[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 168 (Wednesday, October 23, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H8443-H8449]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. SCALISE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the 
majority leader the schedule for next week. I would be happy to yield 
to my friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the 
distinguished majority leader of the House.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Louisiana for 
yielding.

[[Page H8444]]

  On Monday, Mr. Speaker, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning-
hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed 
until 6:30 p.m.
  On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-
hour debate, and 12 p.m. for legislative business.
  On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business; 
the last votes of the week are expected no later than 3 p.m.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The 
complete list of suspensions will be announced by close of business on 
Friday.
  The House will consider H.R. 823, the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and 
Economy Act; H.R. 2181, the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection 
Act; and H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act. These 
three bills all recognize the need to protect some of America's most 
iconic and important public lands.
  The House, Mr. Speaker, will also consider H.R. 4695, the Protect 
Against Conflict by Turkey Act. This bipartisan legislation, 
cosponsored by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs, provides a strong, targeted response to the crisis caused by 
Turkey's invasion of Northern Syria.
  It sanctions senior Turkish officials involved in the decision and 
those committing human rights abuses, and penalizes Turkish financial 
institutions involved in perpetuating President Erdogan's practices.
  Lastly, the House will consider H.Res 296 affirming the United 
States' record on the Armenian Genocide.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his response.
  I would like the gentleman to walk through, if he could, the 
scheduling process for how the House will further proceed with the 
impeachment inquiry.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I cannot respond to that at this point in 
time. We haven't made that decision to move ahead. The committees, as 
the gentleman knows, are considering it, and if they decide that the 
House should move forward, then we will make that decision.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I, again, ask the question I had asked last 
week:
  Are we currently in an impeachment inquiry, as the Speaker said we 
are a few weeks ago?
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I will respond as I responded last week. We 
are doing our constitutional duty of oversight of the administration 
and the actions of the President of the United States to determine 
whether or not there had been violations of law, whether the President 
has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. And when those hearings are 
concluded, obviously, they will make some determination and make 
recommendations to the House, as they do with other matters that the 
committees consider.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. As this 
determination moves forward, there is a growing cry for fairness. And I 
know we talked a little bit about that last week, but we saw it again 
this week with more closed hearings, more hearings where both sides 
were not allowed the same equal rights that have always been provided 
in impeachment inquiries.

  And, of course, when you look through our Nation's history, 
fortunately, there are not that many instances where Congress had to 
try to impeach or inquire about impeaching a President--three times.
  In fact, in all three cases, it started with a vote of the full 
House, and it started with a fair set of rules. And in the last two 
that were the most public, where you saw the proceedings on television, 
you saw both sides vote for Nixon, where you had a divided government. 
You had a Democrat House and a Republican President.
  And then, for the Clinton impeachment, you had a Republican House and 
a Democrat President. They used the same set of rules. Both sides got 
to call witnesses, both sides got to subpoena. The President's legal 
counsel actually got to be in the room and, maybe most importantly, the 
public got to be in the room.
  Members of Congress, even if they weren't on the relevant committees, 
were allowed to watch these hearings. That is not going on today. These 
hearings are going on in secret in a secret room.
  A number of my colleagues and I went down to see what was going on, 
to see the hearings and the proceedings. It turned out, what we found 
out in the SCIF, which is designed for classified briefings, it wasn't 
a classified briefing. The chairman, himself, acknowledged that it was 
not a classified briefing. In fact, it included a Department of Defense 
official. And members of the Committee on Armed Services asked if they 
would be able to participate in that hearing, and they were denied the 
ability.
  And so when the press can't see what's going on, when the public 
can't see what's going on, when Members of Congress try to see what is 
going on, and the chairman takes the witness and runs out of the room, 
it begs the question, ``What are they trying to hide.''
  What kind of tainted document are they creating, if it is an 
impeachment inquiry?
  And if it is not, then stop trying to use two different sets of 
rules. But if it is--and the Speaker, herself, is the one who said it 
is an impeachment inquiry--at a minimum, use the same standards that 
have always been used for that serious of a process. The House of 
Representatives has a constitutional ability to ultimately make this 
kind of decision.
  And, again, it has only been done three times, but in each of those 
cases, there were fair sets of rules used, so that you could actually 
find out what was happening. And if there was something that reached 
the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, it was not based on what one 
person decided, but based on everybody being able to present the 
evidence, everybody being able to bring witnesses forward. That is not 
happening right now, and it ought to change.
  And I would hope, and ask the gentleman, if this is going to continue 
moving forward, if there is going to be any credibility to whatever 
report would come out of it.
  There is much less credibility if it is done in secret with one 
person and one person only getting to choose who comes forth to 
testify, as opposed to an open process, as has always been the case in 
our country's history.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, no matter how many times the gentleman from Louisiana, 
the Republican whip, says that these are unfair hearings, or that they 
are secret hearings, or that Republicans can't participate, no matter 
how many times he says that, it will not be true.

                              {time}  1845

  He talks about secret hearings. I will show you the front page of The 
Washington Post about the hearing yesterday. It is on the front page.
  Now, I know your Members can read. There are over 105 Members, 40 or 
so of your Members, who are authorized to sit in the committee.
  The President, Mr. Speaker, called the Republicans, and he has 
tweeted about how they need to be tougher.
  What I want to ask, Mr. Speaker, is: When are they going to focus on 
defending the Constitution of the United States?
  I ask the gentleman: Does he believe that the President is above the 
law?
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I would imagine the gentleman would also 
agree that the chairman of the Intelligence Committee should also not 
be above the law. He should not be able to write his own rules of 
impeachment, his own rules of engagement, in secret.
  These meetings are being held in secret. In fact, when some of us 
went into the room today, he ran out with the witness.
  What are you trying to hide when, as any kind of secret hearing, 
people run out of the room as soon as the lights come on? What is 
really going on?
  If you want to talk about numbers-- Mr. HOYER. Read the paper.
  Mr. SCALISE. The sad part is, the only way you can find out what 
happens in those secret hearings is reading the paper because somebody 
on the majority staff is, against the direction of the chairman, 
selectively leaking information to the press.

[[Page H8445]]

  The press knows more about this impeachment inquiry than voting 
Members of Congress. Mr. Speaker, 75 percent of this Congress is denied 
access to those hearings, 75 percent.
  Maybe you can read what was leaked by somebody on your majority 
staff, Mr. Speaker. Maybe that is where you can get your information 
because that is the only place to get information. That shouldn't be 
where Members of Congress have to go to find out what happened.
  By the way, you talk to some of the people who were in the room, and 
they were directed by the chairman not to say anything. He can say 
something or somebody on his staff can say something, and he hasn't 
done anything to control the leaks. But then they say, actually, there 
was a lot of other testimony that contradicted what was leaked to the 
paper. But nobody really knows because they are denied access.
  Do you know, if you take the voting Members of Congress who are not 
allowed in that room, it represents over 230 million American citizens 
who are denied representation in those impeachment hearings, over 230 
million Americans who are denied access because 75 percent of voting 
Members of Congress are not allowed in the room?
  You can talk about who is allowed in the room. Everybody should be 
allowed in the room. The press should be allowed in the room. Cameras 
should be in the room, like in previous impeachments.
  If you want to try to remove a President--maybe you don't agree with 
the 2016 election result, and you are concerned about what might happen 
next year. That is not why you impeach a President, by the way.
  But if you really do want to search for the truth, you search for the 
truth in public. The people of this country ought to be able to see 
what is happening. It shouldn't be a selected story in the newspaper 
that was leaked by the majority staff. It should be something every 
Member of Congress who is going to be asked to vote on this actually 
can find something out about.
  We can't go and read the transcripts. Seventy-five percent of us 
can't. Yet, that is the process that is going on right now.
  If you want to call that fair, maybe it is fair to you, but is it 
really the justice that we look for across the street at the Supreme 
Court?
  Imagine if only one side--the accused couldn't present witnesses. You 
could accuse anybody of anything. And you have that ability, as you are 
doing right now, and then you tie the hands behind the back of those 
you are accusing because they can't even be in the room.
  The other side can't even bring witnesses forward. There are 
witnesses that our Members would like to bring forward who were in that 
room, yet they are not even allowed that opportunity. That is not fair. 
Maybe in the Soviet Union that is fair, but not in the United States of 
America.
  It is not how you should be running an impeachment operation to try 
to take out a President of the United States when we have an election 
next year. Let the people of this country make that decision, not one 
person sitting in a secret room downstairs, keeping other people out. 
When Members of Congress who are trying to find out what is going on 
walk in the room, he runs out of the room with the witness.
  Is that really the fair process that this country deserves? It falls 
well short. We can absolutely do better than this.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, as usual, the whip did not answer my 
question. I said, is the President above the law?
  But he wants to pound on the table, Mr. Speaker, because neither the 
facts nor the law is on his side.
  The process is consistent with the rules put in place by the current 
Secretary of State, Mr. Pompeo, and Mr. Trey Gowdy, who was a Member of 
this body.
  Let me ask the gentleman, Mr. Speaker: Does he believe it appropriate 
that the Congress appropriates $391 million to help an ally confront 
Russia--which I understand Mr. Putin probably wasn't for--but does he 
believe that the President should have withheld that money from Ukraine 
to defend itself on its eastern front?
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, the law requires the President to verify 
that there is not corruption involved with the taxpayer money that is 
in question. That is a law we passed. I believe the gentleman from 
Maryland voted, as I did vote, for that law. It is a good law to say 
that if we are going to send taxpayer money to a foreign country, we 
ought to make sure that there is no corruption.

  There were claims of corruption in Ukraine. In fact, a lot of the 
interference in our election by the Russians went through Ukraine in 
2016.
  Now, President Trump wasn't the President back then when this country 
was allowing Russia to interfere with the election.
  Mr. HOYER. He has no evidence of that. If the gentleman will yield, 
he has no evidence of that.
  Mr. SCALISE. But he is looking into it, as he should be.
  Mr. HOYER. He makes a bald-faced assertion that he has no way to back 
up.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. It is not true, in my opinion, but he has no way to back 
up that statement, and I think the gentleman must know that.
  Mr. SCALISE. Again, we can talk about why we needed to root out 
corruption, why we want to find out what happened in the 2016 election 
where the Russians tried to interfere, because we don't want it to 
happen again.
  We also know, as it was discussed on that phone call, that President 
Trump sold Javelin missiles to Ukraine so they could protect themselves 
against the Russians, the aggression that the gentleman was talking 
about on the eastern front, where the previous President allowed the 
Russians to come into Crimea when Ukraine was asking us to help them.
  Ukraine, back when President Obama was in office, was asking us to 
sell them those same Javelin missiles, and President Obama wouldn't do 
it. He has never answered why he wouldn't, but it is a fact that he 
didn't sell the Javelins. But President Trump did and allowed Ukraine 
to defend themselves against the Russians.
  In fact, they talked about maybe buying more, but they were already 
allowed to buy what they needed to defend themselves, and I am glad 
they were. It helped a friend.
  But you talk about all of those things that are going on right now 
with impeachment. The real issue is what is not happening here in this 
Congress.
  I will refer you to a different newspaper, as you want to talk about 
newspapers, the front page of The Washington Times: Democrats writing 
more subpoenas than laws. Impeachment inquiries sideline Pelosi's 
agenda.
  In fact, if you look at the difference between subpoenas and bills 
that came out of this House that are actually signed into law, you have 
produced 56 subpoenas. You have produced only 46 laws. That is 20 
percent more subpoenas that you have produced than laws to help people 
across this country.
  Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman like to know the reason for that?
  Mr. SCALISE. I would be happy to yield when we talk about all the 
things that this House could be doing that it is not, like lowering 
drug prices, like getting better trade deals with our friends in Mexico 
and in Canada and in all the other countries that are lined up that 
would love to come behind USMCA that can't right now.
  They can't because there is this infatuation with impeachment, in a 
one-sided way, in a closed way, in a Soviet-style Star Chamber.
  But that is not happening right now. This is what is not happening; 
this is what is happening. It is not what the American people expected 
out of this majority.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is a wonderful 
poster.
  Mr. SCALISE. It is factual.
  Mr. HOYER. We passed over 250 bills. The Senate won't take them up, 
particularly one bill that says what 90 percent of the American people 
want done: Pass a comprehensive background check to make their 
communities safer.
  They won't bring it up. No wonder it can't be signed, because they 
won't bring up any of our bills.
  The Republican leadership in the Senate stops our bills from going to 
the Senate. They are not even being considered.

[[Page H8446]]

  Then they have a poster that says you haven't passed any bills? Oh, 
no, we passed them, and the American people support them.
  Yes, we had an election in 2018, and the people spoke, which is why I 
am the majority leader and you are the minority whip.
  So, yes, we honor those elections. And when you were in the majority, 
you passed bills you wanted to pass.
  So, I tell my friend, it is an interesting poster, but it is a 
reflection of the refusal of the Republicans in the United States 
Senate to consider legislation supported by the overwhelming majority 
of the American people. How sad.
  But, let me ask you again: Are you saying it was right to keep the 
$391 million, to refuse to have a meeting with Mr. Zelensky at the 
White House until he agreed to conduct a political investigation that 
would advantage the President of the United States? Do you believe that 
was right?
  Mr. SCALISE. Well, first of all, the gentleman is making an assertion 
that has been disputed--in fact, disputed by the President of Ukraine, 
this alleged quid pro quo that didn't happen. Zelensky himself said it 
didn't happen. In fact, he got the money. He got the money.
  Now, we had to check to make sure, like the law says, in two 
different places. We have two different sets of law that require the 
administration ensure that there is not corruption before they send the 
money.
  I can assure the gentleman from Maryland that, if he would have sent 
the money over and there was corruption involved, you would be going 
after him for breaking the law, for not following the law.
  You voted for the law. I voted for the law. Again, it is a good law. 
But then he ultimately released the money.
  You talk about the Javelin missiles. He sold that to them before the 
phone call even happened because it was a friend saying protect us 
against Russia.
  President Obama wouldn't stand up to Russia when Ukraine made that 
same phone call, yet President Trump did. President Trump said: I will 
sell you those missiles so you can protect yourself and can defend 
yourself against the Russians.
  And Zelensky, on that phone call, was thanking the President, again, 
for selling those missiles to them. It has allowed them to push back 
the Russian aggression and to root out--ultimately, they talked about 
rooting out and getting to the bottom of the corruption and the 
interference that happened with Russia in our 2016 election, which I 
hoped we would be more vigilant to root out together.
  It shouldn't just be President Trump wanting to stop it from 
happening again. All of us should want to make sure that that doesn't 
happen again.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Of course, the Acting Chief of Staff, who is, I think, also the 
acting head of OMB--not technically but actually, in my view--he said 
there was a quid pro quo. Now, he tried to clean it up. I get that. I 
get that.
  But he said, yes, there was a quid pro quo.
  And you read the transcript--which is not a transcript but a report 
of the substance of the conversation--in which he brings up a number of 
things, including Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.
  And, yes, we now have testimony that says there was a quid pro quo. 
There was going to be no meeting at the White House. There was going to 
be no sending of the $391 million that we thought was essential for our 
Ukrainian friends defending democracy in Ukraine from Putin.
  Now, we have had a more recent action where a telephone conversation 
with Erdogan led to another headline on that same page: Russia and 
Turkey reach deal on Syria. America in retreat. America no longer a 
factor in trying to bring peace.

                              {time}  1900

  Mr. Speaker, I asked a question. Is the President above the law?
  I asked another question: Is it right to keep the $391 million that 
we appropriated because we thought Ukraine was at great risk? And 
again, the question wasn't answered. It was answered with a question 
and with an assertion that the President had the authority to make sure 
that there wasn't corruption in Ukraine.
  Mr. Speaker, we are concerned whether there is corruption in the 
United States of America. That concerns us, and that is why these 
hearings are proceeding, consistent with our constitutional duty.
  And all the Republicans can do is--not defend the actions, because 
they are indefensible. All they can do is talk about process.
  One thousand subpoenas issued by Dan Burton when he was the 
Republican chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 
One hundred subpoenas, unilaterally, under the Gowdy rule, under the 
Pompeo rule, under the Republican rules, unilaterally.
  Trey Gowdy, himself, as chairman of the Benghazi Select Committee, 
three dozen subpoenas, without any input, under the Gowdy-Pompeo rules.
  So I ask the gentleman, do you think it is consistent with our 
Constitution that the President of the United States suggest to a 
foreign leader that they become involved in our elections?
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, first of all, it is not a question. It is a 
false assertion that the gentleman is making. And so you can make 
claims about people, but ultimately, if it is not backed up in fact, 
you just continue on.
  This has been the pattern of this majority, really, since before you 
took the majority. It has been an assertion to impeach the President, 
finding something; if there is nothing there, just keep looking.
  You had the Mueller investigation; 2,800 subpoenas, 22 months 
meandering around, looking for something, hoping; and we saw the 
chairman of the Intelligence Committee said publicly, time and time 
again, for 2 years, that he, himself, had more than circumstantial 
evidence of criminal acts. It turned out there were none.
  The chairman never showed the evidence that he had. Maybe he went and 
had a meeting with Mueller and Mueller discarded it. But if he really 
did have more than circumstantial evidence, he would have brought it 
forward. He would have shown all of us, but he didn't. He made the 
assertion, but it was a false assertion.
  And if it wasn't false, by the way, I would challenge the gentleman 
to bring it forward. He ought to have that duty to bring it forward.
  Mr. HOYER. We are in that process.
  Mr. SCALISE. No, no. We are talking about the Mueller investigation, 
but it didn't happen. So the collusion argument that was supposedly 
going to yield some kind of ability to go and impeach the President 
didn't turn out to be true.
  So, instead of stopping and moving on to the business of the American 
people, instead of more subpoenas--not laws. No lower drug prices 
because it is an impeachment infatuation. Instead of moving on, they 
went to this because there was this whistleblower.
  And let's go back to the memo of the whistleblower, before the 
whistleblower complaint. The whistleblower actually wrote a memo. 
Admittedly, they never even listened to the phone conversation, but 
they talked to other people.
  And if it was so dangerous what those other people heard, they had a 
legal ability and authority to go and file their own whistleblower 
complaint, but they didn't. So someone with a political bias, by the 
inspector general's own admission, a person with a political bias who 
had access to information that was classified, in violation of law, 
hears what they want to hear, writes a memo saying it was crazy; it was 
disturbing. Those were the words that the whistleblower wrote about the 
phone conversation.
  Lo and behold, the phone conversation gets released by the President. 
It was unprecedented. He didn't have to do it. I might have preferred 
if he didn't do it because you don't want a pattern where every 
conversation between world leaders is going to be out in the public.
  But, okay, it is now. And all of those assertions that were made were 
false. It wasn't a crazy conversation. It wasn't a disturbing 
conversation. It was two people talking about--one congratulating the 
other on his election. One talking about how he got elected on a 
platform of rooting out corruption, which he is doing, and we are

[[Page H8447]]

helping them with. That was the conversation.
  So now the whistleblower isn't even going to be brought forward, 
according to the chairman, because the chairman is the only person who 
gets to bring witnesses forward.
  Then the gentleman talked about Trey Gowdy's committee, the Benghazi 
Select Committee. He tries to use that as the reference point for 
holding an impeachment inquiry.
  Let's all be clear: Trey Gowdy's committee on Benghazi was a special 
select committee to find out what happened.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield on that point?
  Mr. SCALISE. I will ultimately yield, but you mentioned all of these 
things, and so I want to clear up the things that the gentleman 
mentioned.
  So the Trey Gowdy committee, where four Americans died and we were 
trying to get to the bottom of that--not to impeach anybody, but to 
find out how four Americans died when people should have known that 
there was danger over there and the proper precautions weren't taken. 
So he had a committee.
  Do you know, I would ask the gentleman from Maryland, that Chairman 
Gowdy allowed the minority to call witnesses? He didn't sit there and 
say: Hey, I won and you lost, and so I can just roll over you and then 
back up the car again. That is not what Trey Gowdy did. He was the 
chairman, but he let the ranking member, the minority leader of the 
committee, call their witnesses.
  That is not happening right now. Not one witness has been allowed by 
our side. Closed hearings to the public.
  If this is something that you are so concerned about, if you are 
concerned about corruption, why root it out in secret, behind closed 
doors, with a one-sided set of rules that represents and reflects more 
how the Soviet Union would conduct something like this as opposed to 
how the United States of America has always conducted impeachment 
inquiries? We are talking about impeachment inquiries in secret, behind 
closed doors.
  So, yes, the gentleman raised a lot of issues, and I wanted to go 
back to each of those.
  So what we have asked for is the same fairness that has always been 
allowed, both sides--not just the winning side, both sides. This is 
America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  What he didn't mention was the Benghazi Gowdy commission was the 
eighth Republican-led investigation of that matter. They all reached 
the same conclusion and found no evidence of wrongdoing; eight 
Republican-led, and they kept after it, over and over and over again.
  Why? As the minority leader said, on television, well, no, we got 
something out of it. We got some dirt on Hillary Clinton.
  I don't think it was dirt. It was the use of a computer which, by the 
way, some of the Trump family is doing the same thing--somewhat 
irrelevant.
  What is relevant is not all this stuff about fairness and this, that, 
and the other. We are following the Constitution. We are following the 
rules of this House. We are following the law, and every legal scholar 
that I have read asserts that. The only people who don't assert that 
are the people who are afraid of the facts, afraid of what has been 
done.
  I asked the gentleman questions: Do you think this is right? Do you 
think the President is above the law? He mentions the Mueller report.
  What he fails to mention and he just ignores is the Mueller report 
said there was evidence to suggest that there was the failure to follow 
the law and cooperate with the law, in other words, obstruction of 
justice. But he said Justice Department rules, of which he was an 
employee, do not provide for the ability to indict a President of the 
United States. That did not mean that there wasn't obstruction of 
justice.
  But what he said was this is the body to deal with this matter. So we 
are following our constitutional duty, and we are going to continue to 
do so, and there are going to be public hearings. There is going to be 
debate. There is going to be a vote on the rule if something is brought 
to the floor and full opportunity to debate on both sides of the aisle.
  Right now, of course, there are members of the committee--you would 
think this was somehow Mr. Schiff and the Democrats meeting in some 
secret room. They are meeting with the Republican members of the 
committee.
  And, by the way, I asked the gentleman the question about Mr. Nunes. 
But Mr. Nunes, apparently, comes sometimes and he doesn't come 
sometimes. And Mr. Meadows is apparently always there, so he can always 
tell you what is going on. This is an endless debate.
  If the Republicans think we are violating the law, of course they can 
go to court, as we have been forced to do by this President who has 
instructed people not to cooperate with Congress, not to testify before 
the Congress because he feels aggrieved.
  He will have his day in court. That is how we run these kinds of 
events in America: under our Constitution, under our laws. And, yes, he 
will have due process.
  But right now we are trying to find out whether there is probable 
cause to believe the President of the United States committed high 
crimes and misdemeanors and abused the power of his office, as Hamilton 
said the purpose of the impeachment provision was designed to address. 
Hamilton said that in two of the Federalist Papers.
  But we are going to endlessly talk about fairness, with Republicans 
sitting in the committee. He asserts, with no knowledge, that somehow 
the Democratic members of the committee released this information.
  I am not sure how the paper got this information. I know they get 
almost all the information on all these networks. But this was the 
testimony that was prepared by the witness who was there--who was 
there.
  He talks about the whistleblower and hearsay, but what he doesn't 
talk about: Does he believe the President is above the law? Does he 
believe it is appropriate?
  And the transcript--I could read it again. I keep saying 
``transcript.'' It is not a transcript. A report of the phone call that 
the President thought was okay, that is why he released it. He thought 
it was perfect.
  In addition, he said: The other thing, there is a lot of talk about 
Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecutor, and a lot of people 
want to find out about that. So whatever you can do with the Attorney 
General--he wants his lawyer. It should be the Justice Department's 
lawyer, but Mr. Barr to participate. And, of course, he wanted Mr. 
Giuliani to participate as well.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I would conclude, we are going down this rat hole 
too long. We are going to have hearings. We are going to find out the 
truth, and we are finding out the truth every day, and every day our 
Republican colleagues get more nervous.
  Every day there is some Republican who says: I don't know how long I 
can defend President Trump. Every day that is happening now, because 
the facts are coming out.
  When you don't have the facts, as I have said, Mr. Speaker, you 
attack the process. Republicans know the facts aren't on their side. 
They can't answer the fundamental question: Is it acceptable for a 
President to seek foreign interference in elections?
  They will say: Oh, there is no proof of that. And the problem they 
have is almost every day there is proof of that, not hearsay.
  Yes, the whistleblower did the right thing. The whistleblower heard 
something that he felt was dangerous to our national security, to our 
men and women in uniform, and to the democracy that we hold so dear, 
and so he said something. You have seen the signs: You see something, 
say something. He heard this.
  One could say, well, he didn't hear it, but then the President 
admitted it. Then the Chief of Staff, Acting Chief of Staff, Mr. 
Mulvaney, said, yes, that is what we did. And he instructed, don't get 
that money to the Ukrainians.
  Those are facts. We know those are facts.
  So I tell my friend, we really ought to conclude this. We believe we 
are following the law. If you don't feel we are following the law, go 
to court, just as we had to go to court with the President refusing to 
cooperate with the Congress of the United States in its constitutional 
duty.

[[Page H8448]]

  


                              {time}  1915

  And we are going to be fair, and I am sure the Senate will be fair if 
we take action here. And I don't know that we are going to take action. 
That hasn't been decided. But we are going to continue to try to find 
the truth, to try to get to the bottom of what has happened.
  I, frankly, think what we did in Turkey in that Erdogan phone call is 
as damaging to the interests of the United States of America. And the 
President talks about the public. The public ought to know.
  I want any Member of the Congress I will yield to to tell me what the 
deal was between Putin and Trump when they met in private and refused 
to tell anybody.
  Mr. Trump is great at disclosure. He says, I have nothing to hide in 
my tax returns. I will show my tax returns. That was 3 years ago. We 
have, by law, requested those returns. It has been denied. It has been 
denied.
  No openness. No, Mr. and Mrs. America, this is what my interests are. 
I am acting in your interests, not in mine. Doral. He decided that was 
too much, and Republicans criticized him.
  And, Mr. Speaker, on Turkey we had a vote in this House. He was 
really angry about that vote. 354 people of this House said this is 
wrong, Mr. President, this is harmful to our allies. You are exposing 
allies that we asked to participate to confront terrorists. You are 
letting them out perhaps to be murdered and slaughtered. 354-to-60. We 
voted on that.
  We need to deal with the facts. And we are going to find out the 
facts no matter how hard the Republicans want to pound on the table and 
talk about process and ignore any discussion on the substance of what 
is being disclosed.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we can conclude this colloquy because it is not 
going to come to any end. I understand the gentleman's perception. I 
think he is misrepresenting each time he says that this is not a fair 
procedure or that this is not a procedure consistent with the rules 
that the Republicans adopted in their rules package when they were in 
the majority.
  So I hope that we can move on, decide what the facts are, have a 
committee recommendation as is the process of this House and then have 
a vote on the floor of the House, if such is required, and the 
committees decide that moving forward is appropriate under the facts 
adduced by those committees.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, if we really are about getting to the 
facts, to think that you can suggest it is a fair process when only one 
side gets to choose who the witnesses are--again, the gentleman 
references Trey Gowdy's committee. Chairman Gowdy allowed both sides, 
Republican and Democrat, to bring forward witnesses because he wanted 
to get the facts. If you really wanted to get the facts, would the 
chairman of the committee, literally, take the witness and run out of 
the room as soon as other voting Members of Congress showed up? That 
happened today.
  If the chairman really wanted to get the facts out, would he 
literally close the meetings? Tell all Members, Republican and 
Democrat, not to go talk to the press. And then somebody mysteriously, 
selectively leaks things to the press that are negative, in many cases 
disputed by other testimony that was given in secret, so it can't get 
out. And so you get one side of the story.
  I guess if you are okay with having only one side of a story told, 
that might be your prerogative because you are in the majority, but 
don't call that fair. It is clearly not fair if only one side gets to 
tell their story and the other side doesn't get to bring their 
witnesses.
  The President who you are accusing of possibly committing some crime 
so high, high crime and misdemeanors is the standard, if you are 
accusing him of that, you can't lay it out yet, you are hoping and 
looking around for something, which isn't the process, by the way, that 
has been used in the past.
  If you don't like the results of the election, there is an election 
next year. And if you don't trust the people of this country to make 
that decision, do you really go into a Star Chamber and run a Soviet-
style set of hearings where only one side gets to tell their side of 
the story?
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Scalise, watch your words. Watch your words, Mr. 
Scalise. You and I both know it has no analogy to what you have just 
said. You ought to know that. If you don't know it, you ought to sit 
down with your counsel and find out about it. That is an allegation 
that is absolutely untrue and very offensive.
  Mr. SCALISE. What is the allegation that is untrue?
  Mr. HOYER. It is very offensive.
  Mr. SCALISE. Who can call the witnesses? Just your side. You think it 
is fair that only you can call the witnesses, and then you want to get 
the truth? Are you going to get the facts when you shut out the other 
side? When you don't let the President have his own legal counsel 
there, like has always been done.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Scalise, I know you are not a lawyer. Do you have any 
idea what a grand jury is?
  Mr. SCALISE. This is not a grand jury. This is the United States 
House of Representatives.
  Mr. HOYER. Of course it is.
  Mr. SCALISE. If you want to run a grand jury, go get a jury.
  This is the United States Congress. Voting Members of Congress are 
being shut out of the room, Mr. Speaker. Voting Members of Congress are 
being shut out of this process. You want to call that fair? Good luck. 
But it is not fair.
  It is a one-sided process to create a document with a determined 
outcome. It is going to be a tainted document, because it only tells 
one side of the story. The old saying is, a grand jury can indict a ham 
sandwich, if they want to. There is a reason for that because only one 
side can call witnesses.
  When we have had impeachment inquiries in the past you don't have to 
reinvent the wheel. It has only happened three times. And in modern 
times they have used the exact same standard.
  The standard is: Both sides get to call witnesses. That is not going 
on right now.

  It was done in public. That is not being done right now.
  It is going on in secret. The press can't go in. You can't go in. I 
can't go in, unless they run out with the witness.
  That is not a fair process. Maybe that is the process that you want 
to conduct, but don't call it fair, because it is not.
  And, ultimately, it is not going to result in a fair document that is 
going to be determining whether or not a President of the United States 
is impeached.
  And Members of both sides, 75 percent of the Members of this body, 
Republican and Democrat, are going to be asked to cast a vote on 
something that they can't even go and determine and find out about. 
They can't sit in the hearings. They can't read the testimony. 230 
million Americans are represented by those Members of Congress who 
cannot get access to what is going on in that room. Maybe you can get 
it from reading leaked press reports.
  Is that really how you determine whether or not to impeach a 
President of the United States? That is not fair.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I 
hesitate to respond because this is a circular discussion.
  Mr. Scalise and the Republican party, at the behest of Mr. Trump, 
need to get tougher. They can't mention the facts. The facts are known 
by the transcript the President sent down here. Again, not a 
transcript, a report of a telephone call, the statement of the 
ambassador, I think, a former U.S. marine.
  They don't want to talk about the facts. I get that. So we can go 
around and around in circles.
  And I will tell you, to have eight hearings on Benghazi? Don't give 
me this Trey Gowdy allowed this to happen and that to happen. It was 
the eighth hearing you Republicans had on that one subject, eight, and 
you never got the result you wanted, so you just kept doing it over and 
over and over. Getting the same result. We all know that quote.
  There are going to be public hearings, Mr. Speaker, but they are 
going to be public hearings when the witnesses can't check one another, 
can't give one story and then parrot the other story that was said.
  And Ambassador Sondland, of course. I don't know that he was our 
friend. He

[[Page H8449]]

was the President's friend, big contributor, special envoy to the 
European Union, but apparently doing part-time work in Ukraine along 
with Mr. Giuliani.
  The facts are going to come out, Mr. Speaker. And they are going to 
try to say, oh, the process. You are going to have public hearings, Mr. 
Schiff has said so. He said so in his letter.
  And you are going to have to answer the question: Do I believe that 
the conduct that has been pursued by the President of the United 
States, if he were a Democrat, would I believe that was right? That is 
the question you're going to have to answer. It is going to be a tough 
question for your side because the facts almost every day are mounting 
up.
  So I want to urge my friend, let's conclude this discussion, because 
I am not going to agree with you, and you are not going to agree with 
me.
  But ultimately the American people--and those 236 million people you 
talk about, there is not going to be any indictment, there is not going 
to be any impeachment, unless 218 of us in this body vote. And we are 
all going to vote. It is not going to be any Star Chamber. Everybody is 
going to have to vote.
  And then they are going to have to answer to their constituents, did 
I vote my conscience, or did I vote my politics?
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I don't know if the gentleman is asserting 
that we will have a vote on impeachment, that might be breaking news, 
but if these Members, all of us, are going to vote on impeachment, 
shouldn't we be able to see what goes on? Shouldn't we be able to have 
access to the hearings? Shouldn't we be able to have access to the 
transcripts? Can we now?
  I would ask the gentleman, would he release the transcripts now of 
these hearings so that Members can start preparing? So Members can know 
what they are going to vote on?
  Are you going to keep it in secret and then drop something on the 
floor after it has been baked and predetermined what the outcome should 
be before Members really have an idea of what is going on in those 
rooms that are being denied entrance to those rooms right now? It has 
never happened before in other impeachment inquiries.
  And you can say it is about process. It is about history.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I don't say that.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Hoyer mocked that the process is 
tainted, that the process is being run like it might be run in the 
Soviet Union, not in the United States of America. It has never been 
done like that before.
  And you talk about Trey Gowdy, as if we were looking around for 
something to impeach a President on. We weren't.
  You had four Americans die. There are a lot of questions that still 
haven't been answered about why those Americans died.
  And all of us should be concerned about what happened at Benghazi. To 
ridicule the fact that there were eight hearings on something so 
alarming? Nobody was fishing around, looking--
  By the way, we never tried to impeach the President over anything. 
All of the things that we disagreed with him on, none of those. Even 
times when he would sign executive orders that circumvented the law, 
and we would challenge him in the court, and we won a number of those 
court cases, but that doesn't mean it rose to the level of high crimes 
and misdemeanors. And so we never went down that road.
  But maybe some, in some part of a base, want to see impeachment, no 
matter what. And some have said that. Some in your own party have said 
they just want to impeach the President because if they don't, he will 
get reelected. That has been said by members of your party.

  That is not why you impeach a President, because you think he is 
going to get reelected. The American people make that determination 
next year.
  We have had investigation after investigation. Again, Mueller alone 
had 2,800 subpoenas. He had the full authority to bring charges against 
the President on collusion, on obstruction. Even the Attorney General 
said that he had the authority to bring charges, but even if he did 
have those, he wouldn't have brought charges on obstruction, because 
there wasn't obstruction and there wasn't collusion. But he had full 
authority to bring charges on both fronts, and he didn't. But, again, 
222 months of that meandering witch hunt to try to find something. And 
it wasn't found because it wasn't there.
  And then you had the whistleblower, the so-called whistleblower. Who, 
if you are worried about who is talking to somebody to try to get their 
stories straight, interestingly, the whistleblower--who, again, was 
identified to be somebody with a political bias--went and met with 
Chairman Schiff's staff prior to filing the whistleblower complaint.
  Yes, somebody did collude. Real interesting how that happened. Before 
the whistleblower complaint was filed, they actually sat down with the 
staff of the majority leader, Chairman Schiff, and lo and behold, you 
get a political document that comes out with allegations, disproven in 
many cases, but that is where we are. That is the basis for starting an 
impeachment inquiry.
  That is not really an impeachment inquiry, because we are not 
following the same rules that have always been followed under an 
impeachment inquiry, but that is the genesis of this, and that is where 
we are.

                              {time}  1930

  And if that is what the document is going to ultimately yield, it 
will be a tainted document. But I guess if you want to find an 
outcome--this isn't a grand jury. This is the United States House of 
Representatives, and there are 75 percent in this body who are going to 
be asked to vote on something that they cannot see, they cannot 
participate in, they have absolutely no access to. That is not what 
this country is all about.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman keeps misstating the facts and 
the law and the process.
  Every Member is going to have access to all the documents, all the 
testimony before they are asked to vote on it, period.
  Mr. SCALISE. When?
  Mr. HOYER. When they have concluded their private sessions, which are 
trying to get at the facts and not having been tainted by some circus. 
Everybody is going to have the right to see what evidence is adduced.
  That is the fear, of course, and I again suggest the gentleman think 
of this: If he saw these headlines and it was a Democratic President 
and Turkey and Russia were deciding what is happening in the Middle 
East and deciding whether they are going to go after ISIS, our ally, 
and then this other headline replete with the aid to Ukraine was 
conditioned on a quid pro quo or they weren't going to be in the White 
House, they may not get the $391 million, he would be outraged. He 
would be on this ceiling.
  Mr. SCALISE. I would if it was true, but it is not.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, do I still have my time?
  Mr. SCALISE. You can only read it in the press because of selective 
leaking. And so that is how Members of Congress are supposed to make a 
determination on impeachment of the President, based on selected leaks 
to the press?
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman wasn't here during the Clinton 
impeachment with Starr. Starr might as well----
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, here is another headline: ``Democrats 
Writing More Subpoenas Than Laws.'' That is a headline. That is what 
angers people who want to see their prescription drug prices lowered, 
but they can't because of this infatuation with impeachment. That is 
what is holding this country back. That is what is holding this House 
back from doing the people's work.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask if the gentleman has anything else. If not, 
I would be ready to yield back.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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