Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. First of all, of course, this is not the jury in the sense of a petit jury that is going to decide guilt and innocence. It is, from a lawyer's standpoint, more analogous to a grand jury, which simply decides whether or not there is probable cause to believe the President abused his power in the exercise of his authority and, secondly, in the second Article, refused to cooperate with the Congress exercising its constitutional responsibility of oversight. Secondly, let me say to the gentleman, as the gentleman knows, the President was given the opportunity to appear with counsel and to call such witnesses as he wanted to call--I believe that is correct--but to appear and defend against the allegations that are incorporated in the Articles of Impeachment, and the President chose not to appear. The President chose not to have counsel present. Mr. Cipollone, counsel to the White House, in fact, responded to the offer to appear and said: We have chosen not to do so. So to say that the respondent in this case--I won't call him a defendant. But the respondent in this case, the President of the United States, chose not to respond, chose not to appear, chose not to produce evidence in his defense. One could conclude that perhaps they decided they didn't have any, but I won't conclude that, but that could be one conclusion drawn.…”