[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the house voted for an impeachment inquiry into president joe biden regarding his son hunter. to continue the inquiry began -- which began three month ago. at the direction of the vent house speaker kevin mccarthy. its constitutional power to impeach the president of the united states. here is the floor debate. >> it is a sad day for myself, the institution, the american people. my duty today is one i do not relish. i'm sure that it and every other member of the institution feels the same way. yesterday they met and reported a measure on the original jurisdiction. house resolution 818 exist to see whether grounds exist for the congress to use their power to impeach the president of the united states. the committee, those of the oversight accountability, ways of means and judiciary began to treatment -- this inquiry. over the months, they've done their work and done it well. the inquiry now is at an inflection point. the three committees are at the end of their investigation. the white house has chosen this moment to stonewall and resist the legitimate members of the house. mr. speaker, while i do not believe the house was -- the house must hold a vote, doing so is said to be best practice. you're taking of this resolution which will formalize all impeachment inquiry that has already begun. this will ensure not only that the inquiry has the full authority of the house but also that they can enforce their subpoenas and ensure the biden administration will no longer refused to operate with the investigation. for lease describe the nvidia station -- police describe the investigation. the established procedure for conducting hearings and calling into question witnesses. it grants that minority equal time to question witnesses in the right to request or own witnesses. in conclusion, they provide a committee on oversight accountability on ways and means to transmit their findings and documents to the committee on the judiciary. it gives the president the right to participate on the committee for the judiciary. finally, it authorizes the committee to transmit to the house of resolutions, articles of impeachment or other recommendations. the procedures we are adopting closely parallel democrats. house resolution 660 was our guide. those procedures are now a president of the house. speakers and especially the president, it is a stark and serious matter. it is something no member should want to do. the house has rights and obligations on the constitution. we are charged with providing oversight on the executive branch. we are the sole institution, regarding the awesome power of the use of impeachment. it should only be used wisely and after all possible resolutions. we will secure the evidence we need and uncover the facts we need to make a full and fair determination. only at the end of the road killing make a decision on how to proceed -- only at the end of the road can we make a decision on how to proceed. i urge all members to support the resolution and i reserve the balance of my time. fed. chair powell: -- >> gentleman from oklahoma is observed, gentlemen from massachusetts is recognized. >> near here because donald trump demanded that republicans impeach, so they are going to impeach. these guys, the republicans do not work for the american people. they work for donald trump. he says jump, they say how high? this whole thing is a political stunt. it has no legitimacy and no credit. a destruction from the fact that democrats have done nothing. american people believe they are failing miserably and publicans -- and republicans need a diversion so there weaponizing things. i get it, they are upset donald trump lost. some of them still do not believe he lost. many of them are upset that is violent resurrection did not exceed and today they want to finish the job. this is an attempt on a crusade to overturn the election. they have spent years stretching up every can spirit see you can imagine against joe biden. still, their own investigation, witnesses, members, documents all say, president joe biden is a man of integrity who follows the law. despicable things i've seen in my career here in congress. the republicans talk about an open and transparent process. give me a break. yesterday, the rules committee republicans blocked democrats from adding the words "open and transparent" to this resolution. they voted against requiring a single open hearing. they didn't even put the amendment in the official committee report. i've never seen anything like that. they're so afraid of openness and transparency, they're literally trying to hide our amendments from the public record. they don't want an open and transparent process, they're allergic to transparency. they want no transparency so they can go on fox news, distort the facts, and keep this whole ridiculous charade going. their whole investigation is built on lies. it's an extreme political stunt designed to distract from how incompetent republicans are and how obsessed they are with donald trump, a twice impeached ex-and who has been indicted more times than he's been elected. how pathetic. i reserve my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: i yield three minutes to the distinguished chairman on oversight, mr. comer of kentucky. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. comer: thank you, chairman cole. i rise today to support house resolution 918. joe biden has repeatedly lied to the american people about his family's corrupt influence peddling schemes. he told the american people he never spoke to his son about his family's business dealings. he claimed there was an absolute wall between his official government duties as vice president and his family. he said his family never made money from china. all of these are blatant lies. our investigation has revealed how joe biden knew of, participated in, and benefited from his family cashing in on the biden name around the world. since january, we've learned some of the following, the bidens created 20 shell companies, most of which were created while joe biden was vice president. the bidens and their associates raked in over $24 million through these shell companies from china, russia, ukraine, kazakhstan, and romania between 2014 and 2019. at least 10 members of the biden family have benefited or participated in these schemes. the bidens layered these payments through their bank accounts to hide the sources of the money. the banks even flagged many of these transactions in more than 150 suspicious activity reports to the treasury department. one bank investigator was so concerned about hunter biden's financial transactions with a chinese company, he wanted to re-evaluate the bank's relationship with him. he noted that his transactions served, and i quote, no current business purpose, end quote. that's what i call a shell company. according to devin archer, a biden family associate, joe biden was the brand of the business. the brand showed up. joe biden spoke to his son's associates by speaker phone over 20 times, dined with foreign oligarchs and had coffee with his son's chinese associate, all when he was vice president. weeks after joe biden left the vice-presidency, money from this chinese party linked entity began to make its way to the bank accounts of several biden family members. based on one biden associate's interview with the f.b.i., these payments were sent to the bidens as a, quote, thank you. ask any justice department public corruption investigator about the importance of payments received after one leaves public office, it's a hallmark of corruption. we are now at a pivotal moment in our investigation. we'll soon depose and interview several members of the biden family and their associates about these influence-peddling schemes. but we're facing obstruction from the white house. the white house is seeking to block key testimony from current and former white house staff. it's also withholding thousands of records as joe biden's time as vice president. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. comer: president biden must be held accountable for his lies and obstruction. i urge my colleagues to support this necessary resolution. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i need a map to get over the rabbit hole mr. comer just took us down. if you want to know what an impeachable offense looks like, here it is. when that man, wanna be dictator, told that angry violent mob to attack this capitol building where we are right now to overturn a free and fair election. this is what a smoking gun looks like. i now yield three minutes to the gentleman from maryland, the distinguished ranking member of the committee on oversight and accountability, mr. raskin. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. raskin: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. speaker, the reason mysteries are called who dun-its, is because it starts with a crime and you have to figure out who did it. it's not a who dun-2 but like a what is it? it's like an ag that christy mystery. after several months no one can tell us what president biden's crime was, much less where it happened, when it happened, what the motive was, who the perpetuators were and who the victims were. maybe the funniest thing i've seen in congress was yesterday in the rules committee when congressman neguse kept asking mushen taller who is not on the oversight committee just woke up to the joke and didn't know what it was but said we need an impeachment investigation to find out and neguse kept asking him, well, what will the impeachment investigation be looking for and finally he said, a high crime or misdemeanor but neguse said yes, but which one? neguse was involved in a real impeachment investigation of a real presidential offense, the incitement of a violent political insurrection against this congress and against the vice president of the united states and against the constitution and against the election of 2020. we did not need sherlock holmes and a mack any flying glass to find the presidential crime with donald trump, it came right into this house and smashed us in the face. it's true chairman comer collected evidence over the last months, thousands of pages of documents and interviews with do. officials but all of it clearly shows joe biden committed no crime. even their own witnesses that they called to the only public hearing they had said there's not remotely enough evidence to justify impeachment. chairman comer has bragged on fox news about procuring 100% compliance with his subpoenas, so forget about obstruction which i hear them muttering about today. mr. speaker, i played a game with the little kids in our family at thanksgiving and asked them whether they've seen my henway. when they said what's a hen weigh, four or five pounds. and when i asked the smaller children what's a henway and i said three or four pounds and the other kids came around and said what are you doing? we're looking for uncle jamie's henway and they looked for hours under the sofa and chairs. it could go on for days like that. mr. speaker, we're all looking for the republican party's henway, it weighs three or four pounds but costing us tens of millions of dollars. please forgive me for spoiling the party here but i want to say this to america. there's no henway. and this stupid investigation is keeping us from getting any real work done for the people of america. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: i yield three minutes to my good friend, distinguished chairman of the judiciary committee, mr. jordan of ohio. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio is recognized for three minutes. mr. jordan: this is a story as old as the hills, a certain politician does certain things and those actions benefit his family financially and then there's an effort to conceal it and sweep it under the rug. the best example is go back to the ukraine company bareesma. first hunter biden is put on the board but he's not qualified to be on the board, don't take my word for it, he said it himself. third, he's asked by the executives, can you weigh in with washington or d.c. to help alleviate the pressure we're under? three days later the vice president of the united states, now president biden, goes to ukraine and conditions american tax dollars for ukraine on the firing of the prosecutor who was applying the pressure to the company hunter biden was on the board of. that is why we're going with an official impeachment inquiry vote today and why it needs to be investigated. we're considering resolution 918 and 917 incorporated if we pass 918. three names mentioned in those resolutions, one name of course is joe biden, president of the united states. the other two names in the resolution of 917 are two d.o.j. tax lawyers, mark daily and jack morgan, two guys we want to talk to where the biden party says we don't want to talk to them. and here's why we vote. and those two individuals said there should befellony tax charges for 2014 and 2015 in the hunter biden investigation. that's important because those are the years when the bulk of the income from bar he's make -- bareesma came to hunter biden. they changed their position eight months later. we want to know why. my thing is it's one thing to charge hunter biden to a gun charge in delaware but another thing to charge him on bareesma tax years because that gets you to joe biden and that gets you to the white house and that's why we need this vote, the impeachment power the chairman said is a power that solely resides in the house. when you have a majority, the house of representatives goes on record and sends a record we think we get timely participation from the witnesses we need to talk to and the documents mr. comer has been thinking. how about this changing story from the white house and the justice department, today hunter biden did a press conference and supposed to be in a deposition and he did a press conference and at that press conference he said my father was not financially involved in the business. well, that's an important qualifier. we haven't heard that for three years we haven't heard that. all we heard is joe biden had no involvement and now his son does a press conference when he's supposed to be deposed and said he wasn't financially involved. what involvement was it? we know there was phone calls, dinners and meetings, what involvement was it? we want to ask these questions with important witnesses and why the resolution is important and urge a yes vote and with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from oklahoma reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i need to get a decoder ring. i now yield 1 1/2 minutes to the distinguished member of the rules committee, ms. leger fernandez. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for 90 minutes. ms. leger fernandez: every conspiracy theory we heard has been debunked and not true and disported from the facts because this impeachment inquiry is political vengeance directed by a twice impeached and four time indicted president and carried out by extreme maga republicans. republicans rejected my amendment to require the committees to hold at least one public hearing. why? because 11 months and a mountain of evidence and documents gathered so far proves that president biden respected the rule of law and fought corruption. republicans want to continue a secret investigation so they can distort the facts. for example, republicans tried to create a scandal about the $4,140 hunter paid to his dad in 2018. what really happened? joe biden paid his son's truck payments while hunter struggled with addiction. hunter paid his dad back. a parents' love is never without pain. a parent doesn't stop loving a child struggling with addiction. americans will see in those truck payments some of their own attempts to help their struggling kids. shame on my colleagues for politicizing a parents' pain. americans know what evidence of an impeachment looks like. the capitol police who were battered and beaten as trump tried to overturn an election. know what an impeachable offense feels like. this puppet show is more of the same attack on our democracy that we saw here. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield two minutes to my very good friend, distinguished gentlelady from oklahoma, mrs. houchin, a member mr. speaker, today on the very day hunter biden ignored a subpoena from this body, we will vote to take the next critical step inform liesing the house's impeachment inquiry into president biden. the white house and hunter biden have been trying to hide the truth and this stonewalling causes us to be here. it is deeply sad, sad day, not any of us want to be doing on this house floor but it has become necessary. following today's vote, the committees on oversight, accountability, ways and means and judiciary will have greater subpoena power to investigate allegations of influence peddling and wrongdoing by president biden, his family and his associates. the american people deserve transparency and accountability. they deserve the truth. that's what they are going to get from this republican house. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the gentleman from oklahoma reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: hunter biden was here today and wants to testify in public and republicans said no and do it behind closed doors and cherry-pick facts and figures and distort the truth. republicans aren't interested in transparency and the rules committee isn't either. in our markup, democrats offered nine amendments and voted down by republicans but in the official rules committee report contrary to years of committee practice and tradition, they left out descriptions of those amendments. instead of reading that republicans defeated an amendment to add open and transparent to investigative proceedings, members of the public will only see the republicans voted down quote amendment number 4. instead of defeating amendment requiring committees to hold an open hearing as part of the investigation, the record will show that the majority voted down quote amendment number 5. republicans are hiding democratic amendments about transparency. and this is shocking to me because it is the way the committee has run historically under this chairman and i'm deeply disappointed and i hope the majority doesn't act like this in the future. to make sure the amendments are going to show up, i will ask unanimous consent to insert the summaries of our nine amendments which republicans intentionally left out of the rules committee report. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: i yield myself such time as i may consume. just for the record, all these amendments are on the website of the committee. not like they are hidden, they are in plain view of the website of the rules committee. with that, i yield two minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from south carolina, mr. norman, a member of the rules committee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina is recognized for two minutes. mr. norman: i rise today in full support of this impeachment inquiry. i hope the public tuned into the rules committee yesterday. my question, what are you scared of? what are you scared of? what facts you don't want to come out. you spent more time on donald trump, january 6, anything but the facts about what hunter biden and his family did. the checks don't make things up. the l.l.c. accounts don't make themselves up. it's facts and what more to come out tay you are hiding is so evident. this resolution follows the bar set by democrats during the impeachment proceedings in 2019. we are playing by the same rules the democrats set. democrats thought this process was fair for president trump, they should think it is fair for president biden. the evidence i think as things come out will finally show what the trail is and the fact that there are consequences. you cannot just not say you are innocent and not have to prove it. i fully support this inquiry. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. members are reminded to direct their remarks to the chair. the gentleman from oklahoma reserves. mr. mcgovern: joe biden not hunter biden is president of the united states. i yield two minutes to the gentleman from new york, mr. nadler. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. nadler: we know why we are here today. the majority has no accomplishments. own members have said so and right wing is getting listless. they have decided to tear down president biden instead. they have no evidence to support this inquiry. but since this majority never lets gets facts in the way of fox talking points, here we are. every one of the witnesses tells us the same thing, no political interference in the hunter biden case. nobody at the department of screws ties blocked from charges. the american public didn't have this story because chairman jordan refuses to release the interviews. he has released one exact. he knows if he releases any more than that, his preferred narrative will crumble. the narrative doesn't support these baseless charges. why is the maga wing doing this? two words, donald trump. the likely nominee of the republican party was impeached not once and twice and we had evidence. whenever the former president is accused of wrongdoing, his favorite move is favorite move to accuse his opponent the same. he asked them to invent an impeachment even if there is not a shred of evidence and even if everything chairman comer said were true, an impeachable offense by vice president biden would not be grounds for impeaching president biden. we should be focused on doing the work of the american people and not be distracted. i urge all members to vote no on this ridiculous resolution and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: i yield two minutes to mr. roy, also a member of the rules committee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. roy: i thank the chairman. this is an impeachment inquiry defined as an act of asking for information, nothing more, nothing less. the inquiry to investigate three things, one the extent to which joe biden as vice president involved with the millions of dollars in china and ukraine into the biden family and numerous shell companies. archer testified that the vice president was at hunter's business meetings and evidence indicating that the big guy or dad was involved. two, the extent to which joe biden has lied, to the extent of his involvement. involvement that hunter all but acknowledged today while avoiding his deposition on the capitol steps by saying his dad was not involved financially in his businesses. three, the extent to which biden and his administration have obstructed justice by pretty venting jack morgan and jack daily to their to slow walk 2014 tax charges and 2015 charges so the statute of limitations would lapse. all the more interesting in light of hunter biden being indicted on tax offenses not paying $1.4 million after writing off hookers and sex clubs. the judge called the bluff of the sweetheart deal. second, by only providing 14 of 82,000 e mills of which 29,000 were tied to biden's family businesses. by limiting the scop of witness from department of skas ties witnesses over and over again. this is an impeachment inquiry. that's all. what are my democratic colleagues afraid if there is nothing to see there. maybe that is all the more reason to have the inquiry. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i yield two minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the committee on ways and means, mr. neal. mr. neal: i rise in shock and frustration. seinfeld would call it the investigation about nothing. after manufacturing crisis after crisis, weeks of trying to choose a speaker and putting their record-breaking economic recovery which is nonexistent under the spotlight, they think formalizing a fishishing expedition so the american people will believe it. this is not the work of the ways and means committee. the work has nothing to do with the impeachment committee and how the ways and means committee baffles democrat and republican members. it has been a year and not a shred of evidence has shown interference. recycled theories continue to be did he bunked and mistake it for a law enforcement body. their own witnesses conceded there isn't evidence to warrant moving forward which i have submitted to the record, mr. speaker. the gentleman from south carolina said we are trying to hide something. i moved in the ways and means committee to have the whistleblower's testimony done in full public for observation. they turned it down. meanwhile, we are staring at another republican government shutdown at the beginning of tax filing season. enough of this obsession with joe biden. we are concerned about all members of the american family and for the taxpayer that is impeded because of the work being done on impeachment instead of tax reform, this is where we find ourselves, nothing here, no evidence, no wrongdoing after a year. a waste of time for the american people. a waste of time for a congress that should be addressing the real problems of the american family. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman's request is granted. the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: i yield three minutes to my very good friend, distinguished chairman of the ways and means committee, the gentleman from missouri, mr. smith. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr.smith: thank you, mr. speaker. president biden has hidden from the american people his knowledge of and role in his family's overseas' business dealings. even in the face of overwhelming evidence, showing his knowledge and involvement, president biden still refuses to come clean. so far, two key d.o.j. witnesses have failed to show for congressionally subpoenaed depositions after d.o.j. directed them not to appear. other witnesses have refused to answer certain questions from investigators. and the biden administration has refused to turn over many of the documents requested by congress, claiming this inquiry was not properly authorized. let there be no mistake, today's vote averts congress' authority to conduct an impeachment inquiry and gather all the evidence to proceed with our investigation. the american people deserve answers. here's what we know so far. the existence of multiple email aliases suggest that joe biden was deliberately trying to conceal his activities from the public including one-on-one communications with a key hunter biden business partner during his vice presidency. we also learned that investigators were blocked from locking -- looked in to financial. hunter biden known kevin morris a democrat donor for two months before morris started settling his tax debts to the tune of $2 million and then spent three million more to cover hunter's lifestyle. in the midst of the 2020 campaign, just weeks before p supertuesday, prime player elections that would decide the future of joe biden's candidacy, morris emailed hunter biden's associates and considerable risk for him not filing taxes. the only face that faced political risk is joe biden whose campaign the whistleblowers had reason to believe morris was speaking to. as members of congress, we have to abide by campaign finance limits and so must the president. morris' millions in payments to cover hunter's tax obligations appear to the whistleblowers to be an illegal donation to the biden campaign. unfortunately they were blocked from investigating further. time and again when investigators found a lead that pointed to joe biden, d.o.j. stepped in and prevented them from pursuing it. mr. cole: yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds. mr.smith: thanks to the evidence released by the whistleblowers the d.o.j. indicted hunter biden on tax felonies. everything the whistleblowers told us about the hunter biden tax case has proven right. i am convinced they are also right about the links to joe biden they were prevented from following. congress owes it to the american people to follow the facts wherever they lead and pass this resolution, mr. speaker. . . . . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i wish to present, "absolutely shocking, they say the biden inquiry may be the weakest in history and the impeachment quote is supposed to be the most extreme in american politics and if you reach for it any time you think it will help you in the polls i fear it will become degraded. all the gentleman said has been debunked and it's nuts. i yield one minute to the gentleman from california, mr. schiff one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. schiff: donald trump extorted the president of ukraine by withholding aid to ukraine unless he announced a sham with joe biden. trump's offenses were overwhelming and trump was impeached. after losing the election trump incited a violent insurrection against our government. that high crime was witnessed by everyone in this chamber and he was impeached again. in 2023 donald trump is once again seeking illicit help to his campaign by badgering republicans to impeach joe biden. even without evidence of wrongdoing by president biden, republicans are all too willing to do it. there's a through line to all of this. donald trump will violate the law and constitution to gain power and to keep it and republicans will enable him every step of the way. no matter how destructive the consequences to our institutions or to the country. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: thank you. i yield one minute to my very good friend, distinguished gentleman from california, mr. mcclintock. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. mcclintock: short of declaring war, impeachment is the most serious act congress can take. it must be combined to the narrow grounds established by the constitution and never used to settle political differences. but the democrats would have us simply turn a blind eye to mounting evidence of a family's influenced peddleing scheme that implements the president. we can't do that. we owe it to the country to get to the bottom of these allegations and it requires the house to objectively invoke its full investigation powers and lay all the facts before the american people. last session the democrats made a mockery of impeachment and we can't allow them to become our teachers. shrill voices should be kept far from this inquiry lest they undermine the legitimacy and credibility. congress has an obligation to approach serious accusations seriously. and with this vote, we do so. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from oklahoma reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i'll tell the gentleman what is a mockery, this is. we hear the same old conspiracy theories being recycled over and over again that's all been debunked and to further debunk them i yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from new york, mr. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. mr. goldman: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise in staunching opposition to this resolution. the republicans have already spent 12 months on this exact investigation. they've obtained more than 100,000 documents, pages of documents and dozens and dozens of hours of witness testimony, but there is not simply a shred of evidence proving any wrong doing by president biden related to his son or otherwise. so whatever complaints that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have about how the department of justice investigated a private citizen, hunter biden, you should ask donald trump and bill barr who were in power at the time this investigation was going on. so because there's no evidence, now we're going to move the goal posts, claiming an impeachment inquiry is necessary to gather more evidence. but chairman comer himself said earlier this year he had received 100% compliance from the administration, and they can only cite to two low level career officials at the department of justice who have not testified even though their supervisors have. just this morning hunter biden showed up to the capitol ready to provide evidence. the republicans refused to take his testimony. so how can you sit there saying you need more evidence when you prevent the central witness in the investigation from giving you evidence? what are you afraid of? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. members are reminded to direct their remarks to the chair. the gentleman from massachusetts reserves p. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: thank you very much, mr. speaker. i yield one minute to my good friend from south carolina, mr. timon. [. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> people have lost faith in the biden administration. we have evidence the d.o.j. and i.r.s. have refused to do their jobs. america deserves to know the truth and congress has a duty to investigate. what did president biden know about his family's family enterprises and when? that's why this inquiry is necessary. we uncovered the biden family received $25 million in payouts from foreign adversaries. client has a problem and client pay as biden and he travels to the foreign country and president biden leverages u.s. influence to force favorable outcomes for the client, the biden family earns their fee. that's the scheme. the prove of concept was burisma in 2014 and they replicated it again and again. his administration keeps stonewalling while the president repeatedly lies about his involvement. as a member of the oversight committee, i believe the evidence we've uncovered thus far demands further investigation. this vote is the only logical next step. i urge a yes vote and yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oklahoma reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i yield one minute to wasserman shultz. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. ms. wasserman shultz: i rise to say this resolution is nothing more than an extreme political stunt built on absolutely zero evidence of wrongdoing. the one thing it proves is the republicans are focused on the wrong priorities. this resolution clearly has nothing to do with protecting the constitution from high crimes and misdemeanors. how do we know? because a year of investigation, piles of documents and a herd of the republicans own witnesses confirmed there is zero evidence of wrongdoing. instead the republicans' wasteful witch-hunt just confirms president biden is a good and honorable man. what this resolution really does is cover up a full year of do-nothing republican policies that ignored our family's needs and neglected a array of global threats to democracy. worse, this resolution tries to obscure the corrupt and criminal acts of the formal president and wanna be dictator donald trump. this extreme political stunt is built on the house republicans and unmask the complete absence of an agenda that doesn't help the american people and urge a no vote. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield two minutes to my very good friend, distinguished gentleman from south carolina, mr. fry. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. fry: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise in strong support of house resolution 918. this year house republicans have conducted a methodical investigation into the alleged actions of the biden family, including joe biden himself and his family's foreign business dealings and foreign peddling schemes. as a member of both the house judiciary committee and oversight committees, our investigation has peeled back layer upon layer of biden family scandals and exposed the safety nets designed to insulate the biden family and joe biden from impending accountability. there's an old legal saying, mrt have the facts, you argue the law. if you don't have the law, you argue the facts and if you tonight have neither, you pound the table. and what we're seeing from the other side is they want to talk about donald trump. they want to talk about january 6 and they want to talk about a perceived lack of transparency. they want to talk about how nothing is happening out in the open. let me assure you we've done more in 10 months than law enforcement agencies have done in five years. let's talk about the facts. $25 million has flowed to members of the biden family. 20 corporate entities, nine members of the biden family have received these moneys. $40,000 direct payment to joe biden himself. $200,000 direct payment to joe biden himself, allegedly under a loan. we have what's app messages and 22 messages joe biden himself met with hunter biden and his business associates. we've been stonewalled and even seen it today as hunter biden paraded on to the senate side and did not come to a lawfullily issued subpoena deposition in front of the house oversight committee. now is the time for an impeachment inquiry. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oklahoma reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from massachusetts, the distinguished democratic whip, ms. clark. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. ms. clark: mr. speaker, the maga majority is putting forward a impeachment inquiry even as their own leaders admit there's no evidence of wrongdoing. they've already reviewed tens of thousands of documents and interviewed dozens of witnesses and nothing. why? because this has never been about the truth. this is about avenging donald trump. this is about undermining our democracy and influencing the 2024 election. president ford once said truth is the glue that holds government together. mr. speaker, it's truth that allows this chamber to function, abandoning truth in favor of political gamesmanship creates nothing but chaos. that dysfunction isn't a byproduct of the majority's behavior, it's the point. they don't want government to function. they sought nothing in service of the american people, nothing to lower costs, nothing to create good paying jobs to grow the middle class, to make everyday people feel more secure. what has the majority delivered? the kind of extremism that chooses rich tax cheats over working people, that obstructs the ballot box and hikes the cost of health care, that protects guns over kids. that bans abortion and criminalizes doctors, that awards polluters in corporate greed, and tells everyday americans, you foot the bill. this sham impeachment is below the dignity of the people's house. it is an affront to the people who sent us here to work for them. what a disgrace. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: i yield one minute to my very good friend from florida, mr. donald. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized 1. mr. donalds: mr. speaker, the democratic party is telling us they care about taxpayers but the son of the president of the united states is a tax cheat. he ignored federal tax law on purpose. he laundered money through 20l.l.c.'s and concealed millions of dollars of overseas money and the only reason he was able to accomplish these feats of getting so much money into his companies is because the president is his father. that is it. if you're asking why we're looking for an impeachment inquiry, it's because there were 170 suspicious activity reports at the department of treasury which we went and looked through and every one of those reports said very clearly there was evidence of money laundering and potentially tax evasion. there were hours of depositions, there's a web of l.l.c.'s with company names that have no business interests whatsoever. we've finally uncovered one example, mr. speaker, $5 million from a foreign company going to a joint venture partly controlled by hunter biden. next day, $400,000 goes from hunter biden to -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. cole: i yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. donalds: it goes to an account control by sarah biden and she writes a check to herself and $40,000 is in a check to joseph biden, the president of the united states. that's your evidence. if you want to talk crime, bribery, co-conspirator, and we can go on and on. vote for the resolution. congress must investigate these crimes. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from oklahoma reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: it's amazing a pattern is developing. you notice my republican friends never talk about joe biden, it's all hunter biden. they seem to be obsessed with him and need some help. i yield one minute to the gentleman from california, mr. wall well. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. swalwell: this is a continuation of the insurrection that came here january 6. this gang never accepted joe biden as president and the architect of the idea you can overturn the election is the current speaker of the house and donald trump sent that violent mob it didn't work and now we are here trying to use this house to overturn the election through this inquiry. the problem is they have zero evidence. the only crime is that joe biden blew out donald trump in the 2020 election and that's a problem because this place is the largest law firm in d.c. with these lawyers working on behalf of one client, donald trump, at the expense of everything else that matters. but i want to give james comer some credit after 50,000 pages of deposition, secret and closed hearings, if we give him enough time, he is going to prove that hunter biden is joe biden's son the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i would like to yield one minute to the distinguished the gentleman from new york, democratic leader, mr. jeffries. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized for one minute. mr. jeffries: i rise in strong opposition to fake, fraudulent and fictitious inquiry effort. we are here on the house floor wasting time and taxpayer dollars on an illegitimate impeachment inquiry because donald trump, the puppet master has directed extreme maga republicans to launch a political hit job against president joe biden. there is no evidence that president biden has engaged in an impeachable offense. there is no evidence that president joe biden has engaged in wrongdoing. there is no evidence that president biden has broken the law. we know that president joe biden is a good, honorable and decent man dedicated his life to public service, to making a difference for the american people. but the puppet master-in-chief has directed republicans to target joe biden as part of an effort to undermine president biden's re-election. that's the pattern, that's the process, and it reveals that our extreme maga republican colleagues have done nothing, nothing whatsoever when it comes to making a difference in the lives of every day americans. from the very beginning of this congress, house democrats have made clear we are willing, able to find common ground with our republican colleagues on a bipartisan way on any issue. the republicans, this do-nothing republican congress has chosen to do knowing to solve problems for hardworking american taxpayers. nothing on the economy. nothing on inflation. nothing on affordability. nothing on gun safety. nothing on trying to improve the quality of life of the american people. but what we have seen from the very beginning of this do-nothing republican congress is chaos and dysfunction and extremism being inflicted on the american people. when it comes to this fraudulent impeachment inquiry, more than 100,000 pages of documents have been produced and reviewed. not a sin tila of evidence exists that president biden has broken the law. it's interesting to me, i wonder how my colleagues in new york and california, who were sent here to make life better for the american people explain this vote, which is not designed to improve the lives of the folks that we are privileged to serve, but it's a political hit job, a political stunt, political gamesmanship. people are tired of the brinksmanship and tired of this effort to score political points on a partisan basis as opposed to actually making a difference. house democrats will continue to put people over politics. we will continue to fight for lower costs, to grow the middle class, for safer communities, fight for reproductive freedom, defend democracy and build an economy from the middle out and bottom out as opposed to the top down. house democrats remain committed to joining president biden in advancing the ball for the american people, for the middle class, for low-income families, working families, for those folks who aspire to be part of the middle class, for older people, for young people for veterans and we continue to build on the progress under the leadership of president biden on behalf of the american people and time tore the extreme maga people to join us or get out of the way. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: i continue to reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. mr. mcgovern: the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. i yield to the gentleman from. >> this is a political stunt with zero evidence. we are here today not because of any wrongdoing but because donald trump revenge. welcome to the donald trump revenge show. he proposal hissed to destroy democracy and rule of law and will soon be found guilty. people will reject this toxic and disgusting agenda. trump's allies are trying to rescue him and throwing everything to biden to outright lies and trying to sell debunked rudy giuliani con expire sigh theories. the white house had statements of personal bank accounts and testimony. but none of this is enough for the extreme maga g.o.p. this is all to appease the con man and criminal donald trump. make no mistake, the american people will see the sham of this impeachment inquiry. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i yield 1 1/2 minutes to mr. neguse. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from colorado is recognized for 90 seconds. mr. neguse: republicans have had a majority in this house for 11 months. and what do they have to show for it? nothing. no efforts to grow the middle class. no efforts to lower costs. no efforts to build safer communities. instead, an effort to default on our nation's debt, two attempts to shut down the government. vacating their own speaker and now a baseless impeachment that they are pursuing for one reason and one reason alone because former president trump ordered them to do so. you asked them to articulate what crime they are investigating. they can't give you an answer. you ask them to identify wrongdoing by president biden. crickets. mr. speaker, the american people, i can assure, you deeply disappointed that the republicans have taken for the better part of last year and this action is no different. i urge my colleagues reject this farce of a process and let's get back to the important work tay the american people expect us to do. and with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma. mr. cole: i continue to reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts. mr. mcgovern: if we defeat the previous question i offer an amendment to bring up h.r. 2 to ensure every american has access to reproductive care. i insert the text of my amendment along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question and to discuss our proposal, i yield one minute to the gentlewoman from massachusetts. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> this entire charade is ridiculous. speaker johnson is going to spend members home for the rest of the year. instead of lowering costs for families or protecting women's freedom to make their health decisions, they are taking orders from donald trump to force through a partisan political impeachment with no evidence, no witnesses and no wrongdoing on behalf of the president. as we speak, kate cox a pregnant woman from texas, is being forced to flee her home as republican leaders are trying to force her to carry her baby to term who was diagnosed with a terrible condition that would result instillbirth or death soon after birth. we could have passed legislation like to protect women like kate cox and protect that trauma with women living under republican abortion bans. but house republicans choose impeachment. the american people won't forget. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from oklahoma. mr. cole: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts. mr. mcgovern: can i inquire how much time is left? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has 33/4 minutes. and the gentleman from oklahoma has six minutes. mr. mcgovern: does the gentleman have further speakers? mr. mcgovern: i yield one minute to the the gentlewoman from washington ms. jayapal. ms. jayapal: extreme maga republicans in the house are on a donald trump directed fishing expeditionon and have been on a expedition, no bites for anything that justifies impeachment. there are no fish to catch in this republican swamp. and good luck to these republicans have to go home and justify a sham impeachment to their districts while telling them we haven't passed a budget or re-authorized the farm bill, haven't done a single thing that helps americans. we are wasting time on bogus censure resolutions and impeachment. we have one 1/2 days left. we should be passing bills to help working families but that is not what we do. vote no on this new fishing expedition. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from massachusetts. mr. mcgovern: republicans are saying the quiet part out loud and i ask unanimous consent to insert a "rolling stone" article entitled g.o.p. republic explains impeachment push, donald j. trump 2024 baby. i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: i yield three minutes to my good friend, the distinguished the gentlemanfrom north dakota and the sponsor of the resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from north dakota is recognized for three minutes. >> here's what we know. we know that president biden's transition team ran interference for hunter biden in attempts to interview the president's son. we know that somebody in the f.b.i. decided not to investigate bribery allegations against joe biden and hunter biden provided by a confidential informant. the f.b.i. has deemed him so credible they opposed the release of the report and only agreed to review in a classified setting. the investigators were not allowed to follow leads to the financial crimes. we know that recommendations for prosecution of hunter biden were denied or delayed until the statute of limitation has run. we know a plea deal was offered that offered him fee global immunity and that plea deal only fell apart after whistleblowers came forward to congress. set aside for the minute the $24 million and shell companies, the payments to president biden and changing narrative from this white house every time a new bad fact comes to light. set this aside, these instances should concern all americans because people in the highest echelon was running interference. my colleagues have an innocent explanation for every single incident. the problem is it is difficult to see an innocent explanation. the f.b.i., the d.o.j., i.r.s. and the president's political operation have all frustrated attempts to investigate the bidens. obstruction is a crime and no less of a crime if it is being used in the highest powers of government. take the politics out of this. there is no investigator in any jurisdiction in the world that would not continue to investigate this investigation with these facts. . . . .. the purpose of the impeachment inquiry is strengthen its ability to compel document production in response to congressional subpoenas. this will allow the house to continuities investigation whether president biden changed u.s. policy due to payments received by the biden family members from hostile foreign powers. or whether he knowingly allowed foreign powers to believe payments were being made and employ the biden members would enjoy the access to alter u.s. policy. the president and the president's administration were using government agencies to obstruct investigations into hunter and joe biden. this inquiry is warranted and will put the house of representatives in the best legal position possible to uncover the facts and the american people deserve nothing less. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from oklahoma reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i'm the last speaker on our side. are you prepared to close? mr. cole: i'm prepared to close. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. mcgovern: mr. speaker, i yield myself the remaining time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. mcgovern: this inquiry has nothing to do with joe biden but about the republican party and how radicalized they've become. they're allergic to truth and transparency. the republicans say it's not about a preordained outcome. it is. they'll try to impeach president biden despite the fact there's no evidence against him at all. trump sent a violent maga mob here to the capitol to reverse the election results and certify he won even though he lost. what they couldn't do on january 6 they want to do with this extreme political stunt. they have contempt for our democracy. they want to finish the job. republicans say this is all about process, about how the house will proceed. it is not. the truth is this process has already proceeded. for 10 months. they've investing all year obtaining thousands of documents and hours of witness testimony and all of it says no wrongdoing by president biden. the republicans say the white house is stonewalling their inquiry. again, not true. the white house has provided over 35,000 pages of financial records, dozens of hours of testimony and interviews. hunter biden is here to testify today and republicans won't let him because they want to do it in secret so they can cherry pick and distort his testimony. this whole inquiry has nothing to do with the integrity of president biden and everything to do with the lack of integrity in the republican party. no amount of evidence could convince republicans that joe biden did nothing wrong because they aren't looking for the truth. they're looking for revenge. and i would just say directly to the american people, mr. speaker, that the republican party works for donald trump, not for you, for trump. that's why they are pursuing this extreme political stunt. that's why they're doing everything in secret. they want to hide the truth from you because they know their whole impeachment inquiry is a sham and will evaporate into thin air when people realize what a pathetic joke it is. this shameful process has no credibility. it has no legitimacy and no integrity. i urge my colleagues to vote no and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. members are reminded to direct their comments to the chair and not to the perceived viewing audience. the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized. mr. cole: thank you very much, mr. speaker. i yield myself the balance of my time. and in closing i urge all my colleagues to support the resolution. we've heard a lot today, heard a lot about donald trump. we've had ad mine fin item up in-- ad infinitum from the democrats and we want to empower members of congress to do what the white house asked us to do, that is have a formal vote on the floor before we fully cooperate. that's all we're doing. if my friends are so confident -- again, as one of my colleagues mentioned from the rules committee, what are you worried about? it's an investigation. it's open. we hardly talked about what the resolution is about. which is how we're going to proceed and how are we going to proceed? almost exactly as my friends proceeded in 2019. their playbook. their play. their approach. so there's nothing unfair that we're asking to be done. since september the house has been engaged in an impeachment inquiry examining whether there is enough evidence to exist to use the impeachment power. today's resolution formalizes that inquiry and grants the house full authority to enforce its subpoenas, subpoenas that have been denied as recently as today. you know, my friends have some pretty experienced lawyers on their side, most of them would tell you it's better to have a deposition before you have a hearing. let alone a trial. all we're trying to do is get the needed people who have been blocked or refused to cooperate to come in and testify under oath before congress. the resolution follows closely again, as i said, the procedures established in 2019 and empowers the three committees to continue their existing inquiries. at the end of the inquiry, it provides for the judiciary committee the traditional impeachment committee to report to the house resolution articles of impeachment or other declarations. it's deeply unfortunate we're here, mr. speaker. today's resolution will ensure the house can fulfill its obligations under the constitution. and so it is with respect for the constitution for this institution and for this great nation we proceed. that's all we're trying to do today. we had very little discussion of that but we ought to entertain that. in closing, mr. speaker, i want to remind everybody of a few facts. we have millions of dollars from foreign entities that have flowed towards shell companies that we didn't know even existed until the investigations uncovered that. we have whistle blowers, public servants of long-standing that have come in and told us their efforts to investigate either hunter biden or wider schemes have been obstructed. we have lots of things to be concerned about. our committees need to be empowered with the tools that are required to pursue the truth and then come back and tell us what they found and have a recommendation as to how we can proceed. that's all today is about. so, mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my
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