Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Ross Elementary School in Marin County for its recognition on May 3, 2018 as a 2018 California Distinguished School by the California Department of Education. Chosen for its exemplary high performance, as measured by state and national assessments, Ross Elementary School was one of 287 schools to attain this honor statewide. This highly competitive award reflects outstanding achievement and the highest caliber of professional service, family commitment, and community engagement.

With 366 students, Ross Elementary School offers comprehensive educational programs that academically challenge and instill a joy of learning in its students while ensuring that all children have the skills and knowledge to reach their full potential.

Mr. Speaker, this hard-earned distinction reflects true community success. From the students and their families, to the staff and administrators, and the extended community, Ross Elementary School has developed an education model for the state and the nation: empowering today's students to be tomorrow's problem-solvers, inventors, and pioneers. Please join me in congratulating Ross Elementary School on this impressive achievement.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Nancy Kenyon for her stellar leadership and exemplary public service as the founder and former executive director of Fair Housing of Marin, which is now Fair Housing of Northern California.

In 1963, Ms. Kenyon joined the Fair Housing Council of Northern New Jersey, where she served for 12 years and rose to the rank of Housing Director. During this period, she led a number of initiatives, including the creation of a funding stream by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to support efforts by fair housing organizations to end discriminatory housing practices, now known as the Fair Housing Initiative Program. She also supervised housing projects for the Ford Foundation and served as a training consultant for the States of New York and New Jersey.

In 1979, she moved to California to assume the position of Researcher of the Special Contribution Fund of the San Francisco Chapter of The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Her research in this role helped the NAACP to successfully argue that the San Francisco Unified School District violated federal law in its maintenance and creation of a racial segregated school system, and she helped establish a citywide lottery affording every child regardless of race, color, national origin, or class the right to attend the most prestigious schools in the district.

In 1984, Ms. Kenyon returned to her roots in enforcing fair housing laws and founded Fair Housing of Marin, where she would serve as Executive Director until her retirement in 2012. Under her leadership, Fair Housing of Marin grew from two part-time staff operating in a spare bedroom to a staff of 10 serving communities in Marin, Sonoma and Solano Counties.

Ms. Kenyon's quest for fair housing has also been expressed in several published articles she authored, and her powerful advocacy has been recognized with numerous awards, most notably the 2005 National Pioneer of Fair Housing Award, and the Human Rights Award from the United Nations Association in Northwest Bergen County, New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, Ms. Kenyon is a respected leader and dedicated champion for equity. Please join me in expressing my deep appreciation and praise for her national leadership as Fair Housing of Northern California honors her as part of a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, today we are being asked to pass yet another bill that undermines the Endangered Species Act and accelerates the extinction of our Nation's fish and wildlife.

Specifically, H.R. 3144, the Salmon Extinction Act, undermines protections for several runs of wild salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest.

The Northwest's iconic salmon runs are extremely important to commercial, recreational, and Tribal fishing interests across the country.

My Republican colleagues are pushing this bill even though the region's salmon runs are currently at crisis levels.

Recently, we have even seen reporting that, for the first time, Federal scientists who were surveying Northwest salmon populations came up with empty nets.

And yet, here we are today, advancing a bill that will do nothing but accelerate our Nation's existing salmon declines.

The bill also represents a troubling attack on the legal process. If enacted, it would overturn legally sound court decisions simply because the bill's sponsors don't like them.

Instead of following the law, this bill forcibly mandates the use of an outdated illegal salmon recovery plan for the Federal Columbia River Power System.

The recovery plan in question has clearly been found by the courts to violate the law and the Endangered Species Act. It is illegal, and Congress, through this bill, would be saying: Do it anyway.

I should note that this bill also undermines one of our Nation's other bedrock environmental laws, the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, by barring a host of actions that could potentially recover this region's salmon runs, which are currently, again, on the brink of extinction.

The sponsor of this bill and I do agree on one thing, however. When talking about this bill, Representative McMorris Rodgers recently said that dams and fish can coexist, and I too think that is possible.

The debate here is not about dams versus no dams. The debate is about striking the appropriate balance between responsible hydropower development and sound fisheries protection.

For too long, there has been an imbalance when we consider these issues. Our country built thousands of dams in the 20th century before we even realized the harm that can be caused to our Nation's fisheries.

So today, we are left with many legacy, low-value dams that don't justify their cost and their impacts to our Nation's fishery and natural resources.

So as we consider what to do about these older, low-value dams, our decision making must be guided by the best available science and a consideration of all available options, not what politicians in Congress want.

Unfortunately, this bill takes us in the wrong direction by blocking responsive science-based fisheries management. It would actually lock in a disastrous status quo until at least the year 2022; a status quo that is expensive, illegal, and inadequate; an approach that causes great harm to wild salmon, struggling fishing communities, Tribes, and energy consumers. The status quo is not working.

This bill says: Keep doing it anyway.

It is time for Federal agencies to pursue new, innovative solutions that are better for both fisheries and hydropower generation. This bill pushes a one-sided divisive approach that will only cause further harm.

That is why it is opposed by the Governors of both Washington and Oregon, by Tribal interests, by hundreds of businesses that depend on healthy salmon runs, and also by numerous conservation organizations.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Colorado for his leadership and convening these conversations. It was really helpful to hear from our friend from Missouri, who reminds us that this is really a big deal, this Russian meddling, and that we have to keep pushing to get answers as to why our President behaves so strangely when it comes to Russia, and we have to hold anyone who may have been part of that Russian interference fully accountable.

I will tell Congressman Perlmutter that constituents in my district, and I think a growing number of people around this country, are extremely concerned and growing more and more concerned about this dark cloud of corruption over the Trump administration; about the possibility of collusion between the Trump team and a foreign government to affect the 2016 election; about the obstruction of justice, the pattern of lying about even the most basic facts; and just based on what has already come out through the special counsel investigation and through the media and, to some extent, through congressional investigations, their level of concern is really growing.

This week, I want to focus on one aspect of these investigations that we have tried to push here in the House and in the Senate: the issue of privilege. I am not talking about the kind of privilege where a billionaire's son-in-law gets a job inside the White House, even though he has no foreign policy experience and can't get a security clearance. That is a different kind of privilege.

I want to talk about the issue of executive privilege. This is an idea that Presidential communications need to be kept out of the public eye, even when Congress or the courts issue subpoenas and request that information.

Presidents have always kind of tried to claim that this type of privilege is implied in the Constitution's separation of powers. It is an argument that a President might not get as candid and fulsome advice from his Cabinet and others if all of it was going to be publicly disclosed. So I can appreciate that. But the Trump administration has taken this notion of executive privilege to extreme and absurd lengths. I think we need to talk about that.

Just a little quick historical aside, though, on executive privilege. The concept and the limit of executive privilege has really only been tested at the Supreme Court in a pair of Watergate-related lawsuits in the 1970s. This came about when the special prosecutor sought access to President Nixon's secret Oval Office tapes.

In that case, the court rejected President Nixon's attempts to quash a judicial subpoena. The unanimous decision of that court was that the President had to hand over these tape-recorded conversations with his closest advisers about the Watergate break-in. Of course, we know that was the beginning of the end of the Nixon Presidency.

So back to the modern era.

Over the past year, we have seen numerous Trump officials, and even some who never worked in the White House, refuse to answer questions from Congress, asserting some variation of this executive privilege. In the now-defunct House Intelligence Committee investigation we have seen it. We have seen it in the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation.

I think we need to take a look at how this is being used or misused. We have seen witnesses, literally on a break from their testimony, take phone calls from the White House, where they get instructions about what questions they can answer and which ones they can't.

Essentially, President Trump has treated the executive privilege as if it is a gag order he can invoke on those around him. It is sort of like the hush money nondisclosure agreements that he has entered into with porn stars and playmates and all sorts of others to keep embarrassing or damaging information out of the public eye.

A few specific examples of this and why it doesn't hold up.

In June 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was testifying before the Senate committee about the firing of James Comey. He refused to answer certain questions, but he did choose to answer others that he thought were helpful. He claimed that he was protecting the right of President Trump to assert the executive privilege.

Well, first of all, Sessions can't selectively choose when to invoke the privilege and when not to. There is this thing called waiver, and you don't get to cherry-pick the stuff that you think helps you and then invoke the privilege for the stuff that doesn't.

But the second point is that the Attorney General even admitted that he does not have the power to claim executive privilege. He said: ``I am protecting the President's constitutional right by not giving it away before he has had a chance to weigh in.''

The President hasn't done that. In fact, the President has yet to assert

the executive privilege, but he has had all of these other folks on a short leash, counting on them to assert the privilege.

So then we go to January of 2018. Steve Bannon was testifying in the House Intelligence Committee. He only agreed to answer 25 specific yes or no questions that had been drafted by the White House.

So, on a bipartisan basis, the committee issued a subpoena to force Bannon to answer these questions, but he continued to stonewall and the committee never followed through. Again, why Bannon's assertions of the privilege don't pencil out.

In the United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court made very clear that public extrajudicial disclosure of a privilege like the executive privilege is a waiver. So right off the bat you have the problem that Steve Bannon spilled his guts in ``Fire and Fury'' for the whole world to see. He has made public extrajudicial disclosures of all manner of communications involving the Presidency on all of these subjects. But he has also played this pick-and-choose game, much like Attorney General Sessions. Even if he had the privilege to assert for himself, which he doesn't, it just doesn't hold water.

Now, some of the oversight that Bannon has been ducking has to do with the transition period before Donald Trump was even President. Obviously, there is no executive privilege if you are not yet the executive. So that is another problem.

When he was asked whether he was being instructed by the President to invoke executive privilege, guess what? He refused to answer. Our friends in the House Intelligence Committee were in such a hurry to shut down their investigation that they did not move to hold him in contempt of Congress, and they never followed through on their subpoena.

Another example.

January 2018, Mr. Trump's former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, appeared before the House Intel Committee and surprise, surprise, he refused to answer all sorts of important questions. Since Mr. Lewandowski never served in the Federal Government, it would be pretty preposterous to assert executive privilege as a way to evade Congress' questions. But it is up to the majority in Congress to actually force him to answer these questions.

Again, Mr. Trump is onto, apparently, a winning strategy in this Congress. He instructs others not to answer questions, suggests they should assert the privilege, or some variation of it, and then counts on a compliant majority in this House and in the Senate to simply not follow through.

Something similar happened in February 2018. Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, was testifying before the House Intelligence Committee and would not discuss anything from the inauguration forward. The committee declined to issue a subpoena, despite the request to do so from our ranking member, Adam Schiff.

So you may ask in these various situations: Why wouldn't President Trump himself simply assert the executive privilege?

I think one reason for that is we can safely say that it makes him look even more guilty. That is hard to do, based on the way he has conducted himself so defensively with such a seemingly guilty state of mind in his tweets and other public statements, but the assertion of the privilege would be a very clear signal that he is trying to impede legitimate investigations.

So he would rather have Bannon and Hicks and Lewandowski and Sessions stonewall for him, and then count on a compliant hyper-partisan Congress not to follow through. That is why we have so many unanswered questions and why it is so important that you continue to bring us together to talk about this to make sure the American people know that we are going to keep talking about it and we are going to keep asking what they are hiding and what they are afraid of.

Mr. Speaker, I will close on my end but with a bit of a question for my colleague:

We have talked about how big this is. I think ``sabotage'' is not too strong a word for what the Russians did in the 2016 election. I think anyone who was involved in a criminal conspiracy with them to pull that off, certainly there are criminal penalties, violations, possibly up to and including treason, that may apply. So we have to get to the bottom of this. We have to get to the truth.

And if Congress won't do its job because of partisan reasons and won't follow through and hold folks in contempt when they ignore subpoenas and when they refuse to answer questions, we can at least protect the special counsel investigation so that that lifelong Republican leading this investigation can get the truth out for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I guess my question for Congressman Perlmutter is: Given how big this is--and we have never seen anything like this. We have never seen all of this evidence that a candidate for President--folks at the top of his campaign were involved in these illicit activities with a foreign power, this extensive sabotaging of our election, and all of the coverup and the obstruction and other problems that are coming to light. Given all of that, how will history judge those who refuse to let the special counsel get to the bottom of it all so we can all know the truth?

Mr. Speaker, on Monday morning, the FBI's raid of Donald Trump's personal attorney triggered another Trump meltdown. He ranted that this move, approved by senior Justice Department officials and a Federal court, was an attack on our country and a witch hunt; and, once again, he mused publicly about firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Let's be clear. Firing the special counsel or any chain of firings to interfere with the special counsel's investigation would spark a constitutional crisis and unleash a public uproar like we have never seen. Senator Lindsey Graham summed it up by saying that it would be the beginning of the end of the Trump Presidency.

The American people deserve answers. What are Trump and his Russia- connected cronies hiding? What are they so afraid of us finding out? The only way we are going to get these answers is by protecting Mueller's investigation and allowing him to do his job.

Now, if President Trump crosses the red line and declares himself above the law, millions of Americans all over this country are ready to take to the streets to defend our democracy and the rule of law.

So, Mr. Trump, whatever you are hiding, you won't get away with it, and we won't let you tear down American democracy in a desperate attempt to hide the truth.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in memory of my friend, Herrmann Spetzler, who passed away on March 12, 2018, at the age of 70. As the longtime chief executive officer of the Open Door Community Health Centers in Northern California, Herrmann was a visionary leader in the field of rural primary health care who improved the lives of thousands of North Coast residents.

Born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1948, Herrmann Spetzler immigrated to the United States in 1955. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree from California State University, Los Angeles in 1971, Herrmann entered the field of health care and worked to address mental health and alcoholism issues throughout California. He moved to Arcata in 1977 to become chief executive officer of the Humboldt Open Door Clinic, a single storefront clinic run by volunteers with a sense of optimism. Under Herrmann's leadership, that clinic grew into thirteen clinic locations in Humboldt and Del Norte counties and became the Open Door Community Health Centers (Open Door), the region's largest provider of primary medical, dental, and mental health care.

Along with his wife, Cheyenne who serves as Open Door's chief of operations, Herrmann transformed Open Door into a Federally Qualified Health Center open to all who seek services, working to overcome financial, geographic and social barriers to care. His goal was for every Open Door clinic to provide a level of service and quality that would allow his grandmother to feel comfortable as a patient there. Through his decades of expanding access to care by building new clinics, incorporating existing practices in the community, recruiting providers, and fostering an efficient and comprehensive approach to care, Herrmann remained guided by his vision and mission to provide high quality health care to all. He was instrumental in starting a successful family nurse practitioner residency program and a new community physician residency program that will help train primary care doctors to work in rural settings.

One of Herrmann's greatest strengths was his ability to understand the trends and impacts of health care policy on a national, state, and local level and translate that to others. Herrmann served as an advisor to me on policy issues as part of a health care advisory group, where he offered invaluable input. Herrmann surrounding himself with talented and capable people who he empowered to succeed and grow. As a result, Open Door will continue to fulfill its mission and his vision long into the future. Herrmann believed in social justice and treating all people fairly, including his staff, once taking out a second mortgage on his own home to make payroll during a particularly lean time.

In addition to earning his Master of Arts degree in Administration in 1985 from Humboldt State University, Herrmann was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in 2014. He was active in all things related to health care and served on numerous state-wide boards, including the California 1115 Medicaid Waiver Renewal Committee, Expanded Access to Primary Care Committee, and Statewide Primary Care Advisory Group, as well as regional boards such as the Clinic Network of Northern California, Humboldt County Community Breast Health Project, and Humboldt Child Care Council. He also cofounded the California Primary Care Association, North Coast Clinics Network, Clinic Mutual Insurance Company, Northern California Rural Round Table, and California State Rural Health Association, amongst others.

Herrmann loved to travel with his wife and family, hike and backpack, watch his grandchildren play sports, and practice photography. He saw the beauty in everyday interactions and was often seen behind his camera photographing the people and places around him. He had a warmth and candor that imparted his authenticity and unique perspective on life.

Herrmann is survived by his wife, Cheyenne; his children, Gary, Maria, and Gabe, and their families; including grandchildren, nieces, nephews and cousins. Herrmann and

Cheyenne opened their hearts and home to so many, especially friends of their children and grandchildren, that their extended family was large, including many young children who loved their ``Opa'' and will miss him dearly.

Herrmann Spetzler was a champion of health care whose decades of work resulted in improved access to primary care for thousands of residents of rural Northern California. Few leave a legacy as large as Herrmann's and are as beloved and widely respected. Mr. Speaker, it is fitting that we honor Herrmann today for his decades of commitment to the North Coast and express our deepest appreciation for his friendship and contributions. His presence will be sorely missed, and his legacy not soon forgotten.

Mr. Speaker, despite the Kremlin's lies, all facts lead to the conclusion that Vladimir Putin tried to murder Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, in broad daylight on British soil.

Great Britain strongly condemned Russia, and because Britain is our closest ally, our Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, did what we would expect from him: he forcefully condemned the crime and vowed the U.S. would hold Russia accountable. But within hours, Tillerson was fired.

Now, we know about the strains between President Trump and Tillerson: Trump has mocked him for favoring diplomacy with North Korea; they have disagreed over the Iran nuclear deal; and it didn't help when Tillerson reportedly called Trump a moron. But none of that cost Tillerson his job. It was only when he aggressively condemned Putin that he crossed the reddest of redlines for Donald Trump.

Why is Trump so afraid of Putin that he would fire his own Secretary of State for talking tough on Russia? Why does he constantly fawn over Putin, even calling to congratulate him for winning a fake election this week?

You would think the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence would be asking these questions, but, instead, they have shut down their Russia investigation.

This stinks, Mr. Speaker. What are they trying to hide from the American people?

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Thomas (Tom) Peters, Ph.D., for his twenty years of stellar leadership and exemplary public service as President and CEO of the Marin Community Foundation.

A native of San Francisco, Dr. Peters finished his undergraduate degree at San Francisco State University, before going to the University of Minnesota, where he completed a Doctorate in Psychology and Health Science. He began his public health career in 1974 at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and would go on to achieve repeated success and advancement over the course of 24 years, finishing that chapter of his professional life as the Director of Marin County's Department of Health and Human Services.

In 1998, Dr. Peters became the President and CEO of the Marin Community Foundation (MCF). Combining his clinical and philanthropic careers to head one of the largest community foundations in the country, Dr. Peters has become a leading national voice for community philanthropy, advocating for and facilitating the dedication of private resources for the public good. MCF has distributed more than $1.3 billion in grants to nonprofits working in critical community issues, ranging from education, healthcare, and the environment, to economic opportunity and access to the arts.

Under his leadership, Marin Community Foundation became the first community foundation to approve a non-discrimination policy for its donor advised funds. He set the example for others to say NO to organizations, projects, and programs that discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, medical condition, veteran status, marital status, disability, ancestry, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by law.

A respected community leader and champion for equity, he frequently offers the community a moral compass for taking action on important matters, like breaking down barriers to academic achievement and raising the bar for underserved communities, working to protect public lands and the environment, securing affordable housing where supply has been historically elusive, and fighting for comprehensive immigration reform.

Mr. Speaker, Dr. Peters has been a champion of champions on a wide array of critical issues, and has led the Marin Community Foundation to take actions that have produced positive impacts throughout the region. Therefore, please join me in expressing my deep appreciation and praise for his indomitable leadership on the occasion of his 20th anniversary as President and CEO of the Marin Community Foundation.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Colorado because I have all of the same questions and all of the same concerns, and so it is very appropriate that we are coming together to ask what are they afraid of, what are they hiding, because there are a lot of red flags.

Last night, Mr. Perlmutter, I was at the Washington Press Club event, which is a fun event to celebrate the free press. The best joke of the night--and there is a lot of humorous material. The best joke of the night was when someone said, for a guy that claims he doesn't drink, President Trump sure loves a lot of White Russians. That brought the house down.

Unfortunately, though, it is not really funny because, when you have got a President who won't impose the sanctions that we authorize him to impose, who won't direct his State Department to spend the funds to protect our election system that we authorize and appropriate, when you have all of these other problems, it is not clear that he is able to do his job without fear or favor, and that is a big problem for our democracy and for the interests of our country.

If Congress were doing its job right now, we would be asking the hard questions to bring forward the transparency that the people need, to give this country the assurance that their government officials, including their President, can perform their job without fear or favor. But, unfortunately, this body is not doing a very good job of asking those hard questions, so that is, in part, why we are here trying to raise some of these issues.

One of the very important questions that I think we have to ask involves the ties between the NRA, yes, the National Rifle Association, and this Trump Russia scandal. Specifically, we need to know whether Russia worked through the NRA to illegally move funds in support of the Trump campaign.

Here is what we do know. We know that McClatchy and others have reported that the FBI is actually investigating whether Aleksandr Torshin, deputy governor of Russia's central bank and NRA's main liaison in Russia, used the NRA to funnel millions of dollars to support Donald Trump's candidacy in 2016.

We know that in 2016 Donald Trump, Jr., had dinner with Torshin, who is a close ally of Vladimir Putin--also someone accused of money laundering--and they had that dinner at the NRA convention.

We know that the NRA spent tens of millions of dollars on the 2016 elections, including $30 million to support Donald Trump. That is three times what the NRA spent to support Mitt Romney when he was the Republican nominee just 4 years prior.

So we need to think about and ask this question: Where did all that money come from? We have asked the NRA. The NRA won't tell us.

Now, we know that in testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, there are indications that Russians made a very concerted effort to work through the NRA, and that is why Senator Ron Wyden has asked the Treasury Department--again, because the NRA won't answer these questions, but he has asked the Treasury Department for more information about suspicious Russian funding of the NRA.

So just to recap a few of these things that we need to be asking about: We know how close President Trump is to the NRA. We know how close the Russian banker Alex Torshin is to the NRA. We know how close the NRA is becoming, closer and closer, to Russia.

In fact, I have a piece here that explains how, in 2015, a series of top NRA officials--including one of their top donors, past presidents, a delegation that included Donald Trump's high-profile surrogate, Sheriff David Clarke--all went on a so-called fact-finding mission involving gun rights in Russia.

Now, there aren't a lot of gun rights in Russia. Russia has very restrictive gun laws, and there is no serious effort in the country of Russia to change that. But, nevertheless, apparently this group felt they needed to go to Russia for this fact-finding trip to cozy up with some of these same folks that we are talking about. So that is one of the things we know and we need to ask questions about.

We know that the NRA spent this huge cache of money on the 2016 campaign to support Donald Trump, and we know that we have more questions that need to be answered. So we need to follow this money, and we need to find out, again, as you have asked here on the floor: What are they hiding? What are they afraid of?

Mr. Speaker, Congressman Perlmutter is asking all the right questions, and it seems to me, in the short time we have been on the floor here, in some ways, we are asking harder questions than what we are seeing from the committees that should be conducting oversight and investigations if Congress were functioning and taking this issue as seriously as it should.

Those questions would include very disturbing reporting, just in the last few days in The New Yorker, that suggests that the Steele dossier may just be the tip of the iceberg; that, in fact, you have senior Russian officials who claim that they had something of a veto power over our choice for Secretary of State.

We should be looking into that right now in a very intense way, and the American people should know that we take those matters very seriously. But so much of this simply flies by these days with the constantly moving media cycle, and I think more and more people are beginning to wonder if Congress is interested in even asking hard questions or if we just have to sit back and either wait for Special Counsel Mueller to catch these folks in crimes or wait for the media. Thank God for the free press, but the media is unearthing far more information than the oversight actions of this Congress, and that is disappointing.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in memory of Richard Kunde, who passed away on February 15, 2018 at the age of 75, after a lifetime of public service to his community.

Mr. Kunde was born on September 6, 1942 near his family's ranch in Glen Ellen, where they raised Hereford cattle and grew cabernet sauvignon grapes. Mr. Kunde attended the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) where he continued to study and work at improving grape vines by earning degrees in viticulture and horticulture. With enologists at UC Davis, Mr. Kunde worked on developing and cloning rootstock in order to produce superior grapes to be used throughout California and beyond. In 1982, Mr. Kunde purchased Sonoma Grapevines, where he continued to push Sonoma County to the top of the world in both vine growing and wine production. Always one to put the industry above his own personal gain, Mr. Kunde was one of the first nurserymen in his field to sell his cloned vines to other growers.

Mr. Kunde's legacy extends from a personal mission to serve the industry and product that he loved so dearly. As leaders in the wine industry, he and his late wife, Saralee, were unparalleled supporters of Future Farmers of America, 4-H, the Sonoma County Fair, and the Harvest Fair. Whether it was placing the highest bid at an auction, against himself, or becoming the single largest donor to the education and events building at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Mr. Kunde's generosity was unmatched. He received many honors over his illustrious career, including induction into the Sonoma County Farm Bureau's Hall of Fame and the Award of Distinction from the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis, both in 2008.

Mr. Kunde is survived by his son, Matthew Kunde and his daughter Catherine ``Catie'' Kunde, his granddaughter, and many nieces, nephews, and cousins. It is hard to speak about Mr. Kunde's personal or professional life without mentioning his constant companion in both, his late wife Saralee McClellend Kunde. Known as the shining star of their duo, Mrs. Kunde was intimately involved in all of Mr. Kunde's professional and philanthropic work.

Mr. Speaker, the depth of Mr. Kunde's service to his community has left a positive legacy across Sonoma County and the entire grape growing industry, and he will be profoundly missed. It is therefore appropriate that we pay tribute to him today and honor his memory.

Madam Speaker, from the mighty redwoods to the headlands and beaches of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in my bay area, backyard to the ancient sequoias of Yosemite, to the scorching deserts of Death Valley, we know our national parks are worth protecting.

Parks not only protect nature and wildlife but our history, too. And they are economic engines supporting thousands of jobs. But Donald Trump's dirty budget and infrastructure scam would bulldoze right through this American success story.

Trump is proposing a 7 percent cut to the National Park Service, meaning even less maintenance and visitor services, and a 17 percent cut to the Department of the Interior overall, while giving Secretary Ryan Zinke free rein to continue his drilling spree on our public lands.

These cuts, combined with Trump's ongoing effort to hike entry fees for working families, threaten access to these places that drive millions of visitors to our communities and small businesses each year, while generating hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity.

Underfunding our national parks puts visitor access at risk. We should reject this budget and work together.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Linda Ruffing, who is retiring from her position as the City Manager of Fort Bragg on February 14, 2018.

Born in Pennsylvania, Linda Ruffing came to California to attend college at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She received a Master's Degree from the University of California, Berkeley, before moving to Fort Bragg in 1992 to work for Mendocino County as a coastal planner.

Linda began her career at the City of Fort Bragg in 1999 as the director of community development and became City Manager in 2006. In addition to her exceptional character, judgment, ethics and values, Linda has provided critical leadership on many initiatives for the city, including the acquisition of 95 acres of parkland and a site for the Noyo Science Center on the former mill site, which includes

over 2 miles of coastal trail. Under her leadership, a ban was instituted on foam containers and plastic bags in the city. She also led Fort Bragg to become the first city to allow food waste in yard waste recycling, and in becoming the first Bee City in California.

As the city manager, Linda has worked with 12 different councilmembers and three different mayors, and gracefully navigated a spectrum of politics, challenges, and crises. She has been responsible for implementing 78 ordinances and managing $33 million in capital improvement projects. Linda leaves the city with a stable and successful management team and a staff dedicated to improving the quality of life for the residents of Fort Bragg.

In her spare time, Linda serves the public as a Rotarian, an active mentor for the Interact Afterschool Program, and she volunteers for many teen leadership events. She is also the mother of two children, Eli and Jasper Henderson.

Linda Ruffing has been a dedicated and effective public servant for 26 years, and I hope you will join me in recognizing her many accomplishments and sending her best wishes on her retirement.

Mr. Speaker, outside this building, more and more Republicans bemoan the effect of Trumpism on their party. We should take a moment to define this new phenomenon.

Trumpism is when the whims of our authoritarian President ``trump'' the values Republicans once stood for. It is when evangelicals say character doesn't matter. It is when ``rule of law'' constitutionalists shield Trump by attacking the institutions that guarantee the rule of law.

It is when First Amendment champions join Trump in attacking our free press. It is when Russia hawks bow and scrape before a President who chooses to believe his pal Vladimir over our own intelligence agencies.

Trumpism is when this House, which is supposed to conduct serious oversight, acts like Trump's lapdog, ignoring or abetting corruption and obstruction of justice.

Because Trumpism threatens democracy, many Republicans are leaving their party or, like George Bush's speechwriter, Michael Gerson, are calling on voters to deliver a message this fall. Without that political jolt, Gerson writes, ``elected Republicans will just keep clinging to the USS Trump as it sinks further into the swamp.''

Now that we have defined Trumpism, let's work together to save this country from it.

Mr. Speaker, President Trump's mantra is ``no collusion.'' He says this constantly because he wants people to think collusion--a hard thing to prove--is the only question in the Russia investigation. It is not.

Even putting aside the mounting evidence that Trump did collude with Russia, there is an equally serious question about obstruction of justice, and, for that, the evidence is overwhelming.

The greatest hits of Trump obstruction include:

Requesting an improper loyalty pledge from FBI Director Comey;

Telling Director Comey to drop the Flynn investigation;

Asking the DNI and the CIA Directors to lean on Comey to drop the Flynn investigation;

Firing Comey when he continued the investigation;

Admitting on national TV that the firing was because of the Russia investigation;

Admitting, essentially, the same thing to top Russian officials in a White House meeting;

Drafting a deliberately misleading statement for his son about the infamous Trump Tower meeting;

Attempting to fire Special Counsel Mueller;

And, most recently, this ham-handed choreography with Chairman Nunes to undermine all of the pending investigations--an attempt to set up the argument that we should drop the Russia investigations and, instead, investigate the investigators.

That is just the ``Greatest Hits of Obstruction,'' volume I. There is a lot more to come, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for organizing this Special Order hour conversation.

You asked the right question: What are they hiding and what are they afraid of?

It is a bit of a rhetorical question, because when you think about that chart you have displayed there, when you think about the indictments and the plea deals and all of the other information that we are beginning to glean, it is pretty obvious what they are afraid of and what they are hiding.

This investigation is getting pretty darn close to the personal and political and financial ties between this Presidency and those around him and Russia, and it is a lot of information that they don't want the world to know about. That is why we are seeing all of these distractions, all of these elaborate and increasingly desperate attempts to change the subject and create diversions.

Frankly, today, I am very worried that--not so much that this is coming from our President, because we have seen him throughout his career engage in character assassination, burning down the house tactics, and all manner of ruthlessness, but I am disturbed that many of our colleagues in this body have taken up those same tactics and that same cause. That is dangerous.

One of the great things about this country, I believe, is that it is about the rule of law. Our Founders actively debated this question about whether we would be a country of laws and institutions or a country of men.

Would we have some people above the law or would we all be subject to the law?

They answered it loud and clear. We were going to be a country of law and institutions. At every critical test in our history, we have reaffirmed that essential great aspect of what it is to be the United States of America. That is what Watergate was all about, as we are beginning to remember.

Yet, today, it seems that that proposition is being retested all over again. To my dismay, some of our colleagues are hoping for a different answer as we retest that proposition this time. That is very troubling.

I am not in the habit of quoting FOX News very often, and certainly not their news hosts, but one of their hosts, Shepard Smith, said something that really struck a cord in the last few days. Here is what he said about the so-called Nunes memo: ``A memo can be a weapon of partisan mass distraction.''

That is exactly what this is: a desperate attempt to protect President Trump from investigation and accountability.

I think we need to recap a few facts that brought us to this point.

Back in November 2016, when the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was appointed to President-elect Trump's transition team, he, like our President, started sowing doubts about whether Russia had interfered with the 2016 election, incorrectly claiming that there was some kind of disagreement between our intelligence agencies on the subject.

In fact, there was no disagreement. All of the American intelligence community agreed that, as they had looked into this, they determined that Russian operatives had worked to undermine the integrity of our election. That conclusion has been reinforced and reaffirmed by everything we have learned since then.

The chairman told Politico shortly before President Trump's inauguration that the House should not investigate contacts between Russia and the Trump camp, even though his Senate intelligence counterparts had already committed to following the facts wherever they may lead. So he had already made up his mind.

The chairman described the Trump-Russia connections as a dead trail. He said there is nothing there. And, of course, we know President Trump has said he has nothing to do with Russia, totally contradicted by everything we have learned since.

All of this, of course, is going to come as a surprise if there is nothing there to the President's campaign chair, who is under indictment; to members of his family, who have been hauled before the special prosecutor to answer to secret meetings and other dealings that they have had with Russia; and to others in this administration who had repeated contacts with Russia.

And, of course, no one can forget the intelligence chairman's trip to the White House last year, where he staged an impromptu news conference, claiming that he had briefed the White House about a source who could explain how Trump campaign officials were caught up in foreign intelligence intercepts. His unnamed sources that he rushed to brief the White House about, well, it turned out they were White House officials.

This was a completely choreographed stunt. They had planted the misleading information with the chairman in the first place, obviously desperate to give some cover to the President who had tweeted out about wiretapping, conspiracies, and on it goes.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague, Ed Perlmutter, is asking all of the right questions. This investigation is beginning to answer those questions in very, very important ways. We need to make sure that it runs its course. It is important to finding out the truth. The American people deserve to know the truth.

It is also important to reaffirming that incredibly important aspect of what makes this country great, and that is that we are a nation of laws and institutions. We have to reaffirm that, unfortunately, over and over again from time to time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We are being taken back to the lessons of Watergate tonight. The system worked in the 1970s. The checks and balances that our Founders put in place took effect. The public stepped up. The media stepped up. People of conscience in important positions within the government stood their ground and did the right thing.

But I think it would be foolish for us not to take the threats of this moment in our history very, very seriously because there are some things at play this time around that weren't there in the 1970s. You did not have rightwing media organs out there actively trying to undermine public trust in our government. You did not have a complicit United States Congress that, instead of doing oversight, seems to be spending more of its effort running cover for the administration, trying to hide the facts, trying to block investigations, playing tribal politics at its worst, instead of fulfilling our institutional role in a critical constitutional test like this.

I think it is a very, very serious moment in our history, and I am glad that the gentleman is convening discussions like this on the floor. We have to make sure that, in this investigation, the professional law enforcement personnel who do this for a living are allowed to do their job so that we can all learn the truth, whatever that may be.

The question is: What are they afraid of? What are they hiding?

This investigation is going to answer those questions, and we will all accept those answers, whatever they may be, but we have got to let the system work.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership tonight.