Hearing of the House Rules Committee - Opening Statement of Rep. Cole, Markup of H. Res. 430

Hearing

We're here today for an original jurisdiction markup for a bill that is quite frankly unprecedented.
H. Res. 430 seeks to authorize the Committee on the Judiciary to initiate or intervene in judicial proceedings to affirm the duty of Attorney General William P. Barr and former White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn to comply with certain subpoenas. This authorization extends to the petition for disclosure of grand jury material that otherwise may not be disclosed under the law.

I called the events under consideration today unprecedented because this sequence of events has never happened before.

The House of Representatives has only filed lawsuits to demand documents twice, and both times the individuals in question were held in contempt of Congress prior to the House filing suit. That is not the case here.

In neither of the previous cases did the House move with anything close to the speed at which the majority is pushing us forward today.

Let's consider what happened in the two previous cases.

In 2007, the House filed suit to recover documents from former White House Counsel Harriet Miers. It was 138 days from the date of the first request until the Judiciary Committee voted to hold Miers in contempt of Congress. In 2012, the House voted to hold then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over his failure to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal. But it was 464 days from the date of the first request to the Judiciary Committee voting to hold Holder in contempt. 464 days!

Here, just 44 days have elapsed from the date of the first document request to the Attorney General until the Judiciary Committee voted to hold him in contempt. The speed with which this matter is moving has never happened before.

I don't understand the majority's haste here. Without exhausting all other options -- negotiation, discussion, and turning to a vote on contempt as a last result -- the majority may be placing the House in a position that causes long-term damage to the institution.

When this goes to the courts, it will do so on a matter of first impression. It will never have been tested in the courts before and using such untested theories could set a dangerous precedent, harming all of us -- Republicans and Democrats - in the long run.

It is also unclear what, exactly, this resolution will accomplish. The House has not voted to hold either Mr. Barr or Mr. McGahn in contempt, nor is it clear that negotiations with the Justice Department and the White House over the documents at issue are at an end.

Indeed, given how quickly the majority is pushing forward in seeking these documents, it seems unlikely that the only course of action left to the House is to file a lawsuit.

I strongly urge the majority to continue working with the Justice Department and the White House to find a resolution to these issues without resorting to a knee-jerk lawsuit that may ultimately damage the House as an institution.

Thank you.

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