Raising A Question of the Privileges of the House

Floor Speech

Today, we meet not to lower the costs of prescription drugs, nor to expand President Biden's infrastructure plan, nor to protect the voting rights of the people, nor to protect the healthcare choices of women across America because we know they are definitely not interested in that. No, we meet, rather, for another stop on the GOP's endless revenge tour against Democrats who dared to tell the truth about Donald Trump and his repeated sellouts and betrayals of the American people over the last 6 years.

It is all about Donald Trump tightening his stranglehold over Republicans for the 2024 campaign and driving out anyone who dares to think for himself or herself.

Don't take my word for it. Just read Friday's statement by the twice- impeached inciter of insurrection, sexual abuser, defamer of women, and indicted pilferer of national security secrets, war plans, and top- secret classified documents himself. On Friday, Trump posted this order to his followers in this unveiled threat to anyone who would dare to defy his control over the GOP: ``Any Republican voting against [Adam Schiff's] censure, or worse, should immediately be primaried.''

The Luna resolution is a weapon of mass distraction from Trump's indictment by a Florida grand jury on 37 Federal charges relating to obstruction and unlawful retention of defense information for storing dozens of classified, secret, and top-secret documents at his Florida resort in his bathroom, his bedroom, and beyond, and then refusing repeatedly for more than a year to return any of these official documents to the National Archives and the FBI.

It is amazing to me that they have to change the subject from one of Donald Trump's current offenses against America to one of his older offenses, welcoming Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential campaign.

Russia repeatedly intervened in the 2016 campaign to help Donald Trump, and that is not a matter of opinion. That is a question of direct, positive fact.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the former FBI Director whose report is cited authoritatively by Mrs. Luna, found right at the beginning of his report that ``the Russian Government interfered in the 2016 Presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.''

Here is what the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the Office of the Director of the National Intelligence found in 2017: ``Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. Presidential election.''

The Mueller investigation and the Moscow Project documented more than 250 episodes of collaboration and meetings between Russia and the Trump campaign, including Paul Manafort's repeated passing of campaign secrets, such as polling data, to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian agent, and the infamous meeting on June 9, 2016, at Trump Tower led by Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican, stated that the U.S. Senate bipartisan Select Committee on Intelligence ``found irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling'' in the American campaign.

The Mueller report, if you read it, makes no pronouncement on collusion, the punitive crux of the distinguished gentlewoman's complaint, because, as Mueller writes, ``collusion'' is not a legal offense or a legal concept.

The whole question of Trump's collusion with Russia is in the realm of opinion, and most Americans would see a lot of collusive activity, all the way up to the present day when Donald Trump refuses even to take the side of the Ukrainian people against Vladimir Putin's filthy, bloody, imperialist invasion of their country, which has been filled with lies, atrocities, and war crimes.

In any event, we don't censure Members over a difference of opinion.

Mr. Speaker, we are seeing the complete ethical collapse of a once- great political party. The Republican Party began as a pro-freedom, antiracist, pro-immigrant, anti-Know-Nothing party. It has become an authoritarian cult of personality taking orders from an inciter of insurrection, bully, and braggart whose rage toward Mike Pence and whose spectacular disrespect for the rule of law endangered not only our entire constitutional order but everyone in this room. The party of Lincoln and his Lincolnites has become the party of Luna and her Luna followers.

Today's madcap antics are an obvious deflection from Trump's deepening legal troubles. His allegedly criminal conduct in pilfering, hoarding, and refusing to return national security documents has caused his own Attorney General, William Barr, to say that: ``Trump's conduct is indefensible. . . . He is not a victim here. He was totally wrong.'' And, ``There is no excuse for what he did here.''

Yesterday, Representative Boebert offered a resolution of impeachment against President Biden. The GOP simply has no ideas for our economy, no ideas for our country, and no ideas for our people but is on an embarrassing revenge tour on behalf of Donald Trump, who treats them like a ventriloquist dummy.

Mr. GOLDMAN of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Maryland for yielding.

Boy, is Adam Schiff powerful. He can, at once, be the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the special counsel investigating Donald Trump, manage and run the FBI, and be a judge ruling on FISA applications. It is remarkable that he from his perch in Congress can do all of that.

Of course, he didn't do any of that. All he did was properly impeach the President of the United States for his gross abuse of power.

Mr. Speaker, do you want to talk about collusion?

Let me ask my Republican colleagues: If a campaign manager for a campaign is giving internal information to a Russian intelligence agent, is that collusion?

Because that was the once-classified information that is now public and now constitutes collusion. There are so many other issues. There is nothing in this resolution that is true.

Mr. GOLDMAN of New York. Mr. Speaker, one of my colleagues said that we will hold Members accountable.

The Republicans are the party of George Santos.

Whom are they holding accountable?

The guy is an alleged and acknowledged liar and indicted, and the Republicans protect him every day.

Mr. Speaker, don't lecture us with your projection and your defense of Donald Trump. It is pathetic, it is beneath you, and it is beneath this body.

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Mr. RASKIN. Lofgren).

Mr. HIMES: Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I just heard the gentleman from Virginia say that this is not a censure of Donald Trump, and he is right about that, and, boy, is he right about that because there is no behavior--not a discussion of how he would handle women, not an attack on this Capitol, and not the misuse of classified information--that will ever result in a peep from the Republican majority much less a censure of that behavior. This is a question of standing, Mr. Speaker, amongst other things, if that is what you stand upon.

As my colleagues pointed out, we don't hear anything about a colleague whose entire campaign and entire resume was built on falsehood. Instead, we hear that Russia was a hoax.

Mr. Speaker, I was there. The investigation began by a Republican chairman. All these investigations were predicated on the fact that a Donald Trump foreign policy aide told the Australian ambassador that they were expecting dirt from the Russians.

The most important thing I can say is that I sat next to Adam Schiff for years. He is a man of integrity and dignity. This vote, quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, is a testament to your dignity or lack thereof.
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I just want to observe that there are dozens of Members on our side who have come to stand with Mr. Schiff, and it appears to have been evacuated on the other side. There is nobody standing with the Luna resolution.

Garcia).

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Mr. RASKIN. Dean), a member of the second House impeachment team.

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, they defend the big lie, they defend the insurrection, they defend George Santos, but they attack Adam Schiff.
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member of the Rules Committee for those astute remarks. I note that dozens of Members of our caucus have come to stand with Mr. Schiff today, while the sponsor of this resolution, Mrs. Luna, appears to be completely isolated over on her side of the aisle.

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, we are here precisely because of Donald Trump, because he wants this retribution exacted against Adam Schiff for standing up against Donald Trump's lies and assaults on American democracy.

I congratulate the gentlewoman on her forthcoming baby. That is awesome news. I am wondering if she would share some of her time with me because I have started to run out of time, and she has no speakers over on her side, so consider that.

In the meantime, I recognize for 1 minute the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette). I recognize for 1 minute the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse).
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Mr. RASKIN. Scanlon).

Mr. ROBERT GARCIA of California. Mr. Speaker, this resolution is a joke.

They are trying to smear Congressman Schiff for his work to defend our institutions. Meanwhile, the same people who attack Adam Schiff for seeking the truth refuse to take action against a serial and admitted fraudster in their own Conference.

Adam Schiff did not win his elections on false pretenses. He has not been accused of crimes in the U.S., nor has he admitted to crimes in Brazil. Unfortunately, not all my House colleagues on the Republican side can say the same.

Thirty-five days ago, every House Republican voted to defend George Santos. Instead, they want to censure someone who stands for truth and justice, Adam Schiff.

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Mr. RASKIN. Pelosi), the former Speaker of the House of Representatives.
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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