the allegations and that they rise to a level of high crimes and misdemeanors. Mr. President, our founders granted Congress the power of impeachment to protect the institutions of government from those judged to be unfit to hold positions of trust.”