Steve Scalise

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. If you want to run a grand jury, go get a jury. This is the United States Congress. Voting Members of Congress are being shut out of the room, Mr. Speaker. Voting Members of Congress are being shut out of this process. You want to call that fair? Good luck. But it is not fair. It is a one-sided process to create a document with a determined outcome. It is going to be a tainted document, because it only tells one side of the story. The old saying is, a grand jury can indict a ham sandwich, if they want to. There is a reason for that because only one side can call witnesses. When we have had impeachment inquiries in the past you don't have to reinvent the wheel. It has only happened three times. And in modern times they have used the exact same standard. The standard is: Both sides get to call witnesses. That is not going on right now. It was done in public. That is not being done right now. It is going on in secret. The press can't go in. You can't go in. I can't go in, unless they run out with the witness. That is not a fair process. Maybe that is the process that you want to conduct, but don't call it fair, because it is not. And, ultimately, it is not going to result in a fair document that is going to be determining whether or not a President of the United States is impeached. And Members of both sides, 75 percent of the Members of this body, Republican and Democrat, are going to be asked to cast a vote on something that they can't even go and determine and find out about. They can't sit in the hearings. They can't read the testimony. 230 million Americans are represented by those Members of Congress who cannot get access to what is going on in that room. Maybe you can get it from reading leaked press reports. Is that really how you determine whether or not to impeach a President of the United States? That is not fair. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I don't know if the gentleman is asserting that we will have a vote on impeachment, that might be breaking news, but if these Members, all of us, are going to vote on impeachment, shouldn't we be able to see what goes on? Shouldn't we be able to have access to the hearings? Shouldn't we be able to have access to the transcripts? Can we now? I would ask the gentleman, would he release the transcripts now of these hearings so that Members can start preparing? So Members can know what they are going to vote on? Are you going to keep it in secret and then drop something on the floor after it has been baked and predetermined what the outcome should be before Members really have an idea of what is going on in those rooms that are being denied entrance to those rooms right now? It has never happened before in other impeachment inquiries. And you can say it is about process. It is about history.

Mr. SCALISE. What is the allegation that is untrue?

Mr. SCALISE. When?

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Hoyer mocked that the process is tainted, that the process is being run like it might be run in the Soviet Union, not in the United States of America. It has never been done like that before. And you talk about Trey Gowdy, as if we were looking around for something to impeach a President on. We weren't. You had four Americans die. There are a lot of questions that still haven't been answered about why those Americans died. And all of us should be concerned about what happened at Benghazi. To ridicule the fact that there were eight hearings on something so alarming? Nobody was fishing around, looking-- By the way, we never tried to impeach the President over anything. All of the things that we disagreed with him on, none of those. Even times when he would sign executive orders that circumvented the law, and we would challenge him in the court, and we won a number of those court cases, but that doesn't mean it rose to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. And so we never went down that road. But maybe some, in some part of a base, want to see impeachment, no matter what. And some have said that. Some in your own party have said they just want to impeach the President because if they don't, he will get reelected. That has been said by members of your party. That is not why you impeach a President, because you think he is going to get reelected. The American people make that determination next year. We have had investigation after investigation. Again, Mueller alone had 2,800 subpoenas. He had the full authority to bring charges against the President on collusion, on obstruction. Even the Attorney General said that he had the authority to bring charges, but even if he did have those, he wouldn't have brought charges on obstruction, because there wasn't obstruction and there wasn't collusion. But he had full authority to bring charges on both fronts, and he didn't. But, again, 222 months of that meandering witch hunt to try to find something. And it wasn't found because it wasn't there. And then you had the whistleblower, the so-called whistleblower. Who, if you are worried about who is talking to somebody to try to get their stories straight, interestingly, the whistleblower--who, again, was identified to be somebody with a political bias--went and met with Chairman Schiff's staff prior to filing the whistleblower complaint. Yes, somebody did collude. Real interesting how that happened. Before the whistleblower complaint was filed, they actually sat down with the staff of the majority leader, Chairman Schiff, and lo and behold, you get a political document that comes out with allegations, disproven in many cases, but that is where we are. That is the basis for starting an impeachment inquiry. That is not really an impeachment inquiry, because we are not following the same rules that have always been followed under an impeachment inquiry, but that is the genesis of this, and that is where we are. And if that is what the document is going to ultimately yield, it will be a tainted document. But I guess if you want to find an outcome--this isn't a grand jury. This is the United States House of Representatives, and there are 75 percent in this body who are going to be asked to vote on something that they cannot see, they cannot participate in, they have absolutely no access to. That is not what this country is all about. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. I would if it was true, but it is not.

Mr. SCALISE. I would be happy to yield when we talk about all the things that this House could be doing that it is not, like lowering drug prices, like getting better trade deals with our friends in Mexico and in Canada and in all the other countries that are lined up that would love to come behind USMCA that can't right now. They can't because there is this infatuation with impeachment, in a one-sided way, in a closed way, in a Soviet-style Star Chamber. But that is not happening right now. This is what is not happening; this is what is happening. It is not what the American people expected out of this majority. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. You can only read it in the press because of selective leaking. And so that is how Members of Congress are supposed to make a determination on impeachment of the President, based on selected leaks to the press?

Mr. SCALISE. It is factual.

Mr. SCALISE. But he is looking into it, as he should be.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for next week. I would be happy to yield to my friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished majority leader of the House.

Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, here is another headline: ``Democrats Writing More Subpoenas Than Laws.'' That is a headline. That is what angers people who want to see their prescription drug prices lowered, but they can't because of this infatuation with impeachment. That is what is holding this country back. That is what is holding this House back from doing the people's work. Mr. Speaker, I would ask if the gentleman has anything else. If not, I would be ready to yield back. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE. Again, we can talk about why we needed to root out corruption, why we want to find out what happened in the 2016 election where the Russians tried to interfere, because we don't want it to happen again. We also know, as it was discussed on that phone call, that President Trump sold Javelin missiles to Ukraine so they could protect themselves against the Russians, the aggression that the gentleman was talking about on the eastern front, where the previous President allowed the Russians to come into Crimea when Ukraine was asking us to help them. Ukraine, back when President Obama was in office, was asking us to sell them those same Javelin missiles, and President Obama wouldn't do it. He has never answered why he wouldn't, but it is a fact that he didn't sell the Javelins. But President Trump did and allowed Ukraine to defend themselves against the Russians. In fact, they talked about maybe buying more, but they were already allowed to buy what they needed to defend themselves, and I am glad they were. It helped a friend. But you talk about all of those things that are going on right now with impeachment. The real issue is what is not happening here in this Congress. I will refer you to a different newspaper, as you want to talk about newspapers, the front page of The Washington Times: Democrats writing more subpoenas than laws. Impeachment inquiries sideline Pelosi's agenda. In fact, if you look at the difference between subpoenas and bills that came out of this House that are actually signed into law, you have produced 56 subpoenas. You have produced only 46 laws. That is 20 percent more subpoenas that you have produced than laws to help people across this country.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his response. I would like the gentleman to walk through, if he could, the scheduling process for how the House will further proceed with the impeachment inquiry.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, like so many of my colleagues here today on the floor, I rise in strong opposition to the way that this impeachment inquiry is being conducted--in secret, behind closed doors. Madam Speaker, we had an election in 2016 and the people of this country spoke loudly. Not only that, Madam Speaker, there is going to be another election next year, and that is when the people of this country should be able to decide who the next President is. This shouldn't be conducted behind closed doors. Not only is it an impeachment inquiry that has not had a vote of the full House, which every other impeachment inquiry has had, but there are actual voting Members of Congress who are being denied access to these hearings, denied the ability to see what is happening behind closed doors. What do they have to hide, Madam Speaker? Why aren't they willing to have a vote on the House floor? This is not the way it should be done. Maybe in Russia this is how they conduct hearings. This is not how it should be done in the United States of America, where Members of Congress are denied access, the press is denied access, and, ultimately, the American people are denied access to what is going on behind closed doors to overturn the results of the 2016 election.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE.--with all due respect.

Mr. SCALISE. And in all three cases where there was an impeachment-- --

Mr. SCALISE.--the rules allow for both sides to have fairness.

Mr. SCALISE. We never tried to impeach a President----

Mr. SCALISE. This is your rule. You are in charge of the House.

Mr. SCALISE. You are the one who made the official decree. This is my time. I will yield time to the gentleman in a moment. If he wants to talk about fairness, let's lay out the facts because these are the facts: Our side cannot call witnesses. The majority could change that rule today. I would ask the gentleman: Would you be willing to change the rule to let our side call witnesses and to let the President's counsel be able to question witnesses who are, in secret, making charges against him to try to literally undo the results of a duly elected President? Would the gentleman be willing to change the rules to do that? Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. You think fairness is you being able to control everything and not letting the other side----

Mr. SCALISE. These are your rules. You are the majority party.