So those were all the policy considerations you looked at. But why is the legal authority redacted in the documents that OPM provided yesterday?

But why does that give you the authority to redact that?

Well, why is the GSA making arguments, that are also being advanced by the President's personal attorneys, that we can't obtain information about a government lease, a very valuable property which is controlled, owned by the U.S…

Congress has a broad robust and comprehensive power that's been recognized by the Supreme Court and all the courts to investigate, and that is essential to representative democracy.

I hope that all of the witnesses heard a very strong bipartisan sense that our ability to get documents is essential to our lawmaking function.

The American people have a right to know how much is being spent there.

She's allowed to say whatever she wants on the weekend and the evening.

If a false statement has been made at the hearing about a fellow Member of Congress, can it be corrected?

I want to ask you about the Hatch Act, because I've got 65,000 constituents who are Federal employees.

Her contemptuous defiance of this committee is unacceptable.

I think you make an astute point. The question is whether she's operating in an official capacity representing the government or not.

If you act in contempt of the American people and Congress, we will find you in contempt.

The Hatch Act has been twice challenged in the Supreme Court by unions for working people saying we should be able to express ourselves politically at work.

I want to thank the chairman, Mr. McGovern, for his extraordinary leadership on H.R. 2722, the Securing America's Federal Elections Act, the SAFE Act. Madam Speaker, we were attacked as a country in 2016. We were not attacked as Democrats…

The President should fire Kellyanne Conway.

Did President Trump respond in any way to discipline this employee when tens of thousands of my employees have been told they can't even wear a button to work if it says resist, which is a word in the English language, right?

It's important to my constituents in Maryland, because I have tens of thousands of Federal employees too.

I think Mr. Kerner had given Ms. Conway multiple opportunities to come in, precisely to have a discussion and a correction about her conduct.

But in January 2018, you started an investigation of Ms. Conway for making partisan statements strongly supporting Republican U.S. Senate candidate and accused child molester Roy Moore.

Ms. Conway seemed to ridicule the enforcement of the Hatch Act, as the chairman stated.

her contemptuous defiance of your board and you, as the director of it, is unacceptable and intolerable.

Does it send the message that there's one standard that applies to people who are in President Trump's favor and a different standard that applies to millions of Federal employees who are subject to the requirements of the Hatch Act?

I believe that the rule states that we cannot disparage and defame other Members of Congress.

The second Reconstruction, which was the modern civil rights movement, targeted all of those practices with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Disenfranchisement used to be relatively simple. In the first century, the law simply said that African Americans couldn't vote.