[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                    THE CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR
                 CONGRESS'S ABILITY TO UPHOLD STANDARDS
                           OF MEMBER CONDUCT

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                 SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, CIVIL 
                         RIGHTS, AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

                                 OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                        THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-10

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
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               Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
               
                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                    JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
                MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair

ZOE LOFGREN, California              JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Member
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,      DARRELL ISSA, California
    Georgia                          KEN BUCK, Colorado
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida          MATT GAETZ, Florida
KAREN BASS, California               MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York         ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island     TOM McCLINTOCK, California
ERIC SWALWELL, California            W. GREG STEUBE, Florida
TED LIEU, California                 TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington          CHIP ROY, Texas
VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida          DAN BISHOP, North Carolina
J. LUIS CORREA, California           MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas              SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado                 CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon
LUCY McBATH, Georgia                 BURGESS OWENS, Utah
GREG STANTON, Arizona
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
MONDAIRE JONES, New York
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
CORI BUSH, Missouri

        PERRY APELBAUM, Majority Staff Director & Chief Counsel 
               CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director
                                
                                ------                                

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, CIVIL RIGHTS,
                          AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

                     STEVE COHEN, Tennessee, Chair
                DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina, Vice-Chair

JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana, Ranking 
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,          Member
    Georgia                          TOM McCLINTOCK, California
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas              CHIP ROY, Texas
CORI BUSH, Missouri                  MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            BURGESS OWENS, Utah

                       JAMES PARK, Chief Counsel
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                        Thursday, March 11, 2021

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Steve Cohen, Chair of the Subcommittee on the 
  Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties from the State 
  of Tennessee...................................................     2
The Honorable Mike Johnson, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on 
  the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties from the 
  State of Louisiana.............................................     4
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the 
  Judiciary from the State of New York...........................     6
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Ranking Member of the Committee on the 
  Judiciary from the State of Ohio...............................     7

                               WITNESSES

Jack Maskell, Retired Legislative Attorney, Congressional 
  Research Service
  Oral Testimony.................................................    11
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    14
Josh Chafetz, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
  Oral Testimony.................................................    17
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    20
James Wallner, Resident Senior Fellow, Governance, R Street
  Oral Testimony.................................................    28
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    31
Stanley M. Brand, Former General Counsel, House of 
  Representatives
  Oral Testimony.................................................    38
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    40

                                APPENDIX

Items submitted by the Honorable Steve Cohen, Chair of the 
  Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil 
  Liberties from the State of Tennessee for the record
  A report entitled, ``Expulsion, Censure, Reprimand, and Fine: 
    Legislative Discipline in the House of Representatives,'' by 
    Jack Maskell, Congressional Research Service.................    66
  An article entitled, ``Congress's Constitution--Legislative 
    Authority and the Separation of Powers,'' by Josh Chafetz, 
    Professor of Law, Yale University Press......................    91
Items submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Member of the 
  Committee on the Judiciary from the State of California
  A letter to the Honorable Steve Cohen, Chair of the 
    Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil 
    Liberties from the State of Tennessee........................   139
  A report entitled, ``Social Media Review: Members of the U.S. 
    House of Representatives who Voted to Overturn the 2020 
    Presidential Election,'' by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a 
    Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of 
    California...................................................   140

 
                    THE CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR
                      CONGRESS'S ABILITY TO UPHOLD
                      STANDARDS OF MEMBER CONDUCT

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, March 11, 2021

                     U.S. House of Representatives

            Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights,

                          and Civil Liberties

                       Committee on the Judiciary

                             Washington, DC

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:17 p.m., via 
Webex, Hon. Steve Cohen [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Cohen, Nadler, Raskin, Ross, 
Johnson of Georgia, Garcia, Bush, Jackson Lee, Johnson of 
Louisiana, Jordan, McClintock, Roy, and Fischbach.
    Staff Present: David Greengrass, Senior Counsel; John Doty, 
Senior Advisor; Madeline Strasser, Chief Clerk; Moh Sharma, 
Member Services and Outreach Advisor; Jordan Dashow, 
Professional Staff Member; Cierra Fontenot, Staff Assistant; 
John Williams, Parliamentarian; James Park, Chief Counsel, 
Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties; Will Emmons, 
Professional Staff Member, Constitution, Civil Rights, and 
Civil Liberties; Matt Morgan, Counsel, Constitution, Civil 
Rights, and Civil Liberties; Katy Rother, Minority Deputy 
General Counsel and Parliamentarian; James Lesinski, Minority 
Counsel; and Kiley Bidelman, Minority Clerk.
    Mr. Cohen. The Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on 
the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties will come 
to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare 
recesses of the Subcommittee at any time.
    I welcome everyone to today's hearing on The Constitutional 
Framework for Congress's Ability to Uphold Standards of Member 
Conduct.
    Before we begin, I would like to remind Members that we 
have established an email address and distribution list 
dedicated to circulating exhibits, motions, or other written 
materials that Members might want to offer as part of our 
hearing today. If you would like to [audio malfunction].
    Ms. Fischbach. Excuse me, Mr. Chair. We can't see you.
    Mr. Cohen. Beyond my control. I don't know.
    Do we have to be seen to be heard?
    Ms. Fischbach. Well, I believe we have to be seen to have 
an official meeting.
    Mr. Cohen. Ms. Fischbach--
    Voice. I can see him.
    Ms. Fischbach. Now he is back, but then he goes away.
    Mr. Cohen. Maybe it is your--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. No, it is all of us, Mr. Chair.
    TMr. Cohen. Mr. Maskell, can you hear me? You can see me.
    Mr. Wallner, can you see me? Mr. Wallner--
    Ms. Fischbach. Sir, I can see you now, but when you were 
talking earlier. I just wanted to make sure.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Your camera is going in and out. 
That is the problem.
    Mr. Cohen. If you would like to submit materials, please 
send them to [email protected] and we will 
distribute them to Members and staff as quickly as we can.
    I will now recognize myself for an opening statement.
    I am fully cognizant of the emotionally fraught context in 
which we hold today's hearing on the constitutional framework 
for Congress' ability to uphold standards for Member conduct. 
Events over the last few months have put Members of Congress on 
edge, and the emotional repercussions of these events continue 
to ripple through the House of Representatives.
    To be absolutely clear, my hope in holding this hearing is 
not to increase the tension inside the people's House, an 
institution that we all proudly serve in. Rather, I hope this 
hearing will serve as a productive exercise in educating 
ourselves and the public about the scope of Congress' authority 
to maintain discipline within its own ranks, as informed by 
relevant precedents and policy considerations.
    Let me clear up what this hearing is not about. We are not 
here to adjudicate allegations about potential wrongdoing 
against specific colleagues, nor are we here to speculate about 
what punishments could be meted out against any of our 
colleagues, nor are we here to pass judgment on who does or 
does not meet minimum qualifications for office, which is also, 
constitutionally speaking, not a question of Member discipline. 
These questions are outside of the jurisdiction of the 
Subcommittee.
    Article I, section 5, clause 2 of the Constitution provides 
that each house of Congress may determine the rules of its 
proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly behavior, and 
with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.
    Beyond this short provision, the Constitution contains few 
textual limitations on the substance of each house's authority 
to punish Members for misconduct or to protect the 
institutional legitimacy and dignity of the House.
    In theory, other parts of the Constitution, like, for 
example, the Equal Protection Clause, may Act as an additional 
limitation on Congress' exercise of authority to discipline 
Members, though that proposition has not been tested and is 
rather theoretical.
    Beyond that limitation, the Constitution seems to leave the 
meaning of, quote, ``disorderly behavior,'' unquote, to each of 
the houses to define themselves.
    In light of the Constitution's limited textual guidance, we 
must turn to constitutional history, relevant precedent, and 
any lessons we may be able to draw from this information to 
guide any future decisions about Members' discipline.
    Luckily for us, we have an outstanding panel of experts to 
help outline and elucidate this information for us.
    I will use this opportunity to note two things about 
precedent. With respect to expulsions of House Members, there 
are only five instances when the House has expelled Members. 
Three of those instances occurred--
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I can no longer hear the Chair at 
this point. I can see him, but I can't hear him.
    Ms. Garcia. This is Garcia. I can't hear the Chair either.
    Mr. Chair, we cannot hear you, sir.
    Chair Nadler. I cannot hear him either.
    Ms. Garcia. He is still talking away.
    They are going to make a motion to adjourn.
    Mr. Cohen. Does anybody understand ``sounds like''? Doesn't 
work.
    Hello. Hello. Hello.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. We suddenly have you back now.
    Mr. Cohen. I have got sound on.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. We can hear you now. We can see 
you now. We couldn't for the last--
    Mr. Cohen. I can't hear you. You are going in and out.
    Well, can you hear me now? You can hear me, now? Okay.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Yeah, I can hear you now, but I 
can't see you.
    Mr. Cohen. Well, great.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. We can hear you, but we can't see 
you.
    Ms. Garcia. This is Garcia. I can neither hear or see you, 
but I don't know you are talking.
    Mr. Cohen. The Senate has expelled 15 Members, with 14 of 
those expulsions occurring during the Civil War, again because 
Members either represented seceding States or otherwise 
supported the Confederacy.
    Can you hear that?
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Yes. But, we still can't--
    Ms. Garcia. We still cannot see you.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. We can't see you.
    Mr. Cohen. Well, I have got a blue tie and a blue coat.
    I would also note that both the House and Senate took 
action shy of expulsion against other Members, stemming from 
their actions during the Civil War.
    I am almost finished.
    I would like to make a note about exclusions. That is a 
different situation.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, now, Mr. Chair of the Full 
Committee has requested that you suspend while they work on the 
problem.
    Mr. Cohen. Sure.
    It has been suggested that I recognize Mr. Johnson for an 
opening statement. Can people see Mr. Johnson? Can people hear 
Mr. Johnson?
    Mr. Johnson, you have the floor, the honorable gentleman 
from Shreveport, Louisiana.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will try. 
I hope the audio and the video will work. Somebody stop me if 
it doesn't.
    Look, I am just going to be honest. We want to approach 
this hearing in good faith, and I hope that our suspicions 
about it are wrong. I really do. I appreciate what you said in 
the opening that we could hear that you don't want to increase 
the tension around here. Some of the things that have happened, 
just very, very honestly, in the last day or two have not met 
that standard.
    A letter today was issued by the three Republican Members 
of the Committee on House Administration to Chair Lofgren. That 
is Ranking Member Davis and Representatives Loudermilk and 
Steil. I wanted to read you just an excerpt from that letter. 
It is addressed to Chair Lofgren, dated today.
    It begins, ``It has been over two months since the U.S. 
Capitol was attacked. Our Committee has held no hearings, and 
there are none scheduled. This is unacceptable,'' they write in 
the letter. ``Given our commitment''--
    Ms. Garcia. Mr. Johnson? Mr. Johnson?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Yes?
    Ms. Garcia. I am sorry, sir, but there is a lot of static. 
I cannot hear you clearly.
    Ms. Johnson of Louisiana. Is it static on my line, or is 
that someone else's line?
    Ms. Garcia. I am not techie enough to know. I just hear a 
lot of static. It may only be me. I am just having a hard time 
hearing you.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Let me soldier on, and we will 
see if it gets any better. I think it may be all our bandwidth 
here on the Hill today. I don't know what is going on.
    I was reading this excerpt from a letter that the 
Republicans sent to Chair Lofgren today. They say that, ``The 
Committee has held no hearings yet. There are none scheduled, 
and it is unacceptable.''
    They say, ``Given our Committee's primary jurisdiction over 
the entities responsible for preparing the Capitol for January 
6 and maintaining it after, we should be the ones leading on a 
review and no other committees and not your personal office,'' 
they say to Chair Lofgren.
    ``But while the Committee has taken no action since January 
6, your personal office has managed to review the social media 
of 147 Republicans and then released a nearly 2,000-page report 
insinuating that our colleagues, who we serve and work with 
every day, were somehow complicit in an attack against our 
Capitol. These are the same colleagues we were with on the 
House floor on January 6 as rioters entered the Capitol and 
tried to break through the doors of the House Chamber.''
    They continue, ``This report and its conclusions are not 
only wrong, but they are also offensive to your colleagues. It 
is also a questionable use of your Members' Representational 
Allowance.
    ``As the Chair of the Committee which is responsible for 
overseeing the rules governing the use of the MRA, you more 
than anyone else should know that the handbook is clear when it 
states, quote, `The MRA may only be used for official and 
representational expenses,' unquote. Using your personal office 
resources to investigate other Members cannot be considered to 
be related to your representational duties to your district.''
    They continue, ``This report also contains concerning 
language and content that is inconsistent with the 
Communications Standards Commission regulation regarding the 
rules on decorum and civility.
    ``Additionally, there is a longstanding prohibition on 
official websites directly linking or referring to websites 
created or operated by a campaign or any campaign-related 
entity. Your report, posted on your official personal office 
website, directly links to the campaign accounts of 75 
candidates.''
    It goes on. What Ranking Member Davis and Congressmen 
Loudermilk and Steil were saying is that this is a Rubicon that 
is being crossed here. It is an unprecedented event that we are 
seeing.
    I just want to say that many of us regard this as a new low 
for the United States Congress, and I say that with great 
regret.
    Look, our Democratic colleagues seem to us to have chosen 
to weaponize everything here and now we are going to do it with 
the House Rules. How can we draw any other conclusion based on 
this?
    First, H.R. 1 is rammed through the Congress, and that 
forces hardworking American taxpayers to fund political 
campaigns with their treasure. Now, we are going to use 
precious taxpayer dollars to fund political opposition research 
on our own colleagues in the House.
    This is not a place we need to be going. It is a brazen, 
outrageous abuse of power, and it is contributing to the 
destruction of this institution.
    Look, Representative Lofgren's report is an attempt to 
criminalize politics and silence Members who dare to speak. 
They are doing this, she is doing this, I guess the party is 
doing this, by some decision, by the attempted use of fear and 
intimidation and misinformation. That can't work. We can't 
allow that. That is not who we are as Americans.
    Representative Lofgren and other Democrats refuse to 
acknowledge that they engaged, by the way, in the same exact 
behavior that they accuse Republicans of using to, quote, 
``threaten our democracy,'' unquote. Remember, the Democrats 
have objected to the counting of electoral votes after every 
Presidential election won by a Republican this century.
    I will close with this. Look, I hope, as I said at the 
outset, that we are wrong about this, where all this is 
leading. We shouldn't need a hearing today, we shouldn't need a 
reminder to acknowledge that for more than 225 years the House 
and the Senate have used the authority of article 1 of the 
Constitution to police conduct of our respective Members. For 
over 50 years the House has had a standing Committee charged 
with exercising this authority.
    The Ethics Committee and the House Rules are in place to 
ensure, of course, that we all conduct ourselves according to 
the maxim that, quote, ``public office is a public trust,'' as 
it says in our manual that we all have a copy.
    We all agree the House ought to enforce those Rules fairly 
and vigorously, but we also have to agree that it should never 
be done in a vindictive manner. Most of all, these Rules never 
should be used for political purposes or to try to censor or 
silence the other side. This is what this looks like today.
    Using the House Rules in this manner demeans the Congress 
as an institution. It amounts not only to silencing the 
targeted Member, of course, but also the constituents that that 
Member represents in our representative form of government and 
a constitutional Republic with our democratic principles.
    I hope we are wrong about this, about this Committee 
hearing, about where this dangerous new Democratic strategy is 
leading. If it is not, I am going to say we are all in real 
trouble.
    I yield back.
    Chair Nadler. Is Mr. Cohen on the line?
    Mr. Cohen. Yes. Can you hear me?
    Chair Nadler. Yes.
    Mr. Cohen. Good. Well, I couldn't hear Mr. Johnson really 
well. I presume he just said that he understood what I said, 
and we are all here in a kumbaya mood. Is that correct?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Something like that.
    Mr. Cohen. I heard something like that.
    Mr. Nadler, Chair of the Full Committee, is recognized for 
5 minutes.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Today's hearing on the nature and scope of Congress' 
authority to discipline its Membership is an important one. It 
is also not the first time the Judiciary Committee has examined 
Congress' authority in this area.
    At least as far back as 1914, when the Committee produced a 
report on this matter in relation to a select Committee 
investigation into an alleged bribery scheme, the Committee has 
served to inform Members and the public about the 
constitutional undermining of the House's disciplinary 
authority over its Membership.
    Just like today, Members then considered the scope of 
Congress' disciplinary authority. Without a doubt our Witnesses 
will note that this has been a perennial institutional debate 
since our Nation's founding.
    One broad principle Members and Witnesses likely agree on, 
though, is that Congress' authority to discipline its 
Membership is very broad. Under article I, section 5, clause 2, 
each house of Congress can discipline any of its Members for, 
quote, ``disorderly behavior,'' unquote, a term that the 
Constitution leaves undefined.
    Indeed, the only explicit textual limitation on this power 
is the procedural requirement that any expulsion of a sitting 
Member requires a two-thirds vote of the Chamber.
    Under that same provision, each house has the power to make 
Rules governing its own proceedings, and thus each has the 
authority to devise disciplinary measures short of expulsion, 
such as censure or the levying of fines.
    Another likely area of agreement is that this broad 
authority is not understood solely as the mere power to punish 
individuals for misconduct. It is also a basis for protecting 
and ensuring the dignity, integrity, and legitimacy of 
congressional proceedings.
    Simply put, the Constitution provides each house of 
Congress the authority to hold Members accountable for 
misconduct so that each has the means to protect the public's 
faith and esteem in this institution.
    This authority is the basis for each house to ensure the 
continued functioning of its proceedings, particularly under 
the gravest national circumstances.
    There have only been five expulsions in the history of the 
House of Representatives, with three of them occurring in 1861 
at the onset of the Civil War.
    Given how central this authority is to the operation of 
Congress as a coordinate branch, the Supreme Court, with only a 
few notable exceptions, has largely left it to Congress to 
determine the constitutional limits of its authority to 
discipline its Membership.
    Thus, like other constitutional matters vested solely 
within Congress' purview, past precedent and historical 
practice have played a large role in shaping each Chamber's 
understanding of the limits of its authority, informed each 
Chamber's exercise of that authority, and contributed to the 
evolution of modern disciplinary practices.
    Today's hearing is an opportunity for Members to hear from 
and ask questions of a panel of excellent Witnesses who can 
educate us on the constitutional origins and limitations on 
Congress' authority to discipline Members and what general 
policy principles may have evolved regarding the House of 
Representative's exercise of that authority over the past few 
centuries.
    Distinct from these questions regarding constitutional 
authority and policy is the question of how the House should 
exercise its power in individual cases, theoretical or 
otherwise.
    That is not the subject of today's hearing. As Chair Cohen 
explained, we are here today to discuss and understand the 
constitutional principles and historical precedents that inform 
the House's disciplinary authority and policies. We are not 
here to apply them to any individual or circumstance.
    I thank the Witnesses for appearing today, and I look 
forward to their testimony.
    I yield back the balance of my time.
    Mr. Jordan. Mr. Chair, I couldn't hear you. I don't know if 
you are recognizing me or not.
    Ms. Garcia. Mr. Chair, I cannot hear you. This is Garcia.
    Chair Nadler. I will recognize--if Mr. Cohen can't hear 
people, I will recognize Mr. Jordan for an opening statement.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Chair, we had a short 1-minute video we would like to 
share, but it looks like that we are not able to do that. Is 
there a reason?
    Chair Nadler. I am not aware of any reason.
    Mr. Jordan. It is not letting us hit the ``share.'' That is 
not open for us to use. Does Mr. Cohen know?
    Our staff just told me that Mr. Cohen's staff has not given 
us access to share the video. Is that accurate?
    Chair Nadler. We will have to check on that.
    Mr. Jordan. Okay.
    Mr. Cohen. Can anybody hear me?
    Chair Nadler. I can hear you.
    Mr. Cohen. Good. I switched machines. I am on a new 
machine. So, we are back, and I think we are okay.
    Mr. Jordan. We are still not okay because we wanted to 
share a video.
    Mr. Cohen. I would love to see a video. I love videos. I 
don't know anything about any permission being asked or not 
asked or anything else.
    Mr. Jordan. We are not able to show it, Mr. Chair. I mean, 
we would like to.
    Mr. Cohen. What is the video? Give me an idea.
    Mr. Jordan. It is a video of people objecting on January 6, 
2017, to the counting of the electors when President Trump won 
on January 6, 2017.
    Mr. Cohen. I have no idea. I don't know anything about 
that. The fact, that is not really particularly--I don't mean 
to be argumentative or anything, Mr. Jordan, but that is not 
relevant. We are not going into anything that happened with any 
of that stuff.
    Mr. Jordan. The Chair of the House Administration Committee 
just released a 2,000-page report going after 140--
    Mr. Cohen. That is not part of this hearing.
    Mr. Jordan. --not part of this hearing, you got to be 
kidding me, 140-some Republicans?
    Chair Nadler. That is the House Administration Committee, 
not us.
    Mr. Cohen. That is not part of this hearing and I don't 
really know--
    Mr. Jordan. She is a Member of the Judiciary Committee.
    Mr. Cohen. She is not a Member of this Subcommittee, as you 
well know.
    Mr. Jordan. She is a Member of the Judiciary Committee.
    Mr. Cohen. So? So what? That doesn't mean she is not a 
Member of the Subcommittee.
    Mr. Jordan. Well, Ranking Member Johnson just read a letter 
talking about this very issue. This is entirely relevant. That 
report comes out a few days ago and you have this hearing this 
week. Just coincidence?
    Chair Nadler. Let me suggest, if some technical difficulty 
is preventing that video, why don't you just describe the 
video, so we understand it and let's proceed.
    Mr. Jordan. I will read my statement.
    President Biden campaigned on a promise of unity. Democrats 
in the House, like Chair Lofgren, are putting together reports 
that attack Republicans, over 140 Republicans.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Mr. Jordan, we can't--
    Mr. Jordan. Let's be clear. Chair Lofgren's report is a 
2,000-page--
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Mr. Jordan, we can't see you, now. 
Has your camera gone out?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I can see him fine.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I can't see him, and I can't see 
anybody other than myself now. I see Mr. Jordan has just popped 
back on.
    Mr. Jordan. I mean, this took us 30 minutes to get onto 
the--it was such a mess. This is a comedy of errors, this whole 
hearing.
    Democrats in the House like Chair Lofgren are putting 
together reports that attack Republicans. Chair Lofgren's 
report is a 2,000-page political opposition dossier put 
together at taxpayer expense. Think about that, taxpayer 
dollars used to target fellow Members of the United States 
Congress.
    Chair Cohen went on television and accused--without 
evidence--Congressman Boebert of helping criminals storm the 
Capitol--without a bit of evidence. Other Democrats have filed 
frivolous resolutions to censure or expel Republican Members.
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Jordan, would you yield for a minute?
    Mr. Jordan. So much for unity.
    Be happy to yield to Chair.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
    This has never been made clear. All I said on television is 
I saw Ms. Boebert going with a group of people in the tunnel. I 
then said, I didn't see anybody involved in the insurrection. I 
also said this very well may have just been the historical 
record of her getting sworn in for the first time and people 
wanted to--
    Mr. Jordan. Come on. Come on.
    Mr. Cohen. Go to CNN, Jim. Go to CNN and you will see that.
    Mr. Jordan. How about I read your--
    Mr. Cohen. That is what I said.
    Mr. Jordan. How about I read your quote? ``She is not on 
the home team. She was with the visitors.'' How about that 
quote?
    Mr. Cohen. She is not on the home team. When you tweet 
``1776,'' you are not on the home team. That doesn't have 
anything to do with her leading the insurrectionists. I said 
she specifically could have just been going up there for a 
celebration.
    Mr. Jordan. You know what you did, Mr. Chair?
    Mr. Cohen. Yeah, I know what I did--
    Mr. Jordan. Other Democrats have filed frivolous 
resolutions to censure or expel Republican Members.
    Mr. Cohen. Go on with your calumny.
    Mr. Jordan. So much for unity.
    Was it my time, or are you just going to run the whole 
thing? Is it my time?
    Mr. Cohen. It is your time, but you continue with your 
calumny.
    Mr. Jordan. Excuse me. I didn't hear what you said. 
Continue with what?
    Mr. Cohen. Your calumny.
    Mr. Jordan. Oh. Well, I will continue with presenting the 
truth.
    These same Democrats spent 4 years accusing President Trump 
of colluding with Russia, allegations we knew at the time were 
false and now the whole country knows are completely false.
    Nineteen minutes, Mr. Chair, 19 minutes into President 
Trump's term The Washington Post ran a headline, quote, ``The 
campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.'' President 
Trump wasn't even done with his inaugural address, and you guys 
were working with the media to impeach him.
    Of course, the video I wanted to play talks about what 
happened on January 6. I will tell what you I will do. I will 
read from it. I will read from the Congressional Record.

        Congressional Record, House of Representatives, 
        Washington, Friday, January 6, 2017:
          Mr. McGovern. Mr. President, I object to the 
        certificate from the State of Alabama.
          Mr. Raskin, State of Florida, he objected, too.
          Ms. Jayapal. Mr. President, I object to the 
        certificate from the State of Georgia.
          Ms. Lee. Mr. President, I object to the State of 
        Michigan.
          Ms. Jackson Lee, Mississippi. Mr. President, I 
        object.
          Mr. Grijalva. Mr. President, I object to the 
        certificate from the State of North Carolina.
          Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. President, I object to the State 
        of North Carolina.
          Ms. Jackson Lee. I object to the votes from South 
        Carolina.
          Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. President, I object to the votes 
        from Wisconsin.
          Ms. Waters. The State of Wyoming.

    Is there one United States Senator who will join me in this 
letter of objection?
    So, Democrats, think about this, January 6, 2017, Chair of 
the rules Committee can object to Alabama, a State President 
Trump won by 30 points.
    Mr. Cohen. Hello?
    Mr. Jordan. You should probably mute though, Mr. Chair, 
while I am talking. Again, one more comedy of errors in this 
Committee hearing.
    Mr. Raskin, the lead impeachment manager, can object to 
Florida in 2017, and Maxine Waters, Chair of the House 
Financial Services Committee, can object to Wyoming, a State 
that President Trump won by 40 points.
    Somehow, Republicans, Mr. Chair, aren't allowed to object 
to Pennsylvania? Aren't allowed to object to Pennsylvania where 
they changed the law unconstitutionally in three different 
ways? Pennsylvania law says the election ends at 8 o'clock on 
Tuesday. The partisan supreme court went around the 
legislature, said, no, it is going to end on Friday?
    State election law says, oh, for mail-in ballots there has 
to be signature verification. Secretary of state, partisan 
secretary of state, said, no, we are not going to do that, not 
going to do that.
    For 2.6 million ballots they didn't follow the law because 
some elected Democrat, not the legislature, decided that? I 
can't object to Pennsylvania, but Democrats are allowed to on 
January 6, 2017, object to Wyoming and Alabama? You have got to 
be kidding me.
    For 4 years there was no letup in trying to overturn the 
2016 election. In fact, here is what Hillary Clinton said last 
fall. Just last fall, fall of 2020, she said last fall the 
election was stolen and she called President Trump 
illegitimate, 4 years after he was
elected.
    Somehow, when Republicans object, when Republicans object 
on January 6, 2021, to unconstitutional changes made in key 
swing States, somehow that warrants a 2,000-page political 
dossier by the Chair of the House Administration Committee? 
Now, you are going to have a hearing on this subject?
    Maybe we would be better served, Mr. Chair, if the full 
Judiciary Committee would have a hearing, just any hearing. Why 
don't we have a hearing on the border crisis? We all know there 
is a crisis down there. For goodness sakes, you are putting 
migrant kids in NASA facilities. Can't have a hearing on that.
    Can't have a hearing on cancel culture, the attack on the 
First Amendment. This is the Judiciary Committee, the Committee 
that is supposed to be in charge of protecting the Bill of 
Rights, the Constitution, and free speech rights. Can't have a 
hearing on cancel culture, but we are going to have a hearing 
in this Subcommittee on a report by the Chair of the House 
Administration Committee that targets Republicans.
    It is wrong. It is time the Judiciary Committee did its job 
and focused on the issues that matter to the American people, 
like the border crisis and like the cancel culture attack on 
the First Amendment.
    With that, I would yield back.
    Mr. Cohen. We welcome our Witnesses and thank them for 
participating in today's hearing. I will now recognize each of 
the Witnesses and after each introduction will recognize that 
Witness for his or her oral testimony.
    Your written testimony will be entered into the record in 
its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your 
testimony to 5 minutes. In the absence of a timing light, I 
will note orally when 5 minutes have elapsed and bang my gavel, 
my gavel. There will be also a timer on your screen. So, be 
please be mindful of it.
    Before proceeding with testimony, I would like to remind 
all our Witnesses that you have a legal obligation to provide 
truthful testimony and answers to this Subcommittee, that any 
false statement you may make today may subject you to 
prosecution under section 1001 of title 18 United States Code.
    Our first Witness is Mr. Jack Maskell. Mr. Maskell worked 
as a legislative attorney in the American Law Division of the 
Congressional Research Service for more than 40 years where he 
provided nonpartisan legal advice, analysis, and assistance to 
Members of the Congress, Congressional Committees, and staff on 
legislation and legislative matters, such as governmental 
ethics laws and regulations, conflict of interest laws, and 
congressional discipline of Members. He is the author of the 
original House Ethics Manual in 1976.
    He received his J.D. from American University Washington 
College of Law and a bachelor of business Administration and 
economics from the UMass Amherst.
    Mr. Maskell, you are recognized for 5 minutes, sir.

                   STATEMENT OF JACK MASKELL

    Mr. Maskell. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Chair, Madam Vice Chair, and Members of the 
Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to address you on 
this subject today.
    When analyzing congressional authority to take certain 
actions, some of the more difficult questions may involve 
concepts of implied authority from the Constitution or even 
inherent authority of legislative institutions generally. That 
is not the case here.
    Concerning Member conduct, there is a direct and express 
authority in the Constitution for each house to address and, if 
need be, to discipline their Members regarding their conduct.
    In imposing conduct standards and discipline, the House 
operates through its rulemaking powers, and these powers are 
set out together in the same clause of the Constitution. The 
authority was adapted from British parliamentary practice, as 
well as the experience of the colonial legislatures.
    Legislative and constitutional scholars have emphasized 
that the underlying justification for this power is to protect 
the integrity and dignity of the legislature and its 
proceedings and not merely to punish an individual.
    As noted in Deschler's Precedents, internal disciplinary 
action is, quote, ``rooted in the judgment of the House as to 
what was necessary or appropriate for it to do to assure the 
integrity of its legislative performance and its institutional 
acceptability to the people at large as a serious and 
responsible instrument of government.''
    For these reasons, the authority of the House to discipline 
its own Members has been applied and interpreted broadly to a 
wide range of conduct wherever it may occur, which the 
institution of the House believes is warranted. That is, in the 
end, the actual standard for House discipline, that the House 
may discipline those who it believes have breached its 
privileges or decorum or have damaged its integrity or 
reputation.
    In practice, the House has employed several disciplines or 
punishments, including expulsion, censure, reprimand, and fine. 
I will briefly talk about expulsion and censure.
    An expulsion, of course, involves the removal of a seated 
Member by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting.
    At the outset, an expulsion needs to be distinguished from 
an exclusion. An exclusion, as was made clear by the Supreme 
Court in Powell v. McCormack, is not a disciplinary exercise. 
Rather, an exclusion by a mere majority vote involves a 
different constitutional authority for each house to, quote, 
``judge the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own 
Members.''
    Generally, a Member may be excluded or prevented from 
taking the oath of office in his or her seat if the House finds 
that the Member elected was either not duly elected or has 
failed to meet the qualifications expressly designated in the 
Constitution.
    Now, although I have been talking about the power to expel 
or discipline, the House has recognized that there are other 
considerations in the policy or practice in doing so.
    Constitutional and legislative experts have agreed that, 
while it is necessary to expel for gross misconduct that has 
disgraced the House, that unjustly or inappropriately expelling 
a Member who has been duly elected by his or her constituents 
would be subversive of the rights of the people and at odds 
with the foundational principle of representational democracy.
    So, the power to expel has been exercised cautiously and in 
a circumscribed manner, and it has been reserved for the most 
serious offenses and misconduct. As Chair said, in fact, only 
five Members of the House have ever been expelled, three for 
disloyalty to the Union during the time of the Civil War and 
two more recently for violations of criminal laws relating to 
the abuse of one's congressional position and power.
    Now, that number may seem very small, but it should be 
noted that a number of Members who were facing probable 
expulsion had the good graces to resign from the House rather 
than put the House and themselves through that ordeal.
    As to censure, censure is a formal vote by a majority of 
Members present and voting on a resolution disapproving a 
Member's conduct, generally with the additional requirement 
that the Member stand in the well of the House Chamber to 
receive a verbal rebuke and reading of the censure resolution 
by the Speaker.
    There have been 23 censures of Members--22 Members and one 
Delegate actually--for conduct ranging from unparliamentary, 
insulting language on the floor to financial misconduct.
    Concerning the general grounds for censure, a select 
Committee in the House in 1967 explained: Censure of a Member 
has been deemed appropriate in cases of a breach of the 
privileges of the House.
    There are two classes of privilege, one affecting the 
rights of the House collectively, its safety, dignity, and the 
integrity of its proceedings, and the other affecting the 
rights, reputation, and conduct of Members individually.
    Thank you very much.
    [The statement of Mr. Maskell follows:]
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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
    Our next Witness is Josh Chafetz. Mr. Chafetz is a 
professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. His 
research focuses on structural constitutional law, American and 
British constitutional history, legislation and legislative 
procedure, American political development, and the intersection 
of law and politics.
    His second book, ``Congress's Constitution: Legislative 
Authority and the Separation of Powers,'' contained a chapter 
about Congress' internal disciplinary powers.
    Prior to joining the faculty at Georgetown, he served on 
the faculty at Cornell Law for 12 years. He earned his J.D. and 
his B.A. from Yale University. He also holds a doctorate in 
politics from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. 
He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Guido Calabresi of 
the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
    Professor Chafetz, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF JOSH CHAFETZ

    Mr. Chafetz. Thank you very much, Chair Cohen, Ranking 
Member Johnson, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. 
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding the 
constitutional bases, history, and scope of the congressional 
Chambers' power to discipline their own Members.
    This power is an important one, not simply because it 
facilitates the Chambers' ability to do their business on a 
day-to-day basis, but more fundamentally because it allows them 
to fulfill their central role in our constitutional order.
    As with so many of the powers and privileges of Congress, 
the power to discipline Members has its origins in English 
parliamentary practice. Importantly, the House of Commons began 
exercising this power at precisely the moment it was coming 
into its own as an institution that could check and 
counterbalance the Crown.
    Beginning in the middle of the 16th century, the House 
started to insist that it and not royal officials or royal 
courts was the proper body to police the conduct of its 
Members.
    As its conflict with the Crown heated up during the Stuart 
reign, the power was used vigilantly to protect the authority 
of the House of Commons. Members whose conduct subverted 
parliamentary power in the service of royal power found 
themselves expelled on multiple occasions.
    In 1716, Members were expelled for aiding the previous 
year's Jacobite rebellion, an insurrection that sought to 
restore the Stuarts to the throne and undermine parliamentary 
gains made in the Glorious Revolution and its aftermath.
    The power was also capable of being used in ways that 
harmed the institution and its claim to public legitimacy, as 
the 1763 proceedings surrounding John Wilkes demonstrated. 
Wilkes was expelled from Parliament for a publication 
criticizing the government of the day. Even after winning four 
successive elections, the House continued to refuse to seat him 
until 1774.
    Eighteenth century American colonists were deeply familiar 
both with the history of 17th century parliamentary opposition 
to the Stuart Crown and with the more recent Wilkes saga.
    They took from these events the lessons that legislative 
discipline was important, but also that it could be dangerously 
abused to undermine the representative character of the 
legislature, a concern that was heightened if Members were 
expelled multiple times for the same offense or expelled for 
conduct that was known to their constituents before they were 
elected.
    After relatively limited debate, the Constitutional 
Convention chose to give each Chamber the power to discipline 
its own Members. To forestall what James Madison described as 
the potential for dangerous abuse during emergencies of 
faction, expulsion would require a two-thirds vote. The 
convention considered but chose not to include a prohibition on 
re-expulsion for the same conduct.
    Early practice under the Constitution makes clear that, 
while the two-thirds bar was indeed effective at preventing 
factional expulsions, it also allowed minority factions to 
prevent discipline that was perhaps warranted.
    The vast bulk of congressional expulsions in American 
history are, as others have noted, associated with the Civil 
War, both Members from seceding States and Members from Union 
States who aided the Confederacy.
    Because of the difficulty of expulsion, starting in the 
early 19th century both houses began making use of censure, 
which could be done by a bare majority. Nineteenth century 
political culture often saw Members who had been censured 
resign and then seek reelection as a way of demonstrating that 
their conduct had the support of their constituents. Mindful of 
the lessons of Wilkes, those Members were regularly reseated.
    It wasn't until the 20th century that criminal prosecution 
became a central mechanism of regulating Member conduct, and 
the beginnings of criminal prosecution of Members came with not 
implausible claims that the Members were being persecuted for 
their opposition to parts of President Teddy Roosevelt's 
agenda.
    Nevertheless, across the 20th century, criminal law became 
increasingly prominent as a means of enforcing congressional 
ethics and congressional discipline, with cameral discipline 
largely coming in either after criminal proceedings had wrapped 
up or for matters deemed too minor to rise to the level of 
criminality.
    The one prominent 20th century exception to this was the 
1954 Senate censure of Joseph McCarthy, an incident that was 
widely perceived as redounding to the credit and benefit of the 
Senate as an institution.
    So, let me close with just a couple of big picture 
takeaways from this history.
    First, the power to discipline Members is both broad and, 
substantively, relatively unencumbered. It is for the Chambers 
themselves to develop their law on what constitutes disorderly 
behavior, and they should, in my view, do so with an eye 
towards both maintaining and strengthening the constitutional 
order writ large and Congress' central role in it. The primary 
constraints on the power are not substantive, but procedural.
    Expulsion, which poses the greatest potential threat to 
democratic governance, requires a two-thirds supermajority. All 
forms of discipline are subject to a Wilkes-derived principle 
that conduct known to the constituents prior to election should 
generally not be punished.
    That said, the Framers chose not to encode this as a Rule 
within constitutional text and it is better understood as a 
strong but not dispositive argument.
    Second, and following on from the first point, the cameral 
disciplinary power is a means of promoting the House's 
institutional power. To the extent that primary responsibility 
for regulating Members' conduct is outsourced to the executive 
and the judiciary, then those institutions not only have a tool 
with which to influence Members, they also have a powerful 
argument for public support and public trust as against 
Congress.
    If other institutions are regularly seen to clean up 
Congress' messes, then the public will receive the lesson that 
Congress is corrupt, while those other institutions are 
paragons of rectitude. Congress would do better, in my view, to 
show the public it can keep its own houses in order.
    Thank you.
    [The statement of Mr. Chafetz follows:]
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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir, Mr. Chafetz.
    Now, we will have James Wallner. Mr. Wallner is a resident 
senior fellow in governance at the R Street Institute. He 
researches and writes about Congress, the separation of powers, 
legislative procedure, and the Federal policy process. He also 
serves as a professorial lecturer at the Department of 
Government at AU, American University, a fellow at the AU 
Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.
    He received his master and doctorate degrees in politics 
from Catholic University of America and bachelor's in political 
science from Georgia, University thereof. He holds a master's 
degree in international and European politics from the 
University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
    Mr. Wallner, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF JAMES WALLNER

    Mr. Wallner. Chair Cohen, Ranking Member Johnson, Members 
of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify 
about Congress' power under the constitution to discipline its 
Members. It is an honor to appear before you today, and I look 
forward to your questions.
    It is important to acknowledge at the outset of my remarks 
that the Committee is considering the extent of Congress' power 
to discipline its Members just weeks after a violent mob 
attacked and ransacked the Capitol. Like most Americans, I was 
shocked, appalled, and saddened by that tragic event.
    We cannot go back in time, regrettably, to change what 
happened that day, but we are able to learn from it. I believe 
that the most important lesson that that event can teach us is 
that it is better to resolve our disagreements via debate, 
deliberation, and compromise instead of through force, 
violence, and intimidation.
    I believe that this context matters, given recent calls for 
Congress to discipline Members who objected to Arizona's and 
Pennsylvania's electoral results when the House and Senate 
gathered in joint session on the day of the attack to count the 
votes for President and Vice President.
    Proponents of taking disciplinary action against those 
Members appear to believe that they aided and abetted the 
Capitol attack by using procedures authorized by the House and 
Senate. Specifically, the Members used procedures authorized by 
the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to adjudicate their concerns 
about two States' electoral results in the 2020 Presidential 
election.
    Of course, Congress has the power to discipline its 
Members, both today and in the past, for using the procedures 
authorized by law. The question, however, is whether it should 
use that power in specific instances.
    Whatever one's views are on the details of this specific 
case, I believe more generally that disciplining Members for 
using authorized procedures to participate in the legislative 
process on behalf of their constituents undermines that process 
and makes it harder for Congress' Members to debate, to 
deliberate, and to compromise as envisioned in the 
Constitution.
    Disciplining Members for using authorized Rules to 
adjudicate their concerns on the House and Senate floors 
reinforces the status quo and it makes it harder for those 
opposed it to, people like the civil rights activists of the 
1950s and 1960s, Members of the women's suffrage movement, and 
abolitionists, to change public policy inside Congress.
    Of course, the Constitution empowers Congress to discipline 
its Members. My fellow Witnesses have discussed that in great 
detail. The Rules and Expulsion Clause empowers the House and 
Senate to expel Members. Significantly, the clause does not 
define the appropriate grounds for expulsion. It instead raises 
the number of votes required to expel a Member to a two-thirds 
majority.
    Delegates to the 1787 Federal Convention that crafted the 
Constitution set this higher threshold to expel Members because 
they wanted to make it harder for majority factions in the 
House and Senate to use the power to silence their political 
opponents.
    For example, James Madison worried during the delegates' 
debate on this question that the expulsion power would be, 
quote, ``dangerously abused,'' end quote, by majority factions 
if the threshold was not set at a two-thirds majority.
    The Constitution empowers Congress to discipline its 
Members to protect the integrity of the legislative process and 
to safeguard Congress' role as a crucible of legitimate 
political conflict.
    Congress has used this power to protect the space inside 
the House and Senate where Americans' elected representatives 
gather to participate in the activity of self-government on 
their behalf.
    Constitutional provisions like the Privilege from Arrest 
and Speech and Debate Clauses suggest that the activity of 
Members inside Congress is important.
    Self-government is what happens when Americans with 
different views come together in those institutional spaces to 
debate, to deliberate, and to compromise.
    Because Americans with different views participate in the 
Act of self-government on the basis of equality, their 
political activity in places like the House and Senate 
inevitably generates disagreement or political conflict.
    That is why Rules and legislative procedures are essential 
to making Congress work. They make it possible for Members to 
compromise when they disagree with one another.
    Standards are important to protecting the integrity of the 
legislative process. They facilitate debate, deliberation, and 
compromise only when they are adhered to voluntarily by all 
Members. Such adherence requires that Members know how those 
standards will be enforced in advance.
    Standards and Rules are vital to what Congress does because 
its Members can compensate for the difficulties inherent in 
self-government by preserving their ability to make and keep 
promises.
    When Members cannot know with certainty the outcomes of 
their actions, the ability to make and keep promises in the 
forms of rules and norms, according to the political theorist 
Hannah Arendt, ``creates islands of predictability'' and 
``goalposts of reliability'' in politics.
    In other words, rules make it possible for Members to form 
expectations about how Congress will operate in the future. 
That, in turn, makes it easier for those Members to settle for 
suboptimal outcomes, to compromise, in the present.
    Disciplining Members for using the rules to achieve their 
goals undermines the ability of those rules to serve this role 
and it makes enforcing the rules arbitrary. It also complicates 
Members' ability--
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Wallner?
    Mr. Wallner. Yes, sir?
    Mr. Cohen. We have a 5-minute rule and you are kind of 
gone. So, if you can wrap up real quick, I appreciate it.
    Mr. Wallner. Absolutely.
    Well, I would just say that Congress, I believe, should 
refrain from using its constitutional power to discipline its 
Members for following the rules and it should instead focus its 
effort on changing those rules moving forward. The ability of 
its Members to debate, deliberate, and compromise ultimately 
depends upon it.
    [The statement of Mr. Wallner follows:]
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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your being a 
Witness, and I appreciate your testimony.
    Our final Witness is Stan Brand. Mr. Brand is a partner in 
the Brand Woodard law firm. He serves as Distinguished Fellow 
in Law and Government at Penn State University's Dickinson 
School of Law.
    From 1976 to 1983, he served as general counsel to the U.S. 
House of Representatives under the august Speaker Thomas P. 
``Tip'' O'Neill, where he was the House's chief legal officer 
responsible for representing the House, its Members, officers, 
and employees in connection with legal procedures and 
litigation arising from the conduct of their official 
activities.
    In private practice he has represented numerous individuals 
and organizations investigated by or called to testify before 
Congress.
    Mr. Brand holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law 
Center and a B.A. from Franklin & Marshall.
    You are recognized for 5 minutes, sir.

                 STATEMENT OF STANLEY M. BRAND

    Mr. Brand. Thank you for inviting me to address this 
important topic, Mr. Chair. It is nice to be back in the House, 
even just as a Witness, even virtually.
    I am a creature of the House of Representatives, having 
served as the first litigating House counsel under Speaker Tip 
O'Neill. It was during his tenure that I represented the House 
in defense of its constitutional authority at all levels of the 
Federal judiciary, including before the Supreme Court.
    These cases, far-reaching and precedent-setting, involved 
challenges to the House chaplaincy, the legislative veto, 
subpoenas to the executive branch involving claims of 
Presidential privileges, and the legislative immunity of 
Members and officers of the House in civil and criminal cases, 
and the latter's intersection with the self-disciplinary power 
that is the subject of today's hearing.
    What I learned in the course of those representations was 
the dearth of judicial understanding of and appreciation for 
the House's unique and expansive authority to discipline its 
Members.
    As I explain in more detail in my written statement, that 
is why I requested and the Speaker granted my request to enter 
the case of United States v. Helstoski in the Supreme Court, to 
disabuse the Supreme Court of its notion, as articulated in 
Brewster, that the process of disciplining a Member is subject 
to the risk of abuse if not bounded by procedural safeguards or 
standards and is within the unbridled discretion of the House.
    Our amicus brief argued that the House's process, while not 
exactly equivalent to a judicial trial, was attended by the 
rudiments of due process and detailed rules of procedure, which 
seemed to at least earn tacit acknowledgment in its Helstoski 
decision a decade later.
    To sustain a robust self-disciplinary process free from 
judicial intervention, I believe the House must be sensitive to 
what the courts could construe as limits on its power.
    This does not mean the House should shrink from its 
obligation to police its Members. As I explain in my written 
statement, to prevent what I believe has been overreaching by 
the Department of Justice in pursuit of its enforcement of 
criminal statutes, the House must have a credible enforcement 
process to allay judicial, indeed public concern that Members 
who violate its ethical rules will not be held accountable.
    The proper place to determine the applicability of House 
rules governing Members' conduct is in the House. Although it 
is almost 40 years since I left the House, and I have been on 
the defense side of the table, as it were, in over three dozen 
ethics proceedings in the House and Senate, I continue to 
advocate for the disciplinary power of the House.
    I filed an amicus brief in support of the certiorari 
petitions, for example, in Aaron J. Schock v. United States, 
seeking review of the Seventh Circuit rulings dismissing 
challenges to an indictment against former Congressman Schock 
based on the rulemaking Clause and the Speech or Debate Clause, 
which, in my view, pose serious threats to the independence of 
the Congress.
    I filed an amicus brief supporting certiorari in the 
criminal case of Richard Renzi v. United States because the 
indictment charged the performance of legislative acts, in that 
case pre-legislative investigations and fact-finding, which I 
believe contravene the Speech or Debate Clause.
    In both cases I argued that the proper forum for 
consideration of these alleged offenses was in the House, not 
before the judiciary. I pointed both to the Office of 
Congressional Ethics and the House Ethics Committee as the 
responsible offices for vindicating the House's self-
disciplinary process for legislative misconduct.
    I continue to believe in that principle, and I welcome your 
questions in this matter.
    Thank you.
    [The statement of Mr. Brand follows:]
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    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Brand.
    We will now proceed under the 5-minute rule with questions, 
and I will take the first 5 minutes here as a prerogative.
    For Mr. Maskell or Mr. Chafetz, much of the House's 
disciplinary practice is guided by precedent. What general 
principles or policies, if any, have evolved over time 
regarding the exercise of the House's disciplinary authority?
    Mr. Maskell, do you want to take the first?
    Mr. Maskell. Yes, sure.
    Mr. Chair, that is a good question. Stan Brand mentioned 
the fact that there are entire rules that the House Ethics 
Committee has adopted that sets in motion procedures that would 
satisfy most arguments of due process.
    So, over the course of the number of years, although some 
courts and some people in Congress have thought that it could 
be a procedure just quickly on the floor without much due 
process, respect for that process has come about over the 
years.
    We now have these detailed procedures. When, for example, 
an expulsion resolution is referred to the Committee, we have 
all the due process questions and procedures.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Chafetz, do you want to add anything to that?
    Mr. Chafetz. I think he basically covered it. I would just 
add that from the earliest days of Congress these questions 
have arisen. Whenever there have been, especially expulsion 
proceedings, there has always been a concern to have some sort 
of adequate procedure to protect the Members.
    You can understand why, right? These are Members using 
discipline against their own colleagues. It is not surprising 
that they would have a sense that they want to be fair, if for 
no other reason than a ``there but for the grace of God go I'' 
kind of feeling.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Brand or Mr. Maskell, what is the significance of the 
Supreme Court decision in Powell v. McCormack--I guess Speaker 
McCormack--to Congress' power to discipline its Membership? Did 
the case in any way alter the way Congress considers questions 
of Member discipline?
    Mr. Brand, do you want to take a shot at that and explain 
Powell to us?
    Mr. Brand. Yes, sir.
    Powell, of course, is an exclusion case. In the course of 
interpreting the standing qualifications of office--age, 
citizenship, and residency--I think the Court cast some doubt 
on the Congress' ability to exclude a Member--or to discipline, 
at least, expel a Member who had been re-elected by his 
constituents in the interim.
    That is a case where the Constitution in other sections 
provided a textual limit, at least in the Court's view, on what 
the power of the Congress would be.
    The other Witnesses have pointed out, the Expulsion Clause 
by itself has no express textual limits, but the old saying in 
law school is hard cases make bad law. The Supreme Court is 
always capable of taking jurisdiction over a matter where it 
thinks the Congress could have arguably exceeded its authority.
    So, I think Powell is a warning light. It is not an express 
limitation, but the historical treatment of the power of the 
Congress to exclude in that case I think has to be looked at.
    I would associate myself with Professor Chafetz's written 
statement on the history of all of this, because it is 
incredibly important to understand how we got to the position 
we did in the Constitution. He has outlined the background in 
Parliament for all of this.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
    Professor Chafetz, in the Constitutional Convention, which 
I am sure you have read about, was congressional discipline 
discussed and how it should work? Were there any points of 
contention or concerns if there was any discussion?
    Mr. Chafetz. So, it was discussed, although it was 
discussed relatively briefly.
    So, I mention in my written testimony that you get this 
initial draft in the Committee of Detail that gives each house 
of Congress the authority to punish its own Members for 
disorderly behavior and says each house can expel, but not a 
second time for the same offense. Then the next draft we get, 
with no explanation, they just drop but not a second time for 
the same offense.
    This is all before it comes to the floor of the Convention. 
On the floor of the Convention, James Madison says, well, we 
have to worry about what he calls emergency of faction, 
situations in which--he didn't want to use the word ``party,'' 
``partisan,'' but factional differences would run so high that 
a majority faction might expel minority Members.
    So, he says, to guard against this, we should put in a two-
thirds supermajority requirement for expulsion. The Committee 
adopts that basically without much debate, and that is it. They 
are done with it.
    Overall, it was uncontroversial, and Madison made that sort 
of crucial intervention right at the end.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Professor Chafetz.
    My 5 minutes are up, and I now recognize Mr. Johnson for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I want to ask Mr. Wallner--I appreciate all our Witnesses. 
I appreciate your historical insights, and it is important to 
us.
    I think that I just want to say at the outset here, I know 
I can speak for the Republicans on the Committee, we recognize 
and appreciate this history. We revere the House Rules and the 
rules of decorum and civility and everything else that we are 
bound by here.
    The question is, though--I would ask this to Mr. Wallner--
let me read an excerpt really quick from your written report to 
us and ask you about that.
    You said, on page 5, quote: ``When coupled with the rising 
toxicity of our current politics, Members' tendency to 
disregard the rules when doing so helps them, to call for their 
strict enforcement when it does not, and to discipline their 
opponents for following the rules exacerbates Congress' present 
dysfunction and makes it harder for the House and Senate to 
operate as envisioned by the Constitution,'' unquote.
    I certainly agree with that sentiment, but I wonder if you 
could unpack that for us a little bit more, Mr. Wallner, and 
tell us what harm might come by the House Rules being used in a 
new way as kind of a political weapon.
    Mr. Wallner. Thank you for the question.
    The whole point of the House is to adjudicate disagreement 
between its Members. The rules are leverage that allow Members 
to participate in that process. They are what allows Members 
and gives them a voice to represent their constituents. Out of 
that struggle comes compromise.
    I don't think we fully appreciate that. We don't understand 
that today, I believe, because we see Congress as a giant 
factory, and we think your job is to build widgets according to 
some blueprint that has been designed elsewhere.
    When you have that view of Congress, all of a sudden the 
rules are very concerning if they allow your opponents to win. 
We see politics as a means to an end, not a practice in which 
we participate.
    So, when you go down this road, it becomes very, very hard 
to get back, because you have adopted this view of politics as 
a production-oriented activity.
    Therefore, I have no need to listen to you if I disagree 
with you, and I will ignore the rules if they give you a voice, 
but I will demand that those rules be enforced when they give 
me a voice. I am not a hypocrite for doing so, because we have 
two different outcomes.
    I think that is exactly where we are. That is where our 
colleagues are, your colleagues are on the other side of 
Capitol Hill in the Senate right now with regard to the 
filibuster and the nuclear option, for instance. It is good one 
day and bad the other.
    I think this really speaks to the problem of our politics. 
Today, if we can't adjudicate our disagreements in Congress, 
then where else are we supposed to do it? That is the problem 
that I think we need to grapple with.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. No, I think you said that very 
well.
    I am going to speak to all the Witnesses today and all of 
my colleagues on this Committee. One thing that I think we 
could all agree with is that there has been, as you said, 
toxicity here on Capitol Hill. There is an increase in tension.
    I appreciate what Chair Cohen said at the outset of this 
hearing. We don't want to increase the tension. We can't afford 
to do that because we have an escalation now. It is almost like 
the Cold War. It is mutually assured destruction by both sides.
    We see that developing at a rapid pace, and many of us are 
deeply concerned about how we ever put this genie back in the 
bottle. The only way to de-escalate it, I would say with due 
respect to my Chair and my colleagues, is for us to not engage 
in this ``gotcha'' kind of politics, just as you just said.
    The idea that a Member in leadership would use their 
official office and MRA resources to review the correspondence 
of nearly 150 of her colleagues to produce a 2,000-page report 
where she effectively insinuates that those Members are 
complicit in a crime is in no way a de-escalation. It is 
sparking a political war at the worst possible time.
    Both sides are guilty of this, right? There is enough of 
that to go around.
    I guess the question is--maybe I will start with you, Mr. 
Wallner, and any Witnesses who want to weigh in on this. How do 
we possibly use the rules and Act in an appropriate manner to 
de-escalate things around here? I would love to hear your 
insights on that.
    Mr. Wallner. Well, the first thing is to be committed to 
the rules even when they don't necessarily benefit you. 
Congressman Jordan mentioned earlier the Democrats in the past 
who had objected to electoral counts during the counting of the 
votes for Vice President and President.
    Sometimes Members use rules to do things that you find 
unpleasant or that you find unhelpful. The point is that you 
can argue against them, but if you weaponize those rules and 
you call into question their ability to use those rules instead 
of saying, ``Maybe we should change the rules in general for 
everybody,'' then I think that is the general direction we need 
to head in.
    If we instead say, ``We are going to attack the rules 
instead,'' we are going to drag down those rules into the fray 
and we are going to make it impossible for Congress to serve as 
that Crucible of Conflict that the Framers designed it for.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Unfortunately, I am out of time. 
I yield back. I appreciate all the Witnesses for your time 
today.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
    I now recognize Chair of the Full Committee, Mr. Nadler, 
for 5 minutes.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you very much.
    I must say that, unlike a lot of different hearings, I 
found all the Witnesses entirely reasonable today.
    Let me ask, Professor Chafetz, in your written testimony 
you noted that the rulemaking Clause and the Expulsion Clause's 
inclusion in the same section of the Constitution is likely not 
incidental.
    What is the relationship between these two powers? How does 
the rulemaking Clause inform the scope of the Expulsion Clause?
    Mr. Chafetz. So, the rulemaking Clause is in some sense 
seems modest from its text, but it is hugely influential. The 
Rulemaking Clause basically allows each Chamber of Congress to 
give itself its own Constitution, to create its own rules and 
structure its own deliberations.
    Then the punishment clauses basically come in and say: If 
some of your Members are going against those rules you have 
created or are undermining the institution, then the Chamber 
can do something about it. It doesn't have to be sort of stuck 
with Members who are undermining the structure that it itself 
is empowered to create.
    So, they go together hand-in glove, and they are 
tremendously important for the power of the Chambers.
    Chair Nadler. Well, thank you.
    Mr. Maskell, Congress' authority to discipline its Members 
is generally understood to be quite broad. What constitutional 
constraints exist on Congress' ability to discipline its 
Members?
    Mr. Wallner. Well, we are not really sure, because the 
courts haven't really restrained it specifically or directly.
    In Powell v. McCormack, the majority opinion did note that 
Congress has questioned its power to expel after reelection, 
after a Member is reelected.
    However, in that same opinion, in a concurring opinion, 
Justice Douglas said, if this were an expulsion case we 
wouldn't be here today. That is, because it is textually 
committed to Congress to deal with an expulsion.
    So, we haven't really seen it yet. Most of the restraints 
have been self-restraint and the Congress and the House and the 
Senate itself questioning its policy to do so, because they 
don't want to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the 
electorate.
    So, if the electorate knew about conduct and still elected 
the Member, they have--the House and Senate have generally 
refrained from expulsion in those cases, as a matter of policy.
    Chair Nadler. Well, thank you.
    Mr. Brand, first, let me say it is good to see you again.
    Let me ask you, can Congress impose discipline on a Member 
separate from any judicially imposed criminal punishment for 
criminal conduct that occurred while in office?
    Mr. Brand. Yes. In fact, in 1984, shortly after I left the 
House, former Congressman George V. Hansen was convicted of 
certain felonies regarding his financial disclosure. He was 
convicted.
    The House Ethics Committee at that time had a rule that 
said any Member who is convicted of an offense that carries a 
penalty of 2 or more years automatically gets that same conduct 
reviewed by the Standards Committee, albeit under a different 
standard of proof, not beyond a reasonable doubt but 
preponderance of the evidence.
    In fact, I was hired as outside counsel, and subsequently 
the House determined to reprimand Congressman Hansen for that 
conduct.
    So, yeah, it is a parallel system, and it is independent 
from the criminal justice system.
    I would point out just for the memory of Congressman Hansen 
that his conviction was reversed, pursuant to a coram nobis 
petition, after the Supreme Court overturned the decision under 
which he had been convicted.
    If I could, I would just like to try to give Congressman 
Johnson some comfort, if I can, and point out that the House 
Ethics Committee, I believe, is the only Committee in the House 
which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. In 
my 40 years of experience, that has acted--some people say 
critically--as a check on the Committee acting in a partisan 
way, because to get a proceeding concluded or to bring a 
proceeding, you have to have somebody from the opposite party 
agree to move forward.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you.
    Let me ask Mr. Wallner, just comment on what the other 
Witnesses have said and where you disagree with them, if you 
do.
    Mr. Wallner. I would just point out that the Supreme Court 
said in the 1892 case United States v. Ballin that the power to 
determine Congress' own rules of procedures is unlimited, to 
the extent that it doesn't violate other explicit 
constitutional provisions. So, there are certain limits on 
that, from the Court's perspective.
    I would also just point out that Congress--and I would 
encourage you and your colleagues not to adopt a Supreme Court-
centric or legalistic view of this power.
    As James Madison said in 1834, as the legislative executive 
in judicial departments are coordinate and equally balanced to 
support the Constitution, it follows that each must, in the 
exercise of its functions, be guided by the text of the 
Constitution, according to its own interpretation of it.
    Congress does not work for the Supreme Court. Congress gets 
to interpret its powers under the Constitution as it sees fit 
as well. So, I would encourage you to think independently about 
that instead of looking to the courts and adopting an overly 
legalistic attitude towards what you are and are not allowed to 
do.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you very much. I wasn't aware that 
Madison was still alive in 1834, but apparently.
    In any event, thank you very much. I yield back.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I would now like to recognize Mr. Jordan for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Wallner, are Democrats weaponizing the rules?
    Mr. Wallner. If Democrats are going to punish Members for 
using rules, then it appears that they are weaponizing the 
rules, yes.
    Mr. Jordan. Well, let me give you some examples.
    The Democrats have taken away the one amendment that the 
minority party has historically had in the House, the motion to 
recommit. So, it is one last chance you get, as the minority 
party, to amend legislation that has passed, and they have 
taken that away from Republicans this Congress.
    Is that a weaponization of the rules?
    Mr. Wallner. So, I would respectfully disagree. Whether or 
not that is a good idea, obviously, that is a departure, a very 
significant departure from the norm and it clamps down on 
debate and deliberation in the House. It is still setting rules 
and using its power under the Constitution to set those rules, 
and we can debate whether or not they are right or wrong.
    By punishing Members for following rules, that is a whole 
separate order of issues that I think should concern all 
Members, Republican, and Democrat alike.
    Mr. Jordan. Well, let's go with that question then.
    Is it appropriate to kick someone off their Committee 
assignments for things they said prior to coming to Congress 
when that person has been duly elected by the constituents in 
their district?
    Mr. Wallner. So, this is a question that has been debated 
throughout Congress' history.
    I would point out that the House has the power to determine 
its Committee assignments. It does begin to start to look like 
a slippery slope when you start to penalize Members for things 
that they did prior to their service simply because you don't 
like what they did.
    The question is, are you going to use your power on that 
Committee to somehow undermine the Congress or disrupt the 
fabric of the Republic, or this simply a way to signal to one's 
constituents that you are strong on these issues by punishing 
some Member who is unrelated to you and your constituency?
    Mr. Jordan. How about bypassing the Committee process, do 
you think that is a good idea? It may be allowed by the rules. 
Do you think that is a good idea?
    Mr. Wallner. To the extent that the Committees help 
Congress to develop good, informative solutions to the problems 
we face, no, it does not appear to be a good idea.
    Mr. Jordan. I mean, the last 2 weeks Democrats have 
radically changed election law. They have radically changed 
police law. Today they voted on two pieces of legislation that 
radically change gun law. None of those pieces of legislation 
went through the Committee.
    Frankly, all of them were supposed to actually come through 
our Committee, the Judiciary Committee, at least--well, two of 
them--three of them all the way that we had sole jurisdiction. 
On one bill, we had partial jurisdiction. None of them came 
through our Committee.
    Next week they are going to pass two immigration bills that 
give amnesty to illegals, and those aren't going through 
Committee either.
    Do you think that is healthy for the process and for this 
overall environment in Congress?
    Mr. Wallner. In the House, no, because the Members of the 
House participate in Committees. That is where you do your 
work, unlike the Senate, where most of it happens on the floor.
    To the extent that the majority is bypassing Committees 
specifically to avoid allowing Members to participate in that 
process, that is something that is unhelpful overall to the 
health of our Republic and the Constitution and the House under 
it.
    Mr. Jordan. Are you concerned about what I would call the 
ultimate rule change, this phenomenon we now see in America 
called cancel culture? I would say, we are talking about rules, 
that is like the ultimate rule change in the First Amendment.
    Are you concerned about what you are seeing? Well, let's do 
a specific example. We had two Democrat Members of Congress 
write a letter to the carriers of certain television networks 
asking them to consider pulling off FOX News, Newsmax, and One 
America News, from their platform.
    Do you think that is healthy?
    Mr. Wallner. I do not. I am very concerned.
    I have strong policy views about things, but I am very 
concerned about any effort, Republican or Democrat, to silence 
one's opponents, because in politics you reveal yourself and 
you take positions and you participate by speaking out and by 
acting.
    That is what the First amendment is all about. There are 
associational rights that allow us and empower us to 
participate in politics. That is what makes us--
    Mr. Jordan. I would never, Mr. Wallner, I would never write 
a letter asking carriers to take down CNN and MSNBC, because I 
disagree with most of what they say on those programs--or those 
networks. I would never do that. My guess is you wouldn't 
either, would you?
    Mr. Wallner. No, sir.
    Mr. Jordan. No, because the First Amendment.
    So, I think this is a fundamental question for us to deal 
with. Do you have a functioning First amendment when only one 
side is allowed to speak? That seems to be, unfortunately, 
where the Democrats are heading.
    Do you have free speech when only the left decides what can 
be said? That is where we are headed. As evidenced by that, 
again, we had two Democrat Members of Congress specifically 
inquire.
    I should read from that letter. They actually said they 
wanted to know, AT&T, how many people, before the election, how 
many of your subscribers actually were watching FOX News, 
Newsmax, and One America News.
    Now, if that is not chilling, Members of the government 
asking a carrier how many of the people who subscribe to your 
network were actually watching these two programs that they 
were encouraging to be taken off the platform.
    I think that is frightening, frankly. The idea that we 
haven't discussed this or had a hearing on this is even more 
concerning.
    Do you agree?
    Mr. Wallner. Yes, sir, and especially in the House. Setting 
aside the First Amendment, look, abolitionists, there were 
fights over the Gag Rule prior to the Civil War, say you can't 
even bring up slavery.
    When you can't, as a Member of the House, raise issues that 
your constituents and you feel are important, then I am not 
sure what you are doing there. The institution, I am not sure 
what it is doing there either.
    The House isn't a factory. It is a place where people go to 
debate, to argue, to disagree, and to compromise.
    Mr. Jordan. Make your best argument, get your best hold, 
have the debate, and shake hands when it is over. I thought 
that is what the First amendment was all about. I thought the 
House Judiciary Committee was supposed to be the Committee that 
defended that right.
    Instead, we have far too many people encouraging--
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Jordan, your time is up.
    Mr. Jordan. --encouraging the cancel culture.
    Mr. Cohen. Your time is up, Mr. Jordan.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Cohen. You are welcome, sir.
    I next recognize Mr. Raskin for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chair, thank you very much.
    I want to agree with Mr. Johnson about the toxicity of the 
present political culture in Congress. I thank him for his 
comments.
    I think that it almost indisputably began on January 6, 
with the first violent insurrection and mob attack against 
Congress in the history of the United States, incited by 
President Trump in an effort to overthrow the results of the 
2020 Presidential election.
    So, I want to respond to today's waterfall of counterfeit 
outrage and indignation. I have to thank Mr. Jordan for 
pointing out the obvious, that Members of both political 
parties have historically raised objections in the electoral 
college certification process, but only one President, with 
Members of his party in tow, has incited a violent mob to 
attack Congress during the actual execution of its electoral 
college duties in the counting of the electors.
    So, I wish he had been able to show his video, because it 
would have demonstrated people getting up, in my case for 
perhaps 15 seconds, making a totally peaceful, nonviolent 
objection, not in any way inciting a violent mob to try to 
overthrow the peaceful transfer of power in America. It is 
shameful that we even have to point this out, but equating the 
two is absurd.
    Mr. Jordan continually said that he doesn't have the right 
to object. They get to object, but he can't object and so on. 
That is absurd. Has he been punished in any way for the 
objections that he made? Has there been a single Republican 
Member of the House that has been punished, admonished, 
censured, or reprimanded in any way for making objection? Not 
at all.
    What we are talking about is a violent attack on the 
Congress of the United States. One would have hoped, in 
Madisonian fashion, that all of us would have stood up for our 
institution rather than sticking, in a cult-like fashion, with 
our political party and a President who essentially incited a 
mob attack on us, on the lives of our people and his own Vice 
President, as they chanted, ``Traitor, traitor, traitor,'' and, 
``Hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence.''
    Mr. Jordan talks about cancel culture, which is fascinating 
to me. Of course, Donald Trump tried to cancel out the entire 
election and cancel out our lives in the process. Five people 
were killed during the January 6 attacks as they sent mobs out 
to look for Vice President Pence, to look for Nancy Pelosi.
    Lindsey Graham said afterwards: They could have had a bomb. 
We all could have died.
    Doesn't anybody have any sense of democratic self-respect 
about our own institution? Perhaps cancel culture doesn't apply 
to our lives and our workplace and our government.
    All right, let's say it just applies to speech. Let me 
introduce you to someone named Liz Cheney, who happens to be 
the Chair of the House Republican Conference, who had the 
courage and the patriotism to stand up and to say that Donald 
Trump had solicited the mob, he assembled the mob, he incited 
the mob, he lit the match that led to the attack on Congress, 
none of it would have happened without him.
    Now, you might agree with it, you might disagree with it, 
whatever. What did they do? Well, Mr. Jordan and his friends 
tried to overthrow her. They tried to cancel out her leadership 
and to overturn her leadership in the House Republican 
Conference.
    Now, fortunately, that was too much cancel culture for the 
other Members of the caucus, and they rejected that on a two-
to-one vote. They have gone ahead to try to get her political 
party in Wyoming to cancel her out by censuring her.
    They did the same thing to Senator Cassidy in Louisiana. 
They did the same thing to Senator Burr in North Carolina. All 
over the country, they are trying to censure them for doing 
their jobs and upholding their oath of office.
    You talk to me about cancel culture? You invented cancel 
culture. This right-wing cancel culture has run amok as they 
try to turn a political party, a once great political party, 
into a religious cult where everyone has to follow the cult of 
personality around Donald Trump.
    Here is what Donald Trump did. He canceled out Chris Krebs, 
the Director of Cybersecurity, for pushing back against lies 
that the election was stolen. He urged people to cancel HBO 
because Bill Maher was mean to him. What a snowflake.
    He urged people to cancel their subscription to New York 
magazine because of a mean tweet that was sent out by an 
editor. He called for Charles Krauthammer to be fired because 
he was critical of Donald Trump. He said Megyn Kelly should be 
boycotted because she was too negative towards him.
    He called for the firing of every NFL player in the league 
who didn't stand for the National Anthem, because he didn't 
agree with their exercise of their First amendment rights. Then 
he claimed the right to pull the broadcast licenses of NBC and 
CNN and so on.
    I haven't heard Mr. Jordan talk about any of that. You talk 
about cancel culture? You invented cancel culture, and you 
continue to stand by while they try to cancel out the voices of 
anybody in the Republican Party who disagrees with Donald 
Trump.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Raskin. I appreciate your 5 
minutes.
    Next recognized is Mr. McClintock--
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, I have to ask that 
those words be taken down. The name calling of the former 
President obviously violates the rules, ironically on a day 
when we are talking about the importance of decorum and the 
rules. I love my friend Jamie Raskin, but he went over the 
line, and I think that those comments need to be stricken from 
the record.
    Mr. Cohen. Is that a motion?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. That is a motion.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chair, if I stated something false about 
the private citizen, who asserts he is a private citizen, Mr. 
Trump, which is why he didn't come and testify in his 
impeachment trial in the Senate, if I stated something false, I 
would retract it.
    Mr. Johnson, did I misstate something about what he had 
done?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Oh, I don't know. You called the 
former President a snowflake and you implied lots of other 
nefarious things about your colleagues, but we will let the 
rest of that fly. But, snowflake--
    Mr. Raskin. Okay, I will withdraw the snowflake comment and 
keep that to myself if you don't want to hear that today. I 
withdraw that.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I am just saying that you just 
demonstrated exactly what it is that we are talking about here 
today, Jamie. We have got to--
    Mr. Raskin. Well, Mr. Johnson, wait a second. I was 
responding to Mr. Jordan. I didn't hear you correct him on any 
of the things he said. He laid into us and accused us of cancel 
culture. I turned it around, reverse Uno, as my nephew Boman 
would say, okay?
    He accused us of cancel culture, and I am saying that his 
caucus and his approach is all about cancel culture.
    Mr. Cohen. The Chair is going to interrupt here, and we are 
going to recognize Mr. McClintock, who is next in the order.
    Mr. McClintock, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Is Mr. McClintock with us?
    If he is not, we will move to Mr. Roy, and he is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Roy. Well, thank you, Chair.
    Mr. Cohen. You are welcome.
    Mr. Roy. I have a few questions for Mr. Wallner.
    Mr. Wallner, would you agree with me--and I ask you to keep 
your answer reasonably short so we can through it, because I 
only have 5 minutes--but would you agree with me that the 
purpose and structure of the Constitution is set up for 
Congress to be able to represent our constituents, get 
together, vote, debate, amend, and that it should be a purpose 
where the body is reflecting people and that the rules that are 
put in place are made to make the body function better?
    Mr. Wallner. Yes.
    Mr. Roy. Do you believe that the rules that we are talking 
about here, where we are talking about targeting Members and 
going after Members--in either direction, by the way--is 
something that, generally speaking, is making the body function 
better?
    Mr. Wallner. No.
    Mr. Roy. Are you aware that I have had a number of 
engagements on the floor in colloquy with the majority leader, 
Mr. Hoyer, about restoring regular order and have made 
statements along those lines about amending, debating?
    Is the gentleman also aware--or is the Witness also aware 
that we have not had an amendment offered in Open Rule for 5 
years this coming May, under both Republican and Democrat 
leadership?
    Mr. Wallner. I am not aware of the specifics, but that 
doesn't surprise me.
    Mr. Roy. Is it better to focus our energies on what is 
going on inside the body and commentary inside the body versus 
commentary on social media and outside the body when it comes 
to setting up our rules, in your opinion?
    Mr. Wallner. Well, inside and outside are permeable. People 
who are opposed to the status quo and the establishment, if you 
will, have no choice but to go outside of the body to try to 
get more leverage and to try to then play an outside game and 
ultimately prevail inside the body. This is how we got civil 
rights reform. This is not a left or a right thing.
    I think the rules should be focused on how do you 
facilitate Member participation in the process. That is the 
important thing. They need to be consistent; they need to be 
spelled out in advance, and they need to be adhered to 
voluntarily by everyone.
    Mr. Roy. Do you think that what we are talking about here 
is the power--what we are talking about, although it has been 
all over the place--the power of Congress to set the rules for 
its own body? Nobody debates here we can set our rules.
    In terms of our constitutional framework, in my opinion, it 
is not about as much the power of Congress to do it than it is 
the wisdom to do it.
    In other words, if we are setting our rules to target each 
other's speech, to go after Members for speech and debate and 
engagement outside or inside the body, is that not flying in 
the face of the very purpose of Congress? Forget about the 
power to do it. Is it wise to do it?
    Mr. Wallner. I don't believe so. I believe that everyone in 
this hearing appears to agree that Congress can pretty much do 
whatever it wants in this area with regard to its rules, 
setting aside maybe one or two few limitations.
    The question is, as I said in my testimony, whether or not 
it makes sense for Congress to do so. To answer that question, 
I would encourage you and your colleagues to take a step back 
and try to think more fully about what it is that Congress is 
supposed to do.
    When you do that, I think you see the real dangers that are 
presented when Congress begins to weaponize the rules and use 
them to silence Members inside the body.
    Mr. Roy. Is the Witness--Mr. Wallner, are you aware that I 
was a Member who did not object to the seating of electors on 
January 6?
    Mr. Wallner. I was.
    Mr. Roy. With all due respect to my colleague from 
Maryland, Mr. Raskin, who used the phrase ``counterfeit 
outrage,'' I also did not support impeachment. I had a number 
of conversations with my friend from Maryland about why I did 
not support impeachment, and it was very much about the 
targeting of free speech and the targeting of language that was 
used in speeches and the danger, in my view, of going down that 
road.
    If you are saying something like, ``We should take the 
fight to the Capitol,'' okay, and that somehow that means that 
that is a problem, I have said language like that all the time. 
Take the fight to your State legislatures on election reform, 
for example.
    Do you agree with me that it is dangerous for us, with 
respect to speech and debate and free speech, to target 
language that Members of this body and/or in the White House 
are using along those lines?
    Mr. Wallner. I believe it is very dangerous. I believe that 
it is--some may say it is a slippery slope argument. I do not 
think that is the case. We can go all the way back to the first 
expulsion, the first impeachment, the time of the Alien and 
Sedition Acts.
    There is a long history in this country of factious 
majorities, to use Madison's language, to penalize and try to 
silence their political opponents by using the rules. I think 
that is something that we have gotten away from in this country 
for good reason, and I think that we should continue to strive 
in that direction.
    Mr. Roy. Mr. Chair, I know my time is up. I would just ask 
indulgence for maybe 20 more seconds.
    I would just offer that as one who did not object, that I 
could say, in response to my friend Mr. Raskin from Maryland, I 
have heard and seen a number of my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle approach me, saying: Will you work with us on 
bills, because we are not going to work with those 140 Members 
who objected?
    I am just saying to the body here, this is not good for the 
body. This is not good for us to engage that way. When my 
friend from Maryland, Mr. Raskin, objected in 2017, when Ms. 
Waters from California objected in 2005 and 2017, I think, as 
well.
    In any event, my point only, Mr. Chair, is I know you are 
saying this is about a bigger question beyond January 6, but, 
in truth, we know it is not, as this whole conversation is 
suggesting.
    I would just suggest if we police each other's speech, we 
are getting away from our purpose. We never debate on the 
floor. We never offer amendments on the floor. Let's debate. 
Let's fight it out, a little bit like we are doing here, but 
let's do it on the floor. Let's engage on these issues.
    I appreciate the indulgence of Chair.
    Mr. Cohen. You are welcome, Mr. Roy. If we debated like you 
debated, all would be hunky-dory.
    I recognize Mr. Henry Calvin Johnson.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    My dear colleagues, no reasonable person can in good faith 
compare what happened on January 6, 2017, with what happened on 
January 6, 2021, when the President of the United States of 
America, aided and abetted by Members of Congress, incited an 
insurrection that resulted in an armed assault on the United 
States Congress that resulted in the deaths of six people, 
including two Capitol Hill police officers.
    On January 6, 2021, many of us here today personally 
experienced just how fragile our democracy is. Yet, here we sit 
today, some of us acting as if what happened on January 6, 
2021, never happened, after all of the chaos and the damage and 
the injuries and the tragedy.
    We came so close to losing our democracy that day. Article 
I, section 5 was written just for this moment. By holding this 
hearing, we are taking a step away from the chaos and towards 
accountability, a step towards restoring and further protecting 
the integrity of Congress, because we have seen just how 
fragile our democracy is. I look forward to exploring the 
constitutional framework of Congress' ability to discipline its 
Members.
    That brings me to my question.
    Mr. Wallner, I understand from your testimony that it is 
not appropriate for Congress to exercise its authority to 
discipline a Member of Congress for following the rules which 
allow that Member to object to the certification of a State's 
electoral college votes. If we did that, it would be wrong, 
would it not?
    Mr. Wallner. I believe that punishing Members for following 
the rules and using the rules is not a good idea for making the 
housework.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, let me ask you this question. 
Do you believe that Congress has the authority to discipline a 
Member should it be shown that that Member, along with one or 
more other persons in any State or territory or in any place 
subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspired to 
overthrow, put down, or destroy by force the Government of the 
United States, or to levy war against the United States, or to 
oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force prevent, 
hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States 
of America, by force to take, seize, or possess any property of 
the United States, contrary to the authority thereof?
    If it were shown that a Member of Congress were guilty of 
that conduct that I just described, would it not be within the 
wise use of authority for Congress to discipline a Member and 
expel that Member for such conduct?
    Mr. Wallner. Congress can expel a Member for any reason it 
so chooses.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. No, I am asking for the conduct 
that I just described. Do you think it would be wise and 
appropriate for Congress to expel a Member shown to have 
engaged in--what I did was pretty much read to you the law on 
seditious conspiracy, which is a crime under 18 U.S.C. 2384.
    Mr. Wallner. There are plenty of precedents of the House 
using its power to expel Members who are engaged in rebellious 
activity.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, now, my question just 
requires a yes-or-no answer.
    Would it be wise and appropriate for Congress to expel a 
Member who was found to have violated the provisions of section 
2384 of the United States Code, the Criminal Code?
    Mr. Wallner. If the people who found that are a factious 
majority in the House and they believe that offering a motion 
or otherwise following the rules constitutes that, then I think 
that would be unwise.
    If, on the other hand--
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, no, no, no, no. That is 
different than following the rules, sir, and you know exactly 
that it is. Following the rules is different than violating a 
criminal statute.
    If a person violates a criminal statute, namely engaging in 
a seditious conspiracy, and he is a Member, he or she is a 
Member of Congress, are you telling me and you expect us to 
believe that you would not see Congress having the authority to 
expel such a Member?
    Mr. Wallner. My point relates to the rules, and I am not 
sure how following the rules would constitute that.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. No, no, no, I am not asking you 
about the rules. I am asking you about criminal misconduct 
committed by a Member of Congress. You can't bring yourself to 
say Congress should expel that Member?
    Mr. Cohen. We are running out of time.
    Mr. Wallner. If a Member breaks the rules, violates the 
rules, or otherwise engages in treason, then certainly. If the 
Member follows the rules, then I am not sure how that equates 
with treason, and I am not sure how one can punish that Member 
without damaging the fabric of the House of Representatives.
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Wallner, I appreciate your responses.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. You are acting like what happened 
on January 6, 2021, never happened.
    Mr. Cohen. Mr. Johnson, our time is up for this question. I 
appreciate you. I don't want to get in--anyway, the time is up, 
and I appreciate your questions, and I appreciate where you are 
coming from.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
    Mr. Cohen. You are welcome, sir.
    Ms. Fischbach, are you with us?
    Ms. Fischbach. Yes, I am here. Can you hear me?
    Mr. Cohen. I can hear you, I can see you, and I am not a 
cat. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Fischbach. Did you get that joke?
    Mr. Cohen. Yeah, I did.
    Ms. Fischbach. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I am very proud to be a new Member of Congress, and I am 
proud and humbled to represent my constituents of my district. 
I really am troubled by the majority's continued partisan 
attacks.
    My colleague, Mr. Johnson from Louisiana, mentioned the 
increasing toxicity that is going on. My colleague from Ohio 
pointed out that many of the Democrats that are still here have 
in the past voted on electoral college objections.
    Now, that vote is being used for partisan attacks. It is 
the kind of partisan attacks that will do nothing for unity. It 
does nothing to move our country forward. It does absolutely 
nothing to help the citizens that we represent.
    So, I am very, very troubled by what is going on with the 
partisan attacks on a vote that we took.
    Mr. Chair, I don't have any questions. I just wanted to 
make sure that I made that statement. I will yield back my 
time.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Fischbach. You are appreciated 
for your time, and glad to have you as a Member.
    Next, I believe is--Ms. Garcia may not be with us. So, if 
Ms. Garcia is not with us, which I don't think she is, the 
gentlelady from St. Louis, Ms. Bush, is recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Bush. Thank you so much. St. Louis and I thank you, 
Chair, for convening this hearing. We appreciate you.
    I came to Congress committed to one goal: To do the 
absolute most for everyone in St. Louis, starting with those 
who have the least.
    I intend to legislate in defense of Black lives and create 
a legislative path for liberating everyday people, who are the 
backbone of this country.
    It dawned on me very early on that not all Members are 
united in doing the people's work within the people's House, 
that, in fact, many are here to distract, detract, and disrupt 
our ability to do the work our communities elected us to do.
    This is a job. This Chamber is our workplace. When we ran 
for our respective seats, we knew that this job, what it would 
require. We knew that we would be heading to DC to deliver, not 
to wander the halls and do whatever it is that we wanted to.
    Like other jobs, we are expected to follow the rules. We 
are expected to engage in passionate debate. We are expected to 
legislate. That is our mandate, and that is also our job.
    In all the jobs I have held--and trust me, I have held more 
than a few--we are expected to treat one another with dignity 
and respect. We are expected to protect one another and not 
risk the lives of our colleagues by ignoring life-saving rules 
to wear masks during a deadly pandemic or by disregarding the 
metal detectors that are in place to secure the safety of our 
building and our bodies.
    These are the rules of the House. It seems to me that some 
Members of Congress perhaps may have never held a job before. 
If they had, they would certainly understand that disregarding 
rules of conduct will result in consequences, that their 
behaviors are a reflection of the people they represent.
    In fact, when we hire our own staff, we make clear that 
what they say publicly, how they conduct themselves inside and 
outside of Chambers, in our offices, reflects on our individual 
offices.
    Mr. Maskell, based on past precedent, is there any advice 
you can give us to help us evaluate when rhetoric crosses the 
line from strident to damaging the House's credibility and/or 
puts our lives in danger?
    That I speak from personally when the words that have come 
from certain Congress Members have actually had death threats 
come into my office.
    So, can you please share that with us?
    Mr. Maskell. Well, I will give it a try, ma'am.
    Certainly, passionate debate that you mentioned should be 
protected and encouraged. People should have the passion to 
express their convictions.
    However, to lower the temperature of disagreement, the 
House has historically required civil discourse and has 
censured overly inflammatory and personally insulting rhetoric 
on the floor. I think that kind of draws the line as far as the 
rhetoric on the floor goes. That is what has happened in the 
past.
    So, the House should not look to punish speech, and punish 
passionate speech, or punish someone for their ideas, but it 
should try to encourage civil discourse, absolutely.
    Ms. Bush. Thank you, Professor.
    Mr. Chafetz, why is it important to understand that the 
House's disciplinary power is broad and encompasses more than 
the power to punish?
    Mr. Chafetz. Well, it is important because, that is 
something that I sort of said in response to an earlier 
question, it really is a necessary concomitant of the House's 
power to structure its own proceedings.
    For the House to be able to do its business, it has to be 
able to get out of the way of those who would stop it from 
doing its business. So, it has to be able to maintain order in 
the Chamber.
    I think even more broadly than that, it has to be able to 
maintain the constitutional order that actually makes it the 
House of Representatives in the first place as opposed to just 
a meeting of a bunch of people, and it has to be able to 
maintain its own place within that constitutional order.
    So, it has the authority to use its disciplinary power to 
remove things that threaten both the constitutional order 
itself and its place within the constitutional order. It is 
absolutely essential that it have that power.
    Ms. Bush. Thank you.
    To be clear, this is not about punishment. This is about 
integrity. This is about protecting the dignity of the House in 
which we all work so we can advocate and legislate on behalf of 
the communities that sent us here.
    This is about credibility. This institution derives its 
legitimacy from our conduct. It is us, from our ability to 
engage respectfully and to assent to the demands of the 
American people. If we will not do that, then this is not the 
place for those folks.
    Thank you, and I yield back.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Bush. I appreciate your being on 
the Committee.
    Mr. Owens of Utah is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Is Mr. Owens not with us? If he is not, is Mr. McClintock 
here? If not, Ms. Jackson Lee is here, and I recognize her for 
5 minutes.
    She needs to unmute and start the camera. Am I wrong, is 
Ms. Jackson Lee not with us? Not here. I think she is not here.
    If she is not here, I think we have concluded the hearing. 
Let me get an idea here of who is still here.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. You got Johnson.
    Mr. Raskin. You got Raskin.
    Mr. Chair, could I say something to Mr. Johnson?
    Mr. Cohen. Before you do, Mr. Raskin, I want to say this. I 
did make an inquiry. It is no longer--when you are the 
President, just like when you are a Jet, you are a President 
all the way. When you leave office on January 20, you no longer 
are excluded from having anything said about you in Committee 
or on the floor.
    While we couldn't say the truth about the President when he 
was President, now the truth can roll down like waters from 
Jericho or whatever it is.
    With that, Mr. Raskin, you are recognized.
    Mr. Raskin, I can't hear you.
    Mr. Raskin. I wanted to thank Mr. Johnson, who I have 
always had a ton of respect for, for the tenor and the 
substance of his comments today.
    If that was all we were getting, I would not have taken my 
time to defend us against the attack about cancel culture and 
somehow that we are hypocrites for having participated in 
nonviolent parliamentary process before.
    I was not responding to him. I tried to salute him for what 
he said, because I do think we need to drain the toxicity out 
of the conversation. I hope that all of us can encourage all of 
the Members to be working together.
    Obviously, we are going to disagree about stuff. This week, 
we disagreed about the $1.9 trillion COVID rescue package. We 
disagreed about the universal criminal background check. Fine. 
Let's have the passionate debate about that.
    The constant denunciation of other people as being 
illegitimate or attributing false positions to them, I can't 
count the number of times they are saying that we want to 
defund the police when there is not a Member of Congress who 
has ever advanced a defund the police proposal or embraced one.
    So, that just gets us mad. Then we have got to turn around 
and we got to talk about the fact that our colleagues are lying 
about us. So, that does elevate the toxic quotient in our 
politics.
    So, if we can stick to the issues and as much as possible 
get to revive those basic chords of affection that Lincoln 
talked about. There are a lot of the Republicans like Mr. 
Johnson who are just wonderful people. I think that, despite 
all our differences, we can work together as Americans to move 
the ball forward.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me to say that.
    Mr. Cohen. You are welcome, sir.
    Mr. Johnson, do you want to respond, or do you yield?
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I will salute my friend and 
yield. I agree with that sentiment. I wish all sides could put 
the weapons down.
    The honest truth is, gentlemen, we are in a new era in our 
politics, and I know our Witnesses acknowledge that, because we 
have a 24-hour news cycle and social media and all the 
different factors. So, it is incumbent upon to us live up to 
the dignity of our office as well as we can. So, thank you.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
    Did somebody else seek recognition or say something?
    Ms. Fischbach. Mr. Chair, it is Michelle Fischbach.
    Mr. Cohen. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Fischbach. Really truly, I don't want to mess up the 
hearing, but I just want to say how much I appreciated your 
``West Side Story'' reference.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you very 
much.
    This concludes today's hearing.
    I do want to make this point clear. This hearing was for 
the purpose of getting the rules set, and I think our Witnesses 
did a great job. There was good substance offered and the 
Witnesses did a great job. So, I want to thank all of our 
Witnesses for appearing today. They all held themselves as they 
should have.
    If I in any way didn't hold myself in responding to some 
things that were said that weren't true about me, I apologize. 
I shouldn't have done that. As Chair, I need to hold myself 
above such things. You get tired at some point of having 
continued things said which are false.
    With that, I thank the Witnesses.
    Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days 
to submit additional questions for the Witnesses or additional 
materials for the record.
    With that, I take out my Louisville Slugger souvenir bat 
and declare the meeting adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 4:06 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]


                                APPENDIX

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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    A report entitled, ``Social Media Review: Members of the 
U.S. House of Representatives who Voted to Overturn the 2020 
Presidential Election,'' Social Media Review, submitted by the 
Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Member of the Committee on the 
Judiciary from the State of California available at the 
following link:

https://housedocs.house.gov/lofgren/SocialMediaReview8.pdf.

                                 [all]