Authorizing the Committee on the Judiciary to Initiate or Intervene in Judicial Proceedings to Enforce Certain Subpoenas

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLINE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time, and I want to recognize the gentlewoman from Texas for her remarks because, as a fellow member of the Judiciary Committee, we all stand for the rule of law. I, too, carry a Constitution with me.

The Constitution explicitly creates a system that is representative of the people, where the people are elected by their constituents to come up here and represent their views in Congress and vote for them. It is not to come up here and to hand off control, to hand their vote to the majority leader, to the Speaker, and to the majority whip and let them vote for them and for the people of their district whether or not to go to court.

The votes to enforce subpoenas, the votes to hold in contempt should be votes of the Representatives of the people. That is why this resolution today is such a travesty.

Mr. Speaker, I have only been a Member of this body for a few months, and I was proud to be named a member of the Judiciary Committee, but unfortunately, the circus that I have witnessed over the last few months is shocking, as the Democratic majority tries to find some reason, any reason, to impeach this President now that the Mueller investigation has wrapped up with no crimes found.

If they want to go back and repeat the last 2 years of the investigation, the millions of dollars, the hundreds of subpoenas, they are certainly entitled to do that, but I would argue it would be a waste of time for the American taxpayer and the American people.

Mr. Speaker, we had a hearing earlier today on the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, and the chairman did a masterful job of arguing in favor of that legislation, of which I am a cosponsor. It is bipartisan legislation. It is going to be marked up tomorrow. That is the way that this Judiciary Committee should operate.

Instead, we have hearings with empty chairs for the Attorney General, we have a hearing with an empty chair for the White House counsel.

Finally, yesterday we had a hearing with people in the seats, but they were all MSNBC and CNN commentators.

Mr. Speaker, this is a travesty of justice. I would urge my colleagues to defeat this resolution.

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