A vote to limit debate scheduled for 5 30 p. M. Eastern time. Hes been acting administrator since last march. Later this week senate is expected to take up articles of impeachment against President Trump wants the house some the articles and names of the child managers to the senate. You can watch full coverage of the trial here on cspan2. The senate. The chaplain, dr. Black, will lead the senate in prayer. The chaplain let us pray. Everlasting god, keep our lawmakers in your holy hands. Empower them to heed your instructions, as they remember that your admonition provides light for their journey. Let your gentleness motivate our senators to respect one another and to guard their lips. Lord, give them the gift of your peace that provides joy even during lifes storms. Use them as instruments for righteousness in a sinful world. We pray in your great name. Amen. Please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 6 the presiding officer the clerk will read a communication to the senate. The clerk washington d. C, january 13 , 2020. To the senate under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable josh hawley, a senator from the state of missouri, to perform the duties of the chair. Signed chuck grassley, president pro tempore. The presiding officer under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. Morning business is closed. Under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the following nomination which the clerk will report. The clerk nomination department of Homeland Security rs peter gaynor of rhode island to be administrator of the federal Emergency Management agency. Mr. Mcconnell mr. President. The presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell its been ten days since the United States removed irans chief terrorist, qasam soleimani, from the battlefield. Its been five days since the brutal violence, recklessness, and failed governance that defines the Iranian Regime was put on full display with their shootdown of a ukrainian civilian airliner and the deaths of all 176 souls on board. After a brief stab at a failed coverup, the iranian government had to come clean and explain that its own recklessness had killed more than 80 iranians, 63 canadians, and the other victims, and despite the claims of supposed experts on iran that iranians would rally behind their oppressive regime, the truth is quite different. Instead, thousands of iranians have taken to the streets to celebrate soleimanis death, condemn the regimes domestic oppression and call for regime change in iran and denounce their governments feeble efforts to lay its own violence at the feet of the United States. According to journalists, here is one chant thats been ringing out on the streets of iran soleimani is a murderer, his leader a traitor. Heres another theyre lying, theyre our enemy is america. Our enemy is right here. The reality is rich, mr. President. As iranians terrorist soleimani boasted to iraqi leaders, quote, we in iran know how to deal with protests. Well, that violent approach is exactly why iraqis and iranians are celebrating his death. Im sure the mullahs regret soleimani is no longer around to intimidate and murder their own citizens into silence. These protests arent limited to iran either. Protesters are back in iraq as well. Not phony, iranstaged demonstrations but real citizenled protests across iraq. Iraqis are demanding a government with a top priority with iraq as its own interests. Now given the death and terror iran has wrought in the middle east for decades, this kind of reaction shouldnt be a surprise. But strangely, strangely, it seems it has surprised many of our fellow americans. Here at home many on the left and in the media have rushed to reflexively blame President Trump and not the Iranian Regime for the recent violence. After only the earliest initial reports, the speaker of the house riewshed to blame our rushed to blame our administration for, quote, needless provocations, she said. And following irans shoot down of the airliner, one prominent House Democrat characterized the regimes violence as Collateral Damage resulting from americas actions, exactly how the iranians themselves were trying to spin it. One democrat running for president tried a similar embarrassing equivocation. He said the civilians that iran had blown up were, quote, caught in the middle of an unnecessary and unwarranted military tit for tat. For several days you could not open a newspaper or turn on the Television Without prominent democrats and socalled Foreign Policy experts setting aside decades of iranian aggression to imply or even say outright that america, not iran, was responsible for the cycle of violence. That President Donald Trump was the real villain. So we are faced with a remarkable spectacle, mr. President. Even under threat of tear gas or even gunfire, the brave people of iran are themselves displaying more willingness to criticize their own brutal rulers than we saw in the initial responses from some democrats and socalled experts right here at home. A remarkable spectacle, but a pretty sad one. I hope this can be a lesson to anyone who has let their domestic political grievances pollute their judgment of world affairs. It shouldnt take the brave iranian people themselves to remind american leaders that tehran has long been the force for bad in this situation, and the United States is a force for good. So as ive said, the president s bold action has attracted significant political criticism from those in congress. Now it is the senates responsibility to weigh in on Foreign Policy and i expect well hear from our foreign colleagues very soon. I look forward to discussing the last administrations failed strategy that got us here. The Obama Administration responded to irans violence and aggression with appeasement and retrenchment rather than pushback. I look forward to discussing the fact that senior military commanders did not just recommend the president take immediate action to disrupt iranian plots against our personnel, they believe the u. S. Would be cull paably negligent if it didnt act to stop the plotting. Now i expect some of the democrats who have rhetorically embraced the Intelligence Community when it suited their political interests may now rush to criticize the career professionals. I look forward to hearing our colleagues who want to quibble over the word imminent explain just how close we should let the terrorists come to killing more americans before we defend ourselves. Just how close should we let terrorists come to killing more americans before we defend ourselves . I assure you the president had not acted to disrupt a deadly attack, im confident these same critics would have blasted him for failing, failing to protect american lives. Just a few days before the strike, the junior senator from connecticut was blasting, blasting the administration for rendering america impotent in the middle east. He complained that no one fears us, no one listens to us, he said. But naturally after President Trump did take bold action, the same colleague has become a fierce critic for supposedly being of President Trump for supposedly being too harsh, too harsh. Not exactly a model of consistency. Our democratic colleagues were very happy to give president obama wide latitude to engage in strikes where american lives and american interests were far less directly at stake than with mr. Soleimani. But now, the same democrats who embraced the obama intervention say libya in, for example, libya say its a bridge too far for President Trump to respond with limited force to iraniandirected strikes against american interests and personnel that have been escalating for months. Okay on libya. Not okay here. The double standards are literal ly headspinning. I expect the senate will soon debate senator mccains war powers senator kaines war powers resolution. For years now, i have wanted the senateing to on the record about military presence in syria and iraq. Im glad my democratic colleagues will finally be interested in having that discussion rather than ducking it. I dont believe the blunt instrument of the war powers resolution is an acceptable substitute for the studied oversight the senate can exercise through hearings, resolutions, and more tailored legislation. So i will strongly oppose the resolution, and i would urge all our colleagues to consider what message the senate should send to iran and the world at the very moment that americas actions are challenging the calculus in tehran for the better. We appear to have restored a measure of deterrence in the middle east, so lets not screw it up. Now, on another matter, on friday, Speaker Pelosi signaled she may finally wind down her onewoman blockade of a fair and timely impeachment trial. It has certainly been revealing to see how democrats first claim that impeachment was so urgent, so urgent that they could not even wait to fill out the factual record and then subsequently delay it for weeks. Well, im glad the speaker finally realized she never had any leverage in the first place to dictate Senate Procedure to senators and is giving in to bipartisan pressure to move forward. In terms of influencing Senate Proceedings, this strange gambit has achieved absolutely nothing. But it has produced one unintended side effect. The speakers efforts to precommit the senate to carry on an investigation with which her own house lost patience concedes that the house case is rushed, weak, and incomplete. Let me say that again. By trying and failing to get the senate to precommit to redoing the houses investigation, House Democrats admitted that even they do not believe their own case is persuasive. Think about the message it sends when the prosecutors are this desperate to get the judge and jury to redo their homework for them. And think about the separation of powers. The house knowingly, knowingly declined to spend time on legal battles and due process that it would have needed to pursue certain avenues, but now after declining to fight their own fight, they want the senate to precommit ourselves to wage the potentially protracted legal battles on their behalf. They wanted senators to precommit ourselves to not only judge the case that House Democrats are actually going to send over, but also to reopen the investigatory stage and maybe supplement chairman schiffs slapdash work. In other words, the president s opponents are afraid of having the senate judge the case they actually are going to send us. They are afraid of having the senate judge the case they themselves voted on. That alone speaks volumes. A few weeks ago, in real time, many senators and legal experts tried to warn House Democrats that they were nowhere near a finished product. Nowhere near. That the articles of impeachment they had drafted were more like a censure resolution based on partisan anger than an actual impeachment based on careful investigation. The house ignored us at the time. They rushed ahead to meet a political timetable, but now they have spent almost a month conceding that their own case does not stand on its own and searching for ways to supplement it from the outside. This is exactly the kind of toxic new precedent that many of us warned about back in december , that Speaker Pelosis house was not sending the senate a thorough investigation. They were just tossing up a jump ball and hoping that the political winds might blow things their way. So here we are. The senate was never going to precommit ourselves to redoing the prosecutors homework for them, and we were never going to allow the speaker of the house to dictate Senate Proceedings to senators. House democrats have already done enough damage to the precedent, to national unity, and to our institutions of government. The senate will not be sucked into this precedentbreaking path. We will fulfill our we will fulfill our constitutional duty. We will honor the reason for which the founders created this body, to ensure our institutions and our republic can rise above shortterm factional fever. The house has done enough damage. The senate is ready to fulfill our duty. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call a senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from texas. Mr. Cornyn mr. President , i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Cornyn mr. President , its now been 26 days since House Democrats voted to impeach the president of the United States. This is a predictable ending to an increasingly embarrassing impeachment inquiry. Apparently Speaker Pelosi, chairman schiff, chairman nadler, and others were in such a big hurry to get this done before the end of the year, theyve obviously gotten cold feet because they have refused to introduce the articles of impeachment so we can start the trial. As the presiding officer knows, ordinarily when you are presented with a situation where the prosecution refuses to proceed to put on evidence of a case, they are dismissed in a routine matter, dismissal for want of prosecution or if they do intend to present the articles of impeachment, there is a fundamental notion of basic fairness included in the guarantee of a speedy trial that is obviously being neglected, avoided, and abused by the speaker and her leaders in the house. Our democratic colleagues in the house rushed through their investigation in only 12 weeks and it ended up passing articles of impeachment on a partisan basis. After repeatedly saying this is a grave and urgent matter, it seems like Speaker Pelosi has experienced some buyers remorses and questioned just how grave and urgent it really is. So here we are, as i said, 26 days later, and she still has not sent the articles of impeachment to the senate. As we know, even though some have suggested the senate could somehow proceed to trial absent the delivery of those articles here, we cant try the case until the charges are delivered. Well, finally last friday the speaker indicated that she will transmit the articles this week. Theyll also have to name impeachment managers, representatives from the house that will come over and actually present the charges to the senate and attempt to produce evidence in support of those charges. But it remains to be seen whether the speaker will deliver the articles this week. Shes been withholding them, as i said, nearly four weeks now, claiming its part of her strategy to get leverage over the senate, a strategy that has yielded no positive results. In fact, what weve seen is the speaker has zero leverage in the senate. She runs the house, theres no doubt about that, but the senate is a separate body and we dont take our instructions from the house just like the house does not take their direction from the senate. Before the house even voted on the articles, leader mcconnell said the senate should follow the same bipartisan framework used to guide the clinton impeachment trial. I say bipartisan because at that time 100 senators agreed to this path forward, and the logic goes this way, if it was good enough for president clinton, then it should be good enough for President Trump. Suffice it to say the speaker disagrees. Instead of sending the articles of impeachment over and letting 100 members of the senate decide how best to proceed, she has chosen to take matters in her own hands. Apparently the articles of impeachment that describes the houses role is not good enough for Speaker Pelosi. He is trying to assume what the constitution says is the senates sole power to try all peoples. But we shouldnt be fooled. This is despite her claims, it is not a fair effort to a fair process. A fair process would be like the clinton impeachment trial which was agreed to by 100 senators. Our democratic colleagues in the house threw fairness out the window be months ago. This is Speaker Pelosi singlehandedly the republicans are not the only ones who think the speaker has gone too far. The theres bipartisan agreement that Speaker Pelosi should senate the articles of impeachment over here forthwith. A number of Senate Democrats have expressed their desire to get started with the impeachment trial. I think the senior senator from california, our friend senator feinstein, same state as the speaker of the house. She summed it up best when she said, the longer it goes on, the less urgent is becomes. So if its serious and urgent, send them over. If it isnt, dont send them over. Irrefutable logic. Now were hearing from a growing number of House Democrats who have split from Speaker Pelosi and say its time to send the articles. For example, the chairman of the House Armed ServicesCommittee Said we control the house, Mitch Mcconnell controls it in the senate, senator mcconnell might disagree with that, but thats what mr. Thats what the chairman of the Armed ServicesCommittee Said. He conceded, i think its time to send the peesm to the Senate Impeachment to t