Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, some of my colleagues have argued that holding Secretary Ross and Attorney General Barr in contempt of Congress is premature. That is simply not true. If anything, it is long overdue. The Department of Commerce and the Department of Justice have failed to comply with congressional requests for more than a year. The Oversight and Reform Committee Democrats first asked for documents from the Department of Commerce in April of 2018 and from the Department of Justice May of 2018. Those requests were ignored. When I became chairman, I renewed those requests. In response, the administration produced thousands of pages. But most of the documents were either heavily redacted, already public, or nonresponsive to the committee's request. So the committee narrowed its request and issued bipartisan subpoenas to compel production of that narrow group of documents. That was in April, more than 3 months ago. I even asked Secretary Ross to meet with me personally. He refused. And, last month, the committee passed the bipartisan resolution before us to hold Secretary Ross and Attorney General Barr in contempt of Congress. Still neither department has provided the documents that we have asked for. So I have come to the floor to urge our Members to vote in favor of this. I do not, again, bring this lightly. This is not theater. This is about doing our job.…”