Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, and still I rise. It is a preeminent privilege to stand here and address this august body--to address those who are within the sound of my voice would probably be more appropriate--and those who are onlookers by way of various means of telecommunications. It is an honor and a privilege to do so, and I am grateful to the leadership of this House for extending and allowing the privilege. I believe that it is one of the great honors of being a Congressperson, to be able to stand and address the Nation, if you will.

So tonight, as a Member of this body, it is my honor to speak on a topic very near and dear to my heart and the hearts of a good many Americans. I would like to talk about some of the current factors that are impeding impeachment.

I have mnemonic notes that I will refer to from time to time so as to address seven different topics that are factors currently impeding impeachment.

The first that I shall address is the belief by many that not enough bipartisanship exists as it relates to impeachment, not enough persons from both sides of the aisle, and, more specifically, not enough persons who are representative of the Republican Party.

There is this belief that impeachment must be an effort that is bipartisan, and it must be to some significant amount of bipartisanship. That amount has not been announced, so it is hard to say what the significant amount of bipartisanship is that is being sought.

But I think that at this point, so as to address the question of bipartisanship, which I believe in, would hope for--I think that bipartisanship is a wonderful thing. But to address it, I believe we will have to go to Federalist 65.

For those who are interested, the Federalist Papers consists of some 85 articles that were published between 1787 and 1788, published by the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay. He was also assisted by the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. And, of course, the third part of this group of persons was Madison, the fourth President of the United States.

These persons, the three of them, the trio, were to, if you will, present reasons to the country why the Constitution should be ratified; and in presenting reasons for ratification, they published Federalist 65.

Federalist 65 explains what impeachment is all about. It does a little bit more than just explains what it is about. It explains what one might expect, what we might expect if impeachment is sought.

And I must say, at this point, that these three Framers of the Constitution were prophetic, absolutely persons who could see into the future, one might think, because they prognosticated what we are having to concern ourselves with currently in terms of what will happen among the people and in society should we move toward impeachment.

Prophetic--they had their flaws; they were not perfect; but on this issue, they seemed to have been prophetic, because they prognosticated that at a time such as this, there would be division, that you would have parties separating in their own corners, if you will, that the people among us in society, that they would have very hard opinions; that people would sometimes base their opinions upon the circumstances, and others, just based upon the knowledge that they might have of the person who is being impeached.

They prognosticated that this would not be a time of great unity, that it is more likely to be a time of division. And they knew, however, that the Constitution could survive this.

The Constitution survived the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868. It was rancorous; there was a lot of divisiveness; but the Constitution survived. The Constitution is capable of surviving it, and the people, more importantly, are capable of surviving. And society is capable of surviving, which means the country can survive impeachment.

But it is there for a reason. It is there because there is a belief that, from time to time, you may have one

holding public trust in the highest office of the land, the Chief Executive Officer, known as the President. The Chief Executive Officer may engage in conduct that would cause the trust in the Chief Executive Officer to be assumed less than what it should be.

The Chief Executive Officer might breach his trust that the public has in him. The Chief Executive Officer would do harm to society, and in doing harm to society, the Framers of the Constitution concluded that there should be a means by which the Chief Executive Officer could be removed, and this, of course, would be impeachment.

Impeachment is not something that anyone relishes. We don't seek impeachment. It is sometimes forced upon us, something that you have to do if you truly believe that no one is above the law.

Let's look at some of the historic impeachment cases. There are but two: Johnson in 1868, and Clinton in 1998. And in both of these, the parties were separated. There was not a moment when the Republicans and Democrats decided: Yes, this is what we must do, and we will unite and get it done.

Andrew Johnson was not impeached, and the impeachment failed by one vote.

President Clinton was not impeached, but there was not this rush of Democrats to support Republicans to impeach President Clinton. It just didn't happen.

So an expectation of national unity is probably setting the standard so high that we may not ever impeach.

The Framers understood that there might not be this unity, probably wouldn't be, and prognosticated that unity would not exist in Federalist 65. So we are setting the bar pretty high when we decide this must be done.

By the way, no one can impose that standard upon us. That is a standard that we can accept, but it doesn't have to be a standard for the Members who would vote for impeachment. That is absolutely not the case. There is no one person who can impose such a standard on this body.

Each person has the opportunity to make up his or her mind based upon the evidence presented using the standard that he or she believes to be appropriate. So imposing a standard of national unity is probably setting the bar a bit too high.

Next, there is this notion that we should defeat, not impeach. Defeat, not impeach.

Well, we say that no one is above the law, and I have heard a good many Members of this body say so. It has been published: No one is above the law.

And usually there would be the following words thereafter: No one is above the law, and this includes the President of the United States.

Well, if no one is above the law and you believe that the President has committed impeachable acts, then you probably wouldn't want to say that we should defeat at the next election as opposed to impeach now-- if no one is above the law. Because, in essence, you are saying: No one is above the law; however, I won't enforce the law. I won't honor Article II of the Constitution. No one is above the law, but I am not going to impose the law upon one who has committed impeachable acts.

I don't see the consistency in doing this, but it is the prerogative of people to do what they may. I am merely explaining some of the impediments to impeachment. This is one: Defeat, not impeach.

And if no one is above the law, as I have indicated, and I believe this--and this includes the President--then I believe we have a duty, a responsibility, and an obligation to move forward with impeachment. I don't think you wait until the next election to avoid your duty, responsibility, and obligation.

One salient point that can be made is some ugly things can happen when you have no guardrails, when you send a signal to the Chief Executive Officer that there is no one to hold you accountable, that the Congress is not going to fulfill its responsibilities under the Constitution--no guardrails.

Well, the Chief Executive Officer, who has already committed impeachable actions, will proceed probably to do what he may and will simply because he knows that he does not have the deterrent that the Congress is supposed to impose by virtue of having this awesome amount of authority to remove from him office--assuming that the President is impeached and the Senate convicts.

But, if you don't have guardrails, you don't have a Chief Executive Officer who is being deterred from doing things that we might find totally inappropriate, for example, going to war. The Chief Executive Officer could decide: I need not go to Congress to go to war. The Congress has the duty and responsibility to declare the war, but since Congress isn't going to do anything, why bother?

Congress is but another entity, not a coequal partner in the government with the executive.

So I think you can't hold the position that you will defeat, not impeach, especially when you have said, if you have, that the President has committed these impeachable actions.

Now, there are a good many people who are walking back comments. And everybody has a right to walk back comments--happens quite regularly here--but you might take note of this: You can't walk back history. You can walk back comments, but you can't walk back history.

So if you have already said that the President has committed these impeachable actions and you have already said the President should be impeached, you won't be able to walk that back from history.

Time tells and history judges. The truth is known. The truth will be published at some point about what we have said and how we have behaved.

Impeachment cannot be but a talking point to be used for political expediency. You can't on one day say, ``Oh, yes, he ought to be impeached,'' and then the next day say something that contradicts this in an effort to walk it back.

Well, you can do it, but history will record both of your comments, and history will judge you. At some point, that judgment will be codified such that the world will know what was said on all occasions, not just on the latest rendition of the commentary that is made.

Time tells; history judges. The truth will be known. Defeat, not impeach is not an option if you believe that the President has committed impeachable actions.

Then, there is, of course, the notion that the Senate won't convict. There is no requirement that the Senate convict. This is something that a person or some persons can require of themselves, a belief that since the Senate won't convict, there is no need to impeach. But that is not what impeachment is all about. It is about the House of Representatives doing its job.

The House does its job quite routinely here sending bills of great importance to the Senate that the Senate doesn't act on. It did so last week and will do so again and again. H.R. 1 was not acted on, and a good many others. I need not go through all of them. But the point is, you cannot conclude because it is impeachment that you have a different standard, in my opinion.

You have to have one standard. Either we are going to decide we will not send things to the Senate, and cease and desist, I suppose being the House of Representatives, which I would not abide with, but that, I suppose, would be a decision that you might make, one might make, but not one for me to make.

I think that we have a responsibility to do our jobs, and then we give the Senate the opportunity to do its job. If we do our job, we do more than simply impeach, which is important. We act as a deterrent that impeachment is to deter the next President; to let the next President know that the House of Representatives will not shy away from its responsibility; that it will do what it is supposed to do when a President commits impeachable actions.

So this notion that the Senate won't act is a reason for us not to act, would mean then that the Senate controls impeachment, which is the responsibility of the House of Representatives.

Do we want to give the Senate the authority to do its will and not have the House do its will? Do we want the Senate's will to become the will of the House? What we are saying is, until we can get a Senate that will follow our lead, we will not take the lead and do as we should, do what we, according to Article II section 4, and in my opinion, must.

We cannot allow the Senate to control the House of Representatives no more than we can allow another party, if I am on one side of the aisle and we have a party on the other side, we can't allow another party to dictate what we would do on this side of the aisle.

If you have overwhelming majority, you cannot blame the other side for your failure to act. That is my opinion. If we have an overwhelming majority, then at some point, it will be noted in history that we didn't act. And it won't be said in history that we didn't act because the minority prohibited us from acting here in the House.

It won't be said that we failed to act because the Senate had the authority to prevent us from acting. The Senate does not trump the House of Representatives. We cannot decide that only the Senate can determine whether the House should move forward. This is not what the Framers intended. But this is, in effect, what we will be doing if we predicate our actions upon the actions of the Senate.

I don't think that is appropriate and I take issue with the notion that we must wait until the Senate is ready to act before we can act.

By the way, no one knows what the Senate would do until the Senate has an opportunity to do it. Once the Senate is confronted with having to vote, we may find that the Senate will take a different course of conduct than that we have presupposed the Senate will do or take.

The Senate could very well have an epiphanous moment. Probably not, but it could, meaning some two-thirds of it, and act. But whether it does or doesn't, we have a duty to do our job and then let the Senate take a vote, go on record, and we will let the chips fall where they may in history.

I think all of us, we should all be on record. We know what the circumstances are. We know the harm that is being caused in society. We know that the trust has been breached, and we only have to now do what the Framers have given us the way to do, assuming that we have the will to do it.

They gave us the way, but they could not give us the will. We have to have the will to act ourselves. Impeachment in the Senate, where the trial is to take place, is not to be predicated upon the House following the will of the Senate.

Now, there is another reason that I would like to call to your attention, another impediment, and it is the notion that impeachment will divide our Nation. I have covered this to a limited extent, but I will go back because some things bear repeating.

In Federalist No. 65, the Framers of the Constitution made it very clear that you will not have, as they saw it at that time, this national unity. It doesn't work that way. People are going to take sides. And when they do, you are likely to have things develop along party lines. But we have to still do our job. We cannot set standards that may be impossible.

We can't have the standard be the Senate must decide it will go along with us before we will act. That is not a reasonable standard for us to have as Members of the House. We are independent. We can't have the standard that we can only do this if we have the consent of the opposing party.

What you are doing is putting the fate of the country in the hands of the minority. You are putting the fate of the country in the hands of the Senate when the House has a duty to act.

So I conclude with this on this point, the notion that it will divide the Nation is something that was prognosticated. Now, I would love to have the country in unity. I believe in unity, and I think you can have unity without uniformity. We don't all have to do the same thing all the time to have unity on certain issues.

But there is no constitutional requirement that we have the minority support what the majority can do, and the Senate be aligned with the House before the House can act. There is no constitutional requirement for such a thing.

Next, we have the notion that impeachment can benefit the Chief Executive Officer. Impeachment will benefit the Chief Executive Officer. It is hard to imagine a Chief Executive Officer wanting to be impeached.

I have seen and heard statements from the Chief Executive Officer that would give me reason to believe that the Chief Executive Officer really does not want to be impeached.

There is something called reverse psychology that we are all familiar with. Say that you want the thing that you don't want, to the extent that you convince the people who can have the impact to do the thing that you do want them to do, which is the thing that they think you don't want them to do.

My point is simply this: We cannot assume that we are walking into some sort of petard, by virtue of our taking up our constitutional responsibility. This is not a trap. This is our responsibility, and we should not allow a Chief Executive Officer to convince us that we should do this because the Chief Executive Officer thinks that it would benefit him, when, in fact, the history of impeachment seems to provide evidence to the contrary.

The history of events is that Andrew Johnson did not get reelected after he was impeached.

And for those who have been in this debate about what happened with President Clinton, I assure you, his Vice President did not get elected. One would assume that the mantle would be passed on to the Vice President. Such was not the case. He was not elected.

There are those who would say: Well, but the House of Representatives--no, the House didn't change hands. The Republicans maintained control of the House of Representatives. Well, they lost some seats. Well, they did, but they still had 218 and they controlled the House.

The point is, you cannot assume that impeachment is going to be a benefit. As a matter of fact, it is an indelible stain on the record of the Chief Executive Officer. It would be forever known, whether he is removed from office or not, that this Chief Executive Officer was impeached. It will have an impact on the Chief Executive Officer's brand. This person will forever have the brand of an impeached Chief Executive Officer.

I am not saying you do it just to brand a person. I am talking about impeachment, because we would fulfill the responsibilities under Article II section 4, which indicate that the President can be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, bribery, treason. We would fulfill those responsibilities pursuant to Article II section 4.

In so doing, we would indelibly place the brand of impeachment on the Chief Executive Officer. Whether he is convicted and removed or not, he still suffers eternally throughout all of time the fact that impeachment was imposed upon him, which I think is an appropriate remedy. Even if we don't get a conviction I think we should let the world know that the House took up its responsibility. The House of Representatives did its job.

Of course, there is this notion now, another standard, that you have to have what I am calling a rock-solid case. I hear commentary that would lead me to believe that this has to be done only when you have evidence beyond all doubt; not a reasonable doubt, which is what we might have in court; not by clear and convincing evidence; clearly, not by the preponderance of the evidence, which is a very low standard, but beyond all doubt.

I am hearing persons speak such that one could conclude that if you didn't see it yourself, whatever the impeachable act is, that we need more evidence.

We have the Mueller report. We were told, let's wait for the Mueller report. We waited for the Mueller report. And then, well, we need to hear from Mr. Mueller. Mr. Mueller has spoken and has pretty much said: What you see is what you will get. He may ratify what is there, but it doesn't appear, based upon what I heard him say, that he will be giving nuanced testimony above and beyond what is contained in the report.

For those who want to hear from Mr. Mueller, I wouldn't get in the way of that. Let's have Mr. Mueller come and testify. But the truth is, the report, in and of itself, is evidence, because all of the statements contained in the Mueller report were taken from persons who were giving their testimony at the expense of committing perjury if they didn't give truthful statements.

So perjury was a consequence of giving an untruthful statement to the

Madam Speaker, and still I rise. I rise because I love my country, and I rise today because we are celebrating and commemorating, to a certain extent, Juneteenth, when General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to alert, announce to the slaves, if you will, that they had been freed pursuant to the Emancipation Proclamation.

I am pleased that General Granger did this. I am pleased because liberation is a wonderful thing. Nobody should be enslaved. But I am also concerned that that liberation has not completely obliterated the bigotry that ensued after the liberation.

In this country, we still suffer from bigotry, hatred, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, all of the various ugliness that can cause some people to receive less than the American Dream that others receive.

And here in this country today, we, in the House of Representatives, have a unique opportunity to do something about bigotry in our country. We have an opportunity to do something about a President who has now been above the law for some 63 days, 63 days since the Mueller report was presented to the public, 63 days above the law since the Mueller report.

My contention is he has been above the law since he fired Mr. Comey some 2 years plus ago. But the President being above the law is something that can be remedied.

Babies shouldn't be separated from their parents. I read a story just yesterday about the youngest person to be separated, a 4-month-old baby, separated from parents for approximately 6 months. The baby was separated for such a prolonged period of time that the baby did not recognize the parents when the unity took place with the parents, the reuniting took place.

I am so saddened by these kinds of incidents, but the truth is, the House of Representatives can do something about bigotry emanating from the Presidency. The House of Representatives can impeach a President for bigotry emanating from his Presidency.

And I believe that this House should do this, but I am also saddened by the fact that we appear to be a House that is driven by polls.

Polls direct us, snapshots in time, about the opinions of the public. I am saddened by the fact that we seem to be driven by polls because I can only imagine what would have happened had they taken a poll before crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday.

I can only imagine what the poll would have said if Rosa Parks had taken one before she took that seat in a racist southern town on that bus.

I can only imagine what the polls would have said if Lincoln had decided to poll the country before moving forward with the Emancipation Proclamation or the 13th Amendment.

Polls should not drive a righteous cause; a righteous cause should drive the polls.

It is time for this Congress that has the authority to move forward with impeachment to do so. We have not served our country well by relying on polls. Polls are wonderful, but not for righteous causes.

With a righteous cause, you take a stand, and you move forward. When you don't take that cause, you are not serving a righteous cause well.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise because I love my country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise some 56 days since the Mueller report was made public; 56 days, according to some, and I have been among them, to say that the President has been above the law for 56 days pursuant to the Mueller report.

But the truth is the President has been above the law for more than 2 years because, more than 2 years ago, I stood at this podium and called for the impeachment of the President of the United States of America for his obstruction that we now acknowledge was obstruction--more than 2 years. More than 2 years, now, of analysis paralysis. As Dr. King put it, the paralysis of analysis--more than 2 years.

What does this mean, paralysis analysis? Well, I have my pneumonic notes.

It means that we are allowing the perfect to be an enemy of the good, that we are waiting for the perfect opportunity to do what we should rather than doing that which is good, which we can do now.

It also means overthinking a problem and not analyzing to the extent that you never make a decision, and in some cases, it means allowing perfection protection.

Some people will do it simply because knowing you cannot achieve perfection, it becomes a means by which they can achieve perfection-- perfection protection.

And along the way, over these 2 years, Mr. Speaker, here is what we have had to deal with.

The first question was: What crime has the President committed? Well, we know now that you don't have to commit a crime to be impeached. Constitutional scholars have finally acknowledged it publicly, and others have accepted it--no crime necessary. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 in article 10 of the Articles of Impeachment against him, and it was not for commission of a crime.

Then we had to deal with outsourcing of the investigation. Let's not do it ourselves. Let's not do what the Framers of the Constitution intended Congress to do. Let's give it to somebody else. Let's have some special counsel do it.

And then, of course, thereafter, there was: Wait for the Mueller report. ``Wait for the Mueller report,'' a constant refrain. We waited for the Mueller report. The Mueller report has been presented, some 56 days it has been made public.

And now we are dealing with the whole notion of some of these votes may be hard votes. I know a little bit about hard votes. I have got some ministers who are not as friendly as they used to be because of some hard votes that I have taken right here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

And then, of course, we have this notion that we have to have a rock- solid case. Maybe not in these words, but we have to have a rock-solid case. Again, to some extent this is analysis by paralysis.

And finally, I will mention today, this, the whole notion that ``I am against impeachment, although I am for it. I am against it, but I am for it.'' Realizing that, in the final analysis, if we don't impeach, ``Well, I was always against it''; if we do impeach, ``Well, I was for it, but I just want to make sure we do it right.''

``I am against it, but I am for it.''

Don't you know that the American people can see through this facade? This is but a veneer. People can see beyond the veneer. People understand that you can't be for it and against it at the same time. What a paradox.

At some point, to impeach, you have to use the term ``impeach.'' At some point, the Judiciary Committee has to be the powerful Judiciary Committee that has been of old. At some point, we have to stand up. Either we will hold a ruthless, reckless, lawless President accountable, or we are all going to be held accountable.

People are worried about the general election. Well, there is a primary before the general election. It is time for us to do our jobs. Paralysis analysis cannot prevent us from doing that which the Framers of the Constitution have accorded us as our responsibility.

I refuse to allow this to continue. We will have impeachment of this President brought to the floor of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the time, as time is running out for us to continue to analyze to the extent that we are paralyzed.

Mr. Speaker, I rise with a heavy heart, but I still love my country. I rise today, some 48 days now since the Mueller report was made public, some 48 days for all who have said that the President should be impeached and that he has broken the law, some 48 days now the President has been above the law--48 days.

But as we continue this journey, let us remember this: There are still children who have been separated from their parents. Let us please remember there is a new story today about this separation. Let us remember separation doesn't always mean that the child was separated from a mother or a father, but perhaps a grandparent or some other person who was a significant other in that person's life, somebody whom the child had some sense of belief in or belonging to.

And let us remember, please, that these children are among the least, the last, and the lost. These are not persons who were born into plenty--likely, born into extreme poverty. These are not persons who were born in the land of liberty and justice for all. These are persons who are seeking liberty and justice. These are persons who are trying to flee harm's way. These are babies.

One can only imagine what grief a parent suffers knowing that the child has been removed from the custody of the parent and is not able to be reconnected.

Let us just imagine ourselves: What would we do if our child were taken from us as we were trying to journey toward freedom, if we were trying to escape harm's way, and when we finally get to a point where we think that the laws that are applicable would apply to us, our child was removed from us? What would we do?

This is the United States of America. These laws are in place. Those who bemoan the fact that people are coming and seeking asylum should remember that the law allows what they are doing. They are not breaking the law when they walk up to the border and say, ``I am seeking asylum,'' when they give the pronouncement as to why and it is an appropriate pronouncement. That is the law.

And for our President to make this a big issue now, when he had control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency and never sought to change the law, one can believe that this is done with intentionality to make it an issue such that he can now claim someone else is responsible.

But the truth is we are all responsible. The truth is every one of us, myself included, we are all responsible for what is happening to these babies at the border. This President is willing to raid every coffer in the country to build a wall, but he is not willing to go into those coffers to make sure that children are treated fairly at the border.

I will close with this, my dear friends, my dear brothers and sisters,

all of whom I love. I close with this: If these babies and the babies that were seen on television this morning peering through some sort of small space were coming from the northern border--if these babies were coming from the northern borders, if these were babies coming from the northern border--would we have the same mindset? Would we allow this to continue with babies?

We are all responsible, and it is time for us to do something about this crisis at the border--and doing something is more than building a wall. A wall will not solve the poverty that they are living in in these other countries, won't solve the persecution that they have to endure. A wall is not a solution to a humanitarian crisis.

It is time for us to act on the humanitarian crisis at the border and for this President to lead the way on acting on the crisis at the border.

I love my country, and I beg that we would do something to end this crisis.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, a proud American, and I rise because I love my country.

Mr. Speaker, as I stand here today, I would call to the attention of those who are within the view of what we are doing the fact that we are now some 35 days since the Mueller report has been made public. It was released before that, but it has been made public some 35 days.

This means that, for 35 days now, this administration has been above the law if we allow the genesis of the start to be the date that the report was issued to the public, made public.

The Mueller report is clear: The President was not exonerated when it comes to obstruction of justice. The Mueller report, in essence, has given this Congress the opportunity to fulfill its constitutional responsibility. That responsibility is to take up the cause of justice.

The Framers of the Constitution intended for the Congress of the United States of America to be the place where the balance of power is maintained. We are the check on the President, such that we can maintain the balance of power. It was never intended that there be a concentration of power within the executive branch to the extent that it is being concentrated by virtue of the actions of this President.

Allow me to explain.

This President has refused to honor subpoenas.

He has encouraged witnesses not to appear.

He has encouraged persons to avoid the responsibility that they have as holders of public trust, the Secretary of the Treasury to produce documents.

He is engaging and is encouraging others to engage in a coverup. This is a coverup. We, the Members of this august body, have a duty and a responsibility not to allow this coverup to continue.

When we took our oath of office, we said, by and through that oath, that we would defend this Constitution. Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution accords us the power to check the President so as to maintain the balance of power. When we refuse to do so or if we decline to do so or if we just don't, for

whatever reasons, do so, we are not living up to our responsibilities.

Article II, Section 4 deals with impeachment. It is time for this Congress to start the impeachment process. I have been very adamant about this. I stand where I have stood now for more than 2 years. I have been said to be the voice of impeachment in the Congress. I am not the voice. The Members of this body will be the voice of impeachment when and if we take it up, and I assure you we will. If nobody else does, I will.

But the point is, this is our moment. This is what we have been mandated to do, to bring impeachment before the House of Representatives, especially given that we said we would wait until the Mueller report was finished, and then we would act.

Well, time has lapsed, and this is the time for us to act. We are the Members who can make the difference. This is the Congress of the United States of America.

Let me add this. I know these are difficult times for a good many persons and there are those who question whether we should do this given what the Senate may do. Well, we do a lot of things knowing that the Senate will not act as we would have them act. We send bills to the Senate quite routinely knowing that the Senate will reject these bills.

But it is our responsibility to act, and we then allow the Senate to do its job. If the Senate chooses not to, that is on the Senate. The House will have performed its responsibility.

So let us not be guided by political expediency, the question of whether the Senate is going to act. Let us stand on the moral imperative that we have to act.

Some have said that the soul of the country is at risk. Well, the truth is this, before the soul of the country is lost, the soul of the House of Representatives will be lost if we do not act on this moral imperative.

This is what we must do to maintain the House of Representatives' integrity and its prowess as a coequal branch of the government, which some say has a little bit more authority than the executive by virtue of its having a check on the executive.

Mr. Speaker, each day that I come, I will show the amount of time that has lapsed during which this administration is engaged in a coverup and is above the law.

Madam Chair, I thank the chair of the full committee. I am honored to have this opportunity to speak in support of this bill.

This bill addresses a concern that many of us on the Financial Services Committee have had to deal with for some time now, and it is the question of whether the committee is going to allow the CFPB to protect consumers from unscrupulous behavior or to protect Big Business. I am a person who believes that we should protect the consumer.

This legislation will allow the persons who receive student loans to avoid being placed into costly repayment plans that will cause them to pay more money and possibly default. It will cause consumers looking to open a new checking account to have the opportunity to do so with a bank that has the least amount of overdraft fees. It will allow persons who are seeking credit cards to have the right to seek relief through the courts, not through some boilerplate language that they might find in a contract that will not benefit them.

This is the opportunity that we must take advantage of to protect consumers. It is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not the financial institutions protection bureau.

So with this said, I wholeheartedly endorse what the chairperson has brought to the attention of this Congress. These are remedies that are absolutely necessary, and I plan to vote and encourage my colleagues to vote in support of this legislation.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I am honored to present amendment No. 17, which deals with consumer choice. It deals with whether consumers will be forced into arbitration or whether they will have the choice of having arbitration or litigation.

With litigation, the consumer can have the choice of having the case presented as one person or as part of a group.

This amendment is one that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act called to our attention by way of a study that was required.

After performing the study, the CFPB issued a final rule to regulate the use of mandatory arbitration clauses. In so doing, it was something that we believed would have been beneficial to consumers. Yet, before the rule could take effect, it was rescinded by Congress in November 2017.

My amendment offers a direct, straightforward solution. It simply reinstates the CFPB final rule, a rule that was the product of a careful study. It was analyzed properly. It was done by way of stakeholder consensus.

My belief is that this rule will reinstate a law that will give consumers choice as opposed to forced administration.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cartwright).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett)

Madam Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, who has the right to close?

Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, this is a consumer's dream come true because it gives the consumer choice.

It does not deny the business owner, the credit card company, or the bank the opportunity to have arbitration. What it does is it allows the consumer to have the choice to either elect to have arbitration or to go to litigation, and when litigating, the consumer can litigate as an individual.

When I was a judge of a small claims court, I had many persons who were litigating their cases before me. I also understand that there are times when people believe that they should have lawyers to represent them. It is not unusual for businesses to have lawyers to represent them. In fact, businesses have lawyers on call to represent them 24 hours a day.

Why can consumers not have the same opportunity to litigate that businesses have to litigate? That is what this is all about. My colleague, on the other side, would simply have consumers have no choice, go to arbitration only, and then, possibly, gain some emolument.

My belief is that consumers ought to have choice. That is what this amendment is about.

Madam Chair, this is part of the reason why consumers are so angry with this Congress. We deny them their constitutional rights, the right to a trial and the right to make a determination for themselves as to whether or not they will engage in arbitration or litigation.

Consumers should have choices. Businesses have choices. Consumers should have no less than what businesses have.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, and still I rise, with love of country in my heart and a belief that the Constitution ought to be honored.

Today I rise, some 34 days since the Mueller report has been made public, 34 days since we have concluded that impeachable offenses have been committed--34 days, and yet the President still commits actions that are deemed obstructive; 34 days, which means that, for 34 days now, the President is clearly above the law as it relates to the Mueller report--longer than that, but as it relates to the Mueller report and its being released, 34 days.

But there is good news. A good many Members are now considering joining the impeachment effort, and I salute them. I am more than honored to say that you can never be too late when it comes to being on the right side of history and the right side of justice. So I salute them, and I believe that others will come on board as well.

I believe they are doing this because they believe that no one is above the law. I think they are doing this because they believe that you have to put principle above politics. They are doing this because I think they love their country, and they refuse to allow this condition to continue without the constitutional remedy of impeachment being given its proper place in history as it relates to this President.

And as they do this, I just want to remind us that there is something that is indelible in my mind. I will never forget this image: a baby.

This is a baby crying. I won't forget this image. For this alone, we should consider impeachment. Separating babies from their parents without a means of reuniting them, for this alone, we should consider impeachment.

But there is much more to add: the whole notion that there are s-hole countries in Africa; that there are very fine people among those who were in Charlottesville where a person lost her life; the whole notion that the Chief Executive Officer of the United States of America, the President, will stand before law enforcement personnel and say: You don't have to be nice when you are bringing people into your care, custody, and control.

And last night, to go to a rally--this is the President of the United States at a rally with people behind him saying, ``lock her up,'' or some equivalent.

This is not some outlaw, renegade country. This is the United States of America. Do we want the President of this country to go before the public and have throngs of people shouting, ``Lock her up?''

This is a great country. I love my country, and, for this reason, I want to assure my friends that I am going to thank all who are coming on board.

And the question is not, now: Who is going to be the first to come on board? The question really is this: Who will be the last to come on board? Who will be the last person to say: ``I believe that no person is above the law''? Who will be the last to say: ``I am going to do what I believe the Constitution requires when we have a person who has demonstrated that he is a lawless, ruthless, reckless person who happens to have control of the executive branch of government''?

It is my belief that sometimes you stand alone and it is better to stand alone than not stand at all. But I also understand that sometimes, when you stand alone, it is just a matter of time before others will stand with you.

I compliment all who are standing with us today, who have been here from the genesis of this.

Madam Speaker, I want to say one final thing.

This is not about whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. I compliment the Republican who had the courage to step forward, the courage, the intestinal fortitude to take the stand for righteousness: Believe me, he won't be the last. There will be others. It is just a matter of time.

Madam Speaker, and still I rise, and I do so with the love of my country within my heart, and I do so this evening because I believe that no one is above the law. No one.

We find this to be the case in our great country: If you are a person who exceeds the speed limit, you are breaking the law. If you are caught exceeding the speed limit, there is a price to pay. No one is above the law.

If you are a person who happens to, in the State of Texas, decide that you are going to go through the supermarket and pick and choose certain things that you would like to sample, at some point, if you partake of more than is reasonable, you will be charged with grazing. It is a crime in the State of Texas to graze, to take more than what is reasonable in having a sample of a grape. No one is above the law. People are prosecuted in the State of Texas for grazing.

In the State of Texas, a good many persons have been prosecuted for not causing their children to go to school. Thwarting public attendance in school was a law in the State of Texas. People paid fines for not having their children in school.

The list of laws is too long to ever mention in a statement such as this, but the point is, no one is above the law. There are laws that deal with persons who commit felonies and persons who commit misdemeanors. When you break these laws, you are prosecuted.

You are not allowed to break the law with impunity, and you are not allowed to do it with immunity. No one is above the law.

I believe that this is a part of the very hallmark of our criminal justice system in this great country. We believe that no one is above the law and that no one is beneath the law, meaning that the law should apply equally to all. Every person ought to be treated the same when it comes to the very bedrock principle of whether or not someone is above the law. No one is in this country.

However, we find ourselves with a unique circumstance now. We have the highest office holder in the executive branch, the chief executive officer, if you will, who has refused to cooperate with lawful investigations of the Congress.

He refused to cooperate in this sense. He has said to witnesses they should not appear and give testimony in a lawful investigation. He indicated that subpoenas will not be answered. They were issued pursuant to lawful investigations.

No one is above the law. If you are not above the law, then if you are called upon to testify, you must testify. If you have some document within your possession and there has been a request for it by way of a subpoena, then you have to produce it. No one is above the law.

Well, we currently have a circumstance where the chief executive officer is at odds with the legislative branch. This places the legislative and the executive at odds with each other. They are in a stalemate, if you will.

When this occurs, you have one branch of government refusing to cooperate with lawful requests of another branch, the executive refusing the request of the legislative, then you have a standoff, as I indicated. No one is above the law.

This, in my opinion, creates a constitutional crisis. Now, there are people who would differ with me. But remember this: What they are expressing is what I am expressing, an opinion. This is my opinion. They have their opinion. There is no hard and fast definition for a constitutional crisis.

There are some who would contend that to have a constitutional crisis in this area, the subpoenas that have been issued would have to go to court. They would have to be litigated. At some point, a court might say to the executive branch of the government that it must obey the subpoena issued by Congress, the lawful subpoena.

If the executive officer declines to obey the subpoena, it would be concluded that you have a constitutional crisis because the chief executive officer is not only disobeying Congress, he is disobeying a third branch of the government, the judicial branch, the judiciary. So you would then have a constitutional crisis.

I differ. It is my opinion that you have a constitutional crisis when the

chief executive officer declines and refuses to obey a lawful request from the legislative branch. I think that when you get to the point that the President of the United States, or the chief executive officer, refuses an order from the court, you have a constitutional crisis, but you also have a collapse.

That is when you have gone beyond a constitutional crisis. It is a collapse. The crisis leads up to that point. Once this happens and the President refuses to obey the judiciary as well as the legislative, you have a collapse.

Right now, we are in a constitutional crisis. In this constitutional crisis, we have a circumstance that has developed that we cannot tolerate. You see, it is the legislative branch that has the duty to provide the check on the executive branch such that we maintain the balance of power. When the legislative branch seeks to check the executive branch and it absolutely refuses to cooperate, when this occurs, the system of checks and balances is being ignored.

The system of checks and balances was put in place by the Framers of the Constitution to prevent the concentration of power in any one branch of government. To prevent the executive branch from having a concentration of power, the legislative branch was given this ability to check it.

When the legislative branch cannot get cooperation, the ultimate check that it has is impeachment. The legislative branch prevents the concentration of power by saying to the chief executive officer: Mr. Chief Executive Officer, you are out of balance. You are assuming more authority than the Constitution accords you. Because you cannot do this, we, the Members of the legislative branch, can bring you before the bar of justice. We can call on you to answer for your failure to honor lawful investigative requests of the legislative branch. So we bring you before the bar of justice, and that is called impeachment.

But it is important to remember that the Framers of the Constitution put the system of checks and balances in place to prevent a concentration of power. Why would we want to prevent a concentration of power? Because if the chief executive officer, the President, is allowed to have power concentrated beyond what the Constitution accords, meaning there are no guardrails, the President can do whatever he chooses.

The President then becomes an officer who is and can be above the law. He is above the law in this country. No person is above the law. The checks and balances are in place to prevent the President from being above the law.

If we don't enforce this system of checks and balances, we then allow the concentration of power, and we no longer have the form of government that the Framers intended and that we have enjoyed for these many years.

We would have a monarchy. We would have a monarch. A monarch has the power to do whatever he chooses. The monarch is the law.

We never intended in this country for the chief executive officer, the President, to be the law. We intended for the President to enforce the law by and through the various agencies that are under his domain, if you will, but not to be the law itself, not to decide what the law is on any given day, not to decide that he will obey the law when he chooses. No one is above the law.

The Mueller report is a good indication of how the law is viewed. The Mueller report indicates that there are many instances where, but for a rule that the Justice Department adheres to, the President would be indicted--but for this rule.

You won't find the words stated exactly as I have stated them, but that is the essence of what is stated in the Mueller report as it relates to obstruction of justice. Mr. Mueller was assigned the responsibility of looking into certain aspects of the campaign that the President participated in before being elected and to ascertain whether or not there was some collusion, obstruction of justice, if you will.

The Mueller conclusion is that the President is not exonerated when it comes to obstruction of justice and that the President but for these rules that they have, this rule that says you don't indict a sitting President, the President would likely be indicted. I say, likely be, because Mr. Mueller didn't say he would be, but he did say that the President wasn't exonerated when it comes to obstruction of justice.

So the President is not above the law, and if the Justice Department is not going to prosecute, then where is the bar of justice?

It is here. It is right here in this room; this very august body that we call the Congress of the United States of America. We then have the responsibility. If the Justice Department is not going to pursue the President, then it is left to the Congress. This is the last alternative for ensuring that the checks and balances are maintained and that the President is not above the law.

Who agrees with the Mueller Report as I have expressed it?

Some 800 former prosecutors have indicated that if this were any other person who violated the law as they see it in the Mueller Report, that this person would be prosecuted. They go on to say that it is critical that obstruction of justice be prosecuted because if you do not, then what you are sending is a message to people that they can interfere with lawful investigations. They don't say it in those exact words, but that is the import of the message that they do share with us, some 800 prosecutors, Federal prosecutors, persons who understand this law.

Many of them have said that there is more than enough evidence here to prosecute anyone other than the President. But they have been respectful, and they understand that there is a rule in the Justice Department--the Office of Legal Counsel has promulgated it--that indicates that a sitting President won't be prosecuted.

If the sitting President is not going to be prosecuted, then these 800 lawyers are saying to us that the bar of justice has to be the place where the President will be brought, and that bar of justice is here in the House of Representatives. No one is above the law.

We now recognize that we are some 34 days since the Mueller Report was made public. This is the number of days that the Trump administration has been above the law, some 34 days.

Why?

Because we have one official in the administration who has refused to honor a lawful request by the Ways and Means Committee to produce certain records, certain records belonging to the President, tax records--refused to produce those records in contravention of the law. Another official, the person who heads the Justice Department, is declining to respond to requests of the Judiciary Committee.

No one is above the law. So we now have not only the President refusing, but the persons who are part of the administration are refusing. Some 34 days now I would say the administration itself has been above the law.

These are the days since the Mueller Report has been released to the public, the number of days the Trump administration has been above the law.

I love my country. I never came to Congress to give the speech I am giving tonight. I didn't come to Congress to take on the most powerful person on the planet Earth. I find myself standing here because I believe that you cannot see that this moral imperative exists to make sure that the law is followed and treated the same as it relates to all people and then ignore it. I just don't see how you can do it. I cannot. I refuse to ignore the fact that the President has obstructed justice.

The President is not above the law. No one is. I will not allow political expediency, this notion that rather than deal with this now, let's just wait and let the next election determine the fate of a person who has breached the law in the highest office of the land, I might add. I refuse to accept it. I just cannot.

The President is not above the law. I didn't come to the Congress to say this, but I love my country, and I see what this is doing to the country, when we have the chief executive officer saying to law enforcement officers--and he did say what I am about to tell you--that you don't have to be nice when you arrest people.

What message are you sending to them in terms of what their behavior should be when they take people into their care, custody, and control?

You are saying to them you can break the law.

What kind of message do you send when you are at a campaign rally and

you say to people: Don't worry about how you treat them; if they arrest you, I will take care of it?

That wasn't the exact language, but that was the message. This is the chief executive officer. This is the person who is the standard-bearer for the United States of America--the standard-bearer, the person who carries the torch of freedom for the United States of America.

What are you saying when you say that you are a person who would support the breaking of the law and then you would support defending the person who breaks the law?

You are saying you are above the law and you believe it, and you are saying you are willing to take care of those who would break the law as well.

We have seen circumstances in this country that I never thought we would see: a President sending messages and signals indicating that if you side with me, I have the magic wand. If you side with me, I have the power to erase your offenses, your crimes. It is not really erasing, but I am communicating that it is a pardon. The President has this power, and he sends signals: break the law, but worry not, I have your back.

Is this what we expect from the highest office in the land in the greatest country in the world?

Are we going to allow ourselves to be brought into this complicity that we see so many people succumbing to?

I don't think so. I will not. We cannot allow ourselves to become complicit. We cannot allow ourselves to become a party to what is going on here. The mere fact that we stand silent on it, as Dr. King put it: at some point, silence in and of itself becomes betrayal.

The silence is betraying our country, it is betraying the Constitution, and it is betraying the Republic. The silence--no one is above the law.

When will we cease to be silent on the greatest issue confronting us at this time?

The Republic is at stake. It is not about Republicans, it is about the Republic and whether we will maintain it. It is not about Democrats, it is about our democracy. This is bigger than all of us. It is bigger. It is bigger than the President. It is about the country we love and whether we are going to allow one person to destroy the concept of no one being above the law.

It is bigger than we are, and the truth is it has now become an issue that is about Congress. This issue is now about Congress. It is about whether the Congress of the United States of America is going to fulfill its responsibility. It is about whether the Congress of the United States of America will see and say--see that the President is obstructing and say that the President is obstructing.

I marvel at the number of Members of Congress who have said that the President is obstructing justice, who have said that the President has committed impeachable offenses, impeachable acts, but notwithstanding having said it will not say that the President ought to be impeached. There are some who say that he should be impeached as a matter of fact and still won't move to impeach him.

The President is not above the law. We are the law, the Members of Congress, 435 of us. We have been given an awesome responsibility. It is awesome. I don't take it lightly. It is not something that I think everybody should have the responsibility accorded to them because there are a good many people who don't believe that you should prosecute a President. They think that if the President commits a crime, well, that is the President. I am not one of them.

They think that you have to commit a crime, by the way, before you can be impeached, a good many people. I am not one of them. The President doesn't have to commit a crime to be impeached. It is the harm that he causes society that the Framers of the Constitution addressed in Federalist 65, the words of Madison, Jay, and Hamilton.

The President is not above the law. We in this body are now the issue. The issue is: Will Congress do what the Constitution has given us as the means by which we can deal with a chief executive officer who is breaking the law, who sees himself, apparently by virtue of his behavior, as being above the law?

This is what Congress has to look into. This is what Congress has to bring before the bar of justice, this whole notion that the President is not above the law.

So let's just take a moment now and talk about the process of impeachment because a good many people don't understand. Impeachment does not mean that a President is removed from office. Impeachment is sort of like an indictment. It is not the same but very much similar to an indictment. The Members of the House of Representatives serve as a body very similar to a grand jury. It is not the same, but it is similar to a grand jury. The Members of the House of Representatives determine whether or not a President should be impeached. They do so with a vote, a majority of the House voting to impeach, and the President is impeached.

The President doesn't have to commit a crime to be impeached. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868. Article 10 of the articles of impeachment against him for a high misdemeanor that was not a crime--a misdemeanor is a misdeed, aside from being a minor criminal offense it is also a misdeed. He was impeached for this misdeed, and we here in this body can impeach any President for misdeeds.

So if the body impeaches, it doesn't mean that the President is removed from office. It simply means that the President must now go to trial in the Senate. There is no requirement in the Constitution for the House to have to investigate the Mueller Report. The Mueller Report has been shared with us. There is enough evidence in that report to impeach the President. The Mueller Report has evidence shared by virtue of talking to witnesses who gave their testimony under the penalty of perjury. We can use that as the reason--that report--to send this to the Senate where a trial will take place.

Remember, impeachment is sort of like an indictment--not the same but similar. It goes to the Senate. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would preside over that trial--the Chief Justice.

In so doing, the House will have persons called managers. These managers would act as prosecutors. They would bring evidence before the Senate for the Senate to act upon. The Senate acts upon the evidence. The Chief Justice is there to make sure certain rules are followed. For example, if the House prosecutors, the managers, if they would like to call a witness, the Chief Justice will then be there to assist the process to get that witness before the Senate.

There is a trial. Witnesses are called. Subpoenas can be issued, and you don't have to meander through some lower courts, inferior courts, because all courts, when it comes to the impeachment of the President, are inferior to the Senate when it sits in trial of the President.

They are all inferior, all of the courts.

So you have the Chief Justice there to make his ruling. All of this is done before the public. There will be a trial. All of these subpoenas that are not being honored, all of the witnesses that are refusing to testify, take them before the Senate. Call them; have them sworn; have them give their testimony; and let the world hear and see.

There is a desire to have a trial before the trial in the House, to have a trial in the sense that witnesses come and appear and are a part of an investigation. That is not, in fact, the kind of trial that you think of when you think of the word ``trial,'' but in a sense, we are having the witnesses come in and give their testimony. There is a desire to do this.

To be very honest with you, I am not antithetical to the idea, but I do understand that, if the witnesses are not coming, if the subpoenas are not being honored, then the option left to us is to impeach and have that trial in the Senate, where they will have to come. Subpoenas will have to be honored. That is the means by which we maintain the system of checks and balances when the President refuses to perform as expected under the Constitution--as a matter of fact, as required under the Constitution.

So, given that the President is not following the norms and not following the law and eventually we could take this through the inferior courts--they are inferior to the Senate when it sits

in trial of the President, because that is the ultimate court related to issues related to the President.

These things can meander through the inferior courts. They are not inferior in the sense that they are less than efficient and effective at what they do; they are just inferior to this impeachment trial when the President has been impeached, the trial to determine whether or not he should be removed from office. Impeachment doesn't remove the President from office.

But these subpoenas and all of these issues can go through these courts. No one knows how long it will take, but everybody prognosticates, people who know and who are supposed to know, that it can take months. It can take months, which means that we will, at some point, engage in paralysis analysis.

Dr. King called it the paralysis of analysis, but analysis paralysis, meaning this: We will have done all that we can in these courts to try to bring the President to justice, get the witnesses necessary to bring the President to justice because he has committed these impeachable acts, and at some point, you will get so close to an election that someone will say: Well, let's not do this. Let's just wait until the next election.

We will have been paralyzed going through the courts such that we won't get to the issues in time, and, as a matter of fact, it could be after the next election before some of the courts will rule. We just don't know. But those who prognosticate say that it will be months.

One would think that maybe there can be an expedited process, but the courts will determine whether this will be the case.

So, when you have all of this and you are confronting all of these things, you have to ask yourself: Will the House of Representatives do its job?

And for those who are saying, well, you have to have bipartisan support, I would love to see bipartisan support, but there is no requirement for it in the Constitution.

As a matter of fact, Jay, Hamilton, Madison, they prognosticated that you would not have unanimity. You won't have the bipartisanship that you are looking for. They said it would be a time of strife. They indicated that people would separate along party lines.

Read Federalist 65, not a long read. Read it. You will see. They prognosticated that there would be divisions. So to say you have got to have the Republican Party on board before the Democratic Party can do its job is incorrect--not required.

And, by the way, history is not going to be kind. It is not going to be kind. History is not going to be kind to us. History is going to cause a lot of reputations to be soiled. Those who look through the vista of time are not going to side with us the way we have friendships and relationships siding with us now.

History is not going to be kind to Democrats or Republicans. History is going to present us as people who saw an injustice in the highest office of the land and refused to do our jobs.

It won't be kind to us. Reputations are going to be tarnished. People who will be saluted and proclaimed heroes today who were just waiting to do the right thing at the right time, history is not going to be kind to them. There are too many things on record that they have already said. And there are too many people who will go back through these records, videos of what they have said.

They can walk it back now, and they can have friendships now that will be of assistance to them, but history is not going to be kind to them.

But there is a means by which we can bring ourselves back in proper alignment with the Constitution. It is called impeachment. This is what we can do, and it is never too late to get on the right side of history.

There are many people in this House who are on the wrong side of history, wrong side of history. The right side of politics, as they see it. I would rather be on the right side of history and the wrong side of politics.

So these persons who are now on the wrong side of history, my hope is that they will do as I see many of my colleagues doing now, and they are coming forward and they are acknowledging that enough is enough. Impeachment is a solution that has to be pursued.

The question no longer is who is going to be the first to engage in this notion that we have to bring the President before the bar of justice in the House of Representatives. This is not the question.

The question now is who will be the last person to say we must do it, because there seems to be a momentum building. There seems to be a momentum building that is going to cause some people who would have made history to be made by history.

History can make people, and people can make history. There are some people who are going to be proclaimed by our contemporaries now as having made history, but the truth is that history will make them. History will make them do what they should do and should have done.

They are going to have to face history. Maybe not right away, but, I assure you, time always tells. The truth is known, and history always judges.

We are going to be judged, my friends. We all are. We are going to be judged. So why don't we just get on the right side of history now and salvage some of the reputation that we have?

They don't have to lose their entire reputation. They don't have to become adamant about this. They have made their point. Let it go. Get on the right side of history. We know where this is going. It is just a matter of time.

There will be additional votes on impeachment right here on this floor of the House of Representatives. Be on the right side of history for our children, for our grandchildren, for our great-grandchildren, for unborn generations. Get on the right side of history.

Yes, history will have made them, but they will have made the right decision.

History makes people; people make history. Either way, be on the right side of history. Don't find yourself on the wrong side of history when you hold yourself out to be a person who adheres to moral authority, the moral imperative to do the right thing. Be on the right side of history.

I have heard people say that the soul of the country is at risk. I concur. But I also say this: Before the soul of the country goes, the soul of the House of Representatives will have gone, the soul of the House of Representatives, the very soul that we have in our hands, that has the moral authority, the moral imperative, to go forward and not allow political expediency to jeopardize our duty to do that which the Constitution affords us the opportunity to do if we have but only the will to do it.

This House is now on trial. The House of Representatives is on trial in the court of public opinion. Some would say: Well, the court is not unanimously opposed. Some 40-plus percent of persons say that impeachment is appropriate.

The public is here today and there tomorrow. The public has no duty to stay in one place all the time. We are looking at a snapshot in time, and the public opinion will change. It does.

When Nixon was first brought before the attention of the Senate, as they were investigating, public opinion was not such that it would call for his impeachment then. Public opinion changes.

I have a great example--unrelated to impeachment, but a great example.

I remember when we had to vote on what has been called the ``bailout.'' I remember the calls to my office. People knew that we were about to, as they saw it, bail out the banks, and the calls were very strong.

People called in in large numbers, saying: Don't you vote to bail out those banks. Don't you do it. If you do it--there was at least one caller, probably more, who said--we will run you out of town.

Well, I remember standing in the back of the Chamber, and as I stood there, after having cast my vote against the bailout, I saw the votes go up and the stock market go down.

And having done what I thought was the appropriate thing pursuant to the requests of my constituents, I could not wait to hear what the response would be the next day.

The response the next day was: What is wrong with you? Don't you see what you have done to my 401(k)? What is wrong with you? We are going to run you out of town.

I learned a lesson about public opinion. Public opinion can be in one place today and in an entirely different place tomorrow.

We should do what we believe is the right thing based upon what our conscience dictates. That is what I do.

I assure you, this is a question of conscience for me, and I am going to follow my conscience, and I will have done the right thing.

Dr. King said there are times when you have to do that which is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular. You do it because it is right.

I am going to do the right thing because conscience dictates that this is the right thing to do.

Madam Speaker, 34 days the President, the administration, is above the law--34 days.

But there is one other thing. There are some things that are indelible, some things that you can't get out of your mind, some things that you just can't reconcile within yourself.

This baby--and we have all seen this picture, or a good many of us have--crying, being separated from a parent--babies--at the border. I don't know the people. I know that they are part of the same race that I am a part of, the human race. I know that I have a kinship and a relationship with them.

For our executive office to promulgate a policy, produce a policy that separates babies from their parents and not have a means by which they can be reunited is sinful.

Babies separated from their parents and no means of reuniting them in place at the time you make this separation?

This is indelible in my mind. There are many other things to think about, but this I think about a lot, how we have treated people who are coming to this country who mean us no harm but who are trying to escape harm's way. I cannot divorce myself from it.

I don't know them. I just know that they are human beings.

I know that there is a crisis at the border. I think we have to deal with it. I want to deal with the border crisis. But I don't think separating children from their parents, as we have done it, is a part of the solution.

I think that persons who would do this are victims. Those Border Patrol officers are victims themselves for what they have to do. Many of them, they don't want to do some of the things that they are being forced to do. They, too, are victims.

But it started at the top. It started at the top with a belief that somehow this would deter people from coming, people who are fleeing harm's way.

I only say to people as it relates to me. I say to myself, but for the grace of God, I could be one of these people. I was just fortunate enough to be born in this country, in a country where there are great opportunities. But for the grace of God, it could be me.

Why would I treat someone with this level of indignity? But for the grace of God, it could be me.

I refuse to let this go. I believe that this, too, is a part of the overall rationale for impeachment.

Madam Speaker, this is our watch. This is the watch that has been afforded us. To every woman and man, a watch is given, and this is our watch.

We can do as best we can to reconcile in our minds that this is okay, that it is all right. But in our hearts, we can't reconcile it. The mind can reconcile it, but the heart cannot.

My heart won't let this be reconciled. In my mind, it is indelible.

I say that, on my watch, I want the Record to show that I took a stand. Even when I had to stand alone, I took a stand. It is better to stand alone than not stand at all.

But there are others who are standing, and I believe there will be many more, one of whom happens to be on the opposite side of the aisle. I thank him for having courage.

I know what is going to happen. He is going to be ridiculed, but don't let that become the final word. When the pages of history are properly written, he will be vindicated. He will be vindicated. I assure him, my dear brother, he will be vindicated.

I don't know him. I have never encouraged him to do anything. Nobody can say that he and I have any kind of friendship, really, other than I believe that all of us have collegiality and that we ought to be friendly with each other.

But he is going to be vindicated. Stay strong. People are going to say ugly things. He may even get threats. But stay strong, because he is on the right side of history.

More importantly, he is on the right side of righteousness. The right side of righteousness, what a great place to be.

Don't let the head convince you that the heart is wrong. The heart speaks to the soul, to your very being. The head speaks to those who would listen to you. Let your heart speak to you.

Madam Speaker, I pray that we, in this House, will do that which the Constitution and the Framers of the Constitution have given us the opportunity to do in a time such as this with a President such as Trump.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to be recognized by you for this 5 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I rise, and still I rise, because I love my country and because I believe that no one is above the law.

We say that quite religiously here in this institution: No one is above the law.

I have in my hand the ``Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election.'' This document, known as the Mueller report, has been released to the public for some 29 days now.

Since its release, we have had many persons, many of whom are Members of

this august body, say that they have concluded that the President has committed impeachable acts. Some have gone so far as to say that he should be impeached. I am one of them.

We have also had hundreds of lawyers, many of whom are prosecutors and former prosecutors, say that if anyone else committed the offenses outlined in this document, the Mueller report, that person would be arrested and prosecuted. That person would be prosecuted. That person would not be above the law.

Hence, since this document addresses acts by the President, since the President is not being prosecuted, and since the House of Representatives has not moved to impeach the President, one can conclude that the President is indeed now, for some 29 days, above the law.

No one is above the law, unless you are the President.

No one is above the law. The House of Representatives has a duty to enforce the law.

The President of the United States of America, it has been said by constitutional scholars, by Members of this august body, and by lawyers--hundreds--that he is subject to the law and that he should be properly prosecuted.

It is not happening.

The prosecution of the President in the House of Representatives will take place once impeachment is initiated. Until impeachment is initiated, this President is above the law. He continues to obstruct. He is above the law.

I am using this refrain because it is important for the American public, the people who understand that no one is above the law, to at least see that we have a problem. We have a President who, by most standards, has committed impeachable acts, yet we have not started the impeachment process.

If the President is not impeached, one of two things will happen: one, he won't be impeached; or, two, the Congress of the United States of America would become a toothless paper tiger, not only as it relates to this President, but also as this relates to future Presidents.

We cannot allow the perception of the Congress to be toothless when it comes to our constitutional responsibilities. We have a duty, a responsibility, and an obligation to bring the President to justice.

The bar of justice for this President and any other President is this House of Representatives, and each Member of this House has the responsibility to make sure that justice is served.

I will now start a process that will commence on the second anniversary of my initial call for the impeachment of this President, which will be tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the second anniversary, and I will start a process tomorrow of bringing to this floor a display.

We will display the number of days since the Mueller report was produced and the number of days that this President has gone above the law because until the President is impeached, those who say that he should be impeached, those who say there is evidence enough to impeach, until this President is impeached, we who say this must conclude that he is above the law.

I love my country. I stand on the law. I believe in the Constitution. As such, I believe that this House has a duty and a responsibility to take up impeachment.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Before getting into my message, I would like to acknowledge that I am an ally of the LGBTQ community. I do this and announce my support for H.R. 5 because of a debt I owe.

I haven't always had the privileges that I enjoy now. Someone stood and suffered so that I could come in the front door of, probably, this very facility. Someone suffered so that I would have the opportunity to go to some of the schools that I attended.

I believe that there is reciprocity in life and that you don't get where you are and fail to appreciate those who have suffered so that you could have the opportunities that you enjoy.

I support H.R. 5 for a multiplicity of reasons, the least of which is not the fact that I am repaying a debt. I am going to help make sure that others don't endure the pain and suffering that I endured and that my predecessors endured. No one should be punished or treated with disrespect because of how you look or who you are.

Every person's dignity is given to them from a higher authority, and we all should respect the dignity and humanity of every individual. So I support H.R. 5, and I do so proudly because of a debt I owe.

I thank my friends for bringing this to my attention. It was not to be a part of my message this evening, but it is a part of my life, to make sure others are treated properly.

Madam Speaker, and still I rise tonight to address a crisis that our country finds itself engulfed in, a crisis that, if we are not very careful, will cause the Congress of the United States to be seen as a ``less than'' when it comes to the coequals that it is supposed to be on the same plane with.

This crisis is a constitutional crisis. And while there are some who would differ with me and say that this is not a constitutional crisis, remember this: There is no hard and fast definition of what a constitutional crisis is, so whenever I give my thoughts or someone else gives their thoughts, we are giving opinions.

Tonight, I would like to share my opinion about this constitutional crisis. Remember, all of these thoughts are opinions; just as the thoughts of persons who hold themselves out to be constitutional scholars, they are opinions.

There are some who say that you don't have a constitutional crisis in the circumstance that we are dealing with with the President, who has refused to honor subpoenas by and through his various administrators.

There are some who say that this will not be a constitutional crisis until the case gets to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has to rule on whether or not the subpoena must be honored. And if the Supreme Court rules that the subpoena must be honored, and then the members of the administration refuse to obey the Supreme Court, there are persons who conclude that this, now, is a constitutional crisis.

I would conclude that if the President of the United States fails to honor a subpoena, after having been so ordered by the Judiciary, that this is more than a constitutional crisis; you now have a constitutional collapse.

The crisis occurs when the President is at odds, meaning the executive branch, with the legislative branch; and currently, the legislative branch and the executive branch are at a stalemate.

The executive branch is declining to cooperate, declining to allow the legislative branch to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities associated with oversight and investigation. And, as such, there is a crisis, and that crisis, clearly, is rooted in the Constitution, because the legislative branch has this responsibility pursuant to the Constitution.

So this is a constitutional crisis, and we have a duty to address it, and we must do so, or we will have failed on our watch to take up our responsibilities as Members of Congress.

This is our watch, and we have a responsibility to make sure that this House takes its proper place in the annals of history, with reference to the question of impeachment.

Impeachment is something that we should not take lightly; but it is also something that we have to take seriously, and we have to take it seriously because, if we fail to do so, we will have allowed this august body to become minimized.

You see, there are checks and balances in the system. The check on the executive branch is impeachment. That is the check. That is the sword of Damocles that hangs above the head of the executive. And if we fail to exercise this duty when it properly should be, we, then, do not provide the checks to make sure the balance of power remains as it should be.

I fear for what is happening to this Congress. I am gravely concerned because I don't see us aggressively pursuing the checks so as to make sure the balance of power remains in place.

Checks and balances are in place to make sure that there is no concentration of power in any branch of government. If we don't become the last line of defense with reference to the President, if we fail to do so, we then say that there are no guardrails; that there are no rules that the President has to obey. He doesn't become just another president. He metamorphoses into a monarch.

The Framers never intended for us to have a monarchy. The Framers intended for the President to be checked by the Congress.

My hope is that we, in this Congress, will take up our responsibilities, and we will provide the checks necessary to make sure that this President, and no other President, is above the law.

I hear many Members of Congress say that the President is not above the law. No one is above the law. And they go on to say, however, this President, notwithstanding his actions, we should not impeach.

How can we say that he has committed impeachable acts, and then conclude that he should not be impeached? We, literally, are saying he is above the law when we say that he has committed impeachable acts, but then decline to impeach.

Anyone else breaking the law will have to answer to the bar of justice, except the President. We know that he has done it. The Mueller report is replete with examples, yet we have not exercised our constitutional responsibilities and, as a result, we, the Congress of the United States of America, are allowing the President to be above the law.

This is unacceptable. I refuse to allow this to continue. And I say, as I have said, that the President will have to come before the bar of justice, which is the House of Representatives. If we fail to do so, we will have literally allowed him to be above the law. Not in this country, and not on my watch.

I take my oath seriously, and I assure you that this will not be the final word; that the President is not impeachable, because he is, and we will have to have a vote on it.

Tomorrow will be the second anniversary of the date that we initially called for the President's impeachment. I believe that we cannot have another anniversary without another vote.

There will be one. My hope is that it will come through the appropriate committees of the House of Representatives. But, if not, it will come. And I don't know that there will be others who will vote to impeach him, but I do know that I will.

And there are times when you may have to stand alone; but I know that it is better to stand alone than not stand at all.

Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the time that I have had. I thank you all for allowing it to take place, and I assure you, I love my country, and I only speak these words because I see a country in peril because of a reckless, ruthless, lawless President that we are allowing to be above the law.

Madam Speaker, and still I rise because I love my country. And still I rise because there is a crisis that has to be addressed.

Madam Speaker, the system of checks and balances that we have instilled within our government, a system that the Framers of the Constitution devised such that there would not be a concentration of power in the hands of the chief executive officer of the government, in fact, is to prevent a concentration of power in any aspect. There is power that is spread across the government.

There are three branches of the government. I want to focus this morning, if I may, on two--the executive and the legislative--because, Madam Speaker, this morning, as I stand before you, a proud American, I must inform all that the system of checks and balances is at risk.

It is at risk because we now have a President who does not believe that he can or will be impeached. We have a President who refuses to allow Congress to perform its constitutionally accorded oversight responsibilities.

When you have a President who does this, Madam Speaker, you lose the power of Congress. It becomes concentrated in the President. The Presidency becomes a place where power is concentrated because the President has no fear:

He doesn't believe that there are consequences for his going beyond what the Constitution allows;

He will engage in conduct that Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution would prohibit; and

He will engage in impeachable offenses because he knows that the Congress will not impeach him.

It is impeachment that is the ultimate guard against a reckless, ruthless, lawless President; and if we do not exert our authority, this President, knowing that we won't, is capable of doing things that we cannot imagine.

Madam Speaker, it is up to us, the Members of this Congress, to assure that this government continues to have the checks and balances that the Framers of the Constitution intended. If we do not, if Congress does not fulfill its responsibility, we won't have a Presidency. The power will be so concentrated that we will have a monarchy.

The Framers of the Constitution never intended for a President to just totally disregard the Congress. And notwithstanding all that might happen in the courts, notwithstanding all of the subpoenas that may be taken to court and have them litigated properly, the ultimate check on a President is Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, and that is impeachment when he commits impeachable acts.

We have the Mueller report. It speaks for itself. And there are many constitutional scholars who have said there has been an obstruction to take place.

There are many lawyers who have worked in the Justice Department. They number hundreds now, the lawyers who have signed on, indicating that the President should be beneath the law just as everyone else is, or the law should apply to him. He shouldn't be above the law.

They are indicating that, if we don't act, we are showing the President that he is above the law. He then becomes a monarch, and we then become a weaker form of government.

So I call upon this Congress: Let us do what is expected of us. The Framers of the Constitution gave us the way. They have shown the way. We but only have to have the will, and it is worth it for us to do this because the country is at stake in the sense that the government is at risk.

Madam Speaker, I love my country.

Mr. Speaker, last night at a rally in Florida, the President referred to me as ``that man.''

Mr. Speaker, I love my country, and still I rise. And I rise today to address the comment that the President made in referring to me as ``that man.''

Mr. Speaker, the video of what I said speaks for itself. The President indicates that I said the only way to get him out of office is to impeach him, but the video speaks for itself.

But I do want to share with the President that he is right; I am ``that man.'' I am ``that man,'' a liberated Democrat, a liberated Democrat in the spirit of Shirley Chisholm. I am unbought and unbossed.

Mr. President, you finally encountered at least one person that your money can't buy and your power doesn't scare.

You have a date with destiny, Mr. President. Your fate is in the hands of 435 Members of Congress. You are not above the law. No one is.

Impeachment is in the hands of this Congress. ``That man,'' Mr. President, is a Member of this Congress.

Mr. President, I assure you that the long arm of the law is reaching out for you. In this country, we will not allow you or any other person to hold yourself out as being above the law.

You have an appointment with history in this House of Representatives. If no one else will bring you to justice, I will, Mr. President.

Lawsuits and delay tactics will not deter me. You will not engage in the paralysis of analysis, as Dr. King put it. You won't engage in this paralysis of analysis such that we will put this off until the next election.

Mr. President, your case will be brought before this House. It is just a matter of time, Mr. President; it is just a matter of time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today because there are some things that I must call to the attention of the Congress.

Some news sources have indicated that somebody has said that we are in a crisis, a constitutional crisis. Mr. Speaker, I am that somebody. We are in a constitutional crisis.

Mr. Speaker, we currently have the executive branch and the legislative branch in a standoff, a standoff because the President of the United States of America has refused to cooperate and has encouraged others to do so, refusing to allow subpoenas to be properly honored--subpoenas properly issued, I might add. He has indicated that he, as President, will continue to do so in his words and his deeds.

So, Mr. Speaker, I still rise, and I do so because there is a crisis. But I also do so because this obstruction by the President continues to this day.

As I speak currently, the President is engaged in obstruction. This policy that he is implementing of not allowing persons to testify if he can prevent them from doing so, thwarting the investigation that is taking place--lawful investigations, I might add--is a form of obstruction in and of itself. He continues to obstruct.

Mr. Speaker, I rise, also, because many have said that the soul of the country is at stake. Mr. Speaker, I would amend this. I would agree that the soul of the country is at risk, but I would also say that the soul of the Congress is at risk.

The Congress of the United States of America must do its job, Mr. Speaker, the Congress of the United States of America, many of whom, as Members, have indicated that the President has committed impeachable acts but then go on to say that we should not impeach him.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot say that a President has committed impeachable offenses and then not impeach. To do so would legitimize the President's actions. This Congress cannot allow this President to continue to do what he is doing, say that he ought to be impeached, and then step back from impeachment. That would say to the President that he can go out now and claim legitimacy.

He can say that, if I were a person guilty of impeachable offenses, the Congress would have impeached me. He will say that one party had enough votes to do it without the assistance of the other party. He will say to the country, ``I have done nothing wrong,'' and that would be wrong, in toto, for him to say such a thing because he has done many things that are wrong.

We as a Congress have a duty to bring before the body the President of the United States for impeachment purposes. This is the only place where such an action can take place, and the longer we delay, the greater the opportunity for the President to obfuscate, to confuse the country, to give people the impression that it is just a witch hunt.

It is not a witch hunt. It is the proper thing that we should do, pursuant to Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States of America; and our failure to do so will only allow us to give the President reason to go forward and say that he has been vindicated when the truth is he has committed impeachable acts, starting with the firing of Mr. Comey and continuing through his efforts to deny the House of Representatives, by and through its lawful investigative authorities, to look into and bring witnesses before investigative bodies.

Mr. Speaker, this is a sad day in the history of our country. It is a red letter day, but there is hope, and I assure you that this President will not--will not--go unchecked. There will be Articles of Impeachment brought before this body. I assure you there will be Articles of Impeachment.

I pray that we can get this done through the proper committees, but if nobody else does it, each Member of Congress is accorded the authority to come to the floor, the ability, and to bring Articles of Impeachment.

I don't want to do it. This is not something that I came to Congress to do. But I love my country, and I will not watch and allow such a thing to happen before this country without my

taking appropriate action. I will bring Articles of Impeachment if nobody else does.

And finally, I will say more about this this evening. I should have 30 minutes of time. I will speak to a greater extent on the issue that I have called to Members' attention now.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. I rise, Mr. Speaker, because I love my country. I love what it stands for.

Mr. Speaker, I am a person who sings the national anthem. I salute the flag. But I also respect those who, as a matter of principle, choose not to do as I. I love my country.

I believe that one of the hallmarks of our justice system is the concept that no person is above the law--no person. It doesn't matter where you were born; it doesn't matter where you happen to be in life; it doesn't matter what office you happen to hold. No person is above the law.

This is something that people revere us for the world over, the belief that in this country you will not be above the law. But they also understand that, in doing this, no person will be beneath the law. The law applies equally to all in the United States of America.

I believe in this concept to the extent that I will stand alone and say that the President of the United States is not to be above the law. And I will stand alone because, on some things, it is better to stand alone than not stand at all.

So I will stand alone and say to the world that, in this country, wherein we indicate in the Pledge of Allegiance liberty and justice for all, in this country, wherein we recognize that all persons are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, in this country, no person is above the law.

When it comes to the law as it relates to the President of the United States of America, the place where the President is brought before the bar of justice is this House of Representatives. This is the place where the law and the President will come together.

And in this place, because of the Constitution of the United States of America, Article II, Section 4, if a President commits impeachable acts, the President is brought before this bar of justice--not brought here in person, but those acts are called to the attention of the House of Representatives.

Each Member of the House can do so, and in so doing, each Member can have what is called a privileged resolution presented. When this resolution is presented, a President who is believed to have committed an impeachable act can be brought before this House, this bar of justice. Those acts can be voted upon.

This is the only place on the planet Earth where a President of the United States can be brought to justice while in office, in this House of Representatives.

This is why I have stood my ground. I have said that this President, who has committed impeachable acts, must be brought before the House of Representatives for his impeachable acts, his impeachable behavior.

I marvel at those who would say that the President has done things that merit his impeachment but would then go on to say, ``But I don't think we should impeach him.''

They will say they don't think so because if we do so, the President won't be convicted in the Senate.

The Constitution of the United States of America does not require a conviction in the Senate before there is impeachment in the House. The House acts first, and then the Senate is given the opportunity to give its response.

In this House of Representatives, it is imperative that we let the world know because the world is watching. The world is watching the United States of America, which means it is really watching this House of Representatives.

They want to see if we are going to allow a President who has committed impeachable acts--they want to see if we are going to allow him to escape the long arm of the law. They want to see whether or not we truly believe that no one is above the law, and that includes the President of the United States of America.

We must act.

Mr. Mueller has taken up the cause. We outsourced the investigation to the executive branch of the government, which was not the appropriate thing to do. The Framers of the Constitution never intended that the agents of the executive branch investigate the chief executive officer, which would be the President, for impeachment purposes. That was never contemplated.

They gave us Article II, Section 4, so that we, the Members of this august body, would take up our duty, our responsibility, and our obligation.

They gave us the way. The question is, do we have the will?

Mr. Mueller has done his job. He has submitted to us his report. That report alone is enough for us to bring Articles of Impeachment.

That report is based upon persons giving statements that were subject to the penalty of perjury if they should give untruthful statements.

It is clearly a roadmap to impeachment. Mr. Mueller has so much as said--not in these exacts words, but when you understand the import of his language, he has so much as said that

if he could bring the President to justice, he would.

But they have a rule. They have a mandate in the Justice Department that they will not indict a sitting President. Whether you agree with that or not, that is the rule that Mr. Mueller believes in, and they followed it.

He went on to say that he is not exonerating the President by not bringing the President before the bar of justice. He is simply saying to us: I have done what I am allowed to do. Now, Congress, it is up to you. I have given you what I believe is the evidence. You take this evidence and do with it what you believe to be appropriate.

If Congress takes this evidence and simply sits on it, if we engage in the paralysis of analysis--a phrase that I borrow from Dr. Martin Luther King--if we investigate until someone will eventually say, ``Well, it is too late to go on with impeachment. It is too late now. It will look political. Let's just wait until the next election,'' that is not what the Framers of the Constitution intended. They intended for us to have the will to follow the way that they accorded us in the Constitution.

We made it clear that we wanted to wait on the Mueller report. Well, we waited. Now there are persons who are saying let's wait until the next election.

I refuse to wait until the next election. I refuse to send the world a message that, as a Member of this body, I allowed the President to go unchecked, that I did not bring Articles of Impeachment.

Mr. President, I want you to know that the hand of justice awaits you. I want you to know that this body is going to take up impeachment.

And here is why: If we fail to do so, we will allow the President, who has committed impeachable acts, to go out and market himself as a person who has been vindicated by our inaction. He will say to the world: If I committed an impeachable act, they surely would have brought impeachment before the House of Representatives.

After all, one party has more than enough Members to bring impeachment before the House without the help of another party. He will tell the world that there was no collusion, and he did nothing that would merit impeachment.

This is what he would say. He would have that liberty. Even if he doesn't say it, he would have the liberty. My guess is that he would. That is what I believe.

We must bring impeachment before this body so as not to allow a President who has done things worthy of impeachment to go out and contend that he is not subject to impeachment and that he should be considered a person who has been vindicated by our inaction.

What are some of the things that the President has done that would merit his impeachment? Let's just start with Mr. Mueller's report. I won't go through everything in its entirety.

He lists some 10 possibilities. I am just going to mention trying as best as he could to get people to have the investigation terminated by having the person who is performing the investigation fired, having that person resign, having that person cease and desist.

The President started this with Mr. Comey when Mr. Comey was investigating the President's association, by and through his campaign, with Russia, interference in our elections.

This kind of thing is something that we would want to have investigated. That was the genesis of it.

Then we can move forward to the latest rendition that Mr. Mueller has given us as it relates to the counsel to the President and his desire to have the counsel have word given to certain parties that the President desires--probably not say that, but that was his desire--to have the lawyer who was investigating, Mr. Mueller, removed.

This is not acceptable. This is obstruction. Obstruction takes place when you attempt to do such a thing.

There are other things in between. As important as these are, I believe separating babies from their mothers as a policy is impeachable when you add it to the many other things that he has done with reference to people of color.

To say that the countries in Africa are s-hole countries and then develop policies, immigration policies, if you will, that address immigration from these countries, you are putting your bigotry into policy.

To say that there were some nice people among the racists, the bigots, the xenophobes, the Islamophobes, the homophobes, the Klansmen, the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville where a person lost her life, where others were injured, to say that there were some very fine people among them, very, very nice people, if you will, among them, if I said that, I assure you there would be a penalty for my doing so. If any Member of Congress said such a thing, there would be a penalty for doing so.

I am not above the law. Members of Congress are not above the law. And the President cannot be above the law.

To say this gives these persons who were screaming ``blood and soil,'' and, ``Jews will not replace us,'' to say that we will not take up this cause in this House is to say that the President is above the law when we know if one of our Members did it, we would take up this cause in the House of Representatives.

The President cannot be above the law. No Member of this House can be above the law. No judge can be above the law. No police officer can be above the law. The law applies equally to all.

The President has engaged in these invidious acts, harmful acts, harmful to society, telling members of the constabulary, the police, that when you have persons in your custody, you don't have to be nice to them.

We know about how many persons have been mishandled in the hands of the police. Not all police do this, but some have. In fact, many have gone to jail. That doesn't mean all law enforcement officers are bad. It just means that those who did it are, and we don't want to encourage others to do such a thing.

The President has committed impeachable acts. These impeachable acts can be brought to this House, and they must be brought before the House of Representatives.

Right now, the President is committing obstruction by causing persons who should appear before Congress' various committees--by doing all that he can to cause them not to appear. He is continuing to obstruct.

He does not want congressional committees to perform their lawful duties, the duties that have been accorded them. He is standing in the way, thwarting as much as he can. He wants to thwart subpoenas. He wants to make impotent the subpoena power of the Congress of the United States of America.

This is a continuation of his obstruction. His obstruction has to be checked. This is where it is checked.

There is currently, as I stand and speak to you, a constitutional crisis taking place. There is a standoff between the executive branch, wherein the President is at the helm, and the House of Representatives. A standoff exists, as I speak to you.

This is a constitutional crisis. The President is creating this constitutional crisis.

The President ought to be brought before the bar of justice for obstructing, for what he is doing right now to create this constitutional crisis.

Don't let anybody kid you. I have heard persons on these news programs say that somebody has said that there is a constitutional crisis. Well, I am that somebody. I have said it.

Then they go on to say something that would minimize the fact that there is a crisis.

They will be saying that there is a crisis soon. The very persons who are saying now, ``Well, don't worry about that,'' they will be saying it soon because the crisis is only going to intensify under this President.

They will be saying there is a constitutional crisis. It is just a matter of time. When they say it, somehow, it is going to have greater legitimacy than it does now when I am saying it.

I believe that we must speak truth to power. I didn't come to Congress to do this. It is not my desire to be the canary in the coal mine. It is not my desire to take on the President of the United States, the most powerful person in the world.

I do it because I love my country. I do it because we cannot allow a reckless, ruthless, lawless President to remain in office. He has to be impeached.

I do it because I believe that we cannot allow political expediency to

trump the moral imperative to do that which is right.

I do it because we have to make these talking points that we have an action item. That action item is to bring the President before the bar of justice.

Mr. Speaker, I love my country. I promise those who believe as I do that you will see the President have his day in court right here in the Congress of the United States of America, where the Framers of the Constitution intended that we hear the calls and take a vote.

We will all have to vote. I don't lobby people. I simply say, ``Vote your conscience.''

But I do know this: I believe that history is not going to be kind to us if we take no action. We must act. I will act.

I love my country. For this reason, I would do so.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 3 o'clock and 7 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, May 9, 2019, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.