Well, thats what it says. To faithfully execute the law. Is there anybody here i dont care what comes out of your mouth today is there anybody here who believes that this president has faithfully executed the law . And faithfully executed the duties, the sacred trust that has been put in his hands and on his shoulders. Hes supposed to faithfully execute the law, not ignore it. Not abuse it. And not forget it. President is supposed to be motivated by public interest. Public interest. The interest of the people. But rather than remembering that or caring about that, im not really sure he ever really did. The president chose to try to coerce a foreign power, a newlyelected, young president that we all were excited about. An anticorruption president. President tried to coerce him into interfering in the 2020 elections. The things that i have heard today about Vice President s child. Things ive heard about the Vice President s son. When we have millions of people in this country who are suffering from addiction. I just believe to protect this president at any cost is shameful. Article two. In the nixon impeachment, said this, the article principally addressed president nixons use of power. Including powers vested solely in the president to aid his political allies, harm his political opponents, and gain improper personal, political advantages. And explain in this article of
impeachment, the House Judiciary Committee then stated that president nixons conduct was undertaken for his personal, political advantage. And not in the furtherance of any Valid National policy objective. The president abused his power. And to me, and at least the members on this side, that matters. And with that, i yield the remaining time to mr. Richmond from louisiana. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Very quickly, i just want to remind people that when the people watching that when you look at the credibility of a testimony. And weighing the evidence. You can look at other things. I want to enter into the record unanimous consent tthe guardia article. Roger stone, michael cohen, the men in trumps orbit implicated in crimes. Without objection. Cnn politics. Six Trump Associates have been
convicted in muellerrelated investigation. Wise grandmother who said birds of a feather flock together. And then also, President Trump has made 13,435 false or misleading claims over 990 days. The gentlemans time has expired. For what purpose does ms. Jackson lee seek recognition . To strike the last word. Gentle lady is recognized. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I wanted to speak first to the underlying amendment that calls for the acknowledgment that the aid was released in the article, first article, i believe. And i want to, again, recount not only the july 25th call
where previously, id indicated the president s language. I would ask like you to do us a favor, though. That that was not tied to the us representing the entity of a public representation, which would be the United States of america. Established Foreign Policy by the secretary of state. Establish Foreign Policy by the secretary of defense. And that is because, of course, the secretary of defense and state had already certified that ukraine was working to graduate to working to ensure the end of corruption that had met the standards required for funding. The other thing is that when Lieutenant Colonel vindman thought that the words that he heard were appalling and seemed, to him, to be inappropriate for
a call to the president as relates to a question tying the military aid to Investigation Biden and others. Sons and others. Not official policy. He immediately gave it to the nsc counsel john eisenberg. John eisenberg took the information. And then ultimately, put it in a separate coded filing. And asked that the Lieutenant Colonel not say anything about it. That is unusual because you would think that if it was normal business, if it had to do with standard u. S. Foreign policy, itd be okay to talk about that call. But they knew a major mistake had been made. They knew that the president had offered to give military aid if he got an investigation against
his political rival and his political rival happened to be joe biden. And he knew that that was, in fact, conspicuously using Public Office and public money for public and private desires. Let me also say that our friends talk about the courts. We have not shied away from the courts. In fact, judge howell regarding the 6e Grand Jury materials specifically said there is an Impeachment Inquiry. You cant stand in the way. Mr. President. Judge jackson indicated in her decision that the president was not a king. And so were here to talk about not as a mother, someones child who may have some concerns, like every americans child may have. Which i am saddened that those personal matters were raised. Were here to talk about the
abuse of this president and the obstruction of congress. Another amendment that we voted against. Because in rodinos statement during the nixon proceedings, he made it very clear to president nixon regarding his failure to comply with subpoenas. Issue pursuant to the watergate Impeachment Inquiry. And the constitution reinforces the fact that we have the sole power of impeachment. And the underlying decisions of the two Court Decisions i mentioned was that we were in an Impeachment Inquiry. And as a reminder to my colleagues, this committee ultimately approved an article of impeachment against Richard Nixon on the obstruction of congress matter. I wanted to clean up and bring some more points on that. And it was clear that it was a case where the president could not dictate to the house Impeachment Inquiry what he was refusing to give or not. This is where my friends steer off the rails. They refuse to acknowledge the facts of the case. The president took public money
with a public intent, with a private intent, to use those moneys to deny mr. Zelensky, who was going to go ahead and announce investigations on cnn. But was stopped in his tracks when the whistleblower whistleblowers letter or statement was released. It was out the bag that the president had done this on the july 25th call. Lets be clear. This is about facts and the constitution. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Gentle lady yields back. For what purpose does ms. Mcbeth seek recognition . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen gentle lady strike the last word . Yes, excuse me. I move to strike the last word. Ive been anxiously sitting here all day long. And i just want to be able to say this to the American People before our day ends today. My colleagues and i have been explaining the evidence that we have heard. Weve been talking about all the documents and heard from so many witnesses along the way. And as weve been as we have been upholding our constitutional obligation to defend the constitution, some today have argued that we have not upheld our constitutional obligation to legislate. To solve problems. And that all we want to do is impeach the president of the United States. And i truly want to assure the American People, and to give you hope, that this is not true. I want to make sure that we set the record straight so that you know that we have been working on your behalf. And despite what many people in this country think, congress can walk and chew gum at the same time. This congress has been working very, very hard on behalf of the American People. In spite of everything thats happening with this impeachment. This very day, a bill. We passed a bill that lowers the cost of Prescription Drugs for hundreds of millions of americans. Hr3. It will save our taxpayers over 456 billion over the next decade. And allow for the expansion of medicare coverage, including hearing, dental, and vision benefits. Just this week. We achieved monumental changes to the u. S. mexico canada trade agreement. Yes, weve been waiting a very long time for that. This agreement is huge. Its a huge win for our families. Our workers and Business Owners in every District Across the United States. And we continue to work to make sure that we stay competitive in a global environment. Yesterday, we voted to support the ndaa, legislation that will keep our country safe. And will give a raise to our Service Members and includes
important reforms like paid parental leave for all federal employees. And repealing the whittles tax. And even on this committee, weve worked together. This week, my republican colleague, congressman and i were among a Bipartisan Group of lawmakers who introduced legislation that would end online child exploitation. Since weve been sitting in this room today, a deal has been forged by our colleagues to fund our government. And avoid another shutdown. Throughout this investigation, my colleagues and i have been fulfilling our duties as members of congress. Do not be deceived. We have been working on the American Publics behalf every single day in spite of the tragedy that were in now with this impeachment. This congress, the house of representatives, we have passed over 275 bills. 275 bills. And we are defending our democracy. And delivering on the promises that we made to each and every one of our constituents. I want the American Public to know this. We are truly disheartened by what is happening here with impeachment. But do know that we are working on your behalf. Each and every single day. We will continue to do what we swore an oath to do. And that is to protect and serve you. Even in this moment, in this tragedy, be rest assured we will do just that. And i yield back the balance of my time. Gentle lady yields back. For what purpose does mr. Raskin seek recognition . Move to strike the last word. Gentleman is recognized. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. You know, in law school, i teach my students to try to take the best argument of their opponents and not the worst arguments. And so im going to ignore all of the frivolous Process Objections about the rooms and the temperature and all that kind of stuff weve heard about. And im going to try to make what i think is the the best argument or reconstruct the best argument thats come out today. And i understand that our colleagues face a difficult task because 70 of the American People believe that the president has done something wrong in these actions of trying to pressure a Foreign Government to get involved in our election. And so theyve got a problem there. And theyve got another problem, which is that there is an
overwhelming and uncontradicted body of evidence that the president did that. The president withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in Security Assistance that we had voted for, besieged for an all , resisting russian aggression. Because he was trying to get the president of that country, zelensky, to agree to conduct a Press Conference in which he would say he was investigating the bidens. And he also wanted president zelensky to validate Vladimir Putins favorite disinformation Conspiracy Theory about the 2016 campaign. Which is that it was ukraine, and not russia, that engaged in this sweeping and Systematic Campaign to interfere in our election. So what do you do with that . Well, we can understand why theyve been talking about process for months. But i think they understand this is a serious investigation. With rigorous methods and serious, inescapable conclusions. And the American People are focused on it. A majority not only support the investigation, a majority would like to see the president impeached. According to fox news anyway. But any event, huge number of americans are very disturbed by this. So what have they come up with . Well, theyve not found an alibi. Theres no fact alibi. He cant claim Somebody Else did it. But theyve come up with a defense which, to me, looks like really a mitigating factor. A plea for mercy. The president did all of these things. But his motive is misunderstood. All of us think that he was doing it because he wanted to advance his own reelection prospects. And in some sense, he wanted to help, for whatever reason, his friend vladimir putin. And putins already been on tv bragging about the fact that everybodys focused on ukraine
and the 2016 election and not russia. Note to mr. Putin. Thats not right. We understand exactly whats going on here. But any event, the new argument is that the president was not trying to advance his own political interests. What he was trying to do was to advance his passionatelyheld, and yet littleknown, campaign against corruption. Thats why so much of our discussion today has been about corruption because theyre trying to say he was waging this campaign about corruption. Now, weve noted a number of problems there. And i want to just try to catalog some of the other ones. To try to put this into some order so people can understand the problem with their best argument. The first is that the president never raised the word corruption on the july 25th Telephone Call. Bidens name was mentioned several times. It wasnt corruption, corruption, corruption. It was biden, biden, biden. And he never raised any other companies at all. It was all about burisma. Hunter booi Hunter Bidens company. Thats all that he mentioned. And as far as we know, hes never mentioned any other company in connection with corruption in ukraine. In 2017 and 18 when congress voted money for ukraine, the president passed it along. He didnt raise corruption in ukraine. He didnt even raise the bidens at that point. It only became an issue in 2019. In 2019, why . Because joe biden had surpassed him in the Public Opinion polls. And now, suddenly, it was a big issue. And so he cared about it. Well, whats the other evidence here . The president s team, Rudy Giuliani, and parnas and fruman engaged in a Smear Campaign against the u. S. Ambassador, who
was Crew Saidiusading against cn in ukraine. Sq and the president got her out of the way. So all the evidence shows they were promoting corruption in a corrupt scheme. They werent trying to attack it. Gentleman yields back. Who seeks recognition . What purpose does the gentle lady seek recognition . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I move to strike the last word. The gentle lady is recognized. And briefly, mr. Chairman and members, mr. Raskin, my colleague mr. Raskin just said bidens name was used multiple times. Well, i think thats a little misleading. Again, the only place in this whole Telephone Call where biden is even brought up is in one little paragraph. And that is on page four of five pages of the transcript. I mean, most of this call was about congratulating president zelensky and the new parliament. Talking about how, you know, a lot of these European CountriesArent Pitching in with the aid that was to ukraine as much as the United States has. And, you know, all kinds of things. It was a long phone call. And its really disingenuous to say that the whole thing was about this and biden was mentioned several times. Let me read, again. In fact, i know that the President Trump tweets this out. Read the transcript. And i wish people would because everybody watches tv and they get all these comments. But i did this with my husband. I said, would you just please read the transcript . Its only five pages long. Doesnt take that much time. And, you know, after he read it, it is like thats it . Thats all they got . But here. This is the mention about biden. Again, page five. The other thing. Theres a lot of talk about bidens son. That biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that. So whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution. So if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me. Thats it, folks. Thats all there is. So, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Gentle lady yields back. The question now occurs on the amendment. Those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed. No. The opinion of the chair, the noes have it. The amendment is not agreed to. A roll call is requested. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. Nadler . No. Mr. Nadler votes no. Ms. Jackson lee . No. Ms. Jackson lee votes no. Mr. Cohen . Mr. Cohen votes no. Mr. Johnson of georgia . Mr. Johnson of georgia votes no. Mr. Deutch . Ms. Bass . Ms. Bass votes no. Mr. Richmond . Mr. Richmond votes no. Mr. Jeffries . Mr. Jeffries votes no. Mr. Swalwell . Mr. Swalwell votes no. Mr. Raskin . No. Mr. Raskin votes no. Ms. Jayapal . Ms. Jayapal votes no. Ms. Demings . Ms. Demings votes no. Mr. Kcorrea . Mr. Neguse . Mr. Thneguse votes no. Mr. Stanton . Mr. Stanton votes no. Ms. Powell . Ms. Powell votes no. Ms. Escobar . Ms. Escobar votes no. Mr. Collins . Mr. Collins votes aye. Mr. Chabot . Mr. Chabot votes aye. Mr. Gohmert . Mr. Gohmert votes aye. Mr. Ratc