Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I will reiterate my support for this bill and my gratitude to the chairman and the Republican majority for moving it quickly. This bill, fundamentally, is about something we haven't talked a lot about today, which is transparency. Transparency is a cornerstone of our democracy because without transparency, the American people can't make the decisions that they need to make responsibly as citizens of a democracy. I am sorry that today we heard a little bit of accusations that the truth was hidden from the American people; that taxpayer funds were misused; that Dr. Fauci had a motive to cover himself; that there was government censorship. There is not one iota of evidence for any of that. When we say those things without evidence, what we do is we reduce the American people's faith in their government and, eventually, when their faith in their government is reduced to nothing, we lose our democracy, or we see people breaking windows downstairs to get into the government's Chambers because it has been so discredited. But I am going to set that aside right now because this is an important, bipartisan effort to bring transparency around something that is going to be pretty frustrating for the American people because no matter what is declassified, it won't be dispositive about the origins of the coronavirus. This is a really important first step.…”