Without objections. We are now going to proceed with Opening Statements. I wish you all the good morning and welcome to the fourth hearing of the public buildings and sanctimony and one of the purposes of this is to protect taxpayer dollars by ensuring that theyre spending it offensively and with transparency and that brings up with todays hearing which is entitled the tenant in the Trump Administrations oversight and the International Hotel and you can tell from the title guy were going to be in investigating an unprecedented tuition and the houses President Trumps d. C. Hotel. Since President Trump has declined to confess from his businesses, hes essentially acting as both landlord and the ten it. Before i was elected to congress i spent over three decades Teaching College students about American Government politics. In those classrooms we, had serious discussions about the role of the legislature if the executive branch with legal and ethical standards and thats exactly what we had through today. Lets start with some facts, all federal workers and officials are taking an oath of upholding the u. S. Constitution. And of course that includes the president and all members of the administration and all of us in congress. Second, the constitution can change to files in our topic today. One prevents an elected official from receiving and i quote any president or to mining key branch of our stay without the consent of congress and today, congress has given this resident of such consent and a second and related clause is accepting any federal or state dollars beyond its president ial salary. A lot of people may not be committed to the monument but our Founding Fathers have any payment that included in the constitution to have officials from accepting bribes from Foreign Governments and from part of our own government that maybe trying to at least agree that this is the practiced from the public and members of this congress. Third, a government released the d. C. Hotel explicitly states that they may not use the premise to violate federal law or vote again for any concern in any way and that concludes the constitution and moreover section 37. 19 that no elected official in the United States shall be admitted to any share or part of this leads or to any benefit that they adhere from. If the president continues not a personal stake in a hotel. People stay at trumps d. C. Hotel there directing benefits and despite of what arises from this situation the agency that oversees the release and services of the administration has not done a thing about it. In fact, agencies Inspector General who is here with us today conducted an exhaustive report and found that the in gsa the Old Post Office leases issued either the constitutional mindless laws that has caused of release. Despite this observation the Inspector General found that the gsa decided not to address those issues and the Inspector General called that improper. I think thats the least of it. When you take an oath to uphold the public constitution youre bound by that official that has turned a blind eye to these legal and ethical issues. When called audit, the gsa failed to implement basic recommendations made by the Inspector General. The gsa was destructed to conduct and consider they constitutions of monuments and the terms of the lease. As far as i know, gsa i dont even present it pretended to conduct that. Gsa was also instructed to provides the language of making it even clear that the constitution is relevant. They havent done so in any way to satisfy since the Inspector General and havent done so in any way of satisfy this committee. Finally, addition to the legal issues, the gsa as turn over documents to the committee which has the jurisdiction over gsa and having a legitimate purpose to examine. And 2008, congress directed gsa to the Old Post Office building to make profit. They were lying on their attorney but on trumps Business Laws that refused to turn over any basic financial documents that could help us determine if they are upholding the terms of the lease. How can we know that taxpayers investments are being protected if we cant examine the financial records. How can we be sure that the National Policy is not being swayed by those spending money in the hotel that benefits people at the highest levels of our government. Gsa its also preventing loss for making legal memos that were trapped by officials that were supposed to come to terms of this lease and looked leather way and thats where they come to expect and continue to Stonewall Congress in return and you never ever imagine the situation will rise enough to put them right in the constitution and should be wise enough to endorse them gsa. Our first panel today will hear from the agency that oversees the trump hotel lease and from the Inspector General who founded the gsa did not fulfill its occupation in the constitution. The second panel will hear from legal scholars on some of these purple cases. I want to thank everyone for being here today and i look forward to hearing your testimony and answering questions and i now recognize the Ranking Member for noting statement. Thank you chairwoman we dina titus once. Again, here we are in the drama of bigger things related to President Trump is back and instead is focusing on Critical Issues like Disaster Recovery or crumbling infrastructure were here today trying to answer a constitutional question that firmly before the courts and offer that no one on this desk this even able to answer. We are looking at a constitutional question but this is all about the president and his business. We have other business before this committee that is critical to the american taxpayer. 79 bills that have been referred to the subcommittee. We only acted out nine of them. We could be in a hearing today examining some of those proposals add its National Preparedness month. Here we are, the original plan for the hearing today was the focus on recovery and some of that in my very state. Instead, were focusing on an issue because of the perception of wrongdoing. Based on our markup last week, the remarks by members and im sure that the members on both sides of the aisle that view it as a critical responsibility of this committee. To address the disaster relief. Right now, more than half of the states are still impacted by 73 open major disasters of emergency declarations. The spends gsa over five billion dollars a year and Federal Buildings trump struggle to pay for the basic needs of those buildings. And yet here we are today for elbowing the gsa and the commissioner here not to talk about these things but to make a pine on the decision thats already been in the conclusion thats already been main on the opposite. Let us be very clear, we are here today because of the least that was endorsed by and advocated by and democrats. Signed off on by democrats and negotiated and executed under president barack obama. The lease were nearly all the decisions were made before and after the election were made by the Obama Administration. Yet somehow its the president s fault and in this Decision Making after the president was sworn in five a Career Public Service and even if you focus just on that you have a long term Career Public Service with leadership thats appointed by gsa and making the decisions and here we are today and Inspector General still found that there was no undue influence in that decision. I am just at a loss for words on this when you look at this because gsa has produced documents and the requested members and so many documents that produce to the ohio and our colleagues would argue that they are not responding to their requests. Let me be clear on this as well im a strong supporter of transparency and accessed information. But when those demands start taking on a outside beyond the mission and core mission of what is happening we, have the responsibility to make sure that those requests are not only reasonable and legitimate but they are not just a fishing expedition. Republican members of myself included sent a letter that requesting documents to the ceo ig of the conclusion in her report. That was actually a request not as a fishing expedition because of the unusual later and its been decided as authority impending legal cases. It contains assertion without citation and at least one incident which was factually correct of the assertion which was taken by legal action. It could change its own legal analysis and the constitutional questions come from me before the courts. The chairwomans genius talked about those constitution protected areas and our rights of oversight as legislative body and answering this question which has to be resolved from the reports and not by the legislative body. If we want to change the law and make sure we can change it and lets go ahead and introduce something and nothing has been introduced and given this issue and the facts using the Legal Proceedings its, critical for us to verify every oig support and to understand the basis of that report and we were crest that similar to the request of the oigs report on the fbi headquarter. However, so far weve, only receive 177 documents in those were largely publicly Available Research articles in the constitutional analysis and to me that is unresponsive. I hope we can get back to the will work and once again this could operate in a bipartisan fashion today that is certainly not what that and i yield back. I think the Ranking Member and i now recognize the chairman of the committee who has spent some time working on this issue and is quite familiar with documents that have been released and some of the players and all of the issues and the to recognize mr. Four years peter a. Defazio. Its nearly three years since i first questioned tsa regarding the least and its Pretty Simple. No congress were elected official of the government of the United States and he District Of Columbias should have part of its force of any benefit that may arise and the Ranking Member just went on to say we are here because President Trump is ignoring all precedent decided to not die cast itself of its business interests and the hotel any trump patel and in particular that hosted its elected officials a child benefit at the president was elected and didnt get a majority of the vote but was elected so to say that this committee should not be pursuing this with gee essay or that is bizarre and secondly. This building was least because it was losing money and the idea was its going to make money and we will get a share when with gsr does this stuff and a share of the profits as a share of the growth and we dont hardly a profitable in we dont even know today and the only statements we have are intentionally or unintentionally put online and they would say that this is back in 16 and they would say that this is proprietary and if you read through it its a simple one line disclosure and now the tsa says that congress is not entitled to those released mistakenly. How do we know what the income is . How do we know how gsa has calculating the profits . Thats the discretion of the contracting order and we think thats the career official that you referred to. This career official was in november of 16 and was absurd that anybody would question this clause and this is the contracting of it and thats a series of questions of a former official from this agency. Is this out Contracting Officers work . And then he went on in the email this was about ivanka trump to get together with you and bring some coffee and tell you but my great trip to new york. This is a Public Servant who was looking out after the Public Interest and still the Contracting Officer and has discretion and how they calculate the profits. We dont know if youre getting a benny out of this thing or not. Heres the statement i came to us and thats it. As a cover page a, cover page. Thats what congress is entitled to. How much whats the income . We dont know. Whats the profit . We dont know. Whats the government getting . We dont know. The gentleman doesnt want to know whether the taxpayers or getting ripped off or not and thats just extraordinary to me. Its extraordinary. With the gentleman yields. Well u. S. A question . I will not yield and please be quiet. The chairman went overtime to. I havent got over yet so youre going to make me. I asked for the legal opinions and we cant see them and we can have them. So we can see they legal opinions that had been questioned by the ig but the gentleman knows that the legal opinions or whatever they are. They know that they get 3 Million Dollars a year and a gentleman does know that. We dont know on a monthly basis what the income of the hotel is and what percent and how theyre calculating this and how what percentage getting. The gentleman knows were getting more money under this least in the previous leaf. The gentleman is out of order. Thank you madam chair. You are not the chairman its. Are you going to be quiet now . Thank you. Here is the legal opinion that we received from gsa a. Didnt come from the council and weve never seen a document out of the general counsels office and there is a general counsels office. Its a document from michael best and frederick our lp and this is the only legal thing we have and that happens to be the trump hotel this whole thing is so out of line in terms of gsa and its oversight and the release of this hotel from day one and that is why were here today and or hear principally because this president failed to divest and conflicts of interest and put itself not just in violation of the lease but also to the clause of the constitution of the United States in domestic and thats why were here today. Right on time he thank you. Will now recognize Ranking Member of the committee mister graves. Thank you madam chair. And Ranking Member meadows released. Youre over and over again with the majority of why are we doing infrastructure are why is the infrastructure bill and here we are. In a politically motivated hearing talking about the Old Post Office. And light of the disasters this year we should focus on disaster efforts and working instead and instead here we are a politically motivated hearing and the tools to prepare and does say and in part to texas and Tropical Storm melbournes from historic flooding houses when we have many communities that have a long way to go when it comes to recovering and the hurricane seasons and its going nothing more than a political spectacle and the opponents to undermine him and continues to give their search for anything of impeachment and thats what this is about. Instead of working on disaster for any other countless infrastructure items that are clearly more important than this they are instead of going to be listening to politically motivated criticisms of the president. We worked together in this committee and we can still do that if we put politics aside at this is a political distraction and take us from where this committee should be doing things. Thank you mister graves. Wed like to welcome our witnesses and our first panel we have mr. Daniel matthews and part of the u. S. Tsa and thank you for being here and we look forward to your testimony and without objections are full statements will be included for the record. Since your testimony has been a part of the record of the court request that you lend your oral testimony to five minutes as well. At this point, we will begin with mr. Matthews. Good morning chairman tight is and members of the subcommittee. I am matthews and i was sworn in in 2017. For that, i served as the majority of the subcommittee for almost 15 years. We begin by thanking you for authorizing your help in securing the Senate Authorization as well for the courthouse in las vegas. I like to briefly discuss the most difficult changes in challenges in this committee that they had over the last decade. These problems and overland costs and our agent and territory and the courthouse construction. Since up temperatures and 17, jesse has cut through enough million fees from its expiring portfolio and environmental rates in the market compared to this is stork average and avoid at 1. 9 Million Dollars by investing our capital and tsa such as the student federal in maryland. The tsa is reducing our alliance and equality annualization. Finally, its part of the constructive over a billion dollars of court houses and budgets on schedule. But the last two years, gsa as made some qualities of this committee and working on these issues. Moving on to todays topic, i like to share some context that is important. One of the longstanding priorities of this committee is to address the repair and problem at the Old Post Office. This effort recorded in the Old Post Office