Government personnel, everyone from policymakers to security officers, to Communications Technicians to the officer carrying the nuclear football. Advance teams are required to prep the site weeks ahead of the meeting took all the time those people are spending money come meals at resorts, parking at the resort, golf course to follow the present around at the resort. Maybe even rooms at the resort. And because the president s refusal to divest himself of his business interest, that money, taxpayer money, inns up in the pocket of the very person who directed the meeting to be held at his own property in the first place. You know, that sure sounds like a conflict of interest to me, and this isnt just a hypothetical. Summit with present abba, president xi of operative at maralago. Furthermore, the president xi summit include a contingent from the department of defense led by secretary mattis. Since february ive been trying to figure whether the department of defense dollars are finding their way to the president pocket through government expenditures at trump properties. I also asked secretary mattis and chairman dent for this question with a beard before the Committee Earlier this month. Although we have not been provided definitive answers, pentagon officials have not ruled out the possibility that the president is profiting off of dod funds, more specifically taxpayer funds. This and then would the department of defense from paying or expenses incurred at a property owned or operated by the president or an immediate Family Member if those payment would result in a net profit. The president has a choice at any number of governmental properties at which you can host meetings such as camp david. President s have also hosted foreign dignitaries and other private properties for which there is the issue of conflict. For example, when president obama hosted president xi at sunnyland in rancho mirage. The constitution is clear. No public official should be using their office to make a profit. This situation should be alarming to all of us who represent ourselves as stewards of the taxpayers money, and to urge us all to take action against these abuses and vote yes on this amendment. And with that i yield back. The gentleman from texas. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, weve been considering really meaty issues and where the issued for this committee for the last seven, ten hours, whatever, 11 hours. This one is not one of those, and i would point out to the sponsor that, not several miles from your, call about the secret service has been building and already have built a security fence around the private property of former president barack obama. Now, chainlink fence, razor wire and raw cinderblock wouldve done the job of protecting the compound. Which my guess is the secret service spent a lot more money than that making sure that that fence fit with the rest of the decorah, the rest of the circumstances within that community. Thats on private property. When president obama sells that property, then all of that taxpayer paid for funding will enjoy to his benefit. And so the 16th election is over and while i also recognize that during the eight years of president obama has tenure, many on our side and many of our supporters wined and cried and complained about the president mini vacations to Marthas Vineyard and hawaii and others. Truth of the matter is that was a reprieve, subject matter for considering defense of this country. Im really kind of, ms. Speier can we serve one of the committees together and i respect her, but this quite frankly is embarrassing to have this kind of Committee Like this and its just a gotcha kind of thing and i would urge my colleagues to resampling vote no on this issue thats basically try to relitigate the last election. If the president has conflict of interest then there are entities within the federal government to deal with that better than the department of defense and better. I would urge a no vote for this illadvised amendment. I yield back. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from california, this year. Those in favor cycle. Those opposed say no. In the opinion of the chair at the nos have it. The nos have it i request a roll call vote. A roll call is requested. That will be postponed. Next mr. Hologram. I have an amendment on the table. And the clerk would please distribute the amendment. Without objection it is considered as read to the gentleman is like the survivors. Thank you, mr. Chairman as a strong proponent of the transparency across our government, i am offering an amendment that i believe strengthens responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars for president ial travel. Since its inception of the air force has professionally and honorably carried out president ial airlift. We must continue to support our airmen who accomplish this proud mission. However, we also look to those emma to ensure that dod staff and resources provided by the american taxpayer are not being exploited for personal gain and potentially diverting valuable dollars away from their intended purpose of protecting national security. According to the new york times, President Trump spent 44 days roughly a month and a half in total of his presidency traveling to and staying at a property he owns. And well serve other strips of include official state state business, theyve also included many rounds of golf as well as other nonofficial business. I believe this committee ought to be concerned about conducting appropriate oversight over the cost to dod for these lavish trips as well as ensuring transparency. Its not limited to the current president. Last year upon request from a group of republican senators, the gao estimated a three day trip by president obama to illinois and florida, a visit that included both official and unofficial business activities, cost defense agencies 2. 8 million alone. Excluding classified and personal expenses. As a private citizen i supported these efforts to examine the costs of president obamas travels. Because i believe the American Public had the right to know heather taxpayers were being, tax dollars were being spent. Now was a member of this committee im even more concerned about the nature and degree to which valuable resources are being spent to subsidize travel habits. Thats what i sent a letter to secretary mattis dated march 9 and signed by four other members of this committee requesting more information on how much of dod has spent to date in support of President Trumps travels. In the air force response to my letter three months later, i received two weeks ago, it reported the total cost for movement of the president and required equipment from january january 20may 18 of this year was 15 million come in excess of 15 million. My common sense amendment simply directs dod to provide this committee with reports on a quarterly basis that details the direct and indirect cost to the department in support of the president ial travel. These reports must include information about in cost incurred for travel to properties owned or operated by the president or their immediate family. It does not say they cannot cannot go to those locations or any other location. Whether democrat or republican is president , the historical increase in travel in recent years, including by President Trump and president obama, warrants closer oversight by congress including the committees with jurisdiction over the agencies that support such travel. I want to thank representatives gallego, bolton, ship order and rosa for the support of my amendment. On behalf of american tax. I urge my colleagues to dot my amendment and i reserve the balance of my time. The gentleman yield back the balance of his time. Mr. Chairman . Mr. Hologram can you yield back, right . I reserve. We dont reserve. Thank you. Then i yield. [laughing] mr. Chairman, i have a substitute amendment at the desk. The clerk will distribute the substitute amendment. Without objection it is considered as read and the gentleman from alabama is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And i appreciate the gentleman said interest in making sure that we have transparency in government. My amendment would broaden the scope of transparency that the gentleman amendment seeks but does not achieve because it is exclusively focus on the president and his immediate family. My substitute amendment requires the department of defense to provide report at the time of the present budget request on both direct and indirect travel costs incurred to support the president , the Vice President at all members of the president scabbed. By broadening the scope of the department of defense recording, congress can exercise its appropriate exercise rather than targeting the legitimacy of the president s lifestyle. Further, the gentleman said amendment is very onerous, forcing the department to report to Congress Every 90 days. Again, i substitute amendment will achieve the full transparency while the all hologram amendment does not. Support for my amendment and i yield back. Mr. Ohalleran is recognized on the substitute amendment. Thank you, mr. Chairman. [inaudible] i appreciate the majority interest in engaging in this important issue of greater transparency. However, the substitute amendment falls short and before i must oppose it. The focus of my amendment is especially directed at the cost of president ial travel, including travel a president personally owned property which potentially poses a serious conflict of interest. The substitute amendment removes this critical provision that ensures proper transparency and accountability. Secondly, the and then the clouds the clarity were seeking by including statistics on the entire executive branch. Lastly, these reports through an annual requirement limits of this committee, quarterly reports will provide current statistics that allow for accountability of hardworking americans tax dollars. This amendment is simply about providing ongoing and regular transparency of the way this president and future president conduct themselves as good fiscal stewards. For that reason i opposed the substitute amendment and the urge my colleagues to reject it as well. Mr. Bacon. [inaudible] mr. Chairman, i want to support the substitute member. I think it support we the bar, try to avoid a partisan appearance of what we are doing. I think the initial amendment does appear partisan. I say this respectfully to my friend from arizona. The president the matter what party he is, hes our president no matter what President Trump are what party he belongs to. As commit a chief way for outofdate regardless of where he or she is that in the world. I would note the burdens of office of the president are i reject the premise the travel done by president , current, past should be trivialized. All recent president s have done a lot of travel to include a previous president , who racked up roughly 100 million in vacation cost traveling. I didnt begrudge president obama that, then nor never i think its the latitude we give our president. So with that in mind i support the substitute amendment and i think its just less partisan. Ranking member. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Theres no way to avoid, unfortunately, this being somewhat partisan as we experience throughout the Obama Administration to we had a never conversations as the gentleman from texas mentioned. About the travel president obama, and these things come up, ive only been through three president s, 20 years, but it always sort of goes back and forth. I just want to take a brief moment to say that this is different. This is unprecedented. This is not just about how often the president travels. We had all the complete about how often president obama played golf, and im not going to complain about how often President Trump plays golf. I dont care. He does his job. What is entirely different here is that we have a president who owns a model properties. He owns a number of them where foreign visitors have come because the president has asked if you. In fact, on more than one occasion the president has not been shy at all about say that is being president is quote good for his business, end quote. What this means is, theres a very specific clause in the constitution which i confess i was unaware of the this has been educational, that the president is not supposed to make money off of Foreign Government while his president. Now, maybe some of my colleagues can tell me where im wrong here and tell me that im just being partisan, because youre im silly trying to be factual. But we had the government of saudi arabia come to the trump hotel, and according to the document that a been obtained, spend 275,000 at the hotel. The president has not divested himself from this business. So he and his them are very clearly making money off of that. He owns maralago. After he was elected to president , the dues to belong to maralago doubled. I believe one time, i cant member if it was that one time, the presence and, of course, its more valuable place to be never i guess he is kind of right. So now its 200,000 to be a member. He has hosted more than one foreign delegation where Foreign Governments have spent a lot of money. So its not about what we as taxpayers necessarily spend on president ial travel. Because believe me democrat, republican president i assure you that for as long as we have thiis that always be that argum. If its a democratic president , the republicans will complain about how much you travels. If theres a republican president the democrats will complain about how much he travels to thats not what this is about. This is about a president who is making money personally off of that travel, off of Foreign Governments, off of what the pentagon spends. And i will i guess give mr. Conaway president obamas fence, how much ever that adds value to his property. I could argue it might decline about you depending on how the fence is due. I will give him his fence, whatever it may cost, but it doesnt come within millions of dollars of the amount of money that is already been spent by Foreign Governments going directly into the hands of trump properties. And there is a painfully simple solution to this. Divest yourself, put it in a blind trust, release your tax returns, be transparent about it, which is not being done. And, unfortunately, and there is so much stuff that is overthetop partisan, completely admit to that come on democratic side and on the republican side, that it all gets sort of blurred, its all just so much noise and one side criticizing the other. This is different, and im sure my republican colleagues will not have to be given this offer to tell me why im wrong, why this isnt different, white isnt something uniquely wrong about a president actually personally profiting from his travel from his families travel, the travel of Foreign Governments. But this is a problem and no, we are not going to address it in this bill, but i do think it is something that we should address more broadly, and that the the president can address turkey doesnt need us. He can be transparent. He can release his tax returns. Releases business records, divest himself or go into blind trust as all president s and Vice President s have done before. Hes flat refused to do all of that common basically thumbed his nose at all of us and said nobody cares. I can do this. And thus far he has been right. And i think that is very, very dangerous and a Representative Democracy to allow somebody in the office of the president or any office to profit off of that president ial power. So i hope even though i know this isnt going to go anywhere and we are going to lose, i hope we will take a broader issue more seriously than just dismissing it as just normal partisan stuff. This is unprecedented and goes way beyond any sort of petty partisan concern. It is a concern for legitimacy and for the transparency of our government. I yield back. Mr. Conaway. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Again, elections have consequences, and while i disagree with results in 2007, or 2009 and 2012, or 13, nevertheless, or 13, nevertheless, we lived through that. Continuing to go to the previous election goes to whether this amendment has nothing to do with the amount of money Foreign Governments spend on whatever property come to the United States four. I would argue that thats really beyond the reach of even this committee to be able to require Foreign Governments to report to anyone what they spin coming to the United States. This would simply tell you what the government spends going to and from the property, not necessary what they spent at the property. There will be other expenses. Its not lost on anyone that people are showing up at maralago or whatever the present goes. He owns those properties, whether its a buck 05 or whatever number, these exactly the same. You are already met, youre a understand it. Its not going to change. It will be a campaign item for your some now, whoever is campaigning against the president hepresident will be abe this over and over again. But this is a House Armed Services committee. This isnt a house, its not come we dont oversee the federal bureau of ethics. And so if you got a problem with the president , i got it, i understand, i had a problem with the last one. You got a problem with this one. But quite frankly this is not what we ought to be spending our time on. This is not about defense of the country. Maybe argue it challenges the constitution. I got that but we are the department of defense and we ought to be spending our time try to forget how we can best defend this country. This is just gotcha kind of politics, trying to load the system and even my good colleague amendment does the same thing with god i department of defense that cannot audit its own books and records that i been working like a wild man to die for setting up a this will add one more straw to that camel to try to come up with this, whether its annually or quarterly, whatever it is. We are going to spend it and we dont have anything to compare keep it would have a clue as to what present obama to end equipment time frigate these numbers will be meaningless other than fact that yes, they are big and we will get use many campaign. We shouldnt use the department of defense Accounting System to create gotcha points in the next campaign. And so we are way off the mark on this, and i understand the angst into anger and wanted to retrieve the last election but have consequences. Theres another election coming and will be an appropriate time for anyone to complain about how often the president when wherever he goes and however he did it, whoever he invited. All of those kinds of things are legitimate Campaign Issues but thats not what we doing tonight are we should be doing tonight and i would argue we ought to defeat both of these and i would request are rather i would encourage all of our members to say no to both of these and lets move on to the important business i defending are providing the department of defense with the requisite resources to be able to defend this country, protect and many women to do that on our behalf, take care of them if they get hurt, all the really meaningful things ought to be doing tonight and get away from the president ial politics that this smacks of the. With that i yield back. With the gentleman you . With the gentleman yield . [inaudible] mr. Larsen, do you still seek recognition . Mr. Garamendi, did you still seek recognition . Yes, i do. You find that objectionable . [laughing] i do seek recognition. Is it my turn . Thank you. We just heard an interesting disposition on the role of congress. It seems to ignore, however, the constitution of the United States. Article one, section nine reads no title of nobility shall be granted by th the u. S. Dates ano Person Holding any office of profit or trust under them shall without the consent of congress accept any president emolument office or title of any kind, whatever Company Principal foreign state. So the previous discussion concerning the role of congress totally missed the mark. In fact, we do have a very, very significant role with regard to president ial use of his facilities for the purposes of engaging Foreign Governments. Now, whether those governments are involved in providing something of value to him, thats something that we could discuss. But clearly the meetings that took place at maralago are of interest to this committee because who attended those meetings. The head of the chinese government. We are engaged in discussions without and hear about the relationship between the department of defense and china. Also saudi arabia. Most recent armed sales which i believe is under the jurisdiction alleys in part of this committee. And so theres a very clear nexus between what the president is doing at his resorts, and quite probably receiving any emolument, something of value from the Foreign Government. Thats our business as members of congress. And what took place in their, agreements or not, apparently the issue of north korea was discussed. I would suggest that something that we have engaged in at length in this committee. And so there is a direct interest of this committee. And a direct interest that we have of members of congress, to simply blow it away as though it is of no consequence totally ignores the responsibilities that we have. We recently had a long discussion about authorization use of force and all too often we ignore that responsibility. I we also ignore this responsibility with regard to the article one, section nine . I would hope not. Because there is a clear, obvious conflict of interest and there is a clear obvious, at least in my estimation, of a violation of the emoluments clause. With the gentleman yield . Of course. I love to engage you. Eloquently put, and better address with the Judiciary Committee or in court, but ive never been aware my 12 plus years here with any instance where we were to try th a fact a constitutional issue of that nature and would argue with executive branch. So i would argue that your arguments the better set in front of the Judiciary Committee and not here. Yield back. Thank you by the way. I thank you for your counsel. However, i think, reclining my time, that your argument reclaiming endorse responsibility we have individually and, therefore, collectively whatever we may sit on whatever committee it is to deal with the emoluments clause, which clearly brings to us as members of congress the responsibility of approving or not gifts, monetary, otherwise, i dont think, im not sure what the president of china offered in the way of titles, but maybe did also offer a title to the president. In any case going back to mine and the like, read the emoluments clause back to money. It is our clause. With that, i yield back my remaining 48 seconds. Okay. My thought is wher what probablt going to resolve this tonight. Maybe we should move along come have a vote or two, but kind of get moving. All right, mr. Lamborn, are you, your good . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would like to disagree with my good friend from alabama, and speak in support of congressman ohalloran. Mr. Chairman, i come in support of this amendment of mr. Ohalloran. One, to be clear, winning an election does not give you an excuse to waste taxpayer money. Mr. Chairman, a president who appears to be allergic to stay a week and in some days, even their cisco he jets off to one of his many properties. Who is responsible for this type of transportation on these getaways . Our United States air force. Who foots the bill . The american taxpayer. We pay almost 200,000 for every Hour Air Force one is in operation. To date we have 44, 44 trips. If you want to compare that to president obama, its not even close over the same time period. In the past that was an expense of the American People happily accepted. Weve never had a president to a spent nearly 40 of his days hopping between his own properties as you can see again from the chart come from us probably in maralago to his various golf courses all across the country. This is a menu promised in 2015 im going to be working for you. Im not going to have time to play golf. Particularly ironic that President Trumps on track to play with well over two what rounds of golf at his own clubs of course after only one term in office. Given this o unending pattern of expensive and unethical travel, the very least that we can do as members of this committee is to maintain visibility over the money that our military spending to ensure that trump makes his teatime. I hope every member who claims to be, claims to care about this will join us in supporting this important amendment as the process moves forward. Mr. Scott, mr. Chairman, i would like to point out, if you dont think this is just politics at its worst, they are asking for the indirect cost. You would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just trying to come up with the definition of indirect cost at the pentago pentagon. As far as not using your office to make money, barack obama made 85000. Year prior to being elected in between getting elected and when he left office he made over 20 million. Id say if mr. Trumps network goes up by the same factor that president obama said, weve got something to worry about. If not, let the man do his job. The question is on the substitute amendment offered by mr. Byrne. Those in favor say i. Those opposed say no. The is have it. You asked for a recorded vote, is that true . Yes. Okay we need to take it in realtime. The cl
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