Jamie Raskin

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a dedicated public servant. Ms. Maryam Azarion has given over 26 years of her career to serving our Nation's veterans and advancing scientific innovation across the federal government. Maryam began her career as a microbiologist and inventor before finding her way to the law and federal service. She has dedicated her professional life to making government a force for good, one that drives progress and innovation and provides exceptional care to our Nation's veterans. For nearly 20 years at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Maryam brought her expertise in science and the law to the VA's senior leadership. As a Staff Attorney for the VA's Office of General Counsel, Maryam was in charge of giving legal advice about research agreements, intellectual property licensing and smart phone application submissions. After her first five years at the VA, Maryam saw an emerging need to create a legal team devoted to health research and innovation. Maryam was entrusted with the responsibility of nurturing the VA's first Specialty Team Advising Research (STAR), which she led with distinction from 2012 until her retirement this year. Her leadership at STAR has improved the quality of life for our Nation's veterans, spurred health care business development and encouraged innovation across our government. Medical innovations are only lifesaving and life-changing if new technology and treatments can reach hospitals and clinics and if the veterans who need care can afford them. Maryam's vision and expertise helped facilitate the transfer of technologies developed within federal agencies to public, private and nonprofit partners. Maryam developed her expertise in technology transfer after beginning her career as a microbiologist and researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Discovering a passion for technology transfer and a talent for the intersection of science and the law, she lent her expertise to the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command and the Naval Research Laboratory. A Marylander to her bones, Maryam prepared for this remarkable career at the Free State's world class colleges and universities. She's earned degrees at the University of Maryland-College Park, Hood College, and the University of Baltimore School of Law. On behalf of a grateful Nation and the residents of Maryland's beautiful 8th District, I wish Maryam Azarion nothing but the best as she begins a new chapter in her life after her decades of federal service.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, this week, the United States Congress and our Nation's capital will be honored with a visit from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All-Holiness Bartholomew I. Patriarch Bartholomew is not only the denominational leader of 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide--he is a global spiritual leader who has advanced the sacred causes of peace, interreligious understanding and environmental stewardship. Patriarch Bartholomew is stopping in Washington, D.C. on his way to New York City to accept the Templeton Prize for his groundbreaking harmonization of faith and science in service of environmental protection. The Templeton Prize, given to singular champions of human dignity and progress such as Mother Teresa and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, honors people who have harnessed the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind's place and purpose within it. His All-Holiness Bartholomew has earned this storied honor through the same works that gained him the moniker of the ``Green Patriarch.'' Since assuming his office in 1991, Patriarch Bartholomew has convened leaders across borders and disciplines to redefine human- caused climate change, environmental destruction and pollution as not just practical crises but spiritual and moral failings. He does so because of his conviction that ``we are not owners of this planet. It belongs to the coming generations as well. We are simply stewards and priests of the environment and not proprietors of it.'' In addition to his environmental stewardship, Patriarch Bartholomew finds common cause with Americans in advancing the causes of democracy and peace. He assumed the Patriarchate of Constantinople during the same year that the Soviet Union dissolved. His leadership was instrumental in advancing the spiritual and political self- determination of the Eastern Orthodox faithful in former Soviet republics. Today, he is a steadfast and unflinching moral leader supporting the people of Ukraine as they resist Vladimir Putin's bloody imperialist invasion and a forceful counterweight to the Moscow Patriarchate's Putinist subversion. This is a cause that most Americans support, recognizing that the cause of the people of Ukraine and their war of self-defense and self-determination is now the cause of all humanity. During this time of great uncertainty and fear, we Americans would do well to learn from Patriarch Bartholomew's example. Over the past 36 years, Patriarch Bartholomew has sought to build relationships across faith traditions, cultures and borders. In 1997, Patriarch Bartholomew was the first Eastern Orthodox Patriarch to denounce the great horror and evil of the Holocaust. He has traveled to Muslim-majority countries to foster interreligious understanding. And he has taken great care to cultivate relationships with Roman Catholic Popes and leaders across the world. These examples of moral and spiritual bridge-building are essential to our own democratic and human progress as a multi- religious, pluralist democracy. Twenty-eight years ago, the U.S. Congress recognized Patriarch Bartholomew with the Congressional Gold Medal for his extraordinary and courageous leadership. Today, on behalf of my constituents in Maryland's beautiful 8th District, I welcome Patriarch Bartholomew back to our Nation's Capital and congratulate him on earning the Templeton Prize as the latest of many well-deserved honors.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, on the occasion of her retirement, I rise today to recognize the extraordinary public service of Julie Tagen, who served over the last 9 years in a succession of critical posts for me: as my chief of staff, as my staff director when I was the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, as my staff director when I was the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, and always as a cherished friend, a trusted adviser, and an active constituent. A native of Philadelphia, who unfortunately never recovered from her love of Philly sports teams, Julie is a graduate of the University of Maryland. She is a devoted Terp, a lover of the Eastern Shore, and a true-blue Marylander. She has had a dazzling career in politics and public service. A Capitol Hill veteran of 20 years, she has been a powerful force for good on the Hill who has always worked to bring our government closer to the needs and the values of our people. I first met Julie in 2016 when I was running for Congress in Maryland's Eighth District. I was fortunate that Terry Lierman, who was chief of staff to Steny Hoyer, introduced me to Julie from Silver Spring, and off we went. I will never forget the long hike that Julie and I took through Rock Creek Park as we discussed her storied career in public life working for former Congressman Alan Grayson, the National Association of Retired Federal Employees, the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and the Human Rights Campaign. For this freshman Member of the House from Maryland in 2017, Julie quickly amassed a top-tier team and got our House office up and running. With my amazing district chief, Kathleen Connor, Julie saw my office through good times and bad, legislative victories and government shutdowns, the COVID-19 pandemic, the January 6 insurrection and the second impeachment trial, through sickness and through health, and all of the public and private trials and traumas of our days. Julie has great political instincts and amazing historical awareness. She is unflappable. She is understated, and she is always kind. She has a marvelous sense of humor. She is quick to laugh. She always finds the time to help a friend or colleague in need, and she has been a mentor to generations of junior staffers. Countless young, eager public servants have sought her out for advice and insight. She has taken many of them under her wing and connected them with different ways to serve on Capitol Hill and our people in the government. Finding someone like Julie is a very special thing on Capitol Hill. She can get almost anybody in Washington on the phone, but she always makes time for all of our constituents in Maryland's beautiful Eighth District. I will miss her daily compassion, her wisdom, and her excellent advice. I will miss her irrepressible love for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. We went to several concerts together. I know Julie has many new adventures ahead of her and many great battles to fight with her amazing wife, Dee, and their two fantastic kids, Carly and Natasha. On behalf of the people of Maryland's beautiful Eighth Congressional District, on behalf of all of the members of Team Raskin past and present, I thank Julie Tagen for her remarkable service to our country, our Congress, our people, and our democracy. We wish her Godspeed in all of her projects ahead.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I congratulate Mr. Knott on his first bill coming to the floor of the House. The administration and ICE say that they are targeting the most hardened criminals, the worst of the worst, but the numbers now suggest a different story. Roughly half of the people who have been arrested by ICE have no violent criminal history and no criminal history other than being undocumented. Most migrants, of course, are coming due to poverty, insecurity, violence in their home country, and authoritarianism at home. In fact, the two most common crimes committed by people who have been detained by ICE are being here without documentation and traffic offenses. Now, the President has said that his administration wants to remove and deport people who commit crimes after they illegally enter the country, but the gentleman's legislation moves in exactly the opposite direction. If this bill were passed into law, it would imprison people for long sentences, even potentially for life, just for having entered the country on an undocumented basis, several times, as the gentleman says. Obviously, if someone commits a murder or rape, they are going to be prosecuted for murder or rape, so the bite of this bill is with respect to people who just keep reentering our country without permission. Now, it would require that people who are immediately removable and deportable, undocumented immigrants, must spend 5 or 10 years in overcrowded and overburdened Bureau of Prisons facilities in our country at a huge cost to American taxpayers--more than $150, and in many cases $200 a day, which comes to hundreds of millions of dollars when you multiply it by the people that would be affected--before they can be removed from the country. That is the odd part of this bill, that we have people who have entered unlawfully who have no documentation to be here. They are removable. They are deportable, but we are insisting that they stay here and be imprisoned and punished here for the crime of having entered illegally. This would undoubtedly be good for the owners of all the private detention facilities and prisons who are getting rich off of laws like this, but it would fail the rest of us. Under 8 U.S.C. 1325, today, entering the U.S. without inspection is already a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and a sentence of up to 6 months in prison with enhancements that can increase the maximum sentence up to 2 years. Under 8 U.S.C. 1326, if you unlawfully reenter the country or are found to be here in the United States following a removal or denial of admission, this is already a felony punishable by up to 2 years in prison with enhancements that can increase the maximum sentence already to as high as 20 years in prison for those who were ordered removed following a conviction for certain offenses. The gentleman's bill would increase the penalty for people who enter without inspection from 6 months to 2 years for a first offense, and then if you reenter without documentation for up to 5 years, and in certain circumstances, potentially up to life. You could be held for life for a consecutive illegal entry into our country. The bill provides even for a potential life sentence in Federal prison for merely entering the country unlawfully with no other criminal conduct required. There are obviously armed robbers and rapists and even murderers who have done less time than that. Obviously, we don't want these people entering the country illegally. That is why the solution is to toughen the border. We had a bipartisan compromise to toughen and fortify the border with the hiring of hundreds more border officers and judges. It was coming through the Senate. That was the one at the end of 2024 that was sailing through Congress when President Trump decided to sink that legislation and said, essentially, that he didn't want a border compromise bill for more effective enforcement there, that he wanted a border crisis to run against. There has been a consensus between the parties for several years that mandatory minimums do not effectively reduce crime and do not improve public safety. They strip judges of their ability to exercise fact- based discretion and impose sentences that fit the circumstances of the case, frustrating their ability to consider mitigating and complicating factors, imposing a one-size-fits-all straitjacket that leads to often disproportionate and inflexible prison sentences. This is why the Judicial Conference itself opposes mandatory minimums. This is why you don't have judges at the border demanding the gentleman's legislation. This is why the Brennan Center opposes it. This is why Right On Crime has opposed mandatory minimums and so on. Study after study has shown that mandatory minimums don't work to deter criminal conduct. We know from a report issued by the Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice that the certainty of being caught and quickly punished, not the severity or length of the sentence, is what deters criminal conduct. Increasing and mandating harsh, lengthy sentences will not deter illegal reentry, but strengthening the border will do that. According to The Washington Post, the administration is actually pressuring Governors today to commute the sentences of immigrants who are in prison under the current framework convicted of serious crimes. I am not talking about just entering without documentation. I am talking about serious crimes. The administration is pushing for them to have their sentences commuted so ICE can take custody of them and then remove them from the country more quickly. The gentleman's bill does the exact opposite. It requires the deportable immigrants be held in our prisons at enormous public expense for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, in some circumstances even for life, making the taxpayers pay for it when they could have simply been removed and deported, which has been the policy of this administration. The gentleman's bill, which was opposed on a bipartisan basis in committee, is ultimately too punitive, way too expensive, and ultimately ineffective. I will urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation, with all due respect to my friend. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My friend and the good gentleman from Kansas says that the legislation is about the worst of the worst, and I beg to differ. The worst of the worst are already covered by existing law. If you commit a murder like the gruesome murder he describes in his State, you can go to jail for life. In many States--and I suppose Kansas, but I don't know--you are subject to the death penalty. If you commit rape or armed robbery, there are laws that cover that. Today, under section 1326, if you have committed an aggravated felony such as the kind he describes, you already can be imprisoned for an additional 20 years under the immigration statute. I understand that it might be satisfying for us to say we are just going to increase all these penalties, but we are not in any way connecting with the worst of the worst. What we are really doing is saying that we are going to hold people who have done nothing other than enter the country illegally for much longer periods of time, for 5 years or 10 years. Again, we see this as very wasteful in terms of public tax dollars. If we set aside the murderers, the rapists, and the armed robbers, who we are going to get under existing laws that make all of that criminal, and you look at what is actually happening here, it is a focus on people who are entering the country illegally. We have to ask ourselves, is it economically worthwhile for us to say that we are so mad at those people that we want to hold them in our jails for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, or even life in certain circumstances rather than send them back to their own country and toughen the border so they can't get back in? That is precisely the purpose of the legislation that was rejected at the end of 2024 on toughening up the border. We should go back and do that rather than having people continually come back in. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Correa).

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

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to underscore something that the gentleman from California said. The whole weight of this bill is on people who are not the hardened criminals. Obviously, we are going to be prosecuting rapists for rape and murderers for murder and so on. He talked about people who are hardworking immigrants, the kind even President Trump described when for a moment he said there wouldn't be immigration raids on farms because the agricultural sector is in crisis and people are saying we need the workers. Well, I wanted to echo what President Trump said briefly there before he was corrected by Mr. Miller. I was just in upstate New York in the Adirondacks in the 21st Congressional District represented by Ms. Stefanik. I met a bunch of dairy farmers there, who told me it was impossible for them to find workers to work the farms. With the additional crackdown on migrant labor, it is pretty much impossible for them to get the workers they need. What is the economic result of that? Well, they take the citizen laborers they have got, and they do mandatory overtime, so they are working an additional 15, 20, 30 hours per week, then they have got to pay them time-and-a-half under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Therefore, the prices go up now because they are not able to find enough workers to satisfy the demand. Their choice at that point is to either pay the farmers less money, which they can't do because the farmers are already at the breaking point, or they have got to increase prices, and that is what they end up doing. They have said to the grocers, this is because Congress refuses to work on bipartisan immigration reform. That is why we are seeing inflation in dairy, produce, and across the agricultural sector. The gentleman is telling us if we are serious about dealing with this, we need to do what we started to do at the end of 2024. We need to have bipartisan commitment to immigration reform, and we need to sit down and work this out the way that prior generations of Americans have done. This is a country that has been built on immigration. I am afraid that the gentleman's legislation here, which is basically just jacking up a whole series of criminal penalties, doesn't get us out of the economic problems and the immigration policy problems that we are in. It is a distraction. It will be ineffectual, and so it is not going to work to deal with the real crises that we are facing. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove), a very distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I have no more speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, I have just one quick correction or amendment to my distinguished friend's last set of remarks, which is that when he says how low a standard must there be, all they have to do is not commit another felony or commit a felony. As I understand the gentleman's legislation--and please correct me if I am wrong, because he certainly knows it better than I do--it is a felony to come back to the country again without having committed any violent crime or any other offense. It becomes a felony under the legislation. Now you have a felony because you have reentered, and at that point you are eligible for up to 20 years or even a life sentence. Am I understanding that correctly? There are people whose only offense could be reentering without anything else who would be subject to the most serious punishment. Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield if he can just clarify that.

Mr. RASKIN. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time. I thank my colleague for that clarification. Madam Speaker, I am satisfied to believe, again, that there are people who could end up with the most severe penalties under the legislation who have done nothing other than reenter the country, which is something we don't want them to do, which is why we want a bipartisan immigration bill to actually fasten down the border and move forward on this so we are not constantly dealing with this. The bottom-line problem with my friend's legislation, which is offered in all good faith, is that it is just continuing to pile criminal penalties on people reentering the country without changing any of the incentives or inducements. It doesn't deal with any of the things pushing them out of countries that are marked by violence, gang violence, authoritarianism, and so on, nor is it dealing, as Mr. Correa points out, with the pull of all of the jobs here. We need real immigration policy breakthroughs and not just piling on a bunch of additional criminal penalties that are not going to work. If they did work, they would just end up costing the American taxpayers hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in holding people in our prisons for offenses that currently they are being held for 6 months or for up to 2 years. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the gentleman's legislation. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of this Congress, nearly 60,000 of my constituents in Maryland's beautiful Eighth District woke up every morning to serve their country in the federal government. Today, thousands of professional civil service employees, among them cancer researchers, climate experts, food safety inspectors, air traffic controllers and civil rights lawyers, have been illegally fired or forced to retire from a job they loved and in which they excelled. They are victims of the Trump Administration's drive to gut our government and sell it for parts while replacing the professional civil service with unqualified political sycophants. One of my constituents working at the National Institutes of Health wrote this summer about what it's been like to be a federal worker during a period of administrative chaos and vicious attacks on federal workers. This achingly beautiful and stirring essay drives home how the loss of her service and the service of her colleagues will affect all Americans. I include in the Record her essay as we return to session this September, so that my colleagues and all Americans can read it and reflect on the enormity of President Trump's attack on the federal workforce. What it is Like to be a Federal Employee in 2025 (Commentary published in the Federal News Network on June 13, 2025) I remember driving with my father down Rockville Pike in Bethesda, Maryland as a little girl. We would pass a large campus of impressive buildings called the National Institutes of Health. I told my dad I would work there one day. He said no, that place was for doctors and scientists. I knew I would find a way. Many years later, I did. In March 2008, I began my journey at NIH, working with several institutes until I found my home at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. I stated in the Division of Translational Research, then moved to the Division of Clinical Research, where I remain today. How proud I have been to work alongside titans of the scientific community. Dr. Francis Collins, physician and former director of the National Institutes of Health and the National Human Genome Research Institute, led the NIH with vision, dedication and hope. Dr. Anthony Fauci, physician and immunologist, served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief Medical Advisor to seven different presidential administrations. NIH scientists have made major contributions to health and medical science for over 100 years, including 163 Nobel laureates, 214 winners of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, and more than 200 members of the U.S. National Academies of Science and Medicine. Non-scientists like myself are essential to NIH's day-to-day operations and key to understanding the institution's history and mission. It had been the happiest and proudest time in my long career. Everything changed in 2025. The Trump administration cut billions of dollars in biomedical research funding, resulting in dire consequences for the scientific research community, including universities and medical centers. This action has crippled lifesaving research and innovation. I was once so proud to say I worked for the world's premier biomedical research facility. All of that has changed. Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives were scrubbed away at the direction of this new administration, as though they were dirty words. Donald Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency and put Elon Musk at its head. In record time, Musk moved from disrupting social media and automotive industries to targeting the federal government itself. The indignities were swift and demoralizing. We were required to provide weekly accounts of ``five things'' we accomplished, as though our decades of service meant nothing. They dictated what we could use in our email signatures and instilled paranoia in every aspect of our jobs--all with the support of the man elected to lead our country. In a shocking turn of events, Musk shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development. The impact was immediate: food and crucial medications abandoned in warehouses, vital programs closed, workers laid off. The U.S. government, once known for humanitarian assistance, quickly transformed into something unrecognizable. It is estimated that over 300,000 people, including children, have died because of this decision. But that would not be their worst offense. The Trump administration canceled grants at NIH, fired intramural researchers, and planned to cut billions in indirect costs. What they fail to understand is that federal funding for biomedical research is central to healthcare innovation. The dismantling of this once-great institution will adversely affect American and global lives for years to come. They stripped away vital departments like human resources and acquisitions. There is no one to answer personnel questions, and we are expected to perform without basic supplies. This is not a well-thought-out plan, but something executed with malice by an organization supposedly focused on eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. On February 14, 2025, scientists and medical researchers began to be dismissed by President Trump's administration. They were told it was due to probationary status and poor job performance. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know because one of them was my son. This is as much his story as mine. He worked as a contractor for nearly twenty years at NIH, helping to run a lab at the National Cancer Institute. He devoted himself to cancer research after watching my father die from lung and brain cancer. While not a scientist himself, he was popular, well-respected and beloved for his hard work and dedication. Less than two years ago, in recognition for his service, he was converted from contractor to federal employee. We were so proud. On a day ironically devoted to love, my son was yanked from the position he cared about and discarded like garbage. He was a dedicated worker with the highest possible rating on his yearly performance appraisals. His staff and senior leadership were shocked, dismayed and bereft at losing such an important team member. My son delivered this news with a crack in his voice, something that will bring any mother to her knees. He felt as though a piece of his soul was destroyed. He immediately filed an appeal with the Merit Systems Protection Board. Four months later, he has heard nothing. For these four months, my once cheerful, talkative son has become withdrawn, sad and rightfully prone to despair. He describes his treatment as diminishing, brutal and humiliating. Initially, he kept in constant contact with his former team, who continue to support and miss him. Now, we have agreed never to speak of NIH or the current administration as it is simply too much to bear. The National Institutes of Health limps along on invisible crutches, its significance on life support, its staff feeling diminished, dazed and confused. When this madness will end is anyone's guess. With the Department of Health and Human Services under Robert Kennedy Jr.'s direction and our country steered by leaders who seem intent on destruction rather than progress, there is little to hope for. They say that change and grief are cousins. Indeed, they are inseparable companions in these dark times for federal service and scientific advancement. A federal employee.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. McGovern for yielding. The American people across the political spectrum are now demanding the release of the complete Epstein file. This is what President Trump and Vice President Vance and the whole Trump team was demanding up until the last couple of weeks when President Trump suddenly decided he wanted to sweep the whole thing under the rug. There are now two approaches in Congress. We have got a bipartisan, binding law which has teeth to compel disclosure of all the relevant material that America wants to see, but on the other hand, the Republicans in the Rules Committee just unveiled a meaningless, hortatory, fig leaf, Swiss cheese resolution that has no teeth at all. It doesn't even have dentures. It is all cavities what they have offered. We have got a choice now. We can go with a bill that would actually have teeth for enforcement or a meaningless, hortatory resolution that has all the legal force of National Chrysanthemum Month. Now, the original Khanna-Massie bill asks for comprehensive release from the Attorney General, and it is binding, which means if they don't turn it over, then we can go to court. It is comprehensive. It includes everything from flight logs and travel records to individuals, including government officials named or referenced, in connection with all of Epstein's criminal activities, all of the entities involved. We want to know about all the immunity deals. It even tried to deter and account for destruction, deletion, alteration, misplacement, or concealment of documents and records. All of that falls out of this fraudulent resolution they have thrown up at the last minute here.

Mr. RASKIN. There is nothing in there except for a series of qualifying weasel words which are added to give complete, unilateral, and subjective discretion to the Attorney General to decide what should be in and what should be out. It starts off by saying whereas--our resolution says: ``All documents, records, and communications.'' Theirs says: ``All credible documents, records, and communications.'' Well, who is going to decide that? It will be Attorney General Bondi in conjunction with Donald Trump who today said that a letter that he wrote to Jeffrey Epstein on his birthday which was published and which has all the indicia of credibility is not credible. That would not be included. Let's release the real Epstein file.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, on Friday, our National Archivist, our National Security Advisor, and our USAID Administrator took some time off from his work in these full-time positions to exercise his additional powers as Secretary of State of the United States. The guy with four Federal jobs fired, en masse, more than 1,300 professional civil servants at the State Department, each of them doing just one job and, in general, doing it in an exemplary and excellent way. They have devoted their careers to America and America's role in the world. Yet, Secretary, Archivist, National Security Advisor, USAID Administrator Rubio has robbed America of centuries of their expertise for no apparent reason at all. This destruction of the American role in the world comes as China is bolstering its soft power everywhere. This is a giant blow to our national security and effectiveness in the world. I express gratitude to the patriotic men and women at the State Department, many of them my constituents, for their decades of service, and I affirm our enduring commitment to the values they have worked so hard to advance.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I found the preamble to this big ugly bill: We, the billionaires and our king, in order to deform and sicken our Union, establish injustice, ensure domestic servility, weaken our people's defenses, undermine the general welfare, and reserve to ourselves and our posterity staggering debt servitude for eternity, do hereby instruct the Republicans in Congress to strip 17 million people of their healthcare, increase copays, deductibles, and premiums for everyone else, cut 42 million people off of nutritional assistance, increase the national debt by $4 trillion, trash renewable energy systems, increase our electric bills for the carbon kings, all to weaken and destroy the Constitution of the people of these United States of America. Please include this preamble in the legislative Record.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), the chair of the California Democratic Delegation who leads the 45 Democrats in the California delegation.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am moved by the comments of the distinguished gentleman from California, and I wonder what our colleagues think the value is other than of a purely political nature to a resolution that purports to be honoring law enforcement when it is set up on a completely partisan basis. I wonder what the value of that is. I especially wonder what the value of that is when the majority doesn't even stand by actual law when it comes to honoring law enforcement because this body on March 15, 2022, passed a resolution to put up a plaque, a simple plaque to honor the noble and brave police officers who battled for 4 or 5 hours to stop a violent riot and insurrection unleashed against this Chamber and against the Senate in an attempt to overthrow a Presidential election. We voted to erect a plaque in their honor. That was on March 15, 2022. It was supposed to have been put up on March 15, 2023. We are now more than 2 years overdue in honoring those police officers, 140 of whom were wounded, injured, disfigured, and many of them permanently disabled. Several lost their lives in the days to follow that atrocity, attack on this body. There is a law which says put up the plaque, and Speaker Johnson and the majority will not put the plaque up which is why you walk in the House Office Buildings now, everywhere there are poster replicas of that plaque being put up. Now they want to pass a resolution deploring violence that took place thousands of miles away from here, and it is just a resolution, a hortatory resolution. They can't even get bipartisan support because of course they have to set it up on a polemical, partisan basis instead. What is the utility of that resolution when they won't even follow an actual law to honor police officers who put themselves between us and a bloodthirsty mob? That is not a partisan point because the Republicans denounced it at that time as terrorism, as an attack on this institution, as intolerable, as unacceptable. I am happy to share with my colleague, who I know wasn't in Congress at the time, all of the statements made by Republican leaders at that time begging Donald Trump to send in the National Guard, which he controlled because it is the District of Columbia National Guard, and he didn't do it. He sat and watched it, eating hamburgers or whatever, in the White House on TV, ignoring all of the appeals to send the National Guard to come and defend Republican and Democratic Members of Congress. Now we have got a law which says put the plaque up in honor of these officers, and they can't do it, but they want to bring a totally partisan resolution to the floor deploring violence thousands of miles away, and you have got Members of Congress from California saying that they are not capturing what actually happened there. However, no, it has got to be another opportunity for partisan division. Why? Why can't we honor law enforcement together and follow through on our word? Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear my colleague invoke Abraham Lincoln in the rejection of disunion secession and violent attack on the Federal Government. Neither of my colleagues who is on the floor has said a word explaining why they won't put the plaque up to honor hundreds and hundreds of police officers on the Capitol Police force, the Metropolitan Police Department, and the Montgomery County Police throughout the region who came to defend us. Why won't they put the plaque up if they are really such big supporters of the police? That is a law. They just want to pass a resolution. Their resolution, of course, is completely political. One of their whereas clauses is: ``Whereas, California's leadership has prioritized protecting illegal immigrants and violent individuals over U.S. citizens.'' That is just defamation of the law enforcement officials in California. It is defamation against the Governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles, the sheriff in Los Angeles County, the chief of police in L.A., all of whom fought to put that violence down when riots broke out, something Donald Trump never did when the riots broke out that he incited against us. Remember, he was impeached by this body for inciting a violent insurrection against us. Not only did he not do anything to defend us, but he was the one who caused the whole chain of events that led to the deaths that took place that day and the violence that took place that day. My colleague won't utter a word about it. He won't say a word about it. All of the attempt to focus everybody over there is a distraction from the fact that they still, to this day, are defending what Donald Trump did with January 6. Why? It is because they also defend his lie that he won the 2020 Presidential election, which he lost by more than 7 million votes, 306 to 232 in the electoral college. I don't know what the meaning of their totally partisan resolution is when they won't even stand by the law--it was signed into law by the President--to put up a plaque, a simple plaque honoring police officers who fought tooth and nail for hours against the most bloody, vicious, violent insurrectionist mob ever to attack the Capitol of the United States. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Chu).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her excellent point. The California delegation has advanced, with Ms. Lofgren, a truly bipartisan resolution that deplores all violence because the political violence is getting out of control in America. We just had colleagues in Minnesota who were the subject of assassination attempts, and, of course, the former speaker of the Minnesota House was killed, along with her husband, and a State senator was wounded, along with his wife. We deplore all the political violence across the board, and we defend the right to speak. We look for policies from the Federal Government that will not exacerbate conflict but will reduce conflict. This resolution is far from being nonpartisan, as my distinguished colleague argues. In fact, it attacks the Governor of California, Members of Congress, California leadership, and the mainstream media. I mean, come on. We know the difference between what is a partisan, gotcha resolution and a resolution that actually attempts to unify people around common values. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.