There are no kings or queens here. No one is above the law. The process of impeachment is really use because of its seriousness. This will be only the fourth time in our nations history that congress has considered the president ial impeachment process. Nixon,case of president he resigned instead of facing likely impeachment by the house and removal by the senate. It is a solemn responsibility. This congress with our existing authority under the constitution and the rules of the house is in the midst of an impeachment increase right now. No one runs for congress to impeach a president. We are here today because the facts compel us to be. Evidence thatus the president may have violated the constitution. Unlike during the impeachment of president nixon and clinton, no special prosecutor has been named to investigate President Trump on this. There is no single report from which this congress can make a decision whether or not to impeach President Trump on his dealings with ukraine. That is why the Intelligence Committee has been gathering evidence and hearing testimony. Reasonable confidentiality has been paramount so that accounts couldnt be corrugated and witnesses werent unduly influenced. Its a process that even former republican Representative Trey Gowdy who chaired the Benghazi Committee has endorsed. Are going toou have private investigations with unlimited time for questioning, thats a good thing. I agree. Im proud of our deliberative process so far. Continueommittees gathering evidence, they are preparing to present their findings. As we enter the public facing phase of the inquiry, i introduced a resolution yesterday to ensure a clear path forward. We are marking up that resolution here today. I dont know whether President Trump will be impeached. Only the facts and how we respond to them will dictate that. I can tell you this. Of determining whether he should be impeached will be open to the public view just as it should be. I know some republicans are very resistant to investigating the president at all. That will not stop the American People from hearing the facts. A group of republicans even witness to disrupting testimony. That is despite the fact that many of those members were entitled to attend the deposition. Let me tell you, i believe in civil disobedience. Ive been arrested protesting for what i believe in. I protested for human rights and against gun violence. Endangering our National Security and compromising a secure facility is a whole other matter. Bringing cell phones into a secure area and recording, i hope we never see anything like that again. I want to make this clear at the top of the markup. I appreciate the way members of this committee treat each other with respect. Always display professionalism. That includes our minority and Ranking Member tom cole. The rules Committee Sets a good example of how members should treat each other. I hope that tradition continues today. We all feel strongly. We all feel passionately about the matters before us. I expect that will be reflected in todays proceedings. I respect everyone. Membersiate the ranking commitment to this institution and was doing what is right. With this i disagree president and dont like his tone or policies, i never wanted our country to come to this point. From now,r 10 years people will ask each of us what we did in this moment. They will ask what we did when confronted with this crisis. And let there be no doubt that as much as this president wants flaunts the constitution, we are going to protect it. We will stand up for the constitution and defend the rule of law. And now let me turn to our Ranking Member from oklahoma, mr. Cole, for any remarks he wishes to make. Thank you very much. Let me begin by reiterating what you said in terms of keeping this process civil and factual and fair and open. I agree with another sentiment you expressed. This is a very sad day. Its a sad day for my me personally. I doubt anybody here ran for congress with the idea they would be involved in an impeachment inquiry. I never thought i would be. I think this is a sad day for the rules committee and for the institution of the house of representatives. Were meeting here today to set forth a process for impeaching a president of the United States. In my view, its not a fair process, its not an open process, its certainly not been transparent process. Its been limited and closed and frankly i think were moving toward a preordained result. Over the last month, House Committees have been engaged in a formal impeachment inquiry. Of course, theres nothing formal about it other than the speaker saying so. The house has never voted to conduct such an inquiry and committees have operated in the dark without formal operation of expanded fishing expedition. At least today the majority is admitting what we all know. Thats that the house was not follow inging an appropriate process for impeachment. I do not think the process were setting forward, with all due respect to the chairman, is a fair one either. Its not fair to the president of the United States and not fair to the people of the United States. The process laid out and the resolution before us is different from the processes used for both president s nixon in 1974 and president clinton in 1998. Both president s were given substantially more due process and protections than what the resolution gives to President Trump today. And the case of president clinton, that was a Republican House of representatives affording a democrat you can president of the United States more due process than the current Democratic House is affording the current republican president. First, frankly, both president s nixon and clinton were given the right to have counsel president to review documents and materials presented to the committees to recommend witnesses, to cross examine witnesses when appropriate. Counsel for both were fully participants in the hearings and were allowed to make arguments. More importantly in both cases, the president s councils request for witnesses to testify was accommodated. Thats certainly not been the case in todays resolution, theres no right for President Trump to have counsel in any of the depositions, hearings or inquiries conducted thus far. Were well into the process without the president having been given the choice to participate. The resolution includes nothing that would give him that right Going Forward. And matter of serious solemn as this, we cannot leave important factors like the right of counsel to the whim of a committee chair, which is exactly where it would fall under this resolution. Second in both the nixon and clinton proceedings, the minority was given the coequal right to subpoena witnesses and documents. The purpose was to ensure that the investigations would be fair, impartial, and bipartisan. Todays resolution differs from the nixon and clinton president s in a key way. The resolution does not provide for coequal subpoena power. It grants the minority the right to subpoena witnesses and materials only with the concurrent of the chair. The requirement that such be deemed necessary to the investigation. Thats a heck of a situation when you get to decide what is the necessary for an investigation. As a simple matter of fairness, its important to note theres no such limitations on the chair. If this is a bipartisan process, why is the minority subject to such restrictions on the ability to purchase best participate while the majority is certainly not . The differences between the procedure and those in the past are very clear. Todays resolution fails to give the president the right to due process that nixon and clinton enjoyed. It fails to preserve the right of the minority to fully participate in the proceedings. This resolution also differs from the nixon and clinton resolutions in another key way. Both resolutions were written in a bipartisan manner and with full consultation with the minority. We were not involved in any way in the construction of the resolution that we are considering today. It was dropped with a 34hour notice. This committee has not had a hearing about the immediate procedures and how we should go. We are presented with this for the fully made out cloth. This resolution frankly again is not bipartisan and done with full consultation with the minor the minority. It was written only by democrats without the pretense of consulting republicans. I didnt see a copy unless it until it was released publicly. We can do better than were doing today. When president nixon and clinton were impeached, the process was collaborative. The minority was allowed to participate fully and equally. The president was given the right to have counsel present and participating. That preserved the rights of the minority, preserved the rights of the president , and sure that due process was the touchstone. Without due process, and without a fair process, one that respects minority nights rights, i dont believe the American People regardless as legitimate it. Legitimate process is one that offers protections for everyone involved. This will be seen as another partisan exercise, won the majority has been pushing towards since the first day of the 116th congress. Thats unfortunate. And i hope we can do better than that. But certainly look forward to the hearing today and we intend to participate as fully as allowed. Thank you. I appreciate your comments. Im sure it comes to no surprise i disagree with your analysis of the protections and the rights we are affording the president of the United States. But i do feel compelled to state for the record. If were going to talk about process, we ought to republic respect the authority of the house of representatives. And this white house has obstructed our investigations, ignored our authorized subpoenas, withheld key documents, prevented witnesses from testifying and intimidated witnesses. They have tried to disparage members of congress who are trying to fulfill their responsibilities under the constitution of United States. I just for the record will say article one of the constitution gives the house the right to investigate the president. Is and we are taking our responsibility seriously and thats what this resolution proves. The measure before the committee s directing certain committees to continue their ongoing investigations as part of the existing house of representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist for the house of representatives to exercise the constitutional power to impeach donald trump, president of the United States of america. Without objection, the resolution is considered as read and will be open for amendment at any point. Any amendments to the resolution . Mr. Chairman . The gentleman from georgia. Are we going to have an opportunity to read through the resolution and ask questions . If you want i dont want to read it for the purposes of having it on the record, but i did have questions about the text and how it was drafted and why it was drafted in certain ways. I know im on the budget committee, we dont do original jurisdiction. We can read through those line by line. Would there be a council available to answer questions about the draft . We can do that. This is not a hearing. We can go through line by line and have a discussion based on your concerns. I assume youre offering amendments. I do have amendments. I yield to the gentleman. [inaudible] you would. Im burdened by being a a rules committee member. We dont do original jurisdiction. On the budget committee, we would read through the budget line by line to answer questions about particular line items and then come back and have those amendments done in an order. There are things in here in my decade in congress that i have never seen done before. And im sure theres a good reason for it, but i dont know if i want to take it out or not. Why is it in their . The gentleman is recognized. He may offer his amendment and we can discuss it based on what you want to add or subtract. You may want to reconsider after you offer them. I take the point and the answer will be we will not read through it but offer the amendments as i have them. I have an amendment at the desk. The clerk will report the amendment. Amendment one to resident resolution 660 offered by georgia. Strike that and all that follows through page six, line 16. I would ask permission that the amendment be considered as read. Its going to strike everything except for section four that the structures of the Judiciary Committee and impeachment inquiry would have it done. The reason i was asking about reading through and trying to understand it. The resolve that all of these committees that are investigating are going to con continue their investigations. I dont understand what that means in the context of moving forward. What i would say because i take the chairmans words at face value. He was talking about republican obstructionism. He said, this will not prevent the American People from hearing the facts. I would say to my colleagues if if we keep the Intelligence Committee section of this resolution intact, the secrecy of the committee will prevent the American People from hearing the facts. What my amendment would do is strike all of the Intelligence Committee language to recognize, as we did in the nixon impeachment and clinton impeachment, this is a function of the Judiciary Committee. And include as the majority has drafted it, the judiciary section. Is not asary section fair to the minority as the clinton judiciary section. Thats a different argument for a different day. I recognize the majority has the right to allow or limit voices as they see fit. I would encourage my colleagues , a bifurcated that continues to happen behind closed doors it does nothing to achieve the goals they have laid out. I dont believe the majority has anything to hide. Im certain the minority has nothing to hide. So lets elimination the ability for the Intelligence Committee to continue operating behind closed doors, move it to the Judiciary Committee where we have always done that as a nation. Tragic times where this house has chosen to go down that road. So folks are asking the question about what we did in this moment. We ensured we did protect the constitutional prerogatives of article one and article two such that we could, even in a tragic time, proud of the way this house operated. I yield to the gentleman from maryland. I want to speak in opposition to the gentlemans amendment, as wellintentioned as it is. Placehing that has taken in the investigations by all of the committees in congress has been perfectly constitutional and lawful. You have to look no further than a decision last friday by the United StatesDistrict Court who said its solely within the power of the house of representatives to conduct impeachment proceedings. Its solely within the power of the house of representatives to design our own rules. And we have the power to get the information that we want in the manner in which we want to get it. This differs from the nixon and clinton investigations. Only in the sense that there was special counsels in the department of justice who did the closed door deposition phase in those investigation. There were lots of closed door interviews and deposition being shared in both the nixon and clinton investigation with the watergate case. Nobody objected to that. This department of justice refused to do an investigation into the alleged misconduct and criminal operations. It was left to the legislative branch to do it. Thats what our committees have been doing. So its perfectly lawful. We continue to recognize its legitimacy. What you are objecting to is the opening up of the process, were ready to move to an open process where the public will be able to see the witnesses and get the facts and everybody will have access to it. I dont know i will put it this way. I would reject this because its an attempt to shut down the opening up of the process so the public can see whats taking place. I yield back. I appreciate the gentlemans comments. I agree with everything he said. Perhaps i didnt explain my mma properly or are 00 20 03 perhaps or are confused about what the legislation does. Which is why i was hoping to have counsel here to explain the legislation. There is nothing the Intelligence Committee is authorized to do in this that the committee isnt doing already. The Intelligence Committee isnt opening up to allow the president to come and requestask ask questions. The president will be completely excluded from the Intelligence Committee procedures. If the majority wants to investigate the president , to the extent the house of representatives wants to investigate the president , thats absolutely our constitutional prerogative. My question is, why in an impeachment resolution, are we authorizing the investigative process that would traditionally i believe that the procedural change here is to change the fiveminute rule so there could be an open hearing and there could be professional staff questioning in an open hearing of the Intelligence Committee. Ill yield to the chair. I will just say to the gentleman, the amendment would strike the provision that would require the Intelligence Committee to have an open hearing. I will yield to torez. I want to enter for the record 507, which was taken up by the house. Which allowed these committees and confirmed for these committees to give them the authorization to