Doma or this bill, and mr. Holder decided to stop making them. And that is what made me say hes abandoned his duty. Do you agree . I agree. I thought that the decision was wrong. I happen to agree with the president. I was a critical of doma. But i thought that the abandonment of the defense of doma was to the rule of law. I thought it violated a longstanding understanding with this body. You know, theres history here, as you know. Youre a student of the constitution. And you know that theres always been this tension between the congress and the Justice Department as to who can be in court defending things of this kind. The Justice Departments always insisted theyre the exclusive representative. Huh been attorney general you would not have stopped that. Absolutely. I would have defended that law. Even though you didnt agree with doma, the defense of marriage act. Theres no definition in the attorney generals position as to when they will abandon a federal law. I happen to agree with th
Actively endorsed by the Current Administration and rigorously enforced by the department of justice. Over these past few years the department of justice has made their presence very wellknown in both my professional and personal life. Since filing for Tax Exemption from the i. R. S. In 2009, my 2010, my private businesses my nonprofit organizations and i personally have been subjected to more than 15 instances of audit, inquiry or investigation by federal agencies, including the i. R. S. , osha, a. T. F. And the f. B. I. All of these inquisitions began after filing for Tax Exemption. There is no other remarkable event or rationale to explain how for decades i went unnoticed by the federal government but now find myself on the receiving end of interagency coordination into and against all facets of my life. I shared that same timeline as a part of testimony given in february of 2014 at had a hearing before the House Oversight and government reform subcommittee. Time did not permit then
Establishing National Immigration enforcement policies and priorities. That alone would seem to suffice but in addition, congress knowingly gives the administration only enough money to pursue less than 4 of dan documented population. That is the clearest evidence possible that congress intends for dhs to decide how those limited resources can be most effectively the boy. They have required you to just do require three things not full security, Border Security and the removal of criminal offenders. Those are three priorities that these memos incorporate. We have the 2012 Supreme Court decision in arizona where the court struck down most statues because it wouldnt appear with the federal government. Some critics claim that if the recent executive actions are legal, that would mean there are no limits at all and some future president could extend enforcement of another lot. It does not approach the hypothetical, nonenforcement that that argument conjures. If the president were to refuse
For the members who are present, except for the ones that are here already, it will be on seniority, then other people that come in, youll be called on according to how our respective staff keep track of you in the order of your appearance. Before chairman leahy and i give our Opening Statements, id like to go over some things i said yesterday. First of all, we welcome everybody back to this second day of hearing on ms. Lynchs nomination to be attorney general. As i said yesterday and everybody abided by this, and i want to thank everybody that was here yesterday for their courtesy i want everyone to be able to watch the hearing without obstruction and if people stand up and block the view of those behind them or speak out of turn its not fair considerable to the others. So officers would remove those individuals. Thats what i want to thank because we didnt have any of those incidents yesterday. Before we begin the Opening Statements take care of a couple housekeeping items and explain
And expectation is everybody has learned that theres no reason why we cant work on the issues at hand. So hopefully thats a lesson that will be internalized and not just by me but also by democrats and republicans not only the leaders but the rankandfile. Thanks very much, everybody. Mr. President , will this happen all over again in a few months . Well for the first time in 17 days the federal government is up and running this morning, a final congressional vote last night, capped an ugly drama on capitol hill where partisan politics drove the nations economy into the very brink. In the end lawmakers avoided defaulting on the federal debt but nevertheless theres plenty of damage to go around. 87 House Republicans joined democrats in supporting legislation to fund the government into early next year while raising the debt ceiling to cover whats already been spent. Not a single democrat opposed it. On the senate side 18 republicans opposed the bill among them ted cruz, mike lee, rand pa