Thank you all very much. Mr. Horowitz thank you very much. Mr. Horowitz, thank you. I appreciate what you have done. Do you have your team with you . Would it be ok if they raised their hands . If they are ok with it, im ok with it. Thank you all. You have labored hard and your work product is impressive. I just want to thank you all for what you have done for the country. Mr. Horowitz, i am dying to hear from you. I will take a little bit longer to try to lay out what i think is before us as a nation to crossfire hurricane was probably the best name ever given to an investigation in the history of investigations, because that is what we wound up with, crossfire hurricane. There has been a lot of media reports about your report before it was issued. And i remember reading all these headlines lawful investigation with a few irregularities. Everything ok, lowlevel people kind of got off track. If that is what you get out of this report, you clearly didnt read it. If that is your take awa
Rules committee will come to order. Ill now yield to the gentleman from texas, dr. Burgess. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank our witnesses for staying with us throughout all of this. I know youve been through a lot alread already, but i cant help but be struck by the fact that this does seem to be proceeding rather rapidly. It did, after all, all start with a phone call. No, not with a phone call in july but with a phone call in november when Molly Hemingway overheard incoming chairman nadler talking to constituents on the telephone and said that impeachment of the president was going to be of the highest order so although theres not a transcript of that call, it was well documented in social media and that seems to be one of the things that we can now use as evidence that can be introduced. Mr. Collins, correct me if im wrong, but it does seem like this is an exercise i think this is reflected in your dissenting views you submitted, this seems like impeachment first, build a case seco
We cannot lose sight of the fact that none of this would be possible without that spectrum, and that is owned by the American People. That spectrum is essential. As a result of the efforts of some swamp creatures, both in and out of government, we came that close to having this spectrum, which belongs to the American People and is worth as much as 30 billion to 60 billion, given away in a back room through a private auction to three Satellite Companies, which happen to be domiciled in foreign countries. The excuse given was that these three foreign Satellite Companies can conduct an auction themselves and allocate it to the american Telecommunication Companies faster than the f. C. C. Can, even though the f. C. C. Has only conducted about 100 of these public auctions, generating about 123 billion for the American People. Why . Because the American People own the spectrum thats being auctioned off. Its theirs. But there was a proposal that came that close to passing at the f. C. C. To j
Them in the right direction. Witnesses in the impeachment inquiry testified that the allegation of ukrainian influence in the 2016 election was appropriate to examine. Ambassador volker testified that he thought it was fine to investigate allegations about 2016 influence. Ambassador taylor said, for example, that the allegations surprised and disappointed him, on this record i do not believe one could conclude that President Trump had no legitimate basis to raise a concern about efforts by ukrainians to influence the 2016 election. Let me now turn to the first assertion that President Trump withheld a meeting with president zelensky as a way of pressuring him to investigate the former vp. Here it is important to note ukraines long, profound history of endemic corruption. Several witnesses during the inquiry have testified about these problems. Ambassador marie yovanovitch, for example, said ukraines corruption is not just prevalent but, frankly, is the system. Witnesses testified to ha
Witnesses, yes. Thank you. And also another thing that i want to clear up for the record, mr. Ras kin said previously that the same process that were doing now, its the same process that was used in the clinton impeachment, mr. Collins, do you agree with that, because i sure dont. No, i do not. Would you care to expand . I think there are a lot of Different Things and it goes back to the inherent nature of what were doing here today and that is, frankly, the only bipartisan nature of this impeachment is no. Its not bipartisan in the sense of seeing it should go forward. Its bipartisan and no and that is the only bipartisan that you will see. My friends across the aisle say theyre standing for true and thats fine. Thats their argument and my argument is everything that weve talked about so far and thats also why at a certain point in time we continue to go on here, but i think when you look at the actual things that are going on the issues of how witnesses are called and how you deal wi