On the recordFebruary 5, 2020
Madam President, I come here today with the business of impeachment before this Chamber. It should hardly be necessary at this late juncture to outline again the train of abuses and distortions and outright lies that have brought us to today's impeachment vote: the secret meetings in the Capitol basement; the closed hearings without due process or basic fairness; the failure of the House to follow their own rules and authorize an impeachment inquiry and then the bipartisan vote against impeachment; and the attempt to manipulate or even prevent a trial here in the Senate--holding the Articles of Impeachment for 33 days--in brazen defiance of the Constitution's mandates. The House Democrats have given us the first purely partisan impeachment in our history and the first attempt to remove an elected President that does not even allege unlawful conduct. Animating it all has been the bitter resentment of a professional political class that cannot accept the verdict of the people in 2016, that cannot accept the people's priorities, and that now seeks to overturn the election and entrench themselves in power. That is how we arrived at this moment, that is how we got here, and that is what this is really about. Now it is time to bring this fiasco to a close. It is time to end this cycle of retribution and payback and bitterness. It is time to end the abuse of our institutions. It is time to let the verdict of the people stand.…
Source
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