'This Is A Charade!': GOP Senators Get Furious With Durbin During Judiciary Committee Hearing

Republican side for the order that the members on your side will offer the Amendments he has already given me your name earlier but I want to let you proceed thank you Mr chairman uh if it's okay uh Senator Blackburn I think you have a couple amendments and as we get involved in this process I just want to when we did subpoenas of Crossfire hurricane one of the most corrupt investigations in history of the country can't remember 16 20 votes can't remember what it was so I'm glad we're having votes uh I just want to remind the public who may still be watching this for some odd reason um this is going nowhere this is a political exercise and Mr chairman I'm still dumbfounded that after voting a bill out of the committee that supposedly fixes this problem from your point of view why we haven't brought it up to the floor I mean you have have a solution you say it was voted out of the committee and it's never been brought to the floor you're doing an investigation to fix a problem that you've already had a legislative solution for what do we if you want to fix the problem try to pass the bill that you claim fixes the problem the reason we haven't voted on that bill Mr chairman and never will is because there's just not the votes this is incredibly in my view unconstitutional so we'll play this game for a while nothing will happen the subpoenas never get issued the bill never gets voted on but it's important enough to destroy the committee Senator gr would question I defer to Senator cor where the amend stage the senator yield for a question just one second please we're in the amendment stage what I'll say to my colleagues is we're going to finish this today and Senator we're gonna finish this bill today the amendments to the bill today Senator Blackburn will be the first Republican you want recognized thank you I was asked the senator yield for a question while he had the four I want to like I certainly defer to Senator blackberg 12 minutes to finish I think the practice here in the Senate is if Senators has the floor and another Senator asked them to yield to a question and they say yes I will that that Senator has the floor yes you can definitely well one are are you are we going to be able to debate this bill what happens what's the game plan what what do you intend to do of course it's in your hands 177 amendments are pending that's not the first time we've had that number before the committee you said we're going to vote on it today I said we're going to finish what does today mean today is today at noon Thursday is that when we're going to vote on this bill when are we going to vote on the bill today stay here as long as you wish to offer amendments okay so we can wave the the two-hour rule no I I don't know that two-hour rule has been invoked but you remember we went through this before with so basically you're giving us today which is Thursday wow okay would the senator yield for a question absolutely these are private citizens that the uh majority of the committee seeks to subpoena correct Senator Graham yes are you familiar with any legitimate legislative purpose for subpoena private citizens I think this is a charade politically motivated to to attack the Integrity of the Roberts Court to act on what they said they wanted to do to destroy Clarence Thomas's reputation I think if they really cared about the ethics practices of the Court we would be looking into soda mayor's situation Justice sod Myer where staff members apparently call people you need to sell some books if she's going to speak so yeah I think this is all politically motivated I think the two private citizens involved particularly Leonard Leo is uh at the top of the the guy I hate most list in the conservative world I think this is uh despicable what they're doing to these people I think it's bad for the country I think this is a joke simply because the bill to fix the problem they claim it exist we can't they won't even bring it up to the floor so this is an investigation of private citizens Senator Corin that I think is politically motivated not legislatively motivated because if you wanted to pass legislation you've already done it out of committee all you got to do is bring it to the floor you're in charge so no I think it's patently obvious there's no legislative purpose this is designed to get people they don't like and try to destroy CL Thomas if the senator will yield for one more question we heard some discussion about President earlier the chairman cited what he claimed to be a presedent I'm not clear that that's actually the the case but in other words that the Rule's been violated before and so now that sets a precedent for that action it becomes the norm so what limitation is there on the majority of the Judiciary Committee issuing subpoenas to private citizens for any purpose that they may please that's the heart of president that will be set correctly anybody we don't like for whatever reason we will begin to subpoena on a partisan uh basis the people I wanted to subpoena were involved in a corrupt investigation conducted by the Department of Justice called Crossfire hurricane the court rebuked uh the fisa court rebuke the Department of Justice and FBI lawyers for misleading the court here we have efforts to bring in two private citizens associated with Clarence Thomas there is no effort to go after other situations involving judges that may have done something untour so what we're doing now is using this committee as sort of a political Vendetta you don't like a couple of people who are active on the other side we're going to subin yeah and that would be the predent that would be set yeah I think so and uh I didn't do that Senator Grassley didn't do that we're actually worked together to issue subpoena for Tech CEOs Senator Graham would you yield for another question yes sir um I I I would appreciate if you Andor Senator Corin could could educate me here on on the uh the so-called prestent of subpoenaing private citizens let me give you an example I read recently where where the FBI um has announced that it is Prosecuting a prostitution ring here in uh um Washington and I understand may be New York I could have or New Jersey and uh the clients include prominent politicians and Generals and lobbyists and in order for the client to uh frequent this this uh brothel the client had to give his name his address his social security number his credit card um could we issue a subpoena for their names I'm sorry could you repeat it do I have to repeat the whole thing no I got I got the you got the BR part right yeah yeah I was wondering if you said they were subing me no no no no they're not yeah I mean under this pres will we be allowed to subpoena those names I don't know where we're going I guess Senator Kennedy uh I know that the subpoenas were issued in the past that I'm aware of involving uh oversight function of an investigation by Department of Justice I know we've worked together to issue subpoenas to get people before the committee in the tech business who we think the companies in question are doing a lot of harm to the country Leonard Leo and Haren Crow are very prominent conservative people and we're going after I mean you talk about Leonard Leo like where do you where do you get your judges from we get our judges from conservative people who make recommendations to us I mean where do you get your judges from you have liberal groups I'm sure recommending names this is really dangerous Senator Kennedy there two individuals been working one's been working committee for 4 months they want to know anybody you ever saw that ever got on a plane you ever met at at the gas station is beyond over Brad is chilling to me I have literally begged my colleagues please don't make me go down this road please don't make me have to fight back over this that is not going to advance any cause you have picked political people you want to please over the smooth and efficient operation of the Judiciary Committee you've made me and everybody on this side fight back because we believe what you're doing is politically motivated there's not an ounce of legisl purpose in these subpoenas cuz if you really gave a damn about legislation to fix the problem you would bring the bill up to the floor that has passed this committee so yeah this is really bad Senator Kennedy there is no limit to it I hope you're satisfied over there with the senator chair will reclaim the time chair reclaims the time I'm sorry Senator Kennedy but I have another question well I re I'm sure you have plenty of questions I recognize Senator Graham to tell the order of Republicans offering amendments I want to make one statement and then we'll proceed to ask it was a good question I I'm sure it's good all your questions are good keep in mind as we talk about the expanding the limit opportunity under subpoenas and whether we're going too far we have named two individuals who we've worked with for months trying to secure this information so let me tell you two individuals that's it in The subpoena so far and I will tell you this too contrast that with the Republicans unprecedented subpoena authorization in 2020 on CrossFire hurricane they provided the chair with a blanket authorization to subpoena more than 50 50 named persons and an unlimited number of unnamed persons so the sanctity of the subpoena obviously was not the major consideration at that moment can I ask you a question Senator Blackburn Senator Blackburn would you y for a question wait a minute Senator Blackburn Senator Kennedy Mr chairman can I respond to what you said of course because I'm the one that sought the subpoenas yes it's true we were trying to find out how in America the FBI could use Christopher Still's dosier that was full of lies and garbage to get warrants against American citizens we're trying to find out how Crossfire hurricane got off the rails to the point that the fisa court rebuked and issued sanctions against Department of Justice and FBI legal council for misrepresenting to the court the true nature of the facts this is a political effort by the radical left to destroy this court you have subpoena two prominent conservative people you have ignored other problems with the court that Senator Blackburn would like to bring up to the committee there's legislation you have passed before you did the subpoenas that would fix the problem why would you do the subpoenas after you pass legislation to fix the problem you have chosen not to bring the legislation to the floor because it's unconstitutional there is no legislative purpose here this is politics is raw politics it's dangerous politics and this committee is taking the country down a very dark and dangerous road that's the difference will you yield for a question yes first of all Mr chairman I uh Mr ranking member um isn't it true that um the committee requested 25 years worth of documents from Mr Crow and Mr Crow offered five years of those documents not withstanding the absence of a legislative purpose not withstanding the fact that he was under no obligation to do that that's correct isn't it also true Mr ranking member that on November 9th 2023 what's that uh three weeks ago today this very hearing our chairman our committee chairman said from this very seat quote it is within the power of the Chief Justice and his fellow justices to solve this problem before noon today and they should have done so a long time ago in other words he was conditioning it upon the Supreme Court issuing its own code of conduct which the Supreme Court has now done which I haven't heard anyone describe as inadequate insufficient wasn't that the entire condition precedent for this committee even considering that all I can say is this is not about Supreme Court

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

Views: 718,010

Keywords:

Id: 1unG-qBujbc

Length: 15min 6sec (906 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 01 2023