 and holding those who refuse to comply with Congressional subpoena accountable. And I stood with each and every one of you. I am the only member in this room today who has held a member of my own party in contempt of Congress for not showing up for a subpoena. And I see nothing but complete hypocrisy on the other side of the aisle. The ranking member of this committee, even so eloquently put it, the lesson is, please tell your children out there in America. If you get a subpoena to go before Congress, you have a legal responsibility to do so. So the hypocrisy is stunning. What are we to tell our children today? There's nothing the other side can say with a straight face. As the only member of this committee to vote to hold a member of contempt of my own party, let me be clear, this should not be a partisan issue. If Congress issues a subpoena, you show up, period. This is not a responsibility we take lightly. It brings no joy for us to do this, but the president's son broke the law and must be held accountable in the same way anybody else would. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do so. And my last message to you, Hunter Biden, you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. Will the gentle lady yield for a question? Will the gentle lady yield? Will my friend yield from South Carolina? Sure. I do wanna commend the gentle lady who was the only Republican who stood up and voted to hold in contempt the Republican members of the House who blatantly and categorically refused to comply with subpoenas that came from the bipartisan January 6th committee. I would like to ask my friend Ms. Mace from South Carolina whether she's aware of all the case law which says that the committee has to engage in good faith interaction with the witnesses they've called and they're supposed to arrive at a solution. And what do you think about the fact that chairman on multiple occasions gave this witness the opportunity to come before the full committee and he agreed to that? We issued a congressional subpoena and I know with your constitutional law background you knew exactly what that means and he should have showed up. And because of your vote and because of your statements you should be voting to hold this man in contempt of Congress two day right now. If you're gonna be consistent on your own policies in your own words. Gentle lady's time's expired. Chair recognize Mr. Moskowitz for five minutes. Thank you Mr. Chairman. It's good to see you after a long break. So I'm listening to the gentle lady from South Carolina about the witness being afraid to come in front of the committee. It's interesting he's here. Doesn't seem to be too afraid. In fact for some reason the chairman who on multiple occasions invited the witness to come on TV. Apparently the chairman wants to pretend like his statements on television or in interviews don't matter. But it didn't happen once. It didn't happen twice. It happened multiple times. The chairman said the witness can choose whether to come to a deposition or to a public hearing in front of the committee. The witness accepted the chairman's invitation. It just so happens the witness is here. If the committee wants to hear from the witness and the chairman gave the witness that option then the only folks that are afraid to hear from the witness with the American people watching are my friends on the other side of the aisle. I don't know if there's a proper motion Mr. Chairman but I'll make a motion let's vote. Let's take a vote. Who wants to hear from Hunter right now today? Anyone? Come on. Who wants to hear from Hunter? No one. So I'm a visual learner and the visual is clear. Nobody over there wants to hear from the witness. Oh, it's one, thank you. Well you yield for a question. I'm not there yet but I will eventually. So there's no one other than one or two that want to hear from the witness. So the majority of my colleagues over there including the chairman don't want to hear from the witness with the American people, with the American people watching. So Mr. Chairman, I just want to hear from you. Will you acknowledge that you invited the witness on television to choose whether he could come to a public hearing and do you stand by your words or do you renege that invitation to the witness? To answer the question I've said repeatedly after the deposition, Mr. Biden can come in front of a public hearing. Mr. Chairman, I don't want to play the video but that is not what you said on television multiple times. We have the quotes, we can put them up. You said the witness can choose between a deposition. Listen, Mr. Moskowitz, Mr. Biden doesn't make the rules. We make the rules. No, Mr. Chairman, you make the rules and the rule you made is that he can choose. At that, the rule is. Those were your words for claiming my time. The time was issued to lawful subpoenas. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman. No, you issued those subpoenas after he took you up on your invitation to come and then you were like, oh no, no, oh my God, what did I do? I invited him to come so the American people can hear his side of the story. I put my foot in my mouth. So now I must bury him in the basement where we can decide what we're gonna release to the public so that we can continue to tell that story. Mr. Chairman, you have said multiple times that this is not about Hunter. It's about Joe Biden. And even this morning on Mornings with Maria, she asked another simple question. The question you have been asked multiple times, which is, do you have evidence to impeach the President of the United States? Before you said, I hope so. Today you said, I think so. And the answer is, you don't. And you still don't. And so we continue to be here and have these charades to my colleagues who talk about lawful subpoenas. I appreciate the gentlelady from South Carolina who voted to hold people in contempt. Listen, I'll make this bipartisan. I'll vote for the Hunter contempt today. You can get my vote. You can get my vote. But I want you to show the American people that you're serious. Here is the subpoena to Representative Scott Perry who did not comply. I'd like to enter this into the record. Here is the subpoena to Mark Meadows. I'd like to enter this into the record who did not comply. Here is the subpoena to Jim Jordan who did not comply with the lawful subpoena. I'd like to enter that into the record. Here is the subpoena to Mo Brooks who did not comply. I'd like to enter that into the record. Here is the subpoena to Mr. Biggs who did not comply. I'd like to enter that into the record. And here's the subpoena to Mr. McCarthy who did not comply. I'd like to enter that into the record. There's an amendment coming to add some of those names into the contempt order. You vote to add those names and show the American people that we apply the law equally, not just when it's Democrats, right? It's a crime when it's Democrats, but when it's Trump and there's Republicans, it's just fine. No, show that you're serious and that everyone is not above the law. Vote for that amendment and I'll vote for the Hunter Biden contempt. I yield back. Do you know what sounds expired? Chair, recognize Ms. Green from Georgia fulfillment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Excuse me, Hunter, apparently you're afraid of my words. I like to reclaim my time, Mr. Chairman. That's too bad. I think it's clear and obvious for everyone watching this hearing today that Hunter Biden is terrified of strong conservative Republican women because he can't even face my words as I was about to speak to him. What a coward. And this is also a coward that sat right here in front of Mickey Babbitt, Ashley Babbitt's mother, who was murdered on January 6th by Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police Officer. And you wanna talk about a committee of political sham. I'll totally disagree with you, Ms. Mace. That January 6th committee was not bipartisan. It was a complete setup to go after President Trump, go after Republicans, go after anyone that believes in free and fair elections, people that believe the Department of Justice should be fair and balanced, not a political weaponized department of the federal government that is targeting President Trump, his supporters, people that walked in the Capitol on January 6th, and now people that stood outside the Capitol. There's been no justice for Ashley Babbitt's family. Michael Byrd has never been charged with anything. He was let off and he was given a promotion and allowed to walk free. And Hunter Biden just walked out. That is an example of not following the law. Hunter Biden thinks he's above the law. Don Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka, Trump family members had to come in to Democrats subpoenas and be questions by Democrats for over eight hours, each of them. Hunter Biden runs away. Hunter Biden did not come when we subpoenaed him. He did not follow the law. And then one of our colleagues helped him evade his subpoena by going and reserving a press conference for him on his behalf, helped him evade the subpoena, helped Hunter Biden break the law. Let's talk about his own father's words. President Joe Biden said in October, 2021, that individuals who defy subpoenas from the January 6th House Select Committee should be prosecuted. And the Justice Department indicted Steve Bannon for doing so in November, 2021. Hunter Biden's father, the president of the United States said that he should be prosecuted. Anyone that defies a subpoena should be prosecuted. Hunter Biden didn't show up for his subpoena. Hunter Biden showed up today to make a clown show of himself to show that he is nothing, but someone that will not obey the law that wants to show up when he wants to and sits here with a smug look on his face and runs away when it's my turn to talk. Not only is he a criminal, but he is a coward. Nothing but a coward. Let's talk about voting for things. We have members on this committee that are on record on their own Twitter accounts talking about people blowing off subpoenas on the January 6th Committee that states the rule of law is stirring all over America. That's Representative Jamie Raskin right here. I'll enter this for the record. Representative Jamie Raskin. Steve Bannon has been convicted of acting in contempt of Congress. My argument with Rep Gates is now settled. If subpoenaed, you show up and assert any privilege you think applies to specific questions, but you can't blow off the proceeding. He blew it off. Walking in today is too late. We have to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress because he's not above the law and neither is the President of the United States. And this committee has produced more evidence, more evidence that any Democrat ever dreamed of having against President Trump and his family while they constantly make up lies and attacks about the Trump family and President Trump, they make them up all day long. It's nothing but a political witch hunt. This committee has produced the evidence that Joe Biden has taken payments through his son Hunter Biden and all their dozens of fake LLCs. You can't buy a Biden product. You can't hire a Biden for a service unless you're a foreign country and you're asking and paying for political favors and political payouts. And that is exactly what the Biden brand is all about. We will hold Hunter Biden in contempt. And if the Democrats are not the hypocrites that they constantly display that they are, then they will vote for contempt of Congress because they voted for it on every other subpoena that didn't go through. And here's the last thing, you guys had your chance. If you wanted to hold people in contempt of Congress, you could have done it last Congress, but you didn't do it and it would have been a major mistake because you know that it could have been turned exactly back on you. Mr. Chairman, I yield. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it's really interesting to hear that gentle lady from Georgia speak about Hunter Biden leaving and she is the person that showed nude photos of Hunter Biden in this very committee room showing dick pics in this committee room of Hunter Biden. I have my five minutes, gentle lady. And so I think it's really ironic, hypocritical, quite shameful that the person who's complaining about somebody leaving when she's showing nude photos of him to this committee, showing nude photos of him to this committee in this very room. And you also talk about decorum, you were talking about January 6th in Miss Green, I was there with you when we went to the January 6th jail and when you were hugging, high-fiving, talking to and providing so much comfort and joy to the insurrectionists that attacked our Capitol. And insurrectionists that attacked our Capitol, you were hugging and giving them all the support that you had. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has your time. Stop the clock. Chair recognizes Mr. Garcia. I'd like to continue my five minutes. Three minutes and 50 seconds. My five minutes. And I just want to remind everyone one that this is again about the Donald Trump Revenge Show. We're here today and the majority is doing this hearing because this is all about Donald Trump and trying to make sure that do everything they can to support him. For weeks, we as Democrats and Republicans and the chairman demanded a public hearing and I agree with Mr. Moskowitz. Yet, Mr. Chairman, you have denied it. We want a public hearing. If we need to take a vote or ask unanimous consent, we should hear from Mr. Biden today. That's what the public demands. Democrats are united. We'd like to see the same thing. And I'd like to see a vote to actually have under Biden actually with unanimous consent do actually a hearing and address us today if possible. Would my friend yield? Yes. Thank you. Well, the fact of the matter is Mr. Biden showed up this morning and was willing to show up weeks ago to appear at a public hearing, which he was led to believe was his option. Today is all about a combination of Hutzpah and delusional theory. We just heard some of the delusional theory from the general lady from Georgia. But the Hutzpah is a bunch of people who defied subpoenas themselves now wanna have a contempt citation for the son of the president because they don't have sufficient evidence. In fact, they have no evidence of any kind to pursue the president himself. So when you can't go after the principal, try to hurt the people around him, including a wounded member of his own family who has had all two public troubles put before our country. It's mean spirited. It's cruel. And it's beneath the dignity of this committee and this body. You wanna have political differences with the president of the United States, our system invites it. But resorting to punitive measures against members of his family, because you can't get at him, I think crosses the boundary. And by the way, I counsel Democrats in the previous administration to take great care of going after members of President Trump's family because I felt the same dynamic at work. So I would urge that we give real serious consideration to the matter at hand. And we show more respect for the president and his family, whoever that president may be at any given time. And that we respect due process and we hold ourselves to the same standard. We are asking this body to act on today in terms of a contempt citation. We've let many of our fellow members off the hook and to find the January 6th subpoenas. I yield to Mr. Askin. If you'd take a second. Can I have the rest of my time? I just wanna also just to the chairman, I think Mr. Biden has agreed to address this committee publicly. I just wanna ask unanimous consent just where in Mr. Biden either today or at a future meeting and have every member be able to ask five minutes of questioning to the witness. So I'd like to officially ask that, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, we object that not in order. How is that not an order? It's just not in order. Time's expired. Chair, I recognize Mr. Perry for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd just like to remind members of this committee and anybody watching that this is a duly constituted committee under the rules of the House of Representatives, duly constituted. See Republicans on this side and Democrats on that side. The Democrats on that side were selected by their leadership and their process. Same thing for the Republicans on this side. Why do I mention that? Why do I bring that up? Because this is a stark difference from what is being referenced on the other side of the aisle. This is so-called J6 committee, which was nothing more than a Soviet show trial in America. That's what that was. And so every single action that they took, subpoenaing people, disparaging people, referring charges of people were not legitimate. We're not legitimate. So to compare what's happening today to what happened years ago is completely out of context needed to understand that. This is a game for these folks. Sure, they wanna support their guy. They don't care about America. They don't care about what the president's doing to destroy America. They're just locking horns, locking arms to support their guy. And God bless them, they can do that. If you wanna vote for people that do that, that's your right. Now in my opinion, this committee is not interested in prosecuting Hunter Biden. We're not interested in that. Hunter Biden is a sad tale by his own right, by his own admission, by leaving his evidence all around for everybody to see. The other side complains that documents and photographs are shown in this committee about Hunter Biden. Don't blame the person that showed the documents or the photographs. The person that committed the acts is the person who was responsible for the acts. And we do take no joy because it's a waste of time to prosecute Hunter Biden. But he created this for himself along with the rest of his sad tale of his life. Unfortunate that it may be. But we, in this committee, on both sides of the aisle, on behalf of the American people are charged with finding the facts. And the facts show that President Biden profited from his name and the person that arranged the deals was Hunter Biden. And so we would like to delve into that. Now Hunter Biden, regardless of his last name, even though he thinks he's special, he thinks he can leave evidence all around and blame it on the Russians when he knows it was him. He can go on TV and say that he thinks he's special because his last name's Biden and that no one will touch him. Ladies and gentlemen, the great thing about America is that we're all special because the law is blind to each one of us, regardless of our station, our economic position, or our political position. Hunter Biden sadly chose to violate federal law. That's unfortunate. But we are duty bound to do something about it because without law, we have anarchy. And that's what Hunter Biden would like. By coming here today, he shows that he can be here. He shows that he displays that he could show up to a lawfully, legitimately presented subpoena. But he chooses not to, and that's his choice. He can do that. There are consequences for that, ladies and gentlemen. There are consequences for that. And we are duty bound. Will the gentleman yield down here, Mr. Perry? I will not yield. We are duty bound, we are duty bound to pursue the consequences of that so that the American people can trust in the system of justice in the United States of America, which they do not right now. They don't trust in it, nor should they because this side of the aisle has made a mockery of it for the last three years and beyond that. Will the gentleman yield for? I will not yield. Mr. Biden is not special. He was given a subpoena. He should have appeared. He chose not to. We have no choice. We have no choice if we are to uphold our oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. We have no choice except to refer charges and find Hunter Biden in contempt. His choice, that was his choice. Now we have to make our choice and conflating the so-called, the so-called J6 Committee unduly authorized. Not a committee, not a committee, no jurisdiction, no authority whatsoever under the law of anything. To conflate that with these proceedings today is an abomination. My friends on the other side of the aisle know what they're doing, should be ashamed, should be embarrassed, but will not be. Regardless, we must forge on for the sake of this republic. I yield the balance. Gentlemen, time's expired. Chair now recognize Mr. Goldman for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I feel like I'm in Alice in Wonderland after that. Every American receives the same application of the law and it does not matter what your last name is. So I guess that means if your last name is Perry that subpoenas apply to you as well. Lawful subpoenas. Now I appreciate the gentleman from Pennsylvania's argument that the January 6th committee was not a duly constituted committee. And in fact, he and many others made that same argument to a number of courts of law. The courts are charged with interpreting our laws and whether a committee is a duly constituted committee and whether a subpoena is a duly constituted subpoena. And even though my friend from Pennsylvania may not like the fact that a neutral judge, multiple judges in fact, didn't agree with him, it still remains the law of the land, not what Mr. Perry says, not how I would interpret the January 6th committee but how every single court of law interpreted it and said it was a validly constituted committee and every single subpoena issued by that committee was a duly authorized lawful subpoena no different than the subpoena to Hunter Biden. Will the gentleman yield for a question? No, unfortunately, sir, you did not yield to me so I will not yield to you. The fact of the matter is that subpoenas should apply equally. And for my colleagues to actually claim that we on this side of the aisle are hypocritical because we will not vote to hold someone who has made every effort to comply in every way other than the specific means of providing the evidence has is somehow should be held in contempt when three members of this committee refuse to comply in any way, shape or form with a court determined lawful subpoena is beyond me. Now, I find it interesting that my friend from Pennsylvania also chastises us for just supporting our guy. And I wonder what how he would define supporting our guy. Would he suffine supporting our guy as trying to instigate a coup at the Department of Justice to install a lackey and remove the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General so that he could keep his guy in office even though he lost? Is that just supporting our guy? Because that's what Mr. Perry did. The reality is that we are here because plain and simple, two reasons. Retribution for Donald Trump and the fact that the Republicans have no evidence. And you will hear them talk about evidence. You will hear them say we have so much evidence. We have so much evidence. And we're gonna get into some of these details as we go forward. But the reality is that you have been moving the goalpost the entire time because you cannot make any connection notwithstanding all of your false statements to the President. So instead, let's subpoena Hunter Biden because what we will expect is that he won't testify or that he'll take the Fifth Amendment because he's under criminal indictment. And then we get to say, aha, all of our specious allegations must be true because if they weren't, he would come here and testify. Well, he called your bluff and now you're scrambling. And now you're trying to level not. And now you're scrambling. Now you are desperate, desperate to find anything to divert attention away from your abject lack of evidence connecting President Biden to any business venture of Hunter Biden's to any wrongdoing. So we're gonna hold us here on a contempt hearing because you don't wanna see him testify in public. You just wanna be able to filter his testimony in closed door testimony as you have been doing this entire Congress. Well, the gentleman yield. I will deal to my ranking member. Thank you. Thank you. The District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Kelly obliterated the argument that Mr. expired chair that's about something you made Mr. Biggs for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the risk of taking the bait, which is what, which is all this is, it's laying a little, little bait and it might be just too attractive for me. So I gotta get in on it just to maybe just a little bit. I'm intrigued by the assertions of my colleagues who claim that the Hunter Biden violation of the subpoena scenario is the same as issuing subpoenas to four members of Congress. I'm intrigued by that. I really am. It's interesting. Had the illegitimate J6 group decided to pursue to enforce its dubious subpoena against me, my counsel was prepared to argue that service of that subpoena was insufficient and so asserted to counsel for the J6 committee. Had the illegitimate J6 gaggle sought to enforce its subpoenas by counsel and I believe the counsel of each member of Congress who had been subpoenaed, ostensibly subpoenaed, putatively subpoenaed would also have asserted successfully a privilege under the Constitution of the United States. Those questions never rose formally because the now defunct J6 committee which has no authority anymore has it passed with the closing of the last session of Congress. I think that that cabal surely understood that its tenuous claims were in charge not to try and enforce its questionable subpoenas. And now why do I say that? I say it because in reporting to Reuters, the committee's own chairman, Benny Thompson said this, quote, there are some questions of whether we have the authority to compel testimony from Republican colleagues. He knew, he knew you didn't have that authority but yet you still try to assert it. Now what's the distinction? Well, Hunter Biden has no claim to insufficiency of service of process. Why do we know? Because he stood on the lawn of the Senate the same day that he was supposed to be here and asserted publicly, hey, I'm supposed to be somewhere else. I'm supposed to be giving a deposition but I won't do it. I won't do it. Secondly, Hunter Biden has claimed no privilege against testifying before this committee or the Judiciary Committee pursuant to the subpoena except for the privilege that he has claimed throughout his life. And as the LA Times said about Hunter Biden, Biden is still on the nepotism gravy train, close quote. As the Daily Mail reported, quote, 100 minutes he got $50,000 a month job on the board of Ukrainian gas company, Barisma, because of his family name, close quote. And it goes on and on. Again, the LA Times describes Hunter Biden as a, quote, child of privilege, close quote. That's the only privilege Hunter Biden has ever asserted. He asserts that not that he should be exempt from testifying because there is some constitutional prescription that even the chairman of this committee would agree to as Benny Thompson agreed to on the J6 committee's issuance of subpoenas to members of Congress. No, he doesn't assert that kind of privilege. He asserts only the privilege that he does not need to come and testify before the United States Congress who has issued him subpoena, his attorney has acknowledged that subpoena and he personally has acknowledged that subpoena for the simple reason that he is a Biden. So where are we? Mayor Garland has authorized pursuing Republicans for contempt of Congress. He must also authorize prosecution of Hunter Biden. Failure to do so on the part of the attorney general will show his contempt for Congress as well, but it will show even greater attempt, consuming greater contempt for the American people who now recognize the weaponization of the federal government and the two-tier system promulgated by Democrats. Mr. Chairman, to Mr. Thompson, former chairman Thompson's questioning of his own authority to actually issue subpoenas to members of Congress. Chairman Jordan requested legal analysis and authorities, but Chairman Thompson never responded. That committee could have pursued contempt if they thought there was valid subpoenas issued and a contemptible warranted contempt citation. They chose not to, their authority expired and ours is not expired, we should issue contempt. I yield back. Gentlemen yields back. Chair now recognizes Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Three names, Jordan, Perry and Biggs. Not a law firm, three members of this body who defied a legitimate, legitimately issued subpoena upheld by courts of law. I think it's really important to remember that when the word hypocrisy is thrown around by some of our friends on the other side of the aisle. The other thing I think that's really important before I yield to the ranking member, Mr. Biden, Hunter Biden knows that if he appeared in camera and in secret to be deposed, Republicans would cherry pick what he said and leak it. He preferred sunshine. He preferred to come here out in the open and testify before the entire American public, this body and everyone watching and take his chances with public testimony that could not be used to his detriment by cherry picking and distortion. That is and ought to be the right of an American citizen. I yield to the ranking member. Thank you kindly, Mr. Connolly. I wanted to introduce for the record, Mr. Chairman, United States District Court for the District of Columbia opinion in RNC versus Nancy Pelosi, rendered by Judge Tim Kelly, rejecting, obliterating demolishing every argument that we heard from Mr. Perry and Mr. Biggs. Their whole argument seems to be that Republicans were entitled to blow off subpoenas of the United States Congress. They came from the January 6th committee because they didn't like the committee. They didn't think it was legitimate. They thought it was not validly authorized. The courts roundly and uniformly rejected those arguments. So now they purport to render the law for themselves. If they don't want to comply with the subpoena, they won't, and yet they would now hold other witnesses like Hunter Biden to a standard they won't accept for themselves. That's a remarkable thing. I started off this hearing, Mr. Chairman, by saying we believe that everybody should respond in good faith to the subpoenas of the United States Congress. Now, Mr. Biden asserts that he responded in good faith to what you repeatedly publicly asked him to do. And he's at least got an arguable, colorable claim that that's true. All the case law I've been able to read, Mr. Chairman, suggests that the committee is supposed to engage in good faith negotiation with witnesses, which is precisely what the January 6th committee did. The dates don't always work out. The times don't always work out. Some people want to assert a privilege. Some people don't. There are certain questions that are agreed to or not. So there are negotiations, but as I read at the beginning of this hearing- Will the gentleman take a question? Oh, but I will soon as I get to that- Excuse me, it's my time. Mr. Raskin, you can. Thank you, Mr. Culling. So why is the committee not engaged in that negotiation with Hunter Biden? I just don't understand that. I mean, he's a guy who appears to be 99% willing to do what you even asked him to do in the written subpoena, but he's given 100% good faith compliance with what you repeatedly, publicly challenged him to do. So I don't understand why you won't meet with them and work it out, which is what every court in the land has said. The courts don't want to be involved in all this stuff, especially when you've got a guy like him who's overwhelmingly complying with what you're asking for, unlike all of these colleagues on the other side, the aisle who unfortunately 100% defied the subpoenas of the United States Congress, which is what they did. And I don't think those people should be able to vote on any subpoena relating to any witness in this committee until they render cooperation with the January 6th committee and come forth and tell us what they know. Now there's another point that I need to make and I want to thank Mr. Connolly for his indulgence here. Our good friend, the gentle lady from Georgia, referred to the murder of Ashley Babbitt. Well, the Department of Justice, the United States Attorney and the US Capitol Police Inspector General all rejected the idea that there was any murder. Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Or inquiry. There's no such thing. There's never been a court hearing. Mr. Chairman, we agree. I have a bird with ever charged. Reclaiming order here. The time is, Mr. Connolly, I yield back to Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will submit for the record a document entitled the Department of Justice closes investigation into the death of Ashley Babbitt, United States Capitol Police document, USCP completes internal investigation into the January 6th officer involved shooting. I think it was a scandal. It was a tragedy that people died because Donald Trump put them at risk as many of the former insurrectionists are now willing to say publicly that he said, you gotta go and you gotta fight and fight like hell or you will not have, you will not have. Time's expired, Mr. Connolly's time's expired. Mr. Connolly's time has expired. Mr. Connolly's time has expired. Order, order. I was trying to reclaim the time the gentle lady stole from. Oh, we stopped the clock. I watched it. I'm paying close attention. I do feel compelled to respond to this. We have engaged in good faith negotiation. We've offered every witness a narrow scope of topics, documents in advance. They can choose the day. Hunter Biden's lawyer has not engaged with the committee regarding Hunter Biden. Chair now recognizes Mr. Babbitt's. Did you respond to their letters to offer to cooperate, sir? Mr. Chairman, did you respond to their lawyers offer to cooperate with the committee and meet with the committee? Yeah, Chair recognizes Mr. Walts for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's, it's, this is an incredible first hearing with this. Welcome to the oversight committee. It was, but you know, I mean, this was entirely predictable. I think what we were going to hear and see today, we saw that, that Hunter came and staged a PR stunt with my friend from Florida, Mr. Moskowitz. I was clearly organized and recognized, but what I'm hearing from the raking member and his colleagues that claim that transcripts are subject to quote partisan and twisted leaks and distortions is incredibly rich. Let's talk about calling the kettle black first. The country suffered through an entire impeachment proceeding of a president of the United States because of a false dossier in a skiff, a compartmented facility where every hearing and every transcript started with, this is an unclassified proceeding, then to have it selectively leaked and lied to, to the American people, to the great damage to this nation, but then bring it to this committee because I'm new. I watched yesterday as committee Democrats continued to spend false narratives, several of which went out just yesterday as interviews were ongoing with Hunter Biden's art dealer, which is rich in and of itself, that Congressman Golden on the other side of the aisle went to the press during the interviews and spun a narrative while it was going on, but he conveniently admitted that 70% of the art buyers were Biden donors. So let's, we can, we can go down the line and talk about spin, but the other thing that we're hearing today, well, members so-and-so, Congressman so-and-so, Congressman Jordan, they didn't comply with their subpoenas, but let's have a quick lesson on the Constitution. Article one, section six of the Constitution, the speed and debate clause essentially protects all of us from abiding by each other's subpoenas. Otherwise, this body would do nothing but subpoena each other. So I would encourage my colleagues to look up article one, section six and look at the case law, the speech and debate clause and why my colleagues rightfully did not abide by that subpoenas. But let's talk about precedent for a moment of a president's son abiding by lawful subpoenas of the Congress. Donald Trump Jr. came before this body. He came before the House Intelligence Committee. He came before the House Judiciary Committee. He came before the Senate Intelligence Committee twice. He came before the so-called Jan Six Committee, all behind closed doors where lawyers can sit down both sides of the aisle and have a conversation, go through documents all under oath, which is the precedent for any committee. Don Jr. came before committees and came before this body five times behind closed doors. What is Hunter Biden afraid of? What won't he do? And ranking member Raskin, you're going to reap what you sow, my friend. I mean, you insisted on depositions for those who appeared before the Jan Six Committee. When Steve Bannon agreed to testify publicly, you argued, sir, that he should have to sit for a closed door interview, just like every other witness. Quote, the way we have treated every single witness is the same. They come in behind closed doors. They talk to the committee there. You said on an interview in front of CBS in 2022, but now that Republicans are doing the same process, following House rules, doing the investigating, somehow Hunter Biden, because he's a Biden, should be held to a different standard. At the end of the day, we had a government official and the president of the United States, a vice president set up 30 shell companies. Why? What product did those companies sell? Nothing. Vice president Biden was charged with two countries in his portfolio, China and Ukraine. While the vice president, his son traveled on official business on Air Force Two and received massive monetary contributions afterwards. We have laws in place, colleagues, that prevent foreign powers from influencing government officials. World policies changed. As a result of the dinners, the calls, the text messages that we know president Biden engaged in through his son, we have a duty to get to the bottom of it. We will reference this contempt and we will see if the attorney general will uphold a fair standard of the law. The time's up, Mr. Chairman. And prosecute Hunter Biden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Time's expired. Terry now recognizes Ms. Crockett for five minutes. Okay, all right. So we love the constitution today and we also wanna talk about foreign money coming in. Have y'all seen the report that was just produced where this chairman decided that he was going to block this committee from receiving additional information about y'all's guy, Trump and all the money that he took from what we did receive. We know that Trump got almost $6 million that we can account for. And we know that there's more there. From China specifically, we found almost $8 million total that he accepted from foreign governments while he was serving as the president of these United States. But we're concerned about the president's son, the president's son who has not been involved in his administration. I just wanna run it back though to the very beginning because this is something that I just can't get over. I can't get over the gentle lady from South Carolina talking about white privilege. It was a spit in the face, at least of mine as a black woman, for you to talk about what white privilege looks like, especially from that side of the aisle. And let me quote your now ousted speaker and what he had to say about the Republican party and y'all's lack of diversity. When you look at the Democrats, they actually look like America. When I look at my party, we look like the most restrictive country club in America. So let me tell you something. Y'all don't know what white privilege looks like, but I'm gonna show you a little bit of something. You see, you wanna talk about a two tier justice system and this is the only time that y'all have ever referenced it. When this country has a history, when it comes to black and brown folk of having two separate sets of rules. And right now what you wanna do is have two separate sets of rules because Mr. Moskowitz offered y'all a fair situation. He said he would vote for Hunter to be held in contempt if y'all voted to hold, even if you remove all of the members of Congress, there's still other people that y'all haven't decided that y'all have excuses for, but y'all don't wanna hold them in contempt, but for some reason it makes sense to hold Hunter Biden in contempt who has tried to comply. And let me tell you why nobody wants to talk to y'all behind closed doors, because y'all lie. That's just the bottom line. You have done it thus far in this investigation. You have done it this far as it relates to this committee and every single hearing y'all spin, spin, spin. I don't know how y'all are still standing right now because you should be quite dizzy from all the spinning that you're constantly doing when it comes to spinning the truth. You talk about free and fair elections, but you back a guy who we know tried to steal the election. And this isn't about what Democrats have to say. Let me remind you, for those of you that don't know how the justice system works, it's not a matter of the president went in and indicted Trump, but we are talking about grand juries. Grand juries are comprised of American citizens and the people that have entered pleas of guilty that will be flipping on your leader in a minute, they are Republicans. I do wanna point that out. And half of them were Republicans that were handpicked by Donald Trump himself. So to be clear, whatever happens to your little leader, it's going to be because of the actions that he took. So you can talk all you want to about how January 6th was nonsense, but all of y'all were running at that time. Y'all were grabbing y'all's gas masks and y'all were running to your offices because you didn't know if they were coming to kill you. You should have cared that somebody was there to protect you, but instead you wanna play games because you found out that it was your leader that decided that he wanted to propagate an insurrection on our country. So don't tell me that you care about the Constitution because you don't. All you care about is Trump getting reelected and I'll yield the last of my time to my leader. Thank you very much, Ms. Crockett, for your eloquent and powerful and irrefutable remarks. I'd like to just add a couple of points to what you've said. On January 6th, Senator Ted Cruz described it as terrorism. They later came to attack him during their revisionist or Wellian Stalinist attempt to rewrite history. Unfortunately for them, we know that there were 147 or 48 of our officers who were wounded, bloodied, and hospitalized by the rabid mob that beset the Capitol that day. We know that Kevin McCarthy, one of their deposed leaders over on their side, called Donald Trump from his office to complain about how his people were storming the Capitol and putting people's lives in danger. And Donald Trump said, no, no, those aren't my people. Those are Antifa and McCarthy corrected him and said, no, those are your people, Mr. President, to which Donald Trump said, well, maybe they just care a little bit more about who won the election than you did, Kevin McCarthy. You guys have got to deal with reality here. By the way, the speech and debate clause stands for the exact opposite principle who our distinguished new member just spoke about a moment ago. It says that members of Congress cannot be questioned anywhere else other than Congress. So you should read the speech or debate clause aloud. Let him finish his sentence there now. Chair recognizes Mr. Burchett from Tennessee for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My colleagues even want to talk about the justice system, so let's talk about it. November of last year, the chairman issued a subpoena to Hunter Biden to appear on December 13th, excuse me, for a closed-door deposition instead of respecting the rule of law. Hunter Biden chose to give a press conference on the front steps of the Senate. To show such contempt for Congress without fear of repercussions highlights a theme throughout this administration and Democrat administrations before it. If you're a big-name Democrat, then you are immune to prosecution. Former Attorney General Eric Holder said as much in a memo he wrote regarding collateral consequences. For those that don't know, the collateral consequence policy allowed prosecutors to consider whether charging a company or individual will result in greater societal harm than not charging them. It's why the banks weren't held criminally accountable to the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis. It is why Jeffrey Epstein's clients aren't behind bars. There's also the mindset of President Biden's family, too big to jail, not too big to fail, too big to jail. The two-tier justice system has disgraced our country and the principles it was founded on. I thank the chairman and the committee for the hard work they put in to hold the Biden administration accountable, but I doubt our Justice Department has the guts or the wherewithal to do anything about it. And I would like to yield my time to my friend from Florida, Byron Donalds. Actually, let me yield to Miss May. She hasn't gotten enough quality TV time today, so I'll give her a little more time. Thank you, and then I'll yield to my colleague from Florida as well. I'm gonna try to be quick here because I was accused by my colleague on the other side of the aisle about my white privilege. I want to say, number one, as a former ranking member of the Civil Rights Subcommittee under Chairman Raskin last session, I take great pride as a white female Republican to address the inadequacies in our country. I come from a district where rich and poor is literally black and white, black versus white on most days. My largest jail in my district, which is the largest jail in the state of South Carolina, has had seven or eight deaths in the last two years. I was there with our black and African-American council members trying to get the right thing done. And I come from a district where black men have been killed by law enforcement, tased to death in our jails, and I've stood with those black families because I know the differences that they see day to day in their life, and I try to do the best that I can. I come from a district where the first African-American, first black man in the US House of Representatives was Joseph P. Rainey, represented my district back in the 1800s with that. The last black member of the US House of Representatives before Reconstruction came from South Carolina, George P. Murray, the black man, former slave and entrepreneur who founded the Republican Party in South Carolina. One of the founding members was named Robert Smalls who commandeered a Confederate ship and gave it to Union soldiers and served his country admirably in the process. In my district, it was Harriet Tubman. You can see it in the movie Harriet who rescued more than 700 slaves in one night in Beaufort County, South Carolina. So I am very well aware of our rich history and try to recognize it as best as I can in the position that I have, and I resent the fact that you're gonna throw that in my face up here. I'm one of the few people that you'll see on my side of the aisle trying to do the right thing to right people every single day, and I would like to yield the remaining balance of time to my colleague from Florida. This has been a very interesting hearing. Mr. Walts, welcome to oversight. Yes, it usually gets like this. Oh, let's be very clear. This isn't about Hunter Biden's white privilege, it's about Hunter Biden's Democrat privilege because Donald Trump Jr. showed up for five congressional subpoenas. There was never this circus where he was subpoenaed by House Democrats and he showed up on the Senate side or showed up at the White House to answer in some fake phony lane press conference, not actually going to the House and doing what he was compelled by a subpoena to do. Hunter Biden did that. And then he has the unmitigated gall to show up here when we know that he's, we're going through actually the legislation for contempt, by the way, Mr. Chairman, which actually get to the legislation of contempt. The speechifying is great, but let's do our business members. He has the gall to come here, show up, and then when the Democrats are saying, hey, he wants to speak, he leaves. This is a joke. This is a farce. The man has been subpoenaed by Congress. Oh, and by the way, the January 6th Committee, Mr. Raskin, which you did sit on, by the way, that was not a normally ordered committee of Congress because Nancy Pelosi did not want the Republican members that then leader McCarthy put up. According to the courts it was. I see my time, sir. Were you yielding for a correction? I was respectful of your time, I didn't say anything. So, ladies and gentlemen, let's move forward with our business. He should be held in contempt. There was a subpoena, he did not answer it. Any other American would be held in contempt by Congress, any other. This is Democrat privilege of the highest order. Let's do our jobs. I yield. Gentlemen yields, Chair, and I recognize Mr. Ocasio-Cortez from New York. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm just to address briefly quickly that moment about privilege and all of this that we're seeing here. It was very beautiful speech by the gentle lady who, as she mentioned, was helped lead on the majority, the now majority side of the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties subcommittee, but I think it's so exemplary of the point that she also oversaw the elimination of the Civil Rights subcommittee on this committee, which really kind of gives the whole game away. We show up, we give speeches, we give flowery words, but at the end of the day, participate in the structural erosion of the rights and representation of people that are marginalized women, people of color, people that just need to see their due process and civil liberties protected in this country. But I will move on. As also the Republican side had mentioned, in their many raisings of the January 6th committee, that it's not just Hunter Biden, you, me, any individual subject to equal treatment under the law to be held up to accountability under the law, but it is also these committees and this committee that is subject to oversight and law. We must comply with the law here as well. Now, I may be one of the very few people that actually believes in Congress, you know, in this country, but I do, and many of us do here, and we have an obligation to engage in good faith participation, to execute and comply with the subpoena. The chairman said in front of the country several times to Hunter Biden, you can show up here in front of the world, in front of the public. Hunter Biden took him up on that offer. He said, I will show up in public. I will show up in public. He showed up here today. He showed up here in the past. And Mr. Chairman, I know you do your best with what you've got, but you've got members here that have submitted falsified evidence to the record. You have members here that have submitted and mischaracterized closed door hearings, and people wanna say back and forth at the end of the day. It doesn't matter what parties happen from. You've got members who've engaged in revenge porn in this committee, so it is understandable why Hunter Biden would want to testify in front of the public for the American people to be able to witness that testimony for themselves. You've got members who've defied subpoenas. You've got members who we are one year into the term asking what the rules are at the beginning of the committee. The book was given to us on day one. And so what we should do is allow the man to testify. I believe in the power of the oversight committee. Frankly, I believe in it regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats have the chair, because I believe that this committee should have the power of oversight, and we cannot do that on a partisan basis. And so for that, I implore this committee to allow Hunter Biden to testify publicly. I implore and I ask for that to happen. And we cannot do that by getting engaged in this back and forth on a defiance of the subpoena. Let him comply. Let him do it today. Let him do it tomorrow. But let the man do it. And with that, I yield back to the ranking member. Thank you, Mr. Ocasio-Cortez. I think you went right to the heart of the issue here. If this ended up going to court, Mr. Chairman, and I hope it doesn't, I really hope that this committee will act in a way to negotiate and achieve a compromise with the witness. But if it goes to the court, it's gonna present a novel question. What happens when a committee represented by its distinguished chairman goes out in public and repeatedly invites and challenges a witness to come before the committee, and then that witness gives the answer, yes, I will come in. At that point, the committee pulls a bait and switch and says, well, we actually don't want you to come before the full committee, as was offered repeatedly in public by the chairman, but instead we'd like you to come to a back room and do it there in a closed deposition. Now, undoubtedly, if that had been the original offer, the committee would stand in a very good place, the way we did with Mr. Biggs and Mr. Perry and Mr. Jordan, because they were told to come in, they were subpoenaed, and they blew off the subpoenas of the committee, which is why I don't think anybody should be voting on that side other than Ms. Mace, because Ms. Mace is the one who took the position that the rule of law means something, and I take the position if we give somebody a subpoena, they should come in, but there's a very sticky problem now. What happens when we give them one offer A and then switch it over to offer B? That's why I hope you will work it out, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for doing it. The gentlelady's time's expired to respond to the gentlelady. He can come in for a hearing after the deposition. Chair now recognizes Ms. McLean for five minutes. So I just wanna bring everything back home. This hearing is a contempt of Congress hearing for Hunter Biden. It's not about January 6th. It's not about Mr. Perry. It's not about white privilege. It's a contempt of Congress hearing about Hunter Biden. Although I appreciate the diversion tactics, like my colleague from Florida said, let's get back to our business, which is actually the contempt of Congress. I also wanna thank my colleague, Ms. Cortez. I agree. Let him comply, right? Let him comply. And with our ranking member, let's follow the rule of law. So in contrast, let me read the rules of the committee. Real quickly, it's on page nine of the rule book, right? And it talks about notices. Notices for the taking of depositions. So specify the date, the time and the place of examination, depositions may continue from day to day. Then you go to section D. Consultation with the ranking minority member of the committee shall include, listen for it, listen for it, three calendar days notice. So although I'm sure any defendant would like to come in and say, judge, I wanna come in on this day and the defendant is going to tell the judge and the legal system how the trial is gonna run. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. It's really simple. So I do agree with you. Let him comply. Let him comply with the subpoena that we gave him. He chose not to. So therefore we are holding Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress. And I would also like to say you had the opportunity when you all were in charge or you all were in charge to do the same with the members on our side of the aisle. You didn't do that. That's not our fault. That's yours. So we're here to talk about Hunter Biden. For everyone watching today and for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I wanna be clear again what this hearing is really about. Hunter Biden was subpoenaed to answer Congress. Right? That's it. Questions. But he violated federal law by failing to appear before the committee. You can't spin that for my colleague on the other side of the aisle. You can't spin that. The bottom line is Hunter did not show up and he committed a crime. You see, we are a land of laws and we must follow those laws. And that's what we're here to do today. Instead he was on the grounds of the US Capitol where he made a public statement without taking questions from the media conveniently. So instead of showing up for his legal obligation, he showed up just steps away from a hearing room to spit in the face of this Congress and unfortunately that is Hunter Biden's MO. We're merely doing our job. What we're doing here today is showing the country that Hunter will not receive special treatment due to his last name. It's very, very simple. And he will be held to the same standard that every other American citizen would be expected to do. Can you imagine if your average America and you get a subpoena and you go in and tell the judge, hey, let me tell you, here's how it's gonna work, judge. I'm not showing up. I'm not showing up. I'm gonna do it my way. I know we have laws, but don't worry about those laws because that would never fly. But that's exactly what Hunter Biden's doing. And if we care about this institution, if we care about democracy, at some point in time, we have to hold the law and people who break the law accountable. Or like my colleague said, we are going to have anarchy. So simply put, it's not about anything else. We're talking about Hunter Biden and his non-compliance. And you can get up and scream and holler and rant and rave and talk about everything but the fact. We subpoenaed Congress legally Hunter Biden and he chose not to show up. Read the rules. He has to follow the law. I know that's a very foreign concept, but you have to do it. And for the Biden family, you too have to follow the laws. And with that, I yield back. The general lady makes an excellent point about the three-day notice requirement for subpoenas. I don't think that's ever been complied with. In this committee, will you commit to... That's not my issue. I'm just reading the laws. No, it's my time, Mrs. McLean. Thank you so much. Would you commit to honor the three-day notice requirement that Mrs. McLean properly invoked? Would I comply? I'll say this to answer the ranking members question and then I'll recognize Mrs. Stansberry. We have complied with the three... Okay, well, we might have a dispute about... I would ask this, will you comply? Will you comply? We have followed the rules. That's my question. Will you comply? We don't have the chair, Mrs. McLean, and you don't have the time. We have followed the rules. This is... Chair now recognizes Mrs. Stansberry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, it's always a wild and interesting adventure here in the Oversight Committee and this morning certainly doesn't disappoint. You know, I want to talk for a few moments about the resolution that's been proposed in the ANS here because that's what we're here to debate this morning and really the content of that, including the assertions about the investigation that led to the moment that we're at here today. But I am really glad that my colleague mentioned that we are a land of laws and that every citizen should have to comply with them, including members of this committee, not to mention a chairman who was subpoenaed during the last Congress and refused to respond. So if we're going to apply these laws, then they must apply equally. I would think to even members of this committee and certainly to the front runner in the GOP's presidential election, which I'll get to in a moment. But let's talk a little bit about this ANS and about the background and correct the record a little bit. First of all, I want to talk about the evidence that was presented to this committee as part of this investigation. More than 62,000 pages of records from the National Archives on top of 20,000 pages that were already made publicly available, 30,000 pages of private bank records, 2,000 pages of activity reports provided by the Treasury Department, dozens of hours of testimony from special counsel, US attorneys, DOJ officials, FBI, IRS agents, financial advisors, business partners, evidence provided by the Ways and Means Committee and expert witness testimony by the GOP's own witnesses right here in this committee in September who sat right there at that table and said there was not sufficient evidence to support proceeding with an impeachment. In fact, there are numerous members of the GOP currently serving in Congress who do not believe there is sufficient evidence. So my question is, where are the receipts? You have reviewed thousands of pages of documents, countless hours of testimony, talked to expert witnesses, including your own witnesses that can't provide a single iota of evidence of wrongdoing by this president. Last week, House Democrats released this. We have the receipts. In fact, they're all right here in the Mazars report. And for any of you that have not dug in on this report, I want to talk a little bit about what this report shows because it's actual receipts from foreign governments who spent $7.8 million at Trump properties during his presidency while they were actively seeking to influence foreign policy and decisions by the administration. Will the general lady yield that question? Let's talk about some of the receipts that are in here. Malaysia, over a quarter million dollars was spent by representatives of Malaysia while their ex-president was being investigated for a massive corruption scheme and which Trump's ex fundraiser was indicted for illegally lobbying on. Saudi Arabia, tens of thousands of dollars spent by the Saudi government and by the crown prince and his staff. The yield to the question. Give $2 billion to Jared Kushner's private firm. Qatar, tens of thousands of dollars spent by Qatar during what was described as a charming offensive and an arms sale to the government of Qatar by the Trump administration. Kazakhstan, thousands of dollars spent by the president of Kazakhstan on a controversial visit which raised questions about human rights violations, business dealings and a money laundering scheme involving Donald Trump's properties in New York. So my question is, if the GOP actually cares about criminal activity, how about they investigate the receipts that we have right here? Can I answer that question? Of influence peddling by Donald Trump and a man who is currently facing trial in four jurisdictions on 91 counts of criminal activity who's been twice impeached by this body and is currently trying to run for president again. I would love to answer your question. But of this committee has already endorsed. This is not factually based. This is a farce, this is a political stunt and it is designed to help Donald Trump secure the nomination this November. We yield to a question. So let's call it what it is. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield my time back to the chair. Four seconds. Four seconds. Three, two, time's expired. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter information for the record. What's the information? I hope they can. Take the information. Thank you. I reserve the right to object. The minority has not provided a copy of the material for the record. In the past, she's displayed pornography. Is pornography allowed to be, or pornographic photos allowed to be displayed? In this committee room, Mr. Chairman? It's not pornography. Okay, you're the expert. I'm not an expert, Mr. Rathlin. He's like it. Mr. Chairman, I object to the animals. Mr. Chairman, I object to the animals. All you need is one objection. We need decorum. I'm going to let the lady stay and then if you object, still we'll go from there. Mr. Chairman, don't we have an opportunity to review the material before it's provided? I reclaim my time. I reclaim my time. Mr. Chair, I reclaim my time. I'd like to enter for the record an excerpt from a bank statement. A bank statement that's public in regards to Hunter Biden and his bank accounts. In his payments. Mr. Chairman, I object to the styrofoam board. It's not a document. Claiming order, reclaiming order, reclaiming order, will... Clearly, Democrats today don't want the truth to come out. Mr. Chairman, this just means that any member will be able to add to their five minutes by putting on a display of... Mr. Chairman, I'd like to enter for the record. I think of all members. Mr. Chairman, I have a bank report that shows... We'll get some order here. Mr. Chairman, we're all in the community. Okay, okay. We'll... Let's hold off on this. There's several objections. We're going to talk staffs between each other and then we'll go from there. But I understand. I think what you're saying is from the laptop. Someone on this committee accused me of revenge porn and I have a right to respond to that. And I'd like to enter... But within the rules of the committee... No, you don't. ...or the record. This is important evidence for the record. And it pertains to our investigation and to Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. And this comes from... The door is locked. I thought it doesn't appear to be bad, but you ought to be... Mr. Chairman, she's gotten nine records there. Does she get an additional five minutes or 10 minutes? I don't understand how any of you who support the genital rehabilitation of children and drag queens through their by-parts and parades are offended. We're going to suspend and let the staff discuss the evidence from the laptop being entered into the record. Chair now recognized Mr. Fallon from Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So... Okay, hold on. We suspend so we need to stop for a moment. Okay, hold on. So we're going to move on. We're going to... Reconvene. Chair now recognizes Mr. Fallon from Texas for five minutes. Oh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, you have to acknowledge that there's a concentrated effort to deflect and distract. And this is not about January 6th. And unfortunately for the Democrats, it's not about Donald Trump. This is about Biden family corruption, plain and simple. And what really gets me is from just an individual and from an American to being an American is the fact that I disagree vehemently with most of our friends across the aisle when it comes to politics. I will submit that most folks that serve in Congress, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, are not corrupt. They're not on the make. They're not trying to enrich themselves. Hunter Biden is. The Biden family was. And so to sit here and defend a fellow that doesn't merit that kind of defense is just interesting and quite frankly, to find it sad as well. And I think he's a coward to come in here with this stunt. Again, because, you know, you can define someone that's all about themselves, by the way, in which they act, and he clearly does that. That's what we're here to discuss. So let's talk about the process because we've been told that, hey, he was here. He's ready to testify. Just let him testify for the American people to make it very clear and digestible. When you are deposed in Congress, the majority gets an hour and the minority gets an hour and it can go on indefinitely. So what usually happens is you can get 100 hours of questions in. You can go drill down. You can get into the efficacy of the procedure because you can go in depth and you can hold whoever is the witness to account. If we have just public testimony, what happens here is we all get five minutes, times roughly about 60 equals 300, doing the math without a calculator, that's five hours. So instead of hundreds of hours, you only get five. And witnesses are very good with their counsel to deflect and distract and answer really slowly, et cetera. That's why this is about procedure. 100 hours, 200 hours, and then we can come in to public testimony and ask questions about what we have read and make that public. So what I would have loved to, he was here, he laughed, unfortunately, because I would have loved to at least ask questions while he's in the room for the first time. I've never laid naked eyes on the man until just now. But I would have loved to have asked certain questions like why did he feel special that he could evade paying taxes on millions of dollars of income? Why doesn't he pay it back? I know a lot of it is already outside of the statute of limitations, so he can't be prosecuted for it, but he can certainly still pay it back. That's a moral obligation that any American has. I'd like to ask him what he did, his company did to earn 3.5 earn in quotes, 3.5 million dollars from Yelena Badarina, who was married to a corrupt oligarch, used to be the mayor of Moscow. What did he do to have Kennis Rajakhev from Kazakhstan give, wire him $142,300 the very next day he bought a Porsche? What did he do for Mr. Rajakhev? What did he do? Did he get bribed, naked bribed $5 million by Makolo Zochevsky? And did he have any experience in the energy sector prior to his father becoming vice president because Zochevsky paid him a million dollars a year? Interestingly enough, the CFO of Burisma, Venan Bazarsky, had dinner after he paid a hundred Biden millions of dollars, had dinner with his then sitting vice president dad at Cafe Milano. Did that happen? Because it seems like it did. Did Kennis Rajakhev, who gave him, but essentially bought him the Porsche? He also had dinner with his dad. And yes, coincidentally, Yelena Badarina as well, had dinner with his sitting vice president father at the time. Who, I would also like to have asked them, having been an entrepreneur, a business person myself, why create 30 shell companies if you have a legitimate business? What did your business do? What services did they provide? What goods did they sell? Who pocket seed money? I have never met anybody in business that pocketed seed money. It's the lifeblood of your venture. Why did you take millions from foreign entities? And what did, who was the big guy? Mr. Hunter Biden, was it your dad? 10% for the big guy? When you said in that what's app message that I'm sitting right here with my father, was your father really there? Will you give up your geolocations on your phone with your dad so we can determine if you guys were actually in the same room at that time? Why did you email your daughter or text her and ask, tell her about boy, I wish I didn't have to give 50% of my salary to dad. This all is just questions that under deposition when we have hundreds of hours, we could ask this. And I'm only one member of a committee of 60. I'm sure my colleagues would have plenty of questions as well. So this is what it's about, it's about justice. And think about who you're defending here. He's not worthy of your defense. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Gentlemen yields, the chair recognizes Mr. Lynch for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will agree with my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Texas that this is a sad day, but perhaps sad for different reasons. This whole process has become such a sham. The underlying purpose at the beginning of these hearings was that as was the title of the, one of the first hearings we had, a hearing on the basis for an impeachment inquiry against President Joseph R. Biden. And at that hearing, the Republicans and the Democrats had an opportunity to bring witnesses forward that would actually provide evidence to the committee so that we could make a decision to substantiate or to undermine the call for an impeachment. And we sat in this hearing and the Republicans brought their witnesses in and I had to admit witnesses that had considerable experience and expertise and impressive resumes. And so we asked them, so this is the big moment, we asked these expert witnesses that the Republicans had brought in, are there any basis or underpinnings that would warrant an impeachment inquiry at this point? And these witnesses had reviewed almost all of the 14,000 documents that have been provided, transaction reports, treasury reports, and I'll give you the answers. These are the Republican witnesses. This is Jonathan Turley and I think Bruce Dubinsky was a consultant. One witness said, and I quote him, he did not believe that any of the current evidence would support articles of an impeachment, close quote. That's the Republican witness that you had your moment, you had your moment to bring in the witnesses. Would the gentleman yield? No, I will not yield, I will not yield. The other witness that the Republicans brought forward against President Biden, he said under questioning, he had no basis to even suggest that there was corruption fraud or any wrongdoing on the part of the president. Now I do, we are all familiar with Hunter Biden's his conduct. There have been explanations of his drug addiction that have been widely publicized, something that maybe a few families of members of this committee might be familiar with when people go sideways because they're addicted to drugs, but the very moment to pursue the underlying purpose of these hearings has been completely diverted. There's been no evidence brought forward against the president of the United States and as to this witness coming here today or his reluctance to submit himself to private investigations can be, I think, credibly explained given the lack of trust that has surrounded these hearings. There have been story after story about leaks coming from those private interviews, blatant misinformation and disinformation that the chairman and other members of the committee have offered to the press, so-called bombshells, that's what it was on Fox TV, bombshells turned out to be a dud, turned out to be completely false, but under the auspices of this committee, those members, including the chairman, put out these stories in the press because they could not be refuted, they were not subject to cross-examination, they were not provided for or provided by any credible witness that was just made up in the minds of the chairman of those members. That's why this gentleman wanted to testify in public so someone could not distort his statements and leak them wrongfully to the press. The chairman- Chair now recognizes Ms. Luna for five minutes. This contempt proceeding is about upholding the rule of law, with recently what happened with Jeffrey Epstein and the client list, we can see that many rich and powerful people to include people in Washington were held above the law and that is simply not fair. Interestingly enough though, one of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, Virginia Guffrey actually vindicated Trump. What you'll notice is that the media did not want to cover that, but why is that? It's because it will show a double standard that exists within our justice system and also the media bias against those, especially Republicans and conservatives that are simply not guilty of what they are accusing us of. So I just want to put this in perspective. The reason we are doing this today is because Hunter Biden failed to comply with our subpoena. Hunter Biden, I don't care about his drug addiction, yes you are, many of us have experienced some of these awful things impacting our family, but that doesn't mean that Hunter Biden gets a pass or that we should feel any sympathy for him breaking the law. I want to just point to behind the US Code 192 refusing, a refusal of a witness to testify or produce papers. It means that you should be one subject to misdemeanor, find up to a thousand dollars and anywhere from one to 12 months in prison. For your average American that doesn't have the connections that Hunter Biden has, this is what you face. So I want to just point out that when my colleague, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says we must comply with the law, I agree with you. When a ranking member, Raskin, pointed out that Donald Trump's allies should be held and we should not tolerate these contemptuous violations of the rule of law, I agree with that. But then let's use these exact same standards against their own. Frankly, I think that as of right now, there is a double standard that exists. We have to hold him accountable. He broke the law, he will be held accountable and that's exactly why I'm supporting this contempt proceeding. Thank you. Chair now recognizes Ms. Tlaib for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm gonna yield to our ranking member, but before I do, I just, you know, after coming back and being in our districts for so long, no one is asking me about this. They can't pay their bills. There is a lot of cost of living struggle all over our districts. And I just wish we would use this committee to talk about those issues. I mean, even on having the Sadler folks in here and talking about that, the cost of insulin, I mean, Mr. Chair, I would love to work with you in a bipartisan way to talk about those issues. That I think really there's responsibility all over the place in regards to the fact that so many of our American residents and communities across the country are struggling. With that, I yield to our ranking member, Raskin. Thank you, Ms. Tlaib, for your tremendous and enduring devotion to your constituents and the public good of all Americans. Why are we here, colleagues? Well, between January of 2017 and January of 2021, we suffered the most lawless presidency of our lifetime. It began by Donald Trump saying that he would keep his more than 500 businesses going. That's right. And he wouldn't divest himself of any of those businesses and he would not adopt a rule in honor of the Emoluments Clause, consistent with the Emoluments Clause, declining to take money from Saudi Arabia, China, United Arab Emirates, and so on. And he proceeded, as we've learned, to collect at least $7.8 million from foreign governments and that's actually a tiny fraction of what he got because that was only for the first two years before the chairman and his wisdom decided to tell Mazzars to stop complying with the judicial court order. And so that was all we got was two years for four businesses out of more than 500 and that was just for 20 countries out of 195 countries on Earth. But the lawlessness lasted up until yesterday when Donald Trump's lawyer got up before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and asserted that President Trump or any other president for that matter has a right to order assassinations of his political opponents and not be prosecuted for it unless he's impeached and convicted first, which is completely at odds with the text of the Constitution, the history of the Constitution, but he asserted a right to assassinate other citizens unless first he's impeached or convicted, which means all you gotta do is kill your political opponents and then kill enough of your political opponents in the House and Senate to keep yourself from being impeached or convicted. My friends, please don't look at your phones and papers right now. This goes to the heart of the Republic. Take a position on it. Even if you're gonna support it, take a position on it. Don't stick your heads in the sand. Donald Trump is doing this to our country. He's asserting the right of the president to murder people and not be prosecuted for it. Well, so why are we here? Well, Donald Trump insisted to numerous Republicans and in public and on Twitter and on Truth Social that Joe Biden be impeached. Why? Well, because Donald Trump was impeached twice the last time for inciting a violent insurrection against his own vice president, against the Congress of the United States to overthrow an election. And if you don't believe that, you've gotta tell me that if Mike Pence had buckled under two weeks and months of pressure that Donald Trump would have said, oh no, I was just kidding, I'm not actually gonna seize the presidency. Come on, if you believe that, you're too innocent to be led out of the house by yourself. So anyway, Donald Trump says, I don't wanna be the only one running for president who's been impeached, impeached Joe Biden, figure out something. We were here for a year. You guys did not lay a glove on Joe Biden. You don't have a single credible piece of evidence, not one iota showing any crime by Joe Biden. As Mr. Lynch says, even your own witnesses came up and said, they didn't see it at the one hearing that you had on impeachment. So why are we here? Well, we can't go after Joe Biden. He's clean. Let's go after Hunter Biden. Let's go get him. And that's why I'm so suspicious of where we are today, Mr. Chairman, because I heard you numerous times say, come before the committee. Come and testify before the world. Come and tell everybody what happened. And he took you up on it. And he said, yes. And I said, finally, we'll get to hear from Hunter Biden. We'll get to hear answers to all those questions. Mr. Fallon posed, but then you wouldn't take yes from the answer. You said, no, we wanna go to a back room and do it there. And then we will leak out appropriate details, which of course we have seen has allowed for radical distortions of people's testimony before this committee. You have not released the vast majority of transcribed interviews that have been in the back room so we can leak out specific details. So that's not right. That's why we have questions about it. But I'm with Ms. Mace. Let's bring them all in. Let's bring in all the Republicans who still haven't testified about what they know about what I'm a January 6th. And let's bring Hunter Biden and let's do that all together. I'd be for that. And thank you for yielding, Mr. Lieben. I yield back. Chair recognizes Mr. Langworthy for five minutes. Well, we've certainly had enough distractions here today in the political stunt that we saw here at the beginning of this hearing. You know, Hunter Biden strutting in here, like a real tough guy, while he refused to sit for a deposition that he'd been lawfully subpoenaed to do. It must be embarrassing to have to defend all of this. And we certainly have Trump derangement syndrome on display in a big way in this chamber today. Over the last year, the oversight committee has uncovered a plethora of evidence that is directly pointing at the corruption from Joe Biden and his family. This level of corruption is what you'd expect to see in a third world country, not the United States of America. If the volume of evidence was uncovered on any other influential family in the United States, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would no doubt initiate thorough investigations. Now, just imagine if Hunter was a Republican, the president's son does not deserve special treatment, period. Holding Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress is the responsible reaction to his blatant disregard for federal law and our duty to investigate potential wrongdoings by the president of the United States. This committee has analyzed thousands of pages of bank records, leading to the discovery of $24 million of wire transfers and payments from foreign companies and foreign nationals directly to this Biden family. Through interviews with Biden family closest associates, the committee discovered that Hunter Biden uses father's name in influence in meetings with foreign nationals over 20 times. Witness testimonies prove that Hunter Biden died with foreign individuals from countries such as Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan alongside his father, who is the sitting vice president of the United States, and the list of evidence goes on and on. The president himself has been exposed for lying. Both the White House and Hunter have used every tool at their disposal to obstruct this investigation and to block the gathering of evidence. This blatant corruption must be held to account. It's one of the major duties of this very committee. And that's why on September 12th, 2023, as a result of the significant evidence against the current president, the Speaker of the House asked the oversight committee to conduct an inquiry to determine whether or not sufficient grounds existed for the impeachment of President Biden. Hunter Biden's testimony is a critical component of the impeachment inquiry into whether President Biden or his family personally profited from his office as vice president or his current role as president of the United States. And these facts cannot get in the way. We have got to get on with this investigation and end the distractions that we've heard here today. Let's get this contempt provision put forward and let's move forward with this impeachment inquiry. Will the gentleman yield? Will the gentleman yield? Mr. Gosar. We yield my time to Mr. Gosar. Thank you very much, Mr. Langworthy. You know, to the ranking member, you know what we're cherry picking into Mr. Lynch? We're cherry picking because if you go back to those individuals we had as witnesses, they all said there doesn't exist that information now, but there exists the potential to be there. And the inquiry is different than an impeachment. It is a search for that document. So I think we got to be very, very careful when we're on both sides, when we're talking about this, that we give the whole picture, not part of the picture, the whole picture to this. What's been found since then? Oh, well, once again, there's stuff there. So there is stuff there. There's stuff there? Yeah. Can you share it with us? Yeah, because you stack up these random corporations. What are you producing? If I'm a manufacturer, I would do that because I only had different businesses of the Carp accomplice in that. They have nothing to sell. Some paintings, it was access to the present. So now whether that reaches the high crimes of misreaders, I don't know. I'm not an attorney. But last but not least, I wanna make sure we also get to this, is that you did the process and you stated it. The language has been repeated over and over again. You do this massive hunt with attorneys. Not people like dentists or others. You do it with attorneys to gather that information. And then they selectively compile it. You guys get questions, we get questions, and we cover the ground more efficiently. That's why this process works. I agree with you. You do this behind the doors, then you come out here for the public. I think there's no difference, sir. I yield back. Good. Chair now recognize Mr. Czar for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My distinguished colleague, the gentle lady from Florida held up a poster board saying we should hold hunter-biting contempt because of a provision saying refusal of a witness to testify. But that doesn't apply in that we have a witness that was here and is willing to testify. Now I'll give everybody credit here. There seems to be disagreements about whether to do the closed-door deposition, but there is an area of agreement. And the area of agreement is to have a public hearing. And so what I'm interested in, I'll yield a minute of time over to you, Chairman, or somebody from the other side. We've been here for hours, and I have still yet to figure out why we don't have Mr. Hunter-Biden here to answer our questions. For whatever period of time we want in front of the oversight committee. So I want to understand, I want to give Mr. Fallon credit, due credit from the great state of Texas for saying, well, he wants to make sure we have enough time. Mr. Chairman, I'm sure we could agree to whatever amount of time was necessary, but I'm having a lot of trouble understanding why the Republican majority won't take yes for an answer and ask questions of hunter-biting here publicly. That, I think we would really learn because all I've been hearing on TV news is over and over again that we need to ask hunter-biting questions. He's saying we can. Why refuse to have this public hearing that it sounds like? Are you yielding? Yeah, I'm happy to yield you 30 cents. We've obtained thousands of pages of bank documents. We've reviewed 170 suspicious activity reports from banks filed against the Bidens from my banking background. That's unprecedented to have that many bank violations that allege very serious things from money laundered attacks of Asian to bribery. And we have a lot of questions. We want to treat him like any other witness. He doesn't get to set the rules. We will depose him. And look, we split time with Democrats. You all get an equal amount of time with hunter-biting. Then we'll have a public hearing. But I guess my question is, if there is disagreement and it sounds like there is around the deposition, why not have the public hearing? Is there a reason? Well, we will after deposition. I understand, Mr. Chairman, that nobody has explained to me clearly yet. And I think to your own districts, to my district, why not call hunter-biting in tomorrow? Why not have, why not ask him in next week? We're ready. Mr. Chairman, you don't have to answer that question. Yeah, so I would have loved to have deposed him right here today. We had a motion. We had a motion. We have three days. Let's do it in three days. The whole point is behind closed doors. I would have gone right now. He's here. He's got his legal representation there. Let's play this game. But we have rules that say you have three days. I'm not playing game one. I'm sure we could, I'm sure we could wave the three days. Second, we could have it here in three days. If there's agreement about if what we're hearing from the Republican side over and over and over again is they've got questions for hunter-biting. That quotes from this hearing. Hunter-biting's testimony is critical. I want to delve into questions I have for Mr. Biden. So why not ask for those? Why not ask for that tomorrow? The deposition tomorrow? No, we would have him here in public tomorrow, in front of everyone. I understand you're saying after the deposition. But my question for you is just very clearly, why not have the public hearing tomorrow? Well, gentlemen, answer that question. Yes, sir. And Mr. Donalds, I want to compliment you because I remember our first oversight committee here and you said it would be good to have these real conversations. So I generally- I'm all for this, Mr. Kassar. I actually enjoy this part. If we ever get to it, look, the reality is and you have attorneys on your side of the aisle, there is never any proceeding that takes place without a deposition of the witness. The reason why is because if something comes up in the round of questioning, either A, members of this committee may not be prepared because they don't have all the information from the witness because the witness was never had given an opportunity with his attorney's present to actually give out that level of information. So you need the deposition process before you bring a witness into open hearing. This happens all the time. This is actually the protocol of the House and Mr. Kassar, which your side of the aisle is requesting with all due respect, is a deviation from the historical precedent of the House of Representatives. I'll yield back to the ranking member. Well, thank you for moving the ball forward with that explanation. That has been the practice sometimes, not all times, the vast majority of witnesses who come before this committee come without being deposed first. We come and ask for their testimony, but in any event, even for a witness who's being subpoenaed, like Mr. Biden was, we have a completely different situation when the chairman goes out publicly and says we will give you the choice A or B. You can have a deposition or you can come in the hearing, but I challenge you, I invite you, I insist that you come before the committee and repeatedly says that. So that's why I think legally it's a very complex question, but I don't see why we take this all the way to court. If you guys really want to hear from him, let's have a public hearing and then depose him afterwards. But he's saying he doesn't want to be misrepresented. Thank you for yielding. Tom's expired. Chair recognized Mr. Burleson from Missouri. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What should be obvious to the American people, I think we need to just say to the American people is to point out that this kind of food fight, this kind of the circus that we've experienced is the reason why we want to have a deposition. In a deposition, you don't get people distracting the American public with all these other topics. And during a deposition, they don't get to lie to the American people for five minutes at a time. They don't get to distract, they don't get to lie, and they don't get to divert from the facts of what's happening. But what I see happening is what's being telegraphed here is that they're building a case, a political case really, because that's what this is. It's all politics that they're entering into for why the Department of Justice or giving Merrick Garland an excuse, which we all knew that he would not prosecute, probably not prosecute these contempt charges, because it would be hypocritical if he did so. He would, because he prosecuted Steve Bannon, even though Bannon was working, actually working for the president, and was able to raise the speech and debate clause that was mentioned in the Constitution. Merrick Garland still prosecuted him for that. Here's what's really frustrating to the American people, and they see right through this. We're now going through a second process over really the same crimes that were committed when Joe Biden was vice president. And those crimes include the creation of dozens and dozens of limited liability companies, dozens of bank accounts. When people say, where are the facts? Well, I'm gonna ask, what facts are you looking for? Because to me, bank records are facts. Suspicious activity reports are facts. Copies of checks are facts. When you juxtapose that with the WhatsApp message and what's on the Hunter Biden laptop, and the deposition from witnesses like Mr. Archer, when you add to it further depositions as we're gonna hear about soon, the art dealer, when you layer all that together, that's a compelling story. There's a lot of facts. And you know what? I would hate to be on the other side of the aisle and try to defend this situation. And so I think that the only outcome would be to distract, to try to make this a political process. But it still stands as a fact that when the Democrats were in charge, they brought in the president's son. They brought him in multiple times and they brought him into depositions and he agreed. And this should be the takeaway message to the American people. When the Trump family was asked, when they came in and they gave depositions. The Biden family, once again, Hunter Biden feels that he's privileged, he's privileged, he doesn't have to pay taxes like everyone else. He's privileged that apparently he can traffic sex workers across the globe and get away with it. He's privileged that he can get away with acting as a foreign advocate and be able to get away with it when other people are prosecuted and sent to jail for the very same thing. The American people see that there's two standards of justice and when we're trying to go about the people's business in a serious manner, we end up allowing the food fight, which is exactly why he did what he did when he went across the street as far away as he could from this building and had his press conference and then why he today showed up when the hour is way too late. I yield the remainder of my time. Chair, I recognize Ms. Brail. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not a lawyer and nor do I try to pretend to play one on TV, but it is plain for all of us to see we are here on behalf of one man, the self-proclaimed dictator on day one, the twice impeached, four times indicted, insurrection initiator and supporter, election denier, convictic fraudster and maniacal manipulator from Mar-a-Lago. The one who lost and lost badly. We are here because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have no positive agenda to run on. They have not accomplished one thing in their year in the majority to improve the lives of the people around this country. We are not here to hold the president in contempt of Congress. We are not even here to hold a member of President Biden's administration in contempt of Congress. For some reason, the majority has gathered us here to hold the president's son. His son, who I will remind all of us, is not and has not ever been a government official in contempt of Congress, despite his willingness to come testify publicly before this committee. So getting to the truth was never their actual goal. Instead of working together to solve big problems on behalf of the American people, my Republican colleagues continue to pursue a meritless, groundless, baseless investigation into the president's family. Meanwhile, back in my district, during our recess, I was literally dodging bullets at a funeral of a gun violence victim. And I never felt so powerless and vulnerable because I know that when I got back here, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refused to do anything about it. Yet they continue to make efforts to ban books, rewrite history, make it harder for people that look like me to vote and to make it harder for women to make their own healthcare decisions. We see nothing on the other side of the aisle, but distraction, diversion, deflection, delusion, divisiveness, and dangerous destruction of our ever so delicate democracy. So with that, I am tired of the political theater. I want to get to work for the people back home in the 11th congressional district because they quite frankly don't care about Hunter Biden. With that, I will yield the balance of my time to my ranking member. Ms. Brown, thank you so much. You started off by saying something pretty profound, which is we are here instead of doing the business of the American people because the Republicans have offered us no positive agenda. In their year in office, we know we've wasted countless weeks in them just trying to pick a speaker, and we've wasted countless weeks with their inertia and their do-nothing policies. But Ms. Brown, I don't know if you recall, I just don't want people having to take your word for it. I think numerous Republicans have gotten up on the floor of the House complaining about the fact that they have no agenda. I think our colleague Chip Roy from Texas said that the Republicans have not given him one thing, a single thing, I remember him saying, to campaign on. So I just want to ask you, when you're saying that they have no agenda, that's not a partisan point. You're getting that from Republicans, aren't you? That is correct. One of our colleagues said that there was Trump derangement syndrome, and of course Trump derangement begins with Donald Trump himself. He thinks he has a legal right to assassinate US citizens. He thinks he can grab women by their genitals, although that's not the word that he used. He said that if Joe Biden is reelected president, there will be World War II. He is obviously deranged and disoriented, but the real Trump derangement syndrome that I see is those people who cannot break from Donald Trump after he's proven himself to be completely and totally unworthy of your support, because I'm looking at talented, gifted people on the other side of the aisle, the ones who have not left Congress in frustration, or because they've broken with Donald Trump and clashed with him, but I'm still looking at people who have their wits about them, I think, but you're acting like cult members, like you're sleeping on the basement of a cult, listening to tapes all night, and I beg you to get over your Trump derangement syndrome. Thank you very much for yielding, Ms. Brown. Chair, I recognize Mr. Donald from Florida for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of things. First, it was said in this hearing, Mr. Chairman, about you specifically, that you repeatedly said you would give Mr. Biden any opportunity, you could choose which one to come and speak in front of this committee. You could do it by deposition, you could do it by open hearing. It was up to him. The truth of the matter, though, is members that the Chairman's words are not binding. Like no other member's words of Congress are really not binding. The binding article... Point of order. Does the Chairman agree with that? Point of order. Does the Chairman agree? Are you gonna restore my time? Point of order. Just point of order. Does the Chairman agree that the Chairman's words are not binding? On the committee? That's not a point of order. It has nothing to do with the order of this hearing. Thank you. Can I go back to four minutes and 34 seconds? That's where I was before I was interrupted by Mr. Raskin. Yes, reset the clock. Thank you. Thank you. What is binding is the actual written language in the subpoena because a subpoena from this committee is also signed off on by the clerk of the House. That is the binding document that matters here. That is what governs. That's number one. Number two, that was said in this hearing. It was said that our witnesses said that there was no basis for an impeachment. But remember, members on the Democrat side of the aisle, what was said by Mr. Turley at the time was that there was plenty of evidence for the continuation of an impeachment inquiry. And the purpose of that hearing was the relevance basis for an impeachment inquiry. The House has now voted for an impeachment inquiry. And one of the first things that the House did after the vote of an impeachment inquiry was to subpoena Hunter Biden to appear. Hunter Biden has evaded that subpoena. So flagrantly did he evade it that he decided to show up at the Senate side to give a press conference and Eric Swalwell, a member of the House, helped him get that time on the Senate side to give a press conference. That's a flagrant violation of a congressional subpoena. Secondarily, he has the gall to show up here when we're actually discussing contempt. And he didn't stay. He was sitting right over there. He's not here now. He said he wants to talk. He could stay through the whole proceeding. He chose to leave. That's his business. But he was subpoenaed to come here. Back in December, he chose not to of his own volition. He's in violation of that subpoena. That was executed with the signature of the clerk of the House of Representatives. That is the document that is binding. That's what we work off of. Mr. Chairman, I actually want to submit for the record an article from the Hill written by Jonathan Turley. And it is titled, Eric Swalwell and the Politics of Contempt. With that objection to order. Thank you. I'm glad something got emitted to the record. Last couple of other points. One quick point I want to make. And this is in reference to the minority's report about this $7.8 million. I want the minority to understand one very important distinction between President Biden and President Trump. President Trump has an international real estate portfolio that he has amassed over decades. I'm quite sure if you go back through all of the hotel receipts before he was president of the United States, that you had foreign dignitaries staying at Trump hotels all across the world. Would the gentleman yield? I'm not going to yield, Mr. Raskin, I'm making a point. Because they're actually very nice hotels. They look good. People like staying there. President Trump was not running the Trump organization when he was president of the United States. To my recollection, Eric Trump, the president's son, was actually running the Trump organization when President Trump was president of the United States. So if he had a portfolio of hotels and people choose, you know, through Expedia, through Kayak, through Hotels.com, if they choose to go and stay there, how is that the president being in violation of what the emoluments cause? Is that what you're citing? Stop. Ladies and gentlemen, America, this is ridiculous. The Biden family has no business. They've never had a business, except for politics. And the one thing that the oversight committee in conjunction with the Ways and Means Committee and in conjunction with the Judiciary Committee has always been able to demonstrate is that they took down foreign nations for millions, millions, 26 million at the latest count and growing millions. And there was never any business entity involved except public corruption and a pay for play scheme. The House Oversight Committee would like to get to the bottom of this under the impeachment inquiry of the House. We have questions for Hunter Biden. We issued a subpoena for him to answer said questions. He ignored a congressional subpoena as a private citizen. There are many attorneys on the other side of the aisle. If you had one of your clients in your private practice ignore a congressional subpoena as a private citizen, you would advise them not to because they would be held in contempt and they would actually be punished by the Department of Justice. So I find it interesting to say to them that I'm not going to yield Mr. Goldman because I had a question for you earlier. You didn't want to take my question. So I'm not going to take yours. Thank you. So in closing, I will say private citizens, yes, they have a responsibility to answer congressional subpoenas. They do. Hunter Biden had it and he was flagrant. He decided to give a press conference. So we're going to do this business and he should be held in contempt by the full House of Representatives. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Very good. Chair now recognize Ms. Norton from Washington, DC for five minutes. I yield my five minutes to Mr. Raskin. I'd like to thank the distinguished delegate from the District of Columbia and I need to correct the record because of several false statements made about the foreign emoluments clause Article I, Section 9, Clause 8, although I do appreciate the gentleman for floor's attempt to at least engage on the matter of substance that was raised so powerfully by Ms. Crockett. Now let's start with this. Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 says that neither the president nor any member of Congress can receive a present in emolument, which means a payment, an office or a title from a prince, a king, a foreign government quote. Mr. Raskin, of any kind, whatever. Without going to Congress first and obtaining the consent of Congress, there's no hotel exception, Mr. Donald, to the foreign emoluments clause. There's no international real estate syndicate exception to the foreign emoluments clause, Mr. Donald. And also I will take you up on your challenge to see whether the Trump Hotel in Washington, the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, the Trump Hotel on Fifth Avenue, the Trump Hotel at UN Plaza, the four of the more than 500 businesses that we got documentation for, whether they actually had the same level of business coming from Saudi Arabia, the Communist bureaucrats of China, who were the leading spenders, you know, if you've read our report, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, India, Egypt, and so on, we will make that comparison about what was done before if you get the chairman to call off the ban on further documents coming from Mazar. So if you ever stayed at the Trump Hotel, Mr. Raskin. No, and I would never would stay at a Trump Hotel. I've got too much self-respect. Stay at a metal house. So, but in any event, Mr. Donald, you're totally wrong about what the foreign emoluments clause stands for. Abraham Lincoln was given two elephant tusks by the king of Siam during the Civil War, and he liked them very much. He wanted to keep them, but he went to Congress, which is what every other president did before, and every president did since, right up until Donald Trump, and he asked whether he could keep the tusks in Congress, though they loved Honest Abe, said no, you can't keep them. I mean, John F. Kennedy was offered citizenship by the people of Ireland because they loved him so much, and he refused to take it, saying that even though it didn't violate the letter of the emoluments clause, it violated the spirit of the emoluments clause, and Donald Trump converted the presidency into an instrument for self-enrichment. He raked in millions of dollars from the most corrupt governments on earth who came in with specific favors that we document in our report that they got from Donald Trump. I beseech my colleagues. I will read any book, any magazine, any speech you've given that you want me to read. Read this report and come back and tell me if you think Donald Trump did the right thing in converting the White House into a for-profit operation. No other president in American history has come anywhere close, and you ask why he's so determined to stay in office that he would unleash violence against his own vice president, the brother of your colleague, of our colleague. Why would he do that? It's because it was a money-making operation, and it was a great business grift for a guy who went bankrupt several times, and yet out of some misguided partisan loyalty, you're gonna stick with him. I don't even know why you stick with him. He was a Democrat longer than he was a Republican. He wanted to run for president on the reform party. You guys have been taken over by an absolute con man, and now you're acting like members of a religious cult who don't even remember how you got in in the first place. We say return the profits, Donald Trump, $7.8 million. I've got a letter, Mr. Chairman, I'm gonna share with you telling Donald Trump to return these $7.8 million. It's a small fraction of what he raked in. We wanna know about the other two years in office. We wanna know about the other businesses, not just those four that we were able to get information on, and we wanna know about every country on Earth, not just the 20 autocracies and dictatorships that we found. This is our government, this is our constitution, and we're gonna stand up for it against Donald Trump and anybody who follows into the path of oblivion. Abraham Lincoln started your party as a third party to replace the Whigs, because they wouldn't take a moral stand against slavery. It was a pro-freedom, anti-slavery, pro-union, pro-honesty party, and your party has been reduced to a corrupt authoritarian cult of personality, and everybody does whatever Donald Trump tells them to do, which is what we're doing here today with this stupid attempt to hold Hunter Biden in contempt when he has come forward to say he will testify and give you everything you want as the chairman of the committee repeatedly offered in public. So forgive my outrage and indignation, but enough is enough. Let's get back to the business of the people. It was Mayor Rick and Dr. Higgins for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the American people may be surprised to know some of my colleagues across the island hasn't served as long as we have. Might be surprised to know that Representative Raskin and I had been building quite a colleague friendship in my original years of service prior to J6, especially. We would visit and we would debate constitutionalist questions and he honored me by observation of my, what he would sometimes call compelling arguments, contradictory to his own. So it's with sincerity that I say congratulations to my colleague, Mr. Raskin, because you have obviously fully recovered from your cancer treatments. Thank you, my dear friend, and I do love you. You're quite animated and I believe there's a direct correlation between your testimony against former President Trump and his poll numbers because I'm watching a live feed. The more you talk about them, the more his numbers go up. So I may yield you more time, but I would honestly, I'd like to ask you if I could, regarding the deposition, just from a calm, if we could take a step back from the emotion here and the political conflict in this sort of prepared for battle debate we're in here. Just regarding depositions, we've all been through depositions in one way or another. They're very cold and calculated and you have your attorney there and then the bad guys, there's always those the other guys, they have their attorneys and you're either being sued or you're part of a suit, you're either a defendant or the plaintiff and you're in a room for hours until all the questions have been asked. So sincerely, if you were Hunter's attorney or advisor, why would you advise him not to participate in a deposition where in his own attorney is there, it's private and everything is transcribed. His words cannot be twisted by the fake news. Just tell us, Mr. Raskin and I yield for your answer. Thank you kindly and I should tell you that your feelings are not unrequited. I still have very fond and warm feelings for you. I'm sorry that January 6th came between us and I look forward to a day in our Republic when we will be really good friends again. But in a direct answer to your question, if I were his lawyer and I were his advisor, I would never advise him not to come and testify before the committee, except for one thing. And this is why, and I started out this way. But specifically I'm asking about deposition. Yes, about deposition. Because we want the deposition first. I would recommend the public testimony. Just to answer your question, I would recommend it except that they were publicly given the offer numerous times to come before the whole committee and they state a fear on their part, which is not unreasonable, that their words will be distorted and the transcript of the interview will never be released because the vast majority of the transcribed interviews have not been released. And I would use this as an opportunity to call on the chairman. Let me just say that I think that's solid counsel. But that brings us to our next point, my next point, which is that as a free American, which, I mean, to a certain extent, we still have some individual rights and freedoms, including to not comply with a subpoena. But so as a free American, Hunter Biden has a right to not comply with the congressional subpoena, but we have the right to take the next step as a Congress. If we believe the subpoena was righteous and his non-compliance with that subpoena was unrighteous, if we believe that our subpoena was lawful and we have presented probable cause and lawful argument to support that subpoena, then we have not only the right, but we have the obligation to consider that he was in contempt of Congress when he took that stand of non-compliance, which is where we are right now. Doesn't have to be emotional. The man had the right to not show up. We have the right to hold them in contempt and that's what's happening. So by all means, as my colleague just stated, let us move forward with the people's business. The people's business today in this committee is to move forward with the vote to hold Hunter Biden in contempt. Mr. Chairman, I yield. Gentlemen yields back. Does any other member wish to be heard before we begin the amendment process? Seeing none, I understand there's an amendment at the desk. Oh, Mr. Cloud. I'm sorry I didn't recognize. Mr. Cloud from Texas for five minutes. Well, in the true DC meeting maxim of everything's been said, but not everyone's said it since I haven't said anything yet. I'll go ahead and mention it. But we've heard words about irrefutable evidence being presented and I just have to say I don't think that word means what you think it means. And there's a stark contrast that's been pointed out between how the Democrats have investigated and how we investigated. They are opposed to a closed door deposition, which they've held a number of times. As a matter of fact, during the impeachment hearings, I sat in the skiff along with others while they withheld the transcripts that they are worried about. And so oftentimes it seems like their motivations are they're portraying their motivations on us. And that's just not the case. I remember sitting, for example, and in one of the hearings and one of the witnesses who worked at the White House was asked, did the president talk to you before coming here? And said, well, we passed in the hallway and had conversation. What did he say? Just tell the truth. Ironically, that part didn't leak from the committee hearing, but a number of lies did. And let's also look at how these two investigations got started. One was based on evidence that was false evidence that was paid for by a political opponent of Trump as a candidate and created a whole Russian collusion narrative that we spent millions of government tax dollars on, perpetrating this big lie that our colleagues on the other side helped promote. This one began with a laptop that Hunter Biden produced himself and then was backed up with bank documents and then evidence of shell companies all over the place. And then there's talk about the business, the fact that Trump's business has made money from people who stay at the hotels. Is that not shocking? I think every American expected that people in other countries where some of his hotels are might have stayed at those hotels. That is not a shocking thing. But the big difference, of course, is that President Trump and his son is not manning the reservation desk and they're not the ones answering the call and handing it over and saying the big guy's sitting with me, would you like a room at the hotel? That is not happening. But yet for these shell companies that Hunter Biden has set up in the Biden family, that's exactly what we've seen has been happening. And I would say that money that comes into the Trump organization doesn't go directly. Now I'm sure there's some return on the investment that the Trump family has made. But it also employs several employees that get money from what comes in. I doubt that these 20 shell companies have nearly the employees of one hotel that Trump property has, probably not as many hotel or as many employees as you would find in the lobby, working the lobby of one of these hotels. So this is completely, completely, completely different. They're trying to compare apples and oranges and confuse the American people back home. It's totally, totally not the case. And getting back to the point of today's hearing, this really is about contempt. And so what we've seen happen is Hunter Biden has come here now twice just to not speak to this committee. So contempt is defined as a lack of respect or reverence for something, a willful disobedience or open disrespect for a court judge and legislative body. He flew all the way over here the day he was scheduled for a deposition just to not appear and to kind of thumb his nose here at this body. Today he showed up and the minority is trying to make the case while he showed up to speak. We've been here a couple times. I've been in a couple of committee hearings, not nearly as many as many of the members here never have I seen a witness show up when they want to show up on any sort of thing to say, hey, I'm here to speak on what I want to speak about. That is not how Congress works. That's not how any meeting on the Hill works. That's ridiculous to think that somebody's gonna be able to show up and just mandate the agenda for today's meeting, which is further evidence of why he is holding Congress in contempt. He thinks he's above the law. He thinks it has no weight on him and understandably so for the moment because the DOJ refuses to follow up on anything and has done their best effort to work with the IRS and other agencies to shield and protect the Biden family. This is important. We have to hold them in contempt. And I yield back. The gentleman yields back. Does any other member wish to be heard before we begin the amendment process? Seeing none, I understand there's an amendment at the desk. Yes. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk. For what purpose does Mr. Goldman seek recognition? My apologies for jumping ahead. I have an amendment at the desk. The clerk will distribute the amendment to all members. Do we, does everyone have the amendment? No, all right, we're gonna let the clerk distribute the amendment. I believe it was changed last little bit. That's okay. I would ask that the clerk read the amendment. My apologies, I withdraw.