Raising A Question of the Privileges of the House

Floor Speech

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for bringing the resolution.

To address the other side's claims about subpoenas to Members, they are invalid when you get your buddies together, predetermine the outcome, and then have an illegitimate committee, so-called, that doesn't follow and comport with the rules of the House.

By the way, some of the Members accused here were never even served those subpoenas, so let's be careful about disparaging our colleagues.

On the issue at hand, Mr. Speaker, this was a criminal investigation conducted by Robert Hur, a criminal investigation on the President of the United States for classified documents for which he was not authorized to have because, at the time he had them, he was not the President. He was the Vice President or a Senator and, in either case, not authorized to have those documents outside the chain of custody and outside a SCIF. He had no courier orders. They were just stored in his garage or at the Penn Biden Center.

That is the crime. The crime was committed. That is actually not in question. Robert Hur essentially said that there was a crime committed. The question is of the evidence of the crime committed. What the administration, the Department of Justice, and Merrick Garland have said is: You can't have the evidence. We are going to tell you our version of the evidence.

That is not how it goes in criminal trials. We don't say to the defendant: Give us your version of the evidence, and we will see if that is good enough. Prosecutors go get the evidence and then determine where it leads.

This House of Representatives demands the best evidence, not somebody else's version of the evidence, but the actual evidence, and the best evidence available, not because the House of Representatives inherently needs it, but because the American people need to judge for themselves about the crime that was committed and then why Robert Hur decided not to prosecute that crime.

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