Raising A Question of the Privileges of the House

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I opposed the original version of this resolution, not to defend Mr. Schiff's lies, but to defend the process that exposed those lies. We must never punish speech in this House, only acts. The only way to separate truth from falsehoods or wisdom from folly is free and open debate. We must never impose excessive fines that would effectively replace the constitutional two-thirds vote for expulsion with a simple majority.

This new version removes the fine and focuses instead on specific acts, most particularly the abuse of his position as Intelligence Committee chairman by implying he had access to classified information that did not exist and his placement into the Congressional Record of the Steele dossier that he knew or should have known was false.

I hope, however, that we will hereafter return to the principles of due process that the Democrats stripped from our precedents in the last session.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source