Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 8205 is yet another vehicle for Republican campaign messaging that does nothing to help the American people. It is simply another attempt by Republicans to baselessly claim that Democrats are soft on crime and to distract the American people from the indisputable fact that crime rates continue to drop across this country, as they have for each of the last several years.

This legislation, which would amend the Federal insurance fraud statute to define ``the business of insurance'' to include the posting of any kind of monetary bail, would do nothing to actually keep violent offenders off our streets.

Instead, it targets nonprofit bail funds that try to address the clear inequities that result when people without financial means are held pending trial simply because they can't afford to pay the bail amounts set by the courts.

Defendants who can afford to pay the bail amount set by the court are set free. In New York, we have such a person, a well-known person who was accused of many felonies was set free on bail pending trial, was convicted of 34 felonies, and is now free on bail pending sentencing. I refer, of course, to Donald Trump.

Nonprofit bail funds, the Minnesota Freedom Fund in particular, have become a favorite target of Republicans recently as they desperately try to prop up their failing Presidential candidate by attacking Vice President Harris and Governor Walz. Former President Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed that Vice President Harris donated to the Minnesota Freedom Fund and that her donation secured the release of a man who went on to commit murder.

This is nothing more than another made-up story the Republican ticket has created, and it is just as false as the former President's claim that immigrants are eating the dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio.

Minnesota Freedom Fund has confirmed that Vice President Harris has never donated to them and that her only relationship to the fund was a 2020 tweet encouraging people to chip in if they were able.

The fund, 2 years later, bailed out an offender who went on to commit murder. The majority's attempt to link this incident to Vice President Harris demonstrates that Republicans are willing to politicize even the most heinous crimes to serve their desperate needs.

We know from experience and from actual data that, when the political rhetoric is put aside, Democratic policies work to reduce crime. Homicides are down across the country. Violent crimes are down. Property crimes are down. We learned just last week that even drug overdoses are substantially down this year.

While my Republican colleagues love to criticize policies aimed at eliminating or reducing our justice system's reliance on cash bail, study after study, including a recent comprehensive study of 33 jurisdictions, shows that bail reform has not led to an increase in crime.

The majority's only answer to this mountain of evidence about the crime rate is to claim that the FBI's crime data is fraudulent or that it does not include critical jurisdictions, but the FBI's data covers jurisdictions encompassing more than 312 million Americans. It includes every jurisdiction in this Nation with more than 1 million people.

Moreover, data from other agencies and organizations show the same decrease in crime rates that are shown by the FBI's data.

Despite the bill's title, it has nothing to do with violent crime or offenders. It applies to entities that post any type of monetary bond, including noncriminal immigration bonds and bonds for nonviolent criminal offenses, which make up the vast majority of criminal bonds.

In fact, the provision of this bill that actually attempted to address violent crime was stripped from the bill in the Judiciary Committee. All that remains in the bill is the provision relating to insurance fraud, despite the title.

I expect that, during today's debate, Republicans will cite individual examples of people who committed violent offenses after being bailed out by nonprofit bail funds. Each is tragic, and our hearts go out to the victims and their families.

What my colleagues on the other side of the aisle won't mention is the thousands more who received help from these funds, finished their cases, and moved on with their lives without incident. The majority won't mention the people who commit crimes after being released with the help of commercial bail agents. Republicans will not mention that it is a judge, not a bail fund, who decides whether to set cash bail in a given case and, if so, in what amount.

Bail funds simply allow indigent defendants to obtain a release that a court has already deemed to be appropriate.

We must remember that we cannot ask for or expect perfection from our bail system. What we can do is to make sure that the solutions we propose for violent crimes are actually targeted to address the problem rather than to provide sound bites for social media.

There is no question that we must address the root causes of violent crime, invest in proven solutions, such as community violence intervention and drug treatment. We must also support law enforcement with funding and other resources rather than attacking the FBI, the ATF, and our other Federal partners relentlessly.

If and when the majority decides to get serious about combating violence in America, I will gladly join them in exploring serious solutions, but this legislation is no solution at all.

Mr. Speaker, therefore, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``no'' on H.R. 8205, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardenas).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, once again, Republicans have brought us to the brink of a government shutdown, threatening to cut off essential services for millions of Americans.

Instead of addressing the real needs of the American people, Republicans are poised to advance legislation that does little more than advance false Trump campaign rhetoric.

Although the majority claims that the bill is necessary to provide oversight of bail funds, the bill provides no oversight. It simply applies criminal penalties of up to 10 years, or 15 years in some cases, for misconduct that is already covered by Federal wire fraud and money laundering statutes.

The majority does not even attempt to explain how this bill will live up to its title of ``Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets,'' as the bill has nothing to do with addressing violent crimes.

Like the majority's failed hearings in blue cities across the country, this bill

is another baseless attempt by Republicans to engage in fear-mongering and to label Democrats as soft on crime while ignoring their own documented red State murder problem, the mountain of data showing that crime has been steadily declining throughout the U.S. under the Biden- Harris administration, and that bail reform policies have not contributed to increases in crime that occurred during the pandemic.

In bringing up this legislation, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seek to distract the American people from the fact that their own actions have repeatedly made every American, from Presidential candidates to school children, more at risk at every turn by failing to support law enforcement funding and commonsense gun safety measures.

I urge Members to oppose this flawed legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, rather than bring up an immigration bill that attempts to secure our border or address the broken immigration system, the Republican majority has brought us a bill that would simply bankrupt States and localities that have chosen a different path on immigration than the Republican agenda.

I am not surprised that this bill offers no solutions, though. Republicans have made it very clear that they are more interested in trying to scapegoat immigrants and score cheap political points, especially in these weeks leading up to the election, than in working to solve problems.

This legislation would prevent so-called sanctuary jurisdictions--in some cases entire States, like New York, California, and North Dakota-- from receiving any Federal funds that might ``benefit'' undocumented immigrants, resulting in drastic cuts to education, transportation, law enforcement, and healthcare. This bill is being rushed to the floor without following regular order. Given how poorly written this bill is, it is clear why its supporters might have wanted to shield it from greater scrutiny.

The title of the bill implies that it is narrowly crafted and targeted at Federal funds for undocumented immigrants in sanctuary jurisdictions. In reality, however, its impact would be much, much wider. It would target not only States led by Democrats like New York, California, and Illinois, but Republican strongholds like Utah and North Dakota, and its impact would be felt across the country.

Let's think about how this bill would affect our communities. For example, local police protect the public. They do not check a person's immigration status when responding to a call for help or answering a 911 call. As a result, under this bill, State and local police forces will lose millions of dollars in Byrne JAG grants from the Department of Justice, one of the main ways that the Federal Government supports police equipment purchases, training, and officer salaries.

Likewise, States are required by law to provide students with a K-12 public education regardless of immigration status. As such, States receive billions of dollars from the Department of Education to fund K- 12 education. Under this bill, any so-called sanctuary jurisdiction would lose this funding for all its students, regardless of their immigration status.

One more example that highlights how truly absurd this bill is: Last year, the Federal Government provided the States of California and New York, both of which are considered sanctuary jurisdictions under this bill, with $5 billion and $2.3 billion respectively to build and maintain highways, bridges, and pedestrian infrastructure. This funding benefits all of the States' residents, including undocumented immigrants, which puts the funding at risk under this bill.

My Republican colleagues will argue that we are reading the bill too broadly, but we know this is exactly what Republicans want to do.

The Trump administration has previously tried to condition Department of Justice funding on States changing their sanctuary city policies. Further, this concept is straight out of Project 2025, which specifically calls on a potential future Trump administration to try to coerce States and localities into adopting anti-immigrant policies by withholding Federal funds.

Republicans used the term ``sanctuary city'' the same way that Donald Trump tells stories about immigrants eating cats and dogs. They want their constituents to be afraid of immigrants and to imply that some cities harbor criminals and refuse to comply with Federal law. The truth is, in some cities, gaining the trust of immigrant communities is a key component of good policing.

The Major Cities Chiefs Association argues that when local police are viewed as colluding with immigration authorities, they may spur ``increased crime against immigrants in the broader community, create a class of silent victims, and eliminate the potential for assistance from immigrants in solving crimes or preventing future terroristic acts.'' Following this guidance, many cities across the country have adopted policies that limit contact between local police and Federal immigration agencies.

However, regardless of how someone may feel about sanctuary jurisdictions and community trust policies, the answer is not a blunt instrument that claws billions of dollars away from these States and localities. Our constituents send us here to fight for their interests, not to take away funds they depend on.

This is a dangerous and overly broad bill.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Let's be real. The reason these migrants are in New York is because they were bused there involuntarily by Governor Abbott of Texas.

Mr. LaLota's bill would remove from New York all Federal funding for schools, all funding for transportation, because it says that in a sanctuary State or city, anything that may benefit migrants will not be paid. As I said in my opening remarks, roads benefit migrants like anybody else, so no funding for roads, bridges, and highways. Schools benefit migrants like anybody else, so no funding for the schools.

This bill would essentially take all Federal funding away from New York State. Why Mr. LaLota would introduce a bill to take basically all Federal funding away from our joint State of New York is a question his constituents are going to have to address in 2 months.

Mr. Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington.

Mr. Chair, once again, I point out that what everyone thinks of the Biden administration's immigration policies, the only effect of this bill would be to take all Federal funds away from States like New York, California, North Dakota, Utah.

Again, for Mr. Molinaro, who represents New York, he will have to explain to his constituents why he thinks all Federal funds should be taken away from New York.

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Garcia), a new member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bowman).

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Chairman, as we get closer to the end of our fiscal year with no resolution in sight, we are wasting our time with these absurd bills.

I know that Members of this Chamber have very mixed feelings about appropriations bills and the earmarks that go along with them, but only in this backwards Congress would Members think that stripping their constituents of Federal funding is good policy.

This legislation, which offers no solutions and would serve only to punish our communities, is opposed by law enforcement, organized labor, and civil and immigrant rights organizations.

Mr. Chair, I urge all Members to oppose it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment makes a bad bill even worse. The underlying legislation is already dangerous and overly broad. It would prevent so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, in some cases entire States, from receiving any Federal funds that might benefit undocumented immigrants, resulting in drastic cuts to education, transportation, law enforcement, and healthcare.

To make matters worse, this amendment would force this bill into effect within 60 days of passage. So even if States and localities wanted to change their policies to comply with this bill, they likely would not be able to do so in time.

Many State legislatures are only in session for parts of the year. The legislature for my State of New York, for example, is only in session 6 months out of the year and does not convene again until January 2025.

There has been no consultation with the relevant agencies to determine if this short timeline is feasible, not only to determine every sanctuary jurisdiction, but also what funds and programs are impacted.

This amendment makes this dangerous bill even more absurd.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, again, this bill would take funds away not from illegal immigrants only; it would take funds away from everybody in many States and many cities. It would take virtually all funds for police; virtually all funds for highways, bridges, and roads; and virtually all funds for health and hospitals.

Most of the people who would suffer under this bill are American citizens.

The Republicans say: So what? They have made the choice to be a sanctuary space.

American citizens have this choice. They have the right to make decisions. That is what self-government is all about, and this bill comes along and says, let's take away the right of all of the people of New York, of California, of Utah, of North Dakota, and of Illinois to make decisions about their government. They are not really Americans. Let's take those rights away.

It is pernicious, and this amendment would say: Don't even give them the time to do it, and don't even give the Federal agencies the time to adjust their policies to do it.

This makes no sense.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am not going to get into a debate over the Biden administration's immigration policy. That is a separate debate that is happening.

The fact of the matter is that this bill would take virtually all Federal funds away from many States and many cities in this country.

A sanctuary jurisdiction is ineligible to receive any Federal funds that the sanctuary jurisdiction intends to use for the benefit, including the provision of food, shelter, healthcare services, legal services, and transportation of aliens who are present in the United States without lawful status.

Aliens present in the United States without lawful status use our roads and highways, so no road and highway money for all the people who are born who are here. Aliens who are here go to schools, so no funding for education. Aliens who are here go to hospitals when they are sick, so no funding for healthcare.

This makes no sense. This bill would take large amounts of money and virtually all Federal funds in fact away from many States in the Union.

Mr. Ogles says it would leave more money for Tennessee. I don't know whether that is true or not, but it would take virtually all Federal funds away from most States, and frankly as a Representative from New York which would lose all Federal funds, I wouldn't vote for a nickel for Tennessee in that case. That is because all Americans, whether in Tennessee or New York or Pennsylvania or Illinois, should be treated equally and not sacrificed on the altar of someone's opinion of immigration policy.

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

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, this amendment requires the Department of Homeland Security to provide an annual report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees listing all the jurisdictions that failed to comply with a detainer request or inform the Department about the release of an individual. It is important for us to take a step back and remember what this bill is about. This bill is intending to strip Federal funding from jurisdictions that have ``sanctuary'' policies.

I think a report like this would be quite illuminating for Members across the aisle because it would show Republicans just how many of their own constituents are being harmed with their own legislation.

Communities in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, just to name a few, would lose out on funding for central services, like public schools, infrastructure, and policing.

Yes, I think this report would help show exactly how damaging this legislation is, and, therefore, I do not oppose this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 9106, the Enhanced Presidential Security Act of 2024, requires the Secret Service to apply the same standards for determining the number of agents required to protect Presidents, Vice Presidents, and major Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates.

It also directs the Secret Service to conduct a review of the provision of protection provided to these individuals and to report its findings and recommendations to Congress.

I support this legislation to ensure that the Secret Service has the tools, resources, and procedures necessary to keep our highest elected officials and candidates safe, which is critical to our democratic system of government.

In advancing this legislation, Republicans are hoping to distract from the common denominator in every successful assassination of a U.S. President, as well as the attempted assassination of President Reagan and the attempted assassination of former Presidents and Presidential candidates Theodore Roosevelt and Donald Trump. In every single one of these events, the weapon used was a gun.

The fact is that the work of the Secret Service is made infinitely more difficult by our lax gun laws.

This Congress, the Republican majority has repeatedly sought to further weaken our gun laws, endangering our children, our law enforcement officers, our communities, and even their own Presidential candidate.

Last year, after a mass shooter killed six people, including three children, at a school in Nashville, Republicans fought to make sure everyone could continue to acquire the accessory that shooter used in circumvention of the National Firearms Act.

Earlier this year, our Republican colleagues cheered as the Supreme Court, stacked with Republican nominees, struck down the regulation of bump stocks, allowing the accessory used in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history to again be available to the public without even a background check.

When the Senate tried to bring up legislation to again regulate bump stocks, Senate Republicans blocked it. Similar legislation in the House has just one Republican cosponsor, and the Republican majority has refused to advance it.

Just today, Republicans used their control of the Judiciary Committee to advance a bill that would weaken the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, reinvigorate the black market for guns, and reopen the online and private sale loophole. That legislation would make it so that convicted felons, domestic abusers, and other dangerous persons who are prohibited from possessing a gun could easily get one without a background check. It would make it so that unlicensed sellers could, once again, profit from endangering our communities.

It doesn't stop there. Not only have they sought to unravel our gun laws through legislation and our courts, but our Republican colleagues have also sought to defund the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the primary agency tasked with enforcing our gun laws, including by helping State and local law enforcement solve violent crimes and keep guns out of the wrong hands.

The cumulative effect of these efforts is clear. We know from headline after headline that it is far too easy for violent individuals to get a gun and end a life or many lives in a matter of seconds. That is true whether the attacker targets schoolchildren, a domestic partner, a house of worship, or a Presidential candidate.

The challenges faced by the Secret Service would be vastly diminished if we passed any one of our many proposals to keep guns out of the wrong hands, but over and over, Republicans have prioritized access to deadly weapons over the safety of our communities.

I support this legislation because the Secret Service must be able to protect our highest elected officials and candidates, but this legislation will do nothing to make the rest of us any safer or change the fact that gun violence continues to take the lives of more than 100 Americans every single day.

As Republicans yet again rush headlong toward a government shutdown, unable to even manage the most basic aspects of governing, and as they continue to oppose every action to prevent gun violence, Democrats will continue to fight to make our communities safer for every American.

Mr. Speaker, I nonetheless urge my colleagues to support this modest legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this Nation is awash in guns. It is the only Nation where we have, time after time after time, school shootings, where we aren't even surprised at mass shooting events in schools. We are the only Nation that has mass shooting events because of our lax gun laws, because we are awash in guns.

Mr. Lawler says we should prosecute people who use guns in crimes. I agree. We certainly should. We certainly should do that, and if the people of New York aren't, they should. I can't comment on the New York laws. I haven't been in the legislature in 32 years. Mr. Lawler has been there more recently.

The fact of the matter is, this country is awash in guns, and Mr. Jordan says that a left-winger attempted to assassinate former President Trump. We don't know that. The person who attempted to assassinate him, we know, researched the whereabouts of former President Trump. He researched the whereabouts of President Biden. He seemed to want to kill somebody, and the evidence seems to point out that the reason he attacked Trump and not Biden was because Trump was holding a rally near where he was. However, the fact is he is dead, and we don't know. We certainly don't know his political opinions.

In any event, this country is awash in guns.

While this bill is a good bill, we should equally protect our Presidential candidates, whether they are the incumbent President or the would-be President and Vice-Presidential candidates. The fact is that Presidential candidates and all of us are less safe because this country is awash in guns, and it is the only country in the world--I shouldn't say that--there are countries where genocide is being committed, like Darfur in Sudan, but it is one of the only countries in the world awash in guns.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres), the cosponsor of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, once again, the Federal Government is just as it was this same time last year, on the brink of shutting down, threatening to cut off essential services for millions of Americans.

Instead of addressing the real needs of the American people, Republicans have spent this week spreading misinformation about immigrants, attempting to hide from their own record on reproductive care, and evading their responsibility to govern.

In bringing up this legislation, they seek to distract the American people from the fact that their own actions have repeatedly made every American, from Presidential candidates to schoolchildren, more at risk of gun violence.

When Democrats take back the House, we will work to make everyone in this Nation safer, but for today, I urge Members to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this partisan bill does nothing to combat the BDS movement. Rather, it seeks to codify the policy of labeling products that come from West Bank settlements as made in Israel.

In truth, such action is a backhanded attempt to illuminate a congressional green light for Israeli annexation of area C of the West Bank. Let's be clear. This measure is aimed at undermining American support for a two-state solution and, therefore, the Biden-Harris administration's critical and delicate efforts at diplomacy in the region.

Mr. Speaker, as a lifelong Zionist and a deeply committed Jew, I take Israel's safety and security incredibly seriously, so seriously that I believe that Israel should not be used as a partisan football to advance an electoral agenda.

Bringing this legislation to the floor is a Republican politically motivated misadventure to force Democrats to oppose a bill with ``anti- BDS'' in the title weeks before an election.

Republicans are seeking to use the United States' House of Representatives to strengthen the foreign policy legacy of a desperate former President Trump in the lead-up to November.

Mr. Speaker, we should not stand for it. I am sick and tired of the Republicans' blatantly bad-faith maneuvers to further politicize Israel, especially as we approach the 1-year anniversary of the horrific attack of October 7, the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust.

We deserve better, Mr. Speaker. The American people deserve better. The Israeli and Palestinian people deserve better.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues not to take the bait and to oppose this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, here we are again debating a bill that is another attempt by the majority to scapegoat and fearmonger about immigrants. This legislation purports to add new grounds of inadmissibility and deportability for sexual offenses, adds a new ground of inadmissibility for domestic violence and other related offensives, and expands the current grounds for deportability for domestic violence.

Sexual offenses and domestic violence are serious crimes, and if this bill fixed some gap in current law, I would have no problem supporting this legislation, but that is not the case here.

In reality, the redundancies in this bill all but ensure that no additional dangerous individuals would face immigration consequences if it were to become law. Instead, the overly broad definition and lack of any waiver authority in this bill would result in extremely harsh and unintended consequences, including the removal of survivors of domestic violence.

Let's be very clear: All serious sexual offenses are already grounds for deportability and inadmissibility. For example, an individual is rendered deportable if they are convicted of an aggravated felony, which includes rape, sexual abuse of a minor, or a crime of violence, which is defined as any ``offense that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person.''

Individuals who are convicted, or admit committing the act, of a crime involving moral turpitude, or a CIMT, are already subject to inadmissibility. Crimes in which there is intent to cause bodily harm have long been considered CIMTs. As such, people who are convicted or admit committing an act of any crime where there is an intent to cause bodily harm like sexual assaults are already inadmissible.

Where this bill has serious problems is in the sections relating to domestic violence. Under current law, people are rendered deportable if they are convicted of domestic violence and other related crimes and can be deemed inadmissible if they commit the acts or are convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude, where the domestic violence or related offense has intent to cause bodily harm. The crime of domestic violence is already well covered by current law.

However, this bill attempts to significantly expand the definition of domestic violence to include the Violence Against Women Act definition that is used for grants and funding. This is a much broader definition that was never meant to be used in criminal law. We know that because the definition explicitly says it covers conduct ``that may or may not constitute criminal behavior.''

The definition for domestic violence under Federal criminal law focuses on physical force. This broader VAWA-based definition sweeps in a wider range of behaviors that domestic violence organizations say will implicate survivors who have used violence in self-defense or who were accused by their abusers and were either unable to defend themselves or pled guilty to avoid having to go through the court process.

The bill would also make it less likely that immigrant communities will report incidents of domestic violence.

We recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of the passage of VAWA, and we should continue our work to combat domestic violence, but this legislation would actually set back our efforts to protect survivors.

That is why over 200 national and local groups, as part of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, the experts in the field, oppose this legislation. I think we ought to listen to them. We need to work together to solve our immigration problems, but this bill takes us in the wrong direction.

It attempts to fearmonger and demonize immigrants, just like the disgusting and absurd comments by former President Trump and many of his colleagues related to Haitians eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, a claim that has been thoroughly debunked, including by the Republican mayor of Springfield and Republican Governor DeWine of Ohio. Those comments have led to Springfield City Hall and several of its schools being evacuated and closed and multiple hospitals being locked down due to bomb threats.

My Republican colleagues may think that their words and lack of care have no impact, but sadly, we have seen that they can set off a deadly chain reaction.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this misguided bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I must say I find the gentlewoman's references to the Harris or the Biden-Harris war on women ironic coming from the Representative of a political party, the Republican Party, whose abortion policies have caused countless women to die, to bleed out while the doctors wait to operate, fearing felonies because of the anti-abortion laws in various States.

I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill does not close any gaps in the law, does not fix any of the myriad problems with our immigration system or the southern border, and would actually harm the very people it purports to protect.

It is another excuse for the Republican majority to play politics with immigration without doing any of the hard work involved in finding bipartisan solutions.

I urge Members to oppose this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, due to a family health concern, I was not in Washington, D.C. on September 9, 2024, and, as a result, I missed two votes. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 401, and NAY on Roll Call No. 402.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1398. This legislation, which would establish a so-called CCP Initiative within the national security division of the DOJ, is simply a rehash of the Trump administration's failed China Initiative by another name. Resurrecting this misguided program, as this bill would do, represents a clear step backwards.

When the Trump Justice Department launched what it called the China Initiative in 2018, it claimed its purpose was to counter efforts by the Chinese Government to steal American intellectual property. This might have been a laudable goal, but what actually resulted was little more than a series of unsupportable cases against Chinese academics at the height of their careers that left their reputations in tatters.

The government was forced to drop many of these prosecutions. Others failed in court. Even more were overturned on appeal. No matter how you look at the data, a postmortem analysis shows that the China Initiative was an undisputed failure. From the flimsy cases brought under this program to the so-called brain drain of scientists of Chinese descent who left American research labs, the China Initiative hurt our interests here at home.

The Trump DOJ devoted significant resources to targeting professors of Chinese descent working in the United States, diverting crucial funding and personnel that could have been used to combat actual economic espionage and trade secret theft.

However, the China Initiative did not just waste valuable resources. If you were a person of Chinese descent working in American higher education, you were a suspect. Rather than keeping America safe, the China Initiative divided workplaces, ruined careers, and contributed to anti-Asian hate at the height of the pandemic.

The resulting chilling effect hampered American innovation by discouraging foreign talent from moving to American companies and disincentivizing Chinese researchers from accepting positions at our institutions of higher learning.

It is foolhardy to punish China by harming American innovation, but by discouraging researchers from working here, that is exactly what the Trump administration did with the China Initiative. Countries around the world send their best and brightest to the United States for education and to perform valuable research in our academic institutions.

Instead of welcoming their contributions to our economy and to our society, programs like the China Initiative encouraged them to take their training and their talents elsewhere.

We cannot quantify those missed opportunities. There is no way to know what inventions never came to be, but we can realize when we made a mistake and move on. This bill would prevent us from doing so.

Despite its well documented failures, reviving the China Initiative is a key plank of the ultraconservative Project 2025 agenda, the blueprint for a potential new Trump administration. Republicans cannot credibly argue that resurrecting this program is about keeping Americans and our business secrets safe because we know that racially profiling professors of Chinese descent was unsuccessful. It did, however, contribute to an us versus them mentality that divided Americans and heightened tensions across the country.

It is particularly disappointing that we are engaging in this partisan exercise because the fact is that Democrats and Republicans largely agree that China poses a threat to the United States. There are bipartisan bills ready for markup, ones that could pass on suspension today, but instead the majority has chosen to take up bills that divide us.

Since the end of the China Initiative, the DOJ has embraced a broader strategy to counter threats from hostile nations, not just China, but Iran, North Korea, and Russia. For example, the Disruptive Technology Strike Force has been lauded by both sides of the aisle for doing what the China Initiative failed to do. It collaborates across agencies to prevent nation-state actors from illicitly acquiring our most sensitive technology by successfully investigating and prosecuting illegal procurement networks.

We are on the right path to protecting our Nation's secrets and keeping Americans safe. This legislation would take us in the opposite direction.

I oppose this legislation. I encourage my colleagues to do the same, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Chu).

Mr. Chair, I have two comments before I call on the next speaker. Number one, I wouldn't count on the next Trump administration--maybe, but I wouldn't count on it.

Number two, during the Trump administration, anti-Asian crimes spiked, and as I recall, we passed an anti-Asian crimes bill, which was signed into law by President Biden.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Veasey).

Mr. Chair, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Krishnamoorthi).

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Tokuda).

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, it has been said that figures don't lie but liars figure. The figures are very clear. Crime has gone down under the Biden administration. I don't care what anybody in this Chamber says. Those are the statistics. Consult the FBI and crime statistics. Crime has gone down every single year since the Biden administration took office. No one can debate that, at least no one can debate that if you believe the FBI statistics or any other statistics, unless you are getting your information from the Trump campaign or from Project 2025 or other less than honest sources.

Having said that, I urge the defeat of this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Chairman, using fear and division for political benefit while pushing policies that hurt American innovation and American ideals is irresponsible and dangerous. However, that is exactly what we are doing here today.

The China Initiative was a divisive program that made Americans afraid of one another and produced zero benefits. Donald Trump and the MAGA movement had 4 years to come up with new policy solutions, but they decided to play politics instead.

Just last week, we learned that the Russian Government was paying conservative influencers in an attempt to manipulate our elections. We also know that they are not the only hostile foreign nation trying to do so.

We should be working to address that threat. We should be working to protect our elections. Instead, we are taking part in a partisan exercise that does nothing except take our eye off the ball to the real dangers to our people, our government, and our businesses.

There is so much we could do together. Under the Biden-Harris administration we enacted the bipartisan Chips and Science Act which has sparked tremendous investment in domestic manufacturing of computer chips crucial to national security. That is what actual leadership and that is what actual policy solutions look like. Unfortunately, Republicans have chosen the politics of division.

Instead of looking forward and developing new strategies for taking on the threats that face this Nation, the Republican majority wants to take us back to the failed policies of the past. The Chinese Government poses real threats, but this bill would do nothing to address them while setting back our efforts to take meaningful action.

The China Initiative failed to address any of the actual threats posed by the Chinese Government and only succeeded in ruining the careers of academics and scientists of Chinese descent while stifling American innovation.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition, even though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment would add to the annual report a study on the impact of hacking and trade secret theft by the PRC on the United States economy.

If anything, this amendment highlights the magnitude of agreement between Republicans and Democrats on the danger from the Government of China to our economy and our security. I have no problem with the Department of Justice increasing its reporting to us. I, too, would like to know how hacking by PRC-affiliated groups impacts the United States economy.

For that matter, I would like to know how it impacts our elections and our national security, too. If this bill only consisted of its annual report section, we could all agree and move on. Agreement, however, is not a possibility under this partisan exercise.

The China Initiative is part of the Trump Project 2025 agenda not because of its potential for good bipartisan work, but, rather, when the China Initiative was an active program, it divided Americans and encouraged foreign scientists to leave our research labs.

This bill would do the same, and improving the reporting section unfortunately will not change that.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition, even though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment would require agencies to identify intellectual property theft of small businesses by the CCP. I have no concerns with adding this to the legislation, and I agree that it is important that we root out instances of intellectual property theft of small businesses.

Unfortunately, adding this provision to H.R. 1398 does not make small businesses any safer from IP theft by the Government of China. In fact, it puts them in even more danger.

Since the end of the China Initiative, the Department of Justice has implemented the Strategy for Countering Nation-State Threats and the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, which have been effective at rooting out economic espionage and trade theft by nation-states, including China.

The China Initiative was a total failure. Adding this well- intentioned amendment to Frankenstein's monster is not going to make this program less of a failure when we resurrect it.

Moreover, by requiring the DOJ to create a duplicate program and then attempting to impose limitations on the use of resources, this bill dilutes and ultimately reduces the ability of prosecutors and investigators to respond to the range of foreign threats faced by the United States.

Again, I support this amendment and the spirit with which it is offered, even though it would not improve the underlying bill.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would require an analysis of the use of unmanned aircraft by the PRC, as well as related elements, such as communication links and components required to operate safely and efficiently in national airspace.

I appreciate that the gentleman from Florida is curious about spying by the PRC in the United States. I think we all are. As with all of these other amendments, even if, by themselves, they were a good or even just neutral idea, they cannot make the China Initiative redux any better. I have said this repeatedly throughout this process. We agree on the threat from the government of China, so what is the purpose of bringing up a bill that divides us?

I would also note that the investigation into the PRC's use of CUAS to spy on the United States is being conducted by multiple agencies, including the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and the

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment would require prosecutors to investigate investments made by Chinese companies and subsidiaries listed on the Bureau of Industry and Security's Entity List and the DOD's PRC Military Companies List.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment primarily because the language here exemplifies the broader problem with

the entire legislation. By requiring an agency to investigate certain parties, the China Initiative did not give prosecutors leeway to prioritize cases or to choose where to expend resources. This all-or- nothing approach resulted in a culture of fear in research labs across America with few successful prosecutions to show for it.

This approach is what led to investigations of grant applications for paperwork errors. Rather than looking for the individuals seeking to commit trade crimes, the requirement to investigate relegated many DOJ prosecutors to the role of meter maids handing out parking tickets.

Mr. Chair, I am also opposed to this amendment because we already do something very similar. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States already looks at all pending Chinese investments into the United States.

This amendment would duplicate this work, causing a further strain on the limited resources available at the Department of Justice.

Finally, the language is unclear as to the limit of these investigations. This broad mandate for investigations into existing investments without any clear objective, again, could lead to the kind of overreach the original China Initiative suffered from.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment and encourage my colleagues to do the same, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, S. 3706, the Victims' Voices Outside and Inside the Courtroom Effectiveness Act, or the Victims' VOICES Act, is bipartisan legislation that would amend the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act to make certain family members, friends, legal guardians, and others eligible to receive repayment for expenses incurred as a result of helping victims of crime seek justice and restorative care.

While the intention of the MVRA is to ensure that victims of violent crime, crimes against property, and other crimes are compensated by defendants for their losses, the limitations placed on who may receive restitution can create unfair consequences for those who have provided much-needed support to victims.

That is why it has become necessary for Congress to consider the broader impact of the diverse judicial interpretations of the MVRA on those individuals who play a vital role in helping victims recover and heal.

Victims of crime often experience a range of emotional, physical, and psychological challenges that can make it difficult to navigate the complex, legal, and therapeutic processes involved in pursuing justice and healing.

In the wake of these crimes, particularly violent crimes, support from family members, friends, legal guardians, and others is crucial for victims not only to actively participate in the investigation and prosecution of their cases, but to receive the medical care, psychological treatment, and other support services that they so desperately need.

These exceptional people play a critical role in providing comfort and assistance to victims of crime, which requires significant time and effort. Oftentimes, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, guardians, and best friends take on the daunting responsibility of transporting their loved ones over several weeks and months or sometimes even years to meet with investigators and prosecutors or to receive treatment, therapy, or other services.

They sit through monthslong trials, sentencing hearings, and other court proceedings alongside their traumatized loved ones, providing support and encouragement while spending countless hours away from their jobs, needing additional childcare, and spending huge amounts of money on travel.

Unfortunately, several jurisdictions have refused to allow repayment of the money spent or not earned by family members and others who they have determined do not meet the MVRA's definition of ``victim.''

Despite recognizing the good policy reasons for allowing a court to order reimbursement to a victim's representative for such expenditures, the Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits, as well as many lower courts, have held that the language of the MVRA limits restitution to losses incurred only by victims and not by those who help them. We must not allow this injustice to persist.

It is, therefore, necessary that Congress makes clear that family members and others should receive compensation for the costs they have incurred as a result of aiding victims of crime as they traverse the lengthy and often overwhelming path to justice.

This legislation would satisfy this objective by clarifying that restitution should be made to family members and others in the same manner as victims for lost income, childcare, transportation, and other expenses incurred to participate in an investigation or prosecution, attend proceedings, or transport the victim for medical care, treatment, or therapy.

By ensuring that courts are authorized to order restitution in this manner, this legislation would encourage the provision of support to victims and ensure perpetrators of crime are made to pay for all of the losses they cause while advancing fairness, accountability, and justice.

I commend the sponsor of the House version of this bill, Ms. Hageman, along with her bipartisan lead Cosponsors, Representatives Lucy McBath, Hank Johnson, and Nathaniel Moran for their efforts, along with the Senate sponsors of this bill.

I encourage my colleagues to join me and a broad coalition of victims' advocacy groups and law enforcement in support of this thoughtful, bipartisan legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, family members, legal guardians, and others work closely with victims of crime as they work to resolve the trauma of their victimization and the offenses committed against them. Having a strong support system can help victims feel empowered and less isolated in their experiences, which can ultimately strengthen their resolve to participate in the investigation and prosecution of the crime, and to seek treatment for injuries seen and unseen.

S. 3706, the Victims' VOICES Act would authorize courts to order defendants to pay restitution not only to victims of crime for their losses, but also to others for the costs they incur as they stand with victims in the pursuit of justice. I support this bipartisan legislation and encourage my colleagues to do the same.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the Improving Access to Our Courts Act would amend title 28 of the United States Code to provide an additional place for holding court in the Western District of Texas and in the Western District of Washington.

These additional courthouses are needed to better serve the 12.2 million people who call these two districts home.

Both districts are comprised of wide areas of land. The Western District of Washington takes up half of Washington State and the Western District of Texas covers the western 68 counties of the State, which is over 92,000 square miles and is so large that it is in two separate time zones.

Consequently, the citizens of these two districts often need to travel for hours to access the courthouse doors. On paper, our basic rights do not change depending on where we live, yet in practice that is exactly what is happening.

It makes no sense that just because someone lives in a more rural, expansive district, they should incur dramatically increased travel time and administrative costs to seek justice. Adding courthouses is a small step in the right direction toward making the judicial system accessible to all Americans no matter where they live.

The Judicial Conference has recommended the addition of these two courthouses, a recommendation that grew even more urgent after the Western District of Washington's Bellingham facility had part of its roof collapse.

This country cannot have a flourishing justice system when its buildings are falling apart, its staff are underpaid, and there is a perpetual shortage of judges to fairly administer the laws.

This bill will not fix all of these problems, but it will take a small step to help millions of Americans gain equal access to justice, and I think it is a step worth taking.

We previously passed the House version of this legislation, and I look forward to once again voting in favor of this important legislation, this time to send it to President Biden's desk.

Finally, I thank Representatives Tony Gonzales, Rick Larsen, and Suzan DelBene in the House and Senators Cornyn, Murray, Cruz, and Cantwell in the Senate for working on a bipartisan basis to introduce this legislation to improve the lives of the residents of Texas and Washington.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation makes a modest but important change to help improve access to justice for millions of Americans. I thank the sponsors, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 4548, the Foreign Extortion Prevention Technical Corrections Act.

Last year, we enacted the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act, or FEPA, landmark legislation that would combat kleptocracy and help protect the rule of law.

FEPA was the first expansion of our country's antibribery and anticorruption laws in nearly 50 years. This law provides another useful tool to combat corruption and stop it at its source by making it a crime for any foreign official to solicit or accept a bribe from any American person or American company.

It was already the law that U.S. persons who offer to pay bribes overseas could be prosecuted, but there was no corresponding law prohibiting foreign entities and officials from demanding or accepting bribes.

Foreign corrupt officials too often demand bribes from companies hoping to do business with them. This unethical practice unfairly benefits dishonest companies, granting them a competitive advantage, and placing law-abiding companies and citizens, including American ones, at a disadvantage.

FEPA changed that by stopping corruption at its source. The passage of FEPA was a watershed moment for our

democracy, particularly because research shows that the vast majority of bribe-demanding foreign officials never face consequences in their own countries. FEPA makes it much harder for these foreign officials to cultivate a culture where corruption and bribery are the norm.

After FEPA was enacted into law, it became clear that certain technical corrections were necessary to fully effectuate the law. This legislation would make those necessary changes to ensure that our fight to end corruption is well equipped. I was proud to vote for FEPA last year, and I am proud to vote for it again through this bill.

I must observe that consideration of this bill is bittersweet today because the House sponsor of FEPA was our late, beloved colleague, Sheila Jackson Lee, who we lost just this past weekend.

Her impact on this Chamber was immeasurable, and she was the champion of so many issues from criminal justice to voting rights to civil rights and civil liberties and so much more.

She was also passionate about fighting against corruption, both at home and abroad, and passage of today's bill would be a small tribute to the mark that she has left on this country and on all of us.

This legislation simply makes technical corrections to the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act, important bipartisan anticorruption legislation, which was enacted last year. This bill has already passed the Senate.

I urge all Members to support the bill and send it to the President's desk, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, no.

Mr. Speaker, the Pro Codes Act is sensible, bipartisan legislation that strikes a balance between copyright protection and public access to information, thus resolving a clear uncertainty in the law.

This legislation would allow standards developing organizations, or SDOs, to retain their copyrights when their standards are incorporated by reference into the law, so long as they make a copy freely available online.

SDOs are organizations that develop and publish standards to govern certain highly technical industries. These best practices govern everything from consumer safety and household utility installation to home electrical wiring and plumbing planning.

SDOs make sure that your house won't catch on fire, your plumbing is up to code, your water boiler is installed correctly, and everything in between. You rely on your local contractor, and your contractor relies on their SDO standards.

State and local legislatures, which generally do not have the requisite experts on staff to write highly technical standards, often choose to incorporate rigorously developed and diligently updated SDO standards by reference into the law. In this way, legislators can key their State's laws to codes that are regularly updated, as mistakes are fixed, new methods are developed, and technological advancements are incorporated into best practices.

However, this practice exists at the crux of a dilemma in American intellectual property law today. On one hand, everyone typically benefits when local, State, or Federal legislators adopt content developed by SDOs into their laws. The law benefits from dynamic safety codes created by experts in their fields, and SDOs in turn benefit from more customers for their published works. If the copyright to that material were taken away, the incentives for the SDOs would disappear and the mutually beneficial relationship would no longer exist.

On the other hand, Americans also have an essential interest in knowing that they can access the laws that govern them. Because of this principle, once a code is enacted into law, Americans must have access to this information because if you can't find the code, you don't know how it will affect you.

The Pro Codes Act seeks to find the middle ground between these two competing interests. This legislation would

allow SDOs to retain their copyrights when their standards are incorporated by reference into the law so long as they make a copy available online at no cost.

Although I support this legislation, I do want to note that the bill could have been improved further had we held a hearing, as I and others had requested. A hearing would have enabled Members to ask questions of stakeholders with various viewpoints, to make any necessary refinements, and to convince more of our colleagues that this bill is the right path forward. Unfortunately, that process did not occur. Be that as it may, I still believe that this legislation would improve our laws by protecting SDOs' intellectual property rights while ensuring that Americans have access to the laws that bind them.

I thank Chairman Issa and Congresswoman Ross for introducing this bipartisan legislation. I urge all Members to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the dishonesty that we have just heard is illustrated by what Mr. Jordan just said, his selective quote from Mr. Hur's report. He said: ``Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice- presidency when he was a private citizen.''

The report does say that, but he neglects a sentence a paragraph later: ``However, for the reasons summarized below, we conclude that the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.'' That is deceptive.

Secondly, as the majority well knows, the President asserted executive privilege in this matter. Maybe that was proper, maybe not, but the way to contest executive privilege is not by a contempt resolution. It is by going to court and letting the court decide whether the exercise of executive privilege is warranted or not. For that reason also, this resolution fails.

Mr. Speaker, the Judiciary Committee, under Republican control, has spent the last 18 months and 20 million taxpayer dollars in a desperate search to find something, anything, that they can use to damage President Biden and to protect Donald Trump.

Other committees have gotten into the act as well, spending untold taxpayer money not to benefit the American people, not to feed hungry children, not to address our housing crisis, and not to improve our healthcare system, but on a single-minded quest to follow every rightwing conspiracy theory in the vain hope that it might lead to some evidence of wrongdoing.

What exactly have they delivered to the American people on their investment? Nothing. No evidence that the conspiracies are true, no indictments, no impeachment, no wins of any significance. The Republican leadership knows that if they don't come up with something to show for the millions of dollars they have spent, the MAGA political base may stay home next November.

They are scrambling in a desperate attempt to look like they have accomplished something. They were fervently hoping that Special Counsel Hur would indict President Biden for mishandling classified documents so that they could attack President Biden and misdirect the American people away from Donald Trump's treacherous handling of classified information.

However, the special counsel cleared Mr. Biden of wrongdoing for reasons that have nothing to do with Mr. Hur's gratuitous and widely contradicted comments about the President's memory.

What do our Republican friends do when an investigation turns up short? Simply put, they engage in fantasy. That is what they are doing here today. Unable to come up with any wrongdoing by the President, they have now trained their sights on the Attorney General. They accuse him of withholding key evidence, but the Attorney General has substantially complied with their every request. Sometimes he has been too responsive, in my opinion, given the obvious bad faith of the MAGA majority.

The DOJ has produced 92,000 pages of documents since Republicans took control of the House last year and has made dozens of witnesses available for interviews, hearings, and briefings. That is more pages of documents and more witnesses than the Trump Justice Department produced to Congress in 4 years. Just last week, the Attorney General himself spent more than 5 hours testifying before the Judiciary Committee.

With respect to the subpoena at issue in this contempt resolution, the Department turned over all the information Republicans asked for. There has been no obstruction, only cooperation. In reality, the Attorney General and DOJ have been fully responsive to Congress in every way that might be material to their long-dead impeachment inquiry.

All that remains are audio files for which the President has asserted executive privilege. In a letter to Chairmen Jordan and Comer, the Department of Justice noted that producing the audio recordings would ``raise an unacceptable risk of undermining the Department's ability to conduct . . . high-profile criminal investigations; in particular, investigations where the voluntary cooperation of the White House officials is exceedingly important.''

The chairmen claim that they need those records to understand the pauses,

pace, and tone of the conversation. This is absurd and clearly pretextual. In any event, it does not outweigh the extensive concerns expressed by the President and the Department.

Moreover, with respect to the recording at issue in this report, a complete certified transcript has already been provided to both committees, and no credible allegation has been made that these transcripts have been altered in any material way. The only thing that has not been introduced is the recording itself, something that in the wrong hands can be easily manipulated.

That is not an idle concern. Deepfakes and misleadingly edited videos and recordings have proliferated in recent years. Last year, a witness testifying in a closed-door deposition told us that she was the victim of a manipulated video made by a third party but shared widely by the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, who refused to take down the video even after it was abundantly clear that it was manipulated. That video contributed to a flood of death threats against the witness.

This isn't really about a policy disagreement with the DOJ. This is about feeding the MAGA base after 18 months of investigations that have produced failure after failure.

Like most of the bills House Republicans have pushed on purely partisan lines, this contempt resolution will do very little other than smear the reputation of Merrick Garland, who will remain a good and decent public servant no matter what Republicans say about him today.

This resolution may boost Donald Trump's spirits before his sentencing, but it will almost certainly not convince the Department of Justice to produce the one remaining file in question. Like the broader impeachment effort before it, this contempt resolution will have been a partisan stunt, destined to fail from the very start. As I said before, if they were really interested in getting this recording, they would contest the assertion of executive privilege in court, not bring a contempt resolution against the Attorney General.

The American people actually need us to do important work. I am tired of these games, and so are the American people. I urge my colleagues to oppose this measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), the distinguished ranking member of the Oversight and Accountability Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman just attacked Special Counsel Smith. This dangerous attempt to demonize anybody who would hold Donald Trump accountable for his actions is despicable and it is a full-out assault on the basic tenets of our democracy.

I want to remind my colleagues that these types of actions have consequences. They affect the lives of many men and women who have dedicated themselves to public service and upholding the rule of law.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a June 11, 2024, article from The Washington Post by the Honorable Merrick Garland titled: ``Unfounded attacks on the Justice Department must end.''

[June 11, 2024]

Unfounded Attacks on the Justice Department Must End

(By Merrick Garland)

Merrick Garland is attorney general of the United States.

Last week, a California man was convicted of threatening to

bomb an FBI field office where hundreds of agents and other

employees work. In one of his threats to the FBI, the man

wrote: ``I can go on a mass murder spree. In fact, it would

be very explainable by your actions.''

These heinous threats of violence have become routine in an

environment in which the Justice Department is under attack

like never before.

In recent weeks, we have seen an escalation of attacks that

go far beyond public scrutiny, criticism, and legitimate and

necessary oversight of our work. They are baseless, personal

and dangerous.

These attacks come in the form of threats to defund

particular department investigations, most recently the

special counsel's prosecution of the former president.

They come in the form of conspiracy theories crafted and

spread for the purpose of undermining public trust in the

judicial process itself. Those include false claims that a

case brought by a local district attorney and resolved by a

jury verdict in a state trial was somehow controlled by the

Justice Department.

They come in the form of dangerous falsehoods about the

FBI's law enforcement operations that increase the risks

faced by our agents.

They come in the form of efforts to bully and intimidate

our career public servants by repeatedly and publicly

singling them out.

They come in the form of false claims that the department

is politicizing its work to somehow influence the outcome of

an election. Such claims are often made by those who are

themselves attempting to politicize the department's work to

influence the outcome of an election.

And media reports indicate there is an ongoing effort to

ramp up these attacks against the Justice Department, its

work and its employees.

We will not be intimidated by these attacks. But it is

absurd and dangerous that public servants, many of whom risk

their lives every day, are being threatened for simply doing

their jobs and adhering to the principles that have long

guided the Justice Department's work.

In my first job at the Justice Department some 45 years

ago, I worked on what would become the department's first

edition of the Principles of Federal Prosecution. That set of

rules for prosecutors enshrined what every department

employee lives by every single day: an unwavering commitment

to the fair and impartial application of our laws. That

commitment has been sustained by dedicated career

professionals who serve across administrations of both

political parties.

The Justice Department makes decisions about criminal

investigations based only on the facts and the law. We do not

investigate people because of their last name, their

political affiliation, the size of their bank account, where

they come from or what they look like. We investigate and

prosecute violations of federal law--nothing more, nothing

less.

We do this not only because of the principles that have

long guided our work, but also because we know that our

democracy cannot survive without a justice system that

ensures the equal protection of law for all its citizens.

The Justice Department will continue to uphold its

obligation under the Constitution to fiercely defend the

right of all Americans to peacefully express opinions,

beliefs and ideas. Disagreements about politics are good for

our democracy. They are normal.

But using conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and

threats of violence to affect political outcomes is not

normal. The short-term political benefits of those tactics

will never make up for the long-term cost to our country.

Continued unfounded attacks against the Justice

Department's employees are dangerous for people's safety.

They are dangerous for our democracy. This must stop.

It is absurd and dangerous that public servants, many of whom risk their lives every day, are being threatened for simply doing their jobs and adhering to the principles that have long guided the Justice Department's work. I would also remind my friends on the other side of the aisle that the conviction of Mr. Trump was in a State court in New York having nothing to do with the Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Swalwell).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Dean).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Vermont (Ms. Balint).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Vermont.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

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

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans have spent the last 18 months in a futile effort to dig up dirt on President Biden, which has culminated in their epic failure of an impeachment inquiry. This resolution is nothing more than a desperate attempt to save face with the MAGA- sphere.

They seek to hold the Attorney General in contempt even though he has already turned over all the underlying information they requested in their subpoena. This resolution will not change that fact, but facts have never been the animating force behind their investigations.

It is a show, and apparently, the show must go on even though the script hasn't turned out the way they wanted. Nevertheless, the reviews are in, and it is a flop, so I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this resolution and to put an end to this farce.

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

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