[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 67 (Wednesday, April 25, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H3567-H3571]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE INVESTIGATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend Representative 
Foxx for bringing up a subject on opioids that is obviously plaguing so 
many places in America. It is a very topical and important discussion 
to have.
  I want to change the subject, Mr. Speaker, and talk about a number of 
things that really concern me and many Americans across the country. 
That concern is:
  Why has the President not released his tax returns?
  Why is he so concerned about the Mueller investigation into the 
interference by the Russians in our elections? What is it that is being 
hidden? What are people afraid of? And why continue to threaten the 
FBI, threaten Mr. Mueller, threaten Mr. Rosenstein, threaten the 
Department of Justice, and, really, the police that are trying to get 
to the bottom of the interference by Russia in our elections.

                              {time}  1745

  And so I think we have got to take a look at exactly what has 
happened so far in that investigation. And that investigation with 
Special Counsel Mueller has resulted now in the guilty pleas of Michael 
Flynn, National Security Advisor; Rick Gates, former Trump campaign 
adviser; George Papadopoulos, former foreign affairs adviser to the 
Trump campaign; Richard Pinedo, a gentleman who committed identity 
fraud in the Russian probe; and an attorney named Alex van der Zwaan.
  Currently under indictment are Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign 
chairman, 13 Russian nationals, and three Russian entities.
  Now, why is this important? Congresswoman Foxx was talking about 
opioids. That clearly is important. Jobs and economic security of this 
Nation is something that I like to be talking about, or doing away with 
the opioid epidemic. But what is important about this comes down to the 
very pillars of America, the pillars of freedom, liberty, and 
independence.
  Because if another nation is directing the outcomes of our election, 
those key pieces of who we are are threatened. We broke away from 
England to become a sovereign nation and not to be affected and ruled 
by some other country. So at the heart of this, it is about who we are 
as Americans, who we are as a country, to get to the bottom of Russian 
interference in our elections.
  What they did was unprecedented and is something that is bigger than 
the election of 2016, maybe the election of 2018. It is about our 
ability to govern ourselves without interference of somebody else, some 
other nation.
  In Congress, we passed an act that provided for additional sanctions 
against Russia because it is becoming more and more apparent of their 
interference with our elections. But the administration was reluctant 
to impose those sanctions. The question is, why?
  The Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, just recently with respect 
to sanctions said: We are going to increase sanctions because Russia 
may have had some role in Syria with the different chemical weapons 
that were used.
  And she went out so far as to say, we are going to impose some 
additional sanctions, but then had the rug pulled out from underneath 
her by the White House saying: Oh, wait a second. Even

[[Page H3568]]

though you are somebody I appointed and you are our U.N. Ambassador, we 
think you are way ahead of yourselves on the sanctions against Russia.
  My question is: Why? What is it that is holding the White House back? 
I think it comes back to something I said at the very beginning, and 
something we asked for a year ago, which were the President's tax 
returns, which we have yet to see.
  I mean, what is it that is in there that is so worrisome? Every other 
candidate for President, every other President turned over their tax 
returns. There is so much smoke here with these convictions, with these 
indictments, with what we know in terms of the interference in many 
States across the Nation, that we have got to get to the bottom of 
this.
  The continued threats that have come from the White House to stall or 
limit the investigation, the ability of the law enforcement officers of 
this Nation, the FBI, for goodness' sake, to do their job, is something 
none of us could have ever expected.
  And so even though most of us would much rather talk about jobs, we 
would rather talk about the environment. We would rather be dealing 
with subjects that affect day-to-day Americans, everyday Americans. The 
problem is the values of this Nation are under attack, the freedom, 
liberty, and independence that we enjoy that is so key to everything we 
believe in that we are not going to let this go. We are going to stand 
up for the rule of law and for honesty, and for allowing law 
enforcement to finish its job without being constantly threatened.
  Mr. Speaker, I am joined by a number of my friends who also have 
similar concerns to the ones I have raised. I would like to yield to my 
friend Mr. Boyle from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Congressman for 
that city, and allow him some time to bring us his thoughts and raise 
his concerns.
  Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my 
colleague from Colorado who has done such a wonderful job of organizing 
us, month in and month out, to stand here on the House floor, really, 
more than anything, in a sincere and genuine effort to attempt to 
prevent a constitutional crisis from happening.
  It is vital--not as Democrats or as Republicans, but as Americans--it 
is vital that we allow this special counsel investigation to continue 
and to reach its natural conclusions, whatever the facts may show.
  I certainly hope, and I believe, that all of us should hope that it 
won't show collusion; that it won't show anything more than what has 
been reported about interference in our 2016 elections. But it is vital 
to the integrity of our democracy and our national security that we 
know that for sure.
  Now, one would think--given the record interference, really attack, 
from the Russian Federation upon the United States during the 2016 
election, just as they have in other country's elections, such as 
Germany, France, and of course repeatedly on the Ukraine--one would 
think that the President of the United States would say, yes, we must 
get to the bottom of this.
  Instead, this President has not once asked his staff--as far as we 
know, and as has been verified by folks like the Director of the DNI 
and the Director of the CIA--has not once made it the mission of the 
U.S. to combat this interference. That is worrying.
  We also know now that on two separate occasions, the President has 
seriously considered firing the special counsel. That is exactly what 
President Nixon did in October of 1973, what has been called the 
Saturday Night Massacre, that prompted a constitutional crisis then. It 
would prompt a constitutional crisis today.
  Now, the President keeps calling the Mueller investigation a witch 
hunt, which is interesting because that is the exact term that 
President Nixon used. And if you look at headlines from that day, it 
was exactly the same term Nixon used. But the President calls it a 
witch hunt and says it hasn't produced anything.

  So far, the investigation of the special counsel has produced 17 
indictments, including 5 guilty pleas--some witch hunt. I don't think 
those 17 individuals under indictment consider that a witch hunt and, 
certainly, the 5 individuals who have already pled guilty, including 
one who worked in this White House.
  So I will pause there, because I know there are a number of our 
colleagues who want to speak on this important issue. This is something 
that should unite us all. I am appreciative to those Republican 
colleagues, especially in the Senate, who have spoken out publicly and 
say that they support the Mueller investigation and support the 
independence and integrity of it, but it is time that we don't just say 
that we support it.
  I do think it is time that we have legislation that protects it so 
that we can ensure that this investigation will reach its natural 
conclusion.
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, and I say to my friend from 
Pennsylvania--we were talking about the indictments and the guilty 
pleas--the last time we really had a special counsel appointed was in 
2003, and it took 2 years for one indictment. We are a year into this 
investigation, and we have got 5 guilty pleas and 17 additional 
indictments. So we ought to be all taking real stock of what is 
actually happening here.
  I now yield to my friend from Missouri, Emanuel Cleaver, one of my 
best buddies here in the House, former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, 
for his thoughts on this subject.
  Mr. CLEAVER. Mr. Speaker, I am thankful that we have this moment that 
we are using to make some expressions of concern, and I thank Mr. 
Perlmutter for organizing it.
  Let me preface my comments, Mr. Speaker, by saying that when 
President Trump was elected, against the advice and concern of my 
family, my many campaign workers, and supporters, I attended the 
swearing in because I believed--and still believe and will always 
believe--that my responsibility as a Member of Congress was to be at 
the inauguration as a Member of Congress.
  Then at the first joint session--not the State of the Union, but the 
joint session--many of my friends and family said: You know, do not go. 
The President is alien to our concept of decency and democracy. I came 
anyway. I sat not too far from where I am standing now.
  I also then went to the State of the Union. Some of our colleagues 
chose not to come. When there were Articles of Impeachment placed on 
the table for a vote, I voted to table it against a person I have known 
in Congress longer than I have known anybody else because I know he is 
a decent and thoughtful person, Congressman Al Green. He had brought it 
to the floor. I voted to table it, along with just about every 
Republican and a sizeable number of Democrats, and the reason was, I 
believed that it was important for Mr. Mueller to complete his 
investigation.
  I resent any discussion about trying to impeach the President. I am 
not in that group.
  I must say, however, how troubled I am by many of the things that I 
have seen. And when I grew up down in Texas in the 1950s and 1960s, in 
elementary school at the Booker T. Washington Elementary School, we had 
these tests. Back then, there was a great threat from Russia. And 
economically, Wichita Falls, where I attended high school, was 
completely dependent on Sheppard Air Force Base for its survival.
  My first job was at the SAC base, the Strategic Air Command. I 
cleaned up. I thought it was the biggest job any human being could get. 
I was 15 years old and, man, I was big time. I cleaned up the barracks 
for the SAC Command.
  And then at school, we had to get under our desks for a drill for an 
attack from Russia. And we would hear the horn. All over town, 
schoolkids were getting under their desks. The truth is, we all would 
have been burned up. I am not sure that a wooden desk was going to 
protect us. But I was a kid and I didn't know any better, so all of us 
got under our desks.
  But it allowed me to understand one thing, and I have never forgotten 
it: At that time, Russia, the Soviet Union, was not our friend. And 
over that period, a lot of things have changed. That has not changed.
  And so let's fast forward to our last Presidential election. It is 
indisputable. Every single intelligence agency in the United States, as 
well as intelligence agencies with our allies in

[[Page H3569]]

Europe, say that the Russians interfered with our election--not 
attempted to do so, but interfered.

                              {time}  1800

  Did they change the outcome of the election?
  There is no evidence to support that. However, there is plenty of 
evidence to support that Russia remains the enemy of the United States 
of America. I necessarily am going to become increasingly concerned 
when the President of the United States refuses to say even one bad 
thing about Vladimir Putin, who is--and I don't like to call people 
names--I don't call my colleagues bad names; that is not who I am--this 
man is a bully and a danger to the entire world.
  The most troubling moments I have are when I hear people say, as I 
did on TV the other night, they were interviewing a woman and she said: 
``I don't care anything about Russian meddling. All I want them to do 
is just let Mr. Trump have his agenda approved.'' And I am thinking: 
What is happening to this Republic?
  I have five grandchildren, the youngest of which just turned three 
last month. My work in Congress, my ministry in the United Methodist 
Church for 37 years, my time on the city council, my time as mayor, all 
was dedicated to what I wanted for my grandchildren. I want them to 
enjoy the same kind of freedoms that we enjoyed.
  Mr. Speaker, anybody who is watching this and who has even a 
semblance of objectivity would have to say something is dramatically 
wrong when the President will, by Twitter, attack anybody and 
everybody--horses, children, little animals--anybody he will criticize 
and call them names, except Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin is the only 
person he will not criticize. This man orchestrated an attempt to 
damage our democracy.
  What Putin did--and it was brilliant--I have to say he is a devilish 
man, but he created a beautiful way of doing it. He knew the weaknesses 
of the United States and so he tried to exploit it. And it is still 
going on.
  For example, just a few weeks ago, one of those Russian bots had a 
deal on the internet advising White Americans not to go and see the 
movie Black Panther. Inside this message online is that African 
Americans are attacking white movie-goers.
  Now, of course, that didn't happen, it is not even remotely the 
truth, but Russia understands how to get to us. They look at our 
weaknesses and they attack. We cannot help in that process.
  Mr. Mueller needs to complete his investigation. I will never support 
doing anything legally in this body until Mr. Mueller completes his 
investigation.
  I thank Mr. Perlmutter for getting us together. I think that we have 
got to make the American public conscious of what is going on and 
maybe, more importantly, what is not going on.
  If we are able to do that, this Republic, the greatest Republic that 
God Almighty has ever blessed to exist, the greatest Republic in the 
history of this planet, is going to be in jeopardy.
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Missouri, and his 
words, as always, are powerful and right on the mark. We think this is 
serious business and it is nothing that we take lightly.
  My friend, Mr. Huffman from California, is somebody who has given 
this a lot of thought, and he wonders why the President doesn't speak 
out against Vladimir Putin, he wonders why the President hasn't turned 
over his tax returns, he wonders why the President has attacked the 
FBI, he wonders why the President has attacked the Department of 
Justice, just as I do.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman), 
my friend.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Colorado for his 
leadership and convening these conversations. It was really helpful to 
hear from our friend from Missouri, who reminds us that this is really 
a big deal, this Russian meddling, and that we have to keep pushing to 
get answers as to why our President behaves so strangely when it comes 
to Russia, and we have to hold anyone who may have been part of that 
Russian interference fully accountable.
  I will tell Congressman Perlmutter that constituents in my district, 
and I think a growing number of people around this country, are 
extremely concerned and growing more and more concerned about this dark 
cloud of corruption over the Trump administration; about the 
possibility of collusion between the Trump team and a foreign 
government to affect the 2016 election; about the obstruction of 
justice, the pattern of lying about even the most basic facts; and just 
based on what has already come out through the special counsel 
investigation and through the media and, to some extent, through 
congressional investigations, their level of concern is really growing.
  This week, I want to focus on one aspect of these investigations that 
we have tried to push here in the House and in the Senate: the issue of 
privilege. I am not talking about the kind of privilege where a 
billionaire's son-in-law gets a job inside the White House, even though 
he has no foreign policy experience and can't get a security clearance. 
That is a different kind of privilege.
  I want to talk about the issue of executive privilege. This is an 
idea that Presidential communications need to be kept out of the public 
eye, even when Congress or the courts issue subpoenas and request that 
information.
  Presidents have always kind of tried to claim that this type of 
privilege is implied in the Constitution's separation of powers. It is 
an argument that a President might not get as candid and fulsome advice 
from his Cabinet and others if all of it was going to be publicly 
disclosed. So I can appreciate that. But the Trump administration has 
taken this notion of executive privilege to extreme and absurd lengths. 
I think we need to talk about that.
  Just a little quick historical aside, though, on executive privilege. 
The concept and the limit of executive privilege has really only been 
tested at the Supreme Court in a pair of Watergate-related lawsuits in 
the 1970s. This came about when the special prosecutor sought access to 
President Nixon's secret Oval Office tapes.
  In that case, the court rejected President Nixon's attempts to quash 
a judicial subpoena. The unanimous decision of that court was that the 
President had to hand over these tape-recorded conversations with his 
closest advisers about the Watergate break-in. Of course, we know that 
was the beginning of the end of the Nixon Presidency.

  So back to the modern era.
  Over the past year, we have seen numerous Trump officials, and even 
some who never worked in the White House, refuse to answer questions 
from Congress, asserting some variation of this executive privilege. In 
the now-defunct House Intelligence Committee investigation we have seen 
it. We have seen it in the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation.
  I think we need to take a look at how this is being used or misused. 
We have seen witnesses, literally on a break from their testimony, take 
phone calls from the White House, where they get instructions about 
what questions they can answer and which ones they can't.
  Essentially, President Trump has treated the executive privilege as 
if it is a gag order he can invoke on those around him. It is sort of 
like the hush money nondisclosure agreements that he has entered into 
with porn stars and playmates and all sorts of others to keep 
embarrassing or damaging information out of the public eye.
  A few specific examples of this and why it doesn't hold up.
  In June 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was testifying before 
the Senate committee about the firing of James Comey. He refused to 
answer certain questions, but he did choose to answer others that he 
thought were helpful. He claimed that he was protecting the right of 
President Trump to assert the executive privilege.
  Well, first of all, Sessions can't selectively choose when to invoke 
the privilege and when not to. There is this thing called waiver, and 
you don't get to cherry-pick the stuff that you think helps you and 
then invoke the privilege for the stuff that doesn't.
  But the second point is that the Attorney General even admitted that 
he does not have the power to claim executive privilege. He said: ``I 
am protecting the President's constitutional right by not giving it 
away before he has had a chance to weigh in.''
  The President hasn't done that. In fact, the President has yet to 
assert

[[Page H3570]]

the executive privilege, but he has had all of these other folks on a 
short leash, counting on them to assert the privilege.
  So then we go to January of 2018. Steve Bannon was testifying in the 
House Intelligence Committee. He only agreed to answer 25 specific yes 
or no questions that had been drafted by the White House.
  So, on a bipartisan basis, the committee issued a subpoena to force 
Bannon to answer these questions, but he continued to stonewall and the 
committee never followed through. Again, why Bannon's assertions of the 
privilege don't pencil out.
  In the United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court made very clear that 
public extrajudicial disclosure of a privilege like the executive 
privilege is a waiver. So right off the bat you have the problem that 
Steve Bannon spilled his guts in ``Fire and Fury'' for the whole world 
to see. He has made public extrajudicial disclosures of all manner of 
communications involving the Presidency on all of these subjects. But 
he has also played this pick-and-choose game, much like Attorney 
General Sessions. Even if he had the privilege to assert for himself, 
which he doesn't, it just doesn't hold water.
  Now, some of the oversight that Bannon has been ducking has to do 
with the transition period before Donald Trump was even President. 
Obviously, there is no executive privilege if you are not yet the 
executive. So that is another problem.
  When he was asked whether he was being instructed by the President to 
invoke executive privilege, guess what? He refused to answer. Our 
friends in the House Intelligence Committee were in such a hurry to 
shut down their investigation that they did not move to hold him in 
contempt of Congress, and they never followed through on their 
subpoena.
  Another example.
  January 2018, Mr. Trump's former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, 
appeared before the House Intel Committee and surprise, surprise, he 
refused to answer all sorts of important questions. Since Mr. 
Lewandowski never served in the Federal Government, it would be pretty 
preposterous to assert executive privilege as a way to evade Congress' 
questions. But it is up to the majority in Congress to actually force 
him to answer these questions.
  Again, Mr. Trump is onto, apparently, a winning strategy in this 
Congress. He instructs others not to answer questions, suggests they 
should assert the privilege, or some variation of it, and then counts 
on a compliant majority in this House and in the Senate to simply not 
follow through.
  Something similar happened in February 2018. Hope Hicks, the White 
House communications director, was testifying before the House 
Intelligence Committee and would not discuss anything from the 
inauguration forward. The committee declined to issue a subpoena, 
despite the request to do so from our ranking member, Adam Schiff.
  So you may ask in these various situations: Why wouldn't President 
Trump himself simply assert the executive privilege?
  I think one reason for that is we can safely say that it makes him 
look even more guilty. That is hard to do, based on the way he has 
conducted himself so defensively with such a seemingly guilty state of 
mind in his tweets and other public statements, but the assertion of 
the privilege would be a very clear signal that he is trying to impede 
legitimate investigations.
  So he would rather have Bannon and Hicks and Lewandowski and Sessions 
stonewall for him, and then count on a compliant hyper-partisan 
Congress not to follow through. That is why we have so many unanswered 
questions and why it is so important that you continue to bring us 
together to talk about this to make sure the American people know that 
we are going to keep talking about it and we are going to keep asking 
what they are hiding and what they are afraid of.
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, I will wrap up here, but I think there 
is one word we ought to change, because the word doesn't justify or 
doesn't really describe what occurred with these elections.
  What occurred with the elections by the Russians was not meddling. It 
was sabotage. That is really what we are talking about. It wasn't just 
somebody saying to your mother-in-law: ``Please don't meddle in my 
business.'' This is sabotage. This was an attack. This was interference 
and a violation of our sovereignty, of our independence, of our 
freedom.
  So we start with that, and then we ask these questions of my friends 
on the Republican side: Had the tables been turned and this was a 
Democratic administration, can you imagine what kinds of investigations 
would be underway today, what kinds of subpoenas would be issued, and 
not to allow the Intelligence Committee to shut down that investigation 
when none of the questions were answered because of this innovation of 
executive privilege that they don't hold, because this is much bigger 
than all of us.

                              {time}  1815

  Representative Cleaver talked about the fact that Russia is 
interfering, all around the world. They are not our friends. I would 
love to see something develop where there really is some kind of an 
alliance, but we definitely don't have that now.
  There are a lot of questions:
  Where are the tax returns?
  Why haven't they been presented to the Congress?
  Why are we not fulfilling the law that we passed on sanctions?
  Why are we holding back even though Nikki Haley said we are going to 
issue more sanctions concerning Russia's role in Syria?
  Why the continued attacks by the administration against our FBI, our 
chief and best law enforcement agency?
  Why continue to undermine the investigations?
  These are serious questions, and they can't be swept under the rug. 
This is serious business. It goes to the heart of the values of this 
Nation, of freedom and independence. We have got a lot of work to do. I 
hope there is a bright light shone on all of this and that these 
investigations run their full course to see exactly what has happened.
  Mr. Speaker, if my friend from California would like to close, I 
would offer him that opportunity.
  Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I will close on my end but with a bit of a 
question for my colleague:
  We have talked about how big this is. I think ``sabotage'' is not too 
strong a word for what the Russians did in the 2016 election. I think 
anyone who was involved in a criminal conspiracy with them to pull that 
off, certainly there are criminal penalties, violations, possibly up to 
and including treason, that may apply. So we have to get to the bottom 
of this. We have to get to the truth.
  And if Congress won't do its job because of partisan reasons and 
won't follow through and hold folks in contempt when they ignore 
subpoenas and when they refuse to answer questions, we can at least 
protect the special counsel investigation so that that lifelong 
Republican leading this investigation can get the truth out for the 
American people.
  Mr. Speaker, I guess my question for Congressman Perlmutter is: Given 
how big this is--and we have never seen anything like this. We have 
never seen all of this evidence that a candidate for President--folks 
at the top of his campaign were involved in these illicit activities 
with a foreign power, this extensive sabotaging of our election, and 
all of the coverup and the obstruction and other problems that are 
coming to light. Given all of that, how will history judge those who 
refuse to let the special counsel get to the bottom of it all so we can 
all know the truth?
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, I hold out hope for all of the Members 
of this body to want to have the truth and allow this investigation to 
run its course. And I hope and expect that the Members--Democrats and 
Republicans--will support and protect the special counsel, the 
Department of Justice, and the FBI so that the lawyers and the cops on 
the beat can finish this investigation. And that is what is key.
  So I hope that it turns out that there isn't anything else, that it 
is 5 guilty pleas, it is 17 indictments, and that is it; we are done. 
But I don't expect that to be the case either.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Taylor). Members are reminded to refrain 
from engaging in personalities toward the President.

[[Page H3571]]

  

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