Legislative Program
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come, and I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my colleague and friend.
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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I would like to ask--I know there are a lot of good-faith negotiations that continue on the United States- Mexico-Canada trade agreement, USMCA. We have been having productive conversations, meetings, some potential changes that I know we are negotiating with the other countries involved, as well. Does the gentleman have any idea if we may be close to bringing USMCA to the floor for a vote?
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I share the gentleman's interest in getting this passed as soon as possible. Clearly, the job benefits to our country, over 160,000 new jobs will come, and better trading relationships with Mexico and Canada when we pass USMCA, as well as the message it sends to our friends around the world.
There are other countries, Japan, United Kingdom and others who would love to negotiate better trade deals with us, but this has to come first for us to prove that we can get trade deals done.
I appreciate that the gentleman and your side have been working with Ambassador Lighthizer. I don't think there is anybody who has worked harder and in more good faith than Ambassador Lighthizer. And I am glad that those talks continue with the Mexican Government, and, hopefully, we can get a final agreement that we can then bring to this floor. And we stand ready to help deliver the votes to pass that legislation, hopefully, as soon as possible, so our country can get those benefits.
I do want to shift gears to talk about where we are with impeachment, but specifically, something that came to light just the other day when the report from Chairman Schiff came out. There were, of course, multiple hearings, public hearings, some in secret, but at no time did it come up that the chairman was spying on people, using phone records and subpoenaing phone records, that wasn't discussed in those conversations in the hearings, and yet, in the final report, it seemed like there was very selective targeting of certain people by the chairman in this listing of phone records that he had been subpoenaing.
From what I have heard, Chairman Schiff has over 3,500 pages of surveillance on people, whether it is members of the press--which he did spy on members of the press--Members of Congress, and who knows who else? It is a real concern. It is a real concern that we don't know what he is doing with this, why he is doing this. Is it being used for political retribution? Which is a serious concern.
But my question to the gentlemen is--I am not sure if you are aware of how much data there is out there. I have heard reports of 3,500 pages of phone records. How many members of the press are being spied on by Chairman Schiff? How many other Members of Congress are being spied on? And why is this going on? Is this something that the majority party condones or encouraged or was it a surprise to you as it was to us?
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I would just ask--because we have expressed a deep concern about this when we found out about it. It wasn't something that was discussed in the hearings, and yet, it shows up in the report. And it seemed to be designed in a way to seek political retribution on people that the chairman might have had disagreements with, which is an abuse of power, if that is what happened.
So the questions are, number one: With the press, that is a serious concern, that the chairman of a committee is using Federal subpoena powers to spy on or seek phone records of members of the press who have a job to do. We might not always agree or like some of the articles they write, but they play an important role in our democracy, and many times they talk to people in candid discussions where they have anonymous sources.
Is the chairman trying to go after anonymous sources of members of the press? How many other Members of Congress is the chairman spying on?
This is unprecedented. I have never seen a chairman of a committee abuse their subpoena power to go after other Members of Congress that they have political disagreements with or members of the press that they have political disagreements with. That is over the line. It is an abuse of power if it is going on.
Whether or not the gentleman is aware of all the details, if there are 3,500 pages, why would there be a necessity for the chairman to secretly be holding 3,500 pages of phone records of people that he is going to then selectively leak out to try to punish his political enemies in a retributive way? That is something we all ought to be concerned about.
We don't know a lot because we haven't been told a lot about it, but if there are 3,500 pages of phone records, I think we ought to know that.
What the chairman's objectives are, I think we ought to know that. How many more members of the press the chairman is spying on, I think we ought to know that, and how many other American citizens. It is a concern.
I would hope the gentleman would work with us, number one, to stop this, to not allow a chairman to abuse his power to go and seek retribution after people he has political disagreements with, whether they are members of the press, Members of Congress, or the legal counsel of people across this country.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I would hope that the gentleman would work with us to get to the bottom of this. As the gentleman pointed out, he is not aware of what the chairman is really doing. Neither am I, but I am very concerned about what the chairman has done.
He selectively put in a report the names of members of the press, of Members of Congress whom he has had political disagreements with. He didn't put the names of everybody else in there.
If he has 3,500 pages of reports of phone records of people he has been spying on, he won't share all of those people that he is spying on, but he is selectively going to leak out names of members of the press who have written articles maybe that he disagrees with? That is frightening.
That would be an abuse of power, but we don't know because the chairman won't share the details of what he is up to. But he did selectively put some of that in a report that wasn't even discussed in the hearings.
So, yes, it raises alarms. It raises concerns, and I would hope we get to the bottom of it.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, we are beyond the process arguments because we are into the details now. The facts have been very clear that the President did not abuse power, that the President did not commit impeachable offenses.
The Mueller report confirmed that, first of all, and then even the witnesses that the Democrats brought forward time and time again were asked, ``Can you name an impeachable offense?'' Not one. ``Can you name bribery?'' which was the new term after the majority party focus- grouped ``quid pro quo'' and realized that wasn't getting them where they wanted to go.
Bribery, they were asked, ``Can you name any cases of bribery?'' Not one. Even the witnesses earlier this week, none of whom had any firsthand knowledge of anything. Why they were there, who knows. But not one of them could name any firsthand account of wrongdoing. So those are facts.
What we do know is that over 100 Democrats in this Chamber voted for impeachment prior to the phone call with President Zelensky, voted for impeachment without any facts because the objective of many in the majority was to impeach the President just because they didn't agree with the results of the 2016 election, not because there were high crimes and misdemeanors. They still haven't been able to lay out any.
They have innuendo, hopes, and dreams, none of which have come to fruition when the witnesses have come forward.
Basically, the two people who really are most pertinent to this are President Trump and President Zelensky because they were the two who participated in the phone call. Both of them said there was nothing wrong done. In fact, President Zelensky appreciated the phone call from President Trump, thanked him for the help he has given that President Obama didn't give to help them stand up to Russia, and ultimately said there was no pressure. And he got the money for additional aid that he requested. Those are the facts.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman if there is anything else that he had.
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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I guess the gentleman is acknowledging it is a foregone conclusion that they are going to pass impeachment of the President by saying it is going to go to the Senate.
But let's keep in mind, when you talk about three out of the four witnesses from this week, all four of them, first of all, acknowledged that they had absolutely no firsthand knowledge of anything that happened, so they were giving their opinions.
All four of them acknowledged not one of them voted for President Trump, which is their prerogative, but some of them actually testified under oath that they have given money to Democratic candidates for President who were running against President Trump.
They are actively engaged in defeating President Trump, and then we are supposed to expect that they are giving some impartial scholarly assessment of evidence that they have seen, acknowledging they have no firsthand knowledge themselves.
They are incredibly biased because they are campaigning against the President, but you brought them in to try to make it look like they are objective witnesses. I think that came out very clearly, their political bias. I am glad that, at least under oath, they acknowledged that they had a political bias. But even one of the witnesses, all of whom said they voted against the President, said it would be abuse of power of this committee, of your majority, to impeach a President based on him exercising his rights and, frankly, following the law. Part of the law, which the gentleman from Maryland, the chairman of the committee, and even the Speaker of the House voted for, requires a President of the United States, prior to sending hard-earned taxpayer money to a foreign country, to ensure that they are rooting out corruption, the platform on which President Zelensky ran.
But the old Reagan doctrine of ``trust but verify'' was in process, where they were verifying that President Zelensky was, in fact, the real deal. We determined that, and we have high confidence that President Zelensky is following through on rooting out corruption.
The money was released prior to the deadline for the money being released. There was no investigation, no announcements, and all these other things.
Let's keep in mind the bias of those witnesses. Ultimately, the people of this country, I think, are deciding this already. But the people of the country are the ones next year who should select the President of the United States, not some people who have said since 2016 that they didn't like that election so they are going to try to impeach the President regardless of facts.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman if he had anything else.
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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, hopefully, we will get to the bottom of whatever Chairman Schiff has done with these phone records.
I do want to correct the Record. Ambassador Sondland was asked, under oath, in committee: Has anyone on the planet shown any direction between, a link between financial aid and investigations? Anyone on the planet. And under oath, he said no. That is clear. That was on the record. I just want to make that clear.
We are going to litigate this. We are going to debate this for hours and hours.
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Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, when asked under oath whether or not he had any evidence of any link between investigations and money, he said no.
And the bottom line is President Zelensky got the money. The quid pro quo that was being alleged didn't happen. President Zelensky got the money. There were no investigations.
But this will continue anyway, and, clearly, over 100 Members had made up their mind prior to the phone call.
I know we are going to continue this debate over the next weeks. Hopefully, we get beyond it and deal with other issues.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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