Transcripts For CSPAN3 House Oversight Debates Contempt Char

The committee will come to order. The chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. Pursuant to Committee Rule five and 11, houseful 11 the chair may postpone for the proceedings today on the question of approving any measure or matter when adopting an amendment which the recorded vote is ordered. Pursuant to notice i call up a report in a contempt resolution. I have a point of order. Map please finish . Thank you. Now pursuant to notice a call up report containing a claim to the 2020 census. The clerk will report which is been distributed in advance. Mr. Chairman, i have appointed border. The gentleman is not recognize. From a parliamentary standpoint, ive appointed border. My point of order is that rule to f has been violated and the chairman has received the letter, which would outline that particular rule requires a three day notice, mr. Chairman and because the notice was put out on june 10 at 548, this committees rule was violated. The chairman may be able to overrule this point of order, but i would like to clarify that if this committee overrule this point of order, then it would be subject to litigation by House Counsel and you will require the department of justice to file a brief and will be litigated because this is violating the house rules that everyone here agrees to. I would like to address the letter that the Ranking Member sent last night raising a technical argument about the committees rule about circulating memo at todays meeting. Basically argues that the memo shouldve been sent last friday instead of this past monday. I sent a letter back to him this morning explaining my position and i can summarize that here. In last congress the Committee Ruled rules used to require 72 hours before business meeting. In january we, on this committee unanimously adopted rules that made that requirement to three days. As i stated our purpose was to make sure that the Committee Rules matched the house rule. The timing of our Committee Rule was drawn from the house rule on noticing this meeting. That rule provides that the third calendar date before it is noticed. The house parliamentarian has interpreted this role as including the date the notice is sent and the date the business meeting occurs. Committee staff confirmed this interpretation again yesterday, so another words we needed to send a notice on monday for a mockup today. Matte finish . That is exactly what we did here and that is how we have been interpreting our rules for the past six months and that is now our rule today. That said, i understand if this has led to some confusion. There are slight differences in the wording of our rule in the house rule. The problem with the Ranking Members interpretation is that the committee could send a memo out to members before we even notice the markup. I dont think that process makes sense and that is not the intent of the rule. I have stated my interpretation of the rule, however, as i wrote in my letter to the Ranking Member this morning, if he still feels that there is any confusion whatsoever, because all of this has been in good faith, i would be opened for the discussion to clarify or to amend the memo rule in the future. With that, mr. Chairman, may have followup on my point of order. While i appreciate where the staff is giving you clarity from the parliamentarian house, this committee purposefully, with your word took different language, and i will read three calendar days, excluding saturdays and sundays and legal holidays before each meeting or hearing and in your words, the minority wanted to give board fans notice for hearing memos, so we did that. That was a quote from you and we purposefully, in this committee, because of the importance of this committee made a difference between the house rule, and so i would suggest respectfully that this particular rule is indeed intentionally different, and by that we are opening ourselves up to litigation on this particular issue were just postponing by one day wouldve made us in compliance and i respectfully yield back. I have offered to work with the Ranking Member Going Forward and i point out that the rule also includes a separate independent vision allowing the committee to go forward in unusual circumstances. The Ranking Members letter last night for the first time raising a novel technical issue with our rules that has never been raised over the past six months certainly would qualify under that provision and i would remind my colleagues that they did not object when they were in charge. For example, in 2016 they summoned fbi director comey before committee with less than 48 hours notice. The only unusual circumstance in that case was that he did not like the fact that no criminal charges were filed against Hillary Clinton. The bigger point here is that members were aware that we were going to vote on contempt this week and it was the subject of many letters back and forth between the committee and the administration and the Ranking Member was copied on all the letters. Ive stated my position and offered to work in good faith with the Ranking Member Going Forward can i comment . Thank you, i appreciate what you just said. The bottom line is exactly what the gentleman from North Carolina said earlier. The notice is legally defective and it will, in fact be litigated. The remedy was simple. The remedy was real simple. Just wait before you do this contempt vote, but understand that you guys cannot do that because you were so concerned that the Supreme Court was going to rule on this that you have to get it done before it happened. We know that. Members of this committee have said they are trying to influence the court. We, as the gentleman pointed out we wanted this notice for three full days because when youre getting ready for something as important of holding the attorney general in contempt, you want every minute you can to be ready for that debate. That is what is at stake here. The notice is, in fact defective, it will in fact, be litigated. The remedy is simple to postpone the hearing, but you wont do that because there is a Supreme Court case coming any day and that is the problem. And that is why the point of order is right and we can have a markup on the other issues, but on this one. I yield back. Thank you very much. Without objection has the chair ruled. All those in favor, cest aye can ask for roll call. Mr. Cummings . No. Mr. Cummings votes no. Mr. Clay. Mr. Cooper. Mr. Cooper votes no. Mr. Connolly votes no. Mr. Morrissey votes no. Mr. Raskin votes no. Mr. Ruta votes no. Mint hill votes no. Miss Wasserman Schultz. Miss Wasserman Schultz votes no. Mr. Welch . Miss kelly . Miss kelly votes no. Mr. Dasani . Miss lawrence votes no. Miss vasquez mr. Gomez. Mr. Gomez votes no. Miss presley votes no. Miss to leave votes no. Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Marsh votes yes. Mr. Massey votes yes. Mr. Meadows votes yes. Mr. Gibbs mr. Gibbs votes yes. Mr. Higgins mr. Higgins both yes. Mr. Norman votes yes. Mr. Roy votes yes. Ms. Miller both yes. Mr. Armstrong votes yes. How is mr. Grossman recorded . Mr. Grossman is not recorded. This box is not recorded. Miss fox votes yes. This hill is recorded as no. How is miss norton recorded. Ms. Norton is not recorded. Miss norton votes no. I just want to confirm that i was recorded. Mr. Cross hill cortez is not recorded. The clerk will give us the tally. On this vote we have 50 yes and 20 knows. The motion is not agreed to. Let me say this i will work to clarify that ruling. I now recognize myself on opening statements. Today we are considering a resolution that would recommend Holding Attorney general william barr and secretary of commerce, wilbur ross in contempt of congress of the u. S. They both refused to comply with duly authorized subpoenas issued by this committee that require them relating to the addition of the Citizenship Question to the 2020 census against the advice of experts at the Census Bureau. What we have learned in this investigation is quite disturbing. Secretary ross said he added the questions solely, in response to request from the department of justice in december 2017 to help enforce the Voting Rights act. We now know that this was a pretext and we have obtained evidence showing that secretary ross was aggressively pressing his staff months before any request from the Justice Department in the spring of 2017 and he was doing it at the urging of the white house. At the urging of the white house. We also have evidence that President Trump had advisors long before the president took office. After his inauguration the president discussed this idea with white house aides, who in turn discussed it with secretary ross. Although we have limited information, we have been blocked from determining the real reason that the administration thought to add the Citizenship Question. That is because the department of justice and the department of commerce have refused to turn over key documents requested by this committee. For these reasons, on april two, 2019, more than two months ago, this committee voted on a bipartisan basis to authorize subpoenas for general bar and secretary ross to see documents or guarding their efforts to add the Citizenship Question. During that time weve tried repeatedly to resolve this impasse and as an accommodation we narrowed the scope of the subpoenas to a very small subset of the documents we originally requested. I even invited secretary ross to meet with me personally so that we could discuss away forward. Unfortunately, he refused. That is why we are here today. Ive heard arguments about moving forward with this and i would like to address them directly. First, there is a claim that the administration has produced 17,000 pages of documents. This is true but the vast majority of these documents were already published. Others were heavily redacted and many were not responsive to the subpoenas that all that 17,000 number is meaningless if it has pages that are blacked out. Second is a claim that we are trying to interfere with the Supreme Court case and this is not true. Congress hasnt independent responsibility independent, to oversee the census. Separate from any private litigation, period. The Supreme Court has made clear that congresss authority does not it ignores the fact that we have been pursuing this for more than a year long before the Supreme Court ever took up the case. I first called this investigation in march 2018 as a Ranking Member. That was just one day after secretary ross announced his decision. When i became the chairman in january, i renewed these requests again before the supreme course took the case. Finally let me speak about executive privilege. Last night we received a letter from the department of justice asking us to delay a vote today so the president could have more time than he is had to consider whether to claim executive privilege. I was it. They did not produce any documents required by the subpoena coming from this committee. They did not produce any of these documents in the future. And they did not make any kind of counter offer for these key documents. Heres the bottom line. We have been seeking these documents for more than a year we issued a bipartisan subpoena in april and we made it clear that we were moving forward with contempt this week and we offer the if they began producing one or two categories of the key documents in the subpoenas, would be willing to consider postponing todays vote. But both departments declined this offer which is why we are proceeding today census is critical to our democracy and critical to every one of our constituents. Congress gives us the responsibility and authority that this is working as was intended to work. That includes making sure that it is used properly to allocate federal funds and a portion of the legislative district and we must protect the integrity of the census and standout for the authority of congress in addition, i want to update the committee on documents received from the department of justice and commerce. The letter states that the president has exerted executive privilege over all the subpoenaed documents and it asserts executive privilege over the key documents that are essential to our inquiry and include a protective assertion of executive privilege over the rest of the documents. The agency has waited until the last minute to the day before our contempt vote test the president if you wanted to assert privilege. The subpoenas have been outstanding for more than two months. They are bipartisan, they are based on request letters sent months before that they delineate specific, unredacted documents that are a priority for this committee. I wrote letters last week making clear that the committee would vote on contempt this week if we did not receive a subset of these documents. If the agency has produced none of the unredacted documents required by the subpoena and they made no commitments to produce any of these key documents and theyve made no counter offers relating to these key documents the department of justices letter said that they were prepared to produce additional documents responsive to the subpoena. But they made clear that they will not produce the key documents that we have identified as a priority. This does not appear to be an effort engaged in good faith negotiations accommodation. Instead, it appears to be an example of the administrations defiance in congress is constitutionally mandated responsibility. The liberty of process and Attorney Client privilege. For months the Trump Administration has claimed the decision to add the Citizenship Question was made at the Department Level rather than at the white house. The now the president is asserting executive privilege over all of these documents. This begs the question, what is being hidden . Heres what im going to do. I have copies of this letter made for every member us all of you can review it for yourselves and next we will proceed to debating the contempt motion, however, i will postpone the vote until later this afternoon some members have additional time to review this letter and any other material they may deem necessary, and with that, i yield to the Ranking Member, but i want to reiterate that the amendment in the nature of a substitute will serve as the base text and now i recognize the distinguished Ranking Member. Why dont they want to know . That is the fundamental question. Why dont they want to know how many citizens are in the country . Ask anyone anywhere across this country and walk up to them and say, hey, do you think that on the census we should ask how many citizens are in the country or ask are you citizen . Every Single Person you will encounter will say, yeah, of course we should ask for the next question would be are we doing that already, and we would have to answer, yes we are. We have been doing it for decades and doing it on a 10 year census and doing it on the American Survey annual census. Why dont they want to know . The question that the United Nations recommends as a best practice and it was asked of other countries. How did we get here today . How do we get to the point today where we are going to hold the secretary of commerce, the attorney general of the u. S. In contempt because we dont want to ask a question that everyone thinks we are already asking and in fact we already are. You can do all of that. But when you boil it down, it is a fundamental question. Why dont they want to know. Heres the other thing. Democrats and the Supreme Court will rule on this question and they hope to use this oversight power to create a controversy around this issue and the democrats want to hold, as i said, the secretary of commerce and the attorney general in contempt because of an alleged lack of cooperation for information. That is in stark contrast to the claim that theyre not getting information from the agency. Trump administration continues to cooperate in this partisan investigation. The ministration has produced 31,000 pages of documents, 14,000 from commerce 17,000 injustice relating to this question. Secretary ross sat here for six hours and answered all kinds of questions. Several administration witnesses have voluntarily part participated in interviews at the heart of this partisan investigation. In fact, just yesterday, a transcribed interview with a former commerce official in the interview lasted nearly the entire day. Two more interviews are scheduled in the next week and the idea is the administration s stonewalling and the fact that they are engaging in a coverup does not engage. Contempt of congress is a powerful tool and should be used responsibly. This is an attempt by the democrats to muddy the waters and to influence the Supreme Court and the consideration of this issue. Instead of considering legislation about the question itself, something we can do and have been doing decade after decade. And the democrats refuse to use their Oversight Authority to interfere with the Supreme Court. Not what we should be doing. I urge members to vote against it and remind everyone here why dont they want to know. Why dont they want to know something that everyone in the district knows could be ask and is just good common sense i would say it the only peopl