Impeachment Inquiry Needed to Complete Investigations
Floor Speech
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, barring declarations of war, impeachment is the most awesome power that Congress has. It shouldn't be a threat. It shouldn't be a political exercise. It is certainly not a pledge to be made on the campaign trail.
This is the most serious business that we can engage in. No one should want to impeach a President or take any pleasure in that. However, after months of blocked investigations by agencies in this administration, it became clear that an impeachment inquiry was the only course of action to complete our necessary and important investigations.
Let me explain why because there has been some confusion and some controversy about this.
Mr. Speaker, there are three irrefutable facts that have taken us to this point.
One, President Biden lied directly to the American people.
Two, President Biden's family and their associates profited millions through shell companies.
Three, President Biden's Federal agencies are stonewalling our legitimate congressional inquiry.
That is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many scandals. There is so much corruption that is being uncovered. Every stone that we overturn leads to more and more corruption.
Because of that, Mr. Speaker, a lot of the American people are simply getting lost in the barrage of evidence, in the barrage of allegations of corruption, and the evidence itself.
Let me go through just a couple of highlights here to bring everybody's attention to this to help explain why we are doing what we are doing.
In August 2019, President Biden said: ``I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses, period.''
Two months later, he said: ``I never discussed a single thing with my son about anything having to do with Ukraine. No one has indicated I have. We have always kept everything separate.''
He then doubled down on those claims during the debates, and both Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre have echoed that straight from the White House press briefing room.
Make no mistake about this: Everyone now knows those were all bald- faced lies.
While President Biden was Vice President, we know now that he had dinner at least twice with his son, Hunter, and Russian and Kazakhstani oligarchs. He spoke on the phone at least 20 times with Hunter's associates. He met with CEFC, a Chinese energy company, while Hunter was working on their behalf.
Here is a text message from Hunter Biden that alone is justification for an inquiry: ``Z--Please have the director call me, not James or Tony or Jim. Have him call me tonight. I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.''
A confidential human source, known well to the FBI and relied upon often, alleged that President Biden received a $5 million bribe for services rendered.
The House Oversight Committee investigation has been going on for a while, and the investigation has yielded many important facts. Here are a couple of examples the investigators have found.
They found that Hunter Biden flew on Air Force Two at least 15 times and engaged in activities that Devon Archer testified were to sell the brand and enrich the Biden family.
They found an email from Biden associate James Gillar that breaks down the profit agreement for a deal involving the Chinese Communist Party-linked CEFC, including ``10 held by H for the big guy.''
They found a text message later that month from Gillar to Tony Bobulinski, which read: ``Don't mention Joe being involved. It is only when you are face-to-face. I know you know that, but they are paranoid.''
This is just a sampling of what we already know. This impeachment inquiry will offer House investigators greater subpoena authority to receive information from evasive Federal agencies.
We have been impeded in the collection of all this evidence because the Federal agencies under the executive branch are openly, aggressively trying to protect the President. We are going to have advanced authority now and a larger platform to share this information with the American people.
Mr. Speaker, remember how we arrived here. When the New York Post reported the existence of the Hunter Biden laptop, now-Secretary of State Anthony Blinken organized a group of 51 former intelligence officials to claim the laptop was Russian disinformation. Social media accounts were banned from sharing the story, and individuals who believed it were labeled Russian assets and conspiracy theorists.
We now know that not only was the laptop not Russian disinformation, of course, but it was known previously to the intel community and many of the individuals who signed that letter. They knew it was legitimate. They knew it was not Russian disinformation. They knew it came from Hunter Biden, and they hid it from the American people.
On July Fourth, just a couple of months ago, the Federal district court in the Western District of Louisiana, my home State, issued a 155-page court opinion. The State of Louisiana and State of Missouri sued the Biden administration because they had a hunch and knew that the White House and its agencies, including the FBI, the DOJ, and other Federal agencies, were engaged in a coverup. They were censoring and silencing the viewpoints of Americans they disagreed with. They would not allow conservative speech on the social media platforms.
We know from the evidence produced in that case and listed in the 155-page court opinion that issued an injunction against the White House. By the way, just last Saturday, that was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The court points out that Elvis Chan, the FBI official in the San Francisco field office, was meeting regularly with the Big Tech platforms in Silicon Valley leading up to the election and telling them things that they had to pull off the internet, conservative voices and social media postings that they didn't want people to see. The FBI coerced, the court said, and then coordinated with the Big Tech giants to make sure that on Facebook, Google, and Twitter at the time, and all these other platforms, you couldn't see that information.
It wasn't just the Hunter Biden laptop story. It was a lot of categories of things. It included negative information about the economy. It included people's opinions, conservative's opinions about the efficacy of COVID vaccines and the lockdowns, how crazy that was, and what they were doing to schoolchildren. All that was censored.
They even took down jokes about the President. If you posted a parody about President Biden, even as a candidate or after he was elected, it was pulled off the internet.
It is unbelievable. It is staggering. The judge's words in the court that this is arguably the largest and the greatest attack on free speech in U.S. history. He called it Orwellian. He said it was dystopian.
This is what we are facing. This is what this White House has been involved in. They did not want the American people to have the facts, and that is one of the reasons that we have to go to this next step.
That is why, Mr. Speaker, we have to follow these facts where they lead. The facts are irrefutable. They have understandably set Washington ablaze, even though the American people weren't able to see it. The judge said that millions of free-speech-protected postings were taken down from the internet and not seen. Yet, it has set Washington ablaze. Why? Because we are bringing these facts to bear. We are laying them out for people to see.
Our colleagues here, some of them, don't want to see it. As John Adams said, ``Facts are stubborn things.'' As expected, the D.C. and national press corps have blindly accepted the White House's spin and are trying to convince the American people that our inquiry, even the impeachment inquiry, is illegitimate just 3 years after they carried the water for Adam Schiff and the Democrats on their crazy impeachment quests against Donald Trump.
Here is a sampling of the headlines so far. Now, remember, we just announced the impeachment inquiry step yesterday. Here it is so far.
From Time magazine: ``Biden inquiry may be weakest in history.''
From CNN: ``The most predictable impeachment investigation in American history.''
From Reuters: ``McCarthy opens long-shot impeachment probe of Biden.''
From MSNBC: ``McCarthy's Biden impeachment inquiry is the Benghazi investigation on steroids.''
These headlines are going to increase. We know it is coming. We know that they are working against us, against the American people, in this case, and for the White House. They are on their team. We get it.
CNN is reporting this week that the White House is urging news executives to ramp up scrutiny of our investigation. In fact, now there is a memo going around that they sent to all the big news agencies. As if weaponizing the Federal agencies wasn't enough, President Biden is now publicly directing the free press to play defense for him. Do you know what? They are willingly going along with it.
Mr. Speaker, why? I am just going to ask this question. It is a rhetorical one. Nobody can answer it here, of course, but we are trying to seek the answer to this. I think we know. If there was no impropriety, why wouldn't the President provide congressional investigators with all the information we have requested? What do they have to hide?
The President could make the short trip from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue tomorrow. He could sit down with our committees. He could clear his name. We could do that behind closed doors. We could do it very discreetly, with all the protection he needs. In fact, we would welcome it.
Let this be an open invitation to President Biden. I know the White House is recording all this. They are watching what we do here. Here is the open invitation: President Biden, Secretary Blinken, any of the Biden family members and associates, or anyone who seeks to clear their name, anybody involved in this investigation at all, you can come right here. You are welcome here in Congress to our committees.
We on the House Judiciary Committee, House Oversight Committee, Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, the Ways and Means Committee, any of them--pick your committee--and we will bring you in and you can clear your name.
Mr. Speaker, we would love to return our full focus to our regular and important work here, but the fact is our sworn oath to defend the Constitution requires this inquiry. I will close with this--and I am going to bring up a couple of my colleagues who will share their thoughts, as well-- but remember that Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution itself expressly states that the sole power of impeachment belongs here to this House. Then Article II, Section 4 says--listen to the language carefully. It is expressly written in the Constitution. These are not political talking points. We are not making this up. It says in Article II, Section 4 that the President shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Mr. Speaker, I listed just a small sampling, just the tip of the iceberg of the credible allegations and the mounting evidence that shows that Joseph Biden has engaged in bribery schemes, pay-to-play schemes. This is what the evidence shows.
We have to follow it. We took an oath to uphold the Constitution. The Constitution requires this action. The inquiry is the appropriate step. We have no choice but to pursue the facts wherever they lead, and we will leave no stone unturned.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman before he leaves the podium today: I was told by automobile dealers who were in my office from the district that the State of California has banned the combustion engine. Is that a rumor or is that true?
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. I yield to the gentleman from Idaho.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Isn't it true then that if California, which is one of the largest markets for vehicles, bans the sale of the combustion engine, then the car manufacturers, if they want to do business in California, are going to have to shift lots of their production lines to these vehicles that, by the way, no one wants, and they are not affordable or maintainable. As I understand it, if the battery goes it costs you another $100,000 for an already overpriced vehicle that no one wants or can charge up. Isn't that then going to affect the automobile market in every other State, and your ability to get a truck or a car?
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Exactly.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I think the people are calling upon us to bring common sense to this equation because this team on the other side who is pushing this radical climate agenda is engaged in fantasy economics.
The people in my State of Louisiana need their trucks and cars. They are not going to buy electric vehicles. They can't afford them, first of all. It is not practical because there is nowhere to charge them in my State.
If we have a shortage of vehicles on the market that is going to be a real problem. I am told delivery trucks are involved in this in California, and if you can't get the fruit shipped from California, that means the prices at the grocery store are going to go up, as well. Everyone is going to suffer from this; isn't that true?
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, it is about government control. I thank the gentleman for his work on that, and we urge our colleagues to support the bill.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his remarks.
Sadly, what happens in California, that giant market out there, affects the entire country. I appreciate him shining light on that.
Mr. Speaker, I will wind down our Special Order hour just by returning to the issue of the impeachment inquiry.
Even as I have been sitting here, I got a question from a Hill reporter about some of the Senators in the other Chamber and their reaction to our bringing forward the impeachment inquiry.
I just want to say that, to speak very frankly, whether or not the Senate is courageous enough to confront the alleged corruption of President Biden is not really the House's concern.
As I mentioned earlier, it is Article I of the Constitution, Section 2, that gives the sole power of impeachment to us in the House. We are supposed to investigate these things. We have to do it. It is our constitutional responsibility. They will later try the matter, if it comes to them.
If our committee uncovers evidence, if our investigations uncover evidence that lead to an impeachment vote indeed, then it will be incumbent, when we send it over to the Senate, to decide if they want to engage with those facts. They will have to answer to their own constituents and voters and the American people, but we will have done our job here.
If the inquiry comes up fruitless, say some evidence is determined and uncovered that completely exonerates President Biden, then we will have concluded a legitimate congressional inquiry as directed by the Constitution, and we will be satisfied with that and the American people will be satisfied. Some will be frustrated whatever happens at the outcome of this, but the Constitution will have been followed and upheld. On our side, that is the most important thing here.
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