Today's vote is not a pure proxy vote for conviction.

You will recall that President Trump never raised that issue. Never objected to that, at all, with Russia. Never seemed bothered by it. Never seemed to care.

I have been so happy for Joe Biden over the past 24 hours. I think I`m happier for Dr. Fauci. Glad that he finally gets to actually speak truth to the American people, without any consequences.

The outgoing administration was so incompetent, and so indifferent to the very basic responsibilities of governance, including the defense of the United States.

By operationalizing the Defense Production Act, Joe Biden is going to change that because we are going to make enough vaccine.

If the previous administration had not been so bizarrely, and insistently, supplicant to Russia, we would had the director of national intelligence doing assessment, for example, for the administration, on the huge cyberattack on the U.S…

I would like to see the nominations and the COVID-relief bill come first. But I, also, think that time may allow us to do some inquiry here that might build the case for conviction.

What the new administration has announced is that they are going to start using the full powers of the federal government to make sure that we have enough PPE, enough testing kits, and enough vaccine, in order to beat this virus.

They`re out of power in the White House. They are out of power in the House. They are out of power in the Senate.

I think there is two sides of this. Listen. I do think there are a lot of Republicans who were holding their judgment to see how Trump behaved in the final days.

Democrats, of course, have now taken control of the United States Senate.

Every day that we learn more about what happened inside the Capitol on January 6th, the angrier members of Congress get.

I have believed for a while that the United States should be engaged in this policy as a way to relieve humanitarian suffering inside the country.

It is still incredibly important for us to view this as a multi-systemic effort that... we also have to be equally focused on supporting their economy, supporting their political reform agenda.

Maduro is still in power. Russia, China, and Cuba are more deeply involved in Venezuela.

this is Maduro's game is to sort of entertain hopes of reform, stringing the international community and the United States along with, you know, nothing to be found at the end of the rainbow.

by no metric can anyone suggest that President Trump's policy in Venezuela was a success.

we have a major advantage in dealing with Venezuela, that there is a broad multilateral coalition working to promote democracy in Venezuela.

What are the capacities that State does not have today that it needs to be able to compete?

Let me just quickly associate myself with a few comments and lines of questioning from other members on the committee.

I think we should pursue some congressional reforms to the Accountability Review Board process to make people less fearful of punitive action and more willing to learn from mistakes.

I do think that there is some argument to sequence here, and I will continue to make that argument on this committee.

I feel that the disinformation efforts led by China, Russia, and Iran are a very dangerous threat...

I look forward to building a working relationship with you.

We need to support the Venezuelan people, both at the political level in the form of opposition leaders and interim President Guaido, as well as pushing for humanitarian assistance and ensuring that the people of Venezuela do have access…