Notice of Intention to Offer Resolution Raising A Question of the Privileges of the House

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to speak today about Jeffrey Epstein or January 6. I am going to confine my remarks to two things that I know about.

I am going to take a deep breath right now because to stand here and have to listen to the gentleman from Louisiana, in the guise of just asking questions, besmirch one of the finest Members I have had the honor of serving with, I think, would offend the sensibility of anybody in this Chamber.

I am going to limit my remarks to two things I know very well: number one, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and what we need to do to preserve that very special environment; and, number two, the character of Delegate Stacey Plaskett. On HPSCI, I have served for 10 years, and with Chairman Turner and now with Chairman Crawford, we have fought for that decade to keep the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence immunized from the sewage that flows through this Chamber, the partisan attacks, the hideousness. By and large, we have been pretty successful, with one exception, when that committee got involved in the political investigation around Ukraine in the first Trump administration.

Every single day, the leaders of that committee work hard, establish friendships, and do the work we need to do to make sure that the toxicity and the sewage that we are hearing right now don't impinge the critical work of making sure that our intelligence communities are keeping Americans safe, not violating civil liberties, and not doing things inconsistent with the desires and character of the American people.

This effort put forward by a bunch of people who haven't served on that committee and who have no idea the comity and the grace with which that committee serves, you, sirs, will hurt this committee badly.

I expect every Republican on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence--and I will say it again--I expect every Republican on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who knows Ms. Plaskett and knows the committee to vote ``no'' on the idea that, without evidence and without due process, Ms. Plaskett should be removed from that very special committee.

This resolution would strike a devastating blow to HPSCI's ability to work effectively. By removing a member in good standing based on a newspaper article about texts--no due process, no evidence, nothing offered other than a newspaper article which has moved the gentleman from South Carolina--a member who has consistently engaged in a bipartisan and productive way with the committee's work, to make some unrelated political statement will do profound damage to this essential committee.

Now, let me just talk for a moment about Ms. Plaskett. I have served in this institution for 17 years, longer, I think, than most people in this Chamber. I have not had the honor of serving with somebody with the integrity, the commitment, and the hardworking bona fides as Ms. Plaskett.

We can argue about the wisdom or the judgment associated with those texts. I am told that, apparently, Mr. Epstein was a constituent.

For any one of us, on our worst day, our biggest misjudgment is not to be judged without any due process, especially in the context of this superb Member, this critical, critical member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

The result of this resolution, if it were to pass, will be to undo the efforts of the Republican Speaker and the Republican chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Mr. Crawford, to restore the committee to what it was intended to be.

While the bill for that decision won't come due immediately, it will come due over time in the form of a less accountable and less effective intelligence community with less effective oversight for Congress.

I don't expect the gentlemen who have offered this up to back down now, but I do expect every single member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, that elect, those few who understand what it is we need to do, to close the door on the flow of partisan sewage, which we see now threatening the critical work that we do.

Vote ``no'' on this appalling resolution.

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