Floor Statements

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

I ask for the yeas and nays, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, as I understand it, there are discussions underway, and so I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess until 12:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, so now as we move to another matter, I am advised that the House managers have no objection to the admission of evidence proposed to be admitted by the former President's counsel under the provisions of section 8 of S. Res. 47 and that the President's counsel have no objections to the evidence proposed to be admitted into evidence by the House managers.

Pursuant to section 8 of the resolution, as agreed to by Leader McConnell and myself a few days ago, both parties have made timely filings of this evidence with the Secretary of the Senate and have provided copies to each other. I, therefore, ask unanimous consent that the Senate dispense with the provisions of section 8(a) of S. Res. 47; and that the materials submitted by both parties be admitted into evidence subject to the provisions of section 8(c) of that resolution, which provides that the admission of this evidence does not constitute a concession by either party as to the truth of the matters asserted by the other party; and that each Senator shall decide for him or herself the weight to be given such evidence. This request has the approval of both parties and the Republican leader.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Proceed.

Counsels' Closing Arguments

Mr. Counsel VAN DER VEEN. I will promise that I will be the only one talking, and it will not be so long.

Before I start my prepared closing, I really want to clean up a few things from the mess that was the closing of the House managers. I do not want to ruin my closing because I think the ending is pretty good.

What they didn't--they started off by misstating the law, and they started off by misstating the intent of our stipulation. What we did today was stipulate to an article that was published in a magazine, apparently, they have had for weeks, according to the documents they produced today, but for some reason this morning popped up with it.

The stipulation was that they can put that in. We did not stipulate to its contents for truthfulness, and they tried to portray that in their closing as the stipulation. The stipulation was read into the Record. The proponents of that conversation--the real ones--have denied its content, its veracity.

With respect to--and I am not going to talk much about the tortured analysis of our arson wars that started off or the truly sideways analogies that were used with fires. What I do want to talk about, though, is the doctoring of evidence.

First of all, they sent us their evidence on Tuesday the 9th at 2:32 p.m. by email. I was in the room trying the case already when they sent their evidence--due process.

They used evidence that was flat wrong two or three nights ago with Senator Lee and had to withdraw it. They tried to use it again today.

They tried to use evidence that they had never presented in the case in their closing argument. That is a very desperate attempt by a prosecuting team--nine of them--by a prosecuting team that knew that their case has collapsed.

Their closing did not mention one piece of law. They didn't talk about the Constitution once. They didn't talk about the First Amendment and its application. They didn't talk about due process and how it applies to this proceeding for my client.

The basic rule of any court is that when you close a case out, you close on the facts that were admitted in the trial. It is a basic, fundamental principle of due process and fairness. And that was violently breached today on multiple occasions. And you have to ask yourself why? Why did they resort to those tactics at this moment in time?

Senators, good afternoon. Mr. President.

What took place here at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 was a grave tragedy. Over the course of this trial, you have heard no one on either side of this debate argue that the infiltration of the Capitol was anything less than a heinous act on the home of American democracy.

All of us, starting with my client, are deeply disturbed by the graphic videos of the Capitol attack that have been shown in recent days. The entire team condemned and have repeatedly condemned the violence and law breaking that occurred on January 6 in the strongest possible terms. We have advocated that everybody be found and punished to the maximum extent of the law. Yet the question before us is not whether there was a violent insurrection of the Capitol. On that point, everyone agrees.

Based on the explicit text of the House Impeachment Article, this trial is about whether Mr. Trump willfully engaged in an incitement of violence and even insurrection against the United States, and that question they have posed in their Article of Impeachment has to be set up against the law of this country.

No matter how much truly horrifying footage we see of the conduct of the rioters and how much emotion has been injected into this trial, that does not change the fact that Mr. Trump is innocent of the charges against him.

Despite all of the video played, at no point in their presentation did you hear the House managers play a single example of Mr. Trump urging anyone to engage in violence of any kind. At no point did you hear anything that could ever possibly be construed as Mr. Trump encouraging or sanctioning an insurrection.

Senators, you did not hear those tapes because they do not exist, because the act of incitement never happened. He engaged in no language of incitement whatsoever on January 6 or any other day following the election.

No unbiased person honestly reviewing the transcript of Mr. Trump's speech on the Ellipse could possibly believe that he was suggesting violence. He explicitly told the crowd that he expected the protest outside the Capitol to be peaceful and patriotic.

They claim that is not enough.

His entire premise was that the proceedings of the joint session should continue. He spent nearly the entire speech talking about how he believes the Senators and Members of Congress should vote on the matter.

It is the words. The Supreme Court ruled in Brandenburg that there is a very clear standard for incitement. In short, you have to look at the words themselves. The words have to either explicitly or implicitly call for--the words--call for lawlessness or violence. Whether the speech--you have to determine whether the speech was intended to provoke the lawlessness and whether the violence was the likely result of the word itself. They fail on all three prongs.

The false and defamatory claim that Mr. Trump gave a speech encouraging his supporters to go attack the Capitol has been repeated so often, uncritically, without any examination of the underlying facts, that the American--the Americans--listening at home were probably surprised to learn it is not true.

Furthermore, some of the people in this room followed Mr. Trump's statements and tweets in the weeks leading up to January 6 very closely. We know that he was not trying to foment an insurrection during the time because no one--from the Speaker of the House to the Mayor of Washington, DC--behaved in a fashion consistent with the belief that violence was being advocated for.

Mr. Trump did not spend the weeks prior to January 6 inciting violence. He spent those weeks pursuing his election challenge through the court system and other legal procedures, exactly as the Constitution and the Congress prescribe.

To believe based on the evidence you have seen that Mr. Trump actually wanted and, indeed, willfully incited an armed insurrection to overthrow the U.S. Government would be absurd.

The gathering on January 6 was supposed to be an entirely peaceful event. Thousands and thousands of people, including Mr. Trump, showed up that day with that intention. A small percentage--a small fraction of those people--then engaged in truly horrible behavior. But as we now know, that those actors were preplanned and premeditated and acted even before this speech was completed, to which is the basis of the Article of Impeachment. It was preplanned and premeditated by fringe--left and right--groups. They hijacked the event for their own purposes.

The House managers' false narrative is a brazenly dishonest attempt to smear, to cancel--constitutional canceled culture--their No. 1 political opponent, taking neutral statements, commonplace political rhetoric, removing words and facts from context

and ascribing to them the most sinister and malevolent intentions possible.

Their story was based not on evidence but on the shear personal and political animus.

The flimsy theory of incitement you heard from the House managers could be used to impeach, indict, or expel countless other political leaders. Many leading figures in other parties have engaged in far more incendiary and dangerous rhetoric, and we played some of them. I am not going to replay it. I am not going to replay you the words. You all saw the evidence. I am not going to replay mob scenes. I don't want to give those people another platform, any more view from the American people as to what they did. They should be canceled.

Democrat politicians spent months prior to January 6 attacking the very legitimacy of our Nation's most cherished institutions and traditions. They didn't just question the integrity of one election; they challenged the integrity of our entire Nation--everything from our Founding Fathers, our Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, law enforcement officers, and the United States Military. They said that our society was rooted in hatred. They even said that America deserved--and I will quote--``a reckoning.''

As you heard yesterday, throughout the summer, Democrat leaders, including the current President and Vice President, repeatedly made comments that provided moral comfort to mobs attacking police officers. During that time, many officers across the country were injured. As we all know, two sheriff's deputies in Los Angeles were ambushed and shot at point-blank range.

Members of this very body have been in danger. Senators from Maine to Kentucky, and most points in between, have been harassed by mobs.

Last August, a menacing leftwing mob swarmed Senator Rand Paul and his wife as they left the White House, and they had to be rescued by police.

For months, our Federal courthouse in Portland was placed under siege by violent anarchists who attacked law enforcement officers daily and repeatedly and tried to set fire to the building.

Speaker Pelosi did not call the violent siege of the Federal building an insurrection. She called the Federal agents protecting the courthouse ``stormtroopers.''

The White House complex was besieged by mobs that threw bricks, rocks, and bottles at Secret Service agents, set fire to a historic structure, and breached a security fence to infiltrate the Treasury grounds.

When my client's administration sent in the National Guard to secure the Nation's Capital City amidst the violence, Democrat leaders demanded that the forces be withdrawn.

The Washington, DC, Mayor said the presence of the National Guard was an affront to the safety of the District. It must be fully investigated whether political leadership here in Washington, DC, took an inadequate and irresponsible force posture on January 6 because of their commitment to the false narrative of what happened last June.

Hopefully we can all now agree that the administration acted properly by taking action to stop a riotous mob, establishing an appropriate security perimeter, and preventing the White House from potentially being overrun.

The House managers argued this week that an alleged brief delay in issuing a public statement from Mr. Trump on January 6 was somehow evidence that he committed incitement or supported the violence. Yet for months last year Joe Biden and Vice President Harris and countless other Democrats repeatedly refused to condemn the extremists as riots were occurring daily, as businesses were being ramshackled, as neighborhoods were being burned, as bombs were exploding. They repeatedly refused to tell their violent supporters to stand down.

Some even suggested that the mobs' actions were justified. Vice President Harris literally urged her followers to donate money to a fund to bail out the violent, extreme rioters so that they could get out and continue to do it over and over again. She later said that those folks were not going to let up and that they should not.

All of this was far closer to the actual definition of ``incitement'' than anything President Trump has ever said or done, never mind what he said on the 6th. It is a hypocrisy. It is a hypocrisy that the House managers have laid at the feet of this Chamber.

The House managers suggested that this recent history is irrelevant to the current proceedings, but not only is Democrats' behavior surrounding last year's riots highly relevant as precedent and not only does it reveal the dishonesty and insincerity of this entire endeavor, it also provides crucial context that should inform our understanding of the events that took place on January 6.

Many of the people who infiltrated the Capitol took pictures of themselves and posted them on social media. To some, it seems, they thought that it was all a game. They apparently believed that violent mobs, destruction of property, rioting, assaulting police, and vandalizing historic treasures was somehow now acceptable in the United States. Where might they have gotten that idea? I would suggest to you that it was not from Mr. Trump. It was not Mr. Trump. It was not anyone in the Republican Party that spent the 6 months immediately prior to the Capitol assault giving rhetorical aid and comfort to mobs, making excuses for rioters, celebrating radicalism, and explaining that angry, frustrated, and marginalized people were entitled to blow off steam like that.

Let me be very clear. There can be no excuse for the depraved actions of the rioters here at the Capitol or anywhere else across this country. One hundred percent of those guilty of committing crimes deserve lengthy prison sentences for their shameful and depraved conduct. But this trial has raised the question about words, actions, and consequences.

As a nation, we must ask ourselves, how did we arrive at this place where rioting and pillaging would become commonplace? I submit to you that it was month after month of political leaders and media personalities, bloodthirsty for ratings, glorifying civil unrest and condemning the reasonable law enforcement measures that are required to quell violent mobs.

Hopefully we can all leave this Chamber in uniform agreement that all rioting--all rioting--is bad and that law enforcement deserves our respect and support. That has been Mr. Trump's position from the very beginning.

The real question in this case is, Who is ultimately responsible for such acts of mayhem and violence when they are committed? The House Democrats want two different standards--one for themselves and one for their political opposition.

They have carried out a grossly unconstitutional effort to punish Mr. Trump for protected First Amendment speech. It is an egregious violation of his constitutional rights. Since he uttered not a single word encouraging violence, this action can only be seen as an effort to censor disfavored political speech and discriminate against a disapproved viewpoint. It is an unprecedented action with the potential to do grave and lasting damage to both the Presidency and the separation of powers and the future of democratic self-government.

Yesterday we played you a video of countless Democrat Members of the Senate urging their supporters to fight. We showed you those videos not because we think you should be forcibly removed from office for saying those things but because we know you should not be forcibly removed from office for saying those things. But recognize the hypocrisy

Yesterday in questioning, House Manager Raskin admitted that the House Democrats had invented an entirely new legal standard. In fact, they have created a new legal theory: the Raskin doctrine. The Raskin doctrine is based on nothing more than determining protected speech based on the party label next to your name. Regardless of what you have heard or what you have seen from the House managers, if you pay close attention, you will see that any speech made by Democrat elected officials is protected speech, while any speech made by Republican elected officials is not protected.

The creation of the Raskin doctrine actually reveals the weakness of the House managers' case. Elected officials--and we reviewed this in- depth yesterday--under Supreme Court precedent Wood and Bond--by the way,

Bond didn't burn his draft card; he actually still had it. It was part of his defense. But in Bond and in Wood, the Court clearly directed all to know that elected officials hold the highest protections of speech, the highest protections, and I remind you why: because you all need to be free to have robust political discussion because your discussion is about how our lives are going to go, and that shouldn't be squelched by any political party on either side of the aisle, no matter who is the majority party at the time.

Why would the House managers make up their own legal standard? I will tell you why. Because they know they cannot satisfy the existing constitutional standard set forth by the United States Supreme Court that has existed for more than half a century. They argue Mr. Trump, as an elected official, has no First Amendment rights. It is the complete opposite of the law. We have shown you, without contradiction, that is wrong.

They also know that they cannot satisfy the three-part test of Brandenburg, as elucidated in the Bible Believers case.

There was absolutely no evidence that Mr. Trump's words were directed to inciting imminent lawless action. There was no evidence that Mr. Trump intended his words to incite violence. And the violence was preplanned and premeditated by a group of lawless actors who must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but it proves that his words weren't what set this into motion, what was the incitement.

With no ability and no evidence to satisfy the existing constitutional standard, what are the House managers to do? They had to make up their own law. This is not only intellectually dishonest, folks; it is downright scary.

What type of precedent would be set if the Senate did vote to convict? Can Congress now ignore Supreme Court precedent on the contours of protected free speech? Will Congress be permitted to continually make up their own legal standards and apply those new standards to elected officials' speech? This would allow Congress to use the awesome impeachment power as a weapon to impeach their fellow colleagues in the opposing party. This is not a precedent that this Senate can set here today.

If the Senate endorses the House Democrats' absurd new theory, you will set a precedent that will trouble leaders from both parties literally for centuries to come, but that will not be the only disgraceful precedent to come from this case.

This has been perhaps the most unfair and flagrantly unconstitutional proceeding in the history of the United States Senate. For the first time in history, Congress has asserted the right to try and punish a former President who is a private citizen. Nowhere in the Constitution is the power enumerated or implied. Congress has no authority, no right, and no business holding a trial of Citizen Trump, let alone a trial to deprive him of some fundamental civil rights.

There was mention of a January exception argument. The January exception argument is a creation of the House managers' own conduct by delaying. They sat on the Article. They could have tried the President while he was still in office if they really believed he was an imminent threat. They didn't. The January exception is a red herring. It is nonsense because Federal, State, and local authorities can investigate. Their January exception always expires on January 20.

House Democrats and this deeply unfair trial have shamefully trampled every tradition, norm, and standard of due process in a way I have never ever seen before. Mr. Trump was given no right to review the so- called evidence against him at trial. He was given no opportunity to question its propriety. He was given no chance to engage in factfinding.

Much of what was introduced by the House was unverified second- or thirdhand reporting cribbed from a biased news media, including stories based on anonymous sources whose identities are not even known to them, never mind my client. They manufactured and doctored evidence, so much so that they had to withdraw it.

We only had--we had the evidence after we started the trial. They went on for 2 days, so in the evening, I was able to go back and take a really close look at the stuff. Myself and Mr. Castor and Ms. Bateman and Mr. Brennan, we all worked hard and looked at the evidence, four volumes of books in little, tiny print. We started--we literally had 12, 14 hours to really look at the evidence before we had to go on, and just in that short time of looking at the evidence, we saw them fabricating Twitter accounts. We saw the masked man sitting at his desk with the New York Times there.

And when we looked closely, we found that the date was wrong; the check had been added. They fabricated evidence. They made it up. They never addressed that in their closing--as though it were acceptable, as though it were all right, as though that is the way it should be done here in the Senate of the United States of America. Fraud--flatout fraud. Where I come from, in the courts I practice in, there are very harsh repercussions for what they pulled in this trial.

As we have shown, the House managers were caught creating false representations of tweets, manipulating videos, and introducing into the Record completely discredited lies, such as the ``fine people'' hoax, as factual evidence.

Most of what the House managers have said and shown you would be inadmissible in any respectable court of law. They were not trying a case; they were telling a political tale--a fable--and a patently false one at that.

House Democrats have denied due process and rushed the impeachment because they know that a fair trial would reveal Mr. Trump's innocence of the charges against him. The more actual evidence that comes out, the clearer it is that this was a preplanned and premeditated attack, which his language in no way incited.

Because their case is so weak, the House managers have taken a kitchen-sink approach to the supposedly single Article of Impeachment. They allege that Mr. Trump incited the January 6 violence. They allege that he abused power by attempting to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger to undermine the results of the 2020 election, and they allege that he gravely endangered the democratic system by interfering with the peaceful transition of power. There are at least three things there.

Under the Senate rules, each of these allegations must have been alleged in a separate Article of Impeachment. I need not remind this Chamber that rule XXIII of the Rules of Procedure and Practice in the Senate when Sitting on Impeachment Trials provides, in pertinent part, that an Article of Impeachment ``shall not be divisible . . . thereon.''

Why is that? Because the Article at issue here alleges multiple wrongs in the single Article, it would be impossible to know if two- thirds of the Members agreed on the entire Article or just on parts of it as the basis for a vote to convict. Based on this alone, the Senate must vote to acquit Mr. Trump. You have got to at least obey your own rules if it is not the Constitution you are going to obey.

In short, this impeachment has been a complete charade from beginning to end. The entire spectacle has been nothing but an unhinged pursuit of a longstanding political vendetta against Mr. Trump by the opposition party.

As we have shown, Democrats were obsessed with impeaching Mr. Trump from the very beginning of his term. The House Democrats tried to impeach him in his first year. They tried to impeach him in his second year. They did impeach him in his third year. And they impeached him again in his fourth year. And now they have conducted a phony impeachment show trial when he is a private citizen out of office.

This hastily orchestrated and unconstitutional circus is the House Democrats' final, desperate attempt to accomplish their obsessive desire of the last 5 years.

Since the moment he stepped into the political arena, my client-- since my client stepped in, they have been possessed by an overwhelming zeal to vanquish an independent-minded outsider from their midst and to shame, demean, silence, and demonize his supporters in the desperate hope that they will never, ever pose an electoral challenge.

We heard one of the Congressmen on the screen: If you don't impeach him, he might be elected again.

That is the fear. That is what is driving this impeachment.

When you deliberate over your decision, there are four distinct grounds under which you must acquit my client.

First is jurisdiction. There is no jurisdiction. And if you believe that, you still get to say it.

Two, rule XXIII--it had to be divisible. Each allegation had to be singularly set out in front of you so it could be voted on and to see if two-thirds of you think that they proved that case or not. They didn't do that. You have got to ask yourself why. They know the Senate rules. They got them, and so did I. Why did they do it? Because they hadn't investigated, first of all. But, also, what they found out is when they were preparing all this, they couldn't do it. So if they threw in as much as they could and made as many bold, bald allegations as they could, then maybe two-thirds of you would fall for it. That is why the rules don't allow it to go that way.

Due process--I have exhausted that subject. It is a really good reason for all of you--all of you--in this Chamber to stop the politics, to read the Constitution and apply it to this proceeding and acknowledge that the lack of due process--way over the top, shocking. And you must not stand for it.

And, of course, the First Amendment--the actual facts of this case. There were no words of incitement.

Four grounds. Nobody gets to tell you which ground to pick, and nobody gets to tell you how many grounds to consider.

Senators, do not let House Democrats take this maniacal crusade any further. The Senate does not have to go down this dark path of enmity and division. You do not have to indulge the impeachment lust, the dishonesty, and the hypocrisy.

It is time to bring this unconstitutional political theater to an end. It is time to allow our Nation to move forward. It is time to address the real business pressing this Nation--the pandemic, our economy, racial inequality, economic and social inequality. These are the things that you need to be thinking and working on for all of us in America--all of us.

With your vote, you can defend the Constitution. You can protect due process. And you can allow America's healing to begin. I urge the Senate to acquit and vindicate the Constitution of this great Republic.

Thank you.

Mr. President, the Senate is now ready to vote on the Article of Impeachment. And after that is done, we will adjourn the Court of Impeachment.

Mr. President, I send an order to the desk.

Mr. President, I move that the Senate, sitting as a Court of Impeachment on the Article against Donald John Trump, adjourn sine die.

The motion was agreed to, and at 3:51 p.m., the Senate, sitting as a Court of Impeachment, adjourned sine die.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, the case of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial was open and shut.

President Trump told a lie--a big lie--that the election was stolen and that he was the rightful winner. He laid the groundwork for this big lie in the months before the election. He told the big lie on election night, and he repeated the big lie more than 100 times in the weeks afterward.

He summoned his supporters to Washington, assembled them on the Ellipse, whipped them into a frenzy, and directed them at the Capitol. Then he watched as the violence unfolded and the Capitol was breached and his own Vice President fled for his life, and President Trump did nothing.

None of these facts were up for debate. We saw it. We heard it. We lived it. This was the first Presidential impeachment trial in history in which all Senators were not only judges and jurors but witnesses to the constitutional crime that was committed. The former President inspired, directed, and propelled a mob to violently prevent the peaceful transfer of power, subvert the will of the people, and illegally keep that President in power. There is nothing--nothing--more un-American than that. There is nothing--nothing--more antithetical to our democracy. There is nothing--nothing--more insulting to the generations of American patriots who gave their lives to defend our form of government.

This was the most egregious violation of the Presidential oath of office and a textbook example, a classic example of an impeachable offense, worthy of the Constitution's most severe remedy.

In response to the incontrovertible fact of Donald Trump's guilt, the Senate was subject to a feeble and sometimes incomprehensible defense of the former President. Unable to dispute the case on the merits, the former President's counsel treated us to partisan vitriol, false equivalence, and outright falsehoods.

We heard the roundly debunked jurisdictional argument that the Senate cannot try a former official, a position that would mean that any President could simply resign to avoid accountability for an impeachable offense, a position which, in effect, would render the Senate powerless to ever enforce the disqualification clause in the Constitution. Essentially, the President's counsel told the Senate that the Constitution was unconstitutional. Thankfully, the Senate took a firm stance, set a firm precedent with a bipartisan vote in favor of our power to try former officials for acts they committed while in office.

We heard the preposterous claim that the former President's incitement to violence was protected by the First Amendment. The First Amendment right to free speech protects Americans from jail, not Presidents from impeachment. If the President had said during World War II, ``Germany should attack the United States on Long Island; we have left it undefended,'' I suspect Congress would have considered that an impeachable offense.

Finally, defense counsel said that President Trump was not directly responsible for the violence at the Capitol:

His words were merely a metaphor; his directions were

merely suggestions; and the violent mob was just a

spontaneous demonstration.

Yet wind the clock back, and ask yourself, if at any point Donald Trump did not do the things he did, would the attack on the Capitol have happened? There is only one answer to this question: Of course not. If President Trump hadn't told his supporters to march to the Capitol, if he hadn't implored them to come to Washington on January 6 in the first place, if he hadn't repeatedly lied to them that the election was stolen and their country was being taken from them, the attack would not have happened, could not have happened. January 6 would not have happened but for the actions of Donald Trump.

Here is what the Republican leader of the Senate said: The mob that perpetrated the ``failed insurrection'' on January 6 ``was provoked by President Trump.'' Do you want another word for ``provoke''? How about ``incite''? Yet still--still--the vast majority of the Senate Republican caucus, including the Republican leader, voted to acquit former President Trump, signing their names in the columns of history alongside his name forever.

January 6 will live as a day of infamy in the history of the United States of America. The failure to convict Donald Trump will live as a vote of infamy in the history of the U.S. Senate.

Five years ago, Republican Senators lamented what might become of their party if Donald Trump became their Presidential nominee and standard-bearer. Just look at what has happened. Look at what Republicans have been forced to defend. Look at what Republicans have chosen to forgive. The former President tried to overturn the results of a legitimate election and provoked an assault on our own government, and well over half the Senate Republican conference decided to condone it--the most despicable act that any President has ever committed, and the majority of Republicans cannot summon the courage or the morality to condemn it.

This trial wasn't about choosing country over party, even not that; this was about choosing country over Donald Trump, and 43 Republican Members chose Trump. They chose Trump. It should be a weight on their conscience today, and it shall be a weight on their conscience in the future.

As sad as that fact is, as condemnable as the decision was, it is still true that the final vote on Donald Trump's conviction was the largest and most bipartisan vote of any Presidential impeachment trial in American history.

I salute those Republican patriots who did the right thing. It wasn't easy. We know that. Let their votes be a message to the American people because, my fellow Americans, if this Nation is going to long endure, we as a people cannot sanction the former President's conduct, because if lying about the results of an election is acceptable, if instigating a mob against the government is considered permissible, if encouraging political violence becomes the norm, it will be open season--open season--on our democracy, and everything will be up for grabs by whoever has the biggest clubs, the sharpest spears, the most powerful guns. By not recognizing the heinous crime that Donald Trump committed against the Constitution, Republican Senators have not only risked but potentially invited the same danger that was just visited upon us.

So let me say this: Despite the results of the vote on Donald Trump's conviction in the Court of Impeachment, he deserves to be convicted, and I believe he will be convicted in the court of public opinion. He deserves to be permanently discredited, and I believe he has been discredited in the eyes of the American people and in the judgment of history.

Even though Republican Senators prevented the Senate from disqualifying Donald Trump for any office of honor, trust, or profit under these United States, there is no question Donald Trump has disqualified himself. I hope, I pray, and I believe that the American people will make sure of that. If Donald Trump ever stands for

public office again, and after everything we have seen this week, I hope, I pray, and I believe that he will meet the unambiguous rejection by the American people.

Six hours after the attack on January 6, after the carnage and mayhem was shown on every television screen in America, President Trump told his supporters to ``Remember this day forever.'' I ask the American people to heed his words. Remember that day forever but not for the reasons the former President intended. Remember the panic in the voices over the radio dispatch, the rhythmic pounding of fists and flags at the Chamber doors. Remember the crack of a solitary gunshot. Remember the hateful and racist Confederate flag flying through the halls of our Union. Remember the screams of the bloody officer crushed between the onrushing mob and a doorway to the Capitol, his body trapped in the breach. Remember three Capitol Police officers who lost their lives. Remember that those rioters actually succeeded in delaying Congress from certifying the election. Remember how close our democracy came to ruin.

My fellow Americans, remember that day, January 6, forever, the final, terrible legacy of the 45th President of the United States and undoubtedly our worst. Let it live on in infamy, a stain on Donald John Trump that can never, never be washed away.

On Monday we will recognize Presidents Day. Part of the commemoration in the Senate will be the annual reading of Washington's Farewell Address. Aside from winning the Revolutionary War, I consider it his greatest contribution to American civil life, and it had nothing to do with the words he spoke but the example it set.

Washington's Farewell Address established for all time that no one had the right to the Office of the Presidency, that it belonged to the people. What an amazing legacy. What an amazing gift to the future generations, the knowledge that this country will always be greater than any one person, even our most renowned. That is why Members of both parties take turns reading Washington's address once a year in full into the Record, to pledge common attachment to the selflessness at the core of our democratic system.

This trial was about the final acts of a President who represents the very antithesis of our first President and sought to place one man before the entire country: himself.

Let the record show--let the record show before God, history, and the solemn oath we swear to the Constitution that there was only one correct verdict in this trial: guilty. And I pray that while justice was not done in this trial, it will be carried forward by the American people, who, above any of us in this Chamber, determine the destiny of our great Nation

I yield the floor.

(Mr. PADILLA assumed the Chair.)

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Secretary be authorized to include statements of Senators explaining their votes, either given or submitted during the legislative sessions of the Senate through March 1, along with the full record of the Senate's proceedings and the filings by the parties in a Senate document printed under the supervision of the Secretary of the Senate that will complete the documentation of the Senate's handling of these impeachment proceedings.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 61, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 62, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the upcoming adjournment of the Senate, the President pro tempore and the majority and minority leaders be authorized to make appointments to commissions, committees, boards, conferences, or interparliamentary conferences authorized by law, by concurrent action of the two Houses, or by order of the Senate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that on Friday, February 19, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., committees be authorized to report legislative and executive matters.

I ask unanimous consent that at a time determined on Tuesday, February 23, notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate proceed to executive session and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Thomas J. Vilsack to be Secretary of Agriculture; further, that there be 20 minutes for debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees and that the Senate vote without intervening action or debate on the nomination; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 10.