Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend Representative Foxx for bringing up a subject on opioids that is obviously plaguing so many places in America. It is a very topical and important discussion to have. I want to change the subject, Mr.…
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend Representative Foxx for bringing up a subject on opioids that is obviously plaguing so many places in America. It is a very topical and important discussion to have.
I want to change the subject, Mr. Speaker, and talk about a number of things that really concern me and many Americans across the country. That concern is:
Why has the President not released his tax returns?
Why is he so concerned about the Mueller investigation into the interference by the Russians in our elections? What is it that is being hidden? What are people afraid of? And why continue to threaten the FBI, threaten Mr. Mueller, threaten Mr. Rosenstein, threaten the Department of Justice, and, really, the police that are trying to get to the bottom of the interference by Russia in our elections.
And so I think we have got to take a look at exactly what has happened so far in that investigation. And that investigation with Special Counsel Mueller has resulted now in the guilty pleas of Michael Flynn, National Security Advisor; Rick Gates, former Trump campaign adviser; George Papadopoulos, former foreign affairs adviser to the Trump campaign; Richard Pinedo, a gentleman who committed identity fraud in the Russian probe; and an attorney named Alex van der Zwaan.
Currently under indictment are Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman, 13 Russian nationals, and three Russian entities.
Now, why is this important? Congresswoman Foxx was talking about opioids. That clearly is important. Jobs and economic security of this Nation is something that I like to be talking about, or doing away with the opioid epidemic. But what is important about this comes down to the very pillars of America, the pillars of freedom, liberty, and independence.
Because if another nation is directing the outcomes of our election, those key pieces of who we are are threatened. We broke away from England to become a sovereign nation and not to be affected and ruled by some other country. So at the heart of this, it is about who we are as Americans, who we are as a country, to get to the bottom of Russian interference in our elections.
What they did was unprecedented and is something that is bigger than the election of 2016, maybe the election of 2018. It is about our ability to govern ourselves without interference of somebody else, some other nation.
In Congress, we passed an act that provided for additional sanctions against Russia because it is becoming more and more apparent of their interference with our elections. But the administration was reluctant to impose those sanctions. The question is, why?
The Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, just recently with respect to sanctions said: We are going to increase sanctions because Russia may have had some role in Syria with the different chemical weapons that were used.
And she went out so far as to say, we are going to impose some additional sanctions, but then had the rug pulled out from underneath her by the White House saying: Oh, wait a second. Even
though you are somebody I appointed and you are our U.N. Ambassador, we think you are way ahead of yourselves on the sanctions against Russia.
My question is: Why? What is it that is holding the White House back? I think it comes back to something I said at the very beginning, and something we asked for a year ago, which were the President's tax returns, which we have yet to see.
I mean, what is it that is in there that is so worrisome? Every other candidate for President, every other President turned over their tax returns. There is so much smoke here with these convictions, with these indictments, with what we know in terms of the interference in many States across the Nation, that we have got to get to the bottom of this.
The continued threats that have come from the White House to stall or limit the investigation, the ability of the law enforcement officers of this Nation, the FBI, for goodness' sake, to do their job, is something none of us could have ever expected.
And so even though most of us would much rather talk about jobs, we would rather talk about the environment. We would rather be dealing with subjects that affect day-to-day Americans, everyday Americans. The problem is the values of this Nation are under attack, the freedom, liberty, and independence that we enjoy that is so key to everything we believe in that we are not going to let this go. We are going to stand up for the rule of law and for honesty, and for allowing law enforcement to finish its job without being constantly threatened.
Mr. Speaker, I am joined by a number of my friends who also have similar concerns to the ones I have raised. I would like to yield to my friend Mr. Boyle from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Congressman for that city, and allow him some time to bring us his thoughts and raise his concerns.
Mr. Speaker, and I say to my friend from Pennsylvania--we were talking about the indictments and the guilty pleas--the last time we really had a special counsel appointed was in 2003, and it took 2 years for one indictment. We are a year into this investigation, and we have got 5 guilty pleas and 17 additional indictments. So we ought to be all taking real stock of what is actually happening here.
I now yield to my friend from Missouri, Emanuel Cleaver, one of my best buddies here in the House, former mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, for his thoughts on this subject.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Missouri, and his words, as always, are powerful and right on the mark. We think this is serious business and it is nothing that we take lightly.
My friend, Mr. Huffman from California, is somebody who has given this a lot of thought, and he wonders why the President doesn't speak out against Vladimir Putin, he wonders why the President hasn't turned over his tax returns, he wonders why the President has attacked the FBI, he wonders why the President has attacked the Department of Justice, just as I do.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman), my friend.
Mr. Speaker, I will wrap up here, but I think there is one word we ought to change, because the word doesn't justify or doesn't really describe what occurred with these elections.
What occurred with the elections by the Russians was not meddling. It was sabotage. That is really what we are talking about. It wasn't just somebody saying to your mother-in-law: ``Please don't meddle in my business.'' This is sabotage. This was an attack. This was interference and a violation of our sovereignty, of our independence, of our freedom.
So we start with that, and then we ask these questions of my friends on the Republican side: Had the tables been turned and this was a Democratic administration, can you imagine what kinds of investigations would be underway today, what kinds of subpoenas would be issued, and not to allow the Intelligence Committee to shut down that investigation when none of the questions were answered because of this innovation of executive privilege that they don't hold, because this is much bigger than all of us.
Representative Cleaver talked about the fact that Russia is interfering, all around the world. They are not our friends. I would love to see something develop where there really is some kind of an alliance, but we definitely don't have that now.
There are a lot of questions:
Where are the tax returns?
Why haven't they been presented to the Congress?
Why are we not fulfilling the law that we passed on sanctions?
Why are we holding back even though Nikki Haley said we are going to issue more sanctions concerning Russia's role in Syria?
Why the continued attacks by the administration against our FBI, our chief and best law enforcement agency?
Why continue to undermine the investigations?
These are serious questions, and they can't be swept under the rug. This is serious business. It goes to the heart of the values of this Nation, of freedom and independence. We have got a lot of work to do. I hope there is a bright light shone on all of this and that these investigations run their full course to see exactly what has happened.
Mr. Speaker, if my friend from California would like to close, I would offer him that opportunity.
Mr. Speaker, I hold out hope for all of the Members of this body to want to have the truth and allow this investigation to run its course. And I hope and expect that the Members--Democrats and Republicans--will support and protect the special counsel, the Department of Justice, and the FBI so that the lawyers and the cops on the beat can finish this investigation. And that is what is key.
So I hope that it turns out that there isn't anything else, that it is 5 guilty pleas, it is 17 indictments, and that is it; we are done. But I don't expect that to be the case either.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.