Senator Grassley on Impeachment of President Trump

by Charles Ernest Grassley

Mr. President, as Senators, we cast many votes during our time here. I have cast over 13,200. Each one of those votes is important, but a vote to convict or acquit the President on charges of impeachment is perhaps the most important vote a Senator could ever cast. Until now, it has happened only twice in our Nation’s history, and it is something that should never be taken lightly.

President Trump has been charged of committing, according to the Constitution and in these articles, "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" for requesting that a foreign leader investigate his potential political opponent and, No. 2, obstructing Congress’s inquiry into those actions. For this, we are asked to permanently remove him from office.

As a judge and juror, as we all are, I first ask whether the charges rise to an offense that unquestionably demands removal from office. If so, I then ask whether the House proved beyond a reasonable doubt that it actually occurred.

The House’s case fails on the first of those questions. The President’s request is not impeachable conduct under our Constitution. A President isn’t prohibited by law from engaging the assistance of a foreign ally in an anti-corruption investigation.

The House tries to make up for this hurdle by suggesting that subjective motive—in other words, political advantage—can turn an otherwise unimpeachable act into an act that demands removal from office. I won’t support such an irreversible break from the Constitution standard for impeaching a President.

The Senate is an institution of precedent. We are informed and guided by history and the actions of our predecessors, but our choices also actually make history. These days, that can be difficult to keep in mind. A rush to convict or acquit can lead to cut corners and overheated rhetoric.

We are each bound by our oath to "do impartial justice." As President pro tempore of this institution, I recognize that we must also do justice to the Senate and to the Republic that this Senate serves.

This trial began with a full and fair debate on the rules to guide our process. We considered and voted on 11 amendments over nearly 13 hours. Consistent with precedent, the Senate adopted rules allowing the same length of time for arguments and questions as was agreed to unanimously in the 1999 Clinton impeachment. Consistent with precedent, we engaged in a robust debate on calling witnesses and pursuing additional evidence. We sat as a Court of Impeachment for over 70 hours. The final vote will be the product of a fair and judicial process consistent with precedent of the Senate.

I cannot say the same of the Articles of Impeachment that we are considering today from the House of Representatives, which has the sole power of impeachment. After 9 days of presentation and questions and after fully considering the record, I am convinced that what the House is asking the Senate to do is constitutionally flawed and dangerously unprecedented.

The House’s abuse of power article rests on objectively legal conduct. Until Congress legislates otherwise, a President is within his authority to request that a foreign leader assist with anti-corruption efforts. To make up for this, the House of Representatives’ abuse of power theory rests entirely on the President’s subjective motive. This very vague standard cannot be sustained.

The House offers no limiting principle of what motives are allowed. Under such a flexible standard, future House of Representatives could impeach Presidents for taking lawful action for what a majority thinks are the wrong reasons.

The House also gives no guidance whatsoever on whether conviction rests on proving a single, corrupt motive or whether mixed motives suffice under their theory. In its trial brief, the House of Representatives argues that there is "no credible alternative explanation"—those are their words—for the President’s alleged conduct, but once the Senate heard from the President’s counsel in defense, then all of a sudden, the House changed its tune. Now, even a credible alternative explanation shouldn’t stop the Senate from removing the President.

Reshaping their own standard midtrial only serves to undercut their initial arguments. And simply asserting—at least 63 times that I counted—that their evidence was "over-whelming" doesn’t make the House of Representatives’ allegations accurate or prove an impeachable offense. Even after arguments had concluded, the House managers started repeating the terms "bribery" and "extortion" on the floor of the Senate, while neither term appears anywhere in their Articles of Impeachment.

So you get down to this point. It is not the Senate’s job to read into House articles what the House failed or didn’t see fit to incorporate itself. Articles of Impeachment shouldn’t be moving targets like moving a goalpost. The ambiguity surrounding the House’s abuse of power theory gives this Senator reason enough to vote not guilty. If we are to lower the bar of impeachment—and that is what the House of Representatives is trying to do—we better be clear on where the bar is being set.

The House’s second article impeaching the President for what they call obstruction of Congress is equally unprecedented and equally patently frivolous. This Senator takes great pride in knowing a thing or two about obstruction by the executive branch from both Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents in the 40 years that I have been doing oversight. Congressional oversight—like rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse—is central to my role as a Senator representing Iowa taxpayers. In the face of obstruction, I use the tools the Constitution provides to this institution. Now, that is the very core of the checks and balances of our governmental system.

For example, I fought the Obama administration to obtain documents related to Operation Fast and Furious. Under the House’s obstruction standard, should President Obama have been impeached for his failure to waive privileges during the course of that investigation? We fought President Obama on this for 3 years in the courts, and we still didn’t end up with all that we asked for. We never heard a peep from the Democrats when Obama pulled that trick.

The hypocrisy here by the House Democrats has been on full display for the last 2 weeks. In the case before us, the House issued a series of requests and subpoenas to the executive branch, but the House failed to enforce those requests. When challenged to stand up for its subpoenas in court, the investigating committee simply retreated.

The House may cower at defending its own authority, but the Senate shouldn’t have to clean up the mess of the House’s own making. For the many ways in which the House failed in the fundamentals of oversight and for the terrible new precedent this obstruction article would set, I will vote not guilty.

Another point: There has been debate about the whistleblower, whose complaint motivated the House’s impeachment inquiry. I have worked for and with whistleblowers for more than 30 years. I have sponsored numerous laws to strengthen whistleblower protections. Attempts by anyone to "out" a whistleblower just to sell an article or to score a political point are not helpful at all. It is not the treatment any whistleblower deserves. However, it is important for investigators to talk to whistleblowers and to evaluate their claims and credibility because those claims form the basis of an inquiry under checks and balances of government.

My office does this all the time. When whistleblowers bring significant cases of bipartisan interest, we frequently work closely with the Democrats to look into those claims. I know the House committees have followed that course in the past. Both parties understand how to talk to whistleblowers and respect confidentiality.

Why no efforts were taken in this case to take these very basic, bipartisan steps is very baffling to me. I fear that, to achieve its desired goal, the House majority weaponized and politicized whistleblowers for purely partisan purposes. I hope that the damage done will be short-lived. Otherwise, the separation of powers under our Constitution will be weakened.

Finally, I have always made it a priority to hold judicial nominees to a standard of restraint and fidelity to the law, and as judges in this case, which every Senator is, we should consider those factors which counsel restraint.

These articles came to the Senate as a product of a flawed, unprecedented, and partisan process. When the articles were voted on by the full House, the only bipartisanship was of those in opposition. Moreover, tonight, the Iowa caucuses will be finished. The 2020 Presidential election is underway. Yet we are all asked to remove the incumbent from the ballot based on an impeachment that is supported by only one party of the Congress.

The Senate should take no part in endorsing the very dangerous new precedent that this would set for future impeachments. We need no new normal when it comes to impeaching a President. We have precedents of the past that should be followed, and they have not been followed. We have had more than 28,000 pages of evidence. We have had 17 witnesses and over 70 hours of open, transparent consideration by the Senate. The American people are more than adequately prepared to decide for themselves the fate of the President in November. This decision belongs to the voters. It is time to get the Senate back to work for the American people on issues of substance.

I yield the floor.