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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I get it. I understand that people are tired of hearing about whatever insane thing Donald Trump just said or did. I get that it is emotionally exhausting; it is intellectually exhausting; it is certainly politically exhausting to be panicked and outraged all the time. And, frankly, it is not possible.
We have now been living in this reality of Trump's unending lies and chaos for almost a decade, and people understandably just want to live their lives. They want to go to school. They want to drop their kids off at school. They want to make dinner. They want to maybe get some exercise or read a book or watch a show. They want their life to continue. And so you can't wake up every morning and be one of those people, one of those people who says: Did you see what Trump said? Did you see how crazy it was? Aren't you worried? You can't live life like that. I totally understand.
But Trump's lawyers said something this week in a courtroom just a few blocks from here that is impossible to ignore, and it must cause alarm because it was the clearest indication that Trump and his team believe that he can commit any crime in the book--crimes as clear as day--and get away with it without any consequences whatsoever.
When asked by a Federal judge if a President could be criminally prosecuted for ordering SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival, Trump's lawyer responded, ``He would have to be, and would speedily be, impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution could proceed.''
What does that mean as a practical matter? It means that the President could commit any crime--it means that the President could commit any crime--up to and including ordering the U.S. military to murder a political rival, and there would be no way to hold him accountable as long as 34 U.S. Senators stood ready to vote to acquit.
Do you think 34 U.S. Senators stand ready to vote to acquit? I don't know, honestly. I don't know. But I can tell you that way more than 34 U.S. Senators voted to acquit former President Trump, who was impeached and then tried by the U.S. Senate twice.
So I guess what we are saying is, this time, the Senate would stand up because that crime would be more egregious than the other ones.
Let's back up for a second because during the impeachment trial 3 years ago, Trump's legal team and a majority of Senate Republicans argued that it was the job of the criminal justice system to deal with statutory crimes--crimes that are in the law books, right--not the Senate. They said the question before Congress was whether or not Trump's actions rose to the level of crimes against the country, which are different from statutory crimes--a novel argument. And it worked, right? It doesn't have be to a good argument. It doesn't have to be a compelling argument. It just has to work in this body because we have 100 jurors, all politicians, and however the chips fall is however the chips fall.
But their argument was explicit, which is: This is not the venue. And now Trump's lawyers are arguing in the other venue--I am sorry. What I meant was this is the venue. So what they are really saying is: Our guy gets to commit crimes. Our guy gets to commit crimes.
I want everybody who is right of center--far right of center, center right, right in the center, I don't care. I want everyone to think about the consequences of accepting this argument: Any President can commit any crime.
Not only that, by the way, it is not a matter of just committing a crime, it is a matter of commanding the U.S. military; it is a matter of being the most powerful individual on the planet.
It is a matter of being the Commander in Chief and using those resources to assassinate a political rival. And you can't even get a Trump lawyer to say: Yeah, that would probably be illegal and cause him to go to jail.
Their question is: Well, that would depend on how the votes fell in the Congress.
I am alarmed. Trump's team is in court arguing that it is up to Congress; that the political system, not the justice system, should render judgment even on statutory crimes.
I say this as a Senator and someone who believes deeply in the awesome responsibility of this institution. ``If the Senate says so'' is not a serious legal argument. ``If the Senate says so'' is not a legal argument.
What is being contemplated here--the ordering of a murder--is a crime. It is a violation of the criminal code, and every other person in the land would be arrested and tried for it. But, apparently, the official view of Donald Trump's lawyers is that he, and he alone, should be exempt from the law.
In the authoritarian future that he is clamoring for, he gets to do anything he wants, wielding unparalleled power in the Presidency and zero repercussions. That is not a President; that is a dictator. That is not equal justice under the law; that is one law for Trump and another for everybody else.
Think about what they are saying and ask yourselves: Are you comfortable with that? Are you comfortable with a democratic President with those kinds of authorities? Is that the kind of country that you want to live in?
To be clear, this can't be dismissed as, like, ``I don't read the tweets'' or ``Oh, that guy is crazy; he just says stuff'' or, ``What a showman.'' Right? That was always the kind of hand waving away of whatever Trump said or did.
But now there are two differences. First, we now have 4 years of the Trump Presidency, two impeachments, and many--both statutory and constitutional--crimes to look straight at. The other thing is, again, this is not a tweet. This is not a comment in a townhall, right? What this is is the official position of the lawyers for the former President of the United States.
Authoritarianism is no longer just a remote problem in foreign lands. I just joined the Foreign Relations Committee a couple of years ago, and one of the things that we do as members of the Foreign Relations Committee is we go to other countries and encourage them to adopt democratic reforms. We encourage them to adopt democratic reforms. And, now, when we have our meetings, they are encouraging us to maintain our democracy.
And make no mistake, this is not some nebulous movement that is difficult to decipher. This is because Donald J. Trump was President and does not believe in American-style democracy. He doesn't. He doesn't believe he should be accountable. He believes he should be immune. And he believes that when and if he becomes President again, he will exact revenge, that he will be a dictator from day one, and that if he is held accountable for his crimes, there will be bedlam.
Now, does that sound like a rhetorical flourish? It sure does, doesn't it, except that I am quoting him.
So, again, I want everybody to be able to live a life. I don't want everybody to wake up every morning freaked out about whatever Donald Trump says. But, today, this week, it is worth marking what his lawyers said because it is an official position of a Presidential candidate, and it is a position that is antithetical to everything that we all believe in.
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