John Hope Bryant: “I want to remind our colleagues that we are not voting on impeachment today. We are here today simply to uphold our…”

“I want to remind our colleagues that we are not voting on impeachment today. We are here today simply to uphold our constitutional obligation to look further into the allegations of wrongdoing against this president, and not to look away. We seem to all agree that the President's conduct was wrong, and we seem to now agree that we must continue this process toward finding the truth. But this is not about keeping political score. It is not about allowing the President to dictate the terms of this process. We are here protecting our Constitution, which we have a duty to uphold. So let us complete our task fairly and expeditiously. I must respectfully disagree with my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher) and his alternative to this. Now is not the time to set arbitrary time limits, because, as we have learned before, that encourages stonewalling. We can actually get this done quicker, as the chairman said, without time limits. Now is not the time to consider possibly piecemealing allegations. Let us get all this done, get all this behind us, and move forward. As part and parcel of that, our responsibility to the American people is to be fair throughout this process. It is an elementary principle of this fairness that the President should not be allowed to limit or direct or influence the process that Congress uses to investigate these allegations. At the end of the day, our Constitution will still stand as a pillar of our Nation.”