That. And what the chairmans objectivesr we ought to know that. How many members of the press the chairman is spying on and how many other american citizens. Its a concern and i would hope the gentleman would work with us to stop this and not allow the chairman to use his power whether its members of the press, members of congress or legal people across this country. And i would yield. Mr. Hoyer the gentleman yield . Mr. Scalise i yield. Mr. Hoyer we do know by the fact that the president has abused his power and the gentleman does not want to speak about that. The facts were testified to in the committee. The gentleman, like the president , seeks to distract i reject out of hand that either mr. Schiff or the committee spied on anybody. Did they pursue discovery so they could get the facts and the truth . They did. I dont know im not a member of the committee, not a member of the Intelligence Committee and im not privy to all the information that may be available, but i reject again out of hand that either the chairman or the committee spied on people. Now, the gentleman has been a member of this body for some period of time and im sure he watched what went on in benghazi, thousands and thousands and thousands of pages received by subpoenas. Cooperated by the administration, the Obama Administration, or mr. Burton who was chairman of the government oversight committee. Thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of subpoenaed evidence or information. But i will frankly, madam speaker, look look at this information and because i believe it is a very serious and egregious accusation that mr. Schiff or the committee spied on anybody. And they may not like the discovery process or the information that was accomplished by the discovery process. They may be upset that it did not absolve the president of the United States from clearly abusing his power as president of the United States for his personal gain. But i have no reason to believe and no evidence has been offered just a bald face assertion that somehow, madam speaker, mr. Schiff spied on people. I reject that and believe that to be totally without merit. And i yield back. Mr. Scalise i would hope the gentleman would work with us to get to the bottom of this. The gentleman said he is not aware of what the chairman is doing, neither am i. But im concerned with what the chairman has done. And i will yield in a moment. But he selectively put in a report the names of members of the press, of members of congress who he has had political disagreements with. He didnt put the names of everybody else in there. If he has 3,500 pages of reports of phone records of people he has been spying on, he wont share all of those people that he is spying on but selectively leak out members of the press who have written articles that maybe he has zeed with. That is frightening. That is an abuse of power, but we dont know because the chairman wont share the details of what he is up to, but he did selectively put it in a report that wasnt discussed in the hearings. It raises alarps and concerns and i would hope we would get to the bottom of it. Mr. Hoyer he said he was in my position of not having a lot of information, yet he makes conclusions and assertions and accusations that are not based in fact. He continues the process argument that the republicans have made over and over and over and over again. Why . Because they do not want to address the facts of this case, because they do not believe correctly that the facts are on their side. So that i would hope we could move on. Well see whether there are any facts to sustain what the republican whip has asserted. I believe there are not. But im not going to continue to argue process here. There will be a time in the relatively near future when we will argue substance, the constitution, the laws of this country and our oath of office to protect and defend the constitution of our country, our National Security and the integrity of our elections of the i yield. Mr. Scalise we are beyond the process arguments because we are into the details and the facts have been clear that the president did not abuse his power and the president did not commit Impeachable Offenses. The Mueller Report confirmed that and even the witnesses. The witnesses that the democrats were brought forward, can you name an Impeachable Offense . Not one. Can you name bribery, after quid pro quo wasnt getting them to where they were going. Can you name bribery. Even the witnesses this week. Why they were there, who knows, but not one of them could name any wrongdoing. But what we do know is over 100 democrats in this chamber voted for impeachment prior to the phone call with president zellens ki, voted for impeachment without any facts because that was the objective was to impeach the president because they didnt agree with the results of the 2016 election. Havent laid hopes or dreams, none of which have come to fruition and the two people that are really most pertinent are President Trump and president zellens ki because they participated in the phone call and both of them said nothing wrong was done. The president thanked President Trump that president obama didnt give him and he said there was no pressure and got the money for additional aid that he requested. Those are the facts. And i would yield. Mr. Hoyer 391 million to say he wasnt intimidated. And the witnesses to which the republican whip referred, 75 of those witnesses, three out of four said they believed that the offenses that were testified to by some members of the white house and the National Security, by an ambassador, by a Deputy Assistant to mr. Pompeo, that mr. Pompeo has said is a very credible individual, they all testified and based upon that testimony, witnesses concluded, three out of four, that, in fact, they believed the offenses that were discussed were worthy of impeachment. So i dont know what hearings the gentleman was listening to, madam speaker, but the hearings i listened to had three out of four constitutional experts saying very emphatically, that, in fact, if those facts were true and of course we are not going to be tried here but in the United States senate, all we do in this body under the constitution is to see whether or not effectively if there is probable cause to believe that, in fact, an abuse of power occurred. The three experts who testified yesterday said it was and one expert said it was not. 75 of the experts that testified and frankly, literally, hundreds and thousands of editorial writers, op ed writers and citizens of this country have said this is an abuse of power. The senate will make that conclusion and will decide whether or not in the trial phase of this matter to indicate that the evidence is not overwhelming that was alist ted in the hearings by the Intelligence Committee, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. I yield. Mr. Scalise the gentleman is acknowledging that they are going to pass impeachment of the president because he is saying it is going to the senate. All four witnesses this week said they had no firsthand knowledge of anything that happened and they were giving their opinions and not one of them voted for President Trump but some testified that they have given money to democrat candidates for president who were running against President Trump. Hey were actively engaged in defeating President Trump and they are giving evidence that they have seen acknowledging they have no firsthand knowledge themselves and they are biased because they are campaigning against the president but you brought them in to show they are objective witnesses. At least under oath they acknowledged they have a political bias. All of the witnesses said they voted against the president said it was abuse of this committee to impeach a president based on him exercising his rights and following the law, which part of the law says that the gentleman from from maryland and the speaker of the house voted for that require a president of the United States prior to sending hardearned taxpayer money to a foreign country to ensure they re rooting out corruption. The old rain reagan doctrine trust but verify and we determined that. And we have high confidence that the president is following through on rooting out corruption and the money was released prior to the money deadline and there was no investigation or announcement. Lets keep in mind the bias of those witnesses, but ultimately the people of this country i think are deciding this already, but the people of the country are the ones next year should select the president of the United States, not some people who have said since 2016 that they didnt like that election and are going to try to impeach the president. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for yielding. One of the facets of this conversation always is that i believe the republican whip adopts premiseses that are not supported by the evidence. Ambassador sondland, a contributor of 100,000, maybe more, to the Trump Campaign in 2016 appointed by President Trump and sent to represent the United States abroad, testified and in fact, he heard believed that there was a relationship between releasing visit91 million, having a at the white house to confirm the United States continuing support for ukraine, our ally nd friend assaulted by russia, which, of course, putin is , ambassador sondland made it very clear that those were the conditions for that money being released. This is not hear say. This is not democrats, this is somebody who is a substantial supporter and apparently the whip believes that if you are a supporter of somebody else, you must have a bias. Apparently now ambassador sondland had a bias for or maybe against, because his testimony is firsthand, not hear say and that, in fact, his testimony is there was a relationship between that. Now what i said, madam speaker is not what the whip republican whip attributed to me. What i said was, the process, not that we have made a conclusion but the process is this house under the constitution has the responsibility, if it believes and well see if the Judiciary Committee concludes that, if it believes that theres probable cause to think that either bribery was committed, an abuse of power was committed, a solicitation of a Foreign Government to participate in americas elections, if it concludes that, then the process is not that we make the decision, yes, those are the facts, it is to be tried in the United States senate under our constitution. And they will then conclude like a jury in any case in our courts will conclude whether or not those facts lead to the conclusion that abuse of power was committed. So, i just want to make sure the gentleman characterizes what i said. A conclusion has not been made. What i said was, the facts seem to be pretty clear, however. There does not seem to be much difference, and the president of the United States himself gave to us and the public a notes of the conversation he had. By the way, i would like you to do us a by the way, id like yo to do us a favor. That was under the context of the president withholding money. Mr. Mulvaney says, it happens all the time. Get over it. I dont know whether the American Public will get over it or whether the house or senate will get over it or not. But that was the attitude of mr. Mulvaney. Of course we did this. Its always done. Get over it. Well see what is concluded. Let me one more point i want to make. Says over 100 democrats voted. 2018 times, in 2017, in 25 2019, prior to that july phone call, articles of impeachment were filed. Three times the democrats, the majority of democrats voted not to proceed and moved to table those resolutions. Three times the majority of democrats voted there was no rush to judgment. And very frankly, prior to this july 25 phone call, and the whistleblower having the courage to come forward and say to the Inspector General, i think this is of concern, and the Inspector General making a determination that, yes, this was a serious matter requiring urgent consideration, and that transmitted to here. A re that point, there was Democratic Party who was saying, whatever our personal feelings may be about the election, or about this president s operations in office, was that there was not sufficient evidence on which to move forward. And we were having hearings and we said, until the facts are such that we feel it is timely and appropriate to move, we would not move. So there was no rush to judgment. 2017, 2018 and 2019. Rejected. A rush to judgment. Majority of democrats. I made a couple of the motions. To table. So, madam speaker, motions to table. So, madam speaker, were now proceeding as our constitutional responsibility dictates that we do. And we will see what happens. But all this talk about process, all this talk about and i reject any assertions with respect to mr. Schiff and or the committee, is to distract. Well focus on the facts, well focus on the evidence, well focus on what the reasonable conclusions, bationed upon that evidence, will be based upon that evidence, will be at some point in the future, if the Judiciary Committee makes that determination that they want to recommend the house considering such action. I yield back. Mr. Scalise i thank the gentleman for yielding. Hopefully we get to the bottom of whatever chairman schiff has done with these phone records. Do want to correct the record. Ambassador sonland was asked under oath, in committee, has anyone on the planet shown any direction between a link between Financial Aid and investigations, anyone on the planet . And under oath he said, no. Thats clear, that was on the record. So i just wanted to make that clear. Look, were going to litigate this. Were going to debate this for hours and hours. Mr. Hoyer will the gentleman yield . Mr. Scalise briefly ill be happy to yield. Mr. Hoyer he said he thought there was a prid pro kyo. As the gentleman quid pro quo. As the gentleman pointed out, he had a substantial bias. Appointed by mr. Trump as ambassador to the european union. His response was, to that question, i would suggest if there was a bias from these witnesses that testified yesterday, simply because they supported him, the same would apply to mr. Sondland. When asked whether or not there was a quid pro quo, his answer was yes. I yield back. Mr. Scalise when asked under oath whether or not he had any evidence of any link between investigations and money, he said, no. And the bottom line is, the president , president zelensky, got the money. The quid pro quo that was being alleged didnt happen. President zelensky got the money. There were no investigations. But this will continue anyway. Clearly over 100 members had made up their mind prior to the phone call. I know were going to continue this debate over the next weeks. Hopefully we get beyond it. Deal with other issues. But with that, madam chair, i would yield back. Madam speaker. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. Mr. Hoyer madam speaker. Madam speaker. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland seek recognition . Mr. Hoyer madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent that when the house adjourns today it adjourn to meet on monday next when it shall convene at noon for morning hour debate, at 2 00 p. M. For legislative business. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The chair will remind members from engaging in personalities oward the president. The chair will now entertain requests for oneminute peeches. For what purpose does the gentleman from the gentlelady from minnesota seek recognition . Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for ne minute. Ms. Omar madam speaker, i rise today to remind our constituents of the work that we have been doing on their behalf. The house of representatives has passed nearly 400 bills this congress for the people. For dreamers, we passed an Immigration Reform bill, the dream and promise act. For our workers, we passed the raise the minimum wage act, to increase the federal minimum wage to 15 an hour. And the butchlewis act, to protect the pension for more than 1 million workers one million workers and retirees. For the personal and Financial Securities of the american women, we passed a strong reauthorization of the violence against women act. For our elections we passed h. R. 1, which we saw as transparentssy and accountability to our elections, which included my own legislation to restrict foreign lobbying. To strengthen our defenses against foreign attacks, we also passed the safe act and the shield act. And for our lgbtq communities, we passed the equality act. For all of these all of these bills have been ignored. Mitch mcconnell brags about being the grim reaper and that is exactly what he has been for the hopes and the dreams of the american people. Id like to call for us to remind every single american of the work that we have been doing. Thank you, madam speaker. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman yields back the balance of her time. For what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition . Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for within for ne minute. Mr. Olson madam speaker, today i rise to honor the life of joe marie bankston. The First Woman Police officer to serve the people of houston, texas. The year was 1955. Seven years before i was born. When jo marie, or fina as she was called by her friends and family, graduated in the first Houston PoliceDepartment Class to include women. At that time, the mere idea of a Woman Police Officer was something very few could imagine , much less pursue. Fina paved the way for new female recruits through the 1950s and 1960s. Ushering in a new era of strength and passion. Fina passed away sadly a few weeks ago on thanksgiving day. She leaves behind a pioneer legacy of protecting and serving the houston community. She also left behind a loving family. Including her son, jimmy, who carries out her spirit as a veteran of h. P. D. And as a current u. S. Marshall. , and e inspired so many many more that she never knew some that she knew, and many more that she never knew. She made history in her own humble way. May she enjoy fair winds and seas in heaven. Madam speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. For what purpose does the gentlelady from new jersey seek recognition . I rise today to ask unanimous consent to address the house, revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. Ms. Sherrill thank you, madam speaker. My constituents have said to me that they think the Holiday Season is the perfect time to eliminate the marriage penalty. The 2017 tax law violated more than 100 years of federal tax policy, capping the state and local Tax Deduction at 10,000. That means married couples filing jointly are constrained to the same 10,000 level that applies to individual filers. This penalizes tens of thousands of couples in my district. In morse county alone there were more than 52,000 middle class joint filers in 2016 and well over half were above the 10,000 cap. They are now likely subject to a marriage penalty simply for filing their taxes jointly. I am a member of the salt task force and my bipartisan bill, the salt relief and marriage penalty elimination act, should be the basis for writing this wrong done to families. It will raise the salt deduction across the board and restore incentives for Charitable Giving and home ownership. Thank you, madam speaker. And i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. For what purpose does the gentlelady from texas seek recognition . Ms. Jackson lee madam speaker, to address the house for one minute. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. Ms. Jackson lee i thank the speaker. I wanted to rise to, again, indicate the enorm tiff what we accomplished today in enormity of what we accomplished today in voting for h. R. 4. It steems it seems like h. R. 4 has been at the center point of giving opportunity to so many across the nation. That is the bill to give every american one vote, one person. It was derailed in the shelby case from alabama, misguided by a 54 decision by the Supreme Court, ignoring the sacrifice of our colleague, the honorable john lewis, who almost died on the Edmund Pettus bridge, brutally attacked by state and local police. That is the same as local laws and state laws continuing into the decades to oppress voters. And so, i indicated in that case, that 54 decision, that wrongheaded decision, that h. R. 4 corrects, that it was as if we were getting the best of polio and we said, we no longer need the vaccine. I have lived through the question of purging, along with my friends from the naacp Legal Defense fund, and i worked hard to get language into h. R. 4 that would stop people being purged illegally off the rolls. Now we have a recognition that one vote, one person we will fight to get this signed by the president because the constitution allows and declares one vote, one person. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. For what purpose does the gentlelady from minnesota seek recognition . Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. Madam speaker, its with a heavy heart today i rise to pay tribute to three brave soldiers from the Minnesota National guard who lost their lives yesterday in a helicopter accident. Ms. Mccollum to the families and friends who have lost loved ones, this is a terrible, terrible tragedy. Your loved ones answered the call to serve the Minnesota National guard and those who answered that call do so because theyre committed to making our nation safer and stronger. They defended our nation abroad and they served their friends and neighbors at home by digging us out of snow storms and shielding us from rising flood waters. We recognize that your loved ones were not just citizens citizen shoulders, she were cherished members of soldiers, they are cher herbed members of your family cherished members of your family. To the governor and the congressional delegation, the whole state of minnesota and our nation stands with you at this time of great sadness. Madam speaker, i ask my colleagues to keep these citizen soldiers and their families in our thoughts. With that, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. For what purpose does the gentlelady from oklahoma seek recognition . Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. Ms. Horn thank you, madam speaker. Today i rise to mark a historic moment for our democracy, as the house passed the Voting Rights advancement act. Today more than 50 years after the original Voting Rights act was passed into law, the right to be heard at the ballot box is under threat. The vraa defends our right to vote with important provisions that increase election oversight, strengthen transparency, transparency in voting changes, and ensures the fundamental principle of one person, one vote is in tact. As an oklahoman, im truly honored to stand here today to honor as well the history of a city and individuals with strong civil rights history. Just over 61 years ago, in oklahoma city, clara looper led a group of 13 children in the irst sitin in the nation. Without clara and those 13 children and without all of those who came before us, we wouldnt be here today recognizing the passage of the vraa. We have more work to do, but as we celebrate todays legislation, we should give thanks to the foot soldiers and those who came before, who laid the foundation, and acknowledge the work we have yet to do. Thank you, madam chair, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does gentleman seek recognition . I request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. The gentleman is recognized for one minute. Im horpped to represent the university of california at san diego, which is one of the leading Research Universities in the nation. As i work with my friends on the squeags and labor committee, i have kept all the incredible students in mind. Im especially proud of our work to improve access to graduate students and ease their financial burden. Graduate students are the backbone of Research Universities, teaching and mentoring undergraduates, performing research and finding solutions to problems. Unform, many of those same students have crippling student loan act. And this strengthens the Pell Grant Program to address the needs of our graduate and undergraduate students. Im proud to cosponsor the College Affordability act and will continue to work with my colleagues to improve outcomes for our students. Thank you, and i yield back. The speaker pro tempore under the speakers announced policy of january 3, 2019, the gentleman from texas, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. Mr. Gohmert thank you, madam speaker. Been reminded again this week conversations with some friends across the aisle that there are some people in here with whom i have extremely different views, but i know them and they got good hearts and want to do the right thing, we just disagree on what that is. There was a lot said today in the debate over the Voting Rights act change. Been ave tried to say and mistaken, i dont think they were intentionally trying to misrepresent anything, but, what we voted on today was not a reauthorization of the Voting Rights act. The Voting Rights act has been, in effect, it is still in effect. But going back to the previous reauthorization that came through the Judiciary Committee im on, and it became clear that tween the republican and democrat leader in judiciary, there was an agreement and they werent going to allow changes to their agreement. And i pointed out to both of them back at the time, you have a provision in here that is reauthorized that will punish tates for since committed by grandparents, in some cases, great greatgrandparents that happened decades before, many cases, decades before some were born that were there. This is not supposed to be a country where we intentionally punish the children or grandchildren of somebody who committed an offense. And it was wrongdoing in preventing people from voting. And the Voting Rights act addressed that. But it was reauthorized more than once continuing to punish the same states that are found to be lacking. And the data that we had at the previous reauthorization showed clearly there were some districts in places like new york, wisconsin, california, there were places where the voting disparity, Racial Disparity was worse than in the states that were still being punished. Some say its not a punishment for the federal government to say you are not trustworthy so you dont get to be in charge of your elections. We have to prove every single thing that you do, that is an extraordinary and basically unconstitutional action by the federal government that has been deemed to be constitutional, but only such states that we are offending had corrected the situation. So, i know there was one newspaper in my district that reported i was against the Voting Rights reauthorization. And when i provided them a copy of my transcript from the reporters stenographers here, exactly as it was and read what i actually said instead of taking talking points from the altleft media, the editor from things she said, apparently a democrat, but she was an honorable person and they printed the correction and corrected what they had said. I was in favor of Voting Rights reauthorization, but not to continue to punish states that were that were not in violation and hadnt been for decades. In fact, my amendment would have required the punitive parts of the Voting Rights act to apply to any state in the union that as found to be in violation of the constitutional protections on voting. D i pointed out to the republican leader at the time and democratic leader john conyers and john conyers was more open to making the change and he said you made a good point, let me talk to some of our lawyers about it. Republican leader said absolutely not, we are not changing anything at all. But i said this is going to be struck down. There are some things we dont really know. This is one that is going to be struck down, why risk the court striking the whole thing down, if you allow my amendment, it wont ever be struck down. And the republican leader said at the time absolutely not. And mr. Converse came back to me later and said, i have talked to our lawyers and they say, you do we a good point, but since have an agreement on it, its just easier and go forward and if they strike something down, they strike it down. The Supreme Court struck down an unconstitutional part that i tried to amend and make it constitutional. But thats where we are. This today, does not reauthorize the Voting Rights act. And it is interesting hearing comments from folks across the aisle about why this is so important that we dont disenfranchise votes. And if you look at what the activity and even saying, there were 17 Million People that were disenfranchised because they are no longer allowed to vote. And despite what some who made comments online might say, im not stupid. I have won awards in every school i have been in. But i know dead people who vote, vote democrat. Republicans have had a very difficult time getting dead people to vote republican. And william f. Buckley talked about an uncle that he voted republican and then a year after he decide, he started voting democrat. Im not kidding. It actually happened in texas. Sometimes we kid about it. Lyndon johnson, according to david brinkley, told a story back in the 1960s to reporters about how when he was running for congress that he and his Campaign Manager were going through the cemetery writing down names of people they wanted to vote the next day. And there was moss on a tombstone and the cam paper manager said lets go to the next tombstone. I told him, no, sir, this man has every bit a right to vote as everyone in this cemetery. It was funny. But people who knew about the dukes in do you haveal and voting irregularities and the courthouse burning with the records, those kind of things for what got reported and johnson was able to get a good joke out of it. But nonetheless, still true. If you find somebody who is dead and voted and normally they vote democrat. So i hope my friends will understand some of the people that you are talking about being disenfranchised by what republicans want to do to fix election law, it will disenfranchise the dead who are continuing to vote. Their vote will not be allowed to count as it did when they were alive. We also have had millions reported to have voted who were in this country illegally or voted more than once, registered more than one place and as my iend john, a writer with the wall street journal, john had a book on voting fraud. Fantastic book. And i heard him say to me, you know, the biggest fraud about elections is the statement that theres no Election Fraud today. So this Voting Rights act amendment that was voted on by the house today is yet another effort for the federal government to ignore the constitution and ignore the mandate that elections are to be controlled locally and thats according to the 10th amendment, not just reserved to the states and people, its specifically talked about. And exceptions have been made over the years that allow the federal government to have some say. And that was the case because of the abuses and people that were prevented from voting. Im surprised that we have colleagues here that dont want the dead people to be disenfranchised whose names have been taken off of rolls in areas where republicans are trying to update the voting rolls. And i understand my colleagues, they are not stupid either. They know dead people vote more for democrats than republicans and i get it and why they want to keep them voting. The other vote we had today israelipalestinian twonation peace, peace for two independent states. I couldnt vote for that. I pray for the peace of israel, but i couldnt vote for that. Twostate solution being rammed down the throat of the one of the parties that doesnt want to totally destroy those who want to totally destroy them. I mean we send money over to the palestinians still. One of the things that President Trump has been wanting to do, he agreed with me once when i pointed out, we dont have to pay people to hate us, theyll do it for free. And there is corruption. Different places around the world, and especially there has been in ukraine. And i was glad President Trump was trying to do something about it. Obviously president obama didnt do anything about it and we have a huge effort by our friends across the aisle who want to stop and reform the elimination of corruption in ukraine that President Trump was trying to undertake and apparently ukraine has been quite helpful to our friends across the aisle. Obviously in the last president ial campaign, plenty of information to indicate. They were trying to help Hillary Clinton and thats why it was reported that after the election, they realized, well, gee, we were trying to help Hillary Clinton, maybe we ought to warm up to donald trump. But when it comes to israel and an effort to push through a twostate solution, forcing israel to sign an agreement or an effort to try to push them to sign an agreement with the palestinians, while the palestinians in response to each bilateral and unilateral effort that israel has made to reach out with an olive branch, try to bring about an effort at peace, they have been slapped down. And as a result of those efforts at peace, israelis have died and places have been destroyed and israelis live in fear. All you have to do is go to uthern israel and you find out, because theyre coming every day, these rockets get fired, theyre not that accurate on where they hit, so nobody can be sure they wont hit them, their home, the homes they have to have a safe place within there so that when warning comes, which may only be seconds before the rocket hits, you have to grab your kids and head for the safe room and hope that you arent killed. And heard from one mother once when i was over there, the rockets were flying from the strip that israel had unilaterally given as a show of peace and effort to reach out unilaterally, asking nothing in return, i thought it was a huge mistake, but they did it. And as a result rockets fly every day. But this lady was saying she had her little son in the car and the warning sounded, the siren, she didnt have time to get her child to a safe place. So she laid on top of him in the car seat, put him down on the seat, and late on top of him. And when the rockets laid on top of him. And when the rockets were far enough away that it was not a threat to them and the rockets stopped temporarily, and she sat up, her son cried and said, mama , if youre going to die, i dont want to keep living. Dont do that to me again. I want to be with you wherever you are. This kind of stuff gets played out day after day in israel because the palestinians want to wipe them off the map. They dont want any jews between the river jordan and the sea, the mediterranean. And they make that very clear. We want to wipe them out. And theyve never agreed to back off of that position and its pretty clear that no matter what kind of agreement you have, when you are still teaching children in your schools, which receive money from the United States, that jews are vermin and rats and they need to be wiped out, the same kind of things the nazis were saying and printing, they print them. They say them. They teach them. And were going to want to do them favors, send them more money, and while they use money themselves to teach that kind of hatred . So, i was mentioning to my friends, lee zeldin, earlier today my friend, lee zeldin, earlier today, that if the democrats who were pushing through this demand for a twostate solution were successful, then they could istorically stand with Neville Chamberlain and say as did he, this twostate solution means peace in our time, when actually it would just be a precursor to the killing of millions of jews. We dont need a twostate solution where one of those states is still intent on wiping israel off the map. It made no sense. And the people on this side of the aisle, most everybody, i think, voted against it. Not that they were against peace in the middle east, of course we are. But weve also heard yesterday, well, actually, wednesday, yesterday and today, a lot made about a comment by President Trump when he was talking about whether he would fire mr. Mueller, robert mueller, as special counsel. This article by charlie spearing, december 6, points out that heres what the president said. Article 1 is a legislative branch. Article 2 is the executive branch. And the president said, article 2 says i can do whatever i want. So for me, this is about honoring our oath of office, making sure that the constitution is respected and has about and how he ignored the subpoenas im sorry. This is pelosi. Heres what trump said. Look, article 2, i would be allowed to fire robert mueller, assuming i did all the things i said i want, to fire him, number one, i didnt. He wasnt fired. Very importantly. But more importantly, article 2 allows me to do whatever i want. Article 2 would allow me to fire him. I wasnt going to fire him. You know why . Because i watched Richard Nixon firing everybody and that didnt work out too well for him. So that is the context the president was talking about. Yes, hes exactly right. He had the authority to fire robert mueller. I encouraged him not to fire him, just appoint a special prosecutor to investigate bob mueller. Why in the world he would hire nothing but people that hated him he said, can i do that . I said, yeah. The authority of the attorney general to hire and fire a special prosecutor comes from the president. Its his power. And he can do it if he wants to and hes exactly right. Article 2 would allow him to fire mueller, which he never did. So when the speaker takes that quote, i can do whatever i want, when hes talking about whether or not he were to fire robert mueller, and try to apply that this is why we have to remove him from office that is such a dangerous, dangerous direction to go. Its why i was so saddened to hear that our speaker wants to now move forward with articles of impeachment. As Jonathan Turly testified before us wednesday, this bar is so low and historically speaking when a governing document like our constitution is degenerated to this point, you dont normally come back from that. And what you could expect historically, if my friends do as they say theyre going to do, theyre going to vote to impeach President Trump, and he hadnt committed any crime, hes competed out some offensive tweeted out some offensive tweets. And have a bar this low try to, for the first time in american history, remove a duly elected president then any president , regardless of party in the future can expect that when the Opposition Party controls the house, that they will spend two to four years, however long the opposing party is in power, in fighting impeachment. Thats what this will do for the future. Now, i know some of our democratic colleagues have seen before that they can attack republicans, they can be unfair, they can encourage people to be fair to republicans, and republicans will not want to treat others the way they got treated when it was so unfair. And i cant help but wonder if people think, you know, we can do this to them and they wont do it to a democratic president. There are people who were often , for ng out to me President Trump to be impeached. Going back to fast and furious, all kinds of things that we should have been investigating. But at the time we had a speaker that didnt want to go to court and get court orders in order to get the documents that were demanded. So we had a show vote to hold in contempt, but it was meanings meaningless unless we went to court and had it enforced by a court order. As Jonathan Turly was saying, is the right of the congress or the president to do. And if the congress or the president does that, its not an pismeable offense for the member of congress or the pem Impeachable Offense for the member of congress orb the president. Its a constitutional right. Once the court or the president. Its a constitutional right. Once the court orders that it has to be produced or orders that it does not have to be produced, then if the president or the congress says, well, im not going to abide by the court order, then that gets you into an area that you may want to look at impeachment. But thats not whats happened here. But its what the next couple of weeks actions may lead us to. So its unfortunate that the taken out comments of context, and whether or not he had the power to fire mueller, he was right, he did, article 2 gives him that power. Then say, oh, he thinks he can do anything he wants to do. Well, no, if he thought he could do anything he wanted to do, if he would onarch, then just say, you know what, im going to take all of the money im going to shut down the department of education, totally, and divert all that money to securing our border, protecting american citizens, as he wants to do. Hes made it very clear. But instead he can only take some money here that is under the law, that it could be used for the purpose of building a wall, otherwise hed have a wall all built by now. But he knows hes not a monarch. So its pretty outrageous thing to say its a pretty outrageous thing to say. But when it comes to going to court, daniel huff, smart lawyer , used to be at the Judiciary Committee here, had an article published in the wall street journal, the Supreme Court last week blocked a House Committee subpoena for eight years worth of President Trumps tax returns. The committee will press the matter in further litigation, but the logic that supports the subpoena undercuts House Democrats efforts to impeach mr. Trump for asking ukraine to investigate joe biden. In both cases the use of official power to get dirt on a political rival is consistent with a broader valid official purpose. And that is to try to fight corruption. So daniel huff makes a great point if that editorial that he wrote. What we were dealing with in the Judiciary Committee on wednesday , if we are really going to examine a report and we find out theres a hearing monday morning, 9 00 a. M. I ask, well, who are the witnesses . Well, we dont know yet. Well, what are we going to be taking up . Well, we dont know yet. Well, youre trying to destroy the presidency, remove a man out of office, something so serious that the founders would say, this is something that rises to the level it needs to be treasonous. Its got to be really serious. And under the constitution itself it makes very clear, you cannot convict someone of treason under this constitution, federal court, unless you have the direct testimony of two witnesses. And all they had was hearsay on hearsay on hearsay. So they cant try President Trump for Something Like treason because they dont have two witnesses, and so much of what they brought would never be allowed or admitted into court. Deserve to hear from of the Obama Administration who were holdovers. Mcmasters made a comment that he didnt want to of his employees National Security council ever mention the word holdover. Because somebody was hired by the Obama Administration and rid of them gotten yet didnt mean they were holdovers. Theyre government employees. Theyre holdovers, and he should have never been in the position was. Spent time trying to undermine could. Sident as best he but as of march of this year, our own speaker said, must be, quote, ompelling and overwhelmingly bipartisan. Shes violating her own tatement if she has this go forward next week. Judiciary r own chairman nadler said there must never be a narrowly voted by one of supported our Major Political parties and other. By the such would produce divisiveness in our politics and will call very uestion the legitimacy of our political institutions. Know what, jerry nadler when he said ght that. They go through with that in the january, eeks or in whenever, its going to do exactly what he said, which is jonathan professor will an turley said, produce even more divisiveness in this country and will call nto question the very legitimacy of our political institutions. It absolutely will. Then. Right back i dont know what happened since 1998, when he was so acutely constitution and the ramifications of actions taking now. This is where we are. Some of us were encouraged to impeachment on president obama. I some were angry that wouldnt file for impeachment of so ident obama, but i cared country. Out this i knew if we had impeachment on president obama, no matter what he did, this be so divided it would never recover. F course, we became much more divided during those years. When president me obama was in office, did you thoughts any positive about him being president . I said, when he was elected i him but i for thought, you know what, he could being like Coach Williams i grew up. Ack where said Coach Williams was my favorite coach. He happened to be black. I loved the guy. Was such a great coach, but a brought us all together as team. We had a few good athletes, but i was a like me and quarterback and captain on the eam at the time and he brought us together. He treated everybody tough, but the same, everybody and we came together as a team extremely winning team. Game. T win every nearly did. But he was a great coach. And i didnt mention to the reporter i was quarterback. Said, i hope president obama would bring us together as a the way Coach Williams did as a team. I didnt say what sport, what played. I so the first story i see about liberalnt from some big was how i said my high school was my favorite coach. Pparently if youre a real liberal like that reporter was, you just assume, oh, if he was a it must have been basketball. I didnt say basketball or football. Assumed it. Ironic, but rather of my great joys last year, i got to i was asked to come alma mater high school. The o fire them up before game. Somebody told me Coach Williams in the press box, and so up there. Both of us. En by hes just a goodman. A good hes just a good man. Just a good coach. Treasured the times i got to play with him. That didnt happen here. Country got more divided. A good yl atkinson had ccount, and this was november 25. Updated november 30. Some of the things she pointed mueller, as antitrump folks that ll those he hired, mueller testified instances of russian social Media Support for hillary well. N as try to find that in the mainstream media. She also says, according to reporting by politico, though, in january, 2017 its hard to find a politico now because i they are deeply regretting they reported this. They said efforts by democrats ukraine to sabotage the rump campaign in 2016 did impact the race even though trump won in the end. 2016 ints out in march of reportedly met with top ukrainian officials at the Ukrainian Embassy in effort to in an tarnish the Trump Campaign by ties between e, rump, top Campaign Aide paul manafort, and russia, unquote, politico. Chalupa. Is alexandra she was a consultant with the National Committee in 2016 and previously worked under clinton administration, and 2017 that edged in she worked as a consultant for he d. N. C. During the 2016 campaign with the goal of publicly exposing Trump Campaign manaforts links to rorussia politicians in ukraine. Admitted to coordinating with ukrainian mbassy and and u. S. Reporters. 2016, thats 8 of when peter strzok wrote to lisa that they would stop trump president. Ng ukraine had formed the national in 2014 uption bureau aid. Condition to receive why . Because normally, the obama asinistration wanted to say, congress was dictating back to see somee wanted dvances in anticorruption by ukraine. Recent poll indicated that in of those ear, 68 randomly chosen for the poll had a government official. 68 . Recently. Just here manafort 19 of 2016, resigned as Trump Campaign chairman. Think he was only there maybe three months. Something like that. The same day ukrainian sergei less mber leschenko, held a News Conference to draw ttention to manafort and trumps prorussia ties. The original link to a photograph of the news removed. E was recently but at the News Conference in leschenko was said to e exposing, quote, a firm run by u. S. Businessman republican candidate Donald TrumpsCampaign Manager. Directly ort orchestrated a covert washington ukraines top of swayedparty, tempting to voters. Anyway, some of the things going need to be lly investigated. And one of the important results appeared tohose who have been conspiring with americans americans with to be conspiring u. S. E to affect our election, gee, they did have an effect, but it wasnt enough to outcome of the 2016 election. 2018, senator ron johnson, chairman of the Security Committee in the senate, and chairman grassley, chairman of the asked barr ittee, Christopher Wray of forensic chalupas devices. They are trying to get logs to chalupannection between and obama officials. 2018 well, thats theyd zok wrote paige 2016. Rump, but thats ok. So this has been going on for more information has come out. Aaron cline had a good article, a second adam at burismataffer linked to the one that ank, paid for people to be on their board, including hunter biden. This article is interesting. Nother staffer for adam schiff served as fellow for the Atlantic Council think tank in ed by and work partnersh burisma. Ip for isnt that convenient . Miscow says was close guy named eric 2015, shawn nd in iscow was a yearlong millennial fellow at the burisma council. Lantic a staffer, is urrently a fellow at the tlantic council year asia take a and obviously the on issues that burisma wants them to have or they wouldnt funded this thing. A burisma cosigned ooperative agreement with the council, specifically, where a fellow. Es as but a trip to ukraine in august the Atlantic Council reeled that eager, meeting with acting u. S. Ambassador bill taylor. That name should ring a bell. But may have been perfectly nnocent, but nonetheless, burisma has helped fund some of adam schiffs staff and, of course, it quotes september 17 f on saying, weve not spoken directly with the whistleblower. Wed like to. It turns out his staff had talked with him. Fact, thats apparently the people that were talked to conversation. For good reason. Is listed as providing a donation up to 999 to hat think tank in 2016, but also contributions from the open ociety network that george soros had so much to do with. Perkins coee,nor, he law firm that helped the d. N. C. And the Clinton Campaign g. P. S. And usion Christopher Steele and getting hoax going dossier but its just amazing when you seeing, wait a minute, there was a lot going on between government and ukrainian government, corrupt over there, and then we out kerry pickett, was hired in february while shawn miscow, council aide ity until 2017, joined schiffs late august. Thats the best information they had at the time. Points out that abigail was hired to help investigate the Trump White House. She had worked for the Trump White House as an obama oldover. Trump accused schiff of stealing people who work at the white 2016, she had worked there to 2018. And briefly for the center for a new American Security think tank , founded by two former senior Obama Administration officials, but sean, 37, worked in the Obama Administration as a member of the secretary of states policy planning staff under deputy chief of staff jake sullivan, who became Hillary Clintons top Foreign Policy official during her 2016 president ial campaign. 2015, he was the director of the gulf states at the n. S. C. Remaining there into the Trump Administrations first year. A source familiar with graces work at the n. S. C. Told the washington examiner, abie grace had access abbie grace had access to executive privilege information, she has a duty not to disclose that information. Shes not authorized to reveal that information. Same source said that sean had not been trusted by trump appointees. There had been a few times when documents had been signed off for final editing before they went for signature, and he ctually went in and made changes after those changes were already finished. There were meetings where he protested very heavily and the thecks thing you know, theres an article in the paper about the contents of that meeting. Misko often clashed with other n. S. C. Personnel at the meetings. Another source said. Both grace and misko were close to Lieutenant General h. R. Macmaster, trumps National Security advisor, unfortunately. From february 2017 to may of 2018. Misko was seeing an s. Fellow in 2014. Name surfaced in the Hillary Clinton email controversy when he worked in the state department during the Obama Administration. December 1 of 2009, email released by judicial watch, clinton advisor sent classified information regarding Foreign Military contributions to the Afghanistan War effort, to a private email account. That email originally originated with misko who wrote to sullivan that he initially accidentally sent it on the high side, which was secure, but sending the email again, Intelligence Committee did not respond to a request for comment, and then, updated information, december 3, gary picket reports that actually house Intelligence Committee chairman adam schiff hired a former National Security council aide during the obamaed a Trump Administrations the day obama and Trump Administrations the day after the phone call between President Trump and ukrainian president zelensky. So it turns out, call on july 25 , july 26, sean misko gets hired. Sean misko, abe gale grace, they abigail grace, they had worked together at the National Security council. Werect, misko and geramelo reported to be brolike, they were always hanging around. Then we find out that after the phone call, apparently he goes over to the staff and based on what we know, appears to me, my opinion, that he goes over there and says, wow, you know, all the work we did with biden, with ukraine, maybe they were saying maybe the work we did, trying to set some things up to help the Clinton Campaign, whatever it was they were scared. Clearly they were scared. And somebody comes up with the idea, why not use the whistleblower statute, even though it really didnt apply. Some people say, oh, you guys, youre all deadset on getting the whistleblower. The whistleblower as a whistleblower, whoever it is, is irrelevant. But these three key people, including misko and grace, that worked together at the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration temporarily, at the National Security council, that worked with ukraine, worked with biden these people are at the heart of everything about this whole ukrainian hoax. Why are we having a ukrainian hoax . Because all the other hoaxes were exposed and thats maybe thats why were rushing through this in record time. So that people dont find out more about how this all came about. But we need to talk to alexander of chalupa. She met with people involved in this. Including ukraine ans. Misko. And abe gale grace abigail grace. And giarmela. It doesnt matter who the whistleblower was. What matters is the information these people know about what went on with ukraines interference in our election not the country officially, but the ukrainian officials that interfered, and what all went on theyre in it up to their eyeballs. We need to be able to talk to these people and these are the three people, well, four people, at neither adam schiff nor jaddy jerry nadler are willing to produce. I made the request, provided it to our Ranking Member under h. R. 660, he has to provide it and apparently theres somebody he had to talk to before he was willing to provide it. But at least im making that request. To be official or Ranking Member has to hand our running backing Ranking Member has to hand it over. Needs to be done. We need to talk to these people before they irreparably destroy these institutions, as jerry nadler said, this kind of impeachment would. We need to talk to the people that got it all that brought about the circumstances in dealing with ukraine, biden, russia. We need to be able to question about ukraine, about biden, about russia and all these intermingling ties. It is critical. We have got to be able to have that. And of course reference, same person in the Mueller Report. En where hes in the Mueller Report shown or is indicated to be the source of allegations that russia told or putin told trump to fire mueller. R comey. In any event, this is all rather tragic where partisan politics, just as jerry nadler predicted in 1998, is about to take a huge step toward finishing off this little experiment in selfgovernment. No government lasts forever. This one wont. But the actions that are being taken now have farranging consequences toward destroying the best hope for freedom the world has ever had. People may hate this country, but you talk to people honestly around the world that have some freedom, like i did with three people from australia, and i was kidding around, i said, had a few members say, if we lose our freedom, we can all go to australia. None of them smiled even. One of them said, do you not understand, if you lose your freedom here in the United States, china will take us over before you could ever get there. Cruske got to be strong youve got to be strofpkt i heard that in nye jeer strong. I heard that in nigeria when i went to meet with mothers whose children had been kidnapped and were being raped daily and officials there said, well, you know, your Obama Administration said if we want more help with boko haram, we have to adopt samesex marriage and we got to have abortions and as one Catholic Bishop reported, our religious beliefs are not for sale, not to the Obama Administration, not to anybody. So, its not uncommon, as weve been told and some people want to deny, but there are good reasons to withhold aid i dont think trying to force somebody to change their religious beliefs like in nige and kenya and some of the places i talked with officials, but nonetheless, theres nothing wrong with it. If its a legitimate purpose. And what President Trumps trying to get to the bottom of, you know, it is a legitimate purpose. How do you stop corruption from Foreign Countries in our 2020 election if youre not allowed to figure out what they did in 2016 . We need to be able to know that. In order to stop it from happening again. This is really serious stuff. This is and i appreciate the comments that so many who are participating on the other side of the aisle have made in alking about this impeachment. Of course, we even heard that from harvard. Official he was reluctant to bring up this impeachment and, you know, my gosh, the guy was all over twitter over two years ago, he thought, gee, may be able to impeach trump for his tweet. Oh, may be able to impeach him for this, that and the other. This guys been talking about it forever. He had no qualms about wanting to impeach trump using any little thing possible. Until he comes before our committee. And then hes reluctant. And weve heard that from some other people. Were reluctant to pursue this impeachment. Well, you sure cant tell it the way youre moving forward like youve got a posse and ready to hang somebody that you just run into. Let me just finish up by stating something i hope you know, it was reported this week that after the Intelligence Committees democratic staff had finished rolling up this ball of collusion and supposedly sending it to the Judiciary Committee, it was reported that speaker provided the speaker provided a cake and it was decorated as a flag, there was a big drinking celebration. If the hope that Judiciary Committee does what i really do hope and pray they dont, and that is move forward on something nt trump didnt even do wrong, that if they have another celebration for the judiciary staff and people are drinking and eating cake and have a good time, i hope they will continue to do their drinking and celebration prayerfully, reluctantly and soberly. As weve heard they are approaching all of this. With that, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. Pursuant to clause 12 ha of rule 1 12a of rule 1, the chair declares Pete Buttigieg at a town hall meeting in iowa. Hell speak with students and reporters. That gets under way live at 30 eastern on cspan. For campaign 2020 this weekend, were live in iowa following the democratic president ial candidates. On saturday, at 3 00 p. M. Eastern, former Vice President joe biden, mayor Pete Buttigieg, and senators amy klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and corey booker speak at a labor forum in cree car rapids. Then cedar rapids. Then on sunday at 1 00 p. M. Eastern, Bernie Sanders speaks to supporters at simpson college. Live campaign 2020 coverage from iowa this weekend on cspan. Watch any time at cspan. Org and listen on the go with the free cspan radio app. Also sunday, former Vice President joe biden joins john kerry at a Campaign Event in new hampshire. The devaluation of black lives, etc. And this period provides a really crucial precursor to our moment. University of massachusetts professor Holly Jackson talks about her book american radicals. Watch sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. Cspans campaign 2020 coverage continues now with republican president ial candidate joe wal much. Hes a radio host walsh. Hes a radio host and former republican congressman from illinois and cspan interviewed him, asking why hes decided to run for president at his and his feelings about the Trump Administration. This is half an hour