Transcripts For CSPAN2 Committee 20240705

For defying a congressional subpoena and the president s son was criticized for his appearance by republican members congressional subpoenas in relation to the generally sixth attack on the u. S. Capitol. The end of the meeting the full house for consideration. A quorum is present but without objection a chair is authorized to declare a racist at any time. Pursuant to Committee Rule five beat house rule 11 clause to the chair may postpone further proceedings today on the question of approving any measure or manner or adopting an amendment i wish a recorded vote are ordered. The first order of business is ratifying the new subcommittee roster. The clerks have distributed the roster electronically. I ask unanimous consent the Committee Approved the appointment to the assignments as shown on the roster. Without objection the subcommittee roster is approved. The chair also notes points of order pertaining to the engaging of personalities against the president will not be in order for the duration. Given the underlined subject matter of hunter by the subpoena on this committees investigation members must be allowed to speak frankly. Now pursuant to notice i call up a report containing a resolution recommending the house of representatives find Robert Hunter biden in contempt of congress refusal to comply with the subpoena duly issued by this committee. The clerk will report the report which has been distributed in advance. A report containing a House Resolution recommending the house of representatives find Robert Hunter biden in contempt of congress for refusal to comply with a subpoena duly issued by this Committee Asks ask unanimous consent the report be considered as a red and open for amendment at any point without objection so ordered the chart recognizes himself to offer an amendment in the substitute with the clerk please report too. The minute and the nature of a substitute offered to the contempt report is offered by mr. Cromer of kentucky that objection the amendment is considered red these subsidy will be considered as original text for the purposes of further amendment. I not recognize myself for five minutes for a statement on the report. Today the House Committee on oversight and accountability will consider a resolution recommend house of representatives find hunter biden in contempt of congress for his refusal to comply with the subpoena duly issued by the committee. The House Committee on oversight and accountability and judiciary issues of painters 200 biden for a deposition to be conducted on december 13, 2023. On december 1300 biden failed to comply with the deposition subpoenas relevant to the house of representatives impeachment inquiry and the committees oversight investigation. Instead hundred biden appeared on the grounds of the u. S. Capitol were he read a short prepared statement without taking any questions from the media. Our investigation has produced significant evidence suggesting President Biden knew of participated in and benefited from his family cashing in on the biden name. Based on witness testimony at joe but it was the brands family sold around the world for the biden family the bidens and associates raked in over 24 million in 2014 until 2019 from countries like china, russia, romania, and because expand. Witness testimony confirms then vice President Biden met, spoke by phone, kind had coffee with his familys form business associates. President biden has repeatedly lied to the American People about speaking with his sons associates but with also trace how money from the biden china deals another influence peddling schemes leonard and joe bidens personal bank account. We plan to question hunter biden about the record of evidence during our deposition he blatantly defied to a lawful subpoena has been Hunter Bidens willful refusal to comply with the Committee Subpoenas is a criminal act. That constitutes contempt of congress and warrants referral to the appropriate United States Attorneys Office for prosecution as described by the law will not provide hunter biden was special treatment because of his last name. All americans must be treated equally under the law and that includes a bidens. Now i recognize Ranking Member. Thank you, mr. Chairman. We believe everyone subpoena by congress whether it is hunter biden or jim jordan or andy biggs, or steve bannon or scott perry should engage in good faith compliance with the committees request and the Committee Subpoenas. We are here today because the chairman has bizarrely decided to obstruct his own investigation and is now seeking to hold hunter biden in contempt after he accepted the chairmans multiple public offers to come answer the committees questions under oath before the American People. This is at the same time they stand by the categorical noncompliance of republican members of Congress Like mr. Jordan who have Material Information about the Violent Attacks are. One moment the cameras cannot be in the well. Cameras cannot be in the well. Cameras cannot be in the well. Proceed. Thank you. I was just making the point our colleagues who are a reigning mr. Biden today on charges that he has not rendered one 100 compliance allegedly with a subpoena are standing by republican colleagues who rendered 0 compliance with their subpoenas including mr. Jordan, mr. Biggs, and mr. Perry when they have Material Information in the violent attack on the capitals, the congress, the Vice President of the United States. In any event for the last 11 months the chairman has refused offers from hunter biden and attorneys to meet with the chairman and with members of the committee by february 9 just one day after the chairmans first letter to hunter biden and offered to sit with you and your staff including the Ranking Member to seat whether it mr. Biden has information that may inform legitimate legislative purpose on the committee. The chairman never responded. On september 13 mr. Bidens lawyer again richard chairman, after newsmax interviewed the chairman but falsely claimed he never got a response back to his original letter mr. Bidens attorney explained the chairman actually never responded to his offer to sit down and discuss the committees request. Stated he remained available to have the discussion the chairman again complete failed to respond too. Two months later chairman comber and joe were issued subpoenas to mr. Biden requesting his appearance for a deposition on december 13 and the cover letter the chairman noted given your clients willingness to address this investigation publicly, up to this point we would expect him to testify before congress. Throughout the fall the chairman urged mr. Biden to come appear at a Public Committee hearing on september 13 on newsmax the chairman stated hunter biden is more than welcome to come in from of the committee. He wants to clear his good name for he wants to come and say there werent 20 Shell Company c is invited today we will drop everything for october 31 on a nationwide podcast the chairman stated we have announced evidence were ready to bring him in we are in the downhill phase because we have so many documents we can bring him in for deposition or Committee Hearing whichever they choose. For deposition or Committee Hearings whichever they choose we can ask these questions with evidence. Number six again on newsmax are good chairman stated i will extend the invitation on your show right now if the biden family wants to join tony and official oversight Committee Hearing. And answer questions at the American People asked that invitation is open right now. They can come on in and do that part november 2800 biden through his lawyer agreed to chairman combers multiple public requests he agreed to appear precisely at a public hearing. Under oath to answer the committees questions on december 13. Exactly what our good colleagues the republicans what information about generally six never agreed to do pray they never agreed to testify anywhere under oath about what they knew. The letter that came in for mr. Biden embraced the importance of having a public proceeding would prevent selective leaks, manipulated transcripts, doctored exhibits or onesided press statements especially in light of the Committee Past use of closeddoor sessions to manipulate, and distort the facts are. Mr. Chairman, mr. Chairman have inquiry. Mr. Chairman dont we have house rules and Committee Rules regarding subpoenas and then it rules about having hearings and having questions with witnesses . We did a. Id like to reclaim my time. Quick told donald a. Your time is expired of quick selection of the rules of the house and our committee. Read them they are available to every member of the rules say for a deposition if that is what youre asking three days notice you have to have a stenographer and all of that. Just to clarify we cant have someone agenda times expired for. To any other members wish to be heard . Mr. Chairman i did endure multiple interruptions. Could i finish . To it over your five minutes i will give you 30 more seconds. Okay. The treatment refused to take yes for an answer from hunter biden. He said on december 1 they pulled a bait and switch they change the terms of their request. They rejected his offer or his acceptance of their offer and insisted he now came in and sit for a secret closeddoor deposition. On december 600 bidens lawyer reiterated Hunter Bidens willing to accept the chairs original request and once again offered on december 16 or any of other date december to answer any questions to the subject matter he again raised concerns about closeddoor sessions that is what brings us to today mr. Chairman. He has materially substantially good faith complied with what your request to work for. He complied with the subpoena. Correct your time is expired. Any others wish to be heard question with the chart recognize from South Carolina progress thank you, mr. Chairman, chairman comer. First of all my first question is who bribed hunter biden to be here today question but thats my first question for the second question, you are the epitome of White Privilege coming into the Oversight Committee, sitting in our face ignoring a congressional subpoena, what are you afraid of . Mr. Chairman point of inquiry. Mr. Chairman. The lady is a recognized requests at the gentle light once a year from hunter biden we can hear from him right now mr. Chairman lets take a vote reflects allow me too speak every box hold on, hold on, hold on order, order. Are women or to speak in your know . Or you keep interrupting me perplexed i will interrupt the chairman that hes a lady. I think hunter biden should be arrested right here right now and go straight to jail. Our nation is founded on the rules of law. With the premise the law applies equally to everyone no matter what. Point awarded mr. Chairman point of order. Point of order mr. Chairman. State your points. My point of order is this, are we going to continue on with blatant interruptions . This is absurd and inappropriate. I intend to give my statements. Do not intend to have anybody interrupt me. Im not going to interrupt your statements. I think you should have decorum and courtesy and dont act like a bunch of nimrods for. Request youjust interrupted a w. I got permission. Everyone has five minutes can we agree point of order again. The assertion that i interrupted was absently false. That is typical of the gentleman who spoke at sprint got permission to speak from the chairman. I spoke i was interrupted yet again by the gentleman who does not choose to go to the chair and follow proper order i encourage us. We are going to have any respect at all we need to have proper decorum for. Well said, well said big. Sedrick. I like to finish . That rules are everyones going to be records for five minutes anyone he wants to be recognized will be recognized for five minutes. Has four minutes and 13 seconds left the chart recognizes ms. Mace because he does not matter who you are, where you come from, or who your father is ort your last name for it yes i looking at you hunter biden as i am speaking to you but you are not above the law. At all. The facts in this case are Crystal Clear this committee issued a lawful subpoena to hunter biden a critical witness in this committees investigation into the biden family corruption. Hunter biden and his lawyers now claim privilege of any kind because clearly he has none. They did not contest the legitimacy for issuing the subpoena no reason because they clearly are legitimate and yet he refused to comply. Trump family members donald trump junior, he did not defy it congressional subpoena he showed up multiple times on multiple depositions for several hours. In doing so hunter biden broke the law he did so deliberately you did so flagrantly. You showed up on the hill on the senate side the day of that congressional subpoena to defy it and spit in the face of this committee that is what you did. The question the American People are asking us is what is hunter biden so afraid of questioning why cant you show up for a congressional deposition question you are here for a political stop this is a pr stunt to you this is just a game you are playing with the American People but you are playing with the truth. Hunter biden was not afraid to sell access to joe biden to the highest bidder when he was an elected office he is not afraid to trade on the biden brand and pedal influence and share this ill gotten gains with members of his family. Including joe biden he was not afraid to compromise the integrity of the presidency and vice presidency by involving joe biden shady business deals. With our foreign adversaries but hunter biden you are too afraid to show up for a deposition . And you still cant today. I believe hunter biden should be held completely in contempt i think he should be hauled off to jail right now because it was not long ago to my friends on the other side of the aisle, that you also believed in the power of a congressional subpoena. Not long ago at all you believed in holding those who refuse to comply with a congressional subpoena accountable. And i stood with each and every one of you. Im the only member in this room today he was held a member of my own party in contempt of congress for not showing up for a subpoena. And i see nothing but complete hypocrisy on the other side of the eye up with the Ranking Member of this Committee Even so eloquently put it, the lesson is please tell your children out there in america if you get a subpoena to go before congress, it go. You have a legal responsibility to do so. So the hypocrisy is what are we to tell her children today . There is nothing the other side can say with a straight face. The old mayor of this committee to vote to hold a member in contempt of my own party let me be clear this should not be a partisan issue. If Congress Issues a subpoena you show up. This is not a responsibility we take lightly bring some joy to do this the president s on broke the law and must be held accountable in the same way anybody else would but i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do so and might last mt message you hunter biden, you play stupid games you win stupid prices break with the judge let yield for a gentle question question will my friend yield . Sure. I do want to commend the gentle lady who was the only republican who stood up and voted to hold in contempt republican members of the house who blatantly and categorically refused to comply with subpoenas that came from the bipartisan generally Six Committee. I would like to ask my friend ms. Mace from South Carolina, whether she is aware of all the case law that says the committee has to engage in good faith interaction with the witnesses they have called they are supposed to arrive at a solution. What do you think about the multiple occasions gave this witness an opportunity to come before the committee. We issued a congressional subpoena is a constitutional law back at you know exactly what that means he shouldve shown up because of your vote in your statement you should be voting to hold this met in contempt of congress today, right now. If you are going to be consistent on your own policy in your own words be quick to gently sign my six by the chart recognizes for five minutes. And keeps her chairman. Good to see you after a long break. So i am listening to the gentle lady from South Carolina about the witness being afraid to come in front of the committee, interesting here seems to be too afraid. In fact for some reason the chairman who on multiple occasions invited the witness to come on tv. Apparently the chairman was to pretend his statements on television or interviews dont matter. It happened once, it didnt happen twice, it happened multiple times. The chairman said the witness can choose whether to come to a deposition or to a public hearing in front of the committee. The witness accepted the chairmans invitation. It just so happens the witness is here. If the committee wants to hear from the witness and the chairman gave the witness that option, then the only folks that are afraid to hear from the witness with the American People watching are my friends on the other side of the aisle. I dont if theres a proper motion mr. Chairman i will make a motion lets vote straight lets take a vote who wants to hear from hunter right now today . Anyone . Come on, who was hear from hunter . No one. So i am a visual learner and the visual is clear nobody over there wants to hear from the witness. Okay one, think. Will yield for a question . Im up there yet but i will eventually. So there is no one other than one or two that want to hear from the witness of the majority of my colleagues over there including the chairman do not want to hear from the witness with the American People watching. So mr. Chairman, i just want to hear from you, will you acknowledge that you invited the witness on television to choose whether he could come to a public hearing and do you stand by your words urge you were negative that invitation to the witness question. Answer the question i said repeatedly after the deposition mr. Biden can come in front of a public hypocrite was determined to not want to play the video but that is not what you said on television multiple times. We have the quotes we can put them up. You said the witness can choose between a deposition. Listen mr. Biden does not make the roles we make them big. Mr. Chairman you make the rules and the rule you made as he can choose. Those were your words reclaiming my time because he was issued to lawful subpoenas right claiming my time you issued those subpoenas after he took you up on your invitation to come and then you like no, no what did i do i invited him to come so the American People can hear his side of the story put my foot in my mouth so now i want to bury him in the basement where we can decide what we are going to release to the public so we can continue to tell the story. Mr. Chairman you have said multiple times this is not about hunter it is about joe biden. And even this morning on mornings with maria she asked another simple question. The question you have been asked multiple times which is do you have evidence to impeach the president of the United States . Before you set i hope so. Today you said i think so. And the answer is, you dont and you still dont. We continue to be here and have the charades. To make college to talk about lawful subpoenas, i appreciate the gentle lady from South Carolina who voted to hold people in contempt. Listen i will make this bipartisan i will vote for hunters contempt you can get my vote but i want you to show the American People that you are serious. Heres a subpoena to Representative Scott Perry who did not comply i enter this into the record heres a subpoena to mark meadows i like to enter this into the record who did not comply. Heres a subpoena to jim jordan who did not comply with the lawful subpoenas like to enter that into the record but here is a subpoena to mo brooks who did not comply i like to enter that in the record heres a subpoena mr. Biggs did not comply i like to enter that into the record and heres a subpoena to mr. Mccarthy who did not comply i like to enter that into the record. There is an amendment coming to add some of those names into the contempt order. You vote to add those names and show the American People that we apply the law equally not just when its democrats it is a crime when its democrats but once trump and the republicans its justified. No, show you are serious and everyone thought about the law operate vote for that amendment and i will vote for the hunter biden contempt i yield back records denim sima six by the chart recognized the screen from georgia. Correct think you mr. Chairman. Excuse me hunter apparently you are afraid of my words. Whoa. [laughter] i like to reclaim my time mr. Chairman. [inaudible] order, order. That is too bad. [laughter] and on i think it is clear and obvious for everyone watching this hearing today that hunter biden is of strong conservative republican women. Because he cannot he can face my words as i was about to speak with him. What a coward for this is also a coward that set right here in front of mickey babbitt, Ashley Babbitts mother who was murdered on january 6 by michael byrd the Capitol Police officer. You want to talk about a committee of political sham . I will totally disagree with you ms. Mace. That january 6 committee was not bipartisan. It was a complete set up to go after President Trump. Go after republicans. Go after anyone that believes in free fair elections. People that believe the department of justice should be fair and balanced. Not a political weaponize department of the federal government that is targeting President Trump, his supporters, people that walked in the capitol january 6 the now people that stood outside the capitol per theres been no justice for Ashley Babbitts family. Michael byrds never been charged with anything he was let off and given a promotion and allowed to walk free. Hunter biden just walked out. That is an example of not following the law hunter biden thanks he is above the law. Don junior, eric trump, trumped family members had to come in to democrat subpoenas and be questioned by democrats for over eight hours, each of them. Hunter biden runs away. Hunter biden did not come when we subpoenaed him. He did not follow the law and one of our colleagues he obeyed his subpoena by going and reserving a press conference for him on his behalf, helped him evade the subpoena. Helped hunter biden break the law. Lets talk about his own fathers words. President joe biden said in october 2021 that individuals who defies subpoenas from the january 6 House Select Committee should be prosecuted the Justice Department indicted steve bannon for doing so in november 2021. Hunter bidens a father, the president of the United States said that he should be prosecuted anyone who defies a subpoena should be prosecuted. Hunter biden did not show up for his subpoena hunter biden showed up today to make a clown show of himself to show he is nothing but someone who will not obey the law that wants to show up when he wants to and says here with a smug look on his face and runs away when it is my turn to talk. Not only is he is a criminal but he is a coward. Nothing but a coward. Lets talk about voting for things. We have members on this committee that are in a record n their own twitter accounts talking about people blowing off subpoenas on the generate Six Committee that states the rule of law is all over america thats representative jamie rask at right here ill enter this for the record but representative jamie raskin. Has been convicted contempt of congress. My argument is now settled. You show up and assert any privilege you think applies to specific questions. But you cannot blow up the off e proceedings he blew it off. Its too late we have to hold him in contempt of congress hes not above the law and neither is the president of the United States. This committee has produced more evidence, more evidence than any democrat ever dreamed of having against President Trump and his family. They constantly make up lies and attack about the trump family and it President Trump. They make them up all they say long as nothing but a political witchhunt. You cannot buy a biden product you cannot hire a batted Server Service in the short foreign country and you are asking and paying for political favors and medical payouts we will hold hunter biden in contempt. The democrats are not the hypocrites that they constantly display that they are, then they will vote for contempt of congress because they voted for on every other subpoena that did not go through and heres the last thing you guys had your chance if you wanted to hold people in contempt of congress who could have done it last congress but you didnt do it it wouldve been a major mistake because you know it could have been turned exactly back on you. Mr. Chairman i yield. X think it mr. Chairman i think its really interesting to the gentle lady from georgia speak about hunter biden leaving she is the person who showed nude photos of hunter biden in this very Committee Room showing dick pics in this Committee Room of hunter biden. I have my five minutes gentle lady. I think it is really ironic, hypocritical, quite shameful of a person complained about somebody leaving when she is showing nude photos of him to this committee. In this very room. And you also talked about decorum. You talk about january 6, ms. Green i was there with you but went to the generate six jail and you were hugging, highfiving, talking too and providing so much comfort and joy to the insurrectionist that attacked our capitol. The insurrectionist that you were hugging and giving them all the support for. Mr. Chairman the general has a 10. The chart recognizes mr. Garcia for three mins and 50 seconds or. I fiveminute to want to remind everyone that this is again about donald trump or bends show we are here today as the majority students hearing this is all about donald trump trying to make sure theyre doing everything they can to support him. For weeks, we as democrats and republicans demanded a public hearing and i agree. Yet mr. Chairman you have denied it. We wanted a public hearing we need to take a vote we ask unanimous consent we should hear from mr. Biden today that is with the public demands democrats are united we like to see the same thing i would like to see a vote to have hunter biden with unanimous consent to a hearing and addresses today. My friend yields. Thank you. Well the fact of the matter is mr. Biden showed up this morning and was willing to show up weeks ago to appear to public hearing. What she was led to believe was his option. And today is all about combination of chutzpah and delusional theater we just heard some of the delusional theory of the gentle lady from georgia. But they chutzpah is a bunch of people who defies subpoenas themselves now want to have a contempt citation for the son of the president because they dont have sufficient evidence in fact they have no evidence of any kind to pursue the president himself. When you cannot go up to the principal try to hurt the people around them. Including a wounded member of his own family who has all too public troubles but before our country. It is meanspirited. It is cruel. And it is beneath the dignity of this committee and this body. You want to have political differences with the president of the United States, but resorting to punitive measures against members of his family because you cannot get at him i think crosses a boundary. And by the way i counseled democrats of the Previous Administration to take great care and going after members of President Trumps family because i felt its the same dynamic at work. I would urge that we give real serious consideration to the matter at hand. That we show more respect for the president and his family, whoever that president may be at any given time. And that we respect to due process and we hold ourselves to the same standards we are asking this body to act on todays in terms of contempt citation we have let many of our fellow members off the hook and defying the january 6 subpoenas. I yield to mr. Raskin. Can address my time . I want to also mr. Biden has agreed to address this public of what like to ask you notes consent to swear to mr. Biden either today or to future meeting and of every member be able to ask five minutes of questioning to the witness elective officially asked that mr. Chairman. We object. That is not in order. House that not in order . Thats not an order time is asked by the chair recognize mr. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would just like to remind members of this committee, anybody watching this is a duly constituted committee under the rules of the house of representatives duly constituted. Have republicans on this side and democrats on the outside. The democrats on that side were selected by their leadership in their process. Same thing for the republicans on the side. Why do i mention that . What i bring that up . This is a stark difference from what is being a reference on the other side of the lbj Six Committee. Which was nothing more than a soviet show trial in america that is what that was. Until every single action that they took, subpoenaing people, disparaging people, referring charges of people were not legitimate. So to compare whats happening today to what happened years ago is completely out of context and you need to understand that. This is a game for these folks. Sure they want to support their guy. They do not care about america for they do not care about what the president is doing to destroy america. Or just locking horns, locking arms to support their guy and god bless and they can do that if you want to vote for people that do that, that is your right. Now, in my opinion this committee is not interested in prosecuting hunter biden. Its not interested in that. Hunter biden is a sad tale by his own right by his own admission by leaving his evident all around for everyone to see the other side complaints documents and photographs are shown in this committee about hunter biden. Dont blame the person that showed the documents of the photographs the person that committed the acts is the person who is responsible for the acts. And we do take no joy because it is a waste of time to prosecute hunter biden. But he created this for himself along with the rest of his sad tale of his life unfortunate that it may be. But we in this committee on both sides of the on behalf of the American People are charged with finding the facts. The facts show President Biden profited from his name and the persons that arrange the deals was hunter biden and soap we would like to delve into that. Hunter biden regardless of his last name even though he thanks he especially thanks he can leave evidence around and blame it on the russians when he knows it was him he can go on tv and thanks he is special and that no one will touch him. Ladies and gentlemen the great thing about america is we are all special because the law is applied to each of us know that despite our station, political position. Hunter biden sadly chose to violate federal law. That is unfortunate. But we are dutybound to do something about it because without law we have anarchy. And that is what hunter biden would like. By coming here today he shows he can be here he shows, he displays he could show up to a lawfully legitimately opinion but he chooses not to thats his choice he can do that but there are consequences for the ladies and gentlemen. There are consequences for that. With a gentleman yields . I will not yield. We are dutybound to pursue the consequences of that so that the American People can trust in this system of justice in the United States of america, which they do not right now they do not trust to do nor should they because this side of the aisle has made a mockery of it for the last three years and beyond the crux of the judgment yield . Works i will not yield. Mr. Biden is not special. He was given a subpoena he should have appeared he chose not too. We have no choice. We have no choice if we are to uphold our oath to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States. We have no choice except to refer charges and find hunter biden in contempt, his choice that was his choice. Now we have to make our choice in conflating the socalled j6 committee unduly authorize not a committee, not a committee no jurisdiction no authority whatsoever under the law of anything to conflate that with these proceedings today is an abomination. My friends on the other side of the aisle, know what they are doing, should be ashamed, should be embarrassed but will not be regardless we much for john for the sake of this republic i yield the balance because gentleness time has expired the chair recognizes mr. Goldman for five minutes but. Thank you mr. Chairman i feel like i am in alice in wonderland after that. Every american receives the same application of the law and it does not matter what your last name is. So i guess that means if your last name is. That subpoenas apply to you as well lawful subpoenas now i appreciate the gentleman from pennsylvanias argument that they generally Six Committee was not a duly constituted committee and in fact he and many others made that same argument to a number of courts of law. The courts are charged with interpreting our laws and whether a committee is a duly constituted committee and whether a subpoena is a duly constituted subpoena. And even though my friend from pennsylvania may not like the fact that a neutral judge multiple judges in fact did not agree with him it still remains the law of the land, not what mr. Perry said, not how i would interpret the generally Six Committee but how every single court of law interpreted it. Instead it was a validly constituted committee from every single one issued by the committee no different than the subpoena from present by quicksort settlement yield for question question with no, sir you did not yield to me i will not yield to you. The fact of the matter is subpoenas should apply equally. We are hypocritical because we will not to vote to hold someone who has made every effort to comply in every way other than these specific means of providing the evidence three members of this committee refused to comply in any way, shape, form with a court determined lawful subpoena. It is beyond me. Now, i find it interesting that my friend from pennsylvania also chastises us for supporting our guy. And i wonder how he would define supporting our guy would he supporting our guy is trying to instigate a coup at the department of justice to install a lackey and removed the attorney general and the Deputy Attorney general so that he could keep his guy and office even though he lost . Is that just supporting our guy because that is what mr. Perry did. The reality is we are here because plain and simple two reasons retribution for donald trump and the fact that the republicans have no evidence. You will hear them talk about evidence but he will hear them say we have so much evidence, we have so much evidence we are going to get into some these details as we go forward. But the reality is you have been moving the goal post the entire time because you cannot make any connection notwithstanding all of your false statements to the president. So instead, lets subpoena hunter biden because what we will expect is that he will not testify or he will take the fifth amendment because he is under criminal indictments. And then we get to say all of our allegations must be true because if they werent he would come here and testify. They called your bluff and now you are scrambling for books of the judgment yield . Rex know i will not a. Are you sure . Now you are desperate, desperate to find anything to divert attention away from your abject lack of evidence connecting President Biden to any Business Venture of Hunter Bidens through any wrongdoing. So we are going to hold us here on a contempt hearing because you do not want to see him testify in public. You just want to be able to filter his testimony and closeddoor testimony as you have been doing this entire congress progresso settlement yield . Excel yields my Ranking Member thank you very. Thank you. The District Court of columbia judge kelly obliterated the argument too. The chair recognizes esther biggs for five minutes per box thank you, mr. Chairman. At the risk of taking debate. [laughter] which is all this is, its laying a little bait and might just be too attractive for me it got to get in on it may be just a little bit. I am intrigued by the assertions of my colleagues who claim the hunter biden violation of the subpoena scenario is the same is issuing subpoenas to four members of congress but i am intrigued by that i really am its interesting. Heavy illegitimate j6 group to enforce its dubious subpoena against me, my counsel was prepared to argue the service of that subpoena was insufficient. And so asserted to cancel for the j6 committee. Had the illegitimate jsix goggle forces subpoena by counsel and i believe the council each member of congress who had been subpoenaed ox tentatively punitive lisa painted would also have asserted successfully a privilege under the constitution of the United States. Those questions never rose formally because the now defunct j6 committee which has no authority anymore because it passed with the closing of the last session of congress. I think that understood the tenuous claims and chose not to try to force this questionable subpoenas and why do i say that . I say it because in reporting to reuters the committees own chairman said this quote they are some questions of whether we have the authority to compel testimony from republican colleagues. He knew you did not have that authority. But yet you still tried to assert its. Now, what is the distinction . Hunter biden has no claim to insufficiency of service of process. Why do we know . He stood on the lawn on the senate the same day that he was supposed to be here and asserted publicly i am supposed to be somewhere else im supposed be giving your deposition but i wont do it. I wont do it. Secondly, hunter biden has claimed no privilege against testifying before this committee or the Judiciary Committee pursuant to the subpoena except for the privilege she has claimed throughout his life as the Los Angeles Times said about hunter biden quote biden is still on the nepotism gravy train the daily mail reported one or 50000 a month on the board of ukraine because of his family name. It goes on and on. Again the Los Angeles Times described hunter biden as a quote child of privilege that is the only privilege hunter biden has ever asserted. He asserts not that he should be exempt from testifying because are some constitutional. Even the chairman of this committee would agree to as Benny Thompson agreed to on the j6 committee issuance of subpoenas to members of congress. No he does not assert that kind of privilege he asserts only the privilege that he does not need to come and testify before the nine States Congress he was issued him subpoena his attorneys acknowledge the subpoena and he personally has acknowledge the subpoena for the simple reason that he is a biden. So where are we . Merrick garland has authorized pursuing republicans for contempt of congress. He must also authorize prosecution of hunter biden. Failure to do so on the part of the attorney general will show his contempt for congress as well. But it will show even greater attempt met contempt for the American People who know it notrecognize the weaponization e federal government and the twotiered system promulgated by democrats. Mr. Chairman, to mr. Thompson former german thompsons questioning of his own authority to actually issue subpoenas to members of congress, chairman jordan requested legal analysis and authorities. But chairman thompson never responded. That committee could have pursued contempt if they thought there was valid subpoenas issued and a contemptible warrant of contempt citation. They chose not to their authority expired and ours has not expired we should issued contempt i yield backwards judgment yields back the chair now recognizes mr. Conley pickwick thank you, mr. Chairman. Three names jordan, perry, and biggs. Not a law firm, three members of this body who defied a legitimate issued subpoena upheld by courts of law. I think it is really important to remember that when the word hypocrisy is thrown around by some of our friends on the other side of the aisle. The other think of thing i think is important for yield to the Ranking Member mr. Biden hunter biden knows that if he appeared in camera in secret to be deposed republicans would cherry pick what he said and leakage. He preferred to come here out in the open and testify before the entire American Public. This body and everyone watching and take his chances with public testimony that could not be used to his detriment by cherry picking and distortion. That is and ought to be the right of an american citizen i yield to the Ranking Member. Thank you kindly mr. Conley. I wanted to introduce for the record mr. Chairman United States District Courts of columbia opinion versus nancy pelosi rendered by judge tim kelly are rejecting, obliterating demolishing every argument that we heard from mr. Perry and mr. Big. Their whole argument seems to be republicans were entitled to blow off subpoenas of the United States congress of the generous Six Committee because they did not like the Committee Per they didnt think it was legitimate for that thought is not validly authorized. The courts around late uniformly objected those arguments. So now they purport to render the law for themselves. If they do not want to comply with the subpoena they wont and yet they would now hold other witnesses like hunter biden to a standard they will not accept for themselves. That is a remarkable thing i started off this hearing by saying we believe that everybody should respond in good faith to the subpoenas of the niceties congress. Mr. Biden asserts that he responded in good faith to what you repeatedly publicly asked him to do he has at least got an arguable colorable claim that is true. All of the caselaw ive been able to read mr. Chairman suggests the committee is supposed to engage in good faith negotiation with the witnesses which is processed it with the generous Six Committee did the dates do not always work out but times are always work out. Some people want to assert privilege some dont there certain questions that are agreed too or not so there are negotiations but as a red at the beginning. Will generally take a question . Talk so well as soon as i get to the articles excuse me is my time. Mr. Raskin. Thank you mr. Cohen. Why is the committee not engage in this negotiation with hunter biden . I just do not understand that. He is a guy who appears to be 99 willing to do what you even asked him to do in the written subpoena. He has given a one 100 good faith compliance with what you repeatedly publicly challenged them to do. So i do not understand why you wont meet with him at work it out which is what every court in the land has said they do not want to be involved in all the special especially when you got a guy like him who has overwhelmingly complying with what youre asking for unlike all of these colleagues on the other side of the aisle who unfortunately one 100 defied the subpoenas of the United States congress. Which is what they did and i do not think those people should be able to vote on any subpoena not related to any witness on this committee until they render cooperation of generally Six Committee and come forth and tell us what they know. There is another point that i need to make and i want to thank mr. Conley for his indulgence here. Our good friend the gentle lady from georgia referred to the murder of ashley babbage. The department of justice the United States attorney u. S. Capitol Police Inspector general all rejected the idea point of order mr. Chairman. Or inquiry. There is no such thing for. There has never been a Court Hearing pickwick summits of chairman we agreed. Never charge for. Reclaiming, order here. The time is mr. Conleys i yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I will submit for the record a document that closes investigation into the death of Ashley Babbitt the nazis Capitol Police document complete internal investigation to generate six officer involved shooting. I think it was a scandal. It was a tragedy and people died because donald trump put them at risk. Many of the former insurrectionist are now willing to say publicly. Came and staged a pr stunt with my friend from florida, mr. Moscowitz. That was clearly organized and recognized. But what im hearing from the Ranking Member and his colleague, the claim that the transcripts are subject to, quote, partisan and twisted leaks in distortion is incredibly rich. Lets talk about calling the kettle black. First, the country suffered through and and higher impeachment proceeding of a president of the United States because of a false dossier in a skiff, a compartment facility where every hearing and every transcript started with this is an unclassified proceeding. Then to have it to selectively leaked and lied to tutu the American People come into the great damage of this nation. Then bring it to this committee because im new, i watched yesterday as Committee Democrats continue to spin false narratives, several of which went out just yesterday as interviews were ongoing with Hunter Bidens art dealer which is rich in and of itself, that congress and golden on the other side of the aisle went to the press during the interviews and spun in narrative while it was going on, but he conveniently admitted that 70 of the art buyers were biden donors. We can go down the line and talk about the other thing we are hearing today, members so we do so, congressman a so and so, congressman jordan, they didnt comply with of their subpoena. But lets have a quick lesson on the constitution. Article one, section six of the constitution, the speech and debate clause essentially protects all of us from abiding by each others subpoenas otherwise this body would do nothing but subpoena each other. So i would encourage my colleagues to look up article one section six and look at the case law, speech and debate clause, and why my colleague rightfully did not abide by that subpoena. But lets talk about precedent for a moment of a president s son. Abiding by lawful subpoenas of the congress. Donald trump junior came before this body, he came before the house intelligence committee. He came before the house Judiciary Committee. He came before the Senate Intelligence committee twice. He came before the socalled january 6 committee, all behind closed doors where lawyers can sit down, both sides of the aisle, and have a conversation, go through documents all under oath, which is the president for any committee. Don junior came before committee, came for this body five times behind closed doors. What is hunter biden afraid of . What wont he do . And Ranking Member, you are going to reap what you sow, my friend. You insisted on depositions for those who appeared before the january 6 committee when the ste bannon agreed to testify publicly . You argued, sir, that he should have to sit for a closeddoor closed forinterview just like er witness. Quote, the way we have treated every single witness is the same. They come in behind closed doors. They talk to the committee there. You said on an interview in front of cds in 2022, but now that republicans are doing the same process, following house rules, doing the investigating, somehow hunter biden, because hes a biden, should be held to a different standard. At the end of the day, we had a Government Official and the president of the United States, a Vice President set up 30 Shell Companies. Y, those Companies Sell . Nothing. Vice President Biden was charged with two countries in his portfolio, china and ukraine, while the Vice President , his son traveled on official business on air force to and received massive monetary contributions afterwards. We have laws in place, colleagues, that prevent foreign powers from influencing Government Officials. Policies changed as a result of the dinners, the calls, the Text Messages that we know President Biden engaged in through his son. We have a duty to get to the bottom of it. We will reference this contempt and we will see of the attorney general will uphold a fair standard of the law. His gimmick your time is up. And prosecute hunter biden. The chair now recognizes ms. Crockett for five minutes. Okay. So, we love the constitution today. And we also want to talk about foreign money coming in. Have you all seen the report that was just produced with this term and that decided that he was going to block this committee from receiving Additional Information about trump and all the money that he took from what we did receive, we know that the trump got almost 6 million that we can account for coming and we know that there is more there from china specifically. We found almost 8 million total that he accepted from Foreign Government while he was serving as the president of these United States. So we are concerned about the president s son who has not been involved in his administration. I just want to run it back to the very beginning, because this is something that i just cant get over. I cant get over the gentlelady from South Carolina talking about White Privilege. It was a hit in the face to talk about what White Privilege looks like especially from the outside of the aisle. And let me quote you are now ousted the speaker and what he had to say about the Republican Party and your lack of diversity. When you look at the democrats, they actually look like america. When i look at my party we look like the most restricted country club in america. So let me tell you something, you dont know what White Privilege looks like, but im going to show you a little bit of something. Did you see, you want to talk about a twotiered Justice System, and this is the only time youve ever referenced it when this country has a history when it comes to black and brown folks of having two separate sets of rules, and right now what you want to do is have two separate sets of rules because mr. Moskowitz offered to you all a their situation. He said he would vote for hunter to be held in contempt if you all voted to hold out even if you remove all of the members of congress. There is still other people that you all havent decided, you have excuses for but you dont want to hold him in contempt. But for some reason it makes sense to hold hunter biden in contempt was tried to comply. And let me tell you why no one wants to talk to you behind closed doors, because its all lies. Thats the bottom line. Youve done it this far in this investigation and this far as it relates to this committee and every single hearing, you spin, spin. I dont know how you are Still Standing right now because you should be quite dizzy from the spending youre constantly doing when it comes to spinning the truth. You talk about free and fair elections, but you back the guy that we know tried to steal the election. And this isnt about what democrats have to say. Let me remind you for those that dont know how the Justice System works. Its not a matter of the president went in and indicted trump, but we are talking about a grand jury. Grand juries are comprised of american citizens, and the people that have entered pleas of guilty that will be slipping on your leader in a minute, they are republicans. I do want to point that out. And half of them were republicans that were handpicked by donald trump himself. So, to be clear, whatever happens to your little leader is going to be because of the actions that he took. So you can talk all you want to about how january 6 was not this, but all of you were running at that time. You were grabbing your gas masks and running to your office is because you didnt know if they were coming to kill you. You should have cared if somebody was there to protect you but instead you want to play games because you found out that it was your leader that decided that he wanted to propagate an insurrection on our country. So dont tell me that you care about the constitution, because you dont. All you care about is trump getting reelected and i will yield the last of my time. Thank you very much ms. Crockett for your eloquent, powerful and irrefutable remarks. Id like to just add a couple of points to what you said. On january 6, senator ted cruz described it as terrorism. They later came to attack him during the revisionist orwellian stalinist attempt to rewrite history. Unfortunately for them, we know that there were 147 or 48 of our officers were wounded, bloodied and hospitalized by the rabid mob that abyss at the capitol that day. We know that kevin mccarthy, one of the deposed leaders over on their side, called donald trump from his office to complain about how his people were storming the euppercaseletter and putting peoples lives in danger, and donald trump said no, those arent my people. And mccarthy corrected him and said no, those are your people mr. President , to which donald trump said well maybe they just care a little bit more about who won the election for and you did, kevin mccarthy. Youve got to deal with reality here. By the way the speech and debate clause stands for the opposite principles of the distinguished member that just spoke about a moment ago. It says that members of congress you should read the speech or debate clause. Let me finish. Mr. Burchett for five minutes. Thank you. My colleagues want to talk about the Justice System, so lets talk about it. Last year the chairman issued a subpoena to appear on december 7, or december 13, excuse me, for a closeddoor deposition. Instead of respecting the rule of law, hunter biden chose to give a press conference on the front steps of the senate. So, to show such content for Congress Without fear of repercussions id like to think throughout this administration and democratic administrations before it, if you are a big name democrat and you are immune to prosecution. Former attorney general eric holder said as much any memo that he wrote regarding collateral consequences for those who dont know the collateral consequence policy allowed prosecutors to consider whether to charge and a company or individual result in greater societal harm. Its why the banks were not held for the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis. Its why Geoffrey Epstein clients are behind arent behind bars, too big to jail. The the system is a disgrace of the principles it was founded on. I think the terminate of the committee for the hard work they put into hold of the Biden Administration accountable but i doubt the Justice Department has the guts or the wherewithal to do anything about it. And i would like to yield my time to my friend from florida, byron donalds. Actually, i will yield she hasnt gotten enough quality tv time today so i will give her a little more time. Thank you. Then i will yield to my colleague from florida. Im going to try to be quick because i was accused by my colleague on the other side of the aisle not White Privilege. I want to say number one, as the former Ranking Member of the civil rights subcommittee under chairman raskin last session, i take great pride as a white female republican to address the inadequacies in our country. I come from a district where rich and poor is literally blackandwhite. Black versus white on those. My largest in my district, the largest shale in the state of South Carolina had to deaths in the last two years i was there with our black and africanamerican councilmembers trying to get the right thing done and i come from a district where black men have been killed by law enforcement, tased to death in our jails and ive stood with those black families because i know the differences that they see daytoday in their lives. I try to do the best that i can. I come from a district where the first africanamerican, first black man in the u. S. House of representatives was joseph raining, representative of my district back in the 1800s. The last black member of the u. S. House of representatives for the reconstruction came from South Carolina. George murray, the black man, former slave and entrepreneur who founded of the Republican Party in South Carolina, one of the founding members Robert Smalls who commandeered a confederate ship and gave it to Union Soldiers and served his country admirably in the process. In my district it was. Tubman. You can see in the movie harriet, who rescued more than 700 slaves in one night in Beaufort County South Carolina. So im very well aware of the rich history and try to recognize it as best as i can in the position that i have and i resent the fact that youre going to throw that in my face up here. Im one of the few people you will see on my side of the aisle trying to do the right thing for the people every single day and i would like to yield the remaining balance of time to my colleague from florida. This has been a very interesting hearing. Lets be very clear this isnt about Hunter Bidens White Privilege, its about Hunter Bidens democrat privilege. Donald junior showed up for five. It wasnt a circus where he was subpoenaed by democrats and showed up on the senate slider showed up at the white house to answer in some fake phony lame vague phony lamepress conferency going to the house and doing what he was compelled by the subpoena to do. Hunter biden did that. And then he has the gall to show up here when we know that we are going through actually the legislation for contempt by the way, mr. Chairman, to get to the legislation of contempt. He had the gall to come here, show up and then when the democrats are saying he wants to speak, he leaves. This is a joke. Its a farce. The man has been subpoenaed by congress. By the way, the generally Six Committee, mr. Raskin, which you did sit on by the way, that wasnt a normal he ordered congress because nancy pelosi didnt want the republican members but then later mccarthy put up will you yield i was respectful of your time. Ladies and gentlemen, lets move forward with our business. He should be held in contempt. There was a subpoena, he didnt answer. Any other american would be held in contempt by congress. Any other. Its democratic privilege of the highest order. Lets do our jobs. The chair recognizes ms. Because leo cortez. Let me address briefly quickly that moment about privilege and all of this we are seeing here. Very beautiful speech by the gentlelady who has she mentioned helped lead the now majority side of the civil rights and Civil Liberties subcommittee. But i think it is exemplary of the point that she also oversaw the elimination of the civil rights subcommittee. Which really kind of gives the whole game away. We show up, we give speeches, flowery words and at the end of the day participate in the structural erosion of the rights and representation of people that are marginalized, women, people of color, people that just needed to see their due process and Civil Liberties protected in this country. But i will move on. As also the republican site is mentioned in their many raisings of the january 6 committee, that its not just hunter biden, you, me, any individual subject to equal treatment under the law, to be held to accountability under the law, but it is also these committees. And this committee that is subject to oversight and law. We must comply with the law here as well. I am 81 of the very few people that actually believes in congress, you know, in this country. But i do. And many of us do here. And we have an obligation to engage in good participation, to execute and comply with the subpoena. The chairman said in front of the country several times to hunter biden, you can show up here in front of the world, in front of the public. Hunter biden took him up on that offer. He said i will show up in public. I will show up in public. He showed up here today. He showed up here in the past. And mr. Chairman, i know you do your best with what youve got, but youve got members here that have submitted falsified evidence to the record. You have members here that have submitted and mischaracterized closed for hearings. People want to say back and forth at the end of the day it doesnt matter what party. Youve got members who engaged in revenge porn in this committee. So, it is understandable why hunter biden would want to testify in front of the public for the American People to be able to witness the testimony for themselves. Youve got members that have divided subpoenas. Youve got members who, we are one year into the term asking what the rules are at the beginning of the committee. The book was given to us on day one. And so, what we should do is allow the man to testify. I believe in the power of the Oversight Committee. Frankly, i believe in it regardless of whether republicans or democrats have the chair because i believe that this committee should have the power of oversight. And we cannot do that on a partisan basis. And so, for that, i implore this committee to allow hunter biden to testify publicly. I implore and i ask for that to happen. And we cannot do that by getting engaged in this back and forth on the defiance of a subpoena. Let him comply. Let him do it today. Let him do it tomorrow. But let the man do it. And with that, i yield back to the Ranking Member. Thank you. I think you went right into the heart of the issue here. You know, if this ended up going to court, mr. Chairman, and i hope it doesnt, i really hope this committee will act in a way to negotiate and achieve a compromise with of the witness. But if it goes to the court, its going to present a novel question. What happens when a committee represented by its distinguished chairman goes out in public it repeatedly invites and challenges a witness to come before the committee, and then that witness gives the answer yes, i will come in. At that point, the committee pulls a bait and switch and says well, we actually dont want you to come before the full committee as was offered repeatedly in public by the chairman, but instead wed like you to come to a back room and do it there in a closed deposition. Now, undoubtedly if that had been the original offer, the committee was to stand in a very good place the way we did with mr. Biggs and mr. Perry and jordan, because they were told to come in. They were subpoenaed and they blew off the subpoena of the committee, which is why i dont think anybody should be voting on that side other than ms. Mays because that is who took the position that the rule of law means something. And i take the position if we give somebody a subpoena they should come in. But there is a very sticky problem now. What happens when we give them one offer a and then a switch over to offer be. Thats why i hope you will work it out, mr. Chairman. The gentleladys time is expired. To respond to the gentlelady, he can come in for a hearing after the deposition. The chair now recognizes ms. Mclean for five minutes. So, i just want to bring everything back home. This hearing is a contempt of Congress Hearing for hunter biden. Its not about january 6, its not about mr. Perry, its not about White Privilege. Its a contempt of Congress Hearing about hunter biden. Although i appreciate the diversion tactics like my colleague from florida said, lets get back to the business which is actually the contempt of congress. I agree let him comply. Let him comply. And with of the Ranking Member lets follow the rule of law. So, in contrast, let me read the rules of the committee real quickly. Its on page nine of the rulebooks. It talks about the notices. Notices for the taking of deposition, the time and the place of examination. The consultation was the ranking minority member of the Committee Shall include, listen for it, three calendar days notice. So, although im sure any defendants would like to come in and say i want to come in on this day and the defendant is going to tell the judge and of the legal system how the trial is going to run. Unfortunately, thats not how it works. Its really simple. So, i do agree with you. Let him comply. Let him comply with fisa pmi that we gave him. He chose not to, so therefore, we are Holding Hunter Biden in contempt of congress. And i would also like to say you have the opportunity when you all were in charge or you all were in charge to do the same with the members on our side of the aisle. You didnt do that. Thats not our fault. Thats yours. So, we are here to talk about hunter biden. For everyone watching today, and for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, i want to be clear again what this hearing is really about. Hunter biden was subpoenaed to answer to congress. Thats it. But he violated federal law by failing to appear before the committee. You cant spin that for my colleague on the other side of the aisle. You cant spin that. The bottom line is hunter did not show up and he committed a crime. Using, we are a land of laws and we must follow those laws. And that is what we are here to do today. Instead, he was on the grounds of the u. S. Capitol where he made a Public Statement without taking questions from the media conveniently. So instead of showing up for his legal obligation, he showed up just steps away from the hearing room to spit in the face of this congress, and unfortunately, that is Hunter Bidens ammo. We are merely doing our job. What we are doing today is a showing the country that hunter will not receive special treatment due to his name. Its a very simple. And he will be held to the same standard that every other american citizen would be expected to do. Can you imagine if your average america and you get a subpoena and you go in and tell the judge let me tell you heres how its going to work. Im not showing up. Im not showing up. Dont worry about those laws, because it would never fly. But thats exactly what hunter biden is doing. And if we care about this institution, if we care about democracy, at some point in time, we have to hold the wall and people who break the law accountable. Or like my colleague said, we are going to have anarchy. So, simply put its not about anything else. We are talking about hunter biden. You can get up and scream and holler rant rant and rave and talk about everything but the fact. We subpoenaed congress. Legally to hunter biden, and he chose not to show up. Read the rules. He has to follow the law. I know thats a very foreign concept, but you have to do it and for the biden family, you have to follow the law and with that, i yield back. The gentlelady makes an excellent point about this notice requirement for subpoenas. I dont think that has ever been complied with. Will you commit to im just reading its my time. Thank you so much. Will you commit to honor the notice requirement properly invoked . I will say this to answer and then recognize we have complied. We might have a dispute. You dont have the time. We have followed the rules. The chair recognizes ms. Stansberry. Its always a wild and interesting adventure here in the Oversight Committee and this morning certainly doesnt disappoint. I want to talk about the resolution that has been proposed because that is what we are here to debate this morning and the content of that including the assertions about the investigation that led to the moment we are at today. But im glad my colleague mentioned that we are a land of law and that every citizen should have to come play with them including members of this committee, not to mention a chairman who was subpoenaed on the last congress and refused to respond. If so, if we are going to apply these laws and they must apply equally i would think to even members of this committee, and certainly to the front runner and the gops president ial election, which i will get to in a minute. But lets talk a little bit about this background and correct the record a little bit. First of all, i want to talk about the evidence that was presented to the committee as a part of the investigation. More than 62,000 pages of records from the National Archives on top of 20,000 pages that were already made publicly available, 30,000 pages of private bank records, 2,000 pages of activity reports provided by the treasury department, dozens of hours of testimony from special counsel, u. S. Attorneys, doj officials, irs agents, financial advisors, friends, business partners, evidence provided by the ways and Means Committee and expert witnesses testimony by the gops own witnesses right here on this committee in september who sat right there at the table and said there was not sufficient evidence to support proceeding with an impeachment. In fact there are numerous members currently serving in congress who do not believe there is sufficient evidence. So my question is where are the receipts . You have reviewed thousands of pages of documents, countless hours of testimony, talk to expert witnesses including your own witnesses that cant provide a single iota of evidence of wrongdoing by this president. But last week, House Democrats released this. We have the receipts. In fact right here in the report, and for any of you that have not dug in on this report i want to talk a little bit about what this report shows because of his Actual Receipts from Foreign Governments who spent 7. 8 million of Trump Properties during his presidency while they were actively seeking to influence Foreign Policy decisions of the administration. Will the gentlelady answer lets talk about some of the receipts in here. Melasia, over a quarter Million Dollars was spent by representatives of melasia while their expresident was being investigated for ms of corruption scheme in which the fundraiser was indicted for illegally lobbying on. Saudi arabia, tens of thousands of dollars spent by the saudi government, and by the crown prince and his staff to later give 2 billion to Jared Kushners private firm. Qatar, tens of thousands of dollars spent during what was described as a offensive and arm sale to the government by the trump administration. Kazakhstan, thousands spent by the president of kazakhstan that raised questions about human rights violations, business dealings and Money Laundering scheme involving Donald Trumps properties in new york. So, my question if the gop actually cares about criminal activity, they investigate the receipts that we have right here. Of influence peddling by donald trump and a man who is currently facing the trial in four jurisdictions on 91 counts of criminal activity whos been twice impeached by this body and trying to run for president again. This committee has already endorsed. This is not factually based. This is a farce. Its a political expense and designed to help donald trump secure the nomination this november. So lets call it what it is. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield my time back to the chair. Four seconds. Three, two, all right, time is expired. Mr. Chairman, i ask unanimous consent to enter information for the record. Whats the information. The minority has been provided a copy for the record and in the past displayed pornography, is pornography allowed, our pornographic photos allowed to be displayed in the Committee Room . Its not pornography. Youre the expert. Im not an expert. [inaudible] im going to let the ladies day and then if you object we will go from there. Dont we have an opportunity to review . I reclaim my time, mr. Chair. I would like to enter for the record an excerpt from a Bank Statement thats public with hunter biden and his bank account reclaiming order. Reclaiming order. Clearly democrats today dont want the truth to come out. Id like to enter the record a bank report that shows can we get some order here . Okay. Lets hold off on this. Theres several objections. We are going to talk fast between each other and then we will go from there. But i understand. I think what you are saying is from the laptop . Someone on the committee accused me of a revenge porn and i have a right to respond to that. Within the rules this is important evidence for the record. And it pertains to our investigation into joe biden and hunter biden. It doesnt appear to be does she get an additional five minutes or ten minutes . I dont understand how any of you that support we are going to reclaim and let the staff discuss the evidence from the laptop being entered into the record. We suspend so we need to stop for a moment. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] reconvening the chair recognizes mr. Fallon from texas for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. You have to acknowledge theres a concentrated effort to deflate and distract. This is about bidens family corruption plain and simple and what really gets me i disagree with friends across the aisle when it comes to politics. Folks in congress are not correct. They are not trying to enrich themselves. Hunter biden is, the biden family was. So to defend a fellow that doesnt wear it, that kind of defense, it is interesting and i find it sad as well. And i think that hes a coward coming here with of this stunned. You can define someone thats all about themselves and he clearly does that lets talk about the process because to make it very clear and digestible when you are deposed in congress from the majority gets an hour at the minority gets an hour. What usually happens is you can get 100 hours of questions and drill down and get into the efficacy of the procedure and you can hold whoever is the witness to account. If we have just public testimony, what happens is we all get five minutes. Time is up. Thats five hours. If so instead of hundreds of hours you only get five. And witnesses are very good with their counsel to deflect and distract you to really slowly et cetera. Thats why this is about procedure. One hundred hours, 200 hours and then we can come into public testimony and ask questions about what we have read and make that public. So he left unfortunately. I would have loved to ask questions while he was in the room for the first time. Ive never laid eyes on the man until just now but i would have loved to have asked certain questions like why did he feel so special that he could evade paying taxes on millions of dollars of income. Why doesnt he pay it back . I know a lot of it is already outside of the statute of limitations, but he can certainly still pay it back. If that is a moral obligation that any american house. I would like to ask him what his company did to earn a 3. 5 million to a corrupt oligarch that used to be the mayor of moscow. What did he do, did he get bribed 5 million and did he have any experience in the Energy Sector prior to his father becoming Vice President because he was paid a Million Dollars a year. Interestingly enough, the ceo had dinner after he paid hundreds of millions. He also had a dinner with his dad and yes coincidentally had dinner with of the setting Vice President father at the time who i would also like to ask having been an entrepreneur and business person myself, why create 30 shale companies. What did your businesses do and what goods did they sell . Ive never met anybody in business thats pocketed seed money, the lifeblood of your venture. Why did you take millions from foreign entities and who was the big guy . Was it 10 for the big guy when you said, and im sitting right here, was your father really there, will you give up your geo locations so we can determine if you were actually in the same room at that time . Why did you email your daughter or text her and tell her i wish i didnt have to give 50 of my salary too bad. These all were just questions under deposition when we have hundreds of hours we can ask this. And im only one member of the committee. Im sure my colleagues would have plenty of questions as well. This is what its about. Its about justice and who you think you are defending here. He is not worthy of your defense. Mr. Chairman, i will yield back. The gentleman yields into the chair recognizes mr. Lynch for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chair. I would agree with my friend and colleagues from texas that this is a sad day, sad for different reasons. This whole process has become such a sham. The underlining purpose at the beginning of the hearings is as well as the title of one of the first hearings we had a hearing on the basis for an impeachment inquiry against joseph biden. And at that hearing, the republicans into the democrats had an opportunity to bring witnesses forward to that would actually provide evidence to the committee so that we could make a decision to substantiate were to undermine the call for impeachment. Witnesses that have a considerable experience and expertise and impressive resumes. So we ask them, and this is a big moment, we ask these expert witnesses that the republicans had brought in. Are there any basis or underpinnings that would warrant an impeachment inquiry at this point and if these witnesses have reviewed all of the documents provided, transaction reports, treasury reports, and i will give you the answers. These are the republican witnesses. This is Jonathan Turley and bruce who was a consultant. One witness said, and i quote him, he did not believe that any of the Current Evidence would support articles of an impeachment. That is the republican witness that you had your moment. You had your moment to bring in the witnesses. Well the gentleman yields . No i will not. The other witness that the republicans brought forward against President Biden he settled the questioning he had no basis on the part of the president. Now we are all familiar with Hunter Bidens conduct. Thereve been explanations of his drug addiction that have been widely publicized. Something that a few families of members of this committee might be familiar with. When people go sideways because they are addicted to drugs. But the very moment to pursue the underlining purpose of these hearings has been completely diverted. Theres been no evidence brought forth against the president of the United States. And as to this witness coming here today for his reluctance to submit himself to private investigation can be i think credibly explained given the lack of trust that has surrounded these hearings. Thereve been story after story about leaks coming from those private interviews. Blatant misinformation and disinformation that chairman and other members of the committee have offered to the press, socalled bombshells. It turned out to be a dud, completely false. But under the auspices of the committee, those members including the chairman put out these stories in the press because they couldnt be refuted. They were not subject to crossexamination and they were not provided for were provided by any credible witness made up in the minds of determine where those members. Thats why they wanted to do is to play in public so someone couldnt distort statements and link them to the press. This proceeding is about upholding the rule of law. What happened with Jeffrey Epstein out of the client list we can see many rich and powerful people and people in washington were held above the law and that is simply not fair. Interestingly enough though, one of the victims of epstein, virginia guthrie, vindicated trump. What you will notice is the media didnt want to cover that but why is that . Because it will show a double standard that exists within the Justice System and of the media bias against of those especially republicans and conservatives that are simply not guilty of what they are accusing of. So i want to put this in perspective. The reason we are doing this today is because hunter biden failed to comply with our subpoena. I dont care about his drug addiction. Many of us have experienced some of these awful things in our families but that doesnt mean that hunter biden gets a pass or that we should feel any sympathy for him breaking the law. I want to point out to this behind me, the refusal of a witness to testify or produce papers it means you are going up to a thousand dollars and anywhere from one to 12 months in prison. For your average american but doesnt at the connection that hunter biden has, this is what you face. So i want to point out that when my colleague representative cortez says it doesnt comply with the law, i agree and when Ranking Member raskin pointed out that donald trump allies should be held, we shouldnt tolerate these violations of the rule of law. I agree with that. But lets use these same standards against their own. Frankly i think right now there is a double standard that exists. We have to hold them accountable. He will be held accountable and that is why i am holding this hearing. Thank you. The chair recognizes you for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chair. Im going to yield to the Ranking Member about before i do, after coming back and being in the district for so long, no one is asking me about this. They cant pay their bills. Theres a lot of costofliving struggle all over the district is and i wish we would use the committee to talk about those issues. Even on having the sadler folks in here and talking about that, the cost of insulin, mr. Chair, i would love to work with you in a bipartisan way to talk about those issues but the responsibility is all over the place in regards to facts that so many of our american residents and communities across the country are struggling. With that i would yield to the Ranking Member. Thank you for your tremendous and enduring devotion to the constituents and the public good of all americans. Why are we here . Between january 2017 and januare most lawless presidency of our lifetime. It began by donald trump saying that he would keep his more than 500 businesses going. Thats right and he wouldnt divest himself of any of those businesses or adopt a rule of the emoluments clause to take money from saudi arabia, china, United Arab Emirates and proceeded as weve learned to collect at least 7. 8 million from a Foreign Government and that is actually a tiny fraction because there was only for the first two years before the chairman in his wisdom decided to tell to stop complying with the Judicial Court order. That was all we got is two years for four businesses out of more than 500 and that was dressed for 20 countries out of 195. But the lawlessness up until yesterday when the lawyer got up for the Dc Circuit Court of appeals and asserted President Trump or any other president for that matter has the right to order assassination of his political opponents and not be prosecuted for it unless hes impeached and convicted first which is at odds with the text and history of the constitution but he asserted the right unless he is impeached or convicted and all youve got to do is kill your political opponents and then enough of your political opponents in the house and senate to keep yourself keeping impeached or convicted. Please dont look after phones or papers right now. This goes to the heart of the republic. Take a position on it even if you dont support it. Dont stick your head in the sand. The donald trump is doing this to our country, asserting the right of the president to murder people and not be prosecuted for it. So why are we here . And on twitter and social that he be impeached, why, because donald trump was impeached twice the last time for insulating a violent insurrection against his own Vice President and the congress of the United States to overthrow an election. If you dont believe that youve got to tell me that if he had buckled under two weeks and months of pressure he would have said i was just kidding. Debate i dont want to be the only one running for president who is being impeached. Figure out something. Here for a year and you didnt lay a glove on joe biden. If you dont have a single credible piece of evidence, not one iota showing any crime by joe biden as mr. Lynch says. Even the witnesses came up and said they didnt see it at the one hearing that you had on impeachment. So, why are we here . We cant go after joe biden. Lets go after hunter biden. Lets go get him and thats why im so suspicious of where we are today because i heard you numerous times say come before the committee. Coming in to testify before the world. Come and tell everybody what happened and he took you up on it and said i think finally we will get to hear from hunter biden. We will get to answer these questions mr. Fallon post, but then you wouldnt take yes for an answer. You said we want to go to a back room and then we will try to leak out appropriate details which of course we have seen has allowed for radical distortions of peoples testimony before the committee. Youve not released a vast majority of transcribed interviews that have been in the back room so we can leak out to specific details. So thats not right. Thats why we have questions about it. But whats bring them all in. Lets bring all the republicans who still havent testified about what they know and lets bring hunter biden and lets do that altogether. Thank you for yielding and i will yield back. Mr. Langworthy for five minutes. We certainly had enough distractions here today and in the political stunt that we saw here at the beginning of this hearing. Hunter biden strutting in here like a tough guy while he refused to sit for a deposition that he had been subpoenaed to do. It must be an embarrassing to have to defend all this and we certainly have on display in a big way in the chamber today. Over the last year theyve uncovered a plethora of evidence that is directly pointing at the corruption from joe biden and his family. At this level of corruption is what you expected and a third world country not the United States of america. If the volume of evidence was uncovered on any other influential family in the United States, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would no doubt initiate thorough investigations. Now just imagine if hunter was a republican, the president s son does not deserve special treatment, period. Holding hunter biden in contempt of congress as a responsible reaction to his blatant disregard for federal law in our duty to investigate potential wrongdoings by the president of the United States. This committee has analyzed thousands of pages of bank records leading to the discovery of 24 million of wire transfers and payments from Foreign Companies into foreign nationals directly to this biden family. Who is the sitting Vice President of the United States. The list of evidence goes on and on for the president s office been exposed for life. At the white house and hunter has used every tool at their disposal to obstruct this investigation and block the gathering of evidence for this blatant corruption must be held to account. Its one of the major duties of this very committee and that is when september 12, 2023 as a result of the significant evidence against the current president the speaker of the spe house asked the Oversight Committee to conduct an inquiry to determine whether or not sufficient grounds existed for the impeachment of president by david Hunter Bidens testimony is a critical component of the impeachment inquiry into whether President Biden or his family personally profited from his office as Vice President or his current role as president of the United States in these facts cannot get in the way. We have got to get on with this investigation and end the distractions we have hurt her today. Lets get this contempt provision put forward and lets move forward with the impeachment and corporate books will gentlemen yield . Looks legitimate yield . Proxy of my time. Thank you very much. To the Ranking Member, weird cherry picking because if you go back to the individual we had the witnesses they all said that it doesnt exist that information now. The inquiry is different than impeachment. It is a search for that document. We got to be very, very careful both sides we are talking about this. We the whole picture not part of the picture but the whole picture but whats been found . Im sorry. Her stuff there . Can you share with us . When you stack up random corporations i am a manufacturer i would do that. In different businesses. They have nothing to sell paintings . [inaudible] whether thats high crimes and misdemeanors, i dont know im not an attorney but last but not least i want to make sure is that you do the process and you stated the language. You do this massive you do with attorneys to gather information that they selectively compile it. You questions we get questions. That is why this process works. I agree with you behind doors and you come out here. Theres a difference there. I yield back. Close your chart recognizes for five minutes. Quick thank you, mr. Chairman. Might establish code to judge a lady from florida held up a poster board saying we should hold hunter biden in contempt because of refusal of a witness to testify. That does not claim we have a witness here and willing to testify. I will give everybody credit here there seems to be disagreement whether to do the closeddoor deposition but there is an area of agreement the area of agreement i do have a public hearing. So what i am interested and i will yield a minute of my time over to the chairman or summit y from the other side. We have been there for hours i have still yet to figure out why we dont have mr. Hunter biden here to answer our questions for whatever time we want in front of the Oversight Committee. I want to understand. Went to give due credit for the state of texas make sure we have enough time. Mr. Chairman im sure we could agree to whatever amount of time necessary. Im having a lot of trouble understanding why the republican majority wont take yes for an answer. I think we would really learn. All i have been hearing on tv news over and over again we need to ask mr. Biden questions. He is saying we can white refuse to have a public hearing . Yield . We have obtained thousands of pages of bank documents. We have reviewed wonders 70 suspicious reports on precedent are that many bank violations alleged very serious things. We have a lot of questions. We want to treat him like any other witness he does not get to set the rules. We will depose him wheat split time of democrats you guys get an equal amount of time with hunter biden. Then we will have a public hearing for. My question is if there is disagreement it sounds like there is around the deposition why not have the public hearing . We will. I understand mr. Chairman but no one has explained to me clearly yet and i think your own district in my district why not call hunter biden in tomorrow . Why not ask him and next week a question or. A judgment yield the left is the question. I would love to pose and write here today. Its really of three days regardless do it in three days. Behind closed doors right hesears got legal representation lets play this game but we have rules that say you have three days im sure we could waive the three days second we can have it here in three days if there is agreement about if what were hearing from the republican side over and over and over again is that got questions for hunter biden theres quotes from his own mishearing. Hunter bidens testimony. A judgment yield. Why not ask for that tomorrow . Orcs are deposition tomorrow . No we have the public tomorrow. I understand your sink after the deposition. But my question for you is very clearly why not have the public hearing tomorrow . Also judgment yield to that question regards want to complement a member first Oversight Committee said it be good to have real conversations. At all for this i enjoy this part of it if we ever get to it the reality is you have attorneys on your thigh theyll theres never any precedent takes place without deposition of the witness. The reason why if something comes up in the round of questioning either aa members of this committee may not be prepared they dont have all the information from the witness because the witness is never given the opportunity of his attorneys present to give out that level of information. Who knew the deposition process before you bring witness into open hearing this happens all the time. This is the protocol of the house and what you your side of the aisle is requesting is a deviation from historical precedents. And i will yield back to the Ranking Member per. Thank you for moving the ball forward without explanation. That has been the practice sometimes not all the time. The vast majority who come before this committee come without being deposed first they come and ask for their testimony paired but in any event even for the witness being subpoenaed like mr. Biden was, we have a completely different situation where the chairman goes out publicly and says we will give you the choice a or b you can have a deposition, income to a hearing but i challenge you print i invite you. I insist you come before the committee. And repeatedly says that. That is why i think legally its a very complex question. I dont see why we take this all the way to court lets have a public hearing and depose after words. But he is saying he doesnt want to be misrepresented. The time has expired. Executes retirement which should be obvious to the American People we need to say to the American People is to point out this kind of food to fight this kind of circus that we have experienced is the reason why we want to have a deposition. And a deposition you do not get people distracting the American Public with all these other topics. Enduring a deposition they do not get to lie to the American People for five minutes at a time for it they do not get too distracted. They do not get to live. They do not get to divert the facts of whats happening. What i see happening is whats being telegraphed here as they are building a case a political case because thats what this is its all politics theyre entering into. For why the department of justice giving Merrick Garland an excuse which we all knew he would not prosecute probably not prosecute these contempt charges. Because it would be critical if he did so. He prosecuted steve bannon even though he was working actually working for the president. Lets mention in the constitution. Merrick garland still is prosecuted for that. Here is what is really frustrating to the American People and they see right through this. We are now going through a second process over really the same crimes that were committed when joe biden was Vice President. Those crimes include the creation of limited liability companies, dozens of bank accounts. When people say where are the facts . What facts are you looking for . Because to meet bank records are facts right suspicious activity reports are facts. Copies of checks are facts. When you juxtapose that with the message and whats on the hunter biden laptop, and they deposition from witnesses like mr. Archer when you add to further depositions you hear about the art dealer that is a compelling story theres a lot of facts i would hate to be on the other side of the aisle and try to defend the situation. The only outcome would be to distract and to make it a political process. It still stands as a fact when the democrats are in charge they brought in the president s son. They brought him in multiple times and brought him into deposition and he agreed. This should be the take away message to the American People. The biden family once again hunter biden feels he is privileged. He does not have to pay taxes like everyone else. Apparently they can traffic sex workers across the globe and get away with it. He is privileged in that he can get away with acting as a foreign advocate and be able to get away with it would other people are prosecuted and sent to jail for the very same thing. The American People see there tr two standards of justice. We are trying to go about the peoples of business in a serious manner we end up allowing which is exactly why he did what he did when he went across the street. As far away as he could he showed up when the hour was way too late. Yield the remainder of my time. The chart recognizes ms. Brown. Im not a lawyer nor do i pretend to play im not a lawyer nor do i pretend to play one on tv. It is plain for all of us to see we are here on behalf of one man the selfproclaimed dictator on day one, the twice impeached, four times indicted, insurrection initiator and supporter, election denier, convicted fraudster and maniacal manipulator for maralago. The one who lost and lost badly. We are here because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have no positive agenda to run on. They have not accomplish one thing in their year end the majority to improve the lives of the people around this country. We are not here to hold the president contempt of congress we are not even here told a member of President Bidens administration contempt of congress. For some reason the majority is gathered is here to hold the president s son, his son who i will remind all of us is not and has not ever been a Government Official. Despite his willingness to come testify publicly before this committee. So getting to the truth was never there actual. Instead of working together to solve big problems on behalf of the American People, my republican colleagues continue to pursue a meritless, groundless, baseless investigation into the president s family meanwhile back in my district during our recess i was literally dodging bullets at a funeral of a gun violence victim. I never felt so powerless and vulnerable because i know what i got back here my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refused to do a thing about it. Yes they continued to make efforts to ban books. Rewrite history. Making it harder for people like me too vote and to make it harder for women their own health care decisions. We see nothing on the other side of the aisle. Diversion, deflection, delusion, divisiveness dangerous destruction of power and democracy. So with that i am tired of the political theater. I went to get to work for the people back home on the 11th Congressional District because they quite frankly dont care about hunter biden for. With the judge let it yield . Whats with all yield the bounds of my time to a Ranking Member for Christmas Brown thank you so much. The start up a sense of pretty profound which is that we are here instead of doing the business of the American People because the republicans have offered is no positive agenda and their year in office. We have wasted countless weeks and am trying to pick a speaker. We have wasted countless weeks with their inertia and do nothing policy. But mr. Brown, i dont know if you are colleges to know people have to take your word for it. I think numerous republicans got up on the floor of the house complaining about the fact they have no agenda. Our colleague chip roy from texas said the republicans had not given them but one thing not a single thing i remember him saying to campaign on. That is not a partisan point you are getting that from republicans, arent you . That is correct. One of our colleagues said rumford derangement syndrome and trumps a derangement began with donald trump himself. He thanks he has a legal right to assassinate u. S. Citizens. He thanks he can grab women by their genitals bus up the word he used. Its going to beat world war ii. He is obviously deranged and disoriented. Those people that cannot break from donald trump after he has proven himself to be completely and totally unworthy of your support. I am looking is broken with donald trump and clash with him. Im still looking at people who have their wits about them. They are acting like cult members like you are sleeping on the basement of a cult listening to tapes all night and i beg you to get over your trump derangement sender. Thank you so much for yielding too. The chair recognize mr. Donald for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. A couple of things plato said in this hearing about you specifically you said you would give mr. Biden any opportunity to choose which one to come and speak in front of this committee. The chairmans words are not binding. No other members words of congress are nonbinding. The binding article paragraph point of order to search her met that point of order point of order. As a chairman agree the chairmans words are not binding . On the committee . Is that a point of order . I do something to the order of the hearing thank you break i go back to four minutes and 34 seconds oh thats where i was before is interrupted. Please reset the clock. Thank you paid what is binding is the actual written document the written language in the subpoena. Subpoena from this Committee Signs off on by the clerk of the house that is a binding document that matters here that is what governs that is number one. Number two it was said that our witnesses said there is no basis for impeachment. But remember democrats on the aisle what was said by mr. Turley at the time as theres plenty of evidence for the continuation of an impeachment inquiry. The purpose of that hearing was the relevant basis for impeachment inquiry by the house househas outvoted for impeachmet inquiry one of the first things the house did after the vote of an impeachment inquiry was to subpoena hunter biden to appear. Hunter biden has abated that subpoena so flagrantly that he decided to show out at the senate side to get a press conference and eric swallow a member of the house help them get that time on the senate side to get a press conference but thats a flagrant violation of a subpoena. He had the gall to discuss contempt. He didnt say sitting right over there pretty is not there now he said he was a top, he can stay through the whole proceeding he chose to leave. That is his business but he was subpoenaed to come up back in december he chose not to of his own volition. I was in violation of that subpoena that was executed with the signature of the clerk of the house of representatives spread that is a document, that is binding. That is a work off of. Mr. Chairman owing to senate for the record an article from the hill written by Jonathan Turley and its entitled eric swallow the topic of concentric arcs without so ordered. Thank you blood something admitted to the record. The minority report 7. 8 million. The morning to understand one important distinction between President Biden and President Trump . President trump has an International Real estate portfolio he has amassed over decades. I am quite sure if you go back to all the Hotel Receipts before he was president of the United States give foreign dignitaries and get trump hotels all across the world parts of judgment yield question im not going to yield a making a point. Theyre very nice hotels they look good. People like staying there. The President Trump was not running Trump Organization when he was president of the United States. To my recollection eric trump the president s son was running the Trump Organization with his president of the United States. If he had a portfolio of hotels and People Choose to expedia, through kayak, through hotel. Com, if they choose to go and stay there how is at the present being in violation . This is ridiculous. The biden family has no business monthly Oversight Committee has always failed to demonstrate that took down foreordination for millions, millions, 26 million at the latest count and growing. Millions. Just every any business entity involved in the paper the House Oversight we have questions for hunter biden. We issued a subpoena for him to answer said questions. He ignored a congressional subpoena as a private citizen for the many attorneys on the other side of the aisle if you had one of your clients in your private practice ignore congressional subpoena as a private citizen whod advised him not to because to be held in contempt and the be punished by the department of justice. Agenda might yield . Im not to yield i do question for you earlier and you didnt take my questions are not going to take yours, thank you. In closing i will say private citizens, guests have responsibility to answer congressional subpoenas they do. Hunter biden had and he was flagrant. He decided to give a press conference. So we are going to do this business he should be held in contempt by the full house of representatives i go back mr. Chairman for a quick sprig of the journal recognizes ms. Norton from washington d. C. For five minutes. I yield my five minutes. I like to thank the distinguished delegate from the district of columbia i need to collect corrected the record several false statements made about the clause article one section nine clause eight although i do appreciate the gentleman attempt to engage on the matter of substance that was raised powerfully by ms. Crockett. But start this article section nine clause eight says neither present and remember our new member of congress can receive a present emollient which means a payment in office or title from a prince comiccon, Foreign Government quote of any kind whatever period of any kind whatever without going to Congress First it obtain the consent of congress. There is no hotel exception to the clause for theres no International Real estate syndicate exception to the clause. And also i will take you up on your challenge to see whether the trump hotel in washington for the more than 500 businesses we got documentation for whether they actually had the same level of the business coming from saudi arabia, the communist bureaucrats of china are the leading spender as you know if you have read our report. India, egypt and so on. We will make that comparison about what was done before if you get the chairman to call off the ban on further documents coming. Quincy to say to trump hotel cluster. Know and i would never say to trump auto drive too much selfrespect and hygiene. And any event you are totally wrong about what the clause stands for Abraham Lincoln was given to elephant tasks by the king during the civil war he liked him very much and wanted to keep them but he went to congress which is what every other president did before and every president did since right up until donald trump he asked whether he could keep the task in Congress Though they loved honest abe they said no you cannot keep them. John f. Kennedy was offered citizenship by the people of ireland because they loved him so much and he refused to take is that even though it did not violate the letter that violated the spirit of the clause. Donald trump converted the presidency into an instrument for self enrichment. Heat raked in millions of dollars and most corrupt the mot governments on earth. Who came in with specific favors that we document in our report that they got from donald trump. I beseech my colleagues i will read any book, any magazine, any speech youve given that you want me too read, read this report and come back and tell me if you think donald trump did the right thing. When converting the white house into a forprofit operation for no other president in American History is coming or close and you ask why you so determined to stay in office that he would unleash an violence against his own Vice President . The brother of your colleague of our colleague. Why would he do that . It was a moneymaking operation it was a great business grip for a guy he went bankrupt several times. And yet out of some misguided partisan loyalty are going to stick with him i do not even know why you stick with him he was a democrat longer than he was a republican. He wanted to run for president on the reform part you guys have been taking over by absolute conmen. And now youre acting like members of a religious cult who do not even remember how you got it in the first place. We say return the prophets 7. 8 million of got a letter mrh you telling donald trump to return 7. 8 million. Its a small fraction of what he raked in. We want to know about the other two years in office. We want to know about the other businesses not just those for that we were able to get information on, every country on earth not just the 20 socrates and dictatorships that we found this is our government, our constitution we are going to stand up for against donald trump and anybody who follows him through the path of oblivion. Abraham lincoln started your party as a thirdparty to replace the wig because they would not take a moral stand against slavery it was pro freedom antislavery prounion, pro Honesty Party your party has been reduced to a corrupt authoritarian colt personality everybody does whatever Donald Trump Tells him to do which is what were doing here today with the stupid attempt to hold hunter biden in contempt on his come forward is that he will testify give you everything you want the chairman of the committee repeatedly offered in public. Forgive my outrage and indignation but enough is enough lets get back to the business of the people per. Recognized mr. Higgins for five minutes. Mr. Chairman, the American People may be surprised to know some of my colleagues across the aisle have not served as long as we have. Might be surprised to note that representative raskin and i had been building quite a colleague friendship in my original years of Service Prior to j6 especially we would visit and we would debate constitutionalist questions. And he honored me by observation what he would sometimes call compelling arguments contradictory to his own. So it is with sincerity that i say congratulations to my colleague mr. Raskin because you have obviously fully recovered from your cancer treatments. Thank you my dear friend and i do love you. You are quite animated and i believe there is a direct correlation between your testimony against former President Trump and his poll numbers because im watching a live feed the more you talk about him the more his numbers go up. So i may yield you more time. But honestly would like to ask you, if i could regarding the deposition just from if we could take a step back from the motion here in the political conflicts and this prepared for battle debate we are in, just regarding depositions we have all been through depositions in one way or another. They are very cold and calculated you have your attorney there, theres always the other guy they have their attorneys youre either being sued or your part or you the defendant or the plaintiff you are in a room for hours until all of the questions have been asked. So sincerely, if you were hunters attorney or advisor why would you advise him not to participate in a deposition where his own attorney is there, its private and everything is transcribed. His words cannot be twisted by the fake news. Just tell us and i yield to your answer. Thank you kindly and i should tell you your feelings are not unrequited. I still have very fond and warm feelings for you im sorry january 6 came between us and i look forward to a day and our republic but we will be really good friends again. But in direct answer to your question if i were his lawyer in advisor i would never have advised him not to come and testify before the committee except for one thing and this is why and i started out this way for but specifically im asking about deposition requests yes the deposition for. We want the deposition first to clarify. And then public testimony for. Just answer your question i would recommend it except they were publicly given the offered numerous times to come before the whole committee and the eight state a fear on their part which is not unreasonable that their words will be distorted and the transcription interview will never be released because the vast majority the transcribed interviews have not been released. Let me just say that solid counsel. But that brings us to our next point, my next point which is that as a free american which i mean to a certain extent we sell some individual rights and freedoms including to not comply with a subpoena. But mix so as a free american hunter biden has a right to not comply with a congressional subpoena. But we have the right to take the next step as a congress if we believe the subpoena was righteous and his noncompliance with that subpoena was unrighteous. If we believe our subpoena was lawful and we have presented probable cause and lawful and al argument to support that subpoena then we have not only the rights, but we have the obligation to consider that he was in contempt of congress when he took that stand of noncompliance which is where we are right now. It does not have to be emotional than men have the right to not show up. We have the right to hold them in contempt. And that is what is happening. So by all means is my collison said let us move forward with the peoples business the peoples Business Today and this committee is to move forward with the vote told hunter biden in contempt mr. Chairman i yield frequent gentleman yields back. Does any other member wish to be heard before we begin the amendment . Seeing none i understand there is an amendment at the desk. Im sorry mr. Cloud from texas for five minutes. Im the true d. C. Needing a maximum of everythings been said but not her but he said it and i havent said anything yet. Ill go ahead and mention it. Weve heard words about irrefutable evidence and i dont think that means words what you think it means there is a stark contrast venison pointed out between how the democrats have investigated and how we have investigated. They are opposed to a closeddoor deposition which they have held a number of times during impeachment hearings us out in the skiff along with others or they withheld the transcripts that theyre worried about. Often times it seems like their motivations on our on us thats just not the case i remember sitting for example in one of the hearings and where the witnesses who worked at the white house did the president talk to before coming here and instead we pass in the hallway had a conversation would you say just tell the truth ironically that part did not leak from the Committee Hearing but a number of lies did. Lets also look at how these two investigations got started. One was based on evidence false evidence that was paid for by a political opponent of trump as a candidate and create a russian collision narrative that we spent millions of government tax dollars on perpetrating this big lie that our colleagues on the other side help promote. This one began with a laptop that hunter biden produced himself. And then was backed up with bank documents. And then evidence of Shell Companies all over the place and then theres talk about the business the fact trumps business has made money from people to stay at the hotels is that not shocking i think every american expects people in other countries were some of his hotels art mind is stayed at those hotels that is not a shocking thing. But the big difference of courses President Trump and is summer not manning the reservation desk they are not the ones answering the call and handing it over seeing the big guys sitting with me would like a room at the hotel . That is not happening. But yet for the Shell Companies hunter biden has set up and the biden family that is exactly what we have seen has been happening i would say money that comes in the Trump Organization im sure theres some return on the investment the trump family has made it also employs several employees that get money from what comes in. I doubt these 20 Shell Companies have the employees of one hotel that trump property has probably not as many employees as you would find in the lobby working the lobby of one of these hotels. This is completely, completely, complete different than trying to compare apples to oranges and confuse the people back home its totally not the case. In getting back to the point of todays hearing this really is about contempt. And so what we have seen happen is hunter biden has come here now twice just to not speak to this committee. So contempt is defined as a lack of respect or reverence for something. A willful disobedience or open disrespect for court judge and legislative body but he flew all the way over here the day he was scheduled for a deposition just to not appear and thumb his nose here at this body. Today he showed up the minority is trying to make the case he showed up to speak. We have been here a couple times a been a couple Committee Hearings not nearly as many as many of the members here but never seen a witness show up when they want to show up on any sort they say hey im here to speak on what im here to speak about. Thus i have Congress Work that sent out any meetings work thats ridiculous to think simmons would bill show up in mandate the agenda for todays meeting. Which is further evidence is Holding Congress in contempt he thanks is above the law. He thanks it has no weight on him and understandably so for the moment the d. O. J. Refuses to follow up on anything and its in their best effort to work with the irs and other agencies to shield and protect the biden family. This is important. We have to hold him in contempt and i yield back. But the judgment is back in the other member wish to be heard before we begin the mmi process . Being a nun i understand theres amendment at the desk. Yes. Mr. Term having a memo that the desperate. For what purpose you seek recognition question puts my apologies for jumping ahead by having a member of the dentsply of the clerk will distribute the amendment to all members. Does everyone have the amendment . No all right. What the clerk distribute the amendment i believe it was changed, that last little bit. Thats okay i would ask the clerk read the amendment. My apology is our withdrawal. While we are waiting for ivan to review the amendment i will say we had three hours of opening statements. So hopefully we can get through these amendments in time. [background noises] [silence] just eight notes, we are working on reading the amendment because we just got it. [silence] [inaudible conversations] [silence] [silence] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] we are handing it out now. Proceed for the clerk to read it. The clerk will designate the amendment. Amendment and the nature of the substitute as offered by mr. Of that objection the amendment is considered as read i reserve a point of order the gentleman from new york is recognized for five minutes to explain his a memo. Life thank you, mr. Chairman. This amendment would bruce strike the result and insert language that details all of the extensive efforts to cooperate that hunter biden and his attorney have made in response to this committees request for testimony and information from him that began in february when chairman comer wrote to requested documents and communication related to our investigation of President Bidens involvement in your financial conduct. The following day his attorney wrote back to chairman comer offering to sit down the staff to discuss the request. Then, seven months later chairman, goes on television and said he never got a response back from hunter biden which is flat out false. That day Hunter Bidens attorney wrote again to chairman comer to say he did respond, he never heard a response but remains available to have a discussion. So in next, without any response on the chairman we went straight into a subpoena. This subpoena was for testimony on the witness, hunter biden has but no conditions or limitations on his testimony there are no limits on the topics. There is no limit on the length of time he is happy to do it under oath. It said it would not assert the fifth amendment privilege even though thats available to him out in stark contrast to devon archer their star witness who so narrowly limited the time and scope of his testimony that we could not ask him anything about any of his own criminal conduct. But the only request hunter biden has made is he wants to give his testimony in public, not behind a closed door deposition where his transcript would not be released. There is absolutely no certainty or guaranty there would ever be a public hearing again and i would bet a lot of money you will never put him in that witness chair whether or not he comes in. Thats all he wanted is just to speak to the American People. He has not, unlike your dear leader filed a lawsuit to prevent third parties from turning over financial information. In fact you have received tens of thousands of bank records. The problem you have is not Hunter Bidens cooperation it is that all of those of bank records which would show any connection between hunter biden and his father, if there were any had zero money going from hunter biden to joe biden related to any of his Business Ventures. So your problem is the evidence does not show what you say it does. Its not that he is not cooperating to do as white we are here today so you can change the topic, claim theres some kind of obstruction and therefore hunter biden really did do all these terrible things in hunter biden should be impeached. Oh wait, no its not hunter biden being impeached here. Now this is far worse because the charmer and as we have discussed multiple times as offered hunter biden to come testify in public. So if you had wanted a closed door deposition i dont understand why you would go on to the mr. Chairman and offer for hunter biden to come in and testify publicly whichever he chooses. So why no public hearing . Why wont you have a public hearing . The only request this is an incredibly cooperative witness weve all dealt with many witnesses could put a lot of restrictions on their testimony for theres one at request of hunter biden which is to speak directly to the American People not in a closed door to the republicans who will control the release, the dissemination and the misinformation from that testimony, why not . One of your own college on the house for less falls of this impeachment investigation was quote failure theater. A republican said that. So the theory here lets avoid the fear part of that and keep the failure behind closed doors. Last month hunter biden showed up to the capitol on the day he was subpoenaed ready to testify in this hearing room. You refuse to take his testimony. That very same afternoon you went on the house to floor to vote for an impeachment resolution on the rationale that you needed to pass a resolution to get more evidence. You reject evidence in the morning and you cry foul about no evidence of the afternoon. He is ready to testify in this is a dangerous precedent you are setting up every single line in every single subpoena must be adhered too or youre going to hold in contempt i know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who defied subpoenas outright would be very afraid. s time has expired and i iyield back regards irregulars myself i oppose this amendment. This amendment claims hunter biden is cooperated with this committees investigation. How is he cooperated with the investigation if he is not abided by congressional subpoena . Has never discussed object with us we have identified at least two checks directly to joe biden or we trace the money directly through the bidens influence peddling schemes that is a factory of published evidence. This is not like adam schiff in the steele dossier remakes above. We have produced bank records and bank records dont lie. So mr. Biden mocked our legitimate inquiry and flew to d. C. To hang out outside of congress did not show his face for deposition. He is not in compliance. He openly defied a congressional subpoena. To any other members wish to speak on this amendment . The chair recognizes mr. Raskin for. Went to yield that but before i just wanted to pose a question to you when you said there is a documented checks involving the president and the influence scheme are you referring to the auto loan repayment checks between joe and hunter biden question. You mean the poor she got which are you talking question what i dont know what kind of carbon of those checks are referring to . The checks we are referring to a check for 20000 that came through the influence peddling scheme with Americorps Health and the 40000dollar check that came to the influence peddling scheme with china were i believe is stated publicly was accompanied joe biden was supposed to be 10 owner pickwick so reclaim my time. I think in both cases theres a lot of words there mr. Chairman but i think you are referring to the auto loan repayment with hunter biden you are referring to the james biden repayment. But if you have documented receipts a Foreign Government giving money directly to president joe biden, thats an outrageous violation like the 7. 8 million at donald trump pocketed what he was president which for some reason you guys dont care about because you think the constitution only applies to democrats and not to donald trump because that is an identifying characteristic of an authoritarian Political Party. A charismatic leader whose word is considered above the constitution above the rule of law. He refused to accept the results of democratic elections or dont go your way if you are an authoritarian party and then he refused to disavow where you embrace Political Violence is an instrument for obtaining and maintaining political power. So you guys did not like when President Biden said your party under donald trump has fallen to semi fascist ways of operation. If the issue semi fits you semi wear it okay . I like to yield back pickwick said judgment yields. Yes a quick question for. I just want to clarify we have a warrant went directly from cfc which banks have identified his estate out entity from china the wyatt went to hunter biden then to joe biden. For 40000 works okay no biden is directly implicated in the family influence peddling scheme. [inaudible] [inaudible] did you not produce that evidence . No, the 200,000 is from jim biden the 40000 is hunter biden for. Alright please produce a documentation progress we have it we have four Bank Memorandum regards give it to the members of this committee ask for Bank Memories i reclaim my time. Theres never been a more substantive. Im saving my time to ask the seven years have been in congress. All right, let me say this. The democrats undertook a Serious Investigation despite every effort by the chairman to undermine it. And we determine their 7. 8 million documented receipts from a Foreign Government to donald trump you guys dont care about that. Wait while the Ranking Member yield question are going so wellin a moment let me make my points. If you have documented receipts a Foreign Government writing checks or giving credit card payments to joe biden, and show it to us. We have been at this for a year now we have not seen anything. Then we showed you that are more than 100 page report that documented receipts of money going to donald trump. You do not care about and other words you dont care about the principal that our government leaders should not be on the take from Foreign Government that is outrageous. I will oppose any Political Party thats on the take with money from Foreign Government and i would hope you would join me in that. Yet we have shown it to you and yet you guys dont care about it. That is unfathomable that lisi at leastthe truck family has red to it they are very nervous the trumps of people say he didnt take us from the thousand dollar government salary. You know what . Thats the only thing you are allowed to take is your salary from americans not money from corrupt saudi monarchs to order the assassination of journalist but not from Chinese Communist bureaucrats showing the human race of people in tibet you are not supposed to be on the take from those governments. That is what our constitution says. Then they say we return the prophets. These guys think the hotel they can keep the money alisa trump family some lawyer told him of the constitution says we return the prophets. Guess what they didnt give us the accounting of the profits as of the constitution says the constitution said you cannot take any payments at all from a Foreign Government that going to congress the United States. If not the cant keep the profits from Foreign Government, give us understand what youre doing here . A generalist time has expired the chair recognizes mr. Timmons from South Carolina for. Thank you, mr. Chairman per mccullochs across the aisle miss the point here. The trump family has a preexisting business is built over decades, hotels all over the world. President trump divested himself of control over those businesses to his children. Arms and transactions between Foreign Government the Trump International theyre Getting Hotel rooms are getting food and whatever from these hotels. The difference is this. The biden family does not produce anything they dont have anything they dont have services rendered. Hunter biden has said is on the board of burisma and he has no qualifications they cannot document a service rendered by the biden family with a gym biden or hunter biden that is the issue. The biden family all they have is the big guy and his policy of favoritism thats why we are here. I think you are all muddying the waters not during the American People justice. Its a judgment yields. Yes i will yield i think the gentleman. I do want to point out to the point mr. Timmons was making the operation of the trump hotel is a legitimate enterprise approved by this committee in 2013. Before President Trump was elected to office. Prior to that it was a post office losing 6 million per year. They turn around was a plus 3 million with the federal government. Mr. Timmons pointed out it was the vestige of the family, to the children is not by the president. Wheat yield for question on that . So he over . He says divested are you claiming donald trump surrendered any ownership interest . If he continued to own it he put into trust for sole benefit the daytoday management will be turned over to his sons but he was still the Beneficial Owner of it. He stayed involved as we know because he kept talking about all the business that was coming in from abroad. What the gentlemans question is legitimate in the context most elected officials put their assets for their own benefit after they leave office precooked is not a blind trust frequency should not be forced to divest himself of the asset. An asset that was approved by this committee. No im afraid not to quench d are proclaiming the time. To point out whats happening right here should concern every american citizen because we refused to prosecute, to investigate and prosecute corruption. We are costly pound about corruption and other countries weve got corruption right here that we met with partisan sides on this and we do not do our job. I have been here nine years and seven days. And gone through multiple hearings in the Oversight Committee. Dealing with corruption it turns into a partisan battle. We ought to be trying to make sure that we restore the American Peoples confidence in this government. What hunter biden should have done shouldve presented himself an answer to the subpoena. I am not trying to take sides in this. I want the evidence to speak for itself it will never speaks for itself but we do not have people come before the committee as they are required to do. Agenda might yell for question what do yield for one final question . Excel yield to the general pickwick thank you kindly. And thank you for the spirit and the substance of your remarks. Which i think significantly uplift the terms of the conversation. You would agree with me the clause applies to Government Officials presumably would agree with me hunter biden is not and has never been a Government Official. So this is about a relative of the president , right . We have donald trump who is collecting 7. 8 million at least its probably four or five times that much nesters during the presidency. In reclaim my time. Ranking member do you have any evidence donald trump received any of this money at your leisure was received by the Hotel Organization . She bragged about it when he called the profits of the government which gave the game away. 8 million in revenue you do not have the costs associated with that you do not have any evidence the present x received this money. Of all the evidence you read report yet . What is the amount of money you allege shes received . Work 7. 8 million regrets is not true thats actually knackered progressive read the report . The issue to read their portal read any book you will me too read any poem any ghost story, whatever read the report. My time is expired. Oxygen was times expired before recognizing next member mr. Rask is into reading i would like to submit to the record the last Bank Memorandum that details the chinese a wire that went to hunter biden then to joe biden. It is in the Bank Memorandum. This is substantive memorandum its the fourth if you need the other three we will resend them to you. Tonight asked for the record question without objection we entered in the fourth Bank Memorandum into the record. This comes from newsweek. Republican congressman andy biggs warns his party quote nothing to campaign on. Without objection. I object. That has nothing to do with the subject at hand for a. Is very much discussed by the members today for breakfast till objection. Got a call for a vote on that then . Yes. All right thank you. Lets get our members to vote. The committee is now in recess