Political Quotes

“Mr. Chief Justice, on behalf of our colleagues Senators Booker, Cardin, Kaine, Markey, Menendez, Merkley, Murphy, and Shaheen, I send a question to the desk for the House managers. The CHIEF JUSTICE. Thank you. The question from Senator Carper and the other Senators addressed to the House managers: The President's aides and defenders have claimed that it is ``normal'' or ``usual'' to use U.S. foreign assistance as the President did to achieve a desired outcome. How was the President's act in withholding U.S. security assistance to Ukraine different from how the U.S. uses foreign assistance to achieve foreign policy goals and national security objectives, and how should we evaluate the defense argument that this is what is ``done all the time''? Mr. Manager CROW. Mr. Chief Justice, Senators, thank you for the question. So to understand the answer to this, you don't have to look inside the President's mind. You just have to look at recent history and then what was done last year. As I talked about earlier, and even yesterday, other Presidents have held holds in aid for legitimate reasons, even this President. We concede that. But there are a variety of legitimate policy reasons for holding aid, whether it be corruption or burden-sharing. See, even in the President's other holds--like Afghanistan, because of concerns about terrorism, or Central America, because of immigration concerns--even though some might disagree with that, that is a legitimate policy debate.…”