Impeachment

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, Congress is returning to Washington for a work period that will be filled with important to-do items, but we already know what will top the agenda in the House of Representatives: House Democrats are finally indulging in their 3-year old impeachment obsession, full steam ahead.

Many of us remember the Washington Post headline that was literally published on Inauguration Day in 2017. Here is what it said: ``The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.'' And, sure enough, House Democrats have been at it ever since.

One prominent House Democrat called this Presidency illegitimate before it had even begun. One of Speaker Pelosi's committee chairs whom she has tasked with leading this process promised years ago that she would find a way to impeach the President.

Now that Speaker Pelosi has finally crumbled and allowed her leftwing impeachment caucus to dictate the House's actions, I don't think many of us were expecting to witness a clinic in terms of fairness or due process. But even by their own partisan standards, House Democrats have already found new ways to lower the bar. This is about the most consequential process the House of Representatives could possibly engage in: overruling American voters and nullifying an election.

Surely, any such process must be conducted with the utmost fairness and transparency. It must be held to the most exact of standards. Yet House Democrats have wasted no time throwing fairness and precedent to the wind. Already, they have denied their Republican counterparts certain minority rights, like equal subpoena power, which Republicans provided Democrats in the Clinton impeachment.

Already, they have made clear that President Trump's counsel will not be allowed to participate in hearings, present evidence, and cross- examine witnesses--all-important rights that Republicans provided to President Clinton.

Already, one House chairman has been caught publicly mischaracterizing his committee's handling of the whistleblower inquiry on which this whole investigation hinges.

For all the public hyperventilating over institutional norms that we have heard from House Democrats in recent years, it appears they have no intention of letting norms, precedents, or basic due process stand in their way as they seek to cancel out a Presidency.

In the meantime, in the Senate we will keep our focus squarely on the substantive work we need to complete for the American people. In the coming days, we will confirm another slate of President Trump's well- qualified nominees. For starters, later this afternoon, we will advance the nomination of Barbara Barrett, the President's choice to be Secretary of the Air Force.

Speaking of our Armed Forces, Congress can waste no more time in getting our appropriations process back on track and delivering a funding that our servicemembers need. Just 2 months ago, the President and the Speaker of the House produced an agreement to guide the appropriations process. The White House and congressional leaders set top-line funding targets for defense and nondefense and agreed to forego poison pills. Last month, unfortunately, our Democratic colleagues went back on the deal. Routine funding negotiations were again subject to poison pill threats, and urgent resources for the operations of the Pentagon were withheld for the sake of politics.

We need to put these political games aside. Democrats need to stop filibustering a pay raise for our troops and the funding our commanders need. We need to get our funding process back on track for the entire Federal Government.

House Democrats need to stop slow-walking the USMCA, the landmark trade agreement that stands to create 176,000 new American jobs. Mexico is ready, Canada is ready, and a majority in the Senate is ready. The entire continent is just waiting on Speaker Pelosi to stop blocking this win for the United States and to stop blocking these new jobs. I don't care how much my Democratic colleagues in the House may dislike the President. They shouldn't throw 176,000 new American jobs on the scrap heap.

On all these fronts, I hope sincerely that our Democratic colleagues will be able to separate this vital business from their animus toward the administration and join Republicans in moving forward with the work of the American people.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source