objectives. eric trump, the former president s son called out the report and said that the profits were voluntarily donated to the u.s. treasury. to that, oversight democrats say the ex-president still violated the foreign emoluments clause of the constitution which bans any revenue from foreign governments and that is where we start today with a member of the house oversight committee, democratic congressman jasmine crocket of texas here with me at the table and also joining us, former congressman from florida, david joly and senior editor of senior opinion and msnbc political analyst tim o brien. it is good to see you all. representative crocket, walk us through the findings. so what i want the american people first to understand is that this isn t a knee-jerk reaction to the sham impeachment inquiry that we re dealing with. this is something that started seven years ago and elija cummings was the ranking member and he s the one that started this because he did have concerns becaus
so i think there s almost an inexorable move toward impeachment and i think we have to let this process sort itself out, but he is certainly making it much more difficult for himself. in terms of that contempt vote today, what happens now? well, i think we go to court. we passed yesterday on the floor a resolution that basically empowers committee chairmen like ours, elija cummings, the chairman of the oversight and reform committee to go directly to court to enforce the subpoena, so hopefully that short circuits the process and it doesn t completely solve the problem of the time lapse in court, but again, i think it makes it more imminent and more real for those who were subpoenaed and facing this contempt citation. could the department of justice work out a deal before this moves to a court fight? because they were able to reach an agreement with the doj.
this report. i think the american people deserve that and they re demanding that so anything less is something that i hope people on both sides will object to. certainly we will, and i think that s why the american people wanted us to be in the majority to serve as a check and balance on the white house especially with regard to this mueller investigation. so you are on the oversight committee. your chairman elija cummings says the white house hasn t turned over any requested documents for any investigation and there s a number of them. you have the review of white house security clearances. there s an investigation of the president s hush money payments to women he allegedly had affairs with, white house officials use of personal e-mail in violation of federal law. that s a question that your committee issi looking into. what are democrats prepared to do to get those documents? i think chairman company suggests one of the most reasonable, patient members of congress you re ever g
find. he has been patiently requesting voluntary compliance with document request over a number of months, and yet the white house refuses to turn over documents and they did this, by the way, with the republican committee chairman, as well. now that we re in the majority. we know that we re in the majority because the american people want us to serve as a check and balance and so what can you do? if they don t turn these documents over as chairman cummings says within the op ed, they should not be surprised to receive some subpoenas at this point because we need answers to serious questions about serious controversies. i ll just point out one. the security clearance process is messed up. the fact that jared kushner could have access to top-secret materials despite the fact that every law enforcement official who has looked at it says that he should not is a serious problem. but if they sweep aside the subpoena, if they don t comply with the subpoena, what options
it had been a mess for a long time, but the president and according to pam and kaitlan s great reporting believed that his daughter and his son-in-law were going to leave the white house. he thought maybe it wouldn t matter. sorry. go ahead. i was just going to say what you were saying, based on our reporting it didn t appear that the president understood the significance of granting someone a security clearance after concerns are raised because as you pointed out, he was tell officials it s no big deal, grant them the security clearance and they ll probably go back to new york this summer, sort of downplaying and the contradiction he told the times he didn t know he had the authority and this was back then when he said look, i have the authority and i ll leave it to kelly. yeah. i m sorry about the learning curve part of it. for the first few months, i ve never been in politics and i was willing to give grace on the learning curve part of it and you mentioned the come to jesus