impeachment inquiry into president biden. for months, the white house and hunter biden have been stone walling our investigation trying to hide the truth, and this stonewalling is what's caused us to be here today, like chairman cole said yesterday, it's deeply sad. it's a sad day, not something any of us want to be doing on this house floor, but it has become necessary. following today's floor vote on h-res 918, the committees on oversight, accountability, ways and means and judiciary will have greater legal position and subpoena power to fully investigate allegations of influence peddling and wrongdoing by president biden, his family, and his associates. the american people deserve transparency and accountability. they deserve the truth, and that's exactly what they're going to get from this republican house. thank you, mr. speaker, and i yield back. >> gentle lady yields back. gentleman from oklahoma reserves. gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. >> mr. speaker, i should remind the gentle lady that hunter biden is here today, he wants to testify in public. republicans said no because they want to do it behind closed doors so they can go on fox news cherry pick facts and figures and distort the truth. mr. speaker, republicans aren't interested in transparency in this investigation, and apparently the rules committee isn't either. and our markup yesterday democrats offered nine amendments. they were all voted down by republicans but in the official rules committee report, contrary to years of committee practice and tradition, the majority left out descriptions of those amendments. instead of reading that republicans defeated an amendment to add open and transparent to investigative proceedings, members of the public will only see that republicans voted down, quote, amendment number 4. instead of defeating an amendment requiring committees to hold an open hearing as part of the investigation, the record will show that the majority simply voted down, quote, amendment number 5. republicans are literally hiding democratic amendments about transparency. you cannot make this stuff up, and this is especially shocking to me because of the line with the way this committee has run historically under this chairman, and i'm deeply disappointed and i hope that this isn't an indication of how the majority intends to operate in the future. to make sure that these amendments show up somewhere in the historical record, i'm going to put the summaries in the congressional record and i ask consent to insert for the record the summaries of our nine amendments which republicans intentionally left out of the rules committee report. >> without objection. gentleman reserves. gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. >> thank you very much, mr. speaker. quickly i yield myself. just for the record, all these amendments are on the website of the rules committee. it's not like they're mysteriously hidden someplace, they're in plain view on the website of the rules committee. with that i'd like to yield two minutes to my good friend the gentleman from south carolina, mr. norman. also a distinguished member of the rules committee. >> gentleman from south carolina is recognized for two minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman and mr. speaker. i rise today in full support of this impeachment inquiry. i hope all the public tunes in to the rules committee yesterday. my question, what are you scared of? what are you scared of? what fact do you not want to come out? that was so evident. you spent more time quoting donald trump, the january 6th, anything but the facts about what hunter biden and his family did. the checks don't make themselves up that are written to this family. the llc accounts don't make themselves up. it's facts and what more to come out that you're hiding is so evident. this resolution follows the bar set by democrats during medical treatment proceedings in 2019. we're playing by the same rules the democrats set. if democrats thought this process was fair for president trump, they should think it's fair for president biden. and the evidence i think as things come out will finally show what the trail is and the fact that there are consequences. you cannot just say you're innocent and not have to prove it. i fully support this inquirinqu thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> members are reminded to direct their remarks to the chair. gentleman from oklahoma reserves. gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. >> members should be advise that had joe biden, not hunter biden is president of the united states. >> the gentleman from the new york is recognized for two minutes. >> mr. speaker, we all know why we're here today. the majority is no -- to speak of. their own members have said so and the right wing is getting restless. since they can't legislate and run on anything positive, they've decided to tear down president biden instead. they have no evidence, of course, to support this inquiry. since this majority never lets facts get in the wife a good set of fox news talking points here we are. dozens of witnesses have sat for transcribed interviews. every one tells us the same thing, there was no political interference in the hunter biden case. the american public does not have most of this story because chairman jorman refuses to release the transcripts. of the 85 interviews, he has released one transcript. he knows that if he releases any more than that, his preferred narrative will crumble. the evidence simply does not support these baseless charges. so why is the maga wing of the republican party resorting to this political stunt? two words, donald trump. the likely nominee of the republican party who faces 91 criminal charges in various court was also impeached not once but twice, and we had evidence. and whenever the former president is accused of wrongdoing, his favorite move is to accuse his opponent of doing the same. for this to work, of course, he needs president biden to be impeached too. and so he asked his enablers in congress to invent an impeachment, even if there's not a shred of evidence to back it up, and even if everything chairman comer said were true, which none of it is, an impeachable offense committed by vice president biden would not be under our constitution grounds for impeaching president biden. this is political hackery, not serious work. we should be focused on doing the work of the american people and not be distracted by pernicious nonsense. i urge all members to vote no in this ridiculous resolution. i yield back the balance of my time. >> gentleman yields back. gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i yield two minutes to my good friend, distinguished gentleman from texas, mr. roy also a member of the rules committee. >> gentleman from texas is recognized for two minutes. >> i thank the speaker, thank the chairman. this is an impeachment inquiry, defined as an act of asking for information, nothing more, nothing less. niert ri is to further investigate three things, the extent to which joe biden as vice president was involved with the flow of millions of dollars from foreign companies and interests in china, in ukraine, into the biden family into numerous shell companies including hunter and his involvement. devin archer testified the vice president was, in fact, at hunter's business meetings, and there are numerous emails and other evidence indicating that the big guy or dad was involved. two, the extent to which joe biden has lied to the extent of his involvement. involvement that hunter all but acknowledged today when avoiding his deposition in a show press conference on the capital steps by carefully saying his dad was not involved financially in his businesses. three, the extent to which biden and his administration have obstructed justice, but preventing jack morgan and mark daley with the department of justice to testifying to their involvement in doj and irs deciding to slow walk 2014 tax charges and 2015 charges so the statute of limitations would lapse. all the more interesting in light of hunter biden being indicted just last week on nine counts of tax offenses for failing to pay $1.4 million in back taxes after writing off hookers and sex clubs. all of which was only brought to light because a judge called the bluff a sweetheart deal. second, by only providing 14 of 82,000 emails with pseudonyms of which 29,000 were tied to biden's family businesses. third, by limiting the scope of witness testimony from department of justice witnesses over and over and over again. this was an impeachment inquiry. that's all. what are my democratic colleagues afraid of if there's nothing to see there. maybe that is all the more reason for the inquiry. i yield back. >> gentleman from oklahoma reserves, gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. >> i yield two minute thes to the gentleman from massachusetts, the distinguished ranking member of the committee on ways and means. >> i rise in shock and frustration at our republican colleagues do nothing congress. seinfeld would have called this the impeachment about nothing. they are leading the most unproductive session since the great depression, and after manufacturing crisis after crisis, weeks of trying to choose a speaker, and putting their record breaking economic recovery which is nonexistent under the spotlight, they think that formalizing a fishing expedition will dress it up enough for the american people to believe it. this is not the work of the ways and means committee. the greatness of this committee has nothing to do with an impeachment proceeding and how the ways and means committee got involved in this baffles republican and democratic members of the committee. the truth is it's been nearly a year and not a shred of evidence has shown any wrongdoing or interference by joe biden. their recycled expertise theories continue to be debunked. they continue to mistake congress, a legislative body for a law enforcement body. in their only public hearing, their own witnesses concede that there is evidence to warrant moving forward, which i have submitted to the record, mr. speaker. the gentleman from south carolina said we're trying to hide something. i moved in the ways and means committee to have the whistle-blower's testimony done in full public for obs observation. they turned it down. meanwhile, we're staring at another republican government shutdown at the beginning of tax filing season, enough with this obsession with one person, joe biden. the ways and means democrats, we are concerned about all members of the american family and for the taxpayer that is about to impede it because of the work done on impeachment instead of on tax reform, this is where we find ourselves. nothing here, no evidence, no wrongdoing after a year, a waste of time for the american people, a waste of time for a congress that should be addressing the real problems of the american family. (. >> and without objection, the gentleman's request is granted. gentleman from massachusetts reserves. gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. >> thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker. i yield three minutes to my good friend distinguished chairman of the ways and means committee, the gentleman from missouri, mr. smith. >> gentleman from missouri is recognized for three minutes. >> thank you, mr. speaker. thank you, chairman cole. president biden has hidden from the american people his knowledge of and role in his family's overseas business dealings. even in the face of overwhelming evidence showing his knowledge and involvement, president biden still refuses to come clean. so far two key doj witnesses have failed to show for congressionally subpoenaed depositions after doj directed them not to appear. other witnesses have refused to answer certain questions from investigators, and the biden administration has refused to turn over many of the documents requested by congress, claiming this inquiry was not properly authorized. let there be no mistake. today's vote asserts congress's authority to conduct an impeachment inquiry and gather all the evidence to proceed with our investigation. the american people deserve answers. here's what we know so far. the existence of multiple email aliases suggest that joe biden was deliberately trying to conceal his activities from the public, including one-on-one communications with a key hunter biden business partner during his vice presidency. we also learned that investigators were blocked from looking into potential campaign finance crimes by the biden campaign. hunter biden had only known kevin morris, a democrat donor, for two months before morris started settling his tax debts to the tune of about $2 million, and then spent about 3 million more to cover hunter's lifestyle. in the midst of the 2020 campaign, just weeks before super tuesday, primary elections that would decide the future of joe biden's candidacy, morris emailed hunter biden's business associates and there was, quote, considerable risk personally and politically to not filing his late taxes. but the only person who faced political risk was joe biden whose campaign the whistle-blowers had reason to believe morris was speaking to. as members of congress, we have to abide by campaign finance limits, and so must the president. morris's millions in payments to cover hunter biden's taxes and other financial obligations appear to the whistle-blowers to be an illegal donation to the biden campaign. unfortunately, they were blocked from investigating further. time and again when investigators found a lead that pointed to joe biden, doj, they stepped in and prevented -- prevented them from pursuing it. >> yield the gentleman additional 30 seconds. >> gentleman's recognized for an additional 30 seconds. >> thanks to the evidence released by the whistle-blowers, the doj indicted hunter biden on nine tax charges including three felonies. everything, everything the whistle-blowers told us about the hunter biden tax case has proven right. i'm convinced they're also right about the links to joe biden they were prevented from following. congress owes it to the american people to follow the facts wherever they led and pass this resolution, mr. speaker. >> gentleman from oklahoma reserves, gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. >> i request unanimous consent to insert an article from time mag time, impeachment experts say biden inquiry may be the weakest in u.s. history. >> without objection. >> constitutional scholar at columbia law saying impeachment is supposed to be the most extreme sanction in american politics and if you reach for it every time you think it will help you in the polls, i fear it will become degraded. end quote. all the gentleman just said -- what he said has been debunked and it's just nuts. i now yield one minute to the gentleman from california, mr. schiff. >> we're going to stay on tp of this heated debate on the floor of the u.s. house about whether to open an impeachment inquiry into president biden. we're going to take a quick break and bring you right back into the debate. stay with us. t back into the debate. stay with us hi, i'm ben and i've lost 60 pounds on golo. 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