releases: https://www.jones.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-doug-jones-urges-colleagues-to-do-their-duty
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| https://www.jones.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-doug-jones-urges-colleagues-to-do-their-duty | Senator Doug Jones Urges Colleagues to Do Their Duty | 2019-09-26 | 2019 | 2019-09 | Democrat | House | AL | Doug Jones | J000300 | www.jones.senate.gov | legacy | WASHINGTON U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D-Ala.) took to the Senate floor this evening to express his concern about the recent allegations that have come to light involving the President of the United States and the President of Ukraine. He also called on his colleagues to do their constitutional duty and to avoid the temptation to see these current events through a political lens. I hope that my colleagues, as we go forward will remember their oath, Senator Jones said. We didn't take oaths to support the President of the United States. We didn't take an oath to support the Republican Party. We didn't take an oath to support the Democratic Party. We took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. He continued, Our duties to discharge that office are to be fair, to be impartial, to be deliberative, not political. Our duties to this office are to our constituents, to do the very best that we can in making sure that we analyze whatever is in front of us, because history will judge us. They will determine whether or not we acted with courage and conviction or whether we just simply tested the political winds, as some people are already doing. Ladies and gentlemen and colleagues, in the name of God, we have got to do our duty. We have to do our duty. We have to make sure that we fulfill our oaths, that we are not concerned about how many votes it might get us or how many votes it might lose. We have to fulfill that solemn obligation whether we know the outcome or not, whether we get pressure from a side or not, whether or not there are millions of dollars spent in TV and radio telling us to vote a certain way, in the name of God, we should do our duty and nothing less, he concluded. A rush transcript can be found below and a link to the full video can be found here. SENATOR JONES: I have to admit I haven't had a heck of a lot of sleep the last few nights and I don't think anyone has. If anyone has rested well the last few nights, it's because they're either not paying attention or they're here for the wrong reason. We're in some troubled times. The events of the past two weeks have been nothing short of stunning. They have been stunning in the speed in which they have unfolded. They have been stunning and disturbing and the allegations that have been made regarding the conduct of the President of the United States allegations that go to the heart of national security. Allegations that go to the heart of whether or not the President is upholding his oath to the Constitution of the United States or abusing the power of the presidency. We have to remember in this body, though, we have to remind our colleagues, we have to remind the media, we have to remind the public that we are just now beginning this process. The facts have not come out. We are just now beginning to see facts and determine what happened over the course of this past summer. Where things were, what happened, what was said, who said it? We have to determine the allegations whether or not they have merit based on facts that come out, not just reports in the media or even the allegations in a complaint. I'm a lawyer. Allegations in a complaint are simply that. They're allegations made but they have to be proven, but already -- and the reason I rise today is that already we are seeing this becoming political. People are going to their political corners. The partisan tribalism is taking over already. And that is unfortunate. It is a sad commentary when a process that is so rooted, so rooted in the Constitution of the United States, something so fundamental to our democracy is almost immediately cast in political terms. My colleague and friend Senator Sasse from Nebraska used the term partisan tribalism in today's world that is insta-certain.' No matter you see, no matter what you read, it doesn't matter because you are going to take a side. When we take sides, the American public immediately takes side and no one listens to the facts. We are called as senators, we are called as members of the House, we are called as members of this body to a much higher duty than that, a much higher duty. Our duty is to carefully analyze and review the facts. Facts not mere allegation. Facts not reports or leaks. Facts not what some political talking head on the television says their opinion might be. Our duty is so much higher than that. We have seen already what appears to be very disturbing facts. We have seen a summary of a telephone call between the President of the United States and the President of Ukraine. Ukraine is a country dependent on countries like the United States. The balance of power between the United States and Ukraine is not balanced at all. We have so much more power and in that call, that summary of that call, the President of the United States noted that to the President of Ukraine. He said essentially, You are dependent on us. No one else helps you. You can count on the United States of America and by the way, I need a favor. I need a favor. I need you to do me a personal political favor.' And in that conversation he talked about not only having his personal lawyer but also utilizing the Attorney General of the United States to help benefit that politically. Those are initially the facts and they are very disturbing. And for anyone to say that they are not is shirking their responsibility to their constituents, to the public, to the Constitution, to the very oath that we took when he came into this body. But again, it is but one piece of a puzzle. We've now also seen the contents of the so-called whistle-blower complaint. Whistle-blower is a term of art. Whistle-blowers are just simply somebody that's come forward but they're given the name whistle-blower because they are given legal protections. What these people are that come forward with this are concerned citizens of the United States. And a concerned citizen of the United States saw something happening that disturbed him so much that he felt compelled to bring it to someone's attention. Documented fairly well but again these facts have not come out. They're just statements in an allegation in a complaint that have to be determined. I have been asked over and over by the media in the last two days, Do you support the House doing this? Do you support impeachment? Do you support this or that? My comment is always the same: I want to know the facts. It doesn't matter to me what the House of Representatives, in their prerogative, call their processes. I want to know the facts. The American people deserve to know the facts. This body deserves to know the facts whether or not anything comes over from the House of Representatives. We deserve to know whether or not the President is abusing his office. We deserve to know whether or not he's placing our national security at risk. Because remember, Ukraine is under threat from Russia every day. Every day, they are looking over their shoulder. And that puts us as risk as well. So we have got to make sure that we are deliberative, that we move forward with a process that is deliberate, that we owe it to the American people to be deliberate, to be somber, to be making sure that we know the facts before we make our judgments. It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on. This is not a Republican process. This is not a Democratic process. And for God's sake, it's not a socialist agenda. That's about the dumbest thing that I've heard people say over the last two days. Good Lord. We're talking about a process that's rooted in the Constitution of the United States rooted in the Constitution of the United States for a purpose. Part of that checks and balances that seem to be going out the window these days in our society and in our government and here in Washington, D.C. This is an American agenda to make sure that we know the facts, that we understand those facts so that people around here that are watching this today know and can be secure in the fact that their Congress is doing their job, that the President is doing his job, that the courts are doing their job. This is not, this is not the time to circle the wagons around the President, but likewise it is not the time to make a judgment already that this President should be removed from office or even articles of impeachment voted on by the House. That is not the time to do that. We're beginning a process that we have to take our time on. I say that knowing that when we say take our time, we just need to be deliberate, but we need to move. This is not something that needs to drag through. This is not something that the American public needs to be drug through over the course of too long a period of time. This can be determined. If you look at that whistle-blower complaint that was filed, this is something that should easily be able to be done in a relatively short period of time. If the administration will cooperate, and if we get that instead of the stonewalling we've seen in the past, cooperate with us. Do your job, do your duty and let us do ours. That is all that we ask. That's all that anybody should ever ask of anyone in this body or anyone in the House of Representatives. Let us do our job. As we move forward, as we move forward, we're about to go on we're about to leave this place for a couple of weeks. The House is leaving although they may still do a little work. We're going to be leaving for two weeks. We're going to be going back home to our states. We're going to be talking to the media, to our constituents. I guarantee you when I go back to Alabama, a lot of people will have already made up their mind when I go to a town hall. They're going to have made up their mind without any facts. They're going to be making up their mind based on the media because, you know what? My friends in the media, you need to pay attention, too. Don't ask me whether or not this is going to affect my election in 2020. Don't ask me if it's going to affect Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Don't ask me if it's going to affect the presidential race. Ask me, What is going to happen to the constitution? What is going to happen to the rule of law? Let's talk about the seriousness of what we've got and not the politics of it, for goodness sake. But every time I turn around when I walk out these doors the first thing they're going to ask me is, How do you think this is going to affect your race? That is not my job. That is not my oath. That is not my duty. If we take -- if everything we do in this body we put our fingers to the political winds, then we may as well not be here. That is -- we should not be able to live with ourselves. Unfortunately, I think so many people do that. And I'm hoping in this day, in this time, in these troubled waters we're about to embark on, that people will see that higher calling, that they will once again return to that time and that place when the Senate is a deliberative body and not a knee-jerk reaction to a particular program or nomination or whatever that comes before it. We will return to the days of yesteryear where we actually deliberate and we talk and we talk among ourselves and we have a civil discussion about the important issues that we are faced with. I remember those days. I was here. I was sitting back there as a Senate staffer watching those great debates, watching people change their mind on the floor of the Senate because of the debate that someone gave and someone persuaded them. We don't have those anymore. Look around right now. We're all gone. Of course there's people around here listening to me. I've got staff here. But we don't have those debates anymore. We don't have deliberations anymore. We're going to have to now. We're going to have to because the republic depends on it. The fate of this country will depend on it. We are so divided in this country right now. We are living in what Arthur Brooks has called that culture of contempt where we don't necessarily just disagree with each other. We hold each other in contempt if you disagree with each other. And we've got to change that, folks, we've got to get back. We've got to change that. We've got to make sure that people understand their roles, their duties. We've got to make sure that for this country to progress, for this country to survive, we've got to work together. We've got to be one America. We can't be so divided because that's exactly what our enemies have been trying to do to us for centuries, for two centuries or more. They want us divided. They came close during the Civil War. They are going to come close now if we are not careful. If we don't stop folks on both sides of the aisle from continuing to pull us into our corners and start pulling people back to where we can have these discussions, we are in trouble. I hope that my colleagues, as we go forward, as we go into this recess, will remember their oath. I hope that people remember what they said when they stood right over there and the Vice President of the United States asked them to raise their right hand and they said, I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Support the Constitution of the United States. We didn't take oaths to support the President of the United States. We didn't take an oath to support the Republican party. We didn't take an oath to support the Democratic party. We took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, an important part that our framers put in those oaths -- foreign and domestic. We said that we take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. We cannot evade. We took on oath not to evade why we were here. We have no purpose -- that is not what we do. And that we will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office of which we accepted. Our duties to discharge that office are to be fair, to be impartial, to be deliberative, not political. Our duties to this office are to our constituents, to do the very best that we can in making sure that we analyze whatever is in front of us because history will judge us. They will determine whether or not we acted with courage and conviction or whether we just simply tested the political winds, as some people are already doing. Mr. President, I often in my talks around the country -- and some even here -- I like to quote one of my favorite characters from literature, Atticus Finch. Atticus Finch gave an impassioned closing argument to a jury that he knew was likely not to give him the verdict that he sought. He gave out the case -- he laid out a case in defense of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. He gave that defense and he went through the facts and everybody that's ever read the book, everybody that's ever watched the movie knows that Tom Robinson was innocent. But Atticus Finch knew that the likelihood of that jury finding that man innocent was slim and none. And the end of this closing argument, he talked about the solemn duty, the solemn obligation that jurors have to the system. He talked about the justice system and the courts and jurors being the great levelers of society, where the pauper or the rich man are the same in the eyes of the law. He talked about the duty that they had to fairly, impartially judge the facts. And just before he sat down, knowing you could see it, you could feel it, if you read the book, you could feel that Atticus knew what was going to happen. He sat down -- just before he sat down and he looked that jury in the eye. He said, gentlemen, for God's sakes, in the name of God, do your duty. Ladies and gentlemen and colleagues, in the name of God, we have got to do our duty. We have to do our duty. We have to make sure that we fulfill our oaths, that we are not concerned about how many votes it might get us or how many votes it might lose. We have to fulfill that solemn whether we know the outcome or not. Whether we get pressure from a side or not. Whether or not there are millions of dollars spent in TV and radio telling us to vote a certain way. In the name of God, we should do our duty and nothing less. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. ### | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |