Insisting Department of Justice Comply with Requests and Subpoenas
Floor Speech
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Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and I thank him for his extraordinary leadership in articulating what is right, what honors our oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, the separation of power contained therein, and the integrity of our judicial system.
I also thank our distinguished ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Mr. Schiff, for his leadership, his courage, and his beautiful and inspirational statement this morning, full of facts, but also full of values.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today not only as leader, but also as one who has served on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as a member, as a ranking member, and as an ex officio since the early 1990s. And I can say, while I have seen a lot in that time, I have never seen anything that has stooped so low on the part of the Republicans as what they are doing today.
It is just as if they have said, you take an oath of office to the Constitution. We took an oath of office to Donald Trump. It is shocking. And many of these are lawyers. I don't know how they justify or reconcile that.
And so it is with great dismay that I see them doing violence to this body, to this Constitution, to this judiciary system, and to this country.
They are so curious about prying into a legal case, but they don't have the faintest interest in looking into what the Russians did to disrupt our elections. Not one hearing, nothing. No oversight, nothing.
Why is that? Why is that?
Now they are saying they must, they have a right to know this, that, and the other thing. They have no right to do that. So I am not going to take up any more time. I said my piece on this.
But I do want to acknowledge that Mr. Schumer and I, as well as Mr. Schiff and Senator Warner, the ranking member on the Senate side, sent a letter to the Honorable Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, and to Christopher Wray, the Director of the FBI, saying to them: Please, please, do not yield on any of this. Your role in preserving the integrity and, most importantly, our justice system has become ever more vital.
First of all, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I hope that some Republicans will do what is right and urge a ``no'' vote on this. This is taking us into very dangerous territory. If the Democrats wanted power, I would say the same thing. We wouldn't want to have this access. You shouldn't have this access. This is wrong.
Again, if you are honoring your salute and your oath of office to Donald Trump, then vote ``yes.'' If you are honoring your oath of office to the Constitution of the United States, then vote ``no.''
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