Jim Himes

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. Gallego, for yielding. I rise in strong support of H.R. 5852. Weir Farm is a magnificent jewel that resides in the middle of my district. I should say at the outset, my district is actually smaller than a great number of the national park assets in this country, and so much of the agriculture that used to characterize southwestern Connecticut, of course, has given way to urban environments and to suburban environments. As a consequence, this 70 acres of land is truly a jewel inside Connecticut's Fourth District and inside Fairfield County, Connecticut. The Weir Farm National Historic Site stretches across just 70 acres of land, but in those 70 acres, there are any number of historical buildings, a vast collection of American art, orchards and landscapes, trails, gardens, miles of stone walls, and Weir Pond, as well as over 250 historic painting sites. Sometimes people don't remember--though I appreciate my colleagues today reminding everyone--that southwestern Connecticut has a long tradition of the production of American art, including Childe Hassam, who resided in my own town of Cos Cob, Connecticut. But this particular national historical site, soon to become a national historical park, offers an opportunity, in particular, to the children who live in Stamford, Connecticut; Norwalk, Connecticut; and Bridgeport, Connecticut, cities that actually do have some meaningful poverty and in which children don't have a lot of opportunities to come face-to-face with their history, face-to-face with art, and face-to- face with our agricultural heritage, to actually see and touch these things. It is a really wonderful location in the middle of Fairfield County, Connecticut, and this redesignation will capture the full breadth and the full comprehensive set of offerings that the Weir Farm National Historical Park will continue to offer the people of Connecticut and, quite frankly, the people of the United States. The park's designation today fails to represent everything that the farm offers, including the remarkable youth programs that I referred to earlier, where organizations like Groundwork Bridgeport have partnered with Weir Farm to provide young people with opportunities that they might not otherwise have. Before I close, Madam Speaker, I would like to thank Chairwoman Haaland, Chairman Grijalva of the subcommittee, Ranking Member Bishop, and Representative Young for working on this piece of legislation. I thank the Friends of Weir Farm, including Elizabeth Castagna and Judy Wander, who have pushed this very hard, and the hardworking men and women at Weir Farm, including Linda Cook, the superintendent. Finally, I thank my colleague, Senator Murphy, who will be seeing that this bill moves expeditiously through the United States Senate. I also thank, again, my friend, Mr. Gallego.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask a simple question: When did we stop looking out for each other? We used to be a country that reserved its highest and best celebration for those who sacrificed for us. That is why we honor Nathan Hale of Connecticut and Rosie the Riveter and the crew and passengers of Flight 93. It is why we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, to honor a man that gave his life to make us a better people, to make us a better Nation. They sacrificed and did the hard things so that we could have the blessings of freedom and prosperity. Two days ago, Mr. Speaker, we remembered the start of World War II. 400,000 Americans died in that war, 290,000 in combat. Tom and Alleta Sullivan of Waterloo, Iowa, gave their sons in that war, all five of them. George Sullivan, Frank Sullivan, Joseph Sullivan, Madison Sullivan, and Albert Leo Sullivan, all five sons killed in the South Pacific in 1942, all five of them given for us. Every single day, nurses, ER doctors, janitors, and delivery people take huge risks for us. For 2\1/2\ centuries, Americans have done what was asked of them and more. We serve on juries. We pay our taxes. We have been drafted into the military. Why? We do these things not because we necessarily want to do them, but because we recognize that we have inherited freedoms, liberty, and prosperity from others who secured them for us. We understand that freedom and prosperity aren't gifts to be taken for granted, to be exalted above what we owe each other. They are blessings to be paid forward and to be fought for. So what about this? What about this mask? And what about this? ``Mask off for freedom.'' Really? This is a flimsy piece of cloth. It is uncomfortable. It is inconvenient. But it saves lives. It saves others. When did we stop looking out for each other? You are not being asked to turn over your children, your five boys. You are not being asked to ration sugar or to have meatless Mondays. You are not even being asked to serve a week on a jury. You are being asked to wear a piece of cloth on your face to protect others. Mr. Speaker, I have nothing to offer those who believe that COVID is a hoax or that masks don't save lives. All I can do is pray for them when they meet the souls of those for whom they would not make the smallest of sacrifices. What I can do is remind us what makes us great as a people. It is not our wealth or our power. It is what we are willing to do for each other. What makes us great is what we are willing to offer up to each other, the small things that we owe each other and the inconceivable sacrifice upon which all of this is built. At our best, what are we capable of doing for each other? Ask Tom and Alleta Sullivan.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to express the extent to which I am proud of my constituents in southwestern Connecticut in Connecticut's Fourth Congressional District, but also to observe that just as in this country we have work to do in addressing the racial disparities that exists in all of our institutions, we have work to do in Connecticut's Fourth District. Mr. Speaker, I was enormously proud that after we began to bend the curve on coronavirus--thanks to the leadership of our Governor, Ned Lamont--just as we saw those numbers begin to decline, like the rest of the country, my constituents were appalled by the brutal murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Nobody was unaffected by what we saw that day. To the great credit of my constituents, people rose up in the broad diversity of my constituency. My constituency includes some of the wealthiest, small, and--yes--very White towns in the country: Towns like New Canaan and Darien. It also includes diverse cities that struggle with the issues of urban poverty: Bridgeport, Norwalk, and Stamford. But as one, my constituents rose up--young, old, poor, wealthy, Black, White, straight, LGBTQ--and demanded progress and change, and they did it peacefully. They did it side by side with the leaders of the Police Department of Stamford, of Wilton, of New Canaan--police chiefs standing side by side with Black Lives Matter protestors. That was a good thing. That was an example of how we come together in the face of something awful. But I also rise because there is no room for complacency. I remind my fellow citizens of Connecticut, while we are a progressive State, and while we did come together in all of our communities, it could happen here. I remind my constituents that Connecticut was actually the last State in New England in 1848 to eliminate slavery. That is just a few years before Abraham Lincoln did so in the South and around the country. So there is no place for complacency amongst my constituents. And the truth is, as I have observed and many have observed, what happened to George Floyd is the pinnacle atop a structure of four centuries of racism and discrimination. Of course, George Floyd is not alone. The names echo in the chamber of shame in this country. Breonna Taylor. Tamir Rice. Ahmaud Arbery. The names echo, and they go on and on. But those Black Americans who have been killed unjustly sit atop a structure of the denial of equal access to opportunity. And that is in our systems of housing, our systems of education, and in the private sector. So even as I celebrate and express my pride in my constituents, we need to be there for the broader struggle. We need to be there as we consider how we make one of the more segregated parts--at least with respect to housing in the United States--more fair. We need to be there when we contemplate the fact that too many of our Black and Brown brothers and sisters don't have the access to the extraordinary educational institutions in the State of Connecticut and around the country. Mr. Speaker, we need to be there. It is good to show up and protest peacefully when a Black man is murdered at the hands of the police, but it is not enough because that act sits atop an edifice--a four-century long edifice--of discrimination, the effects of which still echo through every aspect of our society. Mr. Speaker, it is not just my constituents. It is this Chamber and this Congress that must get serious about addressing the unequal distribution of opportunity in this country. That is our mission. I just said goodbye, with so many of my colleagues, to John Lewis. I know that is what John would have us do, and I know that he would have us do it with grace and with dignity and humility. Mr. Speaker, that is what I charge my constituents with, and that is what I hope this Congress will address, in the memory of John Lewis, who just left us this morning.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, last Saturday night, Christopher David, a veteran of the United States Navy, was walking in Portland when he came upon an odd sight: Federal agents, in full tactical gear, heavily armed, looking for all the world like the operators that we drop into terrorist havens in Afghanistan, patrolling the streets of an American city; detaining Americans; hustling them, unexplained, into rented minivans. Now, is Mr. David a masked ninja of anarchy? No. Was he throwing rocks or carrying bottles of gasoline? No. Mr. David was curious, and he stood there, clearly unarmed, clearly not a threat, curious. And here is where it gets interesting, and any American who hasn't seen the video needs to look at it right now. A Federal agent, gas mask, body armor, camouflage, bristling with weapons and tactical gear, approaches Mr. David, winds up, and beats Mr. David repeatedly with his truncheon. Mr. David doesn't move. His hand has been broken by a Federal agent, but he doesn't move, not a muscle. Well, the agent is confused by this and he hesitates. But backup arrives. Another Federal agent sprays Mr. David repeatedly in the face with pepper spray. Now this is heartening to the first agent, so he winds up and hits Mr. David again with his bat. Now, I don't care how cynical you have become about our country. I don't care whether you have signed over your time, your talent, your treasure, your integrity to the support of Donald J. Trump. If you have a drop of American blood in your veins, your soul dies a little as you watch the heavily armed Federal agent beat a United States Navy veteran. So what are combat-ready Federal agents doing in the streets of a city which does not want them there in a State which did not ask for them? Are there bodies piling up in the streets of Portland? Are there 150,000 dead--just to choose a number--Americans in Portland? No. There is not a single fatality. Of course not. Like so many cities, Portland boiled over in rage at the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. And, yeah, regrettably and illegally a minority of protestors have committed acts of vandalism; bottles and rocks have been thrown, windows broken, threats made. That is not okay, ever. But protecting property in Portland or anywhere else is the job of the local police department, the State police and, in a worst-case scenario, the National Guard. Why? First, while Federal agents are legally entitled to protect Federal property, they are not authorized to patrol municipal streets to enforce State and local law. That is an idea that goes back to our dissatisfaction with King George, and it is an idea that my Republican friends used to care about. Second, operationally, agents of the Border Patrol and the Marshals Service are not trained to manage protests. They are trained to patrol borders and to chase fugitives. A heavily armed individual with no identification or insignia trundling people, without explanation, into an unmarked van is likely to be misunderstood in a way that could lead to violence, particularly in a heavily armed society. Finally, there is the question of the President's intentions, which are pretty clear. We have seen how the President responds to real crisis; almost 150,000 Americans dead of COVID-19, denial, misinformation. We have 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the COVID-19 deaths on the planet. That is a disgrace. It is a lethal disgrace. George Floyd, an unarmed Black American, dies at the hands of the police, like so many before him. That is a lethal crisis. The President was asked about Black Americans dying at the hands of police and he says: ``So are White people; so are White people. What a terrible question to ask.'' And now the President threatens to send heavily armed Federal agents to New York, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore. Do we have a problem? No, we do not. Take it from an unclassified Office of Intelligence and Analysis report by the Department of Homeland Security: ``The regularity of violence amidst lawful protests in Portland since 26 May contrasts with national trends, which reflect a steady decline in violence during the last 2 weeks''--``a steady decline in violence during the last 2 weeks.'' Mr. Speaker, this is important because democracies die, but they don't die fast. They die because people come to believe that the media is the enemy of the people. They die because a President's supporters are more given over to that President than they are to the rule of law; and they die because citizens become used to the sight of Federal agents acting, not to protect them, but to attack them. We have been warned. The question is: Now what do we do?

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Ms. Catalina Horak for her devoted service to our community as she prepares to enter the next chapter of her life at the end of this month. Ms. Horak cofounded and led Building One Community, a nonprofit organization in Stamford, Connecticut. Since its establishment in 2011, Building One Community has served more than 10,000 immigrants from over 100 countries with language, vocational, legal and many other kinds of support. The Fourth Congressional District is home to a remarkably diverse range of people. We take pride in embodying key values such as openness, tolerance and altruism. Thanks in large part to Ms. Horak's tireless efforts, Building One Community has helped thousands of immigrants successfully integrate into the broader community. I'm proud that the Fourth Congressional District, in partnership with organizations like Building One Community, continues to serve as an example of the important contributions that immigrants make across our country. For her 20 years of distinguished experience in the nonprofit sector, Ms. Horak was named an honoree for the 2017 Women of Distinction Awards by the YWCA of Darien and Norwalk. This year, she was appointed to the Board of Directors of Americares Free Clinics. Madam Speaker, I ask that you join me, along with a grateful Fourth Congressional District, in congratulating Ms. Catalina Horak for her extensive public service and in wishing her success in all her future endeavors.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the aid that we will deliver today. My small State of Connecticut will soon pass 2,000 fatalities. These are our neighbors. These are people we know and love. Madam Speaker, I celebrate the bipartisanship that will be demonstrated today. It will save lives. Our small businesses are critical to our economy and to opportunity, but so are our hospitals and the heroes who work in those hospitals. So are our EMTs and our paramedics and our police officers and our firefighters. I say that not to make a political point, but to say that they will need our help in the coming days, and we need to tease out more bipartisanship to get that done quickly.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I rise today to remember one life of far too many we have lost to the sickness spread across our nation, that of an impactful leader and my good friend, Stamford's own Jack Bryant. Jack's quiet dignity and ebullient approachability belied the immense work he accomplished throughout his life, whether most recently as a member on the Board of Education, his long service in the Stamford NAACP, including as its president, as a deacon at Faith Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church and involved community volunteer, and as a beloved father and family member. Whenever you needed something good for the community done, you didn't have to go to Jack. He was already there, and he welcomed your help with open arms. Education and opportunity animated Jack. When he ran for Board of Education, he spoke movingly of his own education at Stamford's Westhill High, and watching his children achieve their own success. He dedicated his time and energy to removing the barriers too often found preventing educational attainment, particularly in communities of color. He did this civically, frequently coming to the Board of Education and Stamford's city government to testify and participate, and he did it through example in the community, leading local high school student visits to Historically Black Colleges and Universities for decades. Jack made sure these trips built more than resumes; they built character. Jack demonstrated how these young men and women could grow with the opportunities present today and build even stronger communities in the future by investing their talents in the following generation. Nowhere was this more evident than his own family. One of those HBCU trips resulted in one daughter attending college at Howard University, then medical school. Today she is on the front lines of saving others from the devastating consequences of this pandemic. In her grief, his other daughter celebrates his life and encourages all in the community to follow in his footsteps. His son coaches at Stamford High, serving as the same kind of community role model that his father always did. And countless others are sharing their memories of ``Uncle Jack,'' and how we can all model our lives in his legacy. I worked most closely with Jack during his decade-long presidency of the Stamford NAACP, looking to achieve justice for those who too often lack it and making sure the least of ours in the community get what they need in a tough world. We've worked together to register and empower voters; to combat the scourge of gun violence that claims too many urban victims; to remedy the historic injustices of our criminal justice system; and of course to help the next generation seize opportunities to get a world-beating education and better understand and improve the world they will soon enter. Whenever we talked, I came away hopeful. Whenever we worked, I saw the grateful faces of those he served. Whenever we prayed, I knew Jack's earnest and sincere pleas flew up to the heavens above. This world has lost a great leader, and that leader left a great legacy. I dedicate today to mourning and remembrance, yes, but more so to furthering his legacy of service and sacrifice, uplifting those who follow in his path and commending the others so inspired to do so now. To help feed the hungry, as the number of those who hunger grows; to provide a better future to the next generation, as the future grows more perilous; and to always keep fighting for justice and equality for all. May we all be even half as successful at Jack Bryant was at leaving the world a better place than we found it and loving our neighbor even more than ourselves.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I thank and compliment the chairman and the ranking member--and the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary--for doing such good and bipartisan work at this rather tense and polarized time around reauthorizing a number of authorities that have been, not just important, but essential to keeping the American public safe. And they did that, of course, mindful of the need to balance those authorities and those activities with the very legitimate civil liberties interests that we all have, and with our obligation to the Constitution, which we all swear an oath to support and defend. Madam Speaker, as the chairman said, this bill will reauthorize, even as it imposes additional oversight, a couple of very important authorities, while ending the authority that I think in the last several years was most problematic to me, to many people in this Chamber, and to the American people, which was the bulk collection of telephone metadata. That was a debate that led to the original USA FREEDOM Act of 2015, to those reforms, and gets us to where we are today where Americans can know that the NSA, a foreign intelligence agency, will not be collecting their records, their metadata. And I believe that that is a very substantial achievement in today's bill. I would like to take a moment, though, to wrestle with a charge that was leveled by my friends and colleagues on the progressive side, and their recommendation with respect to this bill. Their statement called these authorities ``sweeping unconstitutional surveillance.'' And, with respect, I would say that none of that is true. Sweeping. Let's talk about sweeping for a second. I guess we could argue about exactly what that means, but of the authorities that are being discussed, we are ending the metadata program. The lone-wolf authority, which allows us to surveil a potential terrorist who is not affiliated with a designated terrorist group, has never been used. That leaves, of course, the roving wiretap authority, which is used in a pointed and careful way and has been used to save lives and prosecute terrorists. That is not, I would suggest with respect, sweeping. So constitutional, the charge that this is unconstitutional is something that we should examine and take seriously. In this time of overheated rhetoric, I think it is important that we be very clear and very specific in the words that we use. So let me just say about the charge that there is anything unconstitutional in these authorities: No provision has ever been held to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, by the FISA court itself, or by any other court. And it is not just the courts, these authorities have been subject to review by the President's Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and they have not deemed any of these authorities unconstitutional. They have been subject to Congressional scrutiny and, of course, most famously and most recently, subject to review by the Inspector General, who--yes--discovered very significant deficiencies in the way a FISA application dealing with an American citizen was dealt with. My friends who are concerned about the possibility of the unconstitutional activity should remember, not a single authority has ever been deemed to be unconstitutional. And over and over again, the FISA court, and most recently Inspector General Horowitz, has pushed back hard on misbehavior, on negligence in this area. So what we are left with here is balance. And as the chairman and as the ranking member have said, the reforms that are made in this bill with respect to empowering an amicus, with respect to giving the President's Civil Liberties Oversight Board additional authorities strike that balance. Madam Speaker, I close by urging my colleagues to accept that we have made a lot of progress, that this was all about preserving civil liberties, and to vote in favor of H.R. 6172, the USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act of 2020.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the first-place finish of Staples High School students in Connecticut's We The People: The Citizen and the Constitution competition. In the Constitution State, we take our obligation to the values and principles laid out in our founding document seriously. The We The People program helps students develop an in-depth understanding of the Constitution by building their civic and research skills and testing their knowledge about how our government works. Ensuring a better future for Southwest Connecticut will require that our students be able to articulate a vision for our country that reflects the basic principles underlying the Constitution. Staples High School's We The People team's success is proof that these guiding values will be carried on by future generations. Staples High School joins the ranks of several state champions stemming from the Fourth Congressional District. In April, Staples will compete in the National Finals in Washington, D.C., against teams from across the country. Madam Speaker, I ask that you join me in congratulating the following students: Surya Balaji, Taha Banatwala, Lucy Belknap, Brian Campbell, Violet Cooper, Lars Djuve, Michael Farnen, Dylan Goodman, Grace Katz, Kashvi Kumar, Brett Levy, Gary Lu, Natalia Maidique, William Matar, Tadeo Messenger, Neha Navrange, Maximus Pace, Samuel Powell, Claire Redmer, Andrew Spangler, Nicholas Suarez, Rachel Suggs and Samantha Webster. I join the Westport community and Fourth Congressional District in recognizing these students, along with their teacher Suzanne Kammerman, on this accomplishment.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor one of the heroes of the fight for decent housing and meaningful opportunity for every American--my role model, my former boss, and my friend, Bill Frey. Bill will attempt to retire from Enterprise Community Partners at the end of January after three decades of shaping that institution, mentoring generations of committed leaders and improving the lives of countless Americans. I say attempt, because Bill's soul-deep commitment to fighting the world's fight and to servant leadership will not fade with the passage of time. Enterprise's need, and the respect Bill commands in the world of community development, may conspire to make Bill's attempt at retirement a rare failure for a man who has achieved everything, and always for others. Bill's deep commitment to selfless service, his unusual humility, and his intuitive sense for gentle leadership is leavened by an impish humor that makes Bill irresistible to all, from the formerly homeless new renter to the senior banking executive, to the faith and community leaders that he empowered and supported across a lifetime. Madam Speaker, the years in which I worked for Bill Frey were years of inspiration, learning and always laughter. I grew immeasurably watching Bill's steady hand, his courageous personal fights, and the example he set for so many of us. I'm not going to say I will miss him, because as I said, I suspect he's not really going anywhere. And even if he does manage to spend more time with his wonderful family and growing collection of grandchildren, his legacy touched so many of us forever. Thank you, Bill.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, for the last 2 months, the House has been riven by the process of impeachment. It has been emotional, divisive, and challenging. If you noticed, many of the statements about impeachment started with some version of this: Impeachment is the most serious thing that Congress will do, other than declare war. Well, here we are. In the next day, in the next month, and in the next year, this body may be called upon to make decisions that will alter history and possibly send young men and women to their deaths or not. I say ``or not'' because, once again, I see Congress at risk of failing to stand up for the clear mandate placed on us by the Constitution, to which each and every one of us took an oath. There is no argument about our duty here. The language of the Constitution is plain: Congress shall have power to declare war, not Congress shall have power to declare war unless the President wants to retaliate against someone; not Congress shall have power to declare war unless a Syrian airbase needs destruction; not Congress shall have power to declare war unless our forces are attacked in the Tonkin Gulf. Congress shall have power to declare war. Period, full stop. Mr. Speaker, in the long run, this has nothing to do with our confidence in a particular President. It has everything to do with whether we take the obligations that Mr. Madison and Mr. Hamilton asked us to take seriously. In their wisdom, the Founders understood that every American--every American--should have a voice in the decision to go to war because it will be those Americans who offer up their sons and their daughters; because it will be those Americans and their children who will sacrifice not just themselves but the roads, the bridges, the schools, and the scholarships that will get consumed in the costs of war; and because our Founders understood that the true power of our awesome war machine was not in the technology. It lay in the sober assent and careful enthusiasm of millions of Americans, not in the decision of one person in an Oval Office. So, here we are. Yes, the questions are many and complicated. Was the strike on General Soleimani legal? Was it ethical? Was it smart? These are not easy questions, and I suspect the answers will come only over time and after careful study. But right now, in this there is a question that hangs the lives of our people and potentially trillions of dollars: What comes next? For those of us who were chanting, cheerleading, and whipping themselves into a belligerent frenzy, reflect on our experience over the last 20 years in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Comments by the Secretary of Defense notwithstanding, that we are not looking to start a war, but we are prepared to end one, the experience of the last 20 years is that we are not prepared to end any war. Some estimates suggest that we have spent $6 trillion on Middle Eastern wars, and more importantly, we have laid down the lives of thousands of our men and women. While we may have taken some satisfaction from the removal of people like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadhafi, at what cost? One of our most accomplished Middle Eastern diplomats, Philip Gordon, answers that question best. Philip Gordon wrote this years ago: ``In Iraq, the U.S. intervened and occupied, and the result was a costly disaster. In Libya, the U.S. intervened and did not occupy, and the result was a costly disaster. In Syria, the U.S. neither intervened nor occupied, and the result is a costly disaster.'' Mr. Speaker, I close my plea for care, thoughtfulness, and careful consideration by reminding my colleagues of a friend who died almost exactly a year ago, Walter B. Jones, Jr., from North Carolina. Some of us in this Chamber remember his journey. In 2003, he was an ardent supporter of the Iraq war; and over time and, in particular, when he attended the funeral for a young sergeant in his district, he came to regret his decision. This was the guy who led the charge to rename French fries ``freedom fries,'' and he came to be haunted by what he had done and by what we had done. I didn't know Walter well, but we celebrated his life when he died. Let's be like Walter. Let's learn the cost of war--but let's not attend funerals to do it--and give this decision the careful consideration it deserves.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I rise today in anger and hope. I am angry that President Donald Trump has treated his oath of office so disrespectfully that now we must hold him to account. The truth is clear to anyone not deliberately looking away. The President withheld military aid and a White House meeting unless and until a vulnerable Ukrainian President announced a nakedly political investigation. It didn't matter if the Ukrainians uncovered any wrongdoing. The mere announcement of an investigation would damage his political opponent. Mr. Trump didn't care about stopping corruption in Ukraine. He never mentioned the word ``corruption'' once in the infamous July 25 call. This was not an attempt to reduce Ukrainian corruption. It was an attempt by Donald J. Trump to aim Ukrainian corruption straight at the heart of the Presidential election of 2020. The President knows this, which is why he has not given this Congress a single email, phone record, or document. That is not the behavior of a man with nothing to hide. It is, simply and undeniably, contempt of this Congress. But what makes this impeachment essential is that the President's abuse of power has not stopped. As we speak, he continues to urge foreign interference in our democracy: beseeching China to investigate the Bidens, sending Rudy Giuliani overseas to chase Russian conspiracy theories. This morning, the President tweeted, ``I did nothing wrong,'' all caps. He believes it, too. He sees nothing wrong with inviting Russian, Ukrainian, or Chinese interference into our election. He did it, he continues to do it, and he sees nothing wrong with it. He will wake up tomorrow and do it again if we don't stop him today. Therein lies our hope. Madam Speaker, I am proud today to answer the call to defend our democracy and the United States Constitution, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Madam Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I rise, delighted today by our consideration of H.R. 2534, the Insider Trading Prohibition Act, because, after years of work, we are going to produce a bipartisan product which actually does address a significant challenge in insider trading law, and that is, in general, that, to date, there has existed, remarkably, no specific statutory prohibition on insider trading. I am a believer, as I know everyone else in this Chamber is, that, if we are going to create criminal or civil liability, the legislators of the Congress of the United States should make specific how and when and under what circumstances we do so. And that is what we are doing today, I am delighted to report, in bipartisan fashion. But let me back up for a second, for those who don't sit on the committee or watch this particular space all that closely, just to explain why this is important. Insider trading is an activity in which somebody who has information that they have been entrusted with, or for which they have paid or come by in some dishonest fashion, uses it to secure a market advantage. They have information that others don't. They trade on that information. That allows them to get a material gain. There is a problem with that, quite apart from the notion that it is only insiders or those people who are not acting based on their talent or their intelligence or their hard work, but acting based on who they know or, worse yet, who they might have paid, that they are the ones who benefit from our capital markets. I think that notion sort of strikes at the fundamental sense of fairness that we all carry around. But, inasmuch as this behavior exists, it is profoundly damaging to the capital markets that are such a hallmark of the United States, and it is damaging because those capital markets rely on the confidence that millions of American families have out there that their hard- earned savings can be put into the market, invested, and redeployed in a way that is fair to them, that will create a return, and that they are doing so on a level playing field, not competing with people who may have an inside advantage. Now, the good news here is that, in the generations preceding us, we have, in fact, prosecuted insider trading, but we have done so under antifraud provisions of the Securities Acts that were passed in the early 1930s; and, as a result, there is not a particularly good fit between the concept of fraud and the concept of insider trading. And to my friend Mr. Huizenga's point, as he knows, this has led to a vast body of court-determined law, starting with the Dirks decision in 1984, moving through Materia, Carpenter, O'Hagan, all court decisions which crafted the concept of liability around insider trading, culminating in the 2014 Newman decision by the Second Circuit, leading then to the Salman decision at the Supreme Court in 2016. All of these cases that I have mentioned have created uncertainty about the nature of liability and have resulted in overturned convictions of people who behaved in ways that would violate our intuitive sense of right and wrong. So, because of this uncertainty, because of the overturning of convictions, now is the moment for us to finally do what we are here to do, which is to make it very clear what the law of the land is. So the moment has come to pass this legislation, and I am delighted to say it comes after years of working with experts like the aforementioned Professor John Coffee, past and present Commissioners of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and consultation with prosecutors as well as with defense attorneys. This is a fairly fiddly and technical area of the law, and so it was my intention, over the years, to make sure that we crafted good law which created liability for bad behavior but which did not, in fact, create liability for behavior like doing a little extra work to secure an advantage in investments. It was also very, very important to me that this be done on a bipartisan basis. There is really nothing partisan about this bill. Neither party believes in insider trading or wants to support insider trading. This is not a question of balancing regulation or allocating public resources; this is a question of clarity of law. So I want to close, apart from just saying that that has been the track record of the establishment and writing of this legislation, by thanking Ranking Member McHenry and Ranking Member Huizenga. There will be an amendment offered by Ranking Member McHenry which the Democrats support. It does improve the bill. It is not really a compromise in the sense that it actually makes for a better bill. But I am pleased to say that, after a lot of hard work, this is, in fact, the product of some very robust engagement between the Democratic and Republican Representatives in this Chamber. That is not easy to achieve under these circumstances. So I want to start, first and foremost, by thanking Chairwoman Waters and Chairwoman Maloney for their sponsorship and then, again, Mr. McHenry and Mr. Huizenga, who committed to really understanding what is a technical corner of the law and offered, in good faith, amendments, including some ideas that we will shortly be taking up. And then, finally, as every Member in this Chamber knows, hard work happens and gets done and leads to success only because of the commitment and very, very hard work of the staff on both sides of the aisle. So, before yielding back my time to the chairwoman, I do want to specifically thank Katelynn Bradley, Ben Harney, David Fernandez, and David Karp from the Financial Services staff; Mark Snyder, my legislative director, and Rachel Kelly, his predecessor, from my staff. And then, on the Republican side, big thanks to Kimberly Betz, McArn Bennett, and Jamie McGinnis. Madam Chair, I urge passage of this law. This will be a good thing for the confidence in our capital markets. It will be a good thing in reassuring the American public that we can get things done on a bipartisan basis. On that basis, I urge passage of H.R. 2534, the Insider Trading Prohibition Act.

Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chairman, what is the balance of time available?

Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chairman, I thank Ranking Member Waters for yielding me time. I rise very briefly to welcome the amendment by Mr. McHenry. Mr. McHenry raised four substantive points. Three of those points are incorporated in this amendment, which we are very happy to accept. I think it is, again, not a compromise, but an improvement of the bill. In my very little remaining time, we did have discussions about exclusivity. As the ranking member knows, the idea here is to create a law under which insider trading is prosecuted. That is the objective. As the ranking member knows, it is a fairly complicated situation when including specific exclusivity language. Ultimately, that was not included in the ranking member's proposed amendment here, but we should continue to work together to make sure that this is about clarifying and simplifying and making more efficient rather than making more complex.

Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairwoman Waters for yielding me the time. I rise in reluctant opposition to this amendment because it has been a hallmark of this process that I very much enjoyed working with Mr. McHenry and Mr. Huizenga. The reason I rise in opposition is really twofold or threefold. Number one, as Mr. Huizenga may recall, the original draft of the bill would make it prosecutable to prosecute somebody who is in possession of material, nonpublic information. My Republican friends correctly pointed out that we are often in possession of information that we may not be aware of. Certainly, if you were to take a look at my email inbox, you would know that to be true. So at the suggestion of the Republicans, we changed the standard from ``in possession'' to ``aware of.'' While I know that Mr. Huizenga is acting in good faith, Chairwoman Waters got it exactly right. If we go to a use standard, it would require prosecutors to actually get inside the motivation of why somebody made a trade. They would have to prove that you made this trade because you had inside information. In support of Mr. Huizenga's good faith, I understand where he is coming from, but let's also face that the confluence of circumstances where you have material, nonpublic information and you were going to do that trade at precisely that moment is a very, very rare event. While I understand where Mr. Huizenga is coming from, what I would suggest is, instead of creating probably an impossible prosecutorial burden, let's acknowledge that if in that very rare event where you want to make a trade and you happen to be in possession of material, nonpublic information, let that trade go by. That is rare enough that it shouldn't in any way, I think, speaking as somebody who has spent time in this industry, compromise the effectiveness or the efficiency of our capital markets. Again, reluctantly, I stand in opposition to Mr. Huizenga's amendment. I hope he will nonetheless support the underlying bill.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding me a little bit of time. I also thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) for acknowledging the bipartisan quality of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I rise in the hope that this body will support the rule. The rule, in particular, obviously, made at least one, possibly two, Republican amendments in order. I just want to reflect for one moment on what my intention was in the underlying bill. First of all, this is a fix to a problem that we have had in American financial services law for a very long time, which is that there is no specific statute prohibiting insider trading. Yes, we have prosecuted insider trading for a very long time using fraud provisions and other provisions of the securities law. As a result of there being no explicit prohibition on insider trading, much of the law that has grown up around this is court-made law. I know I speak for everyone in this Chamber when I say we are here to make the laws of the land and, hopefully, guard that job jealously. This is a good fix, but, to me, it was important how it was done. The Senate is controlled by the Republican Party. The House is controlled by the Democratic Party. It was very important to me to get Republican support for this bill, number one, because I believe that that is the way that we get good, resilient legislation done and, number two, because it afforded me the opportunity to work very closely with people like Ranking Member McHenry and my Republican colleagues on the Financial Services Committee in a larger effort to build the trust and to build the relationships that, hopefully, will open the aperture for us doing more of these bipartisan things. We do two big things around here: We stand by the values that our parties represent, but, at the end of the day, we try to come together to get something done. Honestly, in the years I have been here, we have done way too much of the former and not enough of the latter. I really am very pleased with the way this bill has turned out. I think it has a shot of becoming law if we can get the Senate to move on it. I am delighted by the bipartisan support it has received. Mr. Speaker, I would just close by again thanking my Republican colleagues, Mr. Perlmutter from Colorado, and hope that this body will support this rule.

Mr. HIMES

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 577, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 576) expressing the sense of the House of Representatives with respect to the whistleblower complaint of August 12, 2019, made to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the amended resolution, which demands provision to the congressional intelligence committees of a whistleblower complaint, which the Acting Director of National Intelligence has withheld. The law, however, required the Acting DNI to submit it to the committees. This is a serious matter, Madam Speaker, for IC whistleblowing, congressional oversight, and the rule of law. Before turning to it, let me express my deep gratitude for the actions of a courageous and anonymous individual in the intelligence community. That person wanted to report urgent, credible allegations of serious wrongdoing and did the right thing by acting in strict accordance with proper whistleblower procedures. These permit classified disclosures to be made to the intelligence committees while protecting national security. Using that mechanism, in August, the whistleblower made a complaint to the inspector general of the intelligence community. According to the Justice Department's legal opinion regarding the complaint, which it today released to the public, the whistleblower's allegations concerned the content of a telephone call between President Trump and a foreign leader. The inspector general determined the complaint to be urgent, meaning that the matter met important statutory criteria, and that its allegations appeared to be credible. The inspector general, months later, would write that the complaint's allegations not only fell ``within the DNI's jurisdiction,'' but that they ``relate to one of the most important and significant responsibilities to the American people.'' That is protecting the United States from foreign interference in our elections. In strict accordance with the statutory rules, the inspector general passed the complaint and his determination to the Acting Director of National Intelligence. The Acting Director was obligated to forward this material to the congressional intelligence committees within 7 days of receipt, but, in contravention of the law, he refused to do that. There can be no misreading of the provision imposing that obligation. It says that the DNI ``shall'' forward the materials to the House intelligence committee and also to our colleagues at the Senate intelligence committee. ``Shall,'' of course, means ``shall.'' It does not mean ``can if you want to.'' Despite this unambiguous, categorical directive, the Trump administration interfered with the time-tested process for IC whistleblowing. It would need to resist that process forcefully because, as public reports have suggested, the complaint potentially concerned the same craven abuse of power by President Trump which the public learned about this morning. I won't recite all the details of this sordid episode. But suffice it to say that documents released today plainly show the President of the United States shaking down his Ukrainian counterpart for a ``favor''-- an investigation by Ukraine's authorities, with close coordination by Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr, into the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, the former Vice President himself being a candidate for the U.S. presidency. So the administration got the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel involved, it got the White House Counsel involved, and, without invoking national security or making a claim of executive privilege, it managed to get a staggeringly flawed legal opinion from the Department of Justice. The opinion's reasoning is specious on its face. According to the Department of Justice, the whistleblower statute did not apply to the complaint, and the complaint therefore did not have to be forwarded to the committees because the complaint's allegations do not relate to an urgent concern, meaning the funding, administration, or operation of an intelligence activity under the DNI's authority and responsibility. In this regard, the DOJ observed that the alleged conduct was committed by the President, who is outside of and above the IC. I will point out that that is irrelevant under the statute. All that is required is that the allegation ``relate to'' an intelligence activity within the DNI's purview. The DOJ also faulted the IC IG, the inspector general, for not citing a statute or policy that gave the DNI operational responsibility to prevent foreign interference in our elections. Think about that for a second. Have in mind what our country went through in 2016 when Russia undertook covert as well as overt measures to warp the U.S. Presidential election and to sow discord which the Trump campaign welcomed with open arms. With that recent history in mind, to say nothing of the rules on the books, we can easily dispose of the claim that the intelligence community, as captained by the acting DNI, has no operational role in keeping adversary governments from meddling in our democratic processes. That assertion is ignorant. It is wrong. And it bespeaks a serious misunderstanding about the DNI's authorities and the activities of the United States intelligence community. The DOJ's cramped view would come as news to President Trump, I suspect, given the executive order he issued in September of 2018 regarding foreign interference in our elections, which requires the DNI, after every Federal election in this country, to assess whether such interference has taken place and to report his assessment to the rest of the executive branch. That sounds a lot like a serious role for the DNI to me. I imagine the Department of Justice's view would also come as a shock to the acting DNI himself. After all, by statute the DNI is the head of the U.S. intelligence community and the principal intelligence adviser to the President and the National Security Council, among other things. As the inspector general correctly noted, one mission of the intelligence community, among its core missions, is to protect the United States against hostile intelligence activities directed against it. That would include any hostile foreign intelligence activities associated with efforts by foreign adversaries to interfere in our elections. So I am stunned that the acting DNI would accept legal advice like this, which strains to minimize or ignore the functions and responsibilities that the DNI carries out--or at least I hope--routinely. I am also stunned that the ODNI would acquiesce in advice that, if permitted to stand, would do such extraordinary damage. By conferring on the DNI the discretion to opt out of what is plainly mandatory, the Department of Justice neutered a statute governing intelligence community whistleblowing; overturned years of consistent practice; and, most damaging of all, called into doubt important protections from reprisal on which this whistleblower relied and other lawful whistleblowers in the IC have relied. I can only imagine the chilling effect that the Department of Justice's approach will have on lawful IC whistleblowing and thus on the intelligence committees' ability to conduct oversight of intelligence activities. Madam Speaker, let me end with a note about the state of play, which is fluid, to say the least. I understand that the executive branch may make some of the whistleblower's materials available to the committee this afternoon, but the details remain sketchy, and the committee may not yet receive, in complete and unredacted form, all the information that the acting DNI is obligated to furnish by law, and that we have sought by subpoena. The committee will settle for nothing less. However, the situation is resolved, Madam Speaker, the House has no choice but to denounce the extraordinary lengths to which the White House and Justice Department have gone to cover up and obstruct. Madam Speaker, I strongly support the resolution, as amended. I urge my colleagues to join me, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff), and I ask unanimous consent that he control that time.

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney).

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining for the majority.

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Demings).

Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. It may turn out that this resolution is unnecessary. I understand procedures are being made to provide the complaint, I hope, the full whistleblower complaint, to the Congress and, specifically, to the Intelligence Committee. If that is true, that is a good first step. It is a step, of course, that is remedying the blatant violation of law that this administration engaged in when they chose to stop the transmittal of that complaint to the Congress. But I do want to take this opportunity to just clear up some things that were said, because these are serious matters, and it is important that the American people understand the truth. Mr. Scalise came before this body and ridiculed the majority, saying that we had promised a quid pro quo, a statement that is, of course, absurd on the face of it. We made no such promise. In fact, we have spent the day explaining that a quid pro quo is not necessary for the kind of extortion that is evident in the so-called transcript that we received today. Bribery requires a quid pro quo; if you do this, I will pay you that. Extortion is simply saying you better do me a favor, or else. So there was no promise of a quid pro quo. Neither is it necessary for this behavior to be well beyond the pale. And I would remind my friends in the minority that we did not bring this moment upon the Congress. The inspector general came to this Congress of his own volition and, I would add, at significant personal risk, because of his concern over the actions of the administration. It emerges today that the Acting DNI perhaps threatened to resign his position unless the Department of Justice gave a legal justification for his stance. So we are not here because we want to be here. The Speaker of the House, as every Member of this Chamber knows, has resisted, until yesterday, even using the word impeachment because she is that focused on the sentiment of the American people and the consequences of that dramatic step. So I do not want to hear from my friends in the minority that this has been a train that we have been barreling down. We are not here because we are happy. We are here because there is a genuine threat to this republic and to this democracy. We were brought here by members of the administration who raised their hand and said something is not right. So this resolution and its contents may be remedied later this afternoon; I certainly hope so. But let's be clear about what really happened and how we got here, because I suspect this is not the final word in this discussion, and the American people deserve to know the truth. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.