Questions, just stand up where you are as cspan has a boom microphone that we will put in front of you so the world will be able to hear your questions. [laughter] our also want to introduce two state legislators who represent the germantown and richfield area. Senator alberta and representative joelle. Here to listen to your comments and answer your questions about whats going on in madison, while i try to do the same on federal issues. Try to do the same on federal issues. For 40 years i have done more than any person in congress. Whatsy job to report going on in washington. While i have announced that i will retire at the end of my 2021, iterm in january, will continue to hold these meetings and do the jobs that taxpayers have elected me to do. It has been a privilege to be your representative, and i think you for your support. I want to be sure to review the rules we need to adhere to so we can have an orderly environment in which to exchange ideas. I ask all of you to sign in with my staff. If you would like an opportunity to speak, you need to check the speaking box that appears on the sign in slip. That way i will know to call on you during the first portion of the meeting, which will be devoted to a discussion of general issues, either pending in washington or madison. I will be giving priority to those of you who will reside in germantown and richfield. If time permits, i will call on other residents of the fifth district. If additional time is available, i will call on those who do not reside in the fifth district. This part of the meeting last last about an hour and two minutes, or be over by 2 20, whichever comes earlier. I expect participants to be respectful. If the question you would like to ask and comment you would like to make has already been made, please reflect please refrain from asking it again. We should try to hear from as many of you as we can with as many issues as we can within the time or string. If at any time participants become root or disrupted, i will have to immediately adjourn the meeting. We can all agree without being disagreeable. The second part of the meeting will be devoted to those who seek our help with personal problems they are experiencing with federer with state or federal government agencies. As part of the meeting is an opportunity for us to have a oneonone private conversation, and is not the time to continue discussions from the general part of the meeting. Filming or recorded of this is prohibited during this part of the meeting. Is becausei say this half of the people who end up having these kinds of personal problems withved v. A. Medical, and the world does not need to know about that because there has to be some privacy involved so that i can help and people around the world dont comment on what kind of a medical issue you have. With those rules in mind, first up is marie of Whispering Woods court in ridgefield. I just want to say thank you, congressman for all the years of service to wisconsin and to the country. With your retirement the country is losing a great scholar of the constitution. I only pray that next year we could take back the house and follow the constitution and due process. What i would love to know is this spirit with what went on last week, how can we, u. S. Citizens, the man the house to have a fair and impartial hearing on the socalled impeachment . Lies the constitution being ignored . You willenbrenner have to ask that of adam schiff and nancy pelosi. I was involved in the clinton impeachment 20 years ago. We did a entirely differently. We gave the president an opportunity to defend himself before the Judiciary Committee. Adam schiff is not allowing that to happen. With the secret bunker hearings, he did not even allow the president s council to be in the room to look at what the witnesses said. We also allow the president to crossexamine prosecution witnesses, including kenneth ther, the special counsel, president s counsel is not allowed to do that. We allowed the president and his accuser,o confront his which is in the constitution. Adam schiff is not allowing that to happen. We are now into the public phase of the hearings. Again, the president s counsel is not allowed to participate. Hem what happened last week, is violating one rule after the other by refusing to recognize people who have legitimate andts of order parliamentary inquiries on the republican side. I am afraid it will get worse when it gets to the Judiciary Committee. Is supposed to present his report to the Judiciary Committee. Which up until now, has had an exclusive jurisdiction over all federal impeachments. Not just president s, but federal judges as well. Chairman radler, from new york, gave mr. Mueller a chance to present his findings on the russia probe to the Judiciary Committee. About three hours one morning finding out that there was no collusion and no obstruction on that. There has been a pivot involved in that. Think that, at a bare minimum, mr. Schiff ought to report his report to the judiciary. Ommittee be subjected to answering questions on both sides of the on what he concluded. I believe the president needs to have some time to present a defense. It is blatantly unfair. In my opinion, violation of due constitution,he that the person who is accused in this inquiry, the president of the United States, is not even allowed to present a defense to the Intelligence Committee and to the American Public. Its a kangaroo court. If the kind of Star Chamber Courts that they had in medieval england, and more recently in soviet russia. Mr. Schiff ought to be ashamed of himself. He is the one that is violating the constitution, and house rules, and fairness left and right. Jim nielsen of germantown. Of scott wondering walker, when he was governor, he left his state in the black. We have a new governor now. He is talking, about raising the gas tax next year. He will not do it this year, he will give us a break, and raise the gas tax. Going to got money if he raises it . 20 or . 30 a gallon . Is it going to go to roads, or will he go somewhere else . Rep. Sensenbrenner i will defer to the state legislators because that is a state issue question. Thank you very much congressman. I am a cochair of the budget committee. This year the governor put in raising taxes. He included a lot of issues that we do not accept. , we held the line on property tax, we held the line on spending, and we held the line on raising new taxes as well as the fuel gas tax, the one he wanted us to look at. Assured of the things that the governor will like to do. If they are not good for the state, we will do them. You might have read that wisconsin has come down from being the ninth most taxed state in the country. We are projected to get into 19. That is why we have given back a lot of that money because we think if we are getting surpluses continually, that we need to give that back to the people. Are here in defense against the increase in taxes. We have been clear about that. We have made a lot of decisions on the behalf of wisconsin. , according to the marquette poll. The majority of people think we are on the right track. Look at employment, we are on the right track. If you look at labor we are on the right track. Issue right now is developing a labor force that we can accommodate all this growth. We are in a good position and we will not raise taxes, especially property taxes and fuel taxes. He has to go through the finance committee. We will not raise taxes on you. The budget is done on a biannual process. Thats every two years. There would be no tax increases that would be a surprise next year. Also, the governor does not change the strings per se. It does go to the legislative process to the senate and assembly. As you heard from a senator, we are not increasing any taxes. There should be no supplies is next year on a gas tax. , mistynsenbrenner sandy way germantown. Sandy thank you for holding this meeting today. I do have a comment on the impeachment. My understanding is the closeddoor hearings were part of a discovery period to decide if they would proceed in public with it. And if they decided not to comment that way information would not be exposed. I also understand that the president informed people that were subpoenaed from his administration not to attend and to disregard the subpoenas. Those would have been the people who could have defended the people the president if he had done nothing wrong. The reason we are in the public hearings right now is because they did find warrant to continue with the hearings publicly so that the public could hear what was going on. This is not the part of the process in the house where the president defends himself. He has not been charged with anything as of yet. It is a discovery period. Its a gathering of knowledge. The senate is where the president gets to defend himself, and where he gets to bring in his people. They have made it very clear at the hearings this week that anyone who wants to defend the president , or the president himself, they are more than welcome to come to this hearings and voice what they believed happened. So, when you make your statement, if not totally accurate and not totally fair. [applause] rep. Sensenbrenner that is not the way it worked when either the clinton impeachment, which was republicans versus the or thetic president , nixon impeachment, which was the Democratic House versus richard nixon. The house of, in representatives, the president was able to call witnesses, the president was able to crossexamine witnesses that adverse to that were his interest. The socalled hearings from the bunker, there are all kinds of selective leaks. Immaterial that was adverse to the president. They were not secret at all. The only people who could not talk about it were people who were in the room the gaza was supposedly confidential. Everybody knew day by day by day through these leaks, which were orchestrated by the democratic side of the aisle, what the witnesses were doing, how they were testifying against the president. It is hearing one side of the story day after day after day. Again, i am a lawyer. All of this hearsay evidence would not be admissible in any court in the United States. Yet either a civil or a criminal trial because its hearsay. Jurors, the people who are to decide, which is all 435 representatives, should be able to see the demeanor of the witnesses rather than reading a text that ends up being released. Y the Intelligence Committee the jurors can make a determination. What is taking place. Anyone can turn on their televisions, watch them and make their own decisions. This is also my and the judicial. This is an impeachment hearing, which is not the same that you have. [applause] rep. Sensenbrenner all i can say is [applause] rep. Sensenbrenner this is not section, this is a discussion of issues. I would appreciate it that people not either approve or disapprove what any of the people are having to say. This might be intimidating to people who are on the other side of the issue, no matter what is going on. This in anylow congressional committee, we do not allow this in the house of representatives. Please refrain from doing this. Question, aer your majority of the members of the Judiciary Committee were not even allowed into the secret hearings that shifts schiff was conducting. This is the first time that any committee, other than the Judiciary Committee, has done any kind of impeachment. On hasmittee i served had exclusive jurisdiction over all impeachment. Whether a president ial one or impeachment of a federal judge. I participated in a number of them, not just the clinton one through my career. This has never happened before. Every impeachment, even an impeachment or a judge was allowed to have their witnesses and was allowed to crossexamine the witnesses that the core prosecution was presenting. Here you are going to the Judiciary Committee were a majority of the members of the committee were not even allowed into the room to hear the secret hearings. Come on now. I think the American People are fair. You would not hear all of these complaints if this was a fair process. It clearly has not been a fair process. If you are supposed to have people who are not in the bunker, who are not on the committee but have a vote on whether or not to impeach the president of the United States an opportunity to be able to this neverhemselves, should have happened and it never has happened before in the history of our country. Adam schiff should be ashamed of himself. I am very proud of adam schiff and i think he is holding a very dignified hearing. The fact that we have the president tweeting and intimidating witnesses while they are speaking, i think is horrible. Thank you. Rep. Sensenbrenner let me say, openingas giving the statements in the president clinton trial, president clintons spin machine was attacking me while i was giving that argument. I guess what is good for democrats is bad for republicans. Walter from germantown. I am fully aware of how it all works. Rep. Sensenbrenner mr. Walter. Yes, right here. Thank you for all your service question isrs, my more of a question and opinion. We have seen where the efforts of the house had been in the last week. My question is, when will that house get back to the work of the people . When will they do something for us that put them there to serve us, rather than serve their own initiatives and own purpose . When nancybrenner pelosi and adam schiff decide we will get back to legislate. Let me say a couple of things. We have got the Free Trade Agreement called the usmca. It has been pending for a long, long time. Thats great for wisconsin, particularly our Dairy Farmers can get into the canadian market. It will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and our two exports to biggest export markets which are our neighboring countries. We have to deal with Prescription Drug prices. There is major issue. Whats happening is people who get Prescription Drugs, particularly seniors and need them to stay alive are being fleeced. There are ways that we can ,educe Prescription Drug prices though not by having the government decide how it can be charge, the by increasing competition and tweaking the copyright laws so that generic drugs can get on the market sooner. That is very, very important. There are a whole lot of other issues that we need to deal with , not the least of which is a budget because the Budget Authority runs out at midnight on thursday. If congress is so busy with adam schiffs business, there will be a Government Shutdown beginning at midnight thursday and that has to be avoided. Good afternoon. Thank you for having this meeting. Directedcomment is toward senator darling. Noticed the representative for a. D. 24 is not here today. Im disappointed because i would like to address this as well. 7, both of you began secretly drafting multiple bills to take away the power of attorney general carl and our governor tony devers. The governor won the election. Not only ined milwaukee and the state, but nationwide. The republican legislator immediately went to work to limit the powers for the Constitutional Rights of the rights ofor the state the governor and of the attorney general. That was based upon someone who said they dont wanted to go to an extreme. Even know it was voted by those of us in the state. Along with gun rights issues, one of the things that really came out of that was the Medicaid Expansion. And for years we have talked about Medicaid Expansion. I have sent senator darling my feelings about it. What is your question . I will get to that in one moment. I have talked about that multiple times. The Senate Republican legislator continues to vote against our Medicaid Expansion. I am a nurse and patient, who thanks to a , i am oneg transplant of those people you talked about a minute ago about having costly Prescription Drugs just to keep me alive because of my lifesaving transplant. Now,y, Medicaid Expansion a new study came out this week that it has saved at least 19,000 lives in the state that have expanded medicaid. Legislator rep. Sensenbrenner at least 25 people want to speak. Can you asked the question and let the two state legislators answer . There are so many positives that come out of Medicaid Expansion. I am wondering when will there be movement on the Medicaid Expansion . Would you allow at least the governor to expand, because you are controlling that ability of him to do that . Thank you for your question. Dan is in israel. The Jewish Federation invited the assembly to go to israel to know whats happening in israel. On being here until that opportunity to explore israel came up. Was takenid expansion up by the finance committee and we do not accept it. Bestnsin has one of the Medicaid Expansion programs already. Want an extent Expansion Program that would enable others to expand our health care when we are doing it well now. Not could finish, we do accept the Medicaid Expansion for three reasons. One, we had this good Medicaid Expansion right now, and we have one of the best programs in the country. We felt that talking to many states around the country, you are very reluctant to have expansions in their state too because the federal government is very tied up in medicare and other issues at the federal level. We did not want to be a part of that. We wanted to keep our system going. We did not want to have the expansion put us in a position that was not capable of being continued. That is two. And three, we have had this issue in the state about, this is a very hated discussion. We went around the state having public hearings. As your cochair of finance we , listened to people in the state, and people are very proud of our medicaid system very , proud of what we are doing, so we did not want to go and and unsecure and unknown area and we have one of the best systems in the country. Rep. Sensenbrenner representative branching . I would defer to senator darling. She spent a lot of time on this. At the end of the day, either we at the end of the day, we owe the taxpayers a balanced budget. Because of that, the costs were really more than you are presenting today. And i think the state has done it and Governor Walker at the , time did a good job of covering those at poverty level, and we will continue to pay that bill Going Forward. Rep. Sensenbrenner Angela Schneider . I have one for you, as well. Rep. Sensenbrenner maam, i told you we had 25 more people. [inaudible] excuse me. [gavel striking block] well, if you pass, we will go to adam from germantown. Congressman, you are moving through the twilight of your service to the state. Over the years i have watched you on cspan, thank you. Months of service, i have looked for you to further show leadership, integrity, and to hold your service to the station and more importantly, to uphold the constitutional laws of our nation. I truly hope you have not determined your decision on how you will vote on the potential, potential motion to impeach the president based on the ongoing hearings in the house. And maybe you have. For each new day of testimony, witnesses bring forth more information revealing what the president has done to possibly undermine the laws of this nation. I pray you will listen and study the information coming forth in the house testimony and the witness transcripts. Nonpartisan witnesses that have testified focus on the service. They have shown honor and integrity. My growing concern, my real fear at this time, is the gravity of what the president has done in moving our nation and the world toward disturbing levels of instability. I have shown in my life to my children, grandchildren, that one should be truthful, respectful, and abide to the rules of the laws that exist in this nation. I am troubled by the fact that that the leader of this nation has lied thousands of times to the people in this country. It undermines the strength of our nation in the world, and continually attempts to circumvent the laws that exist. How can i look into the eyes of my children, grandchildren, and say to them, this is all right . In these remaining months of your service, i ask, i plead use , your voice to represent the voice of the people of this district. We will not be silent and you , will defend the constitutional laws of this country. Be that joseph welch. Be that margaret j smith. They spoke up for the people and they took on the fight because of the unlawful actions of senator mccarthys abuse of power. You hold strong respect for republicans and democratic members. What you have a great opportunity to do, a real chance to show, that you can stand up for justice and holding the president accountable for his words and actions. If you fail at ensuring peoples concerns, if you fail to address the needs of people in the state nation, im afraid your inaction may undermine your place in history or truly affect your record of service as a congressional representative. Here is my question. Will you stand up for the rule of law, the constitution of this country, and hold the president accountable if the evidence continues to show the president violated the power of the executive branch and the laws of this nation even if that stance , may not be in line with other Congressional Republican members . Rep. Sensenbrenner well, let me see i am upholding the constitution. What you are seeing going on before mr. Schiffs committee, in my opinion, violates the president s fourth, fifth, sixth amendment rights. We have a right in this country to confront your accuser. You do have a right for due process. We do have a right to present a defense to the charges that are being proffered by people who are on the other side. In court we have a rule against , hearsay evidence. There is a reason for that. We also have the potential jurors, which in my opinion, one of the 435 representatives being able to come in if they so choose to witness the people who are testifying. You cannot make a determination on whether or not somebody is telling the truth simply by reading the text of the transcript. We do not throw people in jail. We do not enter judgments against people for hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of dollars, without having a fair trial. Adam schiff has completely broken the rules of fairness, as i have outlined. They are constitutional guarantees. I dont think it should be any different because this is a legislative procedure under the constitution, then a judicial than a judicial procedure in the court of law. I fear for this country, and whether or not you support trump please. Rep. Sensenbrenner am i entitled to my opinion are not . Or not . I guess not. I fear for this country because once this is breached, and a very public action to remove from office the president of the United States, we have to bend over backwards for being fair. The democrats under chairman rod ino did that in the case of richard nixon. That ended up being a bipartisan call for nixons resignation. And fortunately, he resigned without putting the country through a senate trial. In the clinton case, there was a special prosecutor who presented evidence. The special prosecutor, in this case, was robert mueller. He did not give a report that indicated any type of impeachable defense on the part of President Trump. Here we have no special prosecutor. We have something that is being done entirely in the Intelligence Committee, that pelosi and schiff ended up conducting a coup detat to take away the traditional role of the Judiciary Committee, and have him conduct the hearings. We would not have allowed that in the Judiciary Committee. We had not done that in the past, either with nexen or clinton, we have not done that with the federal judges impeached and removed from office, but for donald trump, we do something different, and we give the American Public one side of the argument and do not , allow the president to crossexamine witnesses or present his own witnesses. This is fundamentally unfair, and every american, particularly those that treasure the constitution as i do, which was designed to protect individuals, and the president is an individual, as well as being the president of the United States, from overreach by the other branches of government. And i stand for that and will continue to stand for that. And i want my legacy to be the fact that i stood for constitutional principles rather than plowing new ground, because there are a lot of people who did not vote for donald trump, who dont like him and who , wanted to get rid of him even before he was sworn in. Have you not made up your mind yet on a possible impeachment . Im just asking, have you not made up your mind yet . Rep. Sensenbrenner i have not seen any evidence. Rep. Sensenbrenner it seems to me that i need to see evidence in order to make up my mind to overturn a decision of the , voters to elect donald trump to a fouryear term. I have not seen any evidence, and most of the evidence that schiff has been brought before the committee has all been hearsay. Believe me, if i were trying a case in court, and i rested my case on hearsay evidence, the judge would throw all the hearsay evidence out, and there would be no evidence on behalf of my client in court. So it seems to me that why should we allow hearsay in this very, very serious and grave inquiry into the president of the United States, but not allow hearsay evidence when someone is trying to fight a parking ticket . Have more why we witnesses coming forward in the next week or so. Rep. Sensenbrenner but all of them are postprosecution witnesses. That is the issue. There are no defense witnesses. Nowhere has donald trump been able to produce any witnesses in his defense. And you cant have a trial, and it is a trial in the house of representatives, without having a defense presented. Where is the fairness in no defense being presented . I am waiting for john bolton, for secretary of state pompeo, im waiting for other people to come to his defense. Im waiting for that. I would love that. Rep. Sensenbrenner the thing is, if you are on trial he is not on trial. Rep. Sensenbrenner if you are on trial, you would be pretty darn angry if you were not allowed by the judge to present a defense, that you are not guilty of what is being charged. And the fact is, yes, it is a trial because you have members of congress, on the house of representatives, who were elected to make a decision , because the constitution gives the house of representatives the sole power of impeachment. Liz and art is able that liz and art el, oak drive. B ladies or gentlemen first . It is just me. Rep. Sensenbrenner my question is, the federal deficit is high at this time but it has grown over the years without a doubt. I think we are in the trillions. Rep. Sensenbrenner to be 22 trillion, precise. What are they doing at the federal level to look at this and start pulling back or cutting the debt off . Rep. Sensenbrenner unfortunately, nothing. You know, i favor a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, because that seems to be the only thing to restrain congress from doing whatever it wants to do. I have criticized federal spending, i have voted against budgets, and debt increases because if you look at what at , what a lot of us putting our spending on the cuff is about, it is us spending money on ourselves and giving the bills to pay for it, plus interest, to our children and grandchildren. That is neither good economics and i dont think it is moral. Again we will see who votes each , way on funding the government between now and midnight thursday. Have you heard of the penny plan . That is one that has come out recently. Rep. Sensenbrenner i supported the penny plan when mr. Penny was in congress. And you know he did not get very , far, and got frustrated and went home to minnesota. Thank you. Rep. Sensenbrenner thank you. Mr. Zabel . I appreciate your service and the time you spent in office. We met back in the 1980s when we were fighting the sewer wars, if you remember those, but we talked at that time. And i do appreciate all the effort you put into that and i thank you for your time. Rep. Sensenbrenner thank you very much. I cannot read the name on this, but it is a gentleman from heritage trail in germantown. Voted to 1990s, you impeach bill clinton for obstruction of justice. Today, you refuse to impeach donald trump for obstruction of justice. We have counted violations of the emoluments clause profited , off the presidency, ignoring subpoenas, and a quid quo pro in the ukraine. How is what trump is doing acceptable, but what bill clinton did unacceptable . Rep. Sensenbrenner what bill clinton did was identify as possibly impeachable conduct by the special counsel kenneth starr. And he was appointed under a law, which has expired, and i let it expire when i was chairman, as i thought it was a bad law. And when he gave the house of representatives the 40 boxes of evidence and said that this was possibly impeachable, i think that made it incumbent upon us to determine whether it was impeachable conduct. Now, with respect to obstruction of justice, what that evidence showed is that in the civil suit that was filed against clinton for sexual harassment, there were gifts that the president monicaly gave to lewinsky that ended up being retrieved by the president , put in a box, and hidden under the president s secretarys bed. That is clearly obstruction of justice. As a matter of fact, and this was obstruction of justice. As a matter of fact, after it was all over with, the federal judge who presided over that position, federal judges really do that, but this federal judge did in the case of the president , made a determination he had obstructed justice, and him the cost of the deposition, which was 90,000 and sent a certification to the Arkansas Supreme Court recommending his disbarment. And mr. Clinton was disbarred by the Supreme Court of arkansas. Here we dont have any evidence of that nature, about obstruction of justice. There we had a clear obstruction of justice, which was hiding and refusing to turn over for examination evidence that had been subpoenaed in a civil case that mr. Starr had identified as possibly not impeachable activity. The house of representatives and the Judiciary Committee determined that that was the case. As far as the obstruction of justice that mr. Mueller looked mueller, i asked him a specific question on that when he appeared before the Judiciary Committee. I asked him when he turned the report over, why he did not identify anything that was possibly impeachable on the part of President Trump . But by definition, he could not have found anything impeachable due to a doj opinion. Rep. Sensenbrenner no. That is not the case. Was say thatd something was possibly impeachable, but the only body that can determine what is and Impeachable Offense is the house of representatives. The mueller testimony, he explicitly said, im not going to quote it directly, but he said impeachment is one method that you indirectly supported to implement on the president. It is pretty obvious in the second half of his review that trump has engaged in multiple accounts of obstruction of justice. He has done so much crime. It is absurd that the gop is supporting such an unethical president. Rep. Sensenbrenner well, let me say this. The doj for years has said that a sitting president cannot be indicted for a crime while in office. However, when the president leaves office, he can be indicted for a crime. That would be up to a grand jury to make that determination. My point to mueller was that starr said some of clintons conduct was possibly impeachable, recognizing it is not his job to determine that but the job of the house of , representatives. Mueller did not use those words , and i asked him about not using those words, and he got confused when he was answering me, but the fact is he did not use those words, while one of his predecessors, who essentially had the same job, did. Yes, the difference is the Mueller Investigation was founded on the idea that you cannot indict a sitting president , and he was forced by that view to remain neutral. Rep. Sensenbrenner no, mueller is a prosecutor. Prosecutors dont remain neutral. His job was to investigate what President Trump did or what President Trump did not do, and he ended up submitting his report to the attorney general pursuant to statute, and the attorney general released the report of the public and to the Judiciary Committee. So it is perfectly acceptable to demand that fbi director james comey, i demand loyalty, and then simultaneously refused to provide loyalty. Isnt that case explicit obstruction of justice . Rep. Sensenbrenner no, it is not. Because executive branch employees serve at the pleasure of the president. The president was within his rights to fire call me or yo vanovitch, or any executive branch employee. The president was elected to head the executive branch, no matter who the president happens to be. And if executive branch employees are working against what the president is attempting to do, he has every right to fire the executive branch employee. And he did with mr. Comey. And i think the current fbi director has done a great job at staying out of the political fray, which mr. Comey failed to do. The person back to who recused himself, bill barr. President trump asked him to unrecuse himself. Isnt that obstruction of justice . Rep. Sensenbrenner no, a recusal is up to the individual who is asked to be recused. Now i think you are confusing , bill barr with his predecessor, jeff sessions. Jeff sessions did recused himself. My dad. Rep. Sensenbrenner yeah, which i think was required under the Bar Association canon of ethics because of his support for trump during the campaign. Barr has never recused himself. I dont see any reason for barr to recuse himself. His job is to administer the which job of justice, is to enforce criminal and civil laws of the United States. During the quid quo pro in the ukraine, bill barr is directly involved with it, according to mr. Muellers report, including trumps personal attorney. Shouldnt barr recuse himself, as well . Rep. Sensenbrenner lets look quos. D pro we dont give foreign aid as a matter of welfare. There are requirements they have to comply with should they may i finish, please . There are always things they have to comply with. Maybe mr. Biden was a little bit more upfront on the quid quote pro, saying unless you fire the prosecutor in six hours, you are not going to get the billion dollars of aid that president obama held up. Everything that we have heard of the ukrainians that at the time of the phone call that trump had with president zelensky in july they did not know that the aide , had been held up, and they really did not know for maybe five or six weeks after that. The fact is that the aid was released. There is no investigation, to my knowledge, going on in the ukraine over the bidens, and i think this has been raised by the never trumpers. The investigation youre talking about in ukraine with biden, it was perpetrated by the gop, specifically. Rep. Sensenbrenner come on, sir. Biden got up on tv and said, i went over there and i said fire the prosecutor within six hours to get the aid. And son of a bleep, the guy was fired. That is on tv. Maybe you ought to spend some time, sir, watching fox news groaning] fox news is propaganda channel. Rep. Sensenbrenner no more than msnbc is a propaganda channel. Excuse me. I would like to echo the other comments other people made regarding your years of service. I dont know you well, but in the news i have seen you appear to be a man of integrity, and you are willing to come here and face a fairly hostile audience. I think it speaks well for you. My question has to do with President Trump and his actions regarding turkey. Particular, withdrawal of northern troops and syria, his response to turkey when they subsequently invaded, his welcoming the president of turkey to washington shortly thereafter, and a comment he made specifically at the News Conference that the president of turkey has a Good Relationship with the kurds. Rep. Sensenbrenner that is a crock, in my opinion. Not just this president but all , of his predecessors and turkey. That is what the president said, that president erdogan has a Good Relationship with the kurds. Given that fact that there are a lot of problems with a lot of this, i would like to hear your opinion on that whole process , and how Going Forward we can try to promote a coherent American Foreign policy under what seems to be sort of haphazardness. Me saynsenbrenner let in this room, lest anyone think i am a trump rubber stamp, we had a resolution condemning the president s withdrawal of the troops from our troops from northern turkey. There were not very many of them and they were largely intelligence gatherers, which in order for our country to play with a full deck of cards, we need to get as good of intelligence as we can. It overwhelmingly passed the house of representatives. And my feeling is that those troops should have been there. I can say that i have voted for military aid to protect the kurdish forces. Frankly, i dont care what president erdogan thinks. I have met with him a couple of times before all of this came out. Heres becoming increasingly dictatorial. He is jumping in bed with the russians, who are traditional enemies of the turks. Russianot a antiaircraft Missile Systems he has installed. He has invited putin to come there. What more do you need . I appreciate that and you make some good points. My question is more directed at how the president has embraced him and the implications that , has for u. S. Foreign policy. Rep. Sensenbrenner i think it is a mistake. We dont seem to be coherent and how we address rep. Sensenbrenner i think it is a mistake. And it is certainly a reversal from what president obama and president bush did with respect to the turkeysyria border and the protection of the kurds. We have to remember the kurds , lost 10,000 people defeating isis in the northeastern part of syria. The turks did not do that. The russians did not do that. And assads Syrian Government army did not do that. It was the kurds who did it. And frankly, i think the world is safer with isis being al baghdadire, and getting taken out. I agree. Are there steps you can see that congress can take to counteract this . Rep. Sensenbrenner we have gone to the fullest extent that we can on that. You know the constitution , basically gives the president almost Carte Blanche over foreign policy, and that has been the way since George Washington. And for congress to attempt to grab any of it back means veto,ding a president ial which is tough and doesnt happen very often. The only veto that obama lost during his eight years was on a bill that gave american citizens the right to sue the Saudi Arabian government for their involvement in the terror strikes on 9 11. Obama vetoed that, and that opened a big margin of both houses overriding to override the veto. I voted aye. Thank you. Thank you for your years of service, and we have had disagreements along the way, but i wish you a good retirement. Rep. Sensenbrenner thank you. Mary jo thompson of richfield. Mary jo thompson . That is you . Where is Mary Jo Thompson . Im right here. [laughter] rep. Sensenbrenner go ahead. Thank you. I am deeply saddened about what is going on in washington, d. C. We have a great man for our president , with a big heart, who has done a lot for our country. I would say two examples of that would be the rise in the stock market and our booming economy. With your expertise in all things d. C. What do you see , happening with this shameful practice that adam schiff is overseeing . What happens in the senate if he is impeached by the house . Seems to me lots of people think that impeachment is removal from office. Rep. Sensenbrenner impeachment does not mean removal from office. If the house by a majority vote approves articles of impeachment, take over to the senate, and the senate is required by the constitution to conduct a trial. How long that trial is, when it starts, and what rules the trial will undertake, again, depends upon a majority vote in the senate. The constitution requires that there be a two thirds vote in the senate to remove anybody who is impeached by the house from office. Donald trump is not going to be removed from office. I think that is very plain. So much of what is going on here is designed to influence the 2020 election. My feeling is that we are less than one year away from the election. It seems to me we ought to let the people decide whether donald president , rather than having politicians who announced their opposition to trump, even before he was sworn in, make that decision for them. Lets let this go on to the election. Lets talk about what the candidates propose to do for the American People during the next four years after the 2020 election, and then the people can make their decision accordingly. Is it dennis myers of Woodland Drive in germantown . Ok. Why dont you stay where you are . . The mic is coming. Ok, go ahead now. Thank you, appreciate that. I am a trustee for the village of germantown. I want to make a comment. Going back seven years ago when and ia county supervisor, approached in brookdale at a town hall meeting in regards with a particular subject matter that we wanted to do. Fields indo with Washington County, and i wanted you to see what you could do to get a grant for Washington County so we could find out where our brownfields work, and have more development. So you took this upon yourself and your staff cap me upraised as to what was going on, and we were awarded to washington co. , 600,000 on your behalf. And i wanted to thank you in regards to that. Since that time, i want to look at where these areas are, its always hard to get the first grant. Grant,ou get the first you can get the other money to implement changes much easier, you dont have to go through as much red tape. I wanted to thank you in regards to your efforts in regard to that. Rep. Sensenbrenner thank you very much. Doug riegel, timberline drive, west bend. We are here today representing the alzheimers association. First, we want to thank you for what you have done for us over the past four or five years, cosponsoring the most recent waseimers bail, which actually authorized through the Older Americans act a few months ago, which allows people under the age of 60 who are diagnosed with alzheimers to be able to get those benefits of the Older Americans act, which is helpful, because there is about 200,000 people in the United States right now who have alzheimers and are under the age of 60, and find it very hard to get services. So i thank you for that, you have been supportive. There have been increases in funding to the nih and we think you for that. You have been a champion for number of years, and we thank you that and for your service to the district for the past 40 years. Rep. Sensenbrenner thank you. I have three asks today, first that you be a cosponsor for hr 73, the improving hope act for alzheimers. Basically, we would be educating doctors on which is the correct cms code to use when diagnosing alzheimers. It allows the cdc to get much better rep. Sensenbrenner cant cis do that administratively . This month there was a bill theed which you supported, hope for alzheimers act, which allowed this coding. Before natural got through congress, cms saw the need for this, did their 90day listening session and put it into law in what they are finding when they 2017. Look back at it over two years is that the coding is only being used about 2 of the time with the diagnosis given. Rep. Sensenbrenner is this a problem with the Health Care Provider using the wrong code . In some cases it could be. So what the bill is intended to do is implement education for the positions as to the best use of this code which would allow , the government to get better statistics around alzheimers and get better Care Planning to families affected. Rep. Sensenbrenner getting bill getting a bill through congress, particularly now, is kind of like pulling teeth. My daughterinlaw the dentist. And may i make a suggestion at , least to deal with wisconsin . Every doctor has to go through inservice training in order to keep their license current. And if you can talk to the Wisconsin Medical Association and the medical examining board to put this in the inservice training that doctors have to have, this would be a way to get the education into the minds and hopefully the databases of wisconsin doctors of the other 90 of wisconsin patients who are eligible for this type of thing would not have to wait around for congress to get to it. We would be glad to help you with that. Thank you. The second ask we have is the increase of funding at the National Institute of health for a 315 million increase to support Alzheimers Research in the fiscal 2020 budget. Last ask, last or was passed, but funding was not passed toward, so we are asking for 20 million to fund the old act. Rep. Sensenbrenner all i can say is, im going to look at it. The budget is not complete yet. If we dont pass a continuing resolution by thursday night, nobody gets any funding. That would be very bad, in my opinion. Asking for 350 million extra without an offset is going to be tough, because budgets are tight, deficits are high, the concern is great. Usually what congress has done is let the nih director allocate the Money Congress appropriates between the various disciplines doing research. And otherwise you have people , who have powerful lobbies ending up getting bills passed that basically suck up all the money, and nobody gets anything because there isnt anything left over. The 350 is based on a professional judgment budget that was pushed through for alzheimers four years ago. Rep. Sensenbrenner that was four years ago, im telling you what its like now. And im going to tell you its tough. The thing is, as more americans age, and qualify for medicare benefits, the amount of money available for what is called discretionary spending, which is subject to annual appropriations by congress, gets increasingly squeezed. I would like to thank you for your years of service. I would also like to thank you for the staff you have put together, both here in brookfield and in d. C. They have been terrific to work with and we look forward to working with them for the rest of term. Rep. Sensenbrenner thank you very much. Rose clancy, fairway and menomonee falls. Im going to shorten a few of my remarks since a lot has already been said, and you have made it very clear what your position is regarding the impeachment hearings. Before whatever reason, i heard a practicing constitutional lawyer say just a few weeks ago give a very different interpretation than you have given. I think, rather than get in the weeds about whats appropriate, the fact is, the hearings are Going Forward. I tt and watching the testimony the other day of our Foreign Service ambassadors, and the people who have given their lives, their years, their dedication, their intelligence, they are articulate and i find it , difficult to not want to believe there testimony. However, all of the facts are not in yet, and theres a lot more to come. And i echo what others have said, that if they would come forward and not be stonewalled from doing so, we may hear another side of the story, or not. Let the committee do its work. Let the people make their decisions and their judgments based on that, not on namecalling. We have heard about partisan investigations, and how the credibility is tarnished, and President Trump continues to tweet that the democrats are crazed lunatics, and deranged. Thats kind of namecalling has no place. Just as you said here, we need to be civil with each other. It is very hard to do, i agree. I have a question and a comment janel and comment for alberta. My question to you is, if the facts lead to articles of impeachment, and that is not been determined yet, specifically if those facts determine that the president of the United States used the power of his office to influence our election and used bribery to accomplish this, and if those facts come out, will you be open to supporting the process, as you so actively did during the clinton impeachment . Rep. Sensenbrenner i have not seen any evidence of bribery. Bribery i dont want to argue about that. Rep. Sensenbrenner maam, maam, maam. Im saying its not come forward yet. Rep. Sensenbrenner i will answer your question if you let me. Bribery is defined is somebody wanting something from a public official, gives them money to get it, and then gets it. I dont see any of that. The fact of the matter remains that what the bidens did, and that goes down to the bottom of all of this, what the bidens did was attempting to influence a foreign government, and Vice President youre not answering my question. Rep. Sensenbrenner maam youre not answering my question. Rep. Sensenbrenner im going to answer in the way that i think is proper, like you asked your question in the way that you thought it was proper to ask it. Will you give me enough respect so i can answer the question the way i think it is proper to answer it . Atyou dont need to yell people. God. Rep. Sensenbrenner deal . If you answer the question, yes. Do you want me to repeat my question . Rep. Sensenbrenner no. I know what your question is. You used the word bribery. Let me say this, right from the beginning of this, after the july call between President Trump and president zelensky, i said there were other laws that might have been violated by biden, including the foreign corrupt practices act. We have a legal evidence agreement with ukraine and many other countries, that if there is a violation of american law, that there is evidence in the foreign country, that country will help us gather that evidence, and vice versa. Now, i dont think the bidens violated any ukrainian law, but with the foreign corrupt practices act, maybe the hobbs act as well, i think we need to know about it. Now, this would not be an issue had joe biden not been a candidate for the nomination for president of the United States. What gets under my skin is the fact that you seem to get immunity from investigations of this nature by declaring you are a candidate for president of the United States, and that way any investigation is deemed as political and attempting to influence an election. I reject that argument. If you want to get out from under the magnifying glass and say im going to run for president , then it becomes political and you are not investigated, and there is not the exchange of evidence that the International Obligations between the United States and ukraine require. So to answer your question, the bidens have got to be in on this because the quote, will you do , unquote, that trump asked of president zielinski seems to have kicked out this argument. And we have to find out exactly what the issue is. I dont think anybody knows about this. The fact is ukrainians got the aid, they have not been investigating anything about the bidens so there is not a quid , pro quo. We have learned a lot of latin lately, havent we . On the other hand there may be , something that comes out. I will also say that an ambassador of the United States of america, anywhere overseas is the personal representative of the president in that country. Ambassador yovanovitch said that in her testimony. She said she was the personal representative of President Trump in ukraine. Now, if the president is not happy with what his personal representative is or is not doing, i think the president has every reason to fire the ambassador and to appoint somebody new. I would point out that the day that president obama was sworn into office, all of bushs ambassadors were fired as of that day, including mark green, former congressman from wisconsin, who at that time was the ambassador to tanzania. He was told that he had to be out of his office by 12 01 eastern on january 20, 2009. Now, he would have stayed in the country, and didnt fly away before that in case something came up as the clock was running down to zero. But the fact is that obama fired all of bushs ambassadors and everybody felt that he was entitled to do that. And here trump fires one ambassador who is not with his program, and the roof falls in. That has nothing to do with my comments. Im not disputing, nobody is disputing, the rights that he has to fire her or recall her or anything else. Rep. Sensenbrenner that is not what i heard. Historyou give a long and background and digression, and i still dont know if you i said, if the facts, and i go back and i will say again, none that, but if the facts do show that, will you support whatever the findings are . Rep. Sensenbrenner well, i want to see adam schiffs findings. And that is whose findings it will be. I dont want you to talk names. Rep. Sensenbrenner you are asking me to give adam schiff a blank check. Im not asking you that. Rep. Sensenbrenner ok. I am saying that if the facts Going Forward, and if the facts coming out of the Senate Judiciary hearing, or anywhere else. Rep. Sensenbrenner but that is too late, because the senate doesnt have jurisdiction until the house votes article of impeachment. I have to make a decision before the senate has any jurisdiction on that. So why have people been told not to come and give testimony . Why have people been ignoring subpoenas . Rep. Sensenbrenner well, the thing is if i ignored a subpoena that i was called into court on, my butt would be hauled into jail tomorrow. Rep. Sensenbrenner ok. The president of the United States, no matter who that be, has a certain executive privilege from testifying either before congress or before the courts. Every president has used that to basically have personal conversations within the white house by the president s immediate staff. If the president did not have that, every time he talked to his immediate staff, it would says it would be something subjected to subpoena or snooping by congress. Thats not the way our government is supposed to work. You know, i have a certain amount of immunity. And i stood up for legislative immunity, even when the fbi went fromgh William Jefferson new orleans office, its covered by congressional immunity when they were putting together a bribery case against him. That was a violation of congressional immunity. And limbaugh spent a whole afternoon rag me on me ragging on beyond that, and the court upheld the position i took. If i can make a comment on a more positive basis. Ive been to many if not most of your hearings, i dont know if you recognize me. I frequently do not agree with you, however i have given you credit in many instances. And one most recently, when you voted against diverting funds from the military to the border. So i know that you, in many respects, do represent a fair position. And i do respect those times, and i have tried to make that public when you have. I hope and i will echo what this said, that youe will continue to do that, and with as fair and open a mind as you possibly can. One comment for janelle and alberta. Just find it very irresponsible that the state legislature refuses to bring to the floor, and the two that are primarily in mind are the fair maps situation and the gun legislation. And the fact that fitzgerald and blatz will not allow those things to come to the floor when there is a whole lot of support, whatever number that is, but its way over half of support for those issues. And for them not to allow those to come to the floor is totally responsible. Rep. Sensenbrenner who wants to go first . I will go first. Redistricting is an issue that goes through the courts every 10 years, and we are approaching 10 years. Last time we had redistricting there were two issues of , contention. One was, were the districts fair and equal . And there was contention about minority districts and the continuous counties like milwaukee and washington and ozaki. And the courts ruled that the decision was just and valid, but that is past. But the next redistricting issue will be up, and i encourage everyone to watch those discussions. Because the courts are in charge of that. The issue that you have mentioned too, with guns. Wisconsin is very much in favor of rights for guns. I think what we need to do is find out why these massacres are happening. And when i do my research, there are two issues that we need to deal with. One is Mental Health, and one is having a child have a father and mother who takes care of them. Thats the research i have done. So what we need to do is address the Mental Health issue, involuntarythe civil commitment which means if , one is suspected of being of harm to himself or others, there is a rights issue of process that one could go through respecting their rights. , i think we have to modify some of the involuntary civil commitments to make sure that the due process is also a due process for the victim. Right now, there are many people in the School Systems that see an individual who is in danger and these or others, flags on to be tested sooner, and thats a big deal. If there are ways to do that signaling earlier i think we , need to do it. I know as a former teacher, there are kids in our society and our schools will need help. Mental health is a huge issue. In fact, we doubled the investment in Mental Health in schools. We have to make sure that kids who need help get it. And we have to make sure that redistricting is fair, we went to the courts and the decision was made that it is fair. But i agree, its a contentious issue. 10 years ago, both republicans and democrats gave maps to the court system, and the court system chose most of the republican maps. There were changes that were made. Went three more times, and it was held up in court. So when you talk about fair maps, i dont know, three or four times in front of a court over 10 years, certainly gives quality and assurance to the process. I think senator darling and myself want to have fair maps , and thats what we will be presented Going Forward in the next election, as we go forward with that process. But i would go back to some of those original maps that the democrats have put forward almost 12 years ago, and you will find some of the maps, the process that was drawn would be very interesting nowadays. So as far as fair maps, we are committed to making sure that we are committed to doing that. And number as far as the gun two, legislation, in the state of wisconsin there are six background checks, basically that courtesy of the congressman here, the nick system has been instituted since 1988. It has gone through millions of checks and stopped folks with Mental Health issues that should not have guns. Also the congressman in 2018, signed i President Trump, this signed by President Trump, fixed things to make sure that those with Domestic Abuse or Mental Health concerns were updated into the system. Certainly no system is perfect, nixi have to say that the system that we went forward with against the nra at the time. Rep. Sensenbrenner i got the nra to appear for the brady deal and the nix system. I got it through and mayor de , blasio got a rating from political fact. To say that we have these background checks for handguns and every other gun purchase in the state of wisconsin should to know that we are doing give security to folks everything we can to protect the , but also keep those folks who second amendment, should not have guns. Rep. Sensenbrenner let me talk a little bit about the program. The brady bill was introduced in 1993. They have a fiveday waiting period from a time when you ordered a firearm at a gun dealer, to the time when you could pick it up. During that period of time the police were supposed to check out as to whether a person was eligible to own a firearm. Under law that we have had for 85 years, anybody with a felony conviction or adjudication of mental incompetence cant buy or even possess any type of firearm. And in the 1990s that was amended to include people who had Domestic Violence restraining orders that had been entered against them by the courts. The original brady bill did not have the nix system. I had an amendment that authorized the original system, basically the computerized criminal and Mental Health records, so when somebody went to order and pay for the firearm, that would be run through the system and see if they had something that would make them ineligible to purchase or possess any firearms. We had big problems in getting some states to get their information in. Is, it did notid lift the fiveday waiting period until there was compliance and there was a certain formula and number of states for that. But it took almost all of five years, and a lot of federal money to get a state like West Virginia that had all of their , Court Records on three by five cards. And had to be inputted checked out before West Virginia was in compliance and that took a lot of time and money. But by 1998, the system was up and running. There were some problems, the fix nics act of 2018 fixed a lot of these, at federal government expense. What i can say is that the brady campaign, which is one of the principal handgun control lobby groups in the country, said the most effective gun control law that has ever been passed in the United States was the next system. And i will plead guilty to that. Was the nix system. And i will plead guilty to that. But i did get the nra to come and appear before the Judiciary Committee and support the package of the waiting period plus the nix system, as i have described, which raised a lot of eyebrows. And there were some more militant gun groups that basically said the nra folded. That the nra had sold out. The last figures i have seen is that it has stopped 1,000,007 1,700,000 gun transactions that would have been illegal because the purchaser would have , been ineligible to own or purchase a gun. I hope thats given to be part of my legacy. I can tell you that right after that passed, the taxidermist in west bend was selling stuff, one of it was in the window on main street in west bend. And i can say well, i might have there, but there might be a lot more people alive peopleith 1. 7 million not allowed to have a gun, and who are prohibited from doing so. We will adjourn this part of the meeting. The second part of the meeting will be for those who have personal problems with government agencies. This is oneonone, cameras off, please, folks. If you have a personal problem with either a state or federal agency, the state complaint windows are there. The federal complaint window is here. Please do not continue the general issues discussion. I do have a 5 00 plane to get back to washington, because there is plenty going on tomorrow. This part of the meeting is adjourned. [gavel striking block] [indiscernible chatter] warren i think a National Primary is one of the worst reforms we could implement. I would, if we were doing it in a rational way, have a rotating , so that wemary basically, indifferent elections, had different groups whichtes go together, would allow focused retail campaigning. Learn about the president ial nominating process sunday night on q a. Thea brown, director of Political Management School at George Washington university, discusses how we nominate president ial candidates, and what reforms to the process may be in the offing. Watch sunday night on cspans q a. The media marketplace has shifted dramatically in the last dozen years or so. The sec has failed to keep pace. In place that assumes the marketplace is three broadcast stations at night and a daily newspaper that clunks on your front doorstep in the morning. This is a vastly different market. Fcc commissioner brandon carr, monday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan two. Democratic president ial candidate senator Elizabeth Warren held a Campaign Event earlier today in manchester, new hampshire. That state holds the first 2020 president ial primary on february 11. [cheers and applause] sen. Warren hello, manchester sit down. It is good to see you all, and thank you for the great introduction. Thank you. It is great to be here with all of you today, including captain america. Right . [laughter] love it. En love it. It is good to be here today. I thought what we do is i will just tell you a little bit about myself, tell you about why