Gross Violations of Law By Trump Administration
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MIN. Mr. Speaker, we just heard all day from Republicans on the other side of the aisle that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is going to lead to helping small businesses and reducing the deficit. Yet, what we just missed in all of this discussion was any discussion of the T-word, and I am not talking about Trump here. I am talking about tariffs.
In fact, when I talk to the small businesses in my district, that is the number one, number two, and number three concerns that they have.
When Members talk about the deficits and the jobs creation that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are supposed to have, note that this is going to add $7 trillion to our national debt. It will blow up our deficit. In fact, Donald Trump is responsible for roughly 40 percent of the national debt just in the 4 years in which he was in office.
He oversaw, of course, the worst jobs record of any President since Herbert Hoover.
That is right. He oversaw the worst jobs growth of any President since the Great Depression.
It now looks like he is doubling down on those failed policies, and congressional Republicans are looking to support those efforts and potentially take us into the Great Depression 2.0, as economist after economist has warned us.
Mr. Speaker, that is not what I am here to talk about today. I rise today to speak about the Trump administration's egregious Hatch Act violations and also Congress' failure to hold Donald Trump and his administration accountable for these gross violations of law.
That is, of course, a theme that we have seen. Trump has bent and broken the law and key provisions of the Constitution over and over. Yet, this body, which, as any kid knows, is supposed to be a coequal branch of government to the President, to the executive branch, has rolled over and played dead rather than holding anybody accountable.
Today, we heard another oversight hearing about something that people in my district just don't care about: trans athletes who are fencing in different types of competitive atmospheres. That may be something for local sporting bodies to take up. It is not something that is pressing to my constituents. It is not pressing in the way that the corruption, the lawlessness, the tariffs, or so many other things are.
The Hatch Act, I think, embodies the problems that we are seeing right now with just the sheer criminality and lawlessness of this administration and the failure of Congress--again, a coequal branch of government--in standing up for itself. We have an hour for this Special Order, but we would need much more time to talk about all of the Hatch Act violations made by members of the Trump administration.
Mr. Speaker, this is important to me because, as someone who has spent my career trying to uphold the rule of law, I turned down Wall Street to begin my career at the Securities and Exchange Commission to crack down on corporate fraud, exactly the type that Donald Trump and many of his allies are committing right now, such as securities fraud, corporate fraud, and the like.
When I was a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, I spent my career trying to uphold law enforcement and the rule of law, and right now we are just seeing a level of sheer criminality and lawlessness that is unprecedented in history. What is happening right now makes the Teapot Dome scandal and all of these scandals we read about in history look like penny-ante stuff.
The Trump administration is doing everything it can right now to allow for people to violate the Hatch Act. I emphasize the Hatch Act was a series of laws passed by Congress to prevent senior officials in the administration from abusing their official executive branch positions to campaign and to engage in politics.
Of course, the Trump administration issued an executive order essentially undoing many of the provisions of the Hatch Act, allowing members of the administration to use their official offices to campaign for Donald Trump and Republicans, something that is totally outrageous, something that is totally in defiance of the Hatch Act.
Again, this is a law that we passed in Congress, and, no, the President does not get to make law by executive order. This President has issued more executive orders than the last approximately 10 Presidents combined already, and we are only 3\1/2\ months into his Presidency. Executive orders do not rewrite laws that we pass.
I remind my colleagues of something that my kids learned in third grade: Article I of the Constitution gives Congress and only Congress the authority to create laws, to enact laws. The President does not get to rewrite laws that we passed, including the Hatch Act, by just having his lawyers come up with some nonsense and calling it an executive order. Yet, that is what we have seen done here.
The administration has also directed the Office of Special Counsel to refer Hatch Act violations by White House-commissioned officers directly to the President for disciplinary action, rather than the Independent Merit Systems Protections Board.
What he is basically saying is to send those to the White House. If Members expect this White House to enforce any violations of law committed by a Trump supporter, my colleagues haven't been following the news at all. Of course, this White House, this President, from the very beginning, when he pardoned all of the January 6 felons, including people who had assaulted police officers, he was, again, showing his contempt for the rule of law. If we rely on the White House to enforce the law, we have another thing coming.
Mr. Speaker, this is good news for people like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who told viewers during a FOX News interview in March that they could buy Tesla stock, that they should buy Tesla stock, again, violating his position, abusing his position, going on national television to promote a stock aligned with Donald Trump's interests.
It also looks to be great news for people like Lynne Patton, who is returning to work for President Trump this week after finishing up a 2- month suspension from Federal service after she improperly used her position with the Department of Housing and Urban Development for political purposes during President Trump's first term.
It is also good news for all of the White House employees who helped set up that shameless display where Trump and his White House essentially turned the White House lawn into a Tesla dealership, promoting Tesla.
Where is the rule of law? Where is the concern for enforcement of the rule of law? I know a lot of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle profess to care a lot about crime. Yet, we have seen them turn a blind eye over and over to the many, many acts of criminality committed by this administration.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MIN. Mr. Speaker, I echo the comments just made by Mr. Garcia. We are roughly 3\1/2\ months into Trump's second term, but it looks to be shaping up like a more extreme and more radical version of the first term, where the Office of Special Counsel identified over 12 different members of President Trump's administration as having violated the Hatch Act.
As a refresher, Kellyanne Conway promoted Ivanka Trump's clothing line in the last Trump administration. Stephanie Grisham, Nikki Haley, and Dan Scavino engaged in political activity on their government social media accounts. Former Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue unlawfully promoted President Trump's 2020 reelection campaign.
I will say that the acquiescence of Congress at that time, the failure to hold Donald Trump accountable for those abuses, those violations of the rule of law, has led Donald Trump to be even more bold and aggressive in violating the law this time around.
At this point, I think this is very clearly the most corrupt administration in history. Already, we have seen them engage in breathtaking actions that are unprecedented, all of which have created constitutional crises. They fired over 17 inspectors general to start the term. They issued a mass pardon of those convicted of assaulting our government, including police officers, on January 6. They went after the FBI and tried to fire anybody who was seen as insufficiently loyal to Donald Trump at the FBI. They did the same thing at the Department of Justice. They looked to illegally usurp our Article I powers by firing thousands of government employees, redirecting funding that we had appropriated here in Congress, violating the Impoundment Control Act, and trying to rewrite laws by shuttering agencies through executive action that Congress had created.
As a reminder, Congress and only Congress, under Article I--this is something that the Founders in their great wisdom decided was important, the separation of powers, something we all learn early on. Apparently, not too many of my colleagues on the other side have incorporated this message: Congress and only Congress has the authority to pass laws and to appropriate funds. That is exactly what they are trying to take away from us.
We have seen this time after time. Now, it is with the illegal sweeps of immigrants, including immigrants who are here on travel visas, leading to a stark drop in tourism, and the possibly illegal usurpation of our taxation authority by an unprecedented series of tariff announcements.
A great gauge of how corrupt things are right now is by seeing how much litigation has already proceeded against the Trump administration. We have seen over 220 lawsuits brought against them in their first 100 days. That is clearly a record.
It is also a record of how many of them they have lost already, how many motions they have lost, how many motions have been filed against them that they have lost in court.
In response, rather than trying to adhere to the rule of law, the Trump administration, again, exhibiting its utter contempt for the rule of law, has gone after members of the judiciary.
At this point, there are not a lot of guardrails left. They have gone after the IGs. They have weaponized the Department of Justice. They have weaponized the FBI.
There are the courts, and there is Congress. Unfortunately, Congress, with the majority on the other side of the aisle, has decided to roll over and play dead and be Donald Trump's lapdog rather than enforcing our constitutionally mandated duties.
When we take office, you may remember that we all swear an oath to defend and support the Constitution of the United States. That means regardless of what party affiliation you have or what party affiliation the President has, regardless of what threats the President or Elon Musk may make against you, we swear to a higher power to take that oath, to support and defend the Constitution. Right now, that is not happening with Congress, and Donald Trump and his minions have become emboldened to attack the courts.
I have attempted to bring light to these issues through my membership on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, as well as part of the rapid response team that our leadership has set up.
For example, I have sent letters to the law firms that acquiesced to the Trump administration and the Florida bar for the apparently unscrupulous ethical behavior of Attorney General Bondi.
We have seen them go after higher education. We need to stand up and fight back right now. Donald Trump has weaponized the Federal Government to go after Columbia, for example, based on what appears to be a personal vendetta over a real estate deal that didn't happen like 30 years ago.
As my colleague from Long Beach mentioned earlier, another outrageous example we have seen is the Trump crypto meme coin, which President Trump is using to profit personally from the Presidency. We just saw a couple of weeks ago that an Abu Dhabi firm had invested $2 billion into the coin, directly enriching the President. He is going to celebrate this by holding a meme coin gala dinner this month for the top holders of his coin.
The level of corruption right now is breathtaking. It is unprecedented. Unfortunately, he is not going to stop because Congress is not stepping up to enforce our rights. We are not stepping up to do the oversight that is required of us.
As the Romans used to say, who watches the watchmen? When there are no guardrails in place, who watches the watchmen? Unfortunately, right now, Congress, which is supposed to act as a coequal branch of government, is failing to uphold its duties.
Mr. Speaker, I note that this is unprecedented in its corruption. We will continue to see violations of the Hatch Act. We will continue to see a failure of enforcement of the rule of law, but I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source