We will now proceed with Opening Statements. I wish you all a good morning and welcome to the fourth hearing in the economic Emergency Management subcommittee. One of the purposes of this committee is to protect taxpayer dollars by ensuring they are spent effectively, efficiently and with transparency. That brings us to todays hearing which is entitled landlord and tenant. You can tell from the title that today we will be investigating fairly unprecedented situation. The federal government owns the building that houses President Trumps d. C. Hotel hotel. Since President Trump has declined, he is essentially acting as both the landlord and the tenant. Before i was elected to congress , over three decades Teaching College students about American Government and politics. Serious discussions about the legislature holding the executive Branch Accountable to the highest legal and ethical standards and that is exactly what we hope to do today. First lets start with some facts. All federal wor
Without objections. We are now going to proceed with Opening Statements. I wish you all the good morning and welcome to the fourth hearing of the public buildings and sanctimony and one of the purposes of this is to protect taxpayer dollars by ensuring that theyre spending it offensively and with transparency and that brings up with todays hearing which is entitled the tenant in the Trump Administrations oversight and the International Hotel and you can tell from the title guy were going to be in investigating an unprecedented tuition and the houses President Trumps d. C. Hotel. Since President Trump has declined to confess from his businesses, hes essentially acting as both landlord and the ten it. Before i was elected to congress i spent over three decades Teaching College students about American Government politics. In those classrooms we, had serious discussions about the role of the legislature if the executive branch with legal and ethical standards and thats exactly what we had
Committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair reserves the right to recess the hearing at any time. The president ial oath of office requires the president of the United States to do two things, faithfully execute his or her office and protect and defend the constitution. That oath cannot be honored if the president does not first defend the country. If our National Security is jeopardized, if our country is left undefended, the necessity to faithfully execute the office becomes moot. Where there is no country, there is no office to execute. And so the duty to defend the nation is foundational to the president s responsibilities. But the second responsibility to defend the constitution, what does that really mean . The founders were not speaking, of course, of a piece of parchment, they were speaking of the president to defend our system of checks and balances that the constitution enshrines, to defend the rule of law, a principle on which the idea of america was born that
inaudible without objections. We are now going to proceed with Opening Statements. I wish you all the good morning and welcome to the fourth hearing of the public buildings and sanctimony and one of the purposes of this is to protect taxpayer dollars by ensuring that theyre spending it offensively and with transparency and that brings up with todays hearing which is entitled the tenant in the Trump Administrations oversight and the International Hotel and you can tell from the title guy were going to be in investigating an unprecedented tuition and the houses President Trumps d. C. Hotel. Since President Trump has declined to confess from his businesses, hes essentially acting as both landlord and the ten it. Before i was elected to congress i spent over three decades Teaching College students about American Government politics. In those classrooms we, had serious discussions about the role of the legislature if the executive branch with legal and ethical standards and thats exactly wh
Effort over two weeks. If you we were first told about it a week and a half ago and we were told very specifically that the whistleblower did not want to get any of this information out, they didnt want to leak out. So there were only a few potential groups of people that woulhave known about this complaint. You and your people within your office. Yes, sir. The people within the Inspector Generals office. And the whistleblower and whoever that whistleblower gave this information to. So what im trying to ascertain is, how would it run in all the Mainstream Media outlets . Even though they got a lot of it wrong, but they had the basics of it that it involved the president of the United States talking to a foreign leader. So did anybody you or anybody in your office leak this to the Washington Post or nbc news . Ranking member, i lead the Intelligence Community. We know how to keep a secret. As far as how that got into the press, i really do into the kno. But as you said, it has been repo