Marsha Blackburn: “today the Senate begins in earnest our efforts to determine if our colleagues in the House of Representatives have…”

“today the Senate begins in earnest our efforts to determine if our colleagues in the House of Representatives have compiled sufficient evidence to justify removing a sitting President from office. This is no small task, and it will be made more difficult by the swirl of commentary that has engulfed the impeachment inquiry since well before it was officially initiated. Much has been made of our debate over the inclusion of additional witness testimony into the prosecution's case against President Donald John Trump--so much, in fact, that many of my colleagues are inclined to allow that testimony in the name of bipartisan compromise. How misguided of them. Such a move would open the floodgates to a parade of politically-motivated testimony, a protracted legal battle, and ultimately unjustified impeachment proceedings in the U.S. Senate. The Democratic Members of the House of Representatives spent a great deal of their time and energy holding hearings, interviewing witnesses, and putting together what they have insisted is their best, ironclad case against President Trump. I encourage my colleagues to resist allowing an additional, cathartic airing of grievances and instead accept that it is now the Senate's turn to listen to the facts as they are presented, deliberate, and cast a final vote. ____________________”