On the recordFebruary 5, 2020
fellow Senators, I come today to talk about the business at hand. Obviously, it is the vote that we are going to take at 4 o'clock this afternoon. We were subjected to days and days of trial here--many witnesses, witness statements, and all that sort of thing--and it is incumbent upon us now as jurors to reach a conclusion, and I have done so. I come at this with a little bit of a different view, probably, than others. I have tried more cases, probably, than anyone on the floor, both as a prosecutor and in private practice. So I watched carefully as the case was presented to us and how the case had been put together by the managers from the House. What I learned in the many years of trial experience that I had is that the only way, really, to try a case and to reach where you want to get is to do it in good faith and to do it honestly. I had real trouble right at the beginning when I saw that the lead manager read a transcript purporting to be a transcript of the President's phone call that has been at issue here, and it was falsified. It was falsified knowingly, willfully, and intentionally. So, as a result of that, when they walked through the door and wanted to present their case, there was a strike there already, and I put it in that perspective. How the case unfolded after that was stunning because I have never seen a case succeed the way they put the case together.…
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