The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“IMPEACHMENT” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S6616-S6617 on Nov. 18, 2019.
The State Department is responsibly for international relations with a budget of more than $50 billion. Tenure at the State Dept. is increasingly tenuous and it's seen as an extension of the President's will, ambitions and flaws.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
IMPEACHMENT
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, our Republican friends have spent the past several weeks accusing Democrats of being unable to work on serious issues to help the American people because the impeachment inquiry into President Trump is such a distraction. The Republican leader has repeated this absurd claim on the Senate floor, and the President's reelection campaign is now running ads saying Democrats refuse to work on infrastructure or healthcare or drugs because of impeachment. These ads turn truth inside out. Simply put, these ads are a lie.
Senate Democrats put together a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan that would create 15 million jobs. We did that 3 years ago. Instead of working with us on that goal, President Trump walked out of the meeting on infrastructure with Speaker Pelosi and me. We haven't heard a peep out of the administration since then. That was long before impeachment began. We haven't heard from the Republicans on what they want to do on healthcare. We haven't heard from the President on a proposal he sent us on drug prices. So who is holding things up?
This Senate has been a legislative graveyard for months and months and months. It just amazes me the gall, the temerity that the President and our Republican friends have to say that Democrats, because of impeachment, are not moving forward. We have 218 bills that the House sent us. We haven't had one discussion here on impeachment. It has taken up no time.
Leader McConnell, do you want to get things done? Put one of those bills on the floor. Let us have debate.
Republican Senators, go to McConnell. Tell him you want to do some stuff on the floor; that you want to legislate.
No, no, we hear silence--abject, shaky-knee silence--because our Republican friends, and I imagine the leader, are just afraid of President Trump. When he makes up these lies, they just go right along.
Many Republicans have even complained that Leader McConnell has turned the Senate into a legislative graveyard. So the idea that the impeachment inquiry is preventing Congress from debating legislation on infrastructure or prescription drugs or healthcare or any other matter is completely absurd. Democrats are happy and eager to work on those issues. Senate Democrats are waiting with bated breath for the Republican leader to put any of these bills on the floor or for any Republican to speak out and demand they go on the floor. The silence of our Republican colleagues indicates that they are going along with this strategy as well.
We meet this week in the Senate, and the majority leader has, once again, scheduled no legislative business on the floor--none. We are not debating impeachment. We are not discussing impeachment. For 3 weeks in a row, there has been not one legislative piece, not one legislative bill. That is all the evidence one needs to know which party is blocking progress in the Chamber.
The American people know it. When they are asked what they think of the Republicans in the Senate and the Republicans in Congress, the marks are very low. I imagine that is because they are getting nothing done.
Concerning the impeachment inquiry itself, the public hearings last week have brought up many troubling allegations, including the startling revelation that Ambassador Gordon Sondland told another State Department official that the President had made clear that he cares more about Ukraine investigating the Bidens than about helping Ukraine itself. The revelation added to an already substantial body of evidence that the President may--may--have abused the powers of his public office for personal political gain. I say ``may'' because we haven't had the trial yet here in the Senate, should the House vote on articles of impeachment.
The President is now saying all this stuff is false; that all these witnesses are not telling the truth.
If the President believes that these witnesses are false and that the facts that are coming out of the Senate impeachment hearings are false, he should testify under oath in the House. If he wishes to present evidence to the contrary, he should do it not by tweet but by testimony under oath.
I wholeheartedly agree with Speaker Pelosi's invitation to President Trump yesterday to testify in the House impeachment inquiry--not by tweeting and not by sending a note but by coming forward in person under oath, and let's see what the President rejects. If the President doesn't agree with what he has heard in public hearings and he has evidence he would like to present, he can come to the committee and testify and answer questions under oath.
He should allow his advisers, who are in fact witnesses in these matters, to testify under oath as well. The President shouldn't spread falsehoods about the witnesses on Twitter. He should come to Congress and make his case. He should free up Pompeo and Mulvaney and all the others who might have real knowledge and let them testify.
The President and his allies in Congress criticized the testimony for being secondhand in nature, while at the same time blocking those individuals with firsthand knowledge from testifying. Let's end that particular hypocrisy.
President Trump, come testify. Allow your advisers to testify. If you refuse to come before the committee after Speaker Pelosi's invitation and if you don't let the people around you come before the committee, one question will loom before the American people: What is President Trump hiding, and why is he personally afraid to confront the facts?
Before I yield the floor, I will address a tragic pattern that has emerged in this Trump Presidency that is different from the previous one but very troubling. Too often--it seems almost weekly--President Trump announces that he is considering or even supporting a policy on which there is some bipartisan agreement and then backs off that position a few days, a few weeks, or a few months later. If there is an immediate issue, President Trump seems almost afraid not to go along with what the public wants, but because his integrity is so minimal, he must not really mean it because he just reverses himself.
After the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton this summer, President Trump said he was considering ``very strong background checks'' as a response to the violence. Leader McConnell echoed him. He said that a debate on gun violence would be front and center in the Senate in September.
Now 3 months later, after another high school shooting in Santa Clarita, CA, another mass shooting at a neighborhood party in Fresno, and another shooting at a Walmart in Oklahoma as recently as this morning, it has become painfully clear that President Trump and Leader McConnell caved to the corrupt leadership of the NRA once again and will not move legislation to address gun violence. President Trump would rather protect his political interests than protect American lives.
Gun violence isn't the only issue where President Trump has promised bold action, only to back off. We heard a new one this morning. Recent reports suggest the President is now wavering on his promise to ban flavored e-cigarettes, which are marketed toward our children. Once again the reporting says that the President backed off after hearing from industry lobbyists that the ban might hurt the President politically.
It is the same pattern. The President promises to do something about a serious issue--in some cases, an issue that threatens the lives of our children--and then backs off and reverses himself once the special interests weigh in.
President Trump, it is not too late. Do what you said you were going to do. It is not that hard. Ban these flavored e-cigarettes. When e-
cigarettes are marketed as Gummy Bear or Captain Crunch, they are not aimed at adults; they are aimed at getting kids in high school and junior high school--maybe even younger--to start vaping, which will ultimately harm them.
Another example occurred yesterday and again today. The Trump administration announced that it would extend a temporary license granted to Huawei, a Chinese telecom giant that our intelligence and defense agencies have deemed a national security threat. Once again President Trump failed to match his tough talk with appropriate action. If President Trump and his Commerce Department agree that Huawei is a national security threat, they ought to start acting like it. Every time President Trump goes easy on Huawei, the Chinese Communist Party takes that as a signal that they can hurt American jobs and threaten our security without repercussion.
I would urge the President to read an editorial by, I believe it is the Secretary of the Air Force in today's Wall Street Journal--I read it this afternoon--that says what the security threat of allowing Huawei into this country would be to our Armed Forces, to our military men and women, and to our country as a whole.
I publicly praise the President and his administration when they have done the right thing. I praised the Trump administration when it announced it was going to ban flavored e-cigarettes. I praised the administration when it announced it was going to be tough on Huawei. But announcements don't make the grade. When you back off, when you waver, when you stammer, all these announcements mean nothing. And the American people do remember it. There is an accounting.
Like on the issue of background checks and gun safety, you just can't believe the President and his administration when they say they are going to do something. So many times when the President says he is considering some strong, bipartisan action, he backs off, usually at the behest of lobbyists or some special interests. On these issues and several others, the President has shown a profound lack of political courage. It is one of the many reasons why the President and this Republican Senate, which shivers in obeisance to him, have accomplished so little for the American people.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Boozman). Without objection, it is so ordered.
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