‘It’s An Irrelevant Matter’: Glenn Ivey Slams House GOP Over Biden Ghostwriter Hearing

3 months ago

Last month, Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) delivered remarks on Biden's ghostwriter during a House Judicial Committee hearing.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a lot to respond to that popped up there. Just Mr.

00:06McLennick's final comments. No, this is not the next step that's supposed to be

00:10taken. According to the Supreme Court and court law that we discussed earlier, the

00:15accommodation process is the next process, the next step should be taken.

00:19And as the chairman acknowledged in his responses to questions from Mr. Schiff,

00:24this committee hasn't done that, hasn't even initiated those sorts of

00:30conversations either with the White House, the Department of Justice, or any

00:33other aspect of the executive branch. Furthermore, as you know, I think you did

00:40a great job of articulating why this is a conflict between the executive branch

00:44and the legislative branch. Why Mr. Zwonitzer gets caught in the

00:48middle of that I think has not been articulated, and at least not well,

00:54especially since all of the documents, all the information that the committee

00:57is seeking, is in the possession of the Department of Justice. And as I discussed

01:02earlier, there's no effort that's been made by this committee to get this

01:06information from the Department of Justice. My colleague from New Jersey

01:11talked about going to the Department of Justice previously for information, but

01:16he's conflating Mr. Zwonitzer's material with her report material. This

01:24committee did have a hearing of sort and did seek contempt with respect to the

01:31the audio tape from the deposition that Mr. Biden gave, but there's been no

01:35effort to try and do anything along those lines with respect to the civilian

01:40who's caught in a conflict between, you know, two giants that are the

01:46executive branch and the legislative branch. And I got to say this too, you

01:49know, when we go down this path that quickly, it creates problems that don't

01:56need to be there. And I mentioned the January 6th subpoena a few minutes ago,

02:01and this kind of a scenario we had in the last Congress, obviously that was

02:06relevant. In fact, I think it goes to the heart of one of the cases

02:13that are the criminal cases that are standing against Mr. Trump right now, so

02:18we can't say that it's an irrelevant matter, that he's not getting his day in

02:22court. But the January 6th subpoenas went directly to the information about

02:27conversations had with the president and those members of Congress on that day

02:32and leading up to that day that were directly relevant to that day. Now, Mr.

02:37Klein's not here, but we've had this discussion before, and I know he would

02:40say, Mr. Ivey, they didn't just stiff the committee, they actually sent letters in

02:47response and raised privileges and objections to why they shouldn't have to

02:51comply with the subpoena. And at least Mr. Jordan did, I don't think Mr.

02:56McCarthy did, he just he just didn't show up for his deposition date. But the

03:02fork in the road occurs right there, because right now we've got Mr.

03:06Zwonitzer, who is trying to raise these kinds of rights and objectives and

03:12privileges. The White House raised its two days ago. By the way, Mr.

03:18Jordan responded to the January 6th report subpoena two days before he was

03:23supposed to show up for his subpoena too, so this last-minute thing that was raised

03:27earlier does not permit us to go forward in this process as we are today. But in

03:33any event, rather than step forward and start holding members of Congress in

03:38contempt, as I guess would be what we were trying to do today, if we were gonna

03:42if the January 6th committee had treated this the same way we're behaving now,

03:47that would have been the next step, as opposed to trying to reach some kind of

03:52accommodation. In that point, it was referred to the Ethics Committee, but

03:56seeking criminal contempt is a big step that we're treating very cavalierly, very

04:01cavalierly. You know, we've got a constitutional obligation to conduct

04:06oversight, sure, but really? No accommodation process? We get a letter

04:11from the White House, and just because we got it, you know, a day or two ago, that

04:14means we don't have to try and deal with the issues that are raised in the White

04:17House letter. We don't even have to go to the Department of Justice, even though we

04:22know they have all of the information that we're trying to get from this

04:25private citizen, and the case law that I just read a few minutes ago says that's

04:30exactly what we're supposed to do, exhaust all other alternative sources

04:35for the information. This is not how we should handle the power that we've been

04:40entrusted by the American people in the Constitution. We just shouldn't do it

04:44this way. I don't know what the rush is, I don't know why we have to do the

04:47hearing, and hold this private citizen in contempt today without even trying to

04:52take the steps that the courts have told us we're supposed to take. So, you know, I

04:57think this is one where, you know, if you want to have a hearing, which is

05:02something that I would highly recommend, you know, give them a chance to present

05:07their arguments and their, you know, whatever privileges and rights they want

05:11to assert, they should have a chance to do it. We shouldn't be doing it on the

05:15fly like this, like we, you know, they, like he doesn't have a lawyer that's

05:19tried to respond. He sent us a written letter raising these objections six

05:23weeks ago.

05:24Time of the gentleman has expired.

‘It’s An Irrelevant Matter’: Glenn Ivey Slams House GOP Over Biden Ghostwriter Hearing

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