Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Do you want me to read you the transcript?

Mr. HOYER. Who appointed Mr. Mueller?

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. When he is talking about the whistleblower, is that the person that the President of the United States said ought to be treated as if he had done treason? And we know what we do to those who commit treason. Is that the whistleblower you want outed? Is that the whistleblower you want to expose to that kind of danger? Is that what you are talking about?

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I would ask the whip----

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, there is no such rule. None.

Mr. HOYER. But Mr. Scalise believes, Madam Speaker, the more he repeats it, somebody will believe it.

Mr. HOYER. Have you yielded to me?

Mr. HOYER. Have you yielded to me?

Mr. HOYER. There is no such rule. There are no requirements for any committee to undertake any investigation that you have to have a rule passed by this House. And the gentleman apparently thinks that, by having an investigation and an inquiry, somehow that is an impeachment; it is not. He is absolutely right. To impeach would have to have a vote of this House. Clearly, that is correct. That is consistent with the Constitution and the laws of this country. There is nothing that says--other than the Republicans who repeat it ad nauseam because they are hopeful that some people will believe what they say, that somehow it is unfair that Democrats and Republicans are sitting together as the constituted Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence looking at this matter. Everybody has a right to ask a question in that room. All Members have a right to review the materials. What he doesn't like is the rule that they put in place, Madam Speaker, about who can call witnesses. They said the minority could not call witnesses unless the chairman and the committee approved of it. That is their rule, not our rule. We adopted our rule. We kept that rule in. I asked the gentleman, Madam Speaker, a question. Does he believe it is right for a President of the United States to seek foreign interference in our elections? He has not answered that question. Here is the--it is not a transcript. It is a report of the conversation, which came from the White House. I would hope we could count on its accuracy. President: ``I would like you to do us a favor, though.'' What do you think ``though'' means? Yes, I know you want something, but I would like to you do a favor, ``though.'' Mulvaney: Aid withheld to press Ukraine. Now, he doesn't say what it was for. I get that. But you don't think President Zelensky had any doubt: I would like you to do a favor. Now, the whip, Madam Speaker, has not answered my question whether he thinks it is appropriate for a President to ask a foreign leader for help in the elections, whether it was the 2016 or the 2020 elections. I happen to believe it was the 2020 elections. He talks about Hunter Biden; he talks about Joe Biden all the time. So it would not be an unreasonable conclusion that that is what he was talking about. Let me ask you another question.

Mr. HOYER. Before I do that, let me say, collusion, by the way, my friend, is not a crime. What, however, Mr. Mueller did find is that there was reason to believe that there was obstruction of justice, which is a crime. He said, however, that, under Justice Department's rulings, he could not indict the sitting President, so he referred it to us. Now, he is not a special prosecutor, as Mr. Schiff pointed out. The special prosecutors who precluded the two most recent impeachment proceedings, by the way, did their work in secret. They did their work as a grand jury does their work. And, by the way, I don't think the gentleman is a lawyer, but in the grand jury, people under investigation do not have the right either to question, present evidence, or have counsel present in a grand jury. That is the prosecutors trying to find out whether there is probable cause that a crime has been committed by A, B, or C. And at that point in time, if the grand jury agrees, an indictment is laid down, and then all the due process rights to which Mr. Cipollone talked about in his letter--he did go to law school, and I don't know how he wrote that letter. It has been panned by almost every legal scholar that has reviewed it. But I will tell my friend, do you believe it is appropriate to need a favor--clearly about the elections, whatever election. Do you believe it is appropriate for us to ask a foreign leader to involve themselves in our elections?

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I know he is very interested in reading the whole thing, so let me read him some more of the report we got from the White House. The other thing: ``There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that.'' So: ``Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it''--that doesn't sound to me like the 2016 election--``if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me.'' What do you mean he doesn't mention Biden? I will give you a copy of this, if you would like, if you want to read the whole--I have read the whole thing. What do you think Giuliani was talking about? 2016? No. Two of his compatriots, of course, million-dollar bail; the Ambassador, fired. Why? Because she wouldn't cooperate with making a foreign leader complicit in the elections of the United States of America. She had the courage to come testify, as did the security adviser for Russia from the White House in this administration. Now, frankly, Madam Speaker, I don't think this is the time to argue the case. The time continues to be finding out the facts, finding out the facts. And those facts, every day, are more instructive, whether it is Mr. Giuliani, the President's lawyer, who was substituted, Madam Speaker, for the State Department--a private State department. The gentleman still hasn't answered my question: Is it appropriate? I want a favor. And oh, by the way, the Bidens, you know, that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, you really ought to look at them. Everybody who has looked at this has said, including the present prosecutor--or the recently present. I don't think he still is the prosecutor, but the subsequent prosecutor said: We looked at this. Nothing there. Nothing there. That wasn't acceptable, of course, to the President of the United States, so he kept beating on it. And he had $391 million needed by our Ukrainian friends to defend themselves against the Russians, otherwise known as Putin. Maybe Putin didn't want that money to go to Russia, to go to Ukraine, Madam Speaker. We just did a resolution for which Mr. Scalise voted, and that resolution essentially said that the actions taken the other day by the President in a phone call with the authoritarian leader of Ukraine helped Russia, helped Iran, helped Syria----

Mr. HOYER.--and hurt our allies in the fight against ISIS, and has now reached an agreement that the President claimed some victory on where the Turks got everything they wanted and our allies are going to be pushed out.

Mr. HOYER. No, sir.

Mr. HOYER. No, I did not make that assertion.

Mr. HOYER. What I said was that we are going to obviously have, and the committee is having, a hearing on that very matter without a vote of this committee, because it is their responsibility. And your minority member, Mr. McCaul, is for that resolution that is going to come out on the Turkish sanctions. My point to you is there was no vote of this body that they should do that. They are doing their responsibility as the Select Committee on Intelligence, as the Committee on the Judiciary, as the Committee on Foreign Affairs, as the Committee on Oversight and Reform. They are doing their duty. When they reach a conclusion, they will come and report to us. And they will report, perhaps, no finding, or maybe they will report they have findings and, as a result, this body will vote. But the gentleman has still not answered my basic question: Do you think it is correct for a President of the United States--clearly, if you read this--you wanted to read the whole thing; you read the whole thing. Clearly, almost everybody who has read it--almost everybody who has read it, even some of Mr. Trump's friends whom he is now mad at have read it and said: Look, this was not proper. I am asking, Madam Speaker, whether the whip thinks it is proper to ask a foreign leader to interfere in our elections.

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, we did that yesterday, as you know.

Mr. HOYER. It is your rule.

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, Mr. Scalise ought to know this is not like any other one. I am not sure about Johnson. There was a special prosecutor in the Nixon case. Nixon fired the first one, Mr. Cox, you will recall. Mr. Jaworski succeeded him. There was a special prosecutor in the Clinton case. All of them did-- not exactly, because all the Republicans are in the room that are on the committee, members of the committee. It is a Select Committee on Intelligence. The Intelligence Committee operates that way, consistent with their rules and with your rule. You continue to say we ought to change the rule. It is your rule that we adopted in our own rules. You didn't like it. You liked it when it was applied to us, but you don't like it when it is applied to you.

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, the whip continues to ignore the fact that there were very different circumstances. There were two special prosecutors with respect to Nixon and one special prosecutor with respect to Mr. Clinton. That was a radically different position than we find ourselves in today. Mueller, by the way, was appointed by the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, a Republican appointed by the President of the United States, Mr. Trump--not our guy. He appointed him. Now, he dismisses that the special--he is not a special prosecutor, but I forget exactly what his title was. In any event, he wasn't a special prosecutor, but he did, in fact, find that there was reason to believe that there was obstruction of justice.

Mr. HOYER. That is inaccurate, Madam Speaker. That is inaccurate.

Mr. HOYER. Why didn't he file a charge? And if you read the report, as I am sure you did----

Mr. HOYER. He said: I didn't file a charge because I cannot file a charge against the President of the United States under Justice Department rules.