House republicans called for more transparency in the process. Mr. Scalise i also ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Scalise im happy to yield to my friend from maryland, the distinguished minority leader. Mr. Hoyer on monday, the house will meet at 12 00 p. M. For morning hour debate, 2 00 p. M. For legislative business, votes postponed until 6 30 p. M. On tuesday and wednesday the house will meet at 10 00 a. M. For morning hour debate, 12 00 p. M. For legislative business. On thursday, the house will meet at 9 00 a. M. For legislative business. Last votes of the week are expected no later than 3 00 p. M. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of suspensions will be announced by close of business on friday. The house will consider h. R. 823, the colorado Outdoor Recreation and economy act, h. R. 2181, the chaco Cultural HeritageArea Protection act and h. R. 1473, the grand canyon centennial protection act. These three bills all recognize the need to protect some of americas most iconic and important public lands. The house, mr. Speaker, will also consider h. R. 4695, the protect against conflict by turkey act. This bipartisan legislation, cosponsored by the chair and Ranking Member they have Foreign Affairs committee, provides a strong targeted response to the crisis caused by turkeys invasion of northern syria. It sanctions senior turkish officials involved in the decision and those committing human rights abuses and penalizes turkish Financial Institutions involved in perpetuating president erdogans practices. Lastly, the house will consider h. Res. 296, affirming the United States record on the armenian genocide. I yield back. Mr. Scalise i thank the gentleman for yielding back. I would like the gentleman to walk through if he could the schedule in process for how the house will further proceed with impeachment inquiry. Mr. Hoyer if the gentleman will yield. I cannot respond at this point in time, we have not made the decision to move ahead. The committees are considering it. If they decide that the house should move forward we will make that decision. I yield back. Mr. Scalise again i ask the question i asked last week, are currently in an impeachment inquiry as the speaker said we are a few weeks ago . Mr. Hoyer i will respond as i responded last week, we are doing our constitutional duty of oversight of the administration and the actions of the president of the United States to determine whether or not there have been violations of law, whether the president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, and when that those hearings are concluded, obviously they will make some determination and make recommendations to the house as they do with other matters that the committees consider. I yield. Mr. Scalise this determination moves forward, theres a growing cry for fairness and i know we talked a little bit about that last week. But we saw it again this week with more closed hearings. More hearings where both sides were not allowed the same equal rights that have always been provided in impeachment inquiries and of course when you look through our nations history, fortunately, there are not that many instances where congress had to try to impeach or inquire about impeaching a president. Three times. In all three cases it started with a vote of the full house and it started with a fair set of rules. And in the last two that were e most public, where you saw the proceedings on television, ou saw both sides vote for nixon, you had a democrat house and republican president , and then for the clinton impeachment, you had had a Republican House and democrat president. They used the same set of rules. Both sides got to call witnesses. Both sides got to subpoena. The president s Legal Counsel got to be in the room. And maybe most importantly, the public got to be in the room. Members of Congress Even if they werent on the relevant committees were allowed to watch these hearings. Thats not going on today. These hearings are going on in secret in a secret room, a number of my colleagues and i went down to see whats going on, to see the hearings, turned out what we found out in the skiff which is designed for classified briefings, it wasnt a classified briefing. The chairman himself acknowledged that it was not a classified briefing. In fact it included a department of defense official. Members of the Armed Services committee asked if they could be able to participate in that hearing and they were denied the ability. So when the press cant see whats going on, when the public cant see whats going on, when members of congress try to see whats going on and the chairman takes the witness and runs out of the room, it begs the question, what are they trying to hide . What kind of tainted document are they creating if it is an impeachment inquiry. And if its not then stop trying to use two different sets of rule. But if it is and the speaker herself is the one who said it is an impeachment inquiry, at a minimum, the same standards that have always been used for that serious of a process, the house of representatives has a constitutional ability to ultimately make this kind of decision. Again, its only been done three time bus in each of those cases, there were fair sets of rules used so you could actually find out what was happening and if there was something that reached the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. Not based on what one person decided but based on everybody being able to present the evidence. Everybody being able to bring witnesses forward. And thats not happening right now. And it ought to change. And i would hope and ask the gentleman if this is going to continue moving forward, if theres going to be any credibility to whatever report would come out of it, theres much less credibility if its done in secret with one person and one person only getting to choose who comes forth to testify as opposed to an open process as has always been the case in our countrys history. I yield. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, no matter how many the the gentleman gentleman from louisiana, the republican whip, says that these are unfair hearings, or that theyre secret hearings, or that republicans cant participate, no matter how many time he is says that, it will not be true. He talks about secret hearings. Ill show you the front page of the Washington Post about the hearing yesterday. Its on the front page. Now i know your members can read. There are over 105 members, 40 or so of your members, who are authorized to sit in the ommittee. The president , mr. Speaker, called republicans and he has tweeted about how they need to be tougher. Well, i want to ask, mr. Speaker, is when are they going to focus on defending the constitution of the United States. And i ask the gentleman, does he believe that the president is above the law . I yield . Mr. Scalise i would imagine the gentleman would also agree that the chairman of the Intelligence Committee should also not be above the law. He shouldnt be able to write his own rules of impeachment and engagement in secret. These meetings are being held in secret and when we went into the room today, he ran out with the witness. Now, what are you trying to hide when as any kind of secret hearing, if you turn the lights on and run out of the room when the lights come on, what is going on . Mr. Hoyer read the paper. Mr. Scalise the only way you can find out what happens in those secret hearings is reading the paper because somebody on the majority staff is leaking against the direction of the direction, selectively leaking information to the press. The press knows more about this impeachment inquiry than voting members of congress. 75 , 75 of this congress is denied access to those hearings, 75 mrs. Maybe you can read what was leaked by somebody on your majority staff, mr. Speaker, maybe thats where you can get your information, because thats the only place to get information. That shouldnt be where members of congress have to find out what happened. And you talk to some of the people in the room and they were directed by the chairman not to say anything. He can Say Something. Somebody on his staff can Say Something and he hasnt done anything to control the leaks and there are lots of other testimony that was leaked to the paper. And nobody knows because they are denied access. If you take the voting members of congress who are not allowed in that room, it represents over 230 million american citizens who are denied representation in those impeachment hearings, over 230 million americans who are denied access because 75 of voting members of congress are not allowed in the room. You can talk about who is allowed in the room. Everybody should be allowed in the room. The press should be allowed in the room. Cameras should be allowed in the room. If you want to try to remove the president , and you are concerned about what might happen next year, thats not why you impeach a president , but if you want to search for the truth, you search for the truth in public. The people of this country. Shouldnt be a selected story in the newspaper that was leaked by the majority staff. It should be something that every member of congress who is going to be asked to vote on this. We cant go and read the transcripts, 75 of us cant. And yet thats the process that is going on right now. If you want to call that fair, maybe its fair to you, but is it really the justice that we look for across the street at the supreme court. Imagine if only one side the accused couldnt present witnesses. You could accuse anybody of anything and you have that ability as you do right now and tie the hands behind the back because they cant be in the room. The other side cant bring witnesses forward, there are witnesses that our witnesses would like to bring forward and they arent allowed that opportunity. Thats not fair. Maybe in the soviet union thats fair, not in the United States of america. Not how you should be running an impeachment operation to take out a president of the United States. Let the people make that decision, not one person sitting in a secret room downstairs keeping other people out when members of congress who are trying to find out, he runs out of the room with the witness, is that really the fair process that this country deserves . We can absolutely do better than this. And i would yield. Mr. Hoyer mr. Speaker, as usual , the whip did not answer my question. I said is the president above the law . And he wants to pound on the table, mr. Speaker. Neither the facts or the law are on his side. And the process is consistent with the rules put in place by the current secretary of state, mr. Pompeo and mr. Trey gowdy, who was a member of this body. Let me ask the gentleman, mr. Speaker, does he believe it appropriate that the Congress Help ties 391 million to i ally confront russia, which understand mr. Putin probably wasnt for, does he believe that the president should have withheld that money from ukraine to defend itself on its Eastern Front . Mr. Scalise would the gentleman yield. As we have this conversation, the law requires the president to verify that there is not corruption involved with the taxpayer money thats in question. Thats a law we passed. I believe the gentleman from maryland voted as i did, voted for that law. Its a good law. If we are going to send taxpayer money to a foreign country, we ought to make sure there are no corruption. A lot of the interference in our election by the russians went through ukraine in 2016. President trump wasnt the president back then when this country was allowing, but he is looking into it as he should be. Mr. Hoyer that is a baldfaced assertion that he has no way to back it up. It is not true and no way to back that up. And the gentleman must know that. I yield. Mr. Scalise again, we can talk about why we needed to root out corruption and why we want to find out what happened in the 2016 election where the russians tried to interfere. We dont want it to happen again. We also know that President Trump sold javelin missiles to ukraine so they could protect themselves against the russians, the aggression that the gentleman gentleman was talking about where the previous president allowed the russians to come in crimea when ukraine was asking us to help them. Back when president obama was in office, and he wouldnt do it. He never answered why he wouldnt. But President Trump did. And allowed ukraine to defend themselves against the russians and they talked about maybe buying more. But they were allowed to buy what they needed to defend themselves. Im glad they did. And it helped a friend. And all of those things that are going on with impeachment, the real issue is, its not happening here in this congress and ill refer you to a different newspaper. The front page of the washington times, democrats writing more subpoenas than laws. Impeachment inquiry side lined pelosis agenda. If you look at the difference between subpoenas and bills that came on this house that are actually signed into law, you produced 56 subpoenas. You have only produced 46 laws. That is 20 more subpoenas that you produced than laws to help people across this country. Mr. Hoyer would the gentleman like to know the reason for that . Mr. Scalise all of the things that this house could be doing, like lowering better drug prices and better trade deals with our friends in canada and mexico. They cant come behind it because there is an infatuation with impeachment. Sovietstyle star chamber. This is not what is happening. This is what is happening. Not what the American People expected out of this majority. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for yielding. We passed over 250 bills. The senate wont take them up, particularly one bill that says what 90 of the American People want done, pass a comprehensive background check to make their communities safer. No wonder it cant be signed because they wont bring up any of our bills so the Republican Leadership in the senate stops our bills from going to the senate, not even being considered. And then they have a poster saying you havent passed any bills. Oh, no, we passed them and the American People support them. Yes, we had an election in 2018 and the people spoke, which is why im the majority leader and you are the minority whip. We honor those elections and when you were in the majority, you passed bills you wanted to pass. So i tell my friend, its an interesting poster, but it is a reflection of the refusal of the republicans in the United States senate to consider legislation supported by the overwhelming majority of the American People. How sad. But let me ask you again, are you saying it was right to keep the 391 million to refuse to have a meeting with mr. Did he lens ki at the white house until he agreed to conduct a political investigation that would advantage the president of the United States. Do you believe that is right . Al mr. Scalise you are making a an assertion. This alleged quid pro quo didnt happen. And he got the money. He got the money. Now we had the check to make sure like the law says in two different places, we have two different sets of law that require the administration to ensure there is not corruption before they send the money. And i can assure the gentleman from maryland, if he would have sent the money over and corruption involved, you would be going after him for not following the law. You and i voted for the law. Its a good law and then he ultimately released the money. And you talk about the javelin missiles, he sold it to them before the phone call even happened because a friend was saying protect us against russia. President obama wouldnt stand up against russia and President Trump said ill sell you those missiles so you can defend yourself against the russians nd did he lens ki was thanking the lensky and to root out corruption and interference that happened with russia in our 2016 election which i would hope we could root out together. All of us should want to make sure that doesnt happen again. I would yield. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for yielding. Of course, the acting chief of staff who is the acting head of o. M. B. , not technically but actually, in my view, he said, there was a quid pro quo. Now i tried to clean it up. I get that. I get that. But he said yes, there was a quid pro quo. And you read the transcript and report of the substance of the conversation in which it brings up a number of things including joe biden and hunter biden. And yes, we now have testimony that says there was a quid pro quo that was going to be no meeting at the white house, there was going to be no sending of the 391 million that we thought was essential for our ukranian friends defending democracy in ukraine from putin. Now we got a more recent action where a telephone conversation with erdogan led to another headline on that same page. Russia and turkey reach deal on syria. America in retreat. Merica no longer a factor in rying to bring peace mr. Speaker, i ask a question. Is the president above the law . I asked another question. Is it right to keep the 391 million we appropriated because we thought ukraine was at great risk . And again the question wasnt answered. It was answered with a question and with an assertion that the president had the authority to make sure that there wasnt corruption. In the ukraine. R. Speaker, we are concerned whether there is corruption in he United States of america. That concerns us. And thats why these hearings are proceeding. Consistent with our constitutional duty and all the republicans can do is not defend the actions because they are indefensible. All they can do is talking about process. 1,000 subpoenas. Issued by dan burton. When he was republican chairman of the government reform committee. 100 subpoenas. Unilaterally. Under the gowdy rule, under the pompeo rule, under the republican rules. Unilaterally. Tre gowdy himself was chairman of the benghazi select committee, three dozen subpoenas. Without any input. Under the gowdypompeo rules. O i ask the gentleman. Do you think its consistent with our constitution that the president of the United States suggests to a foreign leader that they become involved in our elections . And i yield. Mr. Scalise i thank the gentleman for yielding and first of all, its in the a question, its a false assertion the gentleman is making. You can make claims about people but ultimately if its not backed up in fact you just continue on. This has been the pattern of this majority really since before you took the majority. Its been an assertion to impeach the president. Finding something, if theres nothing there keep looking. You had the Mueller Investigation. 2,800 subpoenas. 22 months me andering around looking for something. Hoping, and we saw the chairman of the Intelligence Committee said publicly, time and time again for two years, that he himself had more than circumstantial evidence of criminal acts. Turned out there were none. The chairman never showed the evidence that he had. You know, maybe he went and had a meeting with mueller and mueller discarded it. But if he really did have more than circumstantial evidence, he would have brought it forward. He would have shown all of us. But he didnt. He made the assertion but it was a false assertion. If it wasnt false, by the way, i would challenge the gentleman to bring it forward. He ought to have that duty. Mr. Hoyer were in that process. Mr. Scalise were talking about the Mueller Investigation but it didnt happen. So the collusion argument that was supposedly going to yield some kind of ability to impeach the president didnt turn out to be true. So instead of stopping and moving on to the business of the American People, instead of more subpoenas not law, no lower drug prices because its an impeachment infatuation. Instead of moving on, they went to this. Because there was this whistleblower. And lets go back to the memo of the whistleblower. Before the whistleblower complaint. The whistleblower wrote a memo. Admittedly they never listened to the phone conversation but they talked to other people. If it was so dangerous what those other people heard, they had a legal ability and authority to go and file their own whistleblower complaint but they didnt. So someone with a political bias by the inspector generals own admission, a person with a political bias who had access to information that was classified in violation of law hears what they want to hear, writes a memo saying it was crazy. It was disturbing. Those were the words that the whistleblower wrote about the phone conversation. Lo and behold, the phone conversation gets released by the president. It was unprecedented. He didnt have to do it. Might have preferred if he didnt do it, because you dont want a pattern where every conversation between World Leaders is going to be out in the public. But ok, it is now. And all of those assertions that were made were false. Wasnt a crazy conversation. Wasnt a disturbing conversation. It was two people talking about one congratulating the other on his election. One talking about how he got elected on a platform of rooting out corruption, which hes doing, and were helping them with. That was the conversation. So now the whistleblower isnt even going to be brought forward, according to the chairman, because the chairman is the only person who gets to bring witnesses forward. So then the gentleman talked about tre gowdys committee, the benghazi committee. Tries to use that as a Reference Point for holding an impeachment inquiry. Lets all be clear. Tre gowdys economy on committee on benghazi was a special select committee to find out what happened. Ill ultimately yield but you mentioned all these things, so i want to clear up the things the gentleman mentioned. So the tre Gowdy Committee where four americans died and we were trying to get to the bottom of that. Not to impeach anybody but to find out how father americans died when people should have known that there was danger over there and the proper precautions werent taken. And so he had a committee. Do you know, id ask the gentleman from maryland, that chairman gowdy allowed the minority to call witnesses . He didnt sit there and say hey i won and you lost so i can roll over you and then back up the car again. Thats not what tre gowdy did. He was the chairman but he let the Ranking Member, the minority leader, of the committee, call their witnesses. Thats not happening right now. Not one witness has been allowed by our side. Closed hearings. To the public. If this is something that youre so concerned about, if youre concerned about corruption, why root it out in secret behind closed doors with a one sided set of rules that represents and reflects more how the soviet union would conduct Something Like this as opposed to how the United States of america has always conducted impeachment inquiries. Were talking about impeachment inquiries, in secret, behind closed doors. So yes, the gentleman raised a lot of issues. I wanted to go back to each of those. So what we asked for is the same fairness that has always been allowed, both sides, not just the winning side, both sides. This is america. I would yield. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for yielding. What he didnt mention was the benghazi gowdy commission was the eighth republicanled investigation of that matter. They all reached the same conclusion. And found no they found no evidence of wrongdoing. Eight republicanled, and they kept at it, over and over and over again. Why . As the majority as the minority leader said, on television, well, no we got something out of it, we got some dirt on hillary clinton. I dont think it was dirt. It was the use of a computer. Which by the way some of the trump family is doing the same thing. Somewhat irrelevant. What is relevant is not all this stuff about fairness and this, that, and the other. We are following the constitution. We are following the rules of this house. We are following the law. And every legal scholar that ive read asserts that. The only people that dont assert that are the people who are afraid of the facts. Afraid of whats been done. I ask the gentleman questions, do you think this is right . Do you think the president is above the law . And he mentioned the Mueller Report, what he fails to mention and he just ignores is the Mueller Report said there was evidence to suggest that there follow the ure to law and cooperate with the law, in other words, obstruction of justice. Ut, he said Justice Department rules, of which he was an employee, do not provide for the ability to indict a president of the United States. That did not mean there wasnt obstruction of justice. What he said was, this is the body to deal with this matter. So were following our constitutional duty an we are going to continue to do so. And there are going to be public hearings. Theres going to be debate. Theres going to be voting on the rules if something is brought to the floor. And full opportunity to debate on both sides of the aisle. Right now, of course, there are members of the committee, you would think this is somehow mr. Schiff and the democrats meeting in some secret room. They are meeting with the republican members of the committee. By the way, i asked you about the question about mr. Nunes, but mr. Nunes comes sometimes and doesnt come sometimes. Mr. Meadows is apparently always there. So he can always tell you whats going on. This is an endless debate. If the republicans think we are violating the law, of course they can go to court, as we have been forced to do by this president who has instructed people not to cooperate with congress, not to testify before the congress, because he feels aggrieved. He will have his day in court. Thats how we run these kinds of events in america. Under our constitution, under our laws. And yes, he will have due process. But right now were trying to find out whether there is probable cause to believe the president of the United States committed high crimes and zheerns and abused the power of his office. As hall im hamilton said the purpose of the provision was designed to address. Hamilton said that in two of the federalist papers. But were going to endlessly talk about fairness with republicans sitting in the committee. He asserts with no knowledge that somehow the democrats members of the committee released this information. Im not sure how the paper got this information. I know they get almost all the information on all these networks. But this was the testimony that was prepared by the witness who was there. Who was there. Talks about the whistleblower and hearsay. What he doesnt talk about, does he believe the president is above the law . Does he believe its appropriate . And the transcript, i can read it again, its not i keep saying transcript, its not, the report of the phone call, that the president thought was ok, thats why he released it. He thought it was perfect. In addition he said, the other thing, you know, theres a lot of talk about bidens son. Biden a lot of people want to find out about that. Whatever you can do with the attorney. He wants his lawyer, should be the Justice Departments lawyer, but mr. Barr, to participate. And of course he wanted mr. Giuliani to participate. As well. So mr. Speaker, i would conclude. Were going down this rabbit hole too long. Were going to have hearings. Were going to find out the truth. And we are finding out the truth every day and every day our republican colleagues get more nervous. Every day theres some republican that says, i dont know how long i can defend President Trump. Every day thats happening now because the facts are coming out. When you dont have the facts, as ive said, mr. Speaker, you attack the process. Republicans know the facts arent on their side. They cant answer the fundamental question. Is it acceptable for a president to seek foreign interference in elections . And they will say oh theres no proof of that. And the problem they have is almost every day, theres proof of that. Not hearsay. Yes, the whistleblower did the right thing. The whistleblower heard something that he felt was dangerous to our national security. To our men and women in uniform and to the democracy that we hold so dear. And so he said something. Youve seen the signs, see something, Say Something. He heard this. And one could say, well, he didnt hear it. Ut then the president admitted it. Then the chief of staff, acting chief of staff, mr. Mulvaney, said yes, thats what we did. And he instructed, dont give that money to the ukrainians. Those are facts. We know those facts. So i tell my friend, we really ought to conclude this, we believe were following the law, if you dont feel were following the law, go to court just as we had to go to court with the president refusing to cooperate with the congress of the United States and its constitutional duty. Were going to be fair. And im sure the senate will be fair if we take action here. And i dont know that were going to take action. That hasnt been decided. But we are going to continue to find the truth. To try to get to the bottom of what has happened. Frankly think what we did in turkey, and that erdogan phone call, is as damaging to the interests of the United States of america. He talks about the public. The public ought to know. I want any member of the congress, ill yield to, to tell me what the deal was between putin and trump. When they met trump when they met in private and refused to tell anybody. Mr. Trump is a Great Disclosure discloser. He said, i have nothing to hide my tax returns and ill show my tax returns. That was three years ago. We have, by law, requested those returns. It has been denied. It has been denied. No openness. No, mr. And mrs. America, this is what my interests are, im acting in your interests, not in mine. Doral. He decided that was too much. Republicans criticized him. And on this, mr. Speaker, on turkey, we had a vote on this house. He was really angry about that vote. 354 people of this house said, this is wrong, mr. President. This is harmful to our allies. Youre exposing allies that we asked to participate to confront terrorists, youre letting them out perhaps to be murdered and slaughtered. 35460, we voted on that. We need to deal with the facts. And were going to find out the facts. No matter how hard the republicans want to pound on the table. Talk about process. And ignore any discussion on the substance of what is being disclosed. So, mr. Speaker, im going to yield. Its the last time i will yield. We can conclude this colloquy, because its not going to come to any end. I understand the gentlemans perception. I think hes misrepresenting, each time he says this, that this is not a fair procedure or that this is not a procedure consistent with the rules the republicans adopted in their rules package when they were in the majority. , i hope that we can move on decide what the facts are, have a committee recommendation, as is the process of this house. And then have a vote on the floor of the house if such is required and the committees decide that moving forward is appropriate under the facts deduced by those committees. And i yield back the balance of my time. Mr. Scalise i thank the gentleman for yielding. If we really are about getting that you ts, to think can suggest its a fair process, when only one side gets to choose who the witnesses are, again, the gentleman references trey gowdys committee. Chairman gowdy allowed both sides, republican and democrat, to bring forward witnesses. Because he wanted to get the facts. If you really wanted to get the facts, would the chairman of the committee literally take the witness and run out of the room as soon as other voting members of congress showed up . That happened today. If the chairman really wanted to get the facts out, would he literally close the meetings, tell all members, republican and democrat, not to go talk to the press, and then somebody mysteriously selectively leaks things to the press that are negative, in many cases disputed by other testimony that was given in secret, and so it cant get out, and so you get one side of the story. I guess if you are ok with having only one side of a story told, that might be your prerogative, because youre in the majority. But dont call that fair. Its clearly not fair if only one side gets to tell their story and the other side doesnt get to bring their witnesses. The president , who youre accusing of possibly committing some crime so high, high crime and misdemeanor is the standard, it youre accusing him if youre accusing him of that, you cant lay it out yet, youre looking around for something, which isnt the process, by the way, thats been used in the past. You dont like the results of an election, theres an election next year. If you dont trust the people of this country to make that decision, do you really go into a star chamber and run a sovietstyle set of hearings where only one side gets to tell their side of the story . Mr. Hoyer watch your words, mr. Scalise. You and i both know it has no analogy to what you have just said. You ought to know that. If you dont know it, you ought to sit down with your counsel and find out about it. That is an allegation that is absolutely untrue and mr. Scalise what is the allegation thats untrue . Mr. Hoyer very offensive. Mr. Scalise who can call the witnesss . Just your side. You think its fair that only you can call the witnesses. And then you want to get the truth . Are you going to get the facts when you shut out the other side . When you dont let the president have his own Legal Counsel there . Like has always been done. Mr. Hoyer do you have any idea what a grand jury is . Mr. Scalise this is not a grand jury. This is the United States house of representatives. Mr. Hoyer of course it is. Mr. Scalise if you want to run a grand jury, go get a jury. This is the United States congress. Voting members of congress are being shut out of the room, mr. Speaker. Voting members of congress are being shut out of this process. You want to call that fair, good luck. But its not fair. Its a onesided process to create a document with a determined outcome. Its going to be a tainted document, because it only tells one side of the story. The old saying, a grand jury can indict a ham sandwich if they want to. Theres a reason for that because only one side can call witnesses. When weve had impeachment inquiries in the past, you dont have to reinvent the wheel. Its only happened three times. And in modern times, theyve used the exact same standard. And the standard is both sides get to call witnesses. Thats not gone on right now. It was done in public. Thats not being done right now. Its going on in secret. The press cant go in. You cant go in. I cant go in unless they run out with the witness. Thats not a fair process. Maybe thats the process that you want to conduct. But dont call it fair. Because its not. And ultimately its not going to result in a fair document thats going to be determined determining whether or not a president of the United States is impeached. And members of both sides, 75 of the members of this body, republican and democrat, are going to be asked to cast a vote on something that they cant even go and determine and find out about. They cant sit in the hearings. They cant read the testimony. 230 million americans are represented in those members of congress who cannot get access to whats going on in that room. Maybe you can get it from reading leaked press reports. Is that really how you determine whether or not to impeach a president of the United States . Thats not fair. And i would yield. Mr. Hoyer i hesitate to respond because this is a circular discussion. Mr. Scalise and the Republican Party at the behest of mr. Trump need to get tougher. They cant mention the facts. The facts are known by the transcript that the president sent down here, again, not transcript, a report of the telephone call, the statement of the ambassador, i think a former u. S. Marine. They dont want it to talk about the facts. I get that to talk about the facts. I get that. So we can go round and round in circles. I will tell you, to have eight hearings on benghazi, dont give me this trey gowdy led all this to happen and that to happen. It was the eighth hearing you republicans had on that one subject. Eight. And you never got the result you wanted. So you just kept doing it. Over and over and over. Getting the same result. E all know that quote. There are going to be public hearings, mr. Speaker. There are going to be public hearings when the witnesses cant check one another, cant give one story and then parrot the other story. Story that was said. The ambassador, of course, i dont know that he was our friend. He was the president s friend. Big contributor. Special envoy to the european union. But apparently doing parttime work in ukraine. Along with mr. Giuliani. The facts are going to come out, mr. Speaker. And theyre going to try to say, oh, the process. Youre going to have public hearings. Mr. Schiff has said so. He said so in his letter. And youre going to have to answer the question, do i believe that the conduct that has basketball pursued by the president of the been pursued by the president of the United States, if he were a democrat, would i believe that was right . Thats the question youre going to have to answer. Its going to be a tough question for your side. Because the facts almost every day become mounting up. So i would urge my friend, lets conclude this discussion, because im not going to agree with you and youre not going to agree with me. But ultimately, the American People and those 236 Million People you talk about, theyre not going to be any indictment, there isnt going to be any impeachment unless 218 of us in this body vote and were all going to vote. Its not going to be any star chamber everybodys going to have to vote. And then theyre going to have to answer to their constituents, did i vote my conscience or did i vote my politics . Nd i yield back. I yield back. Mr. Scalise the gentleman yields. And dont know if the gentlemans asserting that we will have a vote on impeachment, that might be breaking news. But if these members, all of us, are going to vote on impeachment , shouldnt we be able to be able to see what goes on . Shouldnt we be able mr. Hoyer the answer to that question, mr. Speaker, is yes. And you will. Mr. Scalise shouldnt we have access to the transcripts . Can we now . I would ask the gentleman, could he release the transcripts now of these hearings, so members can start preparing, members know what theyre going to vote on. Are you going to keep it in secret and then drop something on the floor after its been baked and predetermined what the outcome should be . Before members really have an idea of whats going on in those rooms . That are being denied entrance to those rooms right now. Its never happened before. In other impeachment inquiries. And you can say its about process. Mr. Hoyer i dont say that. I dont say that. Mr. Scalise its about history. But youve mocked the idea that the process is tainted. That the process is being run like it might be run in the soviet union. Not in the United States of america. Its never been done like that before. And you talk about trey gowdy as if we were looking around for something to impeach a president on. We werent. You had four americans die. You had a lot of questions that still havent been answered about why those americans died. And all of us should be concerned about what happened at benghazi. To ridicule the fact that there were eight hearings on something so alarming, nobody was fishing around looking. By the way, we never tried to impeach the president over anything. All of the things that we disagreed with him on, none of those. Even times when he would sign executive orders that circumvented the law. We would challenge him in the courts and we won a number of those court cases. But that doesnt mean it rose to the level of high crimes and miss demeaners. So we never went down that road. But maybe some in a part of a base want to see impeachment no matter what. And some have said that. Some in your own party have said they just want to impeach the president because if they dont, he will get reelected. Thats been said by members of your party. Thats not why you impeach a president , because you think hes going to get reelected. The American People make that determination. Next year. Weve had investigations after investigations, again, mueller alone had 2,800 subpoenas. He had the full authority to bring charges against the president. On collusion, on obstruction, even the attorney general said, even the attorney general said that he had the authority to bring charges, but even if he did have those, he wouldnt have brought charges. On obstruction. But there wasnt obstruction. And there wasnt collusion. But he had full authority to bring charges on both fronts and he didnt. But again, 22 months of that meandering witch hunt to try to find something. And it wasnt found because it wasnt there. And then you had the whistleblower. The socalled whistleblower who, if youre worried about whos talking to somebody to try to get their story straight, interestingly, the whistleblower , who, again, was identified to be somebody with a political bias, went and met with chairman schiffs staff prior to filing the whistleblower complaint. Yeah. Somebody did collude. Real interesting how that happened. Before the whistleblower complaint was filed, they actually sat down with the staff of the majority leader, chairman schiff. And lo and behold, get a political document that comes out. With allegations, disproven in many cases, but thats where we are. Thats the basis for starting an impeachment inquiry. Thats not really an impeachment inquiry, because were not following the same rules that have always been followed under an impeachment inquiry. But thats the genesis of this. And thats where we are. And if thats where the documents going to ultimately yield, it will be a tainted document. But i guess if you want to find an outcome, this isnt a grand jury. This is the United States house of representatives. And there are 75 of this body who are going to be asked to vote on something that they cannot see. Thats not what this country is all about. I would yield. Mr. Hoyer the gentleman keeps misstating the facts and the law and the process. Every member is going to have access to all the documents, all the testimony, before they are asked to vote on it. Period. Mr. Scalise when . Mr. Hoyer when theyre concluding their private sessions which are trying to get at the facts and not have them tainted by some circus. And everybody is going to have the right to see what evidence is adduced. That is the fear, of course, and i again suggest that the. Entleman think of this we saw these headlines, it was a democratic president and turkey and russia were deciding whats happening in the midd east, and deciding whether theyre going to go after isis, our ally , and then this other headlines replete with the aid to ukraine was conditied on a quid pro quo or you wouldnt get to be in the white house, wouldnt get the 390 million, you would be outraged, youd be on the ceiling mr. Scalise i would if it was true but its not. I cant find out what the truth is because you can only read it in the press because of selective leaking. Thats how members of congress are supposed to make a decision based on selective leaks to the president. Mr. Hoyer starr might as well mr. Scalise heres another headline, democrats writing more subpoenas than headline, thats what angers people who want to see Prescription Drug prices go lower but they cant because of washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Thursday morning we will discuss the latest on the troop withdrawal from syria and House Democrats impeachment inquiry with Anthony Brown and Florida Republican congressman michael waltz. Washington examiners Kimberly Leonard talks about the future of health care. Watch washington journal live at 7 00 eastern thursday morning. Join the discussion. Tv has livebook coverage of the texas book festival from austin starting saturday 11 00 eastern, with discussions on the trump immigrations trump immigrationons policy. The life and career of former u. S. Ambassador Samantha Power and the impact of disinformation with the former undersecretary of state richard stangl. Our live coverage from the book coverage continues sunday noon jumprn with surgeon and a Johns Hopkins university professor. Recounting her time as a cia operative. And andy candy. Be sure to watch our coverage of the texas book festival starting 11 00 eastern saturday and noon sunday. Be sure to catch the Miami Book Fair next month on book tv on cspan 2. This week british Prime MinisterBoris Johnson saw his latest proposal get blocked from being fast tracked in parliament as the u. K. Gets closer to a deadline for leaving the european