[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 8899]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     LOYALTY OF COMMANDER IN CHIEF

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Speaker, amidst the breaking news alerts and tweets 
that have overwhelmed our Nation over the past several days, and as our 
Nation tunes in to a hearing taking place on the other side of the 
Capitol as I speak, lies a simple question: Did the President of the 
United States put his own personal and political interests above the 
interests of the American people?
  Congress cannot allow itself to become desensitized to the gravity of 
those accusations or be deterred from an aggressive, expeditious, and 
fully independent investigation conducted in full view of the American 
public, because the real victims of this investigation's ``cloud'' are 
our constituents: Americans who wake up every morning praying that 
their monthly budget won't be compromised by the unexpected; who walk 
into their office hoping that today isn't the day that that layoff 
notice arrives; who tuck their son or daughter into bed at night 
knowing that, despite working two jobs, their kid won't be afforded the 
same luxuries as their friend down the street; who look to Washington 
for a hand and instead see us forced to wrestle with an almost 
unbelievable question: whether the leader of the free world compromised 
the security of his citizens and our democracy to a foreign adversary.
  Mr. Speaker, there has been an awful lot of talk about loyalty in the 
past 24 hours. Let's be very, very clear. The American people should 
never have to be reassured of the loyalty of their Commander in Chief.

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