Impeaching Trump Revisited: ‘He Has Not Changed’

This transcript has been formatted for clarity and readability. Spelling has been corrected (e.g., Zelinski to Zelenskyy, Dersowitz to Dershowitz, preions to prescience), and paragraph breaks have been added to distinguish between the speech and the speaker's modern-day commentary.

The Closing Argument: A Retrospective

You can't trust this president to do the right thing. Not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country. You just can't. He will not change. And you know it.

So, this week marks six years since I gave the closing argument in the first impeachment of Donald Trump. He has not changed. He will not change. He has made that clear himself without self-awareness or hesitation. A man without character or ethical compass will never find his way. Even as the most recent and most egregious misconduct was discovered, he was unapologetic, unrepentant, and more dangerous—undeterred.

The First Impeachment

As you may remember, that impeachment involved the president's withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance to Ukraine, even as Ukraine was fighting the Russians, in order to extort that country's leader, President Zelenskyy, into helping Donald Trump cheat in the next election by smearing Joe Biden.

I realized during the course of that trial—in which the president was charged with abusing the power of his office in that kind of extortion plot and also obstructing Congress by refusing to turn over any of the documents in our investigation—that I had to prove more than the violation of those two serious parts of our Constitution. That is, in addition to proving the facts, I had to show that Donald Trump was simply too dangerous to be left in office. And that centered around Donald Trump's utter lack of character and the danger he posed both to our country and its elections.

"The plot goes on, the scheming persists, and the danger will never recede. He has done it before. He will do it again. What are the odds if left in office that he will continue trying to cheat? I will tell you: 100%. Not five, not 10, or even 50, but 100%."

If you have found him guilty and you do not remove him from office, he will continue trying to cheat in the election until he succeeds. Then what shall you say?

Forewarning the 2020 Election

Now, bear in mind, this speech was given nine months before Donald Trump tried to cheat in the next election, the 2020 election, by inciting a violent attack on the Capitol, by pressuring state legislators into somehow reversing the results, by a fake elector plot, by any number of schemes, and pushing out big lies about the election to try to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power.

Donald Trump's large bank of attorneys in that impeachment trial argued that we should let the voters decide. Let the voters in 2020 decide rather than the impeachment decide whether he had violated the Constitution. The problem with that, I pointed out, was that he would try to cheat in that very election. I asked the senators whether we could count on this president to allow those elections to go forward without efforts to try to skew the results.

He's guilty as sin, but can't we just let the voters decide? He's guilty as sin, but why not let the voters clean up this mess?

And here to answer that question, we must look at the history of this presidency and to the character of this president—or lack of character—and ask: Can we be confident that he will not continue to try to cheat in that very election? Can we be confident that Americans and not foreign powers will get to decide and that the president will shun any further foreign interference in our democratic affairs? And the short, plain, sad, incontestable answer is: No. You can't.

A Shift in the System

Of course, Donald Trump did not change. And even after that violent insurrection, he has spent the last several years trying to rewrite the history of that moment, firing prosecutors who worked on the investigation into that incident and into his complicity, pushing out investigators at the FBI who worked on the same, denying any kind of nomination to anyone who will acknowledge even that he lost the election to Joe Biden.

So, Donald Trump did not change. He has not changed. But something changed. Something changed that made this even a close question for the senators during the time of the impeachment. I pointed out how bipartisan the effort to remove Richard Nixon had been during his impeachment proceedings for far less significant crimes against the country. And I posed the question: If Trump hasn't changed, then what has changed?

The short answer is: We have changed. The members of Congress have changed. The members of this body and ours in the House are now far more accepting of the most serious misconduct of a president as long as it is a president of one's own party. And that is a trend most dangerous for our country.

The Defense and Legal Immunity

One powerful sign of just how much things had changed was the defense that Donald Trump mounted. In addition to denying the facts, which no one really accepted, Alan Dershowitz, one of the lead lawyers for the president, made the outrageous claim that if a president did something—abused his power—because it would help him get reelected, and he believed that his reelection was in the public interest, then it couldn't be impeachable.

Now, I know that sounds absurd, but that is literally what Dershowitz argued:

"And if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment."

But here's the thing: There's something else now that has changed. That impeachment trial was presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts. You can't see him in any of this footage because he's seated behind me in the Senate President's Chair. But that same Chief Justice Roberts would go on to give Donald Trump immunity from prosecution. So the kind of immunity that Dershowitz was arguing for, which violated the Constitution, is very similar to the kind of immunity that John Roberts gave the president. That is license to commit crime in office.

Modern Concerns and Interference

I don't claim to have had any prescience during the first impeachment trial about what the future would bring. It didn't require any clairvoyance to see that Donald Trump would continue trying to cheat to maintain power. That part was as plain to see as it could be.

And I warned the senators that if they voted to acquit, notwithstanding all the evidence of Donald Trump's guilt, notwithstanding all the proof of the danger he posed to the country, that among other things, their names would be tied to his with a cord of steel and for all of history.

Final Statement: "Right Matters"

History will not be kind to Donald Trump. I think we all know that—not because it will be written by "Never Trumpers," but because whenever we have departed from the values of our nation, we have come to regret it, and that regret is written all over the pages of our history.

If you find that the House has proved its case and still vote to acquit, your name will be tied to his with a cord of steel and for all of history. But if you find the courage to stand up to him, to speak the awful truth to his rank falsehood, your place will be among the Davids who took on Goliath. If only you will say: Enough.

America believes in a thing called truth. She does not believe we are entitled to our own alternate facts. She recoils at those who spread pernicious falsehoods. To her, truth matters. There is nothing more corrosive to a democracy than the idea that there is no truth. America also believes there is a difference between right and wrong. And right matters here.

But there is more. Truth matters. Right matters. But so does decency. Decency matters. When the president tries to coerce an ally to help him cheat in our elections and then covers it up, we must say enough. Enough.

He has betrayed our national security and he will do so again. He has compromised our elections and he will do so again. You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What's right matters even less, and decency matters not at all. I do not ask you to convict him because truth or right or decency matters nothing to him, but because we have proven our case and it matters to you.

Truth matters to you. Right matters to you. You are decent. He is not who you are.

In Federalist 55, James Madison wrote that there were certain qualities in human nature—qualities, I believe, like honesty, right, and decency—which should justify our confidence in self-government. It may be midnight in Washington, but the sun will rise again. I put my faith in the optimism of the founders. You should, too.

They gave you a remedy and they meant for you to use it. They gave you an oath and they meant for you to observe it. We have proven Donald Trump guilty. Now do impartial justice and convict him. I yield back.