On the recordFebruary 5, 2020
the last time this body--the last time the Senate--debated the fate of a Presidency in the context of impeachment, the legendary Senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd, rose and said: I think my country sinks beneath the yoke. It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds. Our country today, as then, is in pain. We are deeply divided, and most days, it seems to me that we here are the ones wielding the shiv, not the salve. The Founders gave this Senate the sole power to try impeachments because, as Alexander Hamilton wrote: ``Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent?'' I wish I could say with confidence that we here have lived up to the faith our Founders entrusted in us. Unfortunately, I fear, in this impeachment trial, the Senate has failed a historic test of our ability to put country over party. Foreign interference in our democracy has posed a grave threat to our Nation since its very founding. James Madison wrote that impeachment was an ``indispensable'' check against a President who would ``betray his trust to foreign powers.'' The threat of foreign interference remains grave and real to this day. It is indisputable that Russia attacked our 2016 election and interfered in it broadly. President Trump's own FBI Director and Director of National Intelligence have warned us they are intent on interfering in our election this coming fall.…
