c-span's the presidents will be on shelves april 20 three, but you can preorder your copy today c-span.org/thepresidents, or wherever books are sold. announcer: the house rules committee began the week by considering the rules for debate on a nonbinding resolution that calls for special counsel robert mueller's final report on russian interference in the u.s. election to be made available to congress and the public. the resolution is expected to reach the house floor on wednesday. from capitol hill, this is just under an hour. >> the rules committee will come to order.

nearly two years ago, former fbi director robert mueller was appointed special counsel to take over the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. we know russia interfered in that campaign, no matter what the president says on twitter. the facts are clear and i will take the word of our intelligence committee over vladimir putin. the question is whether the russians had any help and whether other crimes were committed to cover it up. none of us knows the answer to that end we do not know when the special counsel will conclude this investigation. there are indications it could be wrapping up soon. as we kick off sunshine week, the committee is considering h con resolution 24. this resolution makes clear that congress believes the american people should have access to the final report. the american people do not want it hidden somewhere. in a recent poll, 87% of the public said they think the

findings should be made public. let me be clear -- moving this forward as not prejudging the outcome. we do not know if it will be critical of any individual, including the president, were not. this is not about embarrassing president trump. it is about ensuring the american people have the information they deserve. democrats have pushed for transparency and republicans on both sides have voiced support for releasing the report, too. that includes the top three members of the house her republican leadership, kevin mccarthy, steve scalise, and liz cheney. this resolution is our chance to go on record and i hope members on both sides of the aisle take this opportunity. before we hear from our witnesses, let me turn to the ranking member, mr. cole. rep. cole: thank you very much, mr. chairman. i don't have a lot to say about today's legislation because frankly, it does not accomplish

anything. it is a nonbinding resolution expressing the belief that a yet-unwritten, as far as we know, and unreleased report should be made public. i am more concerned with the lack of any meaningful legislation this week for us to deal with. all we are dealing with all week long are suspension bills and this nonbinding resolution. i would hope instead we could find some things we can work on together, advanced things in a bipartisan way. on substance -- premature because it is not binding -- i have no problem with it, i would tend to vote for it. i have made the same calls of the republicans have made. the only caveat i would add is because of the sensitive nature of some of the material, there may be a sources and methods issue. that is what the attorney general ought to be looking at to make sure we don't inadvertently expose some access or technique that gives our

opponent, the russians, some sort of advantage in understanding how we get the information we have. i would prefer to wait until we actually have the report, but i certainly have no objections to calling for the release of as much of it as may be practical for people to have a look at. but i do think we are wasting a lot of time this week. i can't figure out what we are doing that is substantive. with that, i yield back. rep. mcgovern: i appreciate the comments. i would say there are lots of committees that are working on very substantive pieces of legislation and doing hearings on them. one of the things that we put in the house rules is that substantive bills, before they come to this committee, ought to have hearings and markups. that is something my friends on the other site didn't adhere to all the time when they were in the majority, but i assure the gentleman that there is lots of

substance coming down the way, some of which you will like and some maybe you won't like as much. as far as this goes, i think it is important, especially if it is a strong bipartisan vote, that we go on record saying we want transparency and we believe that the american people ought to know what's been going on all this time during the mueller investigation. i have no idea what the mueller investigation is going to say. i know i am concerned, a lot of my constituents are concerned when they hear some people talk about not making it public or we may never know what the mueller report says. i think after all this and after what we do know happened in the 2016 elections with russian's interference, their attack on our democracy, i think it is important and substantive we go on record in a bipartisan way saying, let the sunshine in. having said, i appreciate the and we are comments, happy to welcome the distinguished gentleman from the ,udiciary committee, mr. cohen

and ranking member collins. we are delighted you are here and anything you brought in writing will without objection be entered in the record. i recognize the gentleman from tennessee, mr. cohen. thank you, mr. chair and mr. ranking member. i'm filling in for mr. nadler , and i want to take a personal note to say this is the first time i have been to this committee since ms. slaughter was here. what a woman she was and i miss seeing her. rep. mcgovern: she's watching right now. [laughter] rep. mcgovern: so be good. the cohen: i appreciate opportunity to testify allowing this resolution. h. con. res. 624 expresses the special report of robert mueller should be released to the public and congress. mr. nadler introduced this resolution. releasing the report in full

would be consistent with the intent of the special counsel regulations, past president, attorney general mothers on public statements, and the wishes of the american public. i believe president trump has said he would like to see it released. to paraphrase ronald reagan, we paid for this report. the whole purpose of appointing a special counsel to oversee the trump-russia investigation was to ensure the american people would have full confidence in the outcome of the investigation. the acting attorney general said robert mueller was appointed in order for the american people to have full confidence in the outcome and to ensure the public that government officials administer the law fairly. the american public can only have confidence in the process and outcome if the department of justice is transparent. failing to provide an account of the findings would undermine the american public's confidence and defeat the purpose for which the special counsel was appointed.

transparency is a critical aspect of the special counsel regulations and release of the report would be consistent with the intent of the regulations. department of justice commentary stresses the importance of ensuring congressional and public confidence in the integrity of the process. the report's release is supported by past precedent. in the only other interest where he special counsel was appointed , in 1999 concerning the 1993 confrontation in waco, texas, interim and final reports, including the findings presented by the special counsel, were released to the american public. the need for transparency is even more pronounced for investigations that involve our president. the department of justice policy permits disclosure of investigative materials if it serves the interest of the american public, even as they pertain to uncharged third parties. while we recognize the department may be prohibited from disclosing certain classified or grand jury information that may be in the

report, methods and sources from the intelligence world, the department should release the mueller report to the public to the maximum extent permitted by law and provide the report in full to congress. it is clear that the interests of the american republic are served by transparency with respect to any investigation that could implicate or exonerate our president. especially true given the serious allegations at the center of the investigation. no coincidence this resolution will be considered by sunshine week. a vote for this resolution will send a clear signal to the american people and the department of justice that congress believes transparency is necessary to ensure that the government is accountable. i urge the committee to adopt the technical amendment which clarifies the resolution calling for the release of the special counsel's findings, as was the case with the release of findings concerning the 1993 confrontation that i previously mentioned. and i gorge swift consideration -- and i encourage swift consideration of the resolution

on the floor and passage by the house. rep. collins: this will be short and to the point. i think this resolution is simply a restatement of the law. we are not covering any new ground here. this is not anything that my friend from tennessee just said. i think the attorney general has been very clear he wants to provide the he said so in his confirmation hearing. as we look forward, the president is looking forward and said he has done nothing wrong. i think we will follow up on that. if this is what we need to vote on this week, then so be it. i join my ranking member, i would have loved to have a chance to markup h.r. 1 in judiciary. talk about marking up things. goes, theres this will be things that i am sure we will disagree on as you go along , that may or may not come out, and i think a german from tennessee brought that up, the

classified information, grand jury stuff, but we will deal with those as they come up. i really have nothing, except to say that it is a restatement of law. i appreciate it, and i yield back. rep. mcgovern: i am glad that you seem more comforted by the attorney general's confirmation hearings than i do when it comes to releasing the mueller report. mr. hastings. [indiscernible] i am looking for this quote that i wrote down. resolutionular doesn't accomplish anything. we are big-time politicians here in washington and on both sides of the aisle it becomes

important for us to inform the american public. when things and lives, and there have been times when i have been in the position that my good friend from oklahoma has been in, when i say we aren't doing very much of on theg, and the party other side wanted the american public to know something, and to know how they felt about something. we appear refer to it as messaging. i am referring to it as that. that is not what i believe the party itself is. i see it as an important message -- and i am not one that likes or believes in nor has ever had a poll conducted on my behalf. i'm not a great believer in snapshots in a point in time.

but all of the polling reflects that the american public wants to see what it can that is not classified and not grand jury or subject to jon going -- subject to ongoing investigations. the american public really wants to see what mueller has done. and i ask any of you that are congresspersons here, how often when you are on your district or on your phone talking with a constituent and they ask you about health care or any other matter -- i was walking in here and a republican colleague was clustered with a group of members and as i was walking away, i heard a lady say, what about the mueller report, and that was 20 minutes ago. almost all of us have asked us

-- almost all of us have repo who have asked us, what is going to happen with the mueller report? this particular resolution goes on record saying precisely that we believe that to the extent it came be made public, it should be made public. i don't know about the rest of you, but i feel it pretty egregious and russia did something wrong. and that's a part of why mueller was given his remand. whatever that was that was wrong affected our election in a variety of ways, disinformation, misinformation, employing all sorts of botches during the course of the elections. remember now russians have been indicted, they probably

will never see the light of day in an american court, but they have been indicted. which means there was a trail of what they did. i want to know what mueller has to say and i want to know about the people he indicted and what he has to say about the people he declined to indict. and i think most americans have that same theory. -- that same feeling. i am not talking about republican or democrat here. i know my good friend from georgia met with the attorney general. i didn't have the good fortune to be with him when he met with the attorney general, otherwise i would have asked the attorney general to give me an indication as to how he intends to handle remit as it pertains to this investigation. i will not bother the court with what you said, but it didn't sound promising to me that mr. barr was getting ready to be

revelatory with reference to whatever and whenever. i really wish that people would -- particularly in the media , just wait a minute. mueller will issue a report it that is his remit. it may not happen at a given time, but a week ago, we were all spun up letter was going to be out friday. this past thursday, that was going to be out friday. now we are talking about what is happening this week that might give us a lead on -- it isn't going to give us anything. mueller has played his closely cards close to the vest as rightly he should, and there will come a day when he will issue a report, and i simply believe that this resolution helps the american public democrats that we as

want to be assured that they are going to receive as much as the information from the report as possible. would hope that message is scared back to mr. barr. and that he doesn't give us some snapshot summary of whatever it is that mueller does, whatever he does, whenever he does it. thank you. rep. mcgovern: thank you. mr. cole. mr. cole: there's not a great deal in what my friend had to say that i would disagree with. i have been on record repeatedly that as soon as they can get something done that obviously this daisody thi at would want anybody the intelligence technique or as et cetera to be exposed. this ought to be as complete and thorough and open as possible. i might disagree slightly. i would be carefully of people who weren't indicted or accused of a crime. that is usually the way the

authorities -- i certainly yield to my friend. well, it is a -- >> to reclaim my time. usually, if you have an investigation, if you don't charge somebody with something, you don't mention it. that is just the way the authorities -- matter of fact, i think we both agree too bad mr. comey didn't follow that dictate in the last presidential election. that's the only caveat i have. i suppose the weight of opinion is worth something. this is a nonbinding resolution. it is not going to force him. but i take the attorney general at his word. he said repeatedly under oath in front of the united states senate when he was being considered that he was going to be as forthcoming as he possibly could. he spoke of his high personal and their mr. mueller long working relationship. for that matter, the administration, they are

certainly not happy about the mueller probe, but the president has never acted to stop it nor has anybody in the administration. i do agree with my friend. i think the report will come and i think we will get there. i guess i wish we were doing something else this week it was substantive other than just this. again, nothing that my friend on the panel said that i disagree with, and nothing that my chairman has had, and nothing that my good friend of the vice chairman has said, i disagree with. so i suspect that will be reflected on the floor. you will get a strong vote on the floor that ought to be open. with that, i yield back. rep. mcgovern: if that's the case, it will be a very powerful statement. rep. torres: thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for both of you

being here. i'm truly looking forward to passing this on a bipartisan level, as you stated. there is nothing here but to say the sense of congress. nothing more than what we do when we recommit ourselves to doing something. i think getting ahead of that as we mark sunshine week this week, and the weather outside is participating, it is 60 degrees outside, much cooler here than in my home state of california, by the way. congress must commit to the american people that we are truly for transparency. that we truly want to be not as transparent as we can be, but make sure they have the correct information in front of them. but the trump administration appears to be horrified of this report.

-- terrified of this report. because of those comments, of , that by the way, hope someone is keeping track for evidence, right? i think it is important to go on record to ensure that the american people know we are committed to this transparency. thatt to remind members withholding information is the lying.ing as we don't want to withhold information and lie to the american public about what may or may not be in this report. so it is important for us to recommit ourselves and important for us to vote for this h. con. res. 24 and with that, i yield back.

rep. mcgovern: thank you, very much. rep. collins: mr. chairman? again, i appreciate the gentlelady -- but i do want to make a comment, withholding equals lying. withholding information would not be lying and democrat -- and we are both clear on that. i just wanted to make that statement, because i think that is what you meant. that would not be something that either one of us would agree should be in a public setting. rep. torres: is that a signal that this report may be class ified ultimately? rep. collins: i am sure there would have been information that could be used going forward. make thented to comment, other than that, you and i agree completely. i yield back. rep. mcgovern: mr. woodall. rep. woodall: the resolution recognizes what mr. collins has said. the most disappointing thing to me is that this is some divisive issue. my friend, mr. hastings, who i believe to be one of the most inclusive people in this institution, he has always been

a friend to me, said he thought the resolution was important because you wanted americans to know what democrats thought. i think it is important for folks to know what we all think. somebody wins and somebody loses and the majority party gets to fivehe agenda, but in pages of findings, we don't talk about classified information. when we get to the lines of actual substance in the legislation, it says -- release it to the extent that public disclosure is expressly prohibited by law, recognizing that things are prohibited by drumbeatto begin this to say that if things are classified, if there are things that a grand jury testimony cannot be released, that somehow something untoward is going on i think undermines this trust in good faithman is trying to create with this legislation. there is a legitimate amount of

skepticism in the country today about transparency, probably they would expect more than a restatement of current law to have been doing transparency week, sunshine week, but i hope this will be an opportunity for us to make it clear that there are things that cannot be released but to the extent possible, and i quote all the attorney general's statements, saying that he wants to release it to the fullest extent possible, this is not something that needs to divide us. it is something that can absolutely unite us. point, we would allow for committee meetings to take place and markups to take place. we only had one out of 10 committees looking at h.r. 1, but i think the clock ticks out at march for when this good,

through committee and markups? manuals are going into effects in, here. what the chairman has led on, we all desire. rep. mcgovern: let me say i appreciate the gentleman's comments and mr. collins' comments as well, but i think this is a really strong bipartisan vote. unanimity would show when it comes to this issue. i think it is very important. none of us know what will be in the report, we went to mature there will be protecting sources and classified information, but i think that if there is a strong bipartisan vote, it is a good signal when the american people to see that we actually can agree on something. you don't have to agree on everything to agree on something. if we agree on this, it is a good thing. mr. perlmutter. perlmutter: speaking

as a representative of the suburbs of denver, the fact that we've got one conviction, seven guilty pleas, 34 people and three companies indicted, and then a whole range of kind of investigations that exonerate may individuals or implicate individuals, i think it is an important resolution. bipartisanshipe you two are exhibiting so that all of us, no matter what it is that comes out in that report have a chance to look at it, think about it and the adjusted. -- and they just it. -- and digest it. this president's name has ever been sullied or implicated appropriately, and i think this report will be good enough for

all of us to see. i appreciate the gentleman bringing this forward and i look forward to voting for it in this committee and on the floor. with that, you back. burgess: thank you, mr. hastings. i'm reminded of the words of another physician who was in the house of representatives when i started here. it was actually on your side of the ledger, dr. mcdermott of washington state. when republicans put forward a resolution on something or another, he was quite derisive of our efforts and said, this is tantamount to sending a get well card to the agency in question. , as would just offer that words from representative mcdermott of washington state, i think he may have been onto something. i think the speaker of the house about talking impeachment, let's be honest, that is what we are talking

about here, you are hoping the mother report will have delivered -- the mueller report will have delivered to you sufficient grounds for impeachment. speaker pelosi earlier today impeachment is to divisive, and president trump is not worth it. ok, that is interesting. unfortunately, mr. nadler's not here. according to the new york times 'sst week, i guess mr. nadler word the report may not have in it what he originally expecting muellern the mothe report, because he sent letters starting i a sweeping new inquiry. the included government agencies, trump business and political associates, the trump

organization, the trump campaign and the inaugural committee. of course, maybe these are private citizens and they are now supped up in this anyone requests for information and they all have to go out and hire lawyers at their own expense. so this is not something that i ,hink should be done lightly but i again, think it comes back to the judiciary committee, particularly its chairman, who has said in previous recitations that he is planning to proceed with impeachment. notwithstanding what the speaker said today, perhaps there is disagreement there -- sir, if i may -- >> let me finish. nevertheless, you are going ahead with 81 separate investigations. i would point out to you that those are all best some of those -- some of those

no largefolks of political presence, they are smaller players in this whole drama, but they still have to go out and hire legal counsel at some expense, and they will possibly come before your and they have seen evidence of how people are treated, and they are justifiably concerned. now, i share that concern because it was in your committee , the judiciary committee on february 26, one of the democratic members, representative deutsche mischaracterized the work being done by the department of health and human services to care for unaccompanied alien children by staying that the office of refugee settlement created an environment of systemic sexual assaults by hh s staff and of

unaccompanied alien children. this acquisition was absolutely false. to my knowledge, i don't know that representative deutsche has visited an o.r.r. facility. i have at least 10 times. his comments discredit the effort by employees to deal with a problem that was created not in this administration but previous administrations when the care of unaccompanied alien children came within their purview. if you don't like the work that in.r. is doing, then you're the majority and the appropriate committee that can change about authority. following the claims by representative deutch attacking o.r.r. director hayes sent a letter detailing the effects of the sexual assault allegations and requested an apology from representative deutch. to the best of knowledge, i he has not received that

apology. i will ask that the entire letter that was sent to representative deutch be entered into the record, but i want to read a portion of it because i think it is instructive. it is a letter from jonathan hayes to representative deutch on february 26. o.r.r.stated that created an environment of systemic sexual assault by staff on unaccompanied alien children and went on to go include that you have seen thousands of cases .f sexual assault however, this is an supported by the data you provided and none of the allegations involve ..h.s. employees deliberately mischaracterizing the data during a televised hearing, you impugned the integrity of of civilof

servants who work tirelessly to ensure the well-being of the nearly 50,000 unaccompanied alien children who have been torged by federal law protect. on behalf of these dedicated employees of the department of health and human services assigned to the unaccompanied alien children's program, we request you apologize to these career civil servants for your onto word and unfounded comments, acknowledging that you were wrong is the moral, decent and right thing to do. the letter goes into more considerable detail. unfortunately, chairman nadler is not fear, but i hope you will take this information back to your chairman, and i do request that the individual who made these allegations against these federal employees and civil servants provide the appropriate apology that mr. hayes has requested. i would be happy to take any questions.

>> thank you. i just wanted to verify, dr., i have kept very -- i wanted to verify that i have kept very close attention to mr. nadler's statements on impeachment and unfortunately i have to tell you he has never said he is for impeachment. he said he is for oversight and going down the road of letting the american public know about what has happened in this administration. he has never said that he was for impeachment. if he had i would remember it. rep. burgess: nevertheless, i think the data that has been collected, that chairman nadler is requesting, the fact that we are here talking about the mueller report that has not even been released yet points in a general direction. you may think that russia did something wrong in the last election. let's be honest, you think president trump did something wrong, and that is that he won an election that none of the expected him to win. [indiscernible]

question? a you don't believe russia did anything wrong? are you are agreeing with that? rep. burgess: look, the people are upset. that the president won an election and we have heard that over and over again. you thought he could win? i didn'tn: sir, don' think he would win. but that is not why i am upset with him. i am upset with him that he finds people fine in charlottesville and what he said about muslim people, women, i'm upset with his policies concerning children and their opportunities. i am upset with him for saying that he didn't think putin would have led about interfering in our elections. i am upset with him for so many reasons, not for the fact that he won the election. i am upset with how he has served as president.

rep. burgess: and yet in every election i can recall since coming to congress, your side has talked about rebuilding the it,le class, and doggone this individual has done more to rebuild the middle class than any presidency since i have been in office. i will go further. you detailed in the knee of things you don't like about the president. who is the first president has signed major sickle-cell legislation in decades. effort on theor part of the fda and an ih right now -- to deal with the fou h. rightnd the n.i. now to deal with it in a way that hasn't been dealt with in a long time. danny davis' bill, through our subcommittee and work on the floor, davis' bill became law. and signed into law by president. the president signed the first major attempt to try to bring rationality to the way that maternal mortality is reported so we can begin to do something about it.

i would argue that this president has been enormously successful in the things he has undertaken. but that wasn't the purpose of this hearing, not the purpose of my questioning. the purpose of my questioning was for you to convey to the representative deutch owes an apology to mr. hayes. >> on behalf of the committee, the 81 entities or people who have been asked to give information have all given that information or some information to the mueller investigation, to the southern district of new york, or some other agency that has looked into russian impertinent, or the malefactors involved. so, we are not talking about any

first involvement with the government. they probably all had attorneys, and we're just asking them to give the material they give to somebody else to us. rep. burgess: again, i think it would be appropriate for the member of your committee to provide an apology to the and they of the h.h.s. director of office of refugee resettlement. i hope to see that happen this week. if it does not, am prepared to press this further. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. rep. mcgovern: if anybody here has any question as to whether or not russia interfered in our 2016 election, i'm happy to organize for this committee a briefing with the head of our intelligence agencies, because i think at this point that should no longer be a question or hypothetical. it happened. there is plenty of documentation, classified and unclassified that's available for people. if there is any question, we can get a meeting together with this committee.

mr. raskin. reppo raskin mr. chairman, thank you very much. i'm very much in support of house congressional resolution number 24. we live in a time of rising authoritarianism all around the world. whether it is vladimir putin in ban in hungary, duterte in the philippines, or mbs, then turkey, or crown prince of saudi arabia who murders journalists, wherever we turn, we see democracy and freedom under attack. and i'm very glad that on an overwhelming bipartisan basis last week, we denounced the rise of anti-semitism and racism in this country and all of the world. overwhelmingly that this was a threat to democracy

and to our constitutional values because they are. anti-semitism and racism are the gateway to destruction of our democracy and democracies all over the world. now why do i raise that? because that is the whole context in which we have a mueller investigation and the whole context in which congress express, i hope, on an overwhelming and bipartisan basis, that the mueller report has to begin to the american people. as the chairman says, our electoral process was the target of the greatest active measure disinformation and destabilization campaign in the history of russia. and you can talk to any of our intelligence agencies about it and i hope that the good gentleman from texas would, if he needs further convincing and there are many books about it now.

there were millions and millions of dollars spent on a campaign to destabilize our election process. that should be a matter of concern, whether you are democrat, republican, green, reform, libertarian, nothing, you hit all the parties, it doesn't matter. there was a system to undermine our political national sovereignty in 2016. so the way it was explained to me actually by a friend who has worked in the intelligence community was very clarifying to me. he said, look, putin now is a garden variety autocrat despot. he says the loss of the soviet union and he had been the chief of the k.g.b. was the greatest political catastrophe of the 20th century. not what happened in world war

genocide, the holocaust, world war i, but the crumbling of the soviet union . says,ks at america and well, he can't beat us militarily we outspend them because we outspend them 25-1. he can't beat us economically because russia is in ruins but , and hen economic power certainly can beat us in terms of moral, political philosophy, because the american people despite everything we have gone through are in love with our democracy and our constitutional values and not going to trade it for anything else. so, what if they have? what is our achilles' heel? the internet. it's informational security, the security of our computer systems and they arrange a campaign to conduct cyber espionage and sabotage at the dnc, to pull those emails and give them to friends at wikileaks to release

undermine oneto side in another country's political campaign, then they conduct a campaign of sabotage directly into state election systems. a lot of state computer systems were hit directly. mine was. and if you have any doubt, i will give you the phone number of the head of our board of elections who reported it when the russian agents tried to get into maryland's election systems . and most perniciously, they conducted a campaign of propaganda through facebook, twitter and social media in order to inject poison into the american system. so everybody who plays into the divisiveness and polarization, everybody who tries to someone up hate for the other -- to other up hate for the political party, they are playing right into putin's hands. that's what he wanted. he wanted this gue to hate that group and that party to hate that party.

and look how well it has worked. look where we are in america in train 19, in terms of social unity. they did that beautifully, didn't they. their internet research agency, which employed hundreds of , poison and propaganda into our system. whether you think the president was actively complicit and involved in it, or whether you think he was completely innocent and new nothing about it, or that you think he just one lucky guy, that is irrelevant. america needs to know what happened to us in the 2016 election so we can prevent it from happening again in 2020 and after that, and so on. i just hope we can maintain the kind of bipartisan unity, not unanimity, but the overwhelming unity we had last week in denouncing anti-semitism and other forms of hatred, by

saying, we need the truth about what happened. i yield back. and i do thank mr. cohen and mr. collins further work on this. lesko.govern: ms. rep. lesko: thank you, mr. chairman. i have a question for both mr. collins and mr. cohen, when i was studying up on this resolution, i was reading something on why we have the regulations we have now and the special counsel. and it dates back to the clinton department of justice led by janet reno and eric holder and they issued background regulation on the new regulations. thing,not read the whole but it basically says, the principal source of the problems with the final report in thement is set forth independent counsel act, is the fact that the report typically has been made public, unlike the closing documentation of any other criminal investigation.

fact both provides an incentive to over investigate in order to avoid potential public criticism for not having turned over every stone and create potential harm to individual privacy interest of those people who have not been prosecuted. , it says thation everything has to be turned over for public release except that which is prohibited by law. i am trying to determine if expressly prohibited by law listeds if somebody is in this report that has been found to have done nothing wrong , will their names and information be released?

[chatter] >> if you want, i suspect that they would be released in that he is supposed to give everybody who he indicts, and we decided if to indict also, so that he wanted to put out their names wrong.ey did nothing but i do think there is a distinction, it may be somewhere where you are leading to, and that is the issue of someone who is not indicted, not because they didn't do anything wrong, but because they are the president of the united states and the justice department policy is not to indict a sitting president. -- if thepolicy reason that they can be indicted is because of the fact that they are the president. but the remedy the founding fathers put out for a president who committed improper conduct was impeachment.

if there is information that would lead certain -- the congress to look at that, congress should make that determination and see that information. catch-22. it is a rep. collins: i think the gentlelady raised a valid point. it goes back to the fiasco. that was the starr report. one of the interesting parts is a strict reading of the and the department of justice under janet reno said we have to figure out what is being investigated in a proper and right format. and this resolution simply restates that and would protect that in going forward, what was public conversations with the new york attorney general whose confirmation hearings confirmed that as well. that is why i believe this is simply a restatement of law, that a nonbinding resolution from congress is not going to change. thank you both for

your answer. i just thought that these -- i read and from 1999 when it was a visit under the clinton presidency. from reno and eric holder what i read it, it seemed like before, all these reports were released to the public and then they recommended that just a summary be given to the attorney general for two reasons. one was because i thought of everything is released to the overc, they would be investigations, because investigators would worry that they would be criticized if they didn't turn over every stone. the other reason is that it would identify people that were not indicted or didn't have -- which is not what happens in other court proceedings. i think it is a valid concern. we will see what happens, if you barr attorney general

will keep that in mind. thank you. rep. mcgovern: ms. shalala. >> i would hope that going forward that there will also be bipartisan support for the oversight measures undertaken by judiciary in order to either disprove or prove many of the elements of the culture of correction that appears to have surrounded the campaign and the inaugural funds of the trump campaign and of the president himself. so i look forward to that. rep. mcgovern: ms. shalala. rep. shalala: mr. chairman. [laughter] that the special counsel is the most independent investigator the government can have because it is not the government investigating.

i strongly support this bill. thank you. i yield back. >> i just think mr. collins for bringing us together in this manner. rep. mcgovern: mr. collins. rep. collins: i just want to add that we have only had one other special counsel, that was in waco. investigator didn't come under this statute, it was a whole different set of procedures animals. rep. mcgovern: thank you for clarifying that. if there are no further questions, you guys are free to go. thank you very much. no other questions. i want to thank our witnesses for being here. in the other members who wish to testify on this? seeing none, this now closes the hearing portion of our meeting. the chair will be in receipt of a motion by mr. desaulnier. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

i moved the committee grant h. con. res. 24, expressing the sense of congress that the report of special counsel mueller should be made available to the public and to congress, a closed rule. the rule provides one hour of debate equally divided by the chair and ranking minority member on the committee of judiciary. rule waives all points of order on the concurrent resolution. the rule provides that the amendments in the preamble printed in the rules committee report shall be considered as adopted and the concurrent resolution as amended shall be considered as read.

the rule waives all points of order in the concurrent resolution as amended. section 2 provides that any legislative day during the period from march 15, 2019 through march 22, 2019, the journal of the proceedings of the previous day shall be considered as approved and the chair may at any time declare the house adjourned to meet at a date and time to be announced by the chair in declaring an adjournment. ruleon three of the provides that the speaker may appoint members for the duration of the period addressed by section 2. rep. mcgovern: thank you. as we just heard from legitimate from california, this rule provides for the consideration of h. con. res. 24, resolution expressing the sense of congress that the report of special counsel mueller shall be made available to congress and the public under a close rule. this clarifies that the resolution is calling for the release of special counsel's findings and the previous release of reports under the special counsel's resolution. -- as was the case of the

previous release of reports under the special counsel's resolution, by adding the phrase "including findings." is it any amendment or discussion? hearing none, all those in favor, say aye. s have it. that aye and mr. desaulnier will be carrying it for the majority. and that is it. this closes the hearing. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org . >

announcer: the resolution calling for special counsel robert mueller's report to be made available to congress and the public is expected on the house floor for debate and for a final vote on wednesday. as always, you will find live coverage of the house here on c-span. here's a look at our live coverage on tuesday. the house is back at 10:00 a.m. for general speeches with legislative business at. on the agenda are several bills russia, including one that would prohibit the u.s.

from recognizing russia's annexation of crimea, and another which would strengthen the u.s. response to russian interference by exposing the corruption of russian president vladimir putin. c-span.live on on c-span2, the senate considers a judicial nomination for the third circuit court of appeals. c-span3 has three congressional hearings. the first with wells fargo ceo testifying about the company's business practices at the house financial services committee. in the afternoon, a house judiciary subcommittee looks at the proposed merger between t-mobile and sprint with executives from both companies. >> watch american history tv live on saturday starting at eastern. from historic ford's theatre at washington, d.c., the 22nd annual abraham lincoln symposium. the daylong gathering hosted by abraham lincoln institute and the ford's theatre society brings together lincoln scholars

to highlight the president's life, career and legacy. aakers include speaker on his sense of humor, and another on how he is rumored in new deal america. david blight on lincoln's relationship with abolitionist frederick douglass, and another speaker on lincoln as president-elect. be sure to watch this weekend on c-span3. coming up next from washington journal, a look at the week ahead from washington followed by vermont senator bernie sanders visiting new hampshire for the first time since announcing his 2020 candidacy for president. later, a look at president trump's 2020 budget request with acting white house budget director and the debris secretary of state, john sullivan. " continues. host: