Jamie Raskin

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It is amazing to me that the political rights of 700,000 people might be conditioned on the business interests of one man.

The point is exactly as you say. There is a constitutional ceiling but there is no floor.

The inescapable imperative of American history is to give everybody equal rights, equal citizenship, and the right to participate in our government.

There is no doubt that people tried to conscript constitutional arguments in the service of opposition to other people's equality.

Very quickly, Ms. Mayor, what is the name of the new state? Mayor Bowser. Washington, DC, Douglass Commonwealth.

The only way that we have admitted new states to the Union is through Congress.

Union and liberty, this was the cry of Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans in the 19th century. It is the cry of the people of Washington, DC, today who want to join the Union on the basis of equal citizenship and full voting rights.

The United States is only democratic nation on Earth which disenfranchises the residents of the capital city in its national legislature.

This is the ridiculousness you get into when you try to draw a Federal city into a teacup.

Was there anything wrong with or is there anything wrong with committees in Congress or Members of Congress writing to inspectors generals urging them to investigate this or that alleged misconduct?

Have we seen similar kinds of assaults on the independence and integrity of inspector generals in other departments?

The president hasn't even nominated a candidate for nine of these positions including the Departments of Education, Defense, Treasury, HHS, and the EPA.

And what is the impact of all of these vacancies on public policy?

Why is this a problem for the government?

I agree with your sense of urgency about the importance of this issue and I think we stand ready in this committee to help however...

The leadership was apparently so perturbed and threatened by the IG investigation that they tried to shut it down.

The committee is investigating efforts by the Department of Education to interfere with the integrity of its inspector general office and its operations.

I think the whole thing is imaginary. It's like the tooth fairy.

I want to thank the vice chair of the committee for her insight and views on this.

So, let's be clear then. Mr. Grothman was trying to say that this was some kind of big political show because there was no chance any of these people being removed.

But with all due respect, Mr. Renaud, we're talking about people who have cystic fibrosis, childhood cancer and so on.

The letter that you sent to Ms. Barrera said, if you fail to departing the United States within 33 days...

I remember when I was in school learning that the five critical ingredients of history are the five Ws: who, what, why, where, and when.

Ordinarily, when we ask government witnesses to come in, they're prepared to answer the questions of the committee.