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▶ 0:35:02subcommittee will come to order without objection the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time we welcome everyone to today's hearing on legislative reforms to end lawfare I will now recognize myself for an opening statement welcome we are here today to discuss potential legislative reforms to end lawfare by state and local prosecutors rather than debate political opponents on substance my colleagues on the other side of the aisle thought they could win the 202 24 election through the use of partisan lawfare tactics lawfare have been defined has been defined
▶ 0:35:33as quote the Strategic use of legal proceedings to intimidate or hinder an opponent end quote law fair violates the fundamental mission of prosecutors prosecutors job is to do justice as a former assistant United States Attorney I made it my duty to uphold the law with fairness on those I charged making sure their civil liberties were kept intact additionally when I was a prosecutor I methodically ensure the cases that were brought before me would would not fall to political pressure or succumb to outside influence especially to score cheap political
▶ 0:36:03points every American deserves to have a justice system that is divorced from the political whims of elected office holders political parties and personal vendettas in their political pursuit of President Trump however we saw state and local prosecutors abuse professional Norms in favor of achieving indictments against their target prior to the 2024 election President Trump was criminally indicted for times let's take a quick look at the state and local lawsuits brought against President Trump first up fton
▶ 0:36:33County Georgia district attorney fny Willis's 41 count indictment against 19 defendants which included president Trump his attorneys his former white house chief of staff and a former justice department official the politicized nature of this prosecution is hard to ignore a mere four days before the indictment da Willis launched a campaign fundraising website highlighting her investigation into president Trump and though da Willis is investigation was first reported in February of 2021 it was not until president Trump announced his candidacy that she brought charges
▶ 0:37:04and later da Willis requested the trial begin on March 4th 2024 the day before super Tuesday and just eight days before the Georgia presidential primary to charge president Trump and his codefendants da Willis used a broad interpretation of Georgia's RICO law which is intended to be used to prosecute criminal Enterprises that infiltrate legitimate businesses and use interstate commerce for background Rico statutes are used to prosecute organized crime mob bosses street gang leaders and other crime syndicate heads
▶ 0:37:34not typically elected office holders on absurd charges prior to indicting president Trump she coordinated with special counsel Jack Smith and the partisan January 6 committee her lead prosecutor Nathan Wade met with the Biden Harris White House on multiple occasions then we have New York attorney general Leticia James who has made her disdain for president Trump well known when she ran for New York attorney general she made many personal attacks against President Trump calling him things like con man Carnival Barker and even an illegitimate president
▶ 0:38:05as soon as she took office AG James began investigating president Trump in September 2022 she sued the president alleging that he and his company had committed fraud to inflate the value of properties now let's turn to Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg who indicted president Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records which was tied to an unknown federal crime which aggravated the charges to felonies the Manhattan District Attorney's Office had been investigating president Trump since 2018 but it wasn't until after president Trump announced
▶ 0:38:35he was running for president in late 2022 that brag elected to resurrect the zombie case against President Trump and who did he bring on to help his politicized investigation brag hired senior Biden Harris justice department official Michael Colangelo to jumpstart his office's investigation of President Trump reportedly due to colangelo's quote history of taking on Donald J Trump and his family business end quote while working for the New York attorney general's office one should be equally concerned if it were a republican district attorney engaging in this conduct
▶ 0:39:05toward a former Democrat president cabinet secretary or White House official these prosecutions are precisely what former Attorney General Robert Jackson warned us about Attorney General Jackson warned about the most dangerous power of the prosecutor quote that he will pick people that he thinks he should get rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted it is here that law enforcement becomes personal and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with a predominant or governing group being attached to the wrong political views
▶ 0:39:35or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself end quote and that is precisely what we have here this is why Congress must address Democrats lawfare efforts by popularly elected state and local prosecutors against Federal officials in fact many of my Democratic colleagues on this committee are vocal proponents of a Criminal Justice System calling then to perceive needless instances of over overzealous prosecution wrongful arrest and detention and limiting incarceration
▶ 0:40:06overall what better way to achieve these goals than engaging in this hearing to uncover possible missteps by state and local Justice systems and ushering legislation to rectify these glaring blind spots current law does not adequately protect Federal officials from Rogue state and local attorneys who stack unwanted charges against their political opponents under current law the option to remove civil or criminal cases from a state Court to a federal court is limited to Federal agency officials and legislative and judicial officers our colleague on the Judiciary Committee Congressman fry
▶ 0:40:37has a bill that would fix this problem the promptly ending political prosecutions and executive retaliation Act of 20125 is designed to protect our nation's leaders from lawfare tactics this bill gives both current and former presidents of either party vice presidents and federal officials the ability to remove civil and criminal cases against them from a state court to a federal district court the bill also codifies the immunity recognized by the US Supreme Court for official acts carried out by a federal official this bill should not be misconstrued as a get out of jail free
▶ 0:41:07card far from it it should be an opportunity for individuals to have a shot of non-politicized due process experience make no mistake if a federal official were to commit theft fraud assault or other crime they should be held accountable regardless political party or policy views this introduced bill should be welcomed by both parties as no individual acting within their duties should be sought after because of whom they work for or their political leanings I'm looking forward to discussing that particular bill as well as the need for legislative fixes in this space today I want to thank all of our Witnesses
▶ 0:41:37for being here today we look forward to your testimony and the robust conversation on how we can move forward and fix this problem I now recognize the ranking member Miss scanland for her opening statement thank you I would like to welcome our Witnesses here to the subcommittee on the Constitution but it's a little hard to do so when this committee and apparently the entire house majority seems to have lost their way and forgotten the basic terms of that Constitution instead of acting as a co-equal
▶ 0:42:07branch of government as designed by our founding document this house majority is content to abdicate congress's authority to make and fund laws to a wouldbe dictator and his billionaire Tech bro speaker Johnson and House Republicans have gone along with White House efforts to gut basic services that Americans rely upon whether at the VA Social Security Administration or the National Institute of Health and they've teed up huge cuts to Medicaid snap and more all so they can give more tax
▶ 0:42:38breaks to their billionaire buddies that will explode our national debt instead of lowering costs for American families they've encouraged the president's tariff Wars that are already driving up inflation and tanking the stock market the bills our house Republican colleagues are finding filing and bringing to the floor are embarrassment they're seemingly engaged in a contest of who can debase and subjugate themselves to the president the most with measures like atting Trump's face to Mount Rushmore designating
▶ 0:43:08his birthday as a national holiday and printing $250 bills with his portrait on them which brings us to the bill that forms the basis for today's hearing it's another attempt to refashion the rule of law to flatter a narcissist and felon in Chief we know that because it was first introduced last term to Ben benefit one man and one man only Donald Trump as he faced 34 felony convictions in New York a criminal case in Georgia and hundreds of millions of dollars in civil judgments
▶ 0:43:39in all in state courts this legislation appears to be an unconstitutional power grab by the federal government and a direct infringement on state sovereignty that would upend the framer's carefully calibrated balance of power between what are supposed to be two equal sovereign in their Shameless quest to help Donald Trump and his cronies evade Justice in our state courts Republicans would have Congress exceed the SC scope of its Authority and Grant Federal
▶ 0:44:09jurisdiction over a host of state court cases for all their talk about federalism it begs the question is there any fundamental principle that House Republicans are not willing to abandon in servitude to this President the bill before us the so-called prompt ly ending political prosecutions and executive retaliation act amends 28 us code section 1442 the Federal Officer removal statute and other Provisions related to the removal of cases
▶ 0:44:39from state to Federal Court under Section 1442 a Federal Officer can remove a state criminal or civil matter to federal court if the case relates to acts taken quote under control of the office end quote meaning that the Federal Officer was acting within the scope of his or her off official duties and as a statutory and constitutional matter the party seeking removal Bears the burden of showing that a case Falls within the federal Court's Jurisdiction under the Supreme Court's decision in Mesa versus
▶ 0:45:09California removal is not permissible absent a colable federal defense the Federal Officer removal statute is intended to prevent Federal officers from being improperly punished for carrying out their duties it's not a license for them to go around doing whatever they want with no while I'll leave the point-to-point analysis of this bill to our expert witness Professor Elizabeth besy I will highlight that this bill is troubling for a few reasons first it would allow any former
▶ 0:45:39fed federal official to remove State cases for acts taken under color of office more concerningly the bill would allow a sitting or former president or vice president to remove cases for or relating to any act while in office even ones that involve their personal private conduct unrelated to their official duties it seeks to provide immunity for the president vice president and political officers under a misguided understanding of the supremacy clause and
▶ 0:46:09effectively flips the normal presumption against removal to a presumption in favor of it in other words this bill goes a long way towards enshrining an American statute the idea that we're ruled by a king who's Above the Law overall this bill is un Justified unworkable and misguided especially for the time we find ourselves in but rather than admit that the legislation they proposed is blatantly unconstitutional our Republican colleagues have tried to characterize it as a response
▶ 0:46:39to politicized law enforcement leveled that Mr Trump and his allies in fact the chair just tried to describe the bill under consideration as an effort to ensure that all Americans enjoy a justice system free of politicization but is so often the case accusations are frequently conve confessions if our Republican colleagues want to talk about politicized law enforcement let's have at it because we don't have to go any further than right here in our nation's capital to find the
▶ 0:47:10most egregious examples and in just the past six weeks Donald Trump's department of justice has fired hundreds of career prosecutors and FBI agents for doing their jobs without fear or favor he's targeted those who helped investigate and prosecute the people who violently attacked the capital on January 6th while also pardoning 1,500 of his magga followers who rioted and injured hundreds of law enforcement officers that day in doing so he put his presidential seal of approval on
▶ 0:47:40political violence so long as it supports him his department of justice has made corrupt quidd Pro quoe deals dropping Federal corruption charges against Eric Adams in exchange for the mayor's agreement to his political agenda in just his first 44 days in office Donald Trump's made his his cynical vision of government clear he's wasted no time using the power of the presidency to silence the people whose job it is to hold him and his billionaire buddies accountable by firing at least 17 inspectors General making it
▶ 0:48:10harder for the truth about Fraud and Abuse in our government to be exposed and effectively ending investigations into Fraud and Abuse by you guest it Elon Musk and members of the Trump White House moving he's moved to take control of independent agencies designed to hold the power F accountable like the Fe cfpb and SEC and using the FCC to go after broadcasters that produce content that the president doesn't like this president has undermined the power of
▶ 0:48:40the people and this Congress something everyone in this room should be outraged by by refusing to Faithfully execute the laws that this body has passed and the money that we've appropriated and is attempting to unilaterally dismantle programs and entire agencies that Congress created and only Congress can eliminate this is all happening every day out in the open but condemning these blatant abuses of power is not the conversation our Republican colleagues want to have
▶ 0:49:10since the day he took office Donald Trump has trampled on the rule of law that forms the very Foundation of our democracy using the power of the presidency to demand Vengeance and unquestioned loyalty he's undertaken politically motivated legal actions against his perceived enemies if if you want to talk about lawfare that's lawfare right there our our Founders designed a Democratic Republic built on the rule of law not the rule of a king as this Administration tests that fundamental principle it's counting
▶ 0:49:41on our Republican colleagues to be too weak and cowardly to stand up to it thus far that's true but we took an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution that's our duty as members of Congress and that's what my Democratic colleagues and I plan to do I yield back and now recognize the chairman of the full committee Mr Jordan for his opening statement thank you Mr chairman law fair is real it's as real as it can be November 15 2022 president Trump announces he's running for office three days later
▶ 0:50:11attorney general Garland names Jack Smith the special prosecutor now I understand that's Federal and we're focused on State and local prosecutors here but it's law fair nonetheless a few months after president Trump announced he's running for office Alvin Bragg brings a case against President Trump a case that his predecessor said wasn't there a case at the fed the southern district of New York everyone said wasn't there but Alvin brag brings it because president Trump is now running for the highest office in the land and then a few months after that fonnie Willis brings her ridiculous case against President Trump
▶ 0:50:41and other Federal officials all in all designed to make it so president Trump wouldn't win the election and of course all that was preceded by all that was preceded by the whole Russia collusion baloney complete baloney where the FB FBI think about this the FBI went to the secret Court they took information from the Clinton campaign that had first been sent to the Perkins koi Law Firm that had then been that they then hired Fusion GPS who then hired a foreigner who put together a bunch of lies in
▶ 0:51:11a dossier they take it to the court and they use that as a reason to go spy on President Trump's campaign so law fair is as real as it gets and we have a bill introduced by our colleague Mr Fry That seeks to address part of this it says if you're if you're a federal official some crazy local prosecutor comes after you you can move that case to federal court go figure that makes so much sense that's all this bill does so I appreciate the chairman having this hearing I appreciate our good Witnesses who are here to talk about
▶ 0:51:42what we've witnessed in this great country where it's supposed to be equal treatment under the law you're not supposed to use a law to Target your political opponents we have a piece of legislation that makes good common sense that we hope to pass tomorrow in the full committee but today we're going to hear about it and so with that again I appreciate our Witnesses and I appreciate the chairman of this important committee having this hearing and I yield back I thank the chairman uh for his opening statement I now recognize the ranking member Mr Rasin for his
▶ 0:52:12thank you Mr chairman and uh welcome to all of our um the uh the majority Republicans call it law fair when Donald Trump is held to the rule of law and given every right of due process we call it law fair when the Trump Administration violates the rule of law and tramples the due process rights of Americans including prosecutors and FBI agents
▶ 0:52:42Mr chairman we have no Kings here no queens no titles of nobility no surfs no slaves our Revolution overthrew monarchy and the established church it made our constitution Supreme Over the monarchical and oligarchical political Ambitions of any man the 13th and 14th amendments abolished slavery and gave equal protection to all Royal status to none but in our time Donald Trump's crime spree throughout American society has tested
▶ 0:53:12the hard one principle that we are all equal and that no one is above the law the Supreme Court that Trump has repeatedly bragged about packing and stacking to destroy Row versus Wade not only brought the curtain down on the freedom and Health security of tens of millions of American women trapped in GOP controlled anti-choice States it also made the president absolutely immune from prosecution for crimes he commits under the so-called core functions of his office presumptively
▶ 0:53:43immune from prosecution for other so-called official acts and subject to prosecution only for private unofficial acts after more than two centuries this bracing new taxonomy for licensing presidential criminality was announced by the Roberts Court in a 6 to3 decision in US versus trump it creates presidential exceptionalism a plainly dangerous Doctrine which overturned a unanimous ruling of the DC circuit court of appeals but even that shocking
▶ 0:54:13burst of finger painting on the Constitution isn't enough for Trump and his crowd who seek now complete immunity and impunity from the laws that bind the rest of us it's not even enough for them to appoint a awide crew of embarrassingly servile judges like aen Cannon who may as well be on the bench in Putin's Russia as she shows little Fidelity to the rule of law but fastidious Devotion to the whims of her dear leader now they want to pass something called the pepper act
▶ 0:54:43to let Trump and his accomplices get their political corruption and election fixing cases removed from any state court in the land and put in front of far more submissive and pliant Trump appointees in federal court Donald Trump tried this move in one of his criminal cases the one in New York City where he was found guilty of 34 felony criminal counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments he had paid to a mistress before the 2016
▶ 0:55:14election there his judge rejected his request to move everything to Federal Court saying Trump had failed to meet both the current statutory and constitutional requirements for doing that as judge helstein observed in his ruling the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely personal item of the president a coverup of an embarrassing event hush Money Paid to an adult film star is not related to a president's official acts it does not reflect in any way
▶ 0:55:44the color of the president's official duties removal to federal court is reserved for cases where there is an actual Federal defense let's say the president was tried in Florida State Court for assaulting a citizen but his defense was that the alleged victim was a soldier and he was just administering Fair punishment as commander-in-chief of the Army in a time of actual conflict in that hypothetical case it would be removed so the federal Judiciary could handle the federal question defense
▶ 0:56:14there was plainly no federal question defense in Trump's hush Money Record falsification scheme but now scrambling to appease Trump an encourageable recidivist law breaker who is looking for a way to disappear all of his State Court civil and criminal prosecutions our colleagues proposed to amend the law so that a president or vice president or even a former president or vice president can remove a state civil or criminal prosecution to Federal Court whenever that case is brought quote
▶ 0:56:44for or relating to any act while in office even if that act is of a completely private and personal nature or where the state Court's consideration of the claim or charge charge May interfere with hinder burden or delay the execution of the duties of the president or vice president this broad gaping language would in practice mean that no state court in America could ever conduct a criminal trial of Donald Trump or any other president again
▶ 0:57:14even if the alleged conduct say hypothetically sexual abuse or criminal fraud has no relationship to any of his official presidential acts after all any can obviously hinder or burden the execution of official Duty it would also permit Trump and his associates to remove the state court criminal cases now pending in Georgia related to the Trump conspiracy to overthrow the 2020 presidential election this bill is designed to trash basic
▶ 0:57:45jurisprudential principles including federalism that have served us well since the 18th century the conceit behind it is the pathetic claim that Donald Trump is just misunderstood and a victim of the judicial process and a target of unfair prosecutions although no court has ever once found that yes that Donald Trump he's the victim according uh to our colleagues the billionaire businessman who's been involved in check this out more than 4,000 lawsuits
▶ 0:58:15uh some in which he is sued as a defendant by for example frustrated students at Trump University or ex- Mistresses or golf clubs alleging non-payment or plumbers painters electricians and small business contractors alleging failure to pay their pay on their contracts but most of the ones I could find were ones in which he is the plaintiff deploying his army of lawyers to sue thousands of people and businesses including Casino patrons real estate Partners business tenants and media entities most recently he sued
▶ 0:58:46ABC and then CBS for $20 billion but to hear our friends tell it Donald Trump is just an eagle scout who respects women would never cook the books and keeps his hands to himself the Donald Trump I know about is a civil adjudicated sexual abuser in New York a convicted criminal felon and the only twice impeached president in American history who was most recently impeached in this house for inciting an Insurrection against the Constitution the Congress and his own vice president
▶ 0:59:16the Senate voted 57 to 43 to convict him meaning that although Trump narrowly beat the Constitutional spread robust bipartisan majorities voted that he had indeed incited Insurrection against our government now look if you want to see real law fair if that's something really uh in your Scopes then open your eyes to the US attorney's office here in the District of Columbia the pro January 6 Insurrection turn insurrectionist turned us attorney for DC
▶ 0:59:46Ed Martin has fired more than a dozen career prosecutors focused on violent crime from his office simply for doing their jobs and doing their job jobs well he fired them because they had worked on the January 6 cases which they were assigned to do Prosecuting proud boys oathkeepers and other extremists who violently assaulted our police officers and they were sacked just last week Mr Martin demoted several other top prosecutors and career supervisors to entry-level positions again as retribution
▶ 1:00:17for having simply done their jobs in overseeing January 6 prosecutions that is lawfare that is a violation of the due process rights as well as the Civil Service rights of American citizens who did nothing other than obey the law and do their jobs and this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the administration's attacks on the rule of law in its first month from the corrupt quidd pro quo in New York City with mayor Adams uh which led to the resignation of multiple
▶ 1:00:47Department of Justice lawyers including the US attorney for the southern district who had been a Justice Scalia Clerk and a career-long member of the Federalist Society and she said she couldn't uh put up with that and she decided to quit her assistant another uh conservative lawyer who had clerked on the uh Supreme Court for chief justice Roberts and he said you would have to be a fool or a coward to go along with that corrupt bargain between Donald Trump and mayor Adams they have halted anti-corruption task forces
▶ 1:01:17they've suspended uh enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act uh they have suspended anti- kleptocracy and anti corruption initiatives and on and on if you want to look at law feir let's look at what's going on right in front of our eyes today Mr chairman that's what we should be doing instead of going after some imaginary law fair by state and local prosecutors who did nothing other than than their jobs enforcing the law in their states and not a single judge or appeals court or even the Supreme
▶ 1:01:48Court under Robert's Court spell has said anything about those people doing anything remotely unethical I back to you without objection all other opening statements will be included in the record we will now introduce today's Witnesses first Mr George twilliger Mr twilliger is an attorney with more than four Decades of experience in both private practice and government service before entering Private Practice he served for 15 years in the Department of Justice as a prosecutor
▶ 1:02:18United States Attorney for the District of Vermont Deputy attorney general and acting attorney general in private practice Mr Mr toer has represented a multitude of private companies members of the house and the Senate cabinet officers and other executive branch officials Mr Daniel Epstein Mr Epstein is a vice president of the America First Legal Foundation a nonprofit public interest law firm he is also an assistant professor of law at St Thomas University's school of law where his research includes
▶ 1:02:49constitutional law American legal history federal courts and jurist prudence and civil procedure Miss Elizabeth price Foley Miss Foley is of is of councel at Baker hostel where she practices constitutional appellant law she also serves as a professor of law at the Florida International University College of Law where she teaches constitutional law separation of powers and civil procedure and Professor Elizabeth besk Miss bek is a professor of Law and Associate Dean for scholarship at the American University Washington College of Law her research focuses on civil procedure
▶ 1:03:19constitutional law federal courts and legal writing we thank our Witnesses for appearing today and we'll Begin by swearing bring you in would you please rise and raise your right hand do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge information and belief so help you God let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative thank you and please be seated please know that your written testimony will be entered in the record
▶ 1:03:49and its entirety accordingly we ask that you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes we remind each of you to turn the microphone on before you begin speaking Mr twilliger you may begin thank you Mr chairman and thank you ranking member and members of the committee for inviting me to appear here today to discuss lawfare by state authorities I have three suggestions for your consideration to curb State lawfare targeting Federal officials and to restore the Federal Officer removal statute
▶ 1:04:20to be as Congress has intended it over many years first amend the removal law to expressly cover former Federal officials second support the supremacy clause with legislation providing an expanded scope of removal to include federal court jurisdiction where there are questions of federal law in removal cases third codify supremacy clause immunity of federal officials a constitutional
▶ 1:04:50line is crossed when State officials use state law to control Federal activity in 1819 chief justice Marshall laid down the law in Mulla versus Maryland ruling that under the supremacy clause quote the states have no power to impede burden or in any manner control the operations of the general government end quote Congress over decades in a succession of amendments of the Federal Officer removal statute expanded the protection
▶ 1:05:20of federal officers from State prosecutions as recently as 2011 Congress expanded removal to cover conduct merely quote related to unquote a federal official's functions but courts have pushed back ruling contrary to that Congressional intent in a 2023 decision the 11 circuit court of appeals overruled 200 years of practice by taking removal possibility away from all former
▶ 1:05:50Federal officials and again raising the bar for removal contrary to congress's 2011 amendment that lowered it two members of that appeal panel urged Congress to amend recognizing what they called a quote nightmare scenario where allowing quote a rogue states weaponization of the prosecution power could go unchecked and fester which could quote paralyze our Republic Democrat system of government
▶ 1:06:21which depends on having talented and enthusiastic people willing to serve serve Congress should amend 1442a to expressly cover former officials but it needs to do more than that to curb the burgeoning lawfare by States using legal actions to attack the discretionary exercise of executive Authority Georgia da fonnie Willis's prosecution of my client Mark Meadows is a great example of that lawfare Congress
▶ 1:06:531939 passed a statute which authorized presidential assistant positions and established that their duties by law quote shall be as prescribed by the president end quote Willis nonetheless claims that the Fulton County district attorney can decide what presidential assistance can and cannot do her State prosecution charged white with the white house chief of staff for setting up and participating with the president in a telephone call to a Georgia
▶ 1:07:23official the case against Mr Mr Meadow should have been removed and summarily dismissed under the supremacy clause but the federal courts in Georgia in contravention to Congressional intent misapplied the removal statute not only ruling out former officials but raising the bar by adding the Absurd requirement that to get a state prosecution removed to Federal Court a federal official has to prove that he was authorized to commit the very crime the state alleges
▶ 1:07:53in his Federal role and now a federal court in Arizona has followed the 11th circuit's lead blocking the path to Federal immunity and allowing the Arizona attorney general to prosecute conduct in the very West Wing of the White House the Beating Heart of the branch Congress needs to act reaffirming its intent to ensure that state claims against Federal officials doing their jobs get moved to federal courts and those that
▶ 1:08:24are barred by the supremacy Clause are summarily dismissed chief justice Marshall had it right 200 years ago when he drew that bright line for closing State control of federal activities the draft legislation here presents Common Sense steps for Congress to address lawfare where State Authority oversteps constitutional bounds it may be that even more needs to be done but this bill would be a solid start thank you Mr
▶ 1:08:54chairman thank you Mr twilliger Mr Epstein you may begin chairman Roy ranking member scanland and members of the subcommittee on the Constitution and limited government thank you for inviting me to testify on this important matter president Trump overcame the most vindictive weaponization of the justice system against an American leader in our nation's history partisan operatives sought to destroy president Trump in 2016 when the Clinton campaign
▶ 1:09:24branded him as a Russian asset by laundering campaign opposition research to the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign leading to multiple investigations by special counsil meller the meller investigation substantiated no criminal activity by President Trump nor could it its jurisdictional Authority was based on a lie manufactured by Christopher steel but as the American people would witness the first special councel investigation was mere Child's Play two impeachment attempts four
▶ 1:09:54Criminal entit indictments one $400 million civil judgment one mugshot three states attempting to disqualify him from their ballots two Democratic nominated presidential opponents and two assassination attempts later Democrats would finally claim their scalp when they obtained a conviction against President Trump in a New York State Court weeks before the American people overwhelmingly reelected him with a historic Landslide mandate the American people saw through the coordinated hit
▶ 1:10:24job on their Pres president that culminated in a conviction by radically liberal jury pool in front of a judge who donated to Trump's first 2024 election opponent President Joe Biden and whose daughter works for a firm that represented both Joe Biden and KLA Harris's presidential campaigns campaigns against President Trump a party arguing before her father despite these clear questions about acting Justice Juan maran's ability to appear impartial the jury unanimously convicted president Trump of concealing
▶ 1:10:54a crime that it did not even need to agree on or share publicly but while the New York jury despite obvious legal errors and corrupt motivations did convict president Trump the voters overwhelmingly acquitted him on Election Day making it clear that they understood the fix was in state of New York lacked jurisdiction over the campaign charges against President Trump state of New York did not have jurisdiction to hear a case centered on federal election law district attorney Alvin Bragg
▶ 1:11:24violated ated a supreme court Doctrine known as the primary jurisdiction Doctrine which says that a court should stay or dismiss a claim when it implicates issues within the special competence of a federal administrative agency here that agency was the Federal Election Federal Election Commission the New York case against President Trump alleged a violation of the federal election campaign Act of 1971 the F violates the vest exclusive jurisdiction over issues of federal elections in the FEC in the
▶ 1:11:54department of Justice in president Trump's case the FEC did look at the allegations and then decided they were not worth further investigation this should have been the end of the matter but Biden's doj did not enforce its exclusive jurisdiction allowing a politically motivated district attorney to bring his own case built on the alleged violation of FICA second a top official in Biden's justice department was dispatched to assist the Manhattan District Attorney's offices prosecution of president
▶ 1:12:25Trump in coordination with President Biden and his campaign's lawfare strategy New York district attorney Alvin Bragg resurrected a hush money zombie case under a legal theory that Bragg's predecessor had previously sent back into the grave out of concerns that felony charges would not hold up in court Bragg's commitment to getting Trump gained gained him the support of senior Biden political operatives one day after Bragg announced his primary campaign against his predecessor brag received received a
▶ 1:12:55contribution from sharog Baines who had later become Deputy assistant to the president in the Biden White House Biden's operatives for uh for brag did not stop there in December 2022 New York district attorney Alvin Bragg reportedly hired Mike Matthew Colangelo to jumpstart his office's investigation of President Trump due to colangelo's history of taking on Donald Trump and his family's businesses at the depart Biden Department of Justice Colangelo served as a politically appointed
▶ 1:13:25acting associate attorney general the third highest ranking official in the Department of Justice the committee's thorough investigation revealed that Bragg's this committee's thorough investigation revealed that Bragg's hush money prosecution was coordinated with Biden despite the obvious links between Biden's Department of Justice and Bragg's District Attorney office attorney general mar mar Garland refused during a congressional hearing to commit to turning over Communications between his Department of Justice and Bragg's office and the Department of Justice's
▶ 1:13:56follow-up response to the committee denied the existence of such Communications our work at America First legal revealed that in fact 36 responsive records existed between the Department of Justice and the New York District Attorney's office thank you thank you Mr Epstein Professor Foley you may begin chairman Roy ranking member scanland members of the subcommittee uh first of all good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to testify
▶ 1:14:27um lawfare is something we should all agree is bad and the definition of lawfare is using the legal system either through criminal or civil suits to go after your political opponents firing people in the executive branch doesn't Fe that fit that definition so it's not law fair law fair is something that has torn this country apart it's deepened our political divide it's undermined the rule of law and it's it's distorted if not destroyed
▶ 1:14:57America's trust in government particularly its courts so the good news however is that Congress can do something about it and I want to talk about the removal um Amendment the uh bill that was just dropped uh which I had a draft of a little bit earlier and I will focus on that but on the drive over I thought to myself you know what really Congress ought to do if I had my wish list is I would ask you to consider reorganizing the federal courts you have plenary control over lower federal courts
▶ 1:15:27under article 3 section 1 you could take DDC the district court in DC and the DC circuit and you could fold it into a new 13th circuit you could wrap it into a circuit with West Virginia with Tennessee with Arkansas and you could help dilute a lot of the bias that's happening today that's fueling a lot of this lawfare it's not going to solve all problems but frankly I think that's a very deep problem that we have with the DC circuit and
▶ 1:15:57the DDC that you need to think about finding creative ways to solve so that's one point with regard to removal you can also discourage lawfare by toying with or amending the uh Federal Officer removal statute um that's going to be really important because uh if you if you make removal more readily available you discourage lawfare because you allow these cases to be taken into the federal court where you have
▶ 1:16:27lifetime tenure judges who will represent the interest of the federal Sovereign and they're more insulated from the political winds than their state counterparts are and these federal judges will then be responsible for deciding the legal scope of important Federal defenses such as immunity removal to Federal Court also allows a federal jury to decide the merits of the charges levied by the State against the federal official
▶ 1:16:58and that's really important because Federal jury pools are often geographically larger and this is going to help reduce or dilute the bias that a state or a locality may have against the federal government particularly if that hostility towards the federal government is sort of uh focused in one particular locality such as fton County Georgia or Manhattan now we don't have liberal removal standards if the current removal
▶ 1:17:28statutes are not being liberally construed as the Supreme Court says they should be then we have a problem as the Supreme Court identified in Tennessee versus Davis of having Rogue states that are hostile to actions by the federal government and those Rogue States then undermine Federal Authority through law fair waged against Federal officials the lawfare that has occurred in Georgia and New York have revealed uh at least three substance amendments to the removal statute that I think are important
▶ 1:17:58the first one George has already talked about and that is the need to have um removal the the removal statute clearly state that it applies to former Federal officials such as Mark Meadows uh it is remarkable that the 11th circuit which denied removal of Mr Meadows case um did so because he was a former official but two of the three judges on the panel Judge Rose Bal and judge abodoo one the first one is an Obama
▶ 1:18:29appointee the second one is a Biden appointee two of the three judges on the panel implored you implored Congress to amend 1442 to include former officials I think that says everything you need to know that this is not political this is for the good of the country uh and they even said they went so far as to say that if you don't do this it could destroy the entire system of government they said it is a risk that quote
▶ 1:18:59keeps them up at night okay those those are not light words by Democratic appointees so at a minimum I think you need to amend 1442 for that the other thing I think you need to do is um is make clear that removal is allowed for the president and the vice president George already touched on that issue uh and I'll stop there and look forward to your questions thank you thank you Professor Foley Professor BAS your time May begin thank you um chairman Jordan uh ranking
▶ 1:19:29member Rasin uh chairman Roy ranking member scanland and members of the subcommittee uh it is a great honor and a privilege to be part of your deliberative process and uh I thank you for the invitation my name is Elizabeth Earl besy and I'm a professor of law at American University Washington College of Law where I teach federal courts uh constitutional law and civil procedure I went to Princeton University and Columbia Law School and after law school I clerked for Patricia Wald and Justice
▶ 1:19:59Sandra day o'conor and then I spent some time working as a litigator at Munger TOs and Wilson as will be apparent I come to you today not as a politician but as a nerdy law professor uh my message today is a simple one uh you can add the proposed language to the statute but it may not have the immediate Broad and sweeping effect you intend in fact in many instances it may not do very very much Congress as my colleague just noted has extensive power to confer
▶ 1:20:29jurisdiction on the lower federal courts indeed the framers uh conferred on Congress uh the the authority to decide whether lower federal courts exist in the first place uh this vast power was limited however by article three of the Constitution the Supreme Court has made clear that Congress may not expand the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts beyond the bounds established by the Constitution in this area the con Constitution that all requires that all cases have a federal ingredient
▶ 1:21:00section 1442 which you're seeking to amend allows removal by federal officers of civil and criminal actions brought against them in state court for actions they take under color of their office a unanimous Supreme Court held in Mesa California written by my boss that the constitution only permits these kinds of removal where Federal officers assert a colorable Federal defense that is the only time there is the requisite Federal
▶ 1:21:30ingredient any other reading the court might clear would raise grave constitutional questions so even though the statute does not include this limitation on its face we must read it in line with the colorable federal defense requirement the Mesa Court confirmed that section 1442 is a pure jurisdictional statute nothing more in other words it provides a pathway to Federal Court for a defendant but does not establish a defendant's entitlement to get there that has to come from somewhere else
▶ 1:22:01this bill clarifies as judge haerin of the southern district of New York had already concluded that the statute covers the President and Vice President this bill also takes up 11 Circuit Judge Rosen bal's call in Georgia V Meadows to expand coverage to include former Federal officers um the 11 circuit had other things to say on on the point of Mr Meadows effort to remove of course of course current and former Federal officers cannot remove simply because they hold a particular federal office or because the suit charges
▶ 1:22:31conduct under color of that office Supreme Court's unanimous opinion and Mesa considered and specifically rejected that argument perhaps anticipating mesa's clear instruction uh the bill proposes to create a new immunity provision 1456 this provision confers upon all officers a rebuttable immunity under article 6 section 2 of the constit stition from any charges or claims made under authority of state law article 6 section 2 is the supremacy clause
▶ 1:23:02the supremacy clause does three things it declares that federal law is the law of the land even in the states it establishes federal law is supreme and it states that if ever there is a conflict between state law and federal law federal law wins it's basically a choice of law provision in 2015 in another unanimous Supreme Court decision written by Justice SC um the Supreme Court made clear that the supremacy clause does nothing else stating it plainly Justice Scalia wrote
▶ 1:23:32the supremacy clause is not the source of any federal rights in other words it lacks independent cond content so a unanimous Supreme Court has clearly told us we cannot look to the supremacy clause to find Federal rights it just tells us what to do when we found them plainly then section 1456 and the supremacy clause themselves cannot provide content for a brand new very expansive defense section 1456 by itself does not solve a Mesa problem the proposed new official
▶ 1:24:02immunity provision certainly does not enact what some have called the supremacy clause immunity defense that term coined by F lower federal courts has no relation to the supremacy clause itself it confers immunity where officers can demonstrate their actions were necessary to fulfill Federal duties nor does it enact quietly any immunity recognized Trump the United States thank you for your time well thank you Professor besy thank you sir my apologies
▶ 1:24:32um we will now proceed under the five minute rule with questions chair recognize the gentleman from California for five minutes uh thank you Mr chairman this is the simple Awful Truth of the Biden Administration for the first time in American history a presidential Administration targeted its Chief rival for criminal prosecution concocted the most flimsy criminal charges turned the federal law enforcement Machinery against it colluded with the Democratic state law enforcement officials to do
▶ 1:25:02the same this is the historical record this happened and when we speak of threats to democracy what greater threat can there be than one party trying to jail its political opposition you know I I would frankly advise the ranking member to be very careful in citing the conviction of the president in the kangaroo court of Judge Mara a stagger ing range of legal experts from Alan dershwitz on one side to Jonathan Turley on the other have commented at Great length on just how outrageous
▶ 1:25:32these proceedings were and How likely they are to be overturned upon competent review if they turn out if the if these professors turn out to be correct the ranking member and as many acolytes here in this Congress are going to have their words quoted back to them for the rest of their lives you know those who have tried to put their political opponents in jail have never fared well before history and nor have their apologists Omar cayen put it this way he said the moving finger writes and having writ moves on nor all thy piety nor wit
▶ 1:26:03can call it back to cancel half a line nor all thy tears wash out a word of it so my Democratic colleagues might want to take a step back and consider how history will judge them in the years ahead when passions have cooled and the facts remain now Mr Trager um in the events leading up to the Civil War uh the Confederate States asserted a of nullification Supremacy over the federal government that ultimately was resolved at appa's Courthouse but I am unaware of any assertion
▶ 1:26:33by the Confederate states that they could say seize Abraham Lincoln and try him in their state courts is there any president in the entire history of our country of what the Biden Administration and its partisans in New York and Atlanta attempted to do not that I'm aware of Mr mcclint loock um in fact uh you know privately and to um others perhaps in the President's Circle um I described um the
▶ 1:27:04command that um Mr Trump be in judge maran's courtroom um when he was already a declared candidate ready to campaign that he was truly America's first political prisoner um that that case needs to be able to be removed from federal court uh to Federal Court rather I mean suppose um some State Authority had decided that Joe Biden um was not of sound mind and was a danger to himself or others
▶ 1:27:34including the country and decided to uh to civil commit him under state law do we think that case ought to have stayed in in state court of course not um this this is a very important step and if I may just take the opportunity because I think this is so important um professor is exactly right about the Mesa decision which her justice justice OK Conor wrote um and it's why I think that when when the committee marks this
▶ 1:28:04bill up you ought to just simply incorporate Federal question jurisdiction into the basis for removal because all of these removal cases involve Federal questions um such as what is the scope of the duties of the Federal Officer we don't want those decided in state courts Professor Foo you mentioned how dangerous this precedent is to both political parties um what's to stop a partisan Republican prosecutor from going after the next Democratic Presidential
▶ 1:28:35nominee you know the Democrats keep telling us that any day now president Trump will try to do the same thing to them even though he had four years to do that in his first term and didn't and and hasn't of course in in the second so far but if we simply follow the precedent that the Democrats have already set he certainly could do that what other measures do we need to take uh to prevent this from ever happening again Mr Terell just said he that that President Trump was the first political
▶ 1:29:05prisoner we'd better make damn sure he's the last so what can you guide us on couldn't agree more I mean this is um this is bad for the country uh yes uh based on this precedent any Republican state attorney general or now president Trump um could appoint a special counsel and go after after you know Biden and anybody in Biden's Administration so the precedent has been set and it's a bad precedent what's stopping that from happening honestly we were talking about in the conference room beforehand
▶ 1:29:36it's because Republicans actually believe in the rule of law we actually believe in norms and preserving them by the way liberals used to believe that too I think liberals still do but the left does not they did I mean when I worked on the Hill from 19 1987 to 1992 um I worked for a democratic member of Congress who is now a US senator Senator Ron weiden uh and back then when Ron weiden was in the house he was actually kind of moderate
▶ 1:30:06and reasonable and liberal but not Progressive and he had classical liberal values that he he adhered to I think that's been completely lost by the Democratic party it's why I am no longer a Democrat why so many others are no longer Democrats including for example Elon Musk I know that name F people go crazy we've gone over the time with that I I will uh thank the gentleman from California and I'll recognize the gentleman from Maryland uh and the ranking member Mr Rasin thank you Mr chairman um first point the Republicans demanded
▶ 1:30:36a special councel in the Biden case um and uh the Republicans demanded a special counsel to look into uh Trump because they said that uh the Attorney General couldn't be trusted so the special counsel was a demand on the Republican side uh in any event uh just to get back to the the heart of this matter in terms of the law professor besy you point out that the Supreme Court rendered
▶ 1:31:06this unanimous decision in Mesa versus California establishing that there needs to be uh a federal question defense in order to remove from State Court to federal court and uh the burden of your testimony is to say that even if this bill were passed that our colleagues are proposing it wouldn't alter that in any way because you can't overturn a constitutional ruling with a mere statute so would there in
▶ 1:31:37fact be this intended effect of being uh of allowing Donald Trump and all of his associates to be removed from State Court prosecutions even if there's no federal independent Federal question defense sorry no and I think it's really important to flag that Mesa considered and specifically rejected the United States argument in that case that Federal officers can remove simply because they
▶ 1:32:07hold a federal office or simply because the suit charges conduct under color of that office that was specifically the United States argument and Justice OK Conor specifically rejected I mean that would be like creating a title of nobility if you hold a federal office whether it's elective appointive you can never be charged under state law for murder rape armed robbery theft fraud whatever it might be it's just amazing to me that our colleagues would make such an argument that so breathtakingly
▶ 1:32:37anti-federalism that the states are just drained of all sovereignty over the common law crimes that would take place uh within their state so if if you're right and I believe that Mr triller just conceded that you were I I wonder what you think about about his suggestion as a way to repair their bill to Simply say that there must be Federal question jurisdiction but that just is taught a logical that just restates what the Supreme Court's already found right well I think what he's saying
▶ 1:33:07is it's enough that the statute says he's operating under color of his office and that that should satisfy Mesa that but that runs into the supremacy clause fallacy that you pointed out originally I just that's the argument that Mesa rejected Mesa said that's not enough that does not satisfy the requisite Federal ingredient necessary under article three necessary to satisfy the Constitution so that argument is a non-starter they have
▶ 1:33:37rejected that unanimously so what this really adds up to is some people complaining about the fact that Georgia law enforcement authorities and New York law enforcement authorities operating independently as States within the sovereignty they've got without any actual evidence that Joe Biden or Joe Biden's Department of Justice had anything to do with it decided to prosecute people for crimes committed under their laws and they don't like the fact that they weren't able to remove to Federal Court where they felt that they had a more receptive
▶ 1:34:08audience because Donald Trump had appointed a lot of the judges right so what is there actually to do the Supreme Court has rendered its decision in the matter right it has and and one thing I always teach my civil procedure students is when someone attends attempts to remove it's as if you pull a lever it automatically goes to the federal court and it's the federal court that makes the call as to whether removal is or is not a good thing and so helverson is a federal judge
▶ 1:34:38it is helverson that made the call as to whether the requisites of the federal removal statute were satisfied in the mark Meadow's case you're in no is in the southern district of New York he is helstein I'm sorry he is the person that made the call as to whether it was under color of the office and whether there was a color of you're saying it was a federal court ruling on the question of removability correct that would be the same also in Meadow's case the Mesa case all of them go to federal
▶ 1:35:08court and what you have is federal judges saying with the Supreme Court backing them up this doesn't belong in federal court this is a run-of-the-mill state criminal law prosecution it's not under color of office and there's no colorable federal defense and our colleagues want to turn a a federal case uh into turn it into a federal case because Donald Trump doesn't like it and with that I'll yield back to you Mr chairman now recognize the Gent Le from Wyoming for five minutes thank you Miss Foley can you describe for us what law
▶ 1:35:40is law fair is the use of legal processes either civil or criminal to go after a political opponent and uh Mr Epstein Alvin Braggs 34C count indictment against President Trump was the first time a former president had been indicted in history is that correct it's correct but the facts of that case had been known for years isn't that also true yes and litigated and why did federal prosecutors then choose
▶ 1:36:10not to charge president Trump obviously they didn't think that the evidence substantiated any crimes do we yet know what the underlying crime was that Donald Trump allegedly committed that was the basis for the uh the convictions well obviously the underlying New York uh criminal statute was interpreted broadly uh but the supposition is is that the president uh through this alleged hush money scheme uh was engaging in uh election crimes
▶ 1:36:41and even of course the case directly referred to uh federal election crimes but what do you mean supposition didn't they have to prove that that's what he had done and of course there was no unanimous jury determination on that um and in fact there was of course no no proof the argument was there must have been some conspiracy with the Trump organization and others so they didn't prove the underlying crime they just convicted him of something in state law is that correct yeah and I would also note that
▶ 1:37:11the uh that based off an executive action in New York there was a a stay of these types of uh indictments during covid uh and there was of course a very aggressive reinterpretation of a stay designed to protect criminal defendants uh in order to go after the president have you ever seen anything like that New York case in your entire years of practice no never were you shocked at what happened in that court I was as were uh
▶ 1:37:41many uh in the legal Academy and many practitioners you know I I sit here and I listen to all of the the the the counter Walling on the other side about Elon Musk I don't know what he has to do with anything today I listen to all of the the accusations about Russia Russia Russia boy I wish we could retire that word someday that has nothing to do with what we're talking about I listen to all of these you know this this nonsense that is being spewed out there and what I can't understand
▶ 1:38:11is why anyone wants to undermine our criminal or Civil Justice System in the manner that has been done over the last couple of years with lawfare whether you're a Republican or a Democrat can you understand that Miss Foley no absolutely not like I said if if if they can do it if one side can do it the other side can do it too isn't that kind of what happens in our political system yeah because it's politics it's politics that's right politics and law should be different don't you think that most of the American people understand what happened in these cases
▶ 1:38:42do you really think does anybody really think that anybody was confused or that we couldn't figure this out or we didn't even know exactly what was happening with these cases in New York and fonny Willis cases we all knew what was happening right to stop him from running for president pretty simple to figure out isn't it isn't that a classic example of lawfare is that what we want our justice system to turn into again whether you're a Republican or Democrat is that what our constitution is here for Mr T turer do you think that that's a good use of our Criminal Justice System
▶ 1:39:13no ma'am wow we have focused a lot on how politically motivated the state and local officials can Target have have have been when they target our Federal officials but we also need to consider the Biden uh doj's role in all of this that happened for example Mr Epstein what agency has Congress charged with adjudicating and enforcing Federal campaign Finance violations that's a Federal Election Commission all right and from a a congressional perspective
▶ 1:39:44why shouldn't every member of this committee why should every member of this committee care about the proper enforcement and interpretation of a law Congress drafted rule absolutely they should in Mr Bragg's prosecution did the Biden doj enforce its exclusive jurisdiction No in fact uh we know that public Integrity section at the Department of Justice has historically uh prosecuted election crimes uh and yet here they seated authority to a state prosecutor
▶ 1:40:14so they allowed a state court to take jur to to prosecute a former president in a case that the court had no jurisdiction is that fair yeah and it's uh you know Miss uh congresswoman it's uh even worse because we have a tradition of federal agencies uh even if you want to say that federal agencies have expertise in these questions we certainly know that state courts don't have expertise in kind of federal questions relating to elections
▶ 1:40:44they wouldn't have developed it because they don't have jurisdiction exactly and that's the meaning of jurisdiction and then when you bring in Mr Colangelo and his involvement with this we know that the Biden Administration was kneed deep in the prosecution of Mr Trump in New York don't we and in fact as uh America First legal found out and of course these documents were withheld under uh privileged protections but 36 records existed of communications between uh the district attorney of New York
▶ 1:41:15that office and the Attorney General's office yet attorney general Garland came to this committee and said that there were no Communications thank you Mr thank you and I yield back thank the gentle lady from Wyoming I'll now recognize the gentleman from Tennessee Mr Cohen thank you Mr Roy I watched the testimony earlier in the first part I saw was Jim Jordan incorrectly saying a lot of things about Trump started with saying that this this
▶ 1:41:46uh Mueller investigation didn't show anything concerning Trump there was no that's because Bill bar redacted it and made his own opinion on the front end of what the case said what Mueller said and Mueller's report made it clear that there was Russian involvement and and the first thing that the Russians did was to send some folks up to Trump Tower to talk to Junior
▶ 1:42:16and son-in-law and few other trumpers and talk about getting something done and that woman that came up there to meet with him ended up being in the Russian Duma so the Russians must have thought pretty well of her she did her uh the Senate did a study bipartisan study on whether there was Russian collusion and the Senate intelligence committee came out and said yes there was
▶ 1:42:47that man of Fort went over to France or wherever and met with Kim nikov and gave him the PO data and this is where we need help and then that ended up getting to P goian in St Petersburg and then they started spewing out all the false Social Media stuff to make blacks think they shouldn't vote and other people get confused about this and that and trying to help Trump and that's what they did the Russians helped Trump get elected to 2016 and the Senate intelligence committee said that and the Mueller committee said midd
▶ 1:43:17report said that and then as far as this trial goes that you say there's not been a president indicted before there's never been a president that was so easy to indict the guy commits has committed more crimes than all the other presidents put together Michael Cohen got tried and sent to prison because of what he did in this case but Bill
▶ 1:43:47bar didn't want to try the president on this who was individual one basically saying the president did it we're sending Michael Cohen to jail and protecting individual one that's what they did he should have been tried in federal court but Bill bar wasn't man enough to do it he was
▶ 1:44:18bought the president paid off Stormy and whatever she was Miss August um whatever and paid them off so that it wouldn't become public and hurt his presidential campaign and Michael Cohen took the orders that he had to do it and they did that so it was Federal Election involvement and it was criminal law and the jury found him guilty how many counts do they find him Miss Professor how many C
▶ 1:44:48counts were there that he found guilty 34 34 times a jury Americans citizens void ired by both sides chosen on 34 they all agreed 34 to nothing every single one of them said guilty Beyond A Reasonable Doubt and y'all are questioning the American jury system and say because they're in a state court their ruling proper you could
▶ 1:45:19commit a murder Hamilton and Burr had their duel and in New Jersey I guess it was and there should be a criminal case and there was they want to this whole law is about helping Trump who's still hung up on this guilty verdict which he's not going to spend any time on or even have to pay fine
▶ 1:45:49there's no need for this C this law but but Trump wants to get it in federal court because he's got friends there and like Mr Rasin mentioned Eileen Cannon and what she did which was disgusting all around she ruined the classified briefs in files case information and he was guilty as hell of that and she held it held it and held it until they can't even get the special counsel's report out and the Supreme Court put the
▶ 1:46:19case on January 6 off and off and off so it wouldn't be heard the Supreme Court is also involved in this they were wrong to give Trump a free pass Donald Trump shouldn't make law he do he shouldn't be where he is that's what happens when you elect somebody who is emotionally morally and intellectually incapable of Performing the job that they're chosen you give them a pass from Doge and says you're you're you're bad work
▶ 1:46:49you're fired I you back thank gentleman from Tennessee I find it interesting that we're now concerned about the intellectual capacity of the president of the United States I'll now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina Mr Harris thank you Mr chairman and I thank all of you on the panel for your time today and for your testimony uh Mr Epstein on August 8th 2022 the FBI raided Mar Lago and the American people witnessed an unprecedented attack on the home of a former president by a politicized
▶ 1:47:20FBI almost a year after the raid on marago on June 7th 2023 Steven dantono the former assistant director in charge of the Washington field office sat down with the house Judiciary Committee for a transcribed interview as a part of this committee's oversight of the FBI in the interview Mr Deano described what he viewed as several abnormalities about the way in which that raid was conducted Mr Epstein in a notice of claim filed in
▶ 1:47:50the doj in 2024 you argued that the the FBI's conduct in the raid where established protocol was violated constitutes a severe and unacceptable intrusion that is highly offensive to a reasonable person end quote would you explain to us today how the FBI's raid of mar Lago was inconsistent with standard protocols uh while Congressman precisely as Mr anano uh testified before
▶ 1:48:20this committee that we have protocol uh we let the attorneys know uh before the raid is going to be conducted we typically uh use kind of the uh local office to be in charge of it not uh the Washington field office to be in charge of that um and the protocols here were wholly inconsistent and I think that's uh part of the concerns about when
▶ 1:48:50uh political goals uh inform what otherwise should be doing Justice and why do you suppose they opted out of such protocols you know I think here the tone was set from the top um I think the I and and I'll just note that on this question of records and what was probable cause to do these investigations so much of that was based off the views of the National Archives
▶ 1:49:21that these were records uh that were in the proper ownership of the United States uh in large part because of America First legals work we recently showed that the former archist of the United States David Ferrero um actually said that we should treat president Trump's records as if they were Federal records in violations of the federal records act allows us to make referrals to the Department of Justice that was an arbitrary uh capricious legal determination
▶ 1:49:52that led to uh the ability for the Department of Justice uh to have probable cause to conduct this raid uh and I think that's uh something that uh is a direct uh piece of evidence of politicization of the law thank you Mr Epstein Mr T williger your client Martin Meadows being sued by Fulton County originally by the very partisan district attorney fonnie Willis Meadow sought to have his court case moved to a federal court arguing that was more appropriate because he was acting in the
▶ 1:50:22official capacity as Trump's white house chief of staff after his bid was rejected by the Supreme Court you argued that the risk puts former Federal officials such as Meadows quote at risk of being left to the Ws of every politically hostile district attorney or state AG in the country I happen to agree with you that something needs to be done to protect future former officials from being subjected to the type of lawfare that Mr Meadows is facing so my question to you Mr williger
▶ 1:50:53does Congress have a responsibility to protect Federal officials from lawfare yes sir it does and it has tried repeatedly to do that and the courts have repeatedly pushed back for whatever reason including in the Mesa versus California decision what Mr what Mr raskins comments Miss is the fact that all federal courts all inferior federal courts other than the Supreme Court are cre ated by this body
▶ 1:51:24by the United States Congress you establish their jurisdiction and what I'm suggesting to you very simply to do what you're what you're what you want to get done is that you incorporate standard Federal question jurisdiction into the removal statute so in a case like in Mesa where the question was whether or not if I recall correctly um postal employees uh could speed or not in doing their job that those questions get decided
▶ 1:51:55by federal judges in federal courts otherwise we have a a um a an incredible body of confusion of state courts deciding Federal questions but it is important because of the Mesa decision to make clear that Federal questions belong in federal court and indeed over decades um many federal courts have said the very reason for the removal statute is to have Federal questions to decided in federal court well thank you sir and I look
▶ 1:52:25forward to our markup tomorrow in which this committee will be taking a look at important legislation seeking to address these issues and prevent future lawfare thank you Mr chairman I think the gentleman from North Carolina now recognize the gentle lady from Washington for five minutes thank you Mr chairman president Trump has a long and documented history of attacking the Judiciary simply for following the law he once suggested that a judge who granted class certific ation in a fraud case against Trump University
▶ 1:52:56could not be impartial because the judge was of Mexican descent he called other judges quote crooked corrupt and evil and most recently he refused to comply with judicial orders blocking the implementation of his unlawful funding freeze my colleagues on the other side have unfortunately endorsed this behavior and now they proposed legislation that would further Empower president Trump to evade accountability in the courts professor besy what effect does this kind of behavior towards the Judiciary
▶ 1:53:26have on the Integrity of the court system just briefly well it takes us into dangerous territory um I mean the whole premise of article three judges is they have life tenure we're trying the the framers tried to remove them from the political process the whole idea was to have a body of Judges free from political considerations um and the idea of disobeying a court order
▶ 1:53:56boy that's a constitutional crisis I mean it is a constitutional crisis terrifying yes it is terrifying in May of 2024 Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felony charges under New York state law for falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels Republicans believe that this prosecution was politically motivated and corrupt but they seem to forget about the role of a citizen jury which came to the ultimate unanimous conclusion of Donald Trump's guilt after hearing both defense
▶ 1:54:26and prosecution lay out the arguments can you just remind us why the founding fathers actually adopted the jury system one or two sentences if you can that's hard I know it's tough for a lot Professor I mean that was kind of the genius of the framers right to put front and center ordinary citizens there kind of to be safeguards against the government I mean to protect and be the decision makers right prosecutors might be motivated
▶ 1:54:57to get the conviction but to have the ultimate decisionmakers be people ordinary people who are weighing the evidence and coming to decisions that was kind of their genius it is genius and there are even some checks and balances built into the system to make sure that jury members are impartial what are one or two of those well I mean you have challenges for cause they're unlimited typically in every state um and peremptories there are some limits on those but there's wer
▶ 1:55:27I mean that that whole uh sequestration typically judges are kept from things or rather jurors are kept from things that might Prejudice them um judges obviously have the ability to call a mistrial in the event anything great so there's lots of things built in to make sure that this is a fair process and there was no evidence of improper bias or behavior by any members of the jury right in in that criminal case no and once again to confirm did the citizen jury this genius system
▶ 1:55:58that you've described unanimously conclude that Donald Trump was guilty of 34 felony charges with respect to each of 34 charges each one so I want to turn to this legislative proposal which seeks to amend federal law to allow presidents to remove cases against them from federal court to State Court under existing law removal is only granted in limited cases and motions have to be made on specific grants grounds that allow for removal and one of those grounds is that a Federal Officer member of Congress or judge can
▶ 1:56:28remove a case if the case relates to quote any act under color of office and the Supreme Court as you've mentioned has interpreted color of office to mean acts in performance of an official Duty the other side's legislation exceeds this requirement by allowing presidents to remove any case to federal court for any act in office that's a quote from their legislation regardless of whether it relates to exercising their official Powers why is a bad idea to eliminate that quote color of office
▶ 1:56:58requirement well I mean you're certainly expanding the possible pool now again always qualified by the Mesa Federal defense but you're expanding the possible pool of people who can take this bridge to federal court I mean I'm I'm a federalism person and I believe that having two sovereigns in our system States and and the federal government is a protection against tyranny I mean the framers really thought about
▶ 1:57:29this and that protects individual rights um and it to to take from States their ability to prosecute violations of state law in their own courts is very intrusive and the bit the more that's allowed the the I mean that's a problem in our system protection against tyranny that's really what we're talking about out here and I really appreciate your input and I yield back Mr chairman
▶ 1:57:59all recogniz gentleman from Texas for 5 minutes thank Mr chairman the past few years the left has used every weapon including weaponizing the Department of Justice against President Trump but of course they didn't stop at the doj they left to use state and local prosecutors to do their biddings as well do you remember the so-called hush money case in New York this is the case case that was led by Matthew Colangelo the former number three at the doj that's right a high ranking doj official left his job to work for a
▶ 1:58:30local DA's office that's pretty ridiculous and does not pass a smell test to anybody that's competent and of course there's the so-call RICO case in Georgia as if this guy was Al Capone thanks Fanny and then there's tis James she ran solely on Prosecuting Donald Trump that isn't her main job to protect New Yorkers she was clearly distracted and you cannot tell me that these cases were not politically motivated and if president Trump were not running for president again none of this would have happened period none
▶ 1:59:00of this would have happened what people have got to understand is that this is really really good for fundraising for Democrats but I'm going to say the the choir part out loud here they want the veneer of legitimacy you may have forgotten this but again they threw everything at president Trump they impeached him twice and tried to remove his name from the state president finial ballots they laser focused lazy uh Lady Justice to eliminate the competition and how do he survive this
▶ 1:59:30because he is clearly not like the average person he is a political force of nature what happened over the course of the past four years to president Trump should shock everyone in this country because one thing he would always say on the campaign trow was this if he could do it to me they could do it to you I'm just standing in their their way this is repulsive behavior that we saw from the left to prevent a man from becoming the president of the Free World and
▶ 2:00:00guess what happened we the people saw right through the crap and we still made him our 47th president thank God for the resolve of the American people Mr Epstein I have a question for you sir thank you for your work to expose weaponization against President Trump you referen that Al that the Alvin Brad case was coordinated with Biden and for those of us for those of us at home can you walk us through this process and kind of how it happened and can you explain how Biden and his fingerprints were all over this operation
▶ 2:00:30yeah thank you Congressman so I wish we could tell you what uh the documents uh would reveal um that's still up in litigation um but what uh we did America First legals we obviously uh used for your request to main Justice to look for communications with the New York District Attorney's office and uh the response consistent with what attorney general Garland said to this committee was that there were no response of Records
▶ 2:01:00um and so what we did is what any good investigative lawyer does is you send a similar request to the district attorney's office in New York the Manhattan da and you say give us all Communications with the Department of Justice and while they didn't disclose those records they said there's 36 responsive records which suggests that in fact there were Communications uh and it's important for the public to know what was said in those Communications thank you very much for answering the question and I also
▶ 2:01:31want the American public to understand something the reason why the left is still railing on President Trump even though he won the presidency we won the Senate and we kept we were able to keep the majority in the house is because quite frankly they have nowhere else to go because his lawfare fell flat on its face we cannot allow this to happen again in the future of this country that's why we've got to understand our history and how this works we have to understand that we are a constitutional republic and we must protect the average citizen in this country ranging from president Trump to the
▶ 2:02:01average person that works every day here in America that that makes a decent way to just take care of their family everybody must be treated fairly under the law regardless of what they do or regardless of what they aspire to be and with that I yield back the remainer of my time thank you Mr chairman thank my friend from Texas now recognize the gentle lady from Vermont thank you Mr chair I want vermonters uh to understand the stakes of what's happening right now at the Department of Justice and I know many Americans feel in this
▶ 2:02:31moment that they can't trust government and uh I certainly understand why they might feel that way democracies have long struggled with rooting out public corruption and as long as there is public trust there are those who will betray the trust for their own power for their own profit so how do we combat corruption how do we ensure the responsible use of power those are the things that I think about a lot and that my constituents asked me about one of the ways
▶ 2:03:01that we do that is by entrusting that we have independent ethical prosecutors to uphold the law no matter who is in office and I want to acknowledge and thank everyone for being here today especially want uh to acknowledge Mr to williger who previously served the people of Vermont and the nation um under the Reagan Administration and ious roles including us attorney so thank you so much for being here Mr tiiger do you agree that one of the most effective ways to fight corruption is to establish
▶ 2:03:32and maintain a group of nonpartisan prosecutors who are dedicated to the rule of law I certainly agree with that um ma'am and and if you'll allow me just 30 seconds um when I was the US attorney in Vermont I had no idea if my assistants were Republicans Or democrats they were people who believed in the rule of law and applying the rule of law and if one of them had ever come in and said we should go after soand so
▶ 2:04:02because or on account of I'm sadly have to tell you man if I could if I could just cuz I only give five minutes please let me just finish 10 seconds I sadly have to tell you that culture at the Department of Justice changed completely in the last 10 15 years so the whole idea so to stay with what you're saying the whole idea behind the Department of Justice right is supposed to be enforcing the law without fear of favor correct and and that's what the American people want that's what Vermont want I hear that from them all the time and that's
▶ 2:04:33what our constitution actually demands so when a US attorney stands before a judge and say that they are there not to represent the people but to represent a president understandably there are alarm bells that start ringing so we're we're too months into this Administration so far we've had a US attorney publicly state that his office is composed of President Trump's lawyers not lawyers for the
▶ 2:05:03people not lawyers supporting the Constitution but president Trump's lawyers we've seen political purges of nonpartisan career civil servants because they did their jobs including those who were involved in the January 6 prosecutions and we've seen a shocking quidd proquo involving the Indi mayor of New York so you said so yourself it should not be about partisanship within the office and I applaud you for that so
▶ 2:05:33thank you for being here I'd like to turn now to uh professor besy professor B besy under the legislation offered by the majority specifically section 1456 C the Attorney General could represent a federal official in any case subject to remove removal under the statute is it true that this provision could make the Department of Justice the personal councel for the president the vice president
▶ 2:06:03or for federal officials in state criminal or civil cases is there a danger there uh there is certainly a danger because there typically the norm is that there's a separation there does that terrify you to contemplate that uh it certainly doesn't help me sleep at night okay all right I'll take that as a as in the affirmative I I do think that it it goes strongly against what uh Americans want want forter want they want to make sure without fear or favor they want to make sure we're we're doing
▶ 2:06:33this uh in a way that is not not corrupt uh but there's in fact what I think another important key element here which is how the public perceives those attorneys charged with enforcing the law so how important again to Professor besy how important is the public Trust in those who enforce anti-corruption laws it's extremely important tell me more it is if the public doesn't have trust in our federal justice system in in the justice system
▶ 2:07:05uh we don't have very much left it doesn't hold together does it it doesn't hold together it doesn't hold together if the people don't believe that Justice is blind anti-corruption efforts are doomed to fail and authoritarians thrive in that envir environment where there is no public trust so what my Republican colleagues have done for for many years um and in this committee as well they've attacked prosecutors they've attacked judges they've dragged public servants uh public servants
▶ 2:07:35down here for for baseless in my opinion baseless uh depositions sent letters full of baseless accusations blasted uh you know theories uh many of them hateful all over the Internet and what happens then is that Americans become incredibly skeptical cynical about there is any such thing as a justice system without fear of favor and I think that should scare all of us I understand Mr chair uh I'm over time I yeld
▶ 2:08:05back I think gentle a Vermont I'm now we're going to recognize the gentleman from Missouri Mr H five minutes thank you Mr chairman and thank you to all the witnesses for being here today last June the Attorney General from my home state of Missouri appeared before this committee uh Andrew Bailey testified that Missouri removed a prosecutor who filed politically motivated cases while refusing uh to prosecute violent crimes even murders what the St Louis prosecutor and Alvin brag
▶ 2:08:36had in common was that their campaigns were funded through the ver Institute which receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars as well as funding from George Soros essentially being funded to not prosecute crimes but to take political actions against political opponents in the case of Ms Gardner in St Louis the governor of the state of Missouri it's no no secret of course that in New York uh the Alvin Bragg
▶ 2:09:06was on a vendetta to prosecute president Trump um Mr Epstein I I want I wanted to the ranking member said that there was quote no federal uh Federal question in in Alvin Bragg's uh case in New York so I just wanted to run through that briefly um there the there was the allegation of course in the New York case that money was paid in return for a non-disclosure agreement
▶ 2:09:36to with M Clifford is an NDA illegal no no and then in the course of making that payment somehow the allegation was that business records were were falsified and as I understand it that that was a misdemeanor with a two-year statute of limitations that it expired am I correct there yes Congressman okay so but if the business records were falsified in furtherance of another crime then it then the
▶ 2:10:07statute of limitations wouldn't be expired and it would be a felony not a misdemeanor is right right okay so then the question is what law was violated as my understanding is is stated ear earlier in your inquiry with with u Congressman Hegman it's the um f of 1971 the federal election um law of 1971 but the the Congress invested
▶ 2:10:37exclusive jurisdiction over that statute with the FEC and the Department of Justice as I as I understand it I think that was your so so the BC looked at the case that looked at that allegation and decided that it was Merit and the New York Court did not have jurisdiction over that any anyway
▶ 2:11:08um I mean can you UND explain again how the issue of campaign Finance was crucial to this case and was a federal was indeed a federal question yeah no I mean I think you're beell m is Justified and explained by a longstanding uh principle and our American Juris Prudence that uh when you have an agency like the FEC that has expertise in federal election uh campaign
▶ 2:11:38contributions or expenditures and then you have a state uh trial judge who has no expertise that our doctrines say that that judge should stay the case refer refer it to the expert agency and allow them to First adjudicate if they uh re in this case look at the facts and determine uh we are not going to act then you can potentially proceed with a further criminal prosecution
▶ 2:12:08and I can say that the uh primary jurisdiction Doctrine has been used in state law prosecutions before to stay those cases uh and that was not something that this court was willing to do so a federally federally motivated I'm sorry a politically motivated prosecutor in front of a politically motivated judge in a venue a jurisdiction where president Trump could not get a fair shoehorned a federal
▶ 2:12:39statute over which they had no jurisdiction or expertise in order to to bring charges against President Trump on a very obscure crime it's just it's just absolutely unbelievable you know we had the statue of Lady Justice being blind I think uh justice was anything but blind in this case well thank you Mr Epstein I yield back with that I'll will now recognize the G lady from California five minutes
▶ 2:13:09thank you Mr chair um so Mr Epstein I I have a yes or no question for you do you believe in due process yes okay thank you and Miss Mr Terwilliger uh another yes or no question for you do you believe in the jury system yes I'm not sure what you mean by believe in it do I think that it's a good system in our Criminal Justice System yes okay thank you and Professor besy do you believe
▶ 2:13:39that the right to a jury trial is the very Foundation of due process yes or no it is one of the Main Stays of our system both civil and criminal absolutely and in fact our founding fathers would agree with you because the right to a jury trial is mentioned three times in the Constitution so it's kind of important not free speech not even the right to guns but the right to a jury trial to be judged by your peers and jury trials are in fact how we decide conflicts
▶ 2:14:10in this country and in fact the president is no stranger to this system he has routinely said I don't want a judge to decide my case I want a jury because I want it to be fair so Professor besy are you familiar with the Russian term Arbitrage yes or no Arbitrage yes um it's okay you can say no I know the English term I'm not sure the Russian term so the Russian term uh means the opposite of fair you don't
▶ 2:14:40get a trial you have a case that's decided by a so-called professional judge there's no due process there's no jury of peers and the judges are there to appease the powers who put them there and so in Russia that means the billionaires so legislative reforms to end lawfare by state and local prosecutors is really let's just say it it's overburdening the federal government and taking away State sovereignty at a time when Republicans are talking about cutting costs but this idea significantly adds more waste
▶ 2:15:10money resources and confusion to an already weighed down system because now you want to push lawsuits to the federal courts when the vast majority of lawsuits involv State interests State crimes not federal concerns so for example sexual assault bribery landlords threatening tenants where there is little or no federal statutory equivalent these cases would be outside of federal jurist Prudence so they want to overwhelm a federal system by litigating a state
▶ 2:15:40matter in federal court and then Force Federal Judges to interpret States laws while federal trial courts are not set up to try state law cases what state of instruction would they give out state or federal in article three judges important because they have lifetime appointments supposedly to free them from political affiliations misgivings and bias they have a very specific type of jurisdictional bandwidth and state cases are not within it so this is how I see the
▶ 2:16:10idea going the president any president's cousin gets into a bar fight sucker punches a man and knocks out his tooth so if the bar fight results in a civil suit for money damages the president could pluck the case and remove it to federal court so now we want to cherry-pick the litigants at nauseum maybe only judges with Red Hats because the only reason to do any of this is to be able to put one's finger on the scale of justice and decide the outcome and that's not Justice what that really is is a merger of the executive
▶ 2:16:41and judicial branches and that is not constitutional here in the United States the judicial branch is supposed to be independent and without an independent Jud Judiciary there is no longer a system of checks and balances and how does this even make sense at a time when you're talking about shrinking the vetal federal government this ineptitude would overwhelm the capacity of the Federal Judicial System I don't know how many people know what goes into the managing of a federal courtroom but a lot a lot of people
▶ 2:17:11who are needed to manage a courtroom and you're going to exacerbate the system by increasing its case load I challenge anyone in this room to find a single federal judge who wants more cases in their courtroom their dockets are already full this seems to be a violation of states rights to handle their own matters it is a disastrous attempt to manipulate the judicial system and it is a weaponization of waste when in fact you will have more cases improperly or selectively prosecuted
▶ 2:17:42so my fellow Congress members I urge you to get over your feelings from the last four years and recommit to the United States Constitution I urge everyone to turn to your neighbor and say I don't want my Judiciary coopted I believe in state sovereignty I believe in a jury trial of my peers and I don't want Arbitrage here in this country because I do not speak Russian and with that I yield back now recognize a gentleman
▶ 2:18:12from Wisconsin for five minutes thank you uh I first of all I'd like to thank um Congressman Roy for having this hearing we're dealing with very uh serious matter and a scary matter um I don't know there people on the other side of the aisle know it but right now if I show up at your average uh Lincoln Day dinner filled with Republicans or a room full of people who are primarily Republican they think what happened in Georgia and what happened in New York is just a joke they
▶ 2:18:42have zero confidence for example in the New York justice system uh I don't like the fact that we're there but I think that is what people think and I I'm one of those people who thinks that way um I'm uh and I think by the way it goes beyond the justice system I think the same way about the IRS they think the same way about our customs system they just think today the federal government is something that I
▶ 2:19:12would have guessed was from some Banana Republic growing up um uh first question it can be for any one of you do any of you know any situation other than what just happened in this country in which a former chief state um was charged with crimes and for at one point appeared to be facing prison time after they were removed from office anywhere in the
▶ 2:19:45Venezuela Venezuela okay well we're headed towards Venezuela anybody else can think of any any time around the world in which well I mean your your description sir of um what many people think is the degradation of our system there are many of examples of it around the world you have Pakistan for example where um seems like every other president is either assassinated or prosecuted um and then the judges of
▶ 2:20:15the Supreme Court are themselves prosecuted and investigated um it's what I was trying to explain to the gentle Lady of Vermont we used to have a justice department where there wasn't fear or favor where politics didn't play but that those days are long gone right kind of scary I agree with um general question I guess we'll go for Mr Epstein um how does the law fair impact the broader
▶ 2:20:46relationship between state and federal governments uh particularly in terms of constitutional Authority and separation in powers and I should also say how does it affect how the American people view their government I mean we know to a certain extent just the fact that Donald Trump won the election that people they just felt being prosecuted by a New York by a court in New York was completely meaningless but go ahead yeah Congressman I think uh the American people
▶ 2:21:16uh who the Constitution was written for them um well understand that Federal questions are within the federal sphere and state questions are within the state sphere um and I think the test is if a legal question can be appropriate if not more appropriate for a federal court that's where it belongs not a state court I I'll give you three guys a question because you all hang around with lawyers um do
▶ 2:21:47you know anybody among the the lawyers you hang around with who considered what happened in New York a a serious something to be taken seriously something something to be taken as other than just a trumped up political persecution to try to prevent Donald Trump from being elected they any how how do your lawyer friends when they when they hear about this case in the paper what do they think of it do they think oh my goodness
▶ 2:22:17well I guess the ones I hang out with wouldn't be expected to uh extol the virtues of that process if ass even assuming there were any sir but I I I think your point is is the essential one regardless of what lawyers think people look at that and Common Sense tells you this was a travesty of Justice um The Gentle lady can talk about the the the jury system um but she but if you if you cannot admit um based on
▶ 2:22:4820 some odd years of our history that juries make major mistakes um when we're in a moral freef fall in this country and juries like apparently prosecutors in New York uh just just say I I've got power here today I'm going to harm a politician I don't like is that what you were going to say Mr Epstein well what I was going to say is um juries are great um in theory but
▶ 2:23:18a lot of what a jury does depends upon instructions that come from the judge uh and if you have judges who view their role as uh political or who believe that uh the ends justify the means in terms of what prosecutors are pursuing um they're going to give instructions that are limited that are problematic and you know the federal courts certainly have had numerous examples of where there becomes traditional review of uh jury instructions
▶ 2:23:48that raise a substantial uh issues for defendants rights um and if you think about the president in the state court system um that remedy uh wasn't necessarily available to him thank you much yeah we're we're about where Venezuela would be thank you again I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin recognize gentleman from New York for five minutes and I will just say as a representative of New York New York City and a former prosecutor in New York uh I resent and object to the insinuation
▶ 2:24:19from my colleagues on the the other side of the aisle that a jury of 12 New Yorkers cannot issue a fair and impartial verdict and I'm sure that if I said a jury in Wisconsin could not issue a fair and impartial verdict because a defendant was a Democrat you would object too and you should because it's baseless all of these accusations about lawfare that we hear
▶ 2:24:49over and over and again have no evidence to support it you say the judge in that trial was politically motivated why will you say the judge was motivated is it because his daughter works for a fundraising digital fundraising firm that all of a sudden that that's politically motivated that the jury you can't get a fair trial now in New York give me a break Mr toer did you read the search warrant for
▶ 2:25:19Mara I might have read parts of it I don't know that I read the whole thing MH and you spent 15 years in the Justice Department as a as a prosecutor I spent 10 uh I left seven years ago I hear you say that in the last 10 or 15 years it's been completely politicized I have no idea what you're talking about when I was there I didn't just like you I had no idea the political leanings of my colleagues of the FBI agents I worked with
▶ 2:25:49so I appreciate your accusations i' maybe uh after my five minutes since I don't have time I'd love to hear why you think that all of a sudden 15 years ago the Department of Justice changed but if you read that search warrant and you were a deputy attorney general and you were asked to review that would you say that that did not have probable cause I I would assume without my having read it that a magistrate signed it and determined that there was probable
▶ 2:26:20cause but I don't think OB I'm that's not either here or there well it is see this is why it is Mr terer because this is the accusations and allegations from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that the search of Mara Lago for classified documents after Donald Trump repeatedly and persistently obstructed Justice obstructed an investigation held on to classified documents lied about it told his lawyer to lie about it that all of a
▶ 2:26:50sudden that search warrant is unprecedented and must be law fair and politically motivated wrong that was I don't have a question for you right now Mr Boer but I will because I I I want to know and I want to focus on the here and now I want to focus on the last six weeks you were a deputy attorney general correct Mr chiger yes and it was under the the George HW Bush Administration you spent 15 years
▶ 2:27:21you may be Republican now um or were then I I'm sure it had no impact on the job you did uh you're here as a as a republican called witness let me ask you something as Deputy attorney general did you ever appear yourself in court because no one underneath you would actually appear in court to represent the Department of Justice I don't recall having to do that but I would have if I to
▶ 2:27:51okay I don't know what that means but you never did that have you ever heard of any Deputy attorney general doing that um before the last three weeks I I actually do have some recollection of that but it's not sufficiently uh clear for me to be able to give you fair enough maybe you're right it was quite remarkable that the acting Deputy attorney general Emil B had to appear in the southern district of New York him himself as the deputy
▶ 2:28:21attorney general because seven prosecutors Underneath Him resigned rather than defend a plea agreement that he put in writing was not based on the facts evidence or the law Mr twiig I'm sure you'll agree with me that the only job that the Department of Justice has is to follow the facts evidence and the law is that right I would agree with that but I'd also tell
▶ 2:28:53also I didn't ask attorne have a duty here is the US attorney in Washington DC and unfortunately I don't have enough time to get into him but to actually say that I am the president's lawyer I hope you recognize Mr twilliger as someone who cares about the Department of Justice that that undermines the entire law enforcement system more than anything that anyone else prior to January of
▶ 2:29:23this year has ever done and I yield back thank gentan from New York i' recognize the ranking member yes I have a couple unanimous consent requests first I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record and excerpt from the committee's transcripted interview with Steven dantonio former assistant director of FBI Washington field office on June 7 2023 in which he explained that the FBI executed a search warrant for classified material at maral Lago because there was probable cause to believe that Donald Trump did not fully comply with the subpoena
▶ 2:29:53to turn over classified documents without objection okay I also would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record Another excerpt from the transcribed interview with Steven dantonio in which Mr dantonio explained that he would describe the search on maral Lago not as a raid but as a lawful search pursuant to Warrant without objection and now recognize Mr chairman I have a unanimous consent uh request briefly sorry I'd like to introduce um a New York Times article dated yesterday entitled us attorney rebuffed
▶ 2:30:24by Justice Department in pushed to escalate inquiry into Schumer related to Ed Martin the acting us attorney in Washington without objection and then one more I have a a letter dated February 12th uh 2025 uh signed by me and six other former doj lawyers to the Inspector General Michael Horowitz asking him to investigate Deputy acting Deputy attorney general b and acting us attorney without objection thank you I
▶ 2:30:54now recognize the gentleman from Texas Mr Gil for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman uh law fair is antithetical to the American experiment it's explicitly contrary to the rule of law but yet it seems to have been the Democrats last ditch effort to win the 2024 election cycle in the leadup to the 2024 election and Democrats knew that they couldn't fairly win they were running
▶ 2:31:24a candidate whose cognitive state was in question that was declining before our very eyes on national TV while they were trying to tell us that he was sharper than ever their political strategy reminds me of the line in Orwell's 1984 which was the party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears it was their final most essential demand and that was consistent with the left's messaging they were trying to tell the
▶ 2:31:54American people for instance that defunding the police makes our communities safer that men can get pregnant and should be sharing locker rooms with our daughters and that flooding our country with millions of cheap surf laborers would be somehow economically beneficial to our working class but in order to get over this messaging issue they attempted to again flood the country with
▶ 2:32:25people that they thought would eventually become Democrat voters knowing even now that our election system had legitimate vulnerabilities to it they directed social media companies to censor censor lawful speech of American citizens and illegally put president Trump behind bars for madeup federal charges in an attempt to prevent him from getting back into the White House what we witnessed was a grotesque exercise
▶ 2:32:56of raw political power by the Democrats against their enemies and that's why I'm excited about our markup tomorrow we've got a a series of bills that I think are are a good first step in helping ensure this law fair doesn't happen again but I want to talk about one instance in particular which was Democrats calling upon corrupt state level officials to peruse state level lawfare and punish president Trump
▶ 2:33:26and the millions of Americans who supported his campaign their One Last Hope leading up to the election was to concoct a novel legal Theory by Manhattan da Alvin Bragg Alvin Bragg and the state of New York didn't have jurisdiction to hear this case they knew that moving forward would violate settled Supreme Court do but again this was their last best hope the state of New York with Democrat donor judge
▶ 2:33:56Juan merchin overseeing the case finally got their wish they landed a conviction of of the president but the American people knew it was a sham and now they know the lengths to which the other side of the aisle will go to attack their political opposition Mr Epstein thank you so much for being here we really appre appreciate it and appreciate your work um to restore Law and Order in this country I want to ask you a couple questions
▶ 2:34:26um the charges in the case against President Trump in New York largely revolve around the federal election campaign Act is that correct Congressman but that act grants exclusive jurisdiction over federal election issues to the FEC and the doj is that correct that's correct and did the state of New York and da brag have have any jur dition over those supposed campaign Finance violations no and in fact Congressman I would point out
▶ 2:34:57that President Trump during his first Administration made disclosures about payments in his financial disclosures which is clear evidence that uh that's a kind of federal Nexus and it's wholly within not just the FEC but the office of government ethics and Alvin Bragg was certainly aware was P pursuing a frivolous case here yet he decided to very aggressively and very publicly move forward
▶ 2:35:27with support from the Biden doj what motive do you think or would you ascribe to Bragg to move forward with with such a clearly baseless case you know I can't speculate on what his motives were but I think uh enough uh is spoken by how the American people uh recently determined who should be the president of United States um and I think that there is a general view in the public mood of the American public
▶ 2:35:58that uh looking to prosecute political enemies raises serious concerns about not just the law but what culture do we want in America I agree thank you Mr uh Epstein and with that Mr chairman I yield back M Mr chairman you you see request uh this is from Reuters January 20th who has Donald Trump threatened to criminally prosecute as president without objection thank you I now recognize the ranking member for five minutes uh I think the chairman uh Mr Epi
▶ 2:36:28it it backfired didn't it wait Mr yes sir who was it Mr Gil who went last and then it's you want to go so the ranking me oh I'm sorry I'm I'm sorry Mr Jordan uh so now recognize the rank member Miss Gamlin for five minutes thank you very much um you know sometimes things get a little more complicated around here than they should be I mean we're dealing now with a fairly complex statute basic core constitutional
▶ 2:36:59principles um civil and criminal procedure gets pretty far in the weeds but of course there is a really simple way to prevent States from bringing criminal charges against presidents and former presidents and that is of course for presidents and former presidents not to commit prosecutable crimes and that's been something that served our country really well with one notable exception but since we are here on this bill um Professor beski you explained in your testimony
▶ 2:37:29that this bill has the potential to expand the Federal Officer removal statute to Encompass purely private lawsuits based on personal conduct rather than official duties and I know my colleagues across the aisle are very concerned about the importance of federalism but it seems like this bill threatens to undercut that federalism and the Constitutional division of power can you talk more about that provision yeah there I'm looking at
▶ 2:38:00provision I think it's section 282 of the bill that would add section five yes section five which permits uh removal of any action against the president or vice president where the state Court's consideration will hinder burden or delay the execution of the duties of the president or vice president so this applies on its face only to sitting presidents and vice presidents now of course we have a norm that we don't charge sitting presidents and
▶ 2:38:30vice presidents with criminal conduct there's a supreme court opinion that says they are um immune from suits for civil conduct that is official and so so not criminal not civil conduct that's official the only thing that's left is civil conduct that is personal private and so essentially the way I'm reading this the only thing left on the table is this proposed Bill adds
▶ 2:39:00permitting a a provision permitting removal of actions against the president or vice president where the state Court's consideration May interfere hinder burden or delay private suits and okay uh I mean the Supreme Court has specifically said private suits like Clinton V Jones said you can totally sue the president during Clinton's term we he asked for temporary immunity and the Supreme Court said no
▶ 2:39:31you can sue President Clinton during his term no temporary immunity granted and this appears to expand and say sorry wait we're going to allow when a a a court determines that it might interfere okay and so that would be with respect to a president a sitting president or vice president so basically private suits simply the act of being president will give him a pass on everything Trump University suits Clinton V Jones suits
▶ 2:40:02and that's a big huge expansion sure um there's another provision in here that I found really troubling it says uh it's section D no court May Define or limit the scope of duties of an official of the Executive Office of the President so that would mean that no court could decide that only the president could decide what were the president's official duties how does that square with our constitution well I think
▶ 2:40:32what it does is basically read the color of office requirement out of the statute um because how can you decide what what is whether someone's acting within the color of their office if you can't ask well what is their office what does it entail what's within and without the scope of their duties it seems to be saying you can't look at what their duties entail and if you can't look at what their duties entail you sort of can't answer that question
▶ 2:41:02and so if if you can't answer it then it's not really an element well then doesn't that really strike at the core idea of checks and balances the different um branches of government acting as checks and balances if the courts are forbidden from determining whether or not something is within the duties of the president well it certainly removes that question from the Court's purview altogether what it also does is it greatly expands the number of cases that you are resting
▶ 2:41:32from state courts and in theory allowing into federal courts and so for me it raises some serious federalism issues okay um and that's problematic feels like it's an ultimate get out of jail free card but um it looks like my time's expired so I'll yield that back I thank the gentle lady from Pennsylvania I'll now recognize the chairman of the committee Mr Jordan for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman it backfired did it Mr Epstein yes sir I mean the the gentleman from New York our colleague on the other side talked about he trust 12 jurors
▶ 2:42:03in in New York but the real jury was the 330 million Americans I mean we the people are the ultimate jury in our great country and you think about what did I I I I love the list you put together think on page one or two here of your testimony but it was the dossier false dossier that they took to a secret Court to get warrant to spy on a presidential campaign that wasn't enough the Muller investigation they do all the Trump Russia Muller investigation finds no collusion no coordination none whatsoever then they raid his home part of the Jack Smith investigation Alvin brag fonny Willis the other
▶ 2:42:33Jack Smith investigation the Amendment and the American people saw through it all saw through it all because it was law fair I mean the democrat's argument seems to meed to a to be oh criticizing lawfare is worse than the law fair itself it's just not what it is uh tell tell me this part of this law and some of the details who's Colangelo Matthew Colangelo was an acting associate attorney general in the Garland Department of Justice who then uh moved to the Manhattan
▶ 2:43:03DA's office to work on the brag prosecution what did he do before he was at the Department of Justice where did Matthew Colangelo work prior to that I don't recall I think it was a New York attorney general's office why makes sense TI James's office so here's a guy who worked for tis James then worked for the Biden Garland justice department and then Alvin brag says we want him to work for us and according according to Media he came to work for Alvin brg for what reason I think you put it in your testimony yeah obviously was uh motivated by the case against President Trump yeah to jump start
▶ 2:43:33their investigation I think it's the term that was used in the press and we asked for any Communications between Alvin brag and the Biden justice department and they said we've looked and we can't find any but you disagree with that you disagree with Mr Garland told this committee the house Judiciary Committee you disagree with that tell me why you disagree with that well you know it's not just a question of disagreement it's a question of fact the New York uh Manhattan DA's office uh let
▶ 2:44:04America First legal know that there were 36 responsive records so when mayor Garland told this committee we can't find anything that wasn't accurate was it I'll let this committee make that inference but it seems so wasn't accurate based on what Alvin Bragg told the court right correct W well go figure so we'd like that information that's going to be I think the next thing we asked the the Attorney General Bondi if we can if we can get access to some of those those 36 responsive records that you talked about now uh
▶ 2:44:34Mr twilliger this legislation that we're talking about where you can take the case to Federal Court when you got some State local prosecutor coming after a federal official it's not just for Republicans is it certainly not and and in fact both as to for forers and as to the re reinstalling the substantive scope expanded scope that Congress intended going back to at least 2011 I think every former official of the Biden Administration would
▶ 2:45:04would cheer you on yeah I mean like it's it's just as important for if some prosecutor in Arkansas Oklahoma some red State decides for whatever reason he's going to I would assume he do based on the facts and the evidence but let's say it's maybe a little shaky Maybe not maybe it's a great case but still we're saying okay to the Chief of Staff of President Biden Mr zins if they come in after you you can move that to federal court you don't have to go into some State
▶ 2:45:34Court in a red State you can go to a federal court it's it applies across the board because we want equal treatment under the law in this great country uh so so true Mr Jordan and the fact of the matter is that I I really would urge particularly your colleagues on the other side of the aisle on this committee to go back and look at what those two Democrat appointed presidential judges said in the 11th circuit case they recognize just how perniciously dangerous
▶ 2:46:05it is what what is a chief of staff supposed to do when the President says I want you to set up a phone call I need to talk to so and so oh wait a minute uh am I going to get in trouble with fonny Willis because I do this yeah um it's absurd it's absurd that's absurd and and just the overall attack on executive privilege for goodness sake and this goes clear back to George Washington something we've we've honored and and the people most close to the president of the White House Council and his chiefest staff and they've always had that privilege there until now in their effort to get
▶ 2:46:35president Trump they said we're going to violate something that's been around since Washington and they did this and what we're saying is let's at least fix it so you can go to Federal Court fix part of it so you get go to a to a a jury that's different than some local prosec some local level yes sir these are quintessential Federal questions that have to be brought into federal court I think thank the chairman and our Witnesses for I'm sorry Professor Foley I didn't get to you I'd usually like to try to get a question to all of our Witnesses in these type of hearings
▶ 2:47:05but with that I will yield back to the chair I thank the chairman of the full committee Mr Jordan I'll now recognize myself for five minutes for questions um one thing that was raised earlier was a little bit is about how you know 15 years ago the doj may have gotten a little bit politicized I think Mr twilliger you were referencing that um I served in the Department of Justice about 15 years ago right on the number uh when I was a Special Assistant United States Attorney um and one thing that I would note uh you know Jack Smith has been at the center of a lot of these uh issues and debates uh in terms of lawfare obviously
▶ 2:47:35that's in the in the federal context um when he entered his role as special counsel Smith had already had a pattern of targeting Republican politicians um for example in 2013 when he served as the head of doj's public Integrity section Jack Smith encouraged his subordinates to contact IRS official Lois learner to discuss how the federal government could bring charges against conservative nonprofit organizations was that a depoliticized Department of Justice Mr twilliger no sir and and you you've hit right on it
▶ 2:48:05when when you just you just use your common sense to look at what's happened when you see some of the the former prosecutors that were involved in some of these cases showing up as as commentators on NBC um spouting political rhetoric uh you don't have to be a genius to figure out what happened at the department it's not the only example right we can go down Lois learner we can go down a whole bunch of different uh possibilities how about Eric Holder himself with Fast and Furious wasn't like the Department of Justice
▶ 2:48:35was you know looking to go dive deeply into what was going on with respect to specifically what Eric Holder did I love that example Mr Roy because can you imagine if Pam Bondi stood up today and described herself as Donald Trump's wingman as Eric Holder described himself for President Obama well you can see why I was only a Special Assistant us attorney for a couple of years during the holder era and decided to uh move on and work for Governor Perry down in Austin let me tell you something uh let me ask you this question you cited the
▶ 2:49:06two members of the 11 circuit panel right and they concurred in the result but they raised this issue is that right that's correct and the issue they raised quoting is quote in short foreclosing removal when States prosecute former Federal officers simply for performing their official duties can allow a rogue states weaponization of the prosecution power to go unchecked and fester end quote is that a correct quotation yes sir you share that concern do you not absolutely um could you just describe
▶ 2:49:36a little bit I mean we've discussed it at some length here but as we take up this legislation at the heart of it lies the question that was going on here in the exchange between I think the ranking member and professor besy and some others about the job and the nature of the job and so if you're in the case of your client the chief of staff to the president of the United States the president of the United States ask you to set up a call and there is the inherent blend between official and political and what we do right and so something is
▶ 2:50:06you know something we seem as official you're the chief of staff you're working through it and then there's some political questions that come up so how is it that we can proceed if we don't have Clarity with respect to the ACT actual job with respect to how you were describing that could you expand on that a little bit well I I would submit to you Mr Roy that there is absolute Clarity in terms of that job um in 1939 Congress passed a statute and said okay we're authorizing assistance to the president never existed before before
▶ 2:50:37that they had always been borrowed from agencies and brought into the White House presidential assistance were were authorized by Congress and Congress said their duy shall quote be as prescribed by the president um so when the president asks you to make a phone call you're acting within the the scope of your office do you think it would be good for the country were it to be true that for example some I don't know pretty aggressive district attorneys in South
▶ 2:51:07Texas uh or maybe in working in coordination with the Attorney General of Texas decided to say you know what we think that the actions of maybe it was DH secretary my orcus maybe it was the Attorney General maybe their actions in leaving the borders wide open to endanger Texans was actually in violation of law maybe they should be prosecuted under Texas law because of of what they did to the people of the State of Texas the the people in my district who are no longer alive the people who have suffered the 11 billion we've had to spend in Texas
▶ 2:51:37do you think it's a good direction for us to go to have it such that state Das and State Attorneys General can then go after officials in their uh carrying out their official capacity and the ranges around that official capacity do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing and do you think it's important for us to clarify um that that law it's a terrible thing to go in that direction but that's the direction it's going and it is inevitable that the worm will turn and there
▶ 2:52:07will be Democrat officials of political appointees who will be subject of just the kind of action you describe this is a place for Congress to assert itself and say just as the title of this statute says we want to try to end this kind of lawfare we may not be a be able to do it completely we may not be able to do it perfectly but it's a very very important step uh thank you Mr twiger and thank you to the witnesses I think the uh the chairman of the committee seeks recognition
▶ 2:52:37if I could if the chair would indulge I have one other question um I would be happy to give an extra question to the ranking one question be happy to give you another question if you'd like it yeah yes sir just want to underscore uh a subject we we got in right at the end of my my five minutes with with Mr twilliger Mr twiig why why do we have privilege it's an excellent question because the president needs the most candid possible advice um that he
▶ 2:53:08can get and his his AIDS have to know that if they say no Mr President that's a really dumb idea that that communication is going to be privileged and protected who ultimately benefits from executive privilege though who's the pr the people we the people exactly it doesn't exist to protect the president or his staff it exists for us for the American people we the people that's why you want candid Communications to take place between the top officials in
▶ 2:53:38the West Wing so they can make decisions that benefit we the people and the leftist said we want Donald Trump so bad we're willing to forego that hurt the people so we can get president Trump and thank the good Lord it didn't work I Y back I'll recognize the ranking member for uh the gentleman used about a minute and for a question that's along those lines oh I have to ask a question not just make a screed okay you can use your minute as you see fit as a ranking members can we just bring this back to maybe why we're supposed to be here we're
▶ 2:54:08looking at this statute Professor besy why did the Supreme Court in Mesa say that Federal officers have to have a colorable federal offense and what would this statute do to it um that's because of article 3 article 3 we live in a system of enumerated powers per the Constitution just like Congress has a list of things it can do under article one so two there's a list of things that courts can do and that's article three and you can't even though you
▶ 2:54:38have power to confer on Lower federal courts what they get to do and whether they exist you are bound by article three and they have to have a federal feral ingredient and that Federal ingredient is the as as Mesa said that Federal ingredient is the colorable federal def Federal defense and Mesa said here's what it's not it's not just you have a federal job and this is one of your federal jobs duties Mesa rejected
▶ 2:55:09that so it's pretty well established and so this uh attempt would expand Federal jurisdiction Beyond article three boundaries and that's why we suggest everyone should oppose it I yield back I think G lady I think for her Indulgence try to do uh to recognize you equally I appreciate the witnesses this concludes today's hearing we thank the witnesses for appearing before the subcommittee without objection all members will have five legislative days submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record without objection the hearing
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