Recommending That the House Find Stephen K. Bannon in Contempt of Congress

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, we are here this afternoon to test a proposition as old as the country's founding: Are we a nation of laws?

We are here because one man has decided that we are now only a nation of men and that rich and powerful men need not follow the law. And the question we must confront is nothing less than this: Is he right?

Are some people now truly above the law, beholden to nothing and no one, free to ignore the law and without consequence?

Congress is investigating the worst attack on our Capitol in over a century, made worse still by the fact that it was carried out by our own people, people who had been misled to believe that their election had been stolen and that violence was now justified, people who are still being misled by a dangerous lie that may lead to even more bloodshed.

This is not some theoretical matter. We were here. We heard the doors breaking, the glass shattering, the cries from outside the Chamber. And we saw the bloody results, the officers injured, and those who died.

And in the wake of the horrors of that day, a day in which the Capitol Police put their lives on the line to defend our democracy, it falls on us to defend that same democracy, albeit at far less risk to ourselves.

The Founders intended that ambition should be made to check ambition. If we fail to uphold Congress' power to compel information, then we cease to be a coequal branch of government, unable to perform our oversight or check any abuses of executive power.

Take away a court's power to subpoena witnesses, and it fails to be a court. Take away the Congress' ability to do the same, and it fails to be a Congress, becoming instead a mere plaything for a corrupt executive.

Do not believe for one moment that if we fail to hold Steve Bannon accountable that he will be the exception. He will become the rule--not a rule of law, but the misrule of men.

Either we are all equal before the law or none of us is. This is the essence of our democracy.

As Lincoln said, ``Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.''

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