Adam Schiff

Finally, nothing in the Durham Report disputes the central findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, namely, Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

It is simply not true, as the most extreme voices in this room have claimed, that the investigation was somehow launched by the Clinton Campaign.

The Durham Report unequivocally concludes that the FBI not only have the evidence to open an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, but actually had an affirmative obligation to investigate ties between the Russian…

To be clear, the Durham Report is by itself a deeply flawed vessel.

House Republicans do not want to talk about any of that. They seem incapable of assigning any agency or responsibility to Donald Trump for problems that are Trump's and Trump's alone.

Trump's hand-picked Attorney General Bill Barr, with whom I agree on very little, hit the nail on the head when he described the former President's legal troubles as entirely of his own making.

Trump's Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, said that the former President's handling of this information put U.S. service members' lives and our national security at risk.

Even if you believe, as Chair Jordan claims, that President Trump has committed no crime, surely, we can agree that it is dangerous and profoundly irresponsible to have taken these documents from the White House and left them unsecured in…

This is political payback, but it's also I think, you know, frankly, quite flattering.

If they're defending the indefensible, then moderate Republicans and Independents, they are going to be disillusioned with the GOP.

The allegations are so premeditated in terms of Donald Trump's deliberate effort to hide these materials.

These are not the policies of an open border. They are the opposite.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, we are still hearing the same claims that we heard at our first immigration hearing this year.

This is not a serious process.

They have decided to make their first target Secretary Mayorkis. Why? Because they have policy disagreements.

Today Judiciary Republicans are laying the groundwork to impeach the Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkis.

The majority likes to spin tails of nefarious motives and collusion with liberal groups.

Instead, today's hearing is simply a tired attempt by the majority to paint a Constitutional veneer upon unpopular antiregulatory agenda.

For Congress to pass H.R. 788 it would be a gift to lawbreakers at the expense of families and communities suffering from injuries.

The antiregulatory measures for the bulk of today's discussion however do not address legitimate concerns, they are a distraction from the important work we could accomplish together.

To be clear, where there is a legitimate issue to address, we are prepared to work with our Republican colleagues.

I am deeply disappointed that Committee Republicans have chosen to shoehorn into this antiregulatory hearing, what is an otherwise worthy discussion of civil asset forfeiture reform.

Nonetheless, the majority seeks to enact H.R. 788, the so-called slush-fund bill which would prevent DOJ settlements.

Paradoxically then instead of protecting his Constitutional prerogatives, H.R. 3446 would thwart Congress' will.

The time to do it is now as a systemic protection for our democracy, not as a partisan measure directed against any particular President.