Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I learned yesterday that two of the innocent victims in the shooting in Jersey City earlier this week are from my hometown, my home borough, the great borough of Brooklyn--Moshe Deutsch and Mindy Ferencz--and that the kosher deli where they were all killed in all likelihood was targeted as part of a hate crime.
This morning, I stand in solidarity with the Jewish communities of New Jersey and New York as they confront the anti-Semitic poison that motivated that horrible attack, and I stand in sorrow at the loss of innocent lives from my community. May their memory be a blessing.
I also salute the great police officer, as well, who fell in the line of duty trying to apprehend these brutal thugs. Impeachment
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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, on impeachment, the House Judiciary Committee will continue today its markup of Articles of Impeachment against Donald Trump.
The articles charge that President Trump abused the Office of the Presidency by soliciting the interference of a foreign power in our elections to benefit himself personally. The articles also charge him with obstruction of justice in the investigation into those matters.
Those articles were drafted after a months-long investigation into the President's dealings with Ukraine, which included scores of fact witnesses and expert testimony. Throughout that time, and still today, the White House refuses to participate in the House process. It has blocked key witnesses. It has withheld relevant documents. It has instructed members of the administration to defy congressional subpoenas and not to testify. Those that did testify did so bravely against the wishes of the White House.
What is the President hiding? What do these witnesses know? What do these documents show?
Those are fair questions that every American could ask and, because neither the President nor Republican Congress Members have presented any refutation of the facts in the impeachment charges or any exculpatory evidence other than grand conspiracy theories, the American people have a right to say the President must be hiding something.
If there are documents or witnesses the President believes could provide exculpatory evidence, nothing is stopping the witnesses from testifying and the documents from being sent over, except the President of the United States, who in all likelihood is afraid of what they show because they confirm and corroborate the lengthy factual basis that the House compiled to come up with the Articles of Impeachment. The fact that President Trump is blocking witnesses from testifying and blocking documents from release means that, more likely than not, those witnesses and documents do not and cannot refute the charges against the President.
When someone who might be guilty of a crime says he doesn't want witnesses of the crime to come forward, what do you think that means?
Why haven't the President and his allies presented exculpatory evidence--evidence that says this is not true? Why, instead, have they created these bobbles, these objects far away, saying: There is a conspiracy here. There is a conspiracy there.
It is the old lawyer saying: When you have the facts, argue the facts. When you have the law, argue the law. When you have neither, pound the table.
In this case, pounding the table means coming up with diversionary conspiratorial theories.
House Republicans, rather than mount a vigorous defense of the President on the merits, have attacked the process. If House Republicans could focus on the merits, could find evidence that said: No, this is not true; that is not true; he did not try to influence Ukraine to help his campaign, they would have presented it.
Why has no evidence been presented directly refuting the core of the charge against the President? Because there probably isn't any.
In the Senate we have several Members who are swimming in the murky waters of conspiracy to divert attention from the fact that they don't have the facts and the law on their side. The only way they can defend the President's comments is to come up with crazy, out-of-line conspiracy theories that are not based on any evidence.
Some Senate Republicans find it so difficult to argue the President's defense on the facts that they resort to fiction. For instance, in the past few weeks, certain Republicans have actually helped spread disinformation invented by Putin's intelligence services. He said that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the election. No one believes it. There is no factual basis of it. Of course, Putin would say he wants to divert attention from Russia, but it is amazing that Senators would traffic in those theories, totally made up, not one bit of fact. It is a low moment for the Senate when their blind obeisance to President Trump overshadows any need to find truth and to defend rule of law. That is not what a democracy is about. That is the edges of dictatorship.
Chairman Graham conducted an entire hearing yesterday to give public viewing to the now completely debunked conspiracy theory that the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign began with political motives. Inspector General Horowitz, to his credit, stuck to the findings in the report. He found no evidence of bias. So Senator Graham, as he tends to do these days, put on a big show, a lot of ranting, a lot of raving--no refutation of the fact of what the IG found.
So it is just like Ukraine where certain Members are so unable to defend what the President did with Ukraine, they latch on to Russian propaganda, or they come up with these histrionics, again, to try to divert attention, a shiny object to take the American people's attention away from the wrongdoing that the House is accusing him of. In fact, the deputy counsel of the FBI actually said that the department ``would be derelict in its responsibility'' if it did not open an investigation into Trump. She is not a political person. She is a law enforcement officer.
If you think President Trump is above the law, go right ahead, but that is not what George Washington or Benjamin Franklin or Thompson Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton thought this Nation was about; that is not what generations of Americans who fought and died for our country thought it was about. We have reached a low moment in American history and a very low moment for the Republican Party now that it has been taken over by Donald Trump. This is not the Republican Party of the last 150 years.
All of this is a backdrop to the impending trial of President Trump, where two lines of argument may be presented in a court of impeachment. One line of argument--accusations against the President--has relied on facts, public record, and the sworn testimony of dozens of officials with knowledge of the events. The other line of argument--the defense of the President--has so far relied on conspiracy, innuendo, hyperventilation about the process, with no refutation of the specific facts that the House has found.
The American people will be savvy enough over the next several months to tell the difference. Tax Reform
Madam President, now, on taxes, this month marks 2 years since President Trump and the congressional Republicans passed a trillion- dollar tax cut for large corporations and the richest Americans. Republicans make many promises to sell this legislation as a boom for jobs and middle class. They were outlandish at the time, and now, recent history has proven them even crazier. Two years later, these phony promises have not come close to living up to their billing.
President Trump promised the tax bill would benefit middle-class America, creating a $4,000 raise for every American family. No way. Ask the average American family. The rich Americans will say yes. The top 1 percent will say yes, but, of course, they received a tax cut 64 times the size of the one given to the middle class. President Trump and Republicans promised the bill would prompt businesses to increase investments into their companies, leading to job growth and higher wages. This, too, has proved a fantasy. Less than 5 percent of all workers in America were ultimately promised pay increases or bonuses as a result of the tax cut.
Out of 5.9 million employers, only 413 announced bonuses to workers or wage hikes. Do you want to know where the lion's share of that Republican tax cut went? Shareholders, not workers. In the 2 years since the tax bill, the annual total of corporate stock buybacks have shattered records over $1 trillion in 2018.
It is impossible to look at the last 2 years with a straight face and say that the Republican tax cut was designed or is helping middle-class families. If anything, the Republican tax bill exacerbated the already staggering inequalities of work and wealth in our country. We need to start moving the needle in a completely opposite direction. Next year, voters will have a chance to make that happen by voting for a change in the Senate leadership.
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