John Culberson: “The gentleman from Florida I know has worked in the past as an attorney and represented clients and undoubtedly has…”

“The gentleman from Florida I know has worked in the past as an attorney and represented clients and undoubtedly has settled cases before. And those settlement agreements, those negotiations, when you were designing those agreements, Mr. Grayson, I know were not something that you wanted to disclose. You wanted to negotiate those settlements in private with your client confidentially, because had the world seen what you were working out, that would have damaged your client's ability to negotiate a fair settlement with the other party in the case. As here, with trade promotion authority, the countries with which the Trade Representative is negotiating, Japan, for example, I doubt the Japanese want the Australians to see what the Japanese are agreeing to. That is just common sense. I doubt that the Koreans want the Japanese to see what the Koreans are attempting to agree to. So it is perfectly understandable that the agreement itself would be confidential until it is finalized. Members of Congress can go see the agreement, but the Korean-American Trade Agreement is going to be confidential until it is finally settled because Korea doesn't want Japan or Australia or Vietnam to see what they are negotiating, in the same way you did not want your clients, the agreement you were attempting to negotiate on behalf of your client, you didn't want to do that in the open sunshine.…”