Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hearing 20240703

Department. Will look, special counsel when both cases last year any appropriately requested it speedy trials and the matter is now the hands of the judiciary and not goingof to be able to commenting for their. [inaudible conversations]. And shortly after those remarks, the House Judiciary Committee met to consider contempt of Congress Charges against attorney general Merrick Garland and a resolution was eventually approved along party lines five out of 18 15. And it now goes to the full house will be considered at a time to be determined and up next we will show you the House Judiciary Committee, is meant to consider the revolution. [background sounds]. [background sounds]. [background sounds]. [background sounds]. Without objection the chair recess sitting time pursuant to Committee Rule two, and the house really 11, because two, the chair may for the further proceedings measurable about her or adopting an amendment for which it recorded vote is ordered, chernow recognizes legitimate from c wisconsin, mr. Fitzgerald. And now we say the pledge of allegiance. Pledge of allegiance to the flag, of the United States of america to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible and liberty and justice for all. And a notice, with report recommending the house of representatives site the united sees for contempt of congress Merrick Garland and reported to the house, the clerk will report that reports to have resolution recommending that the house of representatives met we can consider is right an open forum and amendment at any point chernow recognizes himself an Opening Statement counsel robert her stated on page one, robert hur on his report, quote from our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully, willfully retained disclose classified materials after his vice presidency and when he was a private citizen and nobody not only kept information he was to keep them up and shared it with people who were not allowed to see it pretty sure that information with his ghostwriter, special counsel robert hur said he had strong motivation to do so President Biden didnt to ignore the roles of properly handling of classified information in his notebooks. He had a million reasons to ignore the rules. Joe biden shares of the classified materials to get his ghostwriter he was writingh abt for which joe biden received an a milliondollar advance. As we have motive, a milliondollar motive, we have the elements of the crime, knowingly keeping and knowingly disclosing, classified information. All of this, special counsel robert hur declined to prosecute joe biden because he is, a synthetic it meaningis elderly n with poor memory. In the brings us to today. Following the release of special counsel robert hur support we subpoenaed the transcript, and audio recordings special counsel robert hur interview with President Biden and his ghostwriter, marks 20 during today, attorney general garland has failed to produce the audiotapes pretty and to determine whether special counsel robert hur appropriately carried out justice, by not prosecuting and i recommending for prosecution the president s, recordings are necessary printed transcripts alone are not sufficient evidence of that state of the president s memory. Thank you because the has a track record and altering the transcripts. This just weeks ago during a public speech, President Biden rotella, instruction, to talk any stated, i do what we could do next, former years, pause, with what has been at the transcript, do not include the world, pause in that case, and in this case as well, the video and the audio recording, is the best evidence of the words of the President Biden actually spoke. The harvest refusing to produce the audio recordings of special counsel robert hurs interviews with President Biden announced to demand committee trusts the department created and produced Interview Transcripts are actually accurate ten complete. Transcript of the white house and President Biden so counsel likely hadna access to before ty were finalized. In the form and as a legal of thee requested materials pursuat to the subpoena. Attorney general garland refused to comply positives contempt of congress right now today, this morning, and 11th hour invocation to privilege. President bidens asserting executive privilege for the same reason we need the audio recordings and they offer a unique perspective. This loss. Invocation does not change the fact that the attorney general has compiled seesmic applied without subpoena. And with that i recognize Ranking Member col. Thank you mr. Chairman. 20 million taxpayer dollars, chairman jordan consistently opposes Government Spending and everything from feeding Children Education and healthcare, and spent million taxpayer dollars of this congress to investigate the various conspiracy theories what exactly is he delivered to the American People on the 20 milliondollar investment. Exactly nothing. No evidence of the conspiracies are true. No indictment, no impeachment two, no winds of any significance. In the chairman of the board of directors 20 million the shareholders of the company, and deliver nothing would be fired the next board meeting. The chairman knows that if he doesnt come up with something to show the 20 million spent, the mega political the basement stay home next november. As simeon chairman comer are scrambling, and desperate attempt to look like they have accomplished something. Chairman was to make it seem like he uncovered some wrongdoings by the attorney general pretty in reality, the attorney general the doj have been fully responsive to this committee in every way that might be material to their impeachment inquiry is sometimes they been to responsive in my opinion, even the obvious bad faith by the mega majority. In the german was desperately hoping thehe special counsel robert hur would indict President Biden for mishandling classified documents. So the chairman could attack President Biden mr. At the market people away from trumps treacherous handling of classified information pretty and in realityor the special counsel cleared mr. Biden have wrongdoing. In germany hope that he could intimidate prosecutors out of indicting donald trump with crimes. Donald trump is charged the 88 felonies pretty list goes on and on and the chairman intimidation with just know there is a wouldve a republican friends do an investigation, simply put they engage in fantasy thats what theyre doing here today accuse the attorney general key evidence and attorney general has substantially complied with their every request the dojs produce 92000 pages of documents in this congress alone may dozens of witnesses available for interviews hearings and briefings before the i committe. It is more pages of documents, and more witnesses and a Trump Justice Department produced toic this committee in four years. Speculative february 20, 2024 subpoena, the20 departments turnover all of the information republicans asked for part is been no obstruction, only cooperation. In this morning, president exerted executive privilege over the audio pot files at issue in the letter forming the committee that this assertion is the department of justice notice producing the audio recordings wasse raising an unacceptable rk of undermining the departments ability to connect highprofile criminal investigations. In particular, investigations of the voluntary cooperation of the white house officials thats exceedingly important. Chairman jordan claims that he needs this to understand that pauses and tone of the conversation. This is absurd pretty clearly pretextual. In any event does not outweigh the substantial concerns expressed by the president and thet department. And moreover, the t respect to e recording the issue in this report for the complete transcript is already been provided to the committee. The only thing that is not been produced as the recording itself. Which can be easily manipulated. This is not an idle concern. Last year when is testifying in a closeddoor deposition, but she was a victim of manipulated video amplified by republicans in this committee and that it contributed to apply the Death Threats against her this is not really about a policy disagreement with the doj. This is about speaking the mega base and getting donald trump reelected. But dont take my word for it, to give in the chairmans themselves. Im busting my tail to get donald trump reelected and we need to make sure donald trump winds. Quote, so imported that we stay engaged to come and help donald trump get back into the white house, and clearly, donald trump thesese germans help to annoy guess. And because trump is been indicted, four times. Right at this very moment he faces, 34 charges in new york state ct. , falsifying Business Records in making has many famous to catch is still information could be harmful to trumps Reelection Campaign and he faces 40pa charges, and fedel court in florida, mishandling withholding classified documents National Security at severe risk. And they to federal court in washingtonha dc, attempts to overturn the 2020 Election Results, and feeling the insurrectionon have january 6 of 2021, the United States capitol. Adventures in georgia states court, for attempts to intimidate and force officials to overturn the lawful Election Results in the 2020, president ial election. This not all, you go to hear a lot about President Bidens memory today. This will mention the biden has been ranked as one of the most successful president s have hard times. Moment to the once in a generation is formative legislation,is is ushered into law. It will mention special counsel trenton mr. President biden that is photographic memory. As a just go on and on about a couple of gratuitous widely contradicted comments in the robert hur report suggest the president has a poor memory. For republicans they will show you is that mounting evidence that trump is mentally incompetent, to hold the office of the president. In the late great hannibal lector, and can even begin to understand how republicans have chosen this man is their champion. But they have no House Republicans paying for it by flocking to the seminal trial. Sacrificing their integrity to defend them against it the indefensible acts pretty animus everybody works for the former president , seems to know that trump is unfit for office and that these acts of public humiliation on his behalf a wrong card and evidence to the college needs, trump was said that he could chew 70 standing on fifth avenue, i was so keep his supporters pretty no lease to this chamber, thats obviously true. And truly saddens me. Ive been in this body for many years. And hes always had a disagreement, nursing members of congress, so readily turn on democracy itself. Answer to one man and never in my life that i could see members of congress, readily attack laww enforcement officers to protect their criminals and i would see members of congress defendant minimize as of the storm this building i Trump Associates let them here, somehow patriots. But here we are. K anything chairman, jordan dose that this lockable Something Like most republicans, truly partisan lines contempt resolution will do very little evidence for the reputations of mary garland, who remain a good and decent publicil service, the minute what they say about him today. And this gives donald trump something to watch on fox and from his criminal trial tonight. But it will almost certainly not convince the department of justice, it is when remaining file in question. Like the water impeachment effort report come up this intense revolution, will have a person stunt. Failed to the very start, and is a total waste of time. The American People actually need us to doo important work. If on the government and to secure affordable healthcare to reduce inflation housing cost. Help them take care of the children and their families, and to keep her nation safe. Im tired of these games so the americanan people and urge my colleagues who opposes measure. Chair recognizes self for offering nature of substitute the clinical port for the moment. Substituted Committee Reports back may subsume consumers rated shall be considered of amendment turnout recognizes himself to explain the amendment and makes a small dramatic change on each end of the report, it is not affect the substance of the report and kneeled back and recognition. [background sounds]. The question. Gentleman from North Carolina is recognized. Thank you mr. Chairman, this is a very simple matter. There is no ground whatsoever, to withhold the audiotape. That tape must beak quite something. If the administrations apprentice decided to assert executive privilege it to keep it from the committee. In the course of an impeachment inquiry. Think about it. The basis for withholding the audio recording transcript has been furnished, it must rest on something about the recording that is distinct from the information contained in the transcript. For example, one of the committee had made a request for just a different copy of the transcript. And is unlikely to happen but no reasonable person would ask for itd either. The president in the white house have contested what was said in the interview. The special counsel in his report, predicated his decision not to prosecute an obvious violation ofla statute. In the present is reading from classified information to his ghostwriter to satisfy the terms of that 8 milliondollar book retainer on his findings that the president was elderly and forgetful. In other words he placed tremendous reliance on what is called, demeanor evidence. The president in the white house have viciously attacked the special counsels characterization of the demeanor evidence. That is whether to what he said the president appeared to have limited capacity as a witness to testify from memory. Transcripts do not capture demeanor evidence. Transcripts are often in perfect especially to convey the timing of question and answer and the his notations among other things. All of that is demeanor evidence. Thats the reason among other things that it is absolutely standard litigation in american courts for parties to be entitled to record testimony by more than one means. Through a transcript, and then if they choose, through another method, an audio or a video recording. Here is a reading from rule 30b3b of the civil rules of procedure. Recording testimony in addition to that specified in the original notice. Pretty straight forward. Given that the evidence is contradicted by the special counsel and by the president as to the reason the president has escaped criminal prosecution for an obvious violation of the statute, and because this Committee Sits by vote of the house of representatives to conduct an inquiry about the potential impeachment of the president , this committee needs the demeanor evidence, the same way any party would in any such matter litigated and the notion that theres a basis of a claim of executive privilege here and articulated by the Justice Department, by the attorney general, is that it would deter future occupants of the white house from cooperating with criminal inquiry because the interview would be made available and therefore, its going to be exposed, but the transcript has already been provided. What possible basis could there be that would impair future white house cooperation with criminal investigations, if what the department is contending is just the same information and in all of your recording form is also furnished. Thats an incomprehensiby absurd position. And this committee cannot be deterred from proceeding with the contempt resolution in my view. And one can question motives or attack motives or whatever, but its as straight forward as can be. Its a simple presentation of demeanor evidence that is important to this committees investigation, inquiry into the potential impeachment of the president and it should be accomplished and done forth with. Im for it, lets go. Mr. Chairman, ill yield back. The gentleman yields back. Mr. Chairman. The gentleman is recognized. Mr. Chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. The clerk will report. Amendment in the nature of the substitute to the report for the resolution recommending that the house of representatives find merrick reserve by the gentleman from california, the gentleman is recognized to explain his amendment. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this amendment adds language from the recent correspondent from the executive branch to the report. Today the Justice Department and the white house wrote to the committee, the committees to inform us that the president was exerting executive privilege over the audio recordings. This assertion of privilege is used to protect important Law Enforcement interests, as the attorney general wrote, the Justice Department has a vested interest in protecting materials related to a close which is the case here. The attorney general further explains, that producing the order recordings to the committee would raise an unacceptable risk of undermining the departments ability to conduct similar high profile criminal investigations, investigations where voluntary cooperation of the white house officials is exceedingly important. The white house also wrote to the committee to explain to the president s exertion of executive privilege based on longstanding committee of protecting the department of justice and investigations. Chairman jordan claims he needs these recordings to understand things like tone, tone or pauses. This is absurd. And the chairman has made no attempt to explain his reasoning. His claim in no way overcomes the executive branchs substantial interest in protecting sensitive Law Enforcement investigation. What high profile witness would voluntarily cooperate with Law Enforcement investigations if they knew at that audio files of their conversations would be released to committees who are seeking those files for purely political purposes. This amendment assures the report is complete and uptodate. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment and i yield back. Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from california withdraws the point of order. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i move to speak in opposition of the amendment. They dont get to choose. They dont get to choose. We spent a lot of time in this hearing, in this room talking about, ive been an aed voe cat advocate for recording arrests and the legal rule of the best evidence rule. The person providing the evidence doesnt get to choose the matter and form in which the evidence is provided. And this also happens to be a pattern. Five minutes before the hur hearing we got the transcript. Five minutes before this hearing, we get the invocation of executive privilege. Theres a difference between a transcript and video and audio, and i dont possibly understand the argument of, well release the transcript, but we wont release the tapes, and thats going to determine whether or not somebody participates in an investigation. Which by the way, that can be compelled to be done as well. The argument that this is somehow anything other than the doj trying to pick and choose which pieces of evidence or which parts of evidence are what they determine is the best evidence to our committee is just, quite frankly, not based in any precedent under law. I spent 10 years doing this, and i spent 10 years doing discovery requests, i never asked for permission, im entitled to what it is, they dont get to determine what we get. Thats not how the system works and it cant be how the system works because otherwise, the people who you are trying to conduct oversight on determine what information you get to conduct that oversight. Thats simply not how the separation of powers is set up, not how any legal investigation in any jurisdiction, in any form, exists anywhere in the country. The audiotape exists. Thats the best evidence in which to conduct oversight and this committee is entitled to it, with that ill yield back. The gentleman yields back. Seeks recognition, the gentleman from california. California. Thank you, mr. Chairman. In support of the amendment, but first i want to talk about both what this committee and what this congress is doing to the rule of law. Earlier this week, we witnessed the spectacle of the highest ranking republican in the country, the speaker of the house, someone in line for the presidency, standing outside a manhattan courthouse in a hush money payment to a porn star trial, vouching for the defense. I would wonder if you asked a younger mike johnson, 10, 15 years ago, could you ever imagine youd stand outside of a courthouse in a hush money to a porn star trial, and you would never imagine that possible. Like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot what weve seen not just with this speaker, but so many of the Republican Leadership over the last several years is one surrender of moral authority after another surrender, after another surrender, one betrayal of what once stood for followed by another, followed by another until you find yourself standing outside of a manhattan courthouse vouching for the moral authority and character of someone who possesses none. And not just not just losing yourself and losing any sense of right and wrong in the process, but here, denigrating the very institution of justice. Making the false claims, patently false claims that this trial in manhattan was somehow about keeping donald trump off the campaign trail, something the speaker knows is patently false, but willing to repeat. And this is where we are, where our highest ranking official, republican official is essentially telling the American People, dont trust our system of justice. Dont trust the rule of law. And you know, this committee we see something very similar. We see a republican u. S. Attorney brought on to investigate the president , to the court that theres nothing prosecutable and failing to make a prosecutable case and deciding the next best thing he can do is lob a political grenade in his report and politically belittle the president. And we see this committee unable, after months and months and millions of dollars to make any kind of impeachable case deciding to follow mr. Hurs taintable example. Theres no high crime, theres no misdemeanor even and so well do the next best thing well use it to political advantage by subpoenaing tapes of an interview we already have the transcript for and why . Because the republicans in this committee have moved from being in the criminal defense for the president to being essentially an adjunct of the president s Media Advertising firm. They want the video for Donald Trumps campaign commercials. Thats where this committee has become. The committee on the judiciary, the committee that is centered or supposed to be centered on the rule of law, and on justice, and what are we doing . Were holding the attorney general of the United States in contempt and for what . Because he wont give video material for campaign commercial to this committee. On behalf of a president who is a criminal defendant in a hush money payment to a porn star case in new york, the first of many criminal trials that he will face. This is where we are. This is where we are. You know, i first joined this committee now its been over 20 years ago. And i suppose like a young mike johnson i could have never imagined this committee would engage in such a thing. Its not as if some 20 years ago, this was a bipartisan bastion of comity. We might and did disagree on abortion and guns and a host of other policy issues, but i dont think any democrat or republican on this committee would have ever manteled it would be brought so low as to hold an attorney general in contempt because it cant get a video for a campaign commercial and already given a transcript. Thats where we are. Day after day, moment after moment, we lose sight of how far we have fallen in any sense of what we are supposed to be about in this committee and i dont imagine anything i have to say is going to change that. I think every now and then, the country has to be reminded, theres nothing normal about this, we need to get back to demonstrating some devotion to our constituents and the rule of law and with that, i yield back. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from new jersey is recognized for a second. Were not seeking a videotape, were seeking the audiotape, and i believe held the attorney general in contempt a few years ago when they held bill barr in contempt. Look, weve got to get focused here. The gentleman from california hes again trying to take our eye off the ball. This has nothing to do this particular issue right here, what were doing, with the courthouse in new york city. This doesnt have anything directly to do with what is going on with President Trump there, and i would be glad to engage in a colloquy or a debate or discussion about how often whats happening to President Trump is, but thats not the issue is right now. Its nothing to do with the campaign. It has nothing to do with the fact that the speaker did go, as he should have, to support President Trump. But this isnt the issue. It has to do with special counsel hur. And it has to do with what he said. And by the way, he never said it wasnt prosecutable. He decided not to pursue the charges due to the assessment that a jury would find President Trumps age and poor memory as an excuse for mishandling those documents. I didnt say that. Our chairman didnt say that. The special counsel from the department of justice said that. The subpoena of the attorney general is necessary because the department of justice has refused to provide the audio recordings of interviews that are crucial for determining the special counsels assessment of our current president. Its essential for this congress and the American People to determine whether special counsel hurs assessment is accurate or not and im going to tell you why and the folks on the other side on the left here are in bind because if our commanderinchief is so incompetent that he cannot stand trial, hes not fit to stand trial, then hes too incompetent for gods sake to be the leader of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth. If President Biden is competent, and special counsel hurs assessment was incorrect, then President Biden should face a jury for his crimes of mishandling classified materials. You know, President Trumps facing the full weight of the department of justice in his own case on this issue even though he had the authority to declassify documents because he was the president of the United States when he did it President Biden on the other hand, mishandled classified documents both as a vicepresident and then as a senator. Guess what . Members of congress, vicepresident s, u. S. Senators, dont take get to take classified documents and remove them from the skiff. They just dont get to do that. They dont get to declassify documents. He didnt have the authority to declas declassify. The audio recordings, why do we want them . They are going to reveal whether special counsel hurs assessment is correct and our president mishandled classified documents or reveal hes incompetent and not competent enough to even stand trial and therefore not competent enough to be the president of the United States. Thats the choices we have. Weve got two choices here. He was competent and he broke the law. Or hes incompetent and so incompetent hes such a bumbling old man that he cant even stand trial because they wouldnt be able to do much with him. So we want to find out. Thats what we need to know. Either way, it will be clear our president is unfit to lead, in my opinion, and likely why the doj is so damn hesitant to share it. Ill tell you what, anybody else, probably anybody on that committee. If you ask them to share the audio of something we said, believe me anything im saying now, you can share anywhere and you can share anything the chairman says or any of our esteemed members say on either side. Why dont they want it. Theyve got a reason, theyre in a bind. Am i willing to set the precedent that subpoenas from congress and this committee can be ignored . Are you willing to do that . I dont think so, i dont think that we want that to happen. Are we willing to perpetuate, if the president is competent, a twotiered Justice System again . We see it again being wielded against one person, but not another . The answer to the question should be no. The information requested in this subpoena is crucial. We need the information. Not just for uncovering whether our president has acted in a manner deserving of impeachment, but also because the American People deserve to know the answers. We shouldnt be hiding the answers and the truth from the American People. For those reasons, i dont support this amendment and i do strongly support holding the attorney general in contempt of congress. Let it loose, give us the information. If theres nothing there to worry about, you should have no problem letting us know and letting us see. Let the light in. Let the sunshine in. I yield back. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from maryland is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to address a couple of things quickly before i get to the amendment, but one of the arguments im hearing from the republican side over and over again is essentially questioning mr. Hurs conclusion, not to move forward with the prosecution. But i did want to remind my colleagues that under, you know, mr. Barr, the department of justice has taken the position that the committee, referencing this committee, the House Judiciary Committee, has no legitimate role in demanding Law Enforcement materials with the aim of simply duplicating a criminal inquiry, which is of course a function that the constitution entrusts exclusively to the executive branch. So to the extent youre arguing that you dont agree with his findings and you want to sort of replicate them or go through them again, mr. Barr argued against that five years ago. With respect to the underlying amendment or the amendment to the ans, theres a major problem here with moving forward with the language and the amendment in the amendment. Because its based on the predicate that ill read it to the date the department has refused to produce the audio recordings despite not invoked any privilege to justify failure to comply with the subpoena. And one of the conclusions that it reaches at the end as a justification for moving forward with contempt, the attorney general has further invoked no constitution or legal privilege relieving his obligation to fully respond to the committees subpoenas. The gentleman yield . Sure. Were drafting an amendment, we understand that has to be dealt with in light of the last minute executive privilege assertion coming from the white house. So were drafting that amendment, but were running past counsel and the majority plans to offer an amendment for the language quite cited. With will the committee then adopt the Ranking Members amendment . No, we have our own. Well have to take a look at it when it gets here. You know, moving forward on this basis, even if you amend the language and add that, i want to remind the committee that where theres an assertion of executive privilege, according to nixon, which is the case that you all have cited, i dont know if youre going to strike that, too. But upon receiving a claim of privilege from the chief executive of the material presumptively privileged and the special prosecutor to demonstrate that the president ial material was essential to the justice of the case. And thats because of the pending criminal case, so moving forward at that point whether theres expedited process. We obviously dont have expedited process here and just to point out and be clear about this, the court said this is presumptively privileged and so moving forward as if thats not the case, i think, is deeply problematic. One of my colleagues over there a minute ago said something about you dont get to choose, but thats exactly what happens when you assert a privilege, especially executive privilege, and the references from the other side with respect to regular civil litigation, which is fine, i engaged in regular civil litigation, too, but this is litigation between article one and article two branches of the United States. This is constitutional magnitude. So, rushing through this quickly, i think, is misguided and i think it will lead to hopefully a court telling the committee that we are going down the wrong track, were abusing our power for oversight, and especially in the instance where weve got a special counsel that has been appointed, has reviewed the issues and come back and stated clearly that theres insufficient evidence in his view to move forward with the prosecution, and i think its especially problematic, too, if we have to take it to a court again, that theres no evident here of a refusal to cooperate, in fact youve got the exact opposite. The above and beyond language in the barr language, in the barr letter is clearly met here, too. Weve got mr. Garland, he wasnt legally required to release the court, but he did. He wasnt legally required to release the transcript, but he did. And pointed out by the Ranking Member, 92,000 pages of documents, weve had i dont know, 40 or 50 lawyers from the department of justice come and testify. A couple of them in the middle of a criminal prosecution, which is totally unprecedented so for these reasons and more, im urging my colleagues to rethink this approach because i think its going to end up in undermining the ability of this committee to conduct legitimate oversight at the times when thats appropriate. So, ive exceeded my time. Ill yield back and i thank the chairman. The gentleman yields back and the gentleman from alabama is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i yield to mr. Armstrong. Thank you. Couple things, one, i would be happy to argue this and to my college from maryland, i wish i would have been here in 2019 because we legitimately as the chairman said we held the attorney general in con at the point in time after asserting privilege, but it was more than that. We held them in contempt for not violating the law. If theres actually a statutory requirement that you cant disclose grand jury testimony so if we talk about the path were talking about and continuing in talking about oversight. We dont have to go back to nixon, we can go back to may of 2019. To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that are argument about this, i would love to get that transcript or audio or video and come back out here, but were not duplicating a criminal proceedings, there is no criminal proceeding. We got the answer from where we asked and if you talk about executive id argue if we go in front of someone, of course, theyre doing this, running out the clock. He could have exerted executive privilege, a week ago, a month ago, its a pattern going on with this doj and white house as we come up to the press when youre actually going to do something and say at the last minute, drop all of this. And we have a right to do this. Im fully aware of a criminal prosecution and a civil litigation and the congressional hearing are the same thing, but the basic premises, what is the best evidence, what were entitled to, versus what the opposing said were entitled to, i think the people on my side of the aisle are completely willing to have that conversation, with whoever is an independent and neutral arbitrator of those facts. Will the gentleman yield . Sure. You know, the best evidence standard, which i dont think is necessarily applicable here because its not a court proceeding, is demeanor evidence, i think, fell on the stage for the same reasons. The point here, i think with respect to the 6e issue, it can be waived and routinely is as a matter of practice, and so, certainly has been for congress, so i dont know that thats a real good analogy, but the bottom line here though, you guys are arguing, you need it for demeanor evident which again has no applicability here because it doesnt go to the findings that came from hur or the impeachment transcript. And really the altering the transcript is what you have to argue, in fact, the chairman argued that. Theres no evident of that. Its a certified transcript. This was up on the side. And these are the transcripts we generate on a routine basis in congress and sure, reclaiming my time. That might be somebody elses argument. Thats not my argument. My argument, if i have the version of going through something and dealing with something and those Different Things, ive watched witnesses in this committee, in depositions, say things because they know theyve agreed to it not being released on video. How something reads and how something sounds is different. That is true. Im not argument that what they im not saying what theyre entitled and not entitled to give me. Im saying im entitled to this evidence and i think this hearing is entitled to it and im willing to have that fight. I have never been, in my entire life, said, okay, you tell me what i get and ill just agree to that and thats not the point and regardless of all of the other issues, you dont get to say at the last minute, were exerting executive privilege because nobody will ever come and voluntarily come into an investigation ever again. If we release the audio recording instead of the transcript, thats a chilling argument, i dont care the previous. Will the gentleman yield again. Yes. That argument has been by the administration after administration, including the trump administration. The privilege, Justice Department what theyll turn over and what they wont. If its litigated in court. This is exactly how its supposed to go. Except executive privilege is used whether or not you get the information. I was here. I remember when the attorney general said i cant turn this stuff over, i would be breaking the law. And this isnt whether theyre turning it over. Theyre saying we are only giving you the piece of it. Were not going to give what you guys want and thats the fundamental disagreement. Way want the evident of what happened and the best evident is the audiotape, with that ill yield back. The gentleman from alabama yields back and the gentleman from tennessee is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chair. I have been dispairing the state of our country, but even more so the state of this committee and the judiciary for the last several months. This committee is becoming the ilene cannon committee, the trump anointed group to support him and defend him for conduct thats not defensible. Road blocks. Path of justice where he should be on trial in florida for his keeping classified records he didnt declassify them, he just kept them. And this is a man who we several of our colleagues went to new york and said our justice our rule of law was false and that this case in new york was political and shouldnt have taken place. The thing were most respected for around the world is rule of law. People envious for our rule of law and to have people know better go and trash it is despicable. Almost treasonous. And then this committee, the hypocrisy that this committee would question Merrick Garland who appointed a republican to look into President Bidens conduct, a man who mr. Hur said, he was here to be questioned, and anybody here could have questioned him about the conduct, what mr. Biden said and why he came to that conclusion, but he said he was a sympathetic elderly man with a poor memory. The fact that he was sympathetic is why he would not be convicted, as distinguished from his forth coming opponent and past opponent who is a despicable, mendacious man with a poor knowledge of history and government, and a poor memory to boot. A man who his own secretary of state said was a moron. Yes, tillerson said he was a moron. Kelly said he admires, john kelly his chief of staff said he admires autocrats and dictators and has no for the rule of law democracy of our country. John bolton declared hed be unfit to be president and of course, mike pence said they had profound differences, all folks coming up here and defending whats going on in new york, this is a man whos had just his wife gave birth to his child and he was playing golf fornicating in nevada rather than being with his wife and child. Joe biden is as colin yost said at the Correspondents Dinner is a decent man. Hes sympathetic and a decent man. And one of the gentlemen said we are in an impeachment theory. Theyre trying to take away that impeachment that biden and mayorkas was wrong. Would the gentleman yield . And the committee was holding barr in contempt and the chairman was cited for contempt because of refused to appear before a committee dealing with january 6th and the overthrow of the government. The hypocrisy is volumous, and yield to mr. Nadler. I want to point out that the discussion we heard about about best evidence and so forth between mr. Armstrong and mr. And mr. Ivy, is fit for criminal trial, but this is not a criminal trial. This is a dispute between the executive branch and congress and in such a dispute Congress Must show a need for the evident that we seek. The republicans have not made that showing. Theyve shown no need for these files. So, the discussion we heard before is irrelevant because it was dealing with a criminal trial. This is not a criminal trial, this is a dispute between the executive branch and congress. And in such a dispute Congress Must show a need for the evidence that they seek. Republicans have not made that showing. They have not shown any need for these files and that renders this whole thing ridiculous and i thank the gentleman from yielding and i yield back to him. Thank you. In my last 10 seconds, all i can say is, God Bless America because we need somebody of that authority to bless us with the way this committee and these folks have dealt with this case and ruining the constitution and democracy. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from california is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman, since the discussion has drifted into the manhattan trial, i just have to say, its ironic to hear my colleague from california speak to the integrity of our legal system. Like most americans, im appalled that our Justice System could become so dangerously politicized, it started with the irs harassing members of the tea party years ago. And then we had the fbi and intelligence agencies using what they knew was a completely fabricated story by the Clinton Campaign over russian collusion. My colleague played a large role in that and censured by the house for his role in that and the intelligence agencies concoct a lie that the hunter biden laptop was a russian hoax and may have decisively affected the outcome of the 2020 election and now we have the sham cases against donald trump on the flimsiest of legal grounds, grounds never charged before, and with the obvious intent to interfere massively with the president ial campaign. The sinister nature of these cases is that it doesnt matter that theyre falling apart, thats not the point. The point is to drain trump of his time and resources and throw the election to the democrats. Now, the cornerstone of our Justice System is equal justice under law, no matter who we are, were treated the same. Thats why justice is depicted as blind folded and in each of these cases there seem to be three standards of justice. One for donald trump, one for the rest of us and then one for the democrats and that strikes at the heart of the matter before us, the decision to prosecute donald trump for mishandling classified documents and the decision not to prosecute joe biden for the same offense. Now, executive privilege is an important concept as an enormous pa bearing on the celebration of powers. In fact, the discuss goes back to George Washingtons administration and the discussions that a president has with his advisors or sub board sub board nates, and the business of krohning and executive. The president cannot compel them to divulge, and its Crystal Clear that any discussion between the president and subordinate, its an interview you in the course of a criminal investigation. To me this is far closer to the nixon tapes, the nixon tapes were not conversations as part of a criminal investigation, but conversations that had bearing on one. The conversation in this case is even further from the root of the executive privilege and this was an interview in a criminal investigation that clearly falls within the legitimate legislative function. Its not only a legitimate inquiry, its a vital inquiry. How is it there are two cases of handling of classified information that have been treated so radically differently as President Donald Trump had absolute authority to declassify at will, and vicePresident Joe Biden did not. And the president had to determine what papers to retain in the course of presidency as vicePresident Joe Biden did not. Yet, a decision was made to prosecute donald trump yet not to prosecute joe biden by the joe biden administration. So it rebears repeating. The foundation of our judicial system is equal justice under law and loses moral authority and becomes raw Political Force and appears to me were dangerously away. And congress has to play a role to set things right before we lose the principles that define us as a free people and central to understand why these two cases were treated so very differently. The request of the administration is legitimate and the contempt citation for its refusal to provide this information is entirely appropriate. And with that, ill yield back. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from california, i have california and then you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The House Judiciary Committee is responsible for helping to ensure the rule of law. Unfortunately, the actions of this Committee Chairman ignoring a bipartisan congressional subpoena has hurt the ability of this committee to get information and hurt the rule of law. Its the height of hypocrisy for the chairman of this committee to try to enforce a contempt subpoena against Merrick Garland when this chairman himself ignored a bipartisan congressional subpoena. Now, ive been to a number of proceedings in my time in congress and in the state legislature that have been relatively stupid, but this proceeding goes beyond stupidity, it is a waste oftype resources. Why is that . Because we have the transcript. We have the transcript of the interview between special counsel robert hur and President Biden. Theres no evidence whatsoever that this transcript was made up, that its fake, that its been doctored. This was produced by robert hurs office. Robert hur was appointed by donald trump. He is a republican appointee. The notion that somehow this transcript is fake is a wild insane conspiracy theory. You know what i think is really going on . Joe biden stutters. Hes always had a stuttering problem. He was made fun of as a child because he was bullied as a child. And he overcame stuttering to become president of the United States. And the republicans used that to smear him. And i think thats what theyre going to do with this audio. If the republicans are going low, im going to punch back. And lets go to donald trump, if a person cannot stand trial he should not be president of the United States. Donald trump has fallen asleep multiple times at his own criminal trial. I am a former prosecutor. I can tell you that that is not normal. I think there may be some physical and Mental Health issues that should be investigated. Im going to tell you what people in the courtroom are writing about donald trump falling asleep. A reporter who has been observing this, one reporter observed, quote, that donald trump has nodded off a few times, his mouth going slack and head drooping onto his chest, end quote. Another reporter said, quote, that donald trump slowly dropped his head, his eyes closed, and jerked back upward, adjusted himself and then his head droops again, he straight ps up, leaning back, his head droops for a third time. Shakes his shoulder eyes closed still his head drops, end quote. If a person is so weak and feeble, if donald trump is so weak and feeble he cannot stay awake at his own criminal trial, he cant be president of the United States. So instead of going around, trying to smear different people. Why dont we work on a bipartisan basis on issues that matter to the American People. How about a bipartisan hearing and lets do some bills to fix our broken immigration system. The republicans here dont want to do that, they dont want to work on a bipartisan basis, they dont want to fix this. Why . Because donald trump told them not to. How about another issue, lets talk about high prices, prices are high, we did get a report that inflation now slowed down, thats good, but prices are still high, why dont we work on bipartisan basis to look at price gouging . We have Companies Making record profits, gouging consumers, lets have a hearing on that. Why dont we have a hearing on that . Because the republicans dont want to fix this issue, they want it as a campaign issue. How about lets do a topic that isnt a campaign issue, Artificial Intelligence has now become prevalent in many places, it could have privacy implications, it could do amazing things, it could also harm us in a variety of ways in terms of bias and so on. Why dont we do a hearing on this committee . Why dont we do that . Instead were here doing this stupid stuff to try to get audio of a transcript we already have. And it gets even worse than that. There is a second committee, the Oversight Committee doing the exact hearing on this contempt proceeding. Let me just put it in, now what . At least the chairman of that committee did not ignore a congressional bipartisan subpoena and might be more appropriate for that committee to do it and we should end this proceeding right now. I yield back. The gentleman yields back and the gentleman from texas is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. After that five minutes i was starting to get a little sleepy. Id like to yield my time. Thank you, gentleman, for yielding. Here we go again. So the gentleman, my friends from tennessee and california and maryland, they want us not to have our eye on the ball. They want us to look and we talked about this before in this committee, the shiny object over here, when youre really in trouble, on the other side of the aisle, when youve really got a problem, lets go after donald trump. Lets make it a campaign stump speech. Lets talk about what a bad guy he is. Lets talk about the different issues. Thats not why were here. Again, if we want to have a separate debate, a colloquy, a discussion, formal, informal. Well do it, man, im ready to go at it, most of us are. Thats not the issue. The issue is this committee feels that it needs an audio transcript because the charges, the concerns are so serious. I want everybody to understand. Were either saying that our current president is cognitively impaired, incompetent, unable to stand trial, even though he broke the law, so the department of justice decides that they wont go after him for those reasons, and if thats true, we need to hear the audiotape. Youre going to be able to understand if he truly is that cognitively impaired, if he truly has those problems. If he cannot deal with these issues, if he didnt know what he is doing, were going to learn a lot more. And by the way, if its no big deal as the other side says because we have the transcripts, well, we do have the transcripts, why do you care so much about us getting the audio. Whats the big deal. Will the gentleman yield for an answer . I want this for a second and ill yield. We have the transcripts, why dont we have the audio because we can find out whether hes in that much trouble, if the country is in that much trouble. Its nothing to do with whats going on with new york, it has to do whats going on in the white house in washington d. C. With this president or if he is not cognitively impaired, if he is with it, if hes capable, then he broke the law as vicepresident and as a u. S. Senator, not allowed to take these classified materials out. Kept them in a garage by his home next to a collapsed dog kennel, and then used them. I want everybody to understand that. Used them, read them to his ghost writer, to use in his multimillion dollar book deal. Was he competent . Did he know what he was doing when he made this deal and used these papers to make money on the presidency . Thats what we need to know. Thats why were going through all of this. Its got nothing to do with the other stuff. And thats what we need to find out. Will the gentleman yield . Thats why i will in one moment. And thats why were having this discussion. Because this committee has an oversight responsibility and needs to know that. But its not only the committee, most importantly, the American People need to know it. We need to know if we have an incompetent, incoherent president , or if we have a president that is being helped through the twotiered system of justice again just like they tried to help his son. Justice for thee, not for me. And god help us, the American People listening and watching this, dont have those opportunities, but he keeps getting it over and over again. Which is it . I know its a bad spot for you folks, i get it. Its an uncomfortable place to be. And we need the truth. And yield to actually, yeah, yield to the gentleman. I want to comment the following, the special prosecutor decided there was no good reason to prosecute for his own good reasons and in his report, he made his own gratuitous comments. And there will be two debates. Theyll see if the president is cognitively impaired and his opponent. We dont need the transcript to know whether the president is cognitively impaired or not. The evident is going to be before the American People. I reclaim. Thank you to the gentleman for yielding. I reclaim my time. Look, this doesnt have anything to do with the debates, everybody is going to enjoy them, me included. This has to do with the actions that took place regarding classified materials either as the special prosecutor said hes cognitively impaired and unfit for trial or he knowingly did this and made money off of it. I yield back to mr. And the gentleman yields back. The chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia. Thank you, mr. Chairman. This hearing is a continuation of what this congress has been about under republican authority since january 3rd of 2023. We started out trying to elect a speaker. It took, i think, 19 ballots before this congress, back in 2023, january, was able to elect a speaker. And then that speaker presided over what is agreed upon by most people who are observing this committees functions, as, well, this congress function, this has been the least Productive Congress in the history of the country. Many are arguing. And my friends on the other side of the aisle, on this committee, are a part of that. They have spent 20 million investigating President Trump. This committee. This committee alone, has spent 20 million during this 118th session of congress, which began in january of 2023, investigating President Biden. They suffered the indignity of their leader, former President Trump, being indicted for withholding classified documents. That indictment was in july of 2023. During the height of this doNothing Congress and not long before this Congress Expelled the speaker, it took so long to elect in january, they put him out in october and then we went to three weeks while even people on this committee were vying for the speakership, it took three weeks and ran through a number of candidates before this congress elected mike johnson as its speaker, formerly of this committee, and he has not fared much better. Neither has the house under his reign. Still nothing accomplished and we get to this point now where after spending 20 million, this committee has absolutely nothing to show for it. They tried to pin a classified documents case on President Biden. They had a special counsel, special counsel hur, who spent a lot of money investigating, couldnt find a thing, had to write a report that cleared the president from illegally withholding classified documents and then he was summoned to this committee to deliver the findings of his report, which included a derogatory reference to President Biden being having a loss of memory, disparaging him, and that was the only thing that republicans could get out of hurs report. And so they made hay of that for a while and then that went away and now, it has come back, you know. Were seeking to hold the attorney general in contempt of this committee for refusing to produce an audio file when you already have the volumous document, the unredacted hur report, a transcript of the interview with the president and even talking to the president s ghost writer. It was an exhaustive investigation and the only thing we can do now is come up with Additional Information to show that biden is cognitively impaired. Thats what this committee is trying to do today according to my friend from new jersey, get the evidence that biden is cognitively impaired. So this is political. Its a doNothing Congress. Its the product of a donothing committee. The American People deserve more and theyre seeing whats happening and i think theyre going to sweep this committee out of its perch and democrats will be back in control so that we can do the work that the American People need us to do to keep them safe and to make sure that costs are down. Make sure that our economy is humming along, jobs, rebuilding america, thats what this committee needs to be about, not a fishing expedition trying to show that this president is cognitively impaired and with that, im yield back. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from wisconsin is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chair. I mean, a lot of us sit here and we listened to the special counsel, i think, respond to many questions that day sitting right there in front of us and i began to wonder, kind of what were the conversations behind closed doors . What were the discussions amongst the attorneys on how are we ever going to dismiss the idea that the president of the United States holding substantial positions within our government had absolutely secured on his own person sensitive documents and then was able to take them back to his residence, move boxes of them to offices in multiple locations, and obviously willingly and knowingly mishandling secret, sensitive u. S. Government documents and just dismiss this . And there had to have been a conversation with the special counsel behind closed doors about, well, lets see, they just did a raid on the former president s home in florida. Lights going, securing specific areas of that residence, and really kind of ransacking the place. And now we find out, you know, probably, you know, a little bit of orchestration on what they wanted those documents to look like when the photos were taken, but i cant imagine what the special counsel and his assistants were trying to dismiss by simply saying that the president , hes not all there. You know, and weve seen it on tv. We see it every day now. Hes completely incompetent from handling a simple press conference. So that became their way out. That became what they thought could justify letting him off the hook. And im not sure where that would have gone as a criminal prosecution, none of us are ever going to know that, right . My personal opinion is that hur blew it because hes the one who set up this juxtaposition of the president of the United States, who by the way just agreed to two president ial debates, okay, but at the same time were supposed to believe that, you know, he had a few boxes in the garage and he lost track of them and were just hes just not up to standing trial for this. Hes just not up to actually having an attorney ask him poignant questions about what he was doing with the documents and was he aware what was in those boxes that he had all over the place. And now, today, we get a letter from mr. Siskel. So again, i wonder what was going on behind closed doors at the white house yesterday in the discussions on how are we now going to make sure that we protect the president again from having to disclose anything of substance . And the paragraph that strikes me is, the absence of a legitimate need for an audio recording lays bare your likely goal. Now theyre telling congress what our goals are in trying to secure evidence and thats to chop them up, distort them and use them for partisan political purposes. Okay. And thats not part of our process either, right . That you have to run for reelection. So if Something Like this was actually utilized in that way, which that is not the committees intent, but clearly one of the attorneys over at the white house dropped the ball when they wrote that paragraph because it just went from us not being able to do oversight to now weve come up with a way that were actually going to execute a little bit after of a coverup. And we are going to use coverup to make sure that the special counsels conclusions are not questioned beyond what was done in this room when he was here a month ago. So, mr. Chairman, this entire day is not only warranted, but the American People see whats going on here. Were not going to elect donald trump, the other side of the aisle and the white house is going to elect donald trump and ill yield back. The gentleman yields back. And the chair now recognizes the chairman from california. Its nice to see that some of my colleagues on the other side could make it today. I dont know if there wasnt enough seats in the courtroom in new york, but i know the Oversight Committee canceled the hearing that was supposed to happen on this matter so they could be at the president s trial. So they could be at the president s try know some members will miss this a vote because they want to be at the president s trial. I do not think anything could animate the phrase doNothing Congress more than missing votes and canceling hearings to go up and be a spectator at your cult leaders trial that is the definition of donothing im here for a celebration because its been about two years, two years this week, may 12 is when jim jordan are chairman was subpoenaed and asked to comply with his subpoena fored his role, his reaction to the former president on the january 6 attack of the capitol. So we are now 735 days in and thats two years and this committee has the nerve, this committee has the temerity to seek compliance from the attorney general. Iem actually think you should nt be able to bring any subpoena of another person if you are out of compliance of your own subpoena. That seems to make a lot of sense to me and we will have an amendment to address that a little bit later. But i want to talk about this particular effort to hold the attorney general in contempt to what is this really about . After all it was Donald Trumps appointed prosecutor who the attorney general deputized to be the special counsel here to look at President Bidens handling of classified documents to us Donald Trumps prosecutor who cleared President Biden preach hehe said theres nothing to see here and although he did not put it in the lead memo for his report there was an exchange of the acknowledged in the interview with President Biden where the special counsel told the president youre recalled his photographic. He didnt say your recall is good. He didnt say your recall is decent. The special counsel said your recall hisr photographic. So what is this really about . This is about you all not accepting the outcome of the 2020 election. You rooted on the rioters that they sought to attack the capitol capitol on january 6. If thatap wasnt enough you all went back to the floor and relitigated the issues that brought the riotersus to the capitol just eight hours later. Many of you go and visit the convicted criminals who assaulted the Police Officer after a jail cell enduring police week has a bunch of officers testified in Homeland Security hearing that those officers are heroes and those rioters are criminals, you call them hostages in and the former president called them hostages. This is entirely about not accepting the outcome of the january 6 votes here, routing on the rioters and doing everything you cang to try to effect the outcome of the upcoming election. Then i thought to myself is there a parallel . Is there another investigation where your side was completely in curious about what that investigation yielded . It turns out there t was. It turns out somebody on your side was investigated for sex trafficking. Now if you were going to say he was cleared, they dropped the charges. Yes the Biden Attorney general dropped the charges. He didnt bring charges. Thats exactly what happened with president th biden. But you all have shown no interest to go to the attorney general and say what we want to learn more. We want to see the notes and audio recording in the evidence of our own colleagues sex trafficking investigation. Not a peep from from anyone of you if youif wanted to do that,f he wanted to show just a little bit of consistency i would be willing to entertain that you have a genuine interest in understanding what happened but thats not what this ist about. This is about doing everything to help donald trump who you see as your client and the new york criminal trial sees him as a defendant to help him win an election. Ct so i have no interest in playing this game and the American People have no interest in playing this game and all this does for those of you who have graced us with your presence animates that it didnt completely doNothing Congress and i yieldd back. The gentleman yields back and the gentleman from texas thank you i yield to the gentleman from california. I will be briefer for my colleague from california leaves. Ive been in this committee to know why wee markup cut content. The committee he referred oversight we tell people in contempt for not doing things. This committee successfully held in contempt the chief council to the president george w. Bush for not showing up. We next door held in contempt eric holder from withholding information that he said he had 200 some pages alternately over 10,000 pages turned out to be delivered. Whats interesting and very similar is the president s old boss president obama claimed executive privilege on exactly the day we were about to do this and ultimately none of those 10,000 pages stood the test under a judge appointed by president obama for executive privilege. The false claim of executiveeg privilege today is just as much a roost as it was under president obama and thats the piece of history that i hope my colleagues will observe as we hold thehe security general in contempt and i think the general for yielding. Imp think the gentleman in my colleagues are crying the fact that some of our car lakes are in new york but you know whats happening in new york. We have a clear sham trial being perpetrated by a judge withh clear bias. We have a situation where the entire thing relies on Michael Cohen who i mean this convicted felon has been disbarred and pled guilty perjury and various financial crimes. The judge his own daughter is a known democrat political operative and his clients including some of our democratic colleagues even on this committee including some democratic colleagues who are advising Michael Cohen at this particular moment all of that is occurring at the time they could bring forward Allen Weisselberg who is sitting at rikers but for some reason they are bringing him forward which one could guess because he wouldnt help and the fact is this is all out 12 of strapping a federal law in the state crime to navigate statute of limitations. Its ridiculous. Itsur patently what we are seeg unfold with our system of justice in the politicization of it and now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle dont like that we simply want to see the best evidence available when in fact its not as one of my colleagues talked about trying to effectively get a second stab at criminal proceedings, this is an impeachment inquiry. That is inherently not a criminal proceeding. It is a unique function of congress of the constitution of the United States and we are investigating legitimate questions conflicts of interest in the biden family a significant amount of money frozen by the family the extent to which the president has material that is not supposed to have it in his possession which special counsel firmly pointed out and in fact in this committee testified to and in fact the president and his warriors have contested special counsel special council hur in thisis committee stood behind hs sworn testimony. We have evidence that weakens the transcripts but all we are pointing out is it is an impeachment function and legislative function of this body to be able to use the power to go to the department of justice which is supposed to be overseeing in the first place by the way andhe to say we simply want to see that thats evidence because if you look in terms of the criminal proceedings which is not an impeachment inquiry and not a legislative function its a unique function carried out and just as they clearly what you saw from special counsel hur was a great deal of dependence on the demeanor of the president. An extraordinary amount of dependence in terms of his determination on whether to pursue charges, depending on how he assessed at the demeanor of the president of the United States. Thats all this is about. Its not political. Its not about something that might show up later for political purposes. Its very much part of whether or not and what the president knew about the materials he had which the special counsel firmly acknowledges and wrote were illegal for him to possess. The question is what was his intent and it is critically important for the purposes off this body to determine where we are going to go with the impeachment inquiry or any legislative inquiry that determined what the president , what the president s demeanor was during that interview. I yield back. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from virginia is recognized. Thank you mr. Chairman. Im disappointed and i would like to strike the last word for the record. Im disappointed but not surprised that we are getting a letter from the white house citing executive privilege the day before the hearing, the day before the markup and as my colleague from california knows who is the Ranking Member on the subcommittee that i chair and responsible for oversight this is common behavior for this white house. Wait until the last minute and then throw either an excuse or a few pages of documents that have been subpoenaed much of which is publicly available to us to try and fend off exactly this, a contempt citation for failure to comply. You know it would be one thing if it were the subcommittee that i chair and it would be one thing if it were document subpoenas at the document of health and Human Services or education or the ftc about collusion, about the covid information that they tried to limit the availability on the internet. There is so many different ways in which this administration could still be accountable and still be held accountable and still to provide the information that we haveue requested. We are not surprised. This is an impeachment inquiry. Last year we approved an impeachment inquiry in this body which heightened that standard and actually increasesly the burden on the administration to show that there is some reason why they should not be providing this information in executive privilege does not, is not applicable here. We have a request for reporting that was stated earlier. The white house doesnt get to decide how that information is provided which transcript is better and which transcript is appropriate. We want one transcript and theyll give us out when and if we want that when they have to give us that one. This investigation is about whether the president willfully retained and disclosed classified information when he was a private citizen. That was the conclusion and then the hur investigation included vice President Biden had strong motivation to ignore the rules for properly handling classified material. Though strong motivations included in advance of 8 million that biden plan to receive for riding his memoir once before leaving office. Why does the doj not sought to bring charges against theor president bows as the president and the private citizen . A special counsel noted in this report although there was sufficient evidence that biden had mostly retain classified information he wouldnt recommend it trial to adhere to the jury to be a elderly man with a poor memory. Hur knew that to make the 8 million book ban he would need for monitors and many those reminders areeer classified yete shared them with his ghosts writer. He holds no security clearance but as part of the impeachment inquiry which did legislative Oversight Committee sought information about among other things President Bidens family of classified information. The doj refuses to provide the committee with these recordings and attorney general garland not only confirmed that this material has been turn it over to the white house and not us, he said this during appropriations testimony fail to see the hypocrisy and allowed the white house access to these recordings and not the judiciary and Oversight Committee so he rejected the notion that doj should release the reporting and said they needed to release confidential and that the time had no response on how to provide reportings to the white house as to how he provided the recordings to the white house. These recordings are important to our investigation because of the superior evidence that the transcripts that they provide because transcripts do not capture all the evidence there is evidence that the white house has doctored official transcripts from President Biden already that they are already doctoring special transcripts. We need the tapes and they have an obligation to provide them to us. I yield back. The gentleman yields back. The question occurs on the amendment offered by the gentleman from new york and those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The nos have it and the amendment is not agreed to. The clerk will call the roll. Roe row comr. Tiffany votes no. Mr. Massie votes no. Mr. Roy votes no. Mr. Bishop. Ms. Sparks. Mr. Fitzgerald. Mr. Bentz votes no. Mr. Cline votes no. Mr. Armstrong votes no. Mr. Gooden. Mr. Van drew. Mr. Van drew votes no. Mr. Moore mr. Moore votes no. Mr. Kylie votes no miss hagerman. Mr. Miranda votes no. Ms. Lee. Mr. Hunt. Mr. Nadler. Mr. Nadler votes aye. Ms. Jacksonlee. Mr. Cohen. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson both aye. Mr. Schiff votes aye. Mr. Swalwell both aye. Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Korea. Mr. Net views ned goose. Mr. Bass. Ms. Escobar does aye. Ms. Ross, ms. Bush mr. Ivey. Mr. Ivey both aye. Mr. I say you are not recorded. Mr. Issa votes no. Mr. Fitzgerald votes no. Mr. Gooden votes no. Mr. Chairman and their eight ayes and 17 nose. The nos have it. To. Amendment is not agreed mr. Chairman ivan amendment at the desk. The point of order reserved by the german for, what you. A. The i object mr. Chairman. Clerk will read in the impediment to the mentor substitute for the Committee Report the resolution recommended houses member representative in attempt to congress for worth refusal to. On page 13 the second full paragraph insert the committee consents about the competency of donald trump the weekend before the committee took up this contempt of court and new jersey. Mr. Trump faced as of late great Hannibal Lecter hes a wonderful man congratulations of a great Hannibal Lecter. We have people that have been released into our country though we dont want in our country. Mr. Trump says that chinese. Last january mr. Trump declared all i want about a glass of water and let me drop it on them. During the. Of march campaign really trump mistook the country of argentina for president telling the crowd argentina a great guy a big trump guye and he loves trump ad i love him because he loves trump and anybody that loves me i like him they claimed called a country the United States and made a series of unintelligible noises when describing himself being an [inaudible] mr. Camp knows the political opponents he is running against timr. Hasnt accepted mr. Joe biden and barack obama on eight different occasions and he confuses president ial candidate nikki haley withkk speaker pelo. Mr. Trump has often been confused with respect to leaders. October 2020 mr. Compared the Prime Minister victor or ben is a great leader and a great example and complaints about mr. Trumps ability to serve another termno as president. You are recognized. N. This contempt report that is being considered today is chock full of misleading references to President Bidens age and his incompetence and throughout thie hearing today i have heard false allegations made that special counsel hurr found that biden was incompetent to stand trial. That is not what hur found. He simply questioned the president s memory and so lets not get it listed in speaking of cognitive impairment, a report that we are considering today conveniently omits serious evidence that the standardbearer for my friends on the other side of the aisle Donald Trumps the only candidate who shows any evidence of competency. Just this past weekend in a speech in wildwood new jersey he praised the fictional serial killer for silence of the lambs the late great Hannibal Lecter. He is a wonderful man is what the president said and congratulations to the late great Hannibal Lecter. We have great people here that are being released into g our country. We dont want our we dont want in our country. You can hear for yourself. Play the tape. Silence of the lamb has anyone ever seen the silence of the lamb click the late great h Hannibal Lecter. Hes a wonderful man. President xi of china talking aboutin beijing. Now they have ships circling and a plame planes. I could have crushed hillary a lot harder she broke up her phone and nobody knows its all done by biden. Jimmy conners, hes also happy. Congratulations the late great Hannibal Lecter. We have people that are being released into our country that we dont want in our country. They are screaming like a. Ladies and gentlemen that set display to place just this past weekend with the former president. He appeared to confuse the chinese c city of beijing with e selfgoverning island of taiwan. He confused jimmy conners, famous tennis player with jimmy carter the 39th president of United States. Would the gentleman yield . No, i i wont. This rant is not a singular event for last january at the rally in iowa mr. Trump and coherently stated koch think of it, magnets and all i know about magnets is this. Let me give me a glass of water and let me drop it on the magnets and thats the end of the magnets. During a series of Campaign Rallies trump mistook the country of argentina for a prison telling the crowd quote you know argentina, a great guy. Hes a big trump guy. He loves trump and i love him because he loves trump. Anybody that loves me, i like them end quote. He claimed the pole was a legislative bill and call their country the United States and he made a series of unintelligible noises when describing himself. This is me, being. Its not even clear if trump knows which of his political against. Hes running mr. Trump has mixed up President Joe Biden and former president barack obama from a least eight different occasions. He mixed up residence at candidate nikki haley the former Speaker Pelosi inferring that Ambassador Haley was responsible for capitol security. He cant keep straight the names ofes world leaders. In october of 2023 mr. Trump referred to hungarian Prime Minister victor orban s. Quote a great leader of turkey end quote. Republicans are intellectually and morally to criticize President Biden when they are chosen leader donald trump presents with symptoms which are quite frankly scary. The American People can see through this republican charade but but this is just an exerciso hurt President Joe Biden. Lets move on. With that i yield back. The gentleman yields back and the gentleman from kentucky upset. I just wonder if the gentleman from the other side if they does know and taiwan would cause it to tip over in the future . You know what, i hope that the island of womb is floating on water and not on diesel fuel. Thats the point i was making. And i think that the gentleman might question my mental acuity lets look at your leader. Reclaiming my time. Reclaiming my time. I have the utmost respect for my colleague on the other side of the aisle. The point i wanted to make is that sometimes we make statements tongueincheek that we are metaphorically speaking and the president most certainly and most of those cases was doing that. As we all have, republican and democrat, and eight statements that are taken out of context being indefensible or ungrounded if you will. So let me give you an example. Does the comment on the magnet here, if you give me a glass of water and let me drop it on the magnets its the end of the magnets. I have actually heard the president , the former president talk about that and what he is talking about our electromagnets. There was a discussion about whether the catapults on aircraft carriers should be electromagnetic a lecter magnetically driven and it is true is its more reliable that water would not affect the hoses for instant saltwater could affect wires that are driving electromagnets. Et so i think its here to offer to take many things out of context and take things that were said tongueincheek and to take things that were said on then campaign trail and act as if they were meant to be taken literally because we all on both sides of the aisle have said things before that were not meant to be taken literally and with that i yield back. Would the gentleman yield . I think the point is well made. H no human being has ever said everything exactly right. We all make mistakes but the fundamental question upon us is was the decision, was the decision not to prosecute consistent with the department of justices commitment to impartial justice . Thats the fundamental question. President trump is being kid for document concerning joe biden is not. This is what the special counsel said, he said mr. Bidens memory appears to have significant limitations both at the time he spoke in 2017 and as evidenced by their recorded conversations and today as evidenced by their recorded interview with our office. Thats why we want the audiotape. President trump is the department being impartial . President trump is being prosecuted and wemp know whats going onos in miami per Presidet Biden and it isnt because of that statement from a special counsel. That statement from the special counsel in light of the facts of the case for the elements of the crime, mr. Hur said at the table and told this joe biden knowingly kept classified information and knowingly disclose classified information. Special counsel told us in his report why joe biden data. He said he had a strong motivation to release classified information because he was riding a cookbook, but for which he got w paid 8 million. We have a motive and we have the elementle of decline but he doesnt get charged and yet President Trump does so this committee, the committee that oversees the Justice Department has oversight of the Justice Department wants enough there were impartially administered justice in the best way for us to figure that out is to give all the evidence of the special counsel had at his disposal so we can figure that out and see if theres something we need to do legislatively to change the special counsel. Its all part of oversight. We can get into the things people say ive said things that have been taken out of context. Mr. Matthew hasso mr. Johnson he we all have. But thats not the point. The point is that fundamental question was that the administration of impartial justice and were they being consistent, thats what we ought to know and i yield back. I yield are made of my time to mr. Tiffany. Spend the chairmans comments in regards to being impartial if we go back to the Senate Confirmation hearing for this attorney general he said im going to conduct justice with and hes getting a chance to live up to those words. Will he provide impartial justice and to the American People and thats the question before us. I yield back. Would the gentleman yield . Im not of time. Im sure therell be some time. Let me go first. 15 seconds. I thank the gentleman. The previous two speakers are concerned about me taking President Trumps comments out of context. This is exactly what they plan on doing if they can get their hands on this audio file. They want to take President Bidens comments out of context. This is projecting and this is exactly what these republicans are known for. They do d it and thats what thr big cheese does, donald trump and with that i will yield back. Thats not our goal. I have got to say my colleague from georgia talking about takinghe something out of context. They are certainly concerned about that and i think its a legitimate one. To not have the audiotape but have the comment transcript which again nobody is less correct in any way. Its not a verbatim transcript and the person who took the transcript violated her oath of office or his oath of office and taking the transcript. Allegations are wrong so i think at this point if you have to assume that its factually accurate. I have to get to this point because i have so many colleagues talking about the contrast well biden was prosecuted biden wasnt prosecuted trump was. Hur sat right there and to remind my colleagues hur pointed out distinctions between trumps case and bidens case and said quote they arere clear. They are serious aggravating facts in the trunk case both notably after being given a chance is to return classified documents to avoid prosecution. Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite. According to the indictment he not only refused to return the documents for manyon months bute instructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then lie about it. He goes on in contrast to mr. Biden turning classified documents into the National Archives inn the concerned multiple locations. In other ways to cooperate with investigation but thats the distinction thus the distinction the department of justice draws frequently inus making decisions about whether to move forward with the criminal prosecution and the obvious fact that you guys are ignoring when you talk about well its democrat versus Republican Former Vice President pence was not prosecuted as well for the same sorts of issues for the samen reason. Theres a reason trump sits alone or will sit alone in this criminal trial of its upcoming. L its because he acted to obstruct justice and biden did not. Ive got to say this along those lines. There is this ongoing claim that the department of justice is somehow biased and only going afterft republicans the u. Of te senator new jersey right now democrat who is about to start a jury trial and i dont know if they are still looking at it that theres an indictment against a democrat in texas right now as well that just came down. Its a tough argument and it flies in the face of all of these open cases that are cases moving forward. To suggest that for some reason the department of justice is only targeting republicans when its clear they arent. In the last pointed you all keep avoiding hur sattan testified that you guys are making allegations that you did not confront him with at the time. He said im not trying to hide anything and im not trying to protect the president we areid trying to anything but i do this and i called the balls and strikes as i i saw them. Its a bit of a smear to suggest otherwise. Its a little unfair to do it now when he is not here when you have the chance to do it when he was here. And its kind of frustrating to me. The Judiciary Committee is supposed to be holding the rule of law and we have the political issues is a president ial year and all of that stufff that you are deliberately distorting the facts over and over and over again and it really should stop. It really should be just one final point. On these issues. The attorney general here Merrick Garland 92,000 pages that he is produced over and over presented witnesses to the committee that other ags would have refused to prevent especially lawyers who were in the middle of a criminal investigation or pending trial. All of you all are going to have to act like hes obstructing justice even though you have the verbatim transcript. My time has expired and i yield back. The gentleman yield back r ad i will respond briefly. Their motivation is exactly what i said fives minutes ago, that the impartial demonstrations of justice by the Justice Department nothing else. Thats our goal with this would have figured that out is to get the offense and thats why ive asked for it. What special counsel hurr was he right to confront him. I laid out the same things. I know what estem did joe biden keep classified information yes and why did he do it . Because he was writing a book and how much did he get paid for the book and he told me 8 million. We laid all that out. Will the gentleman yield . You confronted him with the fact that those of those facts that nobody said you know what youre not telling the truth truth. Youre not charging him and you should because you are trying to protect him. None of you said that not one. Of course i confronted him with the facts. Thats what we do in these hearings. With that i yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from new jersey. Thank you chairman levin itit to say i think you encapsulated what this is about. You are good at it and i may not add as a complement. You really are good, youre good at politics and im talking about the railing wildwood and by the way of you probably feel about is you have 100,000 people from all walks of life from plumbers to pipefitters to professionals to engineers and architects and doctors and the young people, the old people all excited to be there with 100,000 people. We had no incidents and nobody got and nobody got hurt. There were no fights and i was a celebration of america. For an hour and a half donald trump stood up there mostly extemporaneously speaking about a whole bunchle of stuff, havina little bit of fun sometimes being sarcastic and sometimes being very serious and speaking about america and American Freedom and whats happening at our borders and our cities and whats happening to our country in so many different ways that are good my point is thats not what this hearing is about. So once again in the chairman encapsulated it, you are leading us astray. You are good at it. Youre getting into a debate about donald trump. You are good at it but thats not what this is about. This is about that we have existing transcripts if we want to know what the demeanor of the current president was. We know what the demeanor of donald trump was the because you can watch the whole hour to have on tape and look and see what he said and what he did. I wish we didnt have to have this hearing either. I just wish they turned it over. The chairman would not call this hearing if simply they had said yes you can haved the video recordings. You can actually check out his demeanor. The problem you have as good as you are, the problem that you have is either that he is cognitively impaired and doesnt know whats going on or what he is doing or he is not and he knowingly took all the andsified material out basically sold it to a ghostwriter to make 8 million bucks. I know youre in a tight spot but thats the b reality. We want to know what it is and so do the American People want to know what it is. , they just want to know the truth. Tell the truth and it will set you free, man. You can go through this insideout over and over and i know probably the next speaker on your side is going to have another amendment that have to do with donald trump but thats not what this is about. Will be gentleman yield . Focus on the ball. I will yield. I didnt talk about donald trump today. Youre the one that came in and tried to say that trump was mistreated because hes on trial. Biden is getting a pass. You brought it up. Reclaiming my time. No, what i brought up is that we are taking our eye off the b ba. Theres a real serious issue here and by the way they obviouslyit dont think that you brought it up at Donald Trumps cognitively in peer because they are prosecuting him in different venues across the country, politically motivated but i do want to have that debate h now. I would debate with you anywhere and anytime you want to do it. I will yield back in a minute. Will be gentleman yield back . I will yield. I would point out zach smith mishandled the evidence. We dont want to bring up in that case youre a prosecutor who sees the documents and change the order that he sees the document. Its not matched up with a scanned document and some people might sayay thats tampering wih evidence that happen in the judge says wait a minute we have to hold on here. Whats going on and the irony is, the irony is jack smith mishandled documents while he was charging President Trump with mishandling documents. You cant make this stuff up. Innt some ways referencing donad trump is entirely appropriate. My time is up. The question occurs on the amendment from the gentleman from georgia but all those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. According to the chair of the nos have it in the amendment does not agree to. The clerk will call the roll. Roee mr. Mcclintock votes no. Mr. Tiffany votes no mr. Massie votes no. Mr. Roy. Mr. Bishop ms. Sparks votes no. Mr. Fichter held votes no. Mr. Bands votes no. Mr. Armstrong both know. Mr. Gooden mr. Van drew votes no. Mr. Moore votes no. Mr. Kiely. Ms. Hageman votes no mr. Moran ms. Lee mr. Hunt mr. Frye. Mr. Nadler votes aye. Ms. Jacksonlee mr. Cohen mr. Johnson and mr. Johnson votes aye mr. Schiff. Mr. Swalwell. Mr. Lieu ms. Jayapal. Mr. Korea. Ms. Scanlon. Mr. Neguse. Ms. Dean votes aye. Ms. Escobar barts aye. Ms. Bush. Mr. Ivey. Mr. Ivey votes aye. Mr. Gooden votes no. The clerk will report. Mr. Chairman five ayes and 12 nose. The motion is not adopted. Who seeks recognition . Thank you mr. Chairman ivan amendment at the desk. It the clerk will report. The amendment to the men in the nature of the substitute the Committee Report recommending that the house of representatives find Merrick Garland in contempt of congress. Without objection the amendment is read in the gentlelady from pennsylvania will explain her amendment. Thank you mr. Chairman. I want to lay the table and this builds on the amendment we just considered. The disinformation coming from the other side of the aisle is so troubling. Its r funny but its really muh more troubling than anything else. As we all know special counsel hurr was not called in to do some sort of a competency hearing. He was to find out whether not President Biden with the charge or mishandling of documents. I refer you to mr. Hurr special counsel hurrs special report. We have every page of. It. 360 pages. Line one, page one, this is special counsel hurrs finding and he said to us sitting right at that table that this was after quote rigorous detailed and federal analysis by him and his group, his staff. Sends one, page one we conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter. On a spot interestingly and i asked him to read this to us. The exception is former President Trump im reading from page 11 again are rigorously reported here by special counsel hurr in his conclusive findings. The exception meaning that one person, one president has been charged in the misuse of classified documents. Page 11. Its notif our role to assess te criminal charges pending against mr. Trump is several material distinctions between mr. Trumps case and mr. Bidens case arere clear. You will remember as special counsel hur to read that and unlike the evidence in the indictments of mr. Trump is proven with present serious aggravating factors. My colleagues read also most notably continuing in the report after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution mr. Camp allegedly did the opposite. According to the indictment he not only refused to return the documents are many months but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then lie about it end quote. So lets talk about the elephant in the room. Why do my republican colleagues need this audio file at all . After all doj hasvi provided 92,000 documents including the transcript and let me hold that up, two days worth of testimony the transcript of the president cooperating in the two days following the attack in israel on october the seventh. This president , the sitting president cooperate it fully and completely every word of this testimony is recorded here. Do you think the republicans really want to listen to the president verbal nuance and other idiosyncrasies . Iou will give them the benefit f the doubt. Maybe that they want to do that but only because they think they can manipulate President Bidens voice to make it the next run for president ad. After all, they have done it before. Take a look march of 2020 Trumps White House social media director posted in trump retweeted and edited video to cut off President Bidens sentence to make it soundd like present ivan was endorsing trump. Later that year Steve Scalise shared and edited video for president i biden that made it appear that he was supporting to defund the police. Back in 2019 President Trump and Rudy Giuliani both retweeted they manipulated video the Speaker Pelosi that had been doctored to make the speaker appear incompetent. Unfortunately we know that art very chairman has taken part in these phony manipulations to. O. I have to admit to you as a mother and a grandmother this next example hurts the most. Last year ms. Tina django at testified in her deposition that chairman django tweeted a manipulated video of her that contributed to a deluge of Death Threats against her she was eighte months pregnant and strangers on line called her a and told her she should die. Will the gemma metal will be gentlelady yield for a second . Im not asking you to yield. You are citing a deposition. I have a point of order. 40 seconds. Restore the clock. I have a point of order. You are citing a deposition in your amendment that has not been released in violation of house rules. Release a deposition. She should be able to quote it. We are happy to release a deposition. Thank you for restoring my time. Strike the language deciding to deposition that has not been released. And closing you dont want to release it . I cant release it in real time. I didnt thank you could. Asked the chairman. Can the chairman make a point of order . If so then who rules for the point p of order . The point of order is made by the chairman. I can spontaneously make a point of i order. Your own point of order . Yes. And someone else be heard in the point of order . May i speak on the point of order . Mr. Chairman to sitting chairman of this committee knows this transcript was from last april. The committee has every ability and has oftentimes released that it seems to me on the side of the aisle that it is trying to be withheld in order to protect the chairmanma from something embarrassing but i i asked that it be released today. Would be gentlelady yield . I sure will. That requires consultation with the majority and the minorityri council. They can wish that it was released prior to that and does not supersede the fact that it was cited deposition that has not been released by this committee. Cited in the amendment that its in violation of the constitution. Is the irony visible to anyone else hear . Anybody else notice the irony here . Objection. You have the whole transcript here and you are afraid. Once we cite the amendment i would be to it. Which quotation . Page two and three. The quotation reads the questions fair to say the one minute video that mr. Jordan links to, let me finish. Objection mr. Chairman. The gentleman is out of order. The gentleman is out of order. The gentleman will suspend. Mr. Jordan relied on this. The gentleman is out of order. He will suspend. Who is out of order . Why my out of order . What am i doing . To disclose in the content of the deposition that has not been released by the house. Its disclosed in the amendment that it started than published. Its part of the entire i meant to take up only the q a that you do not want revealed. If the chairman would be embarrassed by it. Is there objection . Thee a point of order. I want to be heard on point of order. She has disclosed all of this, she being missed jen wits an interview. Her testimony is the transcript of the deposition. But the point there is and i think the author of the amendment offered to strike the exact quotes but the substance of the statement is Public Information. The amendment discloses committee record that has not been released and is in violation of the house rules. What about my amended amendment . Im taking out the testimony which this committee the majority in the committee does not want to reveal and i guess i dont even wanten to ask, can e get the audio thats . [laughter] if you look at the footnotes mr. Chairman. With the gentlelady ask for unanimous consent to amend the amendment . T i ask for unanimous consent to amend the amendment to take up the language he dont want revealed and take out the q a. Is there an objection . Without objection, so ordered. The gentlelady is recognized. I thank you. The irony is extraordinary in this committee. Misrepresentation, a finding of the incompetent findings of the former president when you know the special counsel found. We think we know conclude no criminal charges were warranted in this matter. Its the chairman of this committee insists it an offense to his own subpoena hundreds and hundreds of days is speaking the voice of a president whose voice he knowsno very well. The testimony is rich and complete. I ask that my amendment be considered and passed because otherwise we could see use of this video, this audio excuse me and we deepfake. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment. Thanks so much. Anyone else want recognition . The chairman from virginia. I am hesitant to speak mr. Chairman because im so stunned by the amendment proposed by the gentlelady to get around house rules to disclose documents that have nob been released by this committee. Is that how we are going to play now quick is that how the other side is going to play because that violates house rules but the general rows of decorum. This committee has been a respected body in this congress and in many previous congresses from many years and one of the things that it emphasizes is not just the rule of law the balancing of the branches of government. From the executive branch overreaches its authority and says we dont have to hand over these tapes to the legislative branch of government. We should be united in saying how dare you. We should be united in saying we represent the people. We are entitled to these tapes. We asked for them, we should get them and to not justt say no but to say to with your request and to with house rules and decorum. We are going to make a mess of the rules that have been followed by this committee for years and years is just offensive. I opposed this. Im going to reluctantly, well the gentleladys amendment im going to opposed the amendment but the way in which she went about her amendment i am going to strenuously opposed. I yield back. Thank you Ranking Member for the Ranking Members recognize. I thank the gentleman. I want to point out the few things one and striking hypocrisy of the majority in opposing this amendment would reveals some records while demanding the release of an audiotape permission release by transcript and we know in the past the chairman of this committee has doctored audiotapes to make them say what they did in fact say. This amendment. This out and it also points out that even if th are taken out at this amendment which has happened, whether or not this amendment passes, which it should be in any event this is all now in the Public Record so you cant accomplish anything because its out there and the hypocrisy, the dishonesty of the chairman is out there revealed in the text of this amendment weather passes or not. Without i will yield to mr. Ivey. Thank you mr. Ranking member. I want to point out a couple of things. One is with respect to this specifics here in the footnotes its clearly Public Information. That was already made public by the chairman. Footnote number 2 was the letter from the department of justice. Footnote number 3 is theres 115 plus transcripts from interviews that this committee has done that this committee has refused to dislose and made public so we should do that. All the statements today about the publics right to know and we need the information. With respect to my colleague, this goes specifically to the conversation that we had at our last hearing whe hearing work i requested email communication between cost republican majority of the departments and agencies dragging you to produce documents. I moved to request information i wasnt agreed to at the time so summertime to yield five people want to get upset about her making a statement where its Public Information i think thats incorrect to say youre offended is over the line but if we want to turn the page is a committee to disclose information to make it public the lets do it and i yield back in the judgment of new york. Benjamin from georgia. Gentlemen from georgia. From ge. I wanted to tell the rest of the story that is Public Knowledge of what happened as a result of the misleading narratives. After the misleading narratives were spread about her she received tens of thousands of Death Threats, you talk about decency and decorum, manipulated video, you talk about decency and decorum here, my goodness. She had to go to court to obtain restraining order against the individual who repeatedly she was eight months pregnant while strangers online called her a nazi and told her she should die. When a reporter reached out to chairman well, i will skip that part. Staff are responding that was on the boards public face and should be accountable in public. As you see im taking out mr. Jordans role in any of this because he doesnt want anything to be known about his role in this and i really want to honor that. In august of 2020 the current House Majority leader shared an edited video that shared words of activist and portray President Biden appearing to support defunding all of the police even though biden has specifically said that the reforms being discontinued were not the same of getting rid of or defunding the police. I want to just say that it is strange to hear from the other side of the aisle that theyre worried about decency or indecency or decorum, please take a look in the member of your own members what they did to spread misinformation and lies to confuse the public knowingly to say that this somehow special counsels report was about competency, is so shameful. You know thats not what it is about. You just dont like the results to have report. The results of the report being we conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter against President Biden. You dont like that, you wish you could have had it another way because youre own candidate is rightly facing charges. With that, i do have one unanimous consent. I ask to enter into the record just so that we can be more complete because the majority doesnt want to reveal the transcript of their conversation with ms. Jankowitz, former biden chief detail, it is from march eighth of last year and it is political. Without objection. And members of this committee on the other side continued to repeat the falsehood that this hearing and this resolution is a part of an impeachment inwiry. The last i heard about impeachment inquiry by this do Nothing Congress as to having spent 20 million in this Committee Investigating President Biden, the last i heard of an impeachment was by the chair of the other committee, the Oversight Committee which is actually been the committee handling impeachment and at that point after they had President Biden had President Bidens son in, hunter to testify and couldnt get anything out of him, the the chair pretty much threw the towel in on he threw in a white towel into the ring. Gave up pretty much on impeachment and now this committee is trying to drag it out of the garbage can and try to trick the American People into believing that this is a part of the impeachment inquiry. It is not its simply an expedition to try to make President Biden look bad in keeping with the report of special counsel hurd who cleared President Biden but nevertheless inserted some unnecessary and derogatory information in there that this committee has seized upon and continue to kick like a dead horse and with that, i yield back. Who seeks recognition . Question is on the amendment. All those in favor aye, all those opposed . No. The nos have it. Roll call has been ordered. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. Jordan . Mr. Issa . Mr. Gaetz . Mr. Biggs . Mr. Tiffany . Mr. Matthew . Mr. Roy . Mr. Bishop . Mr. Fitzgerald . Mr. Ben says no. Mr. Klein votes no. Mr. Armstrong votes no. Mr. Gooding . Mr. Van drew . Mr. Moore . Mr. Moore votes no. Mr. Kylie, mr. Kylie votes no. Mr. Muran . Ms. Lee . Mr. Hunt . Mr. Nadler . Aye. Mr. Nadler votes aye. Ms. Jackson lee . Mr. Cohen . Mr. Johnson . Mr. Johnson votes aye. Mr. Schiff . Mr. Swawell . Mr. Lou . Mr. Correa . [roll call vote] ms. Dean . Ms. Dean votes aye . Ms. Escobar. Ms. Bush. Mr. Ivy. Aye. Votes aye. Youre not recorded. Mr. Issa votes no. Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Tiffany is not recorded. Mr. Tiffany votes no. Is mr. Roy recorded . Mr. Roy is not recorded. Have spent 20 million this Congress Investigating conspiracy theories and have nothing absolutely nothing to show for it. To date, theyve used this 20 million in taxpayers money to hold ten hearings before the select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government six of which have been on the same topic. Theyve conducted 121 transcribed interviews or depositions with witnesses from over two dozen companies, nonprofits or federal government agencies. Theyve spent 555 hours of staff and with this time in these transcribed interviews and depositions. They sent more than a 60 subpoenas to executive Branch Agencies and private entities. Defining incriminating information on the administration, they repeatedly excoriated and rightwing media for not accomplishing anything this congress. In fact as recently as april 28, 2024, fox news host maria stated, quote, with all due respect people are sick and tired of congressional investigations that go nowhere. People are sick and tired of letters being written and sent to the people that we know are bad and the first place. This is from their own gallery of supporters. To date there is no evidence of any Impeachable Offense committed by President Joe Biden. Theres no evidence of misconduct. The witchhunt will go down in history as a total and complete failure especially when viewed in light of the fact that we are reduced down to seeking verification and erroneous report about the mental acuity. I think that if the committee refuses to the full house it should at least be accurate. A key part of that accuracy is including the details of this projected over the top investigation in the background on the Investigation Section of the report recommending contempt and for that reason i urge you to support this amendment and with that i would yield back. The gentleman still has plaintiff order. At the question occurs offered by the gentleman from georgia. All those in favor . Opposed. In the opinion of the chair, the nose have it. The gentleman has asked for a recorded vote. Roll call. Roll call. [roll call] [roll call] the clerk will report. Five ayes and 12 noes. I have an amendment at the desk. The clerk will report. Point of order reserved by the gentleman from virginia. Amendment considered as read. The gentlelady from i object. The clerk will report the problem. An amendment the Committee Report for the resolution recommended that the house of representatives find him in contempt of congress for refusal to comply with the subpoena issued on the judiciary on page three after the paragraph ending when his son died, insert however it is in fact false that he couldnt remember when his son died in the transcript of President Bidens interview President Biden recalls the date of his sons death saying what month did he die, may 30th. Thank you, mr. Chairman. My amendment correct the record regarding the president s recollection of his own son, beau bidens death. And i saw in the markup today a willing above the koran and indecency and doing what is right. I would think this would be an amendment all of us could agree upon. Its about decency and facts and getting the record straight. As i pointed out, President Biden recalled the month his son passed. At the transcript of his fivehour deposition he says what month did he die . Ogata, may 30th, and of quote. I find the mischaracterization of that exchange in a government report to be inaccurate, grotesque and gratuitous. That is nothing to do with the task he was given. It was just a free shot at a father grieving his son. Even more distasteful, the republican attempts to repeat that mischaracterization for political ends. Everybody in this room, everybody in this house must do better. But i suppose indecency is too often the point. In addition to the statements regarding mr. Beau bidens death, he also determined on behalf of the doj that President Biden would not be prosecuted for in properly storing sensitive documents because in truth the same cannot be said for mr. Trump for endangering the servicemembers he was led by leaving classified documents strewn among. On the important point if the president s hearing memory of his own sons death and i urge all members to support this factual correction. The gentleman from virginia is recognized. Speaking of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, i want to thank the gentlelady for making my point with her amendment. Not only did the transcripts continue on after her amendment says may 30th, it continues and i will quote the transcript with the question was it 2015 when he died. I also think the gentlelady for making the point that without the audio cant tell how much time passed and the words ogata, may 30th and how it was because he followed that with a question. Was it a question, ogata, may 30th . We dont know because we dont have the recording. Its exactly why we needed. Its why weve requested it over and over again, subpoenaed it and holding the attorney general in contempt because hes not providing because we cant do our jobs for the American People accurately unless we have the most Accurate Information and thats why we need the tapes and why we are pursuing them and holding the attorney general contempt. The gentleman yields back. Thats an interesting explanation but i have to say its hard to figure out how the length of a pause between an answer and a question would have any kind of dispositive merit one way or another. This is hypothetically say for two seconds as opposed to 30 seconds. If its 30 seconds then its an impeachable opens in somehow . Its the basis for legislative action or some kind of impeachment or even if you want to go there because youve got it wrong for about five different versions of why you need this, none of which are included in the report that at least the one you passed out. But lets say hypothetically, what does that prove . Nobody is asserting that mr. Bidens answers were deceitful or disingenuous or anything like that, and of the issues youve raised are potentially the basis for the impeachment of some kind. Its hard to figure out where to go from this from a legitimate standpoint. Im not questioning anybodys integrity over there, but theres a sort of obvious alternative where they want the audio tape so they can use it may be not them personally but somehow it might end up in a video, campaign video, maybe. That supports the efforts to be reelected and. It makes more sense than the explanations ive heard from the other side. The legislative purpose issue, which i havent had much of a chance to touch on yet, but we can do it now its a legitimate legislative purpose for. If you have the transcript and its a verbatim transcript and as ive said earlier. Its asserting that somehow the court reporter, doctor did, fabricated, did anything wrong with it, things like that. Nobodys made an inquiry with respect to the court to ask if she did something inappropriate. He came in and it does divide and you could have asked about that. He never said anything about a doctor transcript either. Is it incomplete when it doesnt include the question that follows the statement of may 30th . I am offering an amendment to add language if you want but the bottom line is from the standpoint of at least having a fuller transcript because there is no doubt the way the report was written at least the one that i dont know what the final one is going to look like because we dont have it yet, but its about as onesided as the document can get so from the standpoint i will say this again because this is going to be the basis. We went through this on the hunter biden version as well. This is going to be what we send to the court, and i hope the department of justice does take this to court because i want to see is litigated and a judge rule on this because i think a majority as we over the line and the way its abusing the authority. But im really not seeing the reasoning behind why its so critical to have the audiotape in a way thats not addressed by the actual transcript, which again nobody has questioned its accuracy. Somebody did sort of throughout that assertion on the fly, but theres no factual basis for it. Nothing certainly sustained. He was here, testified and you could have asked him about it, but nobody did. So not saying anything about a bad faith here, but the only explanation for why you all are making such a big deal about this is you want the audiotape and it might turn up in a campaign and down the road. The question occurs only amendment offered by the gentlewoman from pennsylvania. In the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] the clerk will report. Five ayes and 12 noes. The amendment is not adopted. I have an amendment of the desk. The clerk will report. Point of order from the gentleman by north dakota. Amendment to the amendment to the nature of a substituted to the Committee Report for the resolution recommending that the house of representatives find him in contempt of congress. Without objection the amendment is considered red. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I offered this amendment to walk through it briefly. This goes to the issue of the distinctions between the case against mr. Biden and the case against mr. Trump. Thereve been multiple allegations today about from the republican side that somehow the department of justice gave favorable treatment to President Biden. I wanted to offer this amendment to make sure the record is clear and also to make sure not just the record of the discussion today is clear but also that the report that ends up being sent forward and i think is going to be the lead document if this gets to court and again i hope it does, but i think it balances out the one sidedness of the report that the committee has polluted, the republicans have floated. There are on this point special counsel who said this in the report as well. Several distinctions between mr. There are serious aggravating facts and the trump case most notably after being given multiple chances to return classified documents or avoid prosecution, mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite according to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then lie about it. He turned and classified documents to the National Archives and the department of justice, consented to search of multiple locations including his home, and interview and in other ways cooperated in the investigation. The final point here i think is that unlike the deliberate acts of the former President Trump to retain a concealed classified material from the federal government, the special counsel failed likely inadvertence or mistake. And so as we go on to quote some of the language from the report as well, we find the evidence as a whole insufficient that he maintained the afghanistan documents in the Virginia Home in 2017 for other recovered classified documents the decision to decline criminal charges was straightforward. The evidence suggests mr. Biden didnt willfully retain the documents and they could plausibly have been brought to these locations by a mistake. Unlike President Biden, donald trump intentionally took and concealed of the documents and mr. Trumps actions are extremely serious and warned that 32 counts of willful as he was charged. Former Vice President mike pence faced a similar factual scenario. There were documents found i believe in one of his residences. He turned them over, cooperated immediately and there was no evidence of any type of an effort to obstruct the investigation, hide the documents or anything like that. Certainly didnt ask anybody to move them for him as mr. Trump, i think this was raised in the indictment, has done. I asked that this be included for a point of completeness. We want to make sure we send a document. I would oppose the whole Thing Holding as istated repeatedly tf youre going to forward the document at least send a document that has some sort of semblance of balance to it and i think it shows the efforts to try to present the court with a full take on this issue. As i mentioned earlier this wasnt a place i was expecting to go today. I thought we would focus more on the specifics of the privilege issue. They dont seem to have a strong argument to address it but since you brought this up with mr. Boyd amanda sort of coupled it not only with allegations of misconduct by the Overall Department of justice but specifically mr. Her. I am not going to sit here and essentially slander him for trying to be unfair and cover up for the president. None of that is merited and i dont think there was anything about the report or testimony that would support that. The gentleman from north dakota. It almost passively aggressively proves a point this wasnt substantially similar. If theres a 40 year history of keeping classified documents, 40. Its why the audio is important. In an adversarial way you know what ive never seen for a regular defendant in criminal court . The doj making the plausibility defense over a 40 year history and we talk about disingenuous and all those things if you spend 40 years rubbing Liquor Stores and then cooperated with Law Enforcement, they are not going to not charge you. That is a sentencing factor, thats an obstruction factor if youre going to be maintaining and disclosing classified documents but is a significantly different thing. Only in this world would you go to that place where we will say youve committed the underlining cry and you did it for 40 years but you cooperated to so we will allow you to escape. Thats the difference you spend a lot of time talking about the obstruction charge but we dont spend enough time talking about the egregious nature of the underlining maintaining and disclosing classified documents. Thats the difference and thats the problem is and thats why audio matters because theres a different way and which you do it. If you are telling your ghostwriter in a laughing matter that if youre reading classified documents as hes writing your book, thats different than a lot of different ways. But there is no other scenario and by the way, i would have but we had a five minute ruling and i had a lot of other things to get out but you can talk about the secondary part of the case all day long but i dont think anybody that reads the report looks at the nature. He did it when he was a senator over 45 years. Hed been warned about it and continued to do it. You have to seriously jump through some hoops to get to the inadvertent part of it. Youre talking about maintaining a classified document and if anybody thinks that the information in the report doesnt give a valid reason for that knowingly and willingly, then the question is why wasnt it knowingly and willingly and thats where we are out at in this point. Im going to yield to the gentleman. There is no claim of innocence or finding of innocence that is and how reports work but we keep going past the underlining offense which is the document of that and why wouldnt you cooperated when you have the ability . We dont exonerate what we are going to do is to say the president as an older gentleman is incompetent and we dont think we can get a conviction therefore we are not going to prosecute. To that point, the best evidence rule. Is there any evidence of the recording . Theres a reason for the last five years in congress i have worked with my friends on both sides of the aisle to get to custodial interrogations being recruited by federal Law Enforcement. Completely out of this room its often times i fight with my side of the aisle more than your side of the aisle. The reason you want audio, the reason you want to video into those things is because it is without a doubt the best evidence that exists. As somebody that has been watching this happen from the minority to the majority for five years, there is the equal application of justice part of this answer. We have a guy that was prosecuted the year after he altered an affidavit in front of the court and hes currently practicing law so i see my time is expired and i yield back. The gentlelady from vermont is recognized. I yield my time to the gentleman from maryland. I just want to run through some of the statements made a moment ago. I guess i can work my way backward to some extent. With the statements i share the view about the importance of the federal investigators recording statements but i would make a couple of notes to that. First, there are no videotapes of the grand jury testimony. For example. They are all electronically transcribed by. For use in court, for use to used tocharge for criminal purp, for example for false statements or perjury. I dont disagree with that because in that scenario is the best evidence. Its certainly sufficient for the basis of criminal charges. And with respect to scenarios where you have the transcript and to videotape its the videotape you can use the tape for impeachment purposes. Given the nature of the proceeding, it is incumbent upon us to show. If this goes to court. The burden would be on the committee to show attempt. I dont know how they get you from. That is therefore impeachable which is what is required in the legislative purpose standard. I havent heard of her reason for why its not satisfied. Based on what mr. Her sedan based on the certifications this received at the time that it was recorded and printed. I yield. You are not doing oversight. You are doing overkill. And osuna get the audio, youre going to say i wish we had a video. Then you will get the video and you will say we wanted his health records. We dont know if he was telling the truth or not. You have been thoroughly, and i want to emphasize thoroughly. So youre digging and digging and digging. Its not happening. Youre not impeaching him, you have nothing in the just. I yield. Doja cat. He said he definitely but he couldnt get a conviction because he was a sympathetic character so, what good is it going to do if they get to hear him say he was a sympathetic character and why they thought that and thats not the issue. The issue is did he take the stuff or not. Theres no question about it he took the stuff and for his biographer and they say indictment, its about the fact he is a sympathetic character and he couldnt get a conviction. So we are all on rabbit trails. You should never go off on a rabbit trail. I yield. Just to make a final statement here, the amendment im offering doesnt actually go to that. It goes to the fact the distinction that is drawn between for the mishandling of justice that occurred afterwards. I would hope that we could get a vote from my colleagues on the other side on that amendment. The question occurs on the amendment offered by the gentleman from maryland. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] the gentleman from kentucky . He votes no. The clerk will report. Eight ayes and nine noes. The amendment is not agreed on. Who seeks recognition . The clerk will report. Point of order. Considered as read. The report for the resolution to come play with a subpoena on the judiciary offered by mr. Spall of california. On page six at the end of the paragraph, quote, to further the constitutionally mandated oversight and legislative duties insert any sentence that reads taking into account multiple members of the committee including the chairman remain out of compliance with subpoenas issued. No member of congress will be permitted to vote to hold any other person in contempt of congress until such time they provide the testimony regarding the participation in the planning and execution. This amendment clearly says if youd not responded to your own subpoena, you cant bring a subpoena or seek compliance on anyone else. In the law we call it the unclean hands doctrine or the clean hands doctrine. Its a principle that prevents a party from receiving relief from the court if theyve acted unethically or justly in relation to the matter at hand. In our own its called the wash your hands before dinner doctrine. May 6, 5 and 2yearold are not coming to the dinner table until they themselves have clean hands. There are dirty hands on the other side. Multiple times to members of the committee have been asked to comply with a subpoena to january 6th. One i dont think is here today. I think hes up watching mr. Trumps trial but dont come at us about anyone elses compliance if you are out of compliance into the german a 735 days, 17 hours, 19 minutes and 24 seconds out of compliance with his own subpoena so this amendment would prohibit the chairman or anyone else from bringing compliance or contempt upon somebody for another matter. Point of order being withdrawn. The gentleman from virginia. I think the chairman and the gentleman for his remarks. Ive heard of them a couple of times. And in responding i would say the subpoenas for the members of the committee are no longer in effect because the last congress has finished. We will make that first. We also want to look at the responses that were made by the term into the january 6 committee. The term he never declined to testify. The chairman in fact wrote every time he was asked to testify and with further requests for either statements were further requests for responses from the committee and never received any responses from the committee. Never expressed an unwillingness to testify, so the characterization that he refused is an accurate. And its clear democrats were subpoenaing for political reasons at the time. Chairman thompson stated he pursued these in part to weaken republicans if they took the majority in the future. So, we see through the political motivations of those who issued them to begin with and those who want to make it a political point now. So i opposed the amendment and yield back. Thank you mr. Chairman. To my colleague from virginia. A couple of quick things to clarify. In exchange between the chairman and the committee the problem was the germanmade in my view demands that were unusual in response to a subpoena like you tell me how you are going to use the information and give me the information that you have about my, related to the testimony in my coming. So to give the statement. Now lets compare that to what weve got before us with respect to the department of justice and in this particular instance. Not only has there been substantial compliance with respect to i wish i had it in front of me the number of subpoenas and document requests. As i mentioned earlier, some of the witnesses were prosecutors and made investigation who the department is still produced for statements and transcripts here before the committee which is inappropriate and interferes in the efforts by the department of justice in one instance with regards to hunter biden, so lets be clear about that piece peaceand as i mentioned earliery from this compliance standpoint in this particular request there was a report generated that the department wasnt required to turn over but he decided to turn it over anyway on his own initiative with respect to the transcript again theres no requirement he turned that over but he did and he resigned before he gave the testimony that its clear they were not trying to block so from the substantial compliance, this is an outstanding record for the department of justice. I wont go into the contrasting point. Lets be clear about this. The compliance has been extraordinary the executive privilege claim raised by the department has not been addressed certainly not on the legal merits by the republicans in this committee and as i mentioned earlier today, a letter that was dated in 2019 from the Justice Department raising most of the same points that we are talking about today. With respect to the issue of similar acts could be repeated if the white house were given reasons to believe congress were to see each and every document shared with the department. There was no predicate provided already in this instance youve got the transcripts you just want Additional Information. Within the bar the department of justice said the committee articulated any purpose for its request for all of the councils investigative files. The committee has no role with the assembly duplicating the inquiry. Now here the Justice Department gave the transcript and the report into the lawyers to testify about what theyd done. They objected with respect to the molar report and raised all sorts of issues. Those have been addressed in the different forum. But here you are ignoring the compliance thats been provided over and over again. I see im running out of time, but my point here is youve got the substantial compliance in the department of justice. Your record is what it is. We discussed it on multiple occasions but i think its a contrast to that it bears noting in this particular instance especially when we are seeking contempt against the attorney general of the United States. The gentleman from virginia. Unanimous consent to insert three letters from you. In the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. The gentleman asks for a recorded vote. The clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] there are 12 as and nine noes. Thank you, mr. Chair. I have an amendment at th. Desk. Amendment to the amendment. Considered as read. The gentlelady from pennsylvania is recognized. Thank you. If there were any question about whether todays hearing is a legitimate exercise of congress is legislative oversight powers our colleagues across the aisle have effectively eliminated the possibility with the combined remarks today. They spent hours trying to defend the leaders of their party misstating the conclusions of the special counsels report and smearing the president of the United States with politically inspired lies and innuendo. This markup is in fact nothing more than political theater by the allies in the house House Republicans that wasted more than a year of the peoples time and 20 million taxpayer dollars on a blatant act of petty vengeance and sound nothing and been embarrassed every step of the way, theyre shamelessly plowing ahead instead of cutting losses, theyre once again trying to drag the president , this chamber, this committee, American People and now the attorney general down a rabbit hole of series and untruths. Guided not by the constitution but the former president s calls of retribution and the complicity of the supporters. Its nothing but an attempt to distract from the mr. Trumps ongoing criminal trial and prop up t reelection bid. In case its not clear enough already, constitutional scholars are not driving the House Republicans impeachment stunt. My aimed adds context of parameters of impeachment to this exercise and in this report, Certain Council hur note that had laws handling about classified material do not apply to a sitting president or Vice President. Even if hur deprioritizizationed there were criminal conduct, which he did not, it could ronnel have applied to the time before joe biden was elected. Even House Republicans long Time Favorite tech legal scholar Jonathan Turley testified before the Oversight Committee last year and impeachment proceeds proceed physician for actions is controversial and must be approached with abundant caution. To his knowledge, launching investigations on that basis could convert them into a rationalization for soucting officials to limitless inquiries. No caution in the process and theres no real basis for republicans claim they needed these audio files beside political theater and the department of justice rightly pointed out allowing the house mayorty to weaponnize investigative materials in this way would pose a strong risk of jeopardizing the willingness of other witnesses to come forward in the future. Ultimately as our colleagues proved time and again and impeachment stunt with no basis, no evidence, and no high crimes or misdemeanors to show for it. I yield back. Asking for best evidence of why that report was written that way and with that i yield back. All those in favor say i. I. All those opposed say no. No. In the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. I would request a recorded vote. Clerk call as role. [ roll call ]. The support for the resolution and the house of the attorney and being in contempt of congress and going to issue it and on the judiciary and gentle lady reserves the order. Chair recognizes myself to explain thehe amendment. A mere two hours before the markup session and committee retaining letters from the white house and department of justice informing us that the president and executive rivera ledge to prevent the department from producing audio recording from his and his ghost writers interview and validity of the assertion and the president waved any potential of executive privilege over the information discussed in his interview of counsel hur and the ghost writer interview of special counsel hur to the press and the us v mitchell and the claim of privilege over t audio recordins as where the president caused to be reduced to transcript formed and published and information in the subpoena recorded and the court concluded that executive privilege was nonexistent and no longer confidential. It was no longer existing. The president and the department could have taken the confidentiality and failure to do so and the press providing them to this committee and second is the assertion of privilege and going to have been timely with any privilege asserted by march 7, 2024, 2024 and subpoena return day and even if the indication was value and i had it isic not, it is certaiy overcome by the committees need for information and theyve demonstrated the need for audio recording as theyre likely to contain evidence for the impeachment inquiry and legislative oversight and this is the contamination of the president s invalid assertion of the executive privilege and however this assertion does not change the fact that the attorney general is in contempt of Congress Today and failure to turn over and responsive material. Going for the amendment and going for the strike to exec the language of executive privilege throughout the amendment or what it does. Going to be struck with the privilege on the report and its going to be and whats been done with those. Privilege of them this morning. Let me do this with the time ive got left and reading think here quickly and the waiver issue i think is i just wanted to address that because the department specifically spoke to that on may 16 letter to both committees and finally i know the departments disclosure and transcripts of the interview does not constitute a waiver and procollude an assertion of privilege with respect to the audio recording ands i have exmaybed audio recordings have distinction uses and interest and risk of greater degree of transcripts and disclosure and chilling affect on cooperation and similar investigations. System of articulation it was an enclosed area and didnt send us a letter till this morning. Jot time barred in cases where it was raise and off the top of my head and has been raised and months and maybe even years after initial request has been made. I think theres be been no showing of need. The transcript and the tape and thats been the committees assessment. I would object because its like a word sackmary lad and i dont think theres salad and i dont think theres a basic premise met by the majority and yield to mr. Ivy. I thank the gentle lady and looking at mitchell here now. This lookings like a request for the information and the hrequirement or impact and not present inac the scenario here t he ped is to see the exact words and hear them and compare them then to that which was written down. Jaire any upsing on the testimony we heard thursday the hur hearing was that its a certified transcript and its a certified transcript so this is a red herring talking about needing to match c the audio the goal and shop them and distort them and use them for partisan political purposes and if theyre identical and should be per served as identical,s warning should be in the white houses correspondents. They blew it. They blew it. They put the wrong line in here they believe itll be used for political purposes and in the transcript of the regardings and exactly the same and do that with the recordings anyways and doesnt make any sense. They need to turn it over. Turn it over at some point. I yield back. Gentle lady from wyoming. I cant understand why anyone would claim executive privilege when theyve waived it already. The anywhere entitled to hearings what mr. Hur heard. Jowski they want that certain testimony and released in certain form andny basis that yu can possibly contend and another version of the testimony and thf audio t recording. Gentleman from california is recognized. In this conversation about will the white house release the audio recording when we had the transcript and your guy coming to testimony and you know you all are sitting on 115 transcripts, video tapes, audio recordings for hunter biden investigation not releasing to the public. The trafficking and not interested in the subpoena and notes of that and want every part of thehi investigation and hunter bind, done a year plus of investigating him and found nothing, your best witnesses are now locked up for lying to the fbi. You wont give the public any audio recordings or video recordings and i keep hearing in fraise of drive by lawyers of best evidence. Isnt that the best evidence . Showt us what you have. If youre not showing us what you have, tell us why you wont show the public of what you have. Yield back. California is recognized. My good friend from california makes a point and i always take his point seriously and id like to make a point. The point is this committee back when chairman coniers was the chairman assert that had when were doing an investigation whether its an impeachment or an inquiry of more general case and in the case of chairman coniers and whose picture behind the g Ranking Member and chairmn said we have to be the committee that overseas the pros in it and we have to be. We were under richard mill house nixon and have to be under george w. Bush. To give that up simply because now the shoe is on the other foot is to give up the authority of this committee and importance of what we do. I agree with the gentleman from california that this should not be used for partisan purposes and mr. Fitzgerald said very today is what we rely on for whether or not someone is to appear before this committee before the white house and we have to do the same thing here. Committees of congress may be Political Congress and so is the white house andnd so is the supreme court. If we are political bodies that does not change our constitutional responsibility so i foror one will be voting to hd in contempt if we do not get that which we have asked for under some reasonable terms, which we have not even begun to discuss. S. That is what were discussing here today. I hope that the gentleman from california will think again about where this body will be in four,il six, eight, or ten years just as chairman conniers, chairman hyde and other chairman before them have asserted that hacongress has a right and consistently the court at all levels under all types of courts has held those rights to be reasonable if they are in fact pursuant to our obligation and its clearly to oversee the department of justice and the gentleman cane yield back. Anybody else . Getting down to the real issue and youre afraid for the real demeanor and the best evidence and not just what you said and how you said it and did you ramble on. Did you have cognitive thought here or were you just not under any particular control of what you were saying or doing. Thats something you want peopli to know and we deserve to know and thats point number one. Second thing is there is an executive privilege here because it was given up on the transcripts that were given to us. We know that. Again, were we afraid to hear the audio why . Because concern itll be very revealing as far as cognitive state for t this president. No problem. If theres no issue. Just send it over. We dont have to have this hearing. I wish, i think theres a good number of us wishing we didnt need to have this hearing and simpler to say yes, abide by the subpoena and give us the information and let us look at it and would already be done but it isnt and theres a right to it and no executive privilege and no protection and information was givenot and a transcript now the audio needs to be given to. I yield back. They have the ability to determine whether or not someone is mentally incompetent by listening to audio recordings. Thats all you want to have is audio so you can probably splice and dice and then use it to mislead the public into buying your narrative. But the American People are not going for that. They see through the hollowness of this exercise that were going through today. They know the only thing you want to do is try to get something toet embellish the president with. This is what youre reduced to after spending 20 million of taxpayer money. Compiling a data bank of information, which reveals no wrong doing by the president. You were hoping to find some but you didnt. Now youre reduced to trying to find evidence that he is somehow unfit mentally for office when people can see the man doing his job every day. They can see what hes doing and see what hes done, they can see him in action and listen to him. We dont need further waste of taxpayer money going down this rabbit hole any further. I asked my colleagues to get serious about it. We got stuff that we need to be doing on behalf of the American People as opposed to sitting umm here for a four hours now debatg the hollowness of a resolution that you all are offering trying to that and yield to the gentleman. Thank you, something in her testimony and said the president was incompetent. He never said that. He never wrotein that. No one has said or wrote that. Hene said he was a sympathetic character and elderly person who had a little problem with their memory. Thats not saying you were incompetent nobodys subsyces to that. The Previous Term we had President Bidens first two years has been compared to the 1964 t Lyndon Johnson era is the most effective legislative congressional actions in our countrys history. The chips act and you name it. Biden got it done. Even got done finally after hollywoodly gagging money lolligagging the ukraine and expedited attacks and strengthened attacks you claim was suffering without the equipment they should have had in the east. But theyre still standing. We got money finally even if it was late because biden put it together. We could of had and should of had a bill on immigration the senate was going to pass that dealt with immigration and not made is a political issue to dillydally up here for years and they havent said that and theyve gone to jail. Thank you. Recentering the conversation for a moment and engage with the chairman on a simple point when the democrats were in charge of the committee in 2019, set by the democratic colleagues and holding someonehe in contempt ad legally required to do under the law. Throughout the entirety of the hurr hotter and it was the president s dedemeanor and the way the president was responding or lack of response and im trying to be careful by the way. All due respect for the insertiones made about the gentleman from tennessee and so little problem withs the memory. The testimony by the president tot weve heard a lot of Different Reasons of imputing motivations on this side of the aisle and been here for four hours and nobody defended the dojs reason for not turning it over. All the doj and medium to release to congress and all the Different Things for four hours today, nobody has ever said i can name nine people who would have cooperated except you gave them a transcript instead of audio recording. With that i yield back. All those in favor say i on the amendment. Ye opposed say no. No. In the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. [ roll call ]. Opposed say no. And substitute is adopted and a reporting quorum being present and its on favorably reporting the report as amended. Raise ago point of order and idt insist and weve communicated this and were willingli to wait for be reportg on the report and those in favor say i. I. Opposed say no. No. The chairs and the is have it. [ roll call ]. [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [silence] i have a chance to member. We are going let mr. Nadler come and vote on the report. Will commit write will just stand will Committee Just take a break for a second. Once mr. Nadler gets here, we will move legislation. Republican members have food back there if you havent eaten. I dont know if we have enough for the democrats. Youre not recorded. Escobar votes no . Ms. Job or votes no. Mr. Matthew youre not recorded. Is the general lady recorded . Ms. Bush youre not recorded. Ms. Bush votes no. Mr. Bishop votes aye. Mr. Nadler votes no. The ayes have it, the report to be reported to the house members will have two days to submit views without objection the staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes. We now call one second. Hr7803 to amend title 45, exception and other purposes for purposes of markup. The chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. Issa for an Opening Statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. In short win for Small Businesses and long overdue. Small businesses may qualify for reduced when filing for patents or trademarks. The Small Business claim entity or micro entity status. For example, firing utility patent is 320. A small entity, however, is charged only 128 and micro entity is charged only 64. I note that those are set by the pt of course and under this bill we will continue to have the patent and Trademark Office set them, however, when Congress Passed the unleash American Innovation act in 2023, a law required the usptr director to impose imputative finds on entities falsely asserting or certifying entitlement to reduced fees. We did that with good intent, however, the finding is three times the reduction of fees. Right now theres no exception provided by law for an entity that made an error in their filing in good faith. Example of good faith is if an employee is mistakenly categorized a contractor. Another example is if a good faith mistake is made regarding the belief as to the number of employees qualifying under the entity. The impact of the imputative finds can be harmful to Small Businesses and if they had no intent we do not want them fined, we want them corrected. The harsh fines may deter them from seeking benefits of micro entities since their status of savings is far less than the possibility of a trouble find. To ensure Small Business to take advantage and reduce fees the bill gives the director authority to waive such penalties if an entity demonstrates they had a goodfaith belief. Im pleased to introduce this bill with my Ranking Member mr. Johnson and i hope we will all sort it. We believe its technical in incorrecting about giving the authority to the pto to waive the fees in a good faith mistake and with that i yield back. The chairman recognizes the Ranking Member. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Hr78 to 3 makes minor technical change to give the patent and trademark the flexibility to decide when to penalize applicants with for fee reductions. When Congress Passed the unleashing innovative act, funding package, fiscal year 2023 we did so with the intention of making patents no longer the sport of kings but an opportunity for investors to make a decent living. Innovators should not have to work for a bigtech company, major manufacturer or any other power house industry to be able to file for a patent but that is exactly what often happens. The hurdles associated with obtaining and owning a patent from hiring a lawyer to search for prior art to paying standard application fees prevent individuals seeking patents to interventions. Barriers to entries like this hurt everyone but above all hurt women, minorities that do not have the resources to go it alone. All of talent becomes siloed in just a few companies in just a few industries and perspective creators show their ideas for another day and including increasing discount fees and also imposing penalties and obtain discount. But im sure many here will be shocked to learn Congress Sometimes makes mistakes and creating the new fee waivers and associated penalties for trying for waivers we negligent today consider the applicants too can make honest mistakes in applications. If innovators are too afraid to apply because penalties and honest mistakes can lose of a chance in the patent all the improvements simply not exist. Harm it is exact same people that they are unleashing american innovators act. Individuals and entities that can barely afford the filing fees certainly do not have the Financial Resources to weather a hefty fine. Unlike large entities, losing patent associated within application may very well mean losing everything. Small entities there are the most likely to avoid the risk of applying for the very programs that exist to help them. Hr7803 would correct this minor error. Under this legislation uspto director would no longer be forced to find a goodfaith actor that asserts fee reduction for small or entity status. This will show that everyone has a seat at the table. I thank congressman issa and congressman johnson for their leadership on this legislation along with congresswoman ross, the original sponsor of the unleashing innovators act. I yield back the balance of my time. The gentleman from georgia is recognized . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im a proud colead on this bill with chairman issa. This bill is a typical fix that would allow tun leashing american inventors act to work as intended, thereby as the title says unleashing the power of americas smaller and mediumsize inventers. The american innovators act lowered the barriers to entry for individual and small inventors by among other things creating a reduction for the application fees for small and micro entities to protect against abuse. The legislation imposed fines on companies that applied to these programs fraudulently but because it failed to give the uspto ability to waive the fines in case of goodfaith mistake, disincentivessed the use of the fee retexas programs for small and medium size entities that were not sure if they qualified. As members of congress it was never our intention to penalize the small and medium size inventors that are vital to our economy and to our invasion landscape but who lack the resources of the mega corporations. The gentleman yields back. Quorum being present. Favorably recording on the bill. All those in favor of recording the bill. The ayes have it, two days to submit without objection the bill would be reported as single amendment in the nature of substitute in incorporating amendments and staff authorized technical and conforming changes. That conclude it is committees business for today. The committee is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] theomation assistant n hampshire to the u. S. Court of appeals bostonbased First Circuit in the house back tomorrow. Lawmakers were considered bills including legislation ranking the Justice Department general to conduct actions of federal prisons and make recations to bigcity problems. The tax relief federally declared disasters and hurting, wildfires and Train Derailment in east allison, ohio. H live coverage of the house are these men, the senate on cspan2 an elementary of the marked all congressional average of three video out cspan not work online at cspan. Org. Former u. S. Commission International Religious leader member janik will speak about supporting his belt of t jewish people from outside the jewish unity watch pacific rrelation live today 3 45 p. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan, free mobile video up all night at. Org. Delivering unfiltered congressional coverage 45 years. Highlights from a few moments. Victory in this war, we stand and fight and we will wait. Ukraine, america. [cheering and applauding] comcast is partnering was thousand dissenters to create wifi enabled us from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anythg. Comcast is a Public Service along with these other Television Providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. Patrol democracy surviving american enterprises. The state of political activism pavement. About one hour and 20 minutes