Providing for Consideration of H.R. Department of Defense Appropriations Act, Providing for Consideration of H.R. Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Anti-Cbdc Surveillance State Act; Providing for Consideration of S. Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act; and Waiving A Requirement of Clause 6(A) of Rule Xiii with Respect to Consideration of Certain Resolutions Reported From the Committee on Rules

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule.

Although Bitcoin has been around for over 15 years, cryptocurrencies and related decentralized financial products have exploded in the past few years. Many Americans now own cryptocurrencies, and the industry has seen significant growth.

At the same time, our laws have not kept up with these novel crypto products, and there is wide agreement that Congress must update our laws to appropriately account for crypto assets. However, today's bills are not the answer to that problem.

The CLARITY and GENIUS Acts are bad legislation. They are industry- written bills that give the crypto industry everything it wants at the expense of retail investors, consumers, and the overall health of our financial system. These bills are products of the D.C. swamp that so many of our colleagues usually condemn.

Mr. Speaker, every time our Republican colleagues write a finance bill, it leaves us less safe and more prone to financial crisis. We saw the very real consequences of this when Silicon Valley Bank failed in 2023. That failure was the direct result of Republican legislation that exempted Silicon Valley Bank from Dodd-Frank Act regulations.

GOP proponents of that bill had argued, without evidence, that Dodd- Frank was too onerous and that big banks needed regulatory relief, but it only took a couple of years for their disastrous deregulatory agenda to lead exactly where we all knew it would, with billions of dollars of customer deposits evaporating overnight and with the Federal Government bailing out the bank's uninsured depositors.

This time, Republicans are at it again with two bills that will create a weak and ineffective regulatory regime for cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, allowing exchanges and insurers to continue risky, fraudulent, and illegal practices with limited oversight by the SEC or Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

These bills give the crypto industry exactly what it wants. They get the illusion of a real regulatory regime and the legitimacy that would bestow. They get weak rules that can be exploited and manipulated for financial gain, and they get enforcement mechanisms that are so meager and underfunded that they won't deter bad actors.

We have seen what deregulation gets us. It got us the 2008 financial crisis. It gets us bankruptcies and bailouts, and it ultimately leaves hardworking Americans holding the bag while CEOs get golden parachutes.

It is not like we are talking about deregulating some benign financial product. Crypto stands out as a uniquely risky asset. From the invention of bitcoin until now, the primary demonstrated uses for cryptocurrencies have been speculation, fraud, and money laundering.

You can't really use crypto to buy anything. The coins themselves aren't backed by any profits, assets, or other tangible property. While we have been hearing about all the wonders of the blockchain for over a decade, shockingly few companies actually use it in a way that is essential to their business.

In practice, the main real-life-use case for crypto is money laundering. Crypto is used by Mexican cartels to launder their proceeds from drugs trafficked into the United States. Terrorist organizations fund their operations with crypto, and countries like North Korea use cryptocurrencies to avoid U.S. sanctions and fund their nuclear weapons programs.

In fact, bitcoin and Tether are the payment methods of choice for the fentanyl manufacturers in China that supply the Mexican cartels, as well as other fentanyl traffickers inside the United States. These criminal organizations rely on crypto, and the legislation under consideration today will not disrupt that illegal commerce.

The CLARITY and GENIUS Acts will not do anything to prevent crypto from being used to break our laws or fund fentanyl deaths and senior fraud. These bills do not provide any meaningful regulations to ensure that issuers and exchanges fully comply with anti-money laundering laws. Add to this that cryptocurrencies are used to facilitate billions of dollars' worth of fraud against Americans each year. This fraud comes in the form of scams, especially those targeting seniors, where fraudsters trick people into purchasing fake crypto products and then run off with the money, leaving the seniors with no recourse.

Then there is the institutional fraud, the fraud that comes from the crypto companies themselves. Here we also have a long list of examples, the most notable being the fall and bankruptcy of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which incorporated itself in The Bahamas to avoid American regulatory scrutiny, gambled with customer funds, and ultimately left its customers penniless because of fraudulent business practices.

There is no other way around it. The CLARITY and GENIUS Acts will not stop these types of fraud from happening, and they will leave regular investors on the hook if they are victims of fraud.

The other glaring omission in these bills is they do nothing to stop the abuse of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins as tools for bribery and influence peddling. As President Trump and his allies have demonstrated on a daily basis, any politician can issue a crypto asset, own the majority of tokens, and then anyone who wants to buy that politician's attention or votes can just invest in the asset. There is no oversight or disclosure requirement. There is deniability on both sides of the transaction. Any person, any foreign country can bribe and buy politicians through cryptocurrency like this. Those who have purchased such coins have been open about their motivations for doing so.

Right before his inauguration, President Trump issued his own coin, the Trump coin, for which he is the majority owner. Millions of dollars of questionable funds, including funds from foreigners and foreign governments, have flowed into this coin, as well as his companies, Trump Media and World Liberty Financial.

All in all, it is estimated that President Trump has netted $1 billion from those crypto schemes, taking advantage of the Office of the President to enrich him and his family.

During the 2024 election, crypto companies donated millions of dollars to elect the President. After he was elected, they donated millions more to his inaugural committee. It is notable that in his first 6 months in office, Trump has dismantled all the regulators that oversee the financial and crypto industries, dropped criminal charges and investigations against various crypto companies, pardoned a crypto exchange that pleaded guilty to abetting money laundering, and pardoned the former owner of the Silk Road who was responsible for selling hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of drugs on the deep web.

Apparently, anyone who seeks to buy influence in this White House simply has to find one of the President's companies or meme coins and make a sizable investment. Emiratis and Saudis are investing in Trump's crypto assets to curry favor. People looking for pardons, dismissals, or preferential regulatory treatment are taking advantage of the Trump crypto scheme. Lawyers and lobbyists are advertising to clients that they can buy a pardon for the right price. It is easily the biggest potential corruption scandal in our Nation's Presidential history.

If there is any crypto regulation we need right now, it is a bright- line prohibition on any elected official profiting off a crypto asset.

Mr. Speaker, this year marks the 15th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which paved the way for corporations and billionaires to spend unlimited money in our elections. Because of this ruling, anyone, for the right price, can buy their preferred outcomes in our elections and in Congress. One need look no further than Elon Musk and the crypto bills that we are considering today to see the impact of the Citizens United decision.

We all know about the millions that Musk poured into the Trump campaign and the White House access he was granted before their abrupt split recently, but the crypto industry also spent a lot of money. It spent money to make these bills happen.

Over the past few years, the crypto industry has emerged as one of the biggest and most aggressive political spenders in American politics. In the 2024 election, crypto emerged as the biggest corporate spender, accounting for nearly half of all the corporate money spent. Crypto outspent every other business lobby by tens of millions of dollars.

While the crypto industry's political spending is enormous, what really sets it apart is the brazenness with which the industry buys influence in Washington. Usually, it is hard to exactly pinpoint a direct relationship between political spending and outcomes, but crypto spending is so in your face that we can actually put a price on these bills.

All in all, the CLARITY and GENIUS Acts cost the crypto industry about $245 million, and that is a conservative figure. That is just the money spent on 2024 campaigns. If you count money spent to hire expensive lobbyists to come to Congress and ply Representatives with industry talking points, the number is even higher.

Crypto's $245 million was spent supporting candidates who backed the industry and defeating candidates who did not. Crypto got a good return on its investment. In the overwhelming majority of races that crypto principals invested in, they got their preferred candidate. Now crypto companies have been able to write their own regulations to ensure they won't face serious scrutiny or oversight, meaning that fraud and money laundering will continue unabated, and investors will be on the hook when the next crypto crisis happens.

Fifteen years after the Citizens United decision, these bills are the direct result. Crypto is a textbook example of the consequences of that decision. The question before us today is, how should cryptocurrencies be regulated? The answer we are getting is with regulations provided by the crypto industry itself.

Fifteen years later, Citizens United has been an unmitigated disaster for our country. Unlimited spending in politics has corroded our democracy. It has bred cynicism and nihilism in the political process. It has made Americans feel disenfranchised and powerless. It says to every American, your voice doesn't count unless you can pay to play.

Mr. Speaker, we have a political system where any company or any rich person can pay for advertisements, pay for lobbyists, donate to campaigns and PACs and super-PACs, all to buy influence and get their desired outcomes from Congress or the White House.

Time and time again, in every sector of our economy, corporations and the rich have won in Congress, in the courts, in the rulemaking process, and even in decisionmaking by enforcement agencies.

We see the consequences of Citizens United everywhere we turn. It is the reason corporations can screw over workers and consumers with no penalty.

It is why every part of the economy is monopolized by two or three companies that sell poor products and give bad service. It is why we are diving headfirst into a global climate crisis and doing nothing about it.

It is why every time someone runs for office on a platform of putting people over profits, they have to endure attacks from super-PACs supported by billionaires or business interests. Our democracy will remain imperiled so long as the mega-rich can buy influence, votes, and elections.

If anyone was unsure of the consequences posed by Citizens United in 2010, it is now clear, beyond any doubt, that the decision was an abject failure for the country. We have to overturn Citizens United, get dark money out of politics, and make sure our government is accountable to voters and not donors.

To my colleagues here in the House, we don't need to end campaign spending for Members of Congress to do the right thing. Integrity doesn't require authorizing legislation. We cannot allow big money donors to buy or bully Congress. We need to do the right thing.

Mr. Speaker, today's rule also provides for consideration of the fiscal year 2026 Defense appropriations bill. Since taking the majority in the House, Republicans have unfortunately abandoned any pretense of bipartisan compromise to promote our national security by loading every defense bill with radical, rightwing policy riders. These riders have turned what was once a rare area of bipartisan consensus into yet another partisan divide.

This time around, Republicans have loaded the national defense bill with provisions to prevent female servicemembers from accessing reproductive healthcare. They have given a green light to discrimination against LGBTQ servicemembers.

This bill does nothing to address the gross mismanagement of the Pentagon by Pete Hegseth, a man who has leaked classified intelligence, who spends more time in front of his Pentagon makeup mirror and doing press stunts than effectively managing the Armed Forces, and who has prioritized support for bigotry and weird cultural war obsessions like changing the pictures on the Pentagon's website and renaming military bases after Confederate icons.

When this bill is combined with the money spent by Republicans in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the United States is on track to spend over $1 trillion on defense. Every year, we spend more and more on defense. It is not clear that taxpayers are getting a good deal.

After years of consolidation and lax antitrust enforcement, the defense industry has ossified around five major prime contractors, each with a degree of specialization. That means only two or three companies ever compete for major contracts.

The consequences of this consolidation can be found across the defense industrial base. We don't make enough of the weapons and platforms that we need. Production for major platforms is often beset by delays and cost overruns. We spend billions on studies and research programs that don't lead anywhere. Production timelines are always being extended. Delivery times are delayed, and per-unit costs are increased.

In the face of these glaring business inefficiencies, Congress and the Pentagon always give the contractors what they ask for and ask for very little in return.

We need to replenish our weapons stockpiles. We need to quickly field next-generation military assets like the Columbia submarine and the B- 21 Raider. We need to bolster supply chains that support this production. We need to ensure that the Nation has the industrial capacity to respond to a sustained major conflict anywhere in the world.

In order for us to achieve these goals, meet our national security needs, and support our servicemembers, Congress needs to perform real oversight over the Pentagon and defense contractors.

In my time in Congress, I have supported multiple efforts to require the Pentagon to perform a clean audit with tangible enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance. In each case, these efforts haven't garnered the votes for passage because at the end of the day, this body has not been willing to hold the Pentagon and defense industry's feet to the fire.

The Pentagon has failed to complete seven audits in a row. That is seven. Until the Pentagon faces real consequences for being unable to account for the billions of taxpayer dollars it spends every year and failing to comply with congressional oversight, we will never have accountability.

At a time when our Republicans' quest to root out waste, fraud, and abuse has led them to slash funding for American's healthcare and hunger relief, it is astonishing they are willing to write yet another blank check to the Department of Defense with no questions asked, despite growing evidence of cost overruns, mismanagement, and more.

At the end of the day, I want our servicemembers to have every single advantage over our adversaries. I want them to have all the tools, platforms, resources, and weapons systems we can provide. I don't want taxpayers to get a bad deal. I don't want to waste money on overpriced defense contracts that overpromise and underdeliver.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to make in order amendment No. 50 to H.R. 3633, offered by Representative Khanna, which requires the Attorney General to preserve and release any records related to Jeffrey Epstein.

I applaud my colleagues, Representative Veasey and Khanna, for their work to release the Epstein files. I strongly support these efforts and the release of the files.

Last night, at the Rules Committee, Republicans rejected an amendment that would have required the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files, multiple criminal investigations which allegedly documented trafficking of young women and girls by Jeffrey Epstein, a sex offender and financier with whom the President often socialized.

For years, the President and those in his orbit, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, alleged that prior administrations had covered up the identities of the rich and powerful people to whom Epstein had trafficked the girls and the facts surrounding his allegedly suspicious death.

They came into office pledging to seek accountability for the horrific crimes by revealing Epstein's client list and other information, but recently backtracked and refused to release any further information.

There appear to be only two explanations for this about-face. Either the Epstein files did not contain the explosive information that Trump and his allies claimed during his campaign, or this administration is the one covering up what is in the files.

Last night, all the Republicans on the Rules Committee except one voted against releasing the files.

Why would they try to prevent the truth about Epstein's abuse and those he enabled from coming out? That is anybody's guess.

With this previous question, the entire Republican Conference has the opportunity to correct that mistake. They can vote today to release the Epstein files.

Mr. Speaker, this is a debate about what Congress should be considering, and my amendment would simply allow Congress to express its will with respect to the release of the Epstein files. This is something our Republican colleagues and certainly key members of the Trump administration have been talking about for years until their recent about-face.

Congress can express its will. We would like to have it put up for a vote. It doesn't block any votes on the crypto bills or the Defense Department funding.

We think that the administration should release these files. It really is a little confusing, I think, why suddenly our Republican colleagues are blocking this, but perhaps it was a mistake. At least one Republican voted with Democrats last night to release the files, so this would just give all of our colleagues the opportunity to say what they have been saying for so many years, that the Epstein files should be released.
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Ms. SCANLON.

I am not sure what the gentleman from Georgia is talking about when he says that my amendment is offered as a product of radical leftists. I know that it is rare in D.C., but this amendment actually has broad bipartisan support, from the far right, from the far left, and from the middle.

We just want to release the Epstein files. That is why we have offered the amendment, and this body has the opportunity to vote on it.

I don't understand why my Republican colleagues are suddenly so adamant about throwing up procedural hurdles to have the Epstein files released.

Mr. Speaker, last night in the Committee on Rules, my Democratic colleagues and I offered multiple amendments to try to improve the crypto bills.

We offered amendments to prevent the President and his closest relatives from profiting off of crypto while he is in office. We offered amendments to protect investors and consumers and allow the kind of government oversight that is needed to protect our economy.

All of these amendments were rejected by committee Republicans.

Last night, as we discussed the Defense spending bill, we also pressed Republicans on how military families will be impacted by the Medicaid cuts in Republicans' big, ugly bill.

About 850,000 military families on TRICARE also receive healthcare through Medicaid, particularly children with special needs. Those families may now see their health benefits cut or taken away as a result of the big, ugly bill. That issue was not addressed in the Defense spending bill.

Our Republican colleagues didn't want to hear it, and I doubt we will be able to prevent them from proceeding with this misguided crypto legislation today.

Yet, I will say this: If these bills become law, we can predict many more crypto scandals and crises and money laundering. A lot of people will lose a lot of money, and no one will face accountability for taking advantage of retail investors. I hope that day doesn't come, but it is bills like this that will determine the future of our financial system.

Do we want a system that promotes speculation, bubbles, Ponzi schemes, and frauds or one that promotes investment in innovative and productive businesses that grow the real economy in ways that benefit all Americans?

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the PQ and rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

A recorded vote was ordered.

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