we are going to confer afterwards. any other questions? >> [inaudible] to -- there are cameras everywhere. we will confer to see our next steps. is not our primary concern today. we will continue investigating others at the irs in making determinations of how we can -- you ask a question earlier, do you think she's going to testify? likely, butthan there is a possibility that given a federal judge's order, she would testify. we will have to consider all of those possibilities.

she had information is not willing to give it to us. thank you. >> today, what i wanted to make clear that from the very beginning, this has been an effort to blame the white house claiming the white house targeted political enemies of the president. irsave interviewed 38 employees. hundreds of thousands of pages of documents.

plus and counting in man-hours have been expended in addressing the various investigations in regard to -- still, there has not been any evidence whatsoever that there was political motivation in regards to these efforts. evidencehere been any with regard to the white house or having anything to do with what the irs was doing in this case. what i was trying to get to apparently, the attorney ms. lerner had said at some point he might be willing to give a proffer. it is basically an attorney

saying what his client would say. -- i wouldat least have loved to have heard the answers to those questions, too. but a proffer would have allowed democrats,to the listen to what the attorney would have said so we would have the least gather the information that the chairman was going after. does not stop them from moving on contempt. does not protect her, but it would have given us an opportunity to hear what the answers would have been. i want to get to the bottom of this, too. it has been more than nine months. i want you to be reminded that

a he was appointed by republican president said that in all of his work, he found no political motivation. he found no white house involvement in this whatsoever. that is what it was all about. i felt it was appropriate that the members of the democratic side have their say. as you can see, we were basically shut out completely. i continuously remind people that each one of us represent 700,000 people plus. we bring something to this table to and we want to make sure that we get to the truth. i am tired of cherry picking information, of sending a few lines from various transcripts. what we want is the truth.

that is all we want. we saw another example today. here we were ready to listen. our members wanted to hear from her. just for the ranking member to be able to make a statement and the chairman was well aware that i wanted to make a statement and answer the question. we are better than that. we are better country than that, we are a better committee than that and i said to the chairman on many occasions that when things like this happen it goes against the integrity of the committee. when we do not speak cultures and nothing but the truth and we cherry pick and he goes against the integrity of the committee. i remind you and as i close with this this is a committee of oversight and government reform. in order to reform you have to have all the facts. you cannot just leave out the fact.

if you do not like it including the ones that you do. it does not work that way. no committee should operate like that. we're better than that and hopefully we will move forward in a way where we are working together. >> [inaudible] >> you saw what happened. it was not bipartisan. not one member of the democratic side had an opportunity to say one scintilla, one syllable before the chairman. that is not bipartisan. when the negotiations were out, we were not invited to that. democrats were not invited to that. there was an issue this morning. the press got the report. we still do not have it. is that bipartisan?

no. >> have you heard anyone say shut it down. >> only in this committee. it has happened once or twice. >> chairman issa said this was not political, there is no politicalcp connection to this investigation. have you had any conversations with senior members about how this will play out? >> i have not. what we have done and i am out of my members of the committee. they have come here seeking the truth. we really do and i said this many times. it is important for us to make sure that government operates properly and operates effectively and efficiently and all of our members are determined to make that happen. no matter where the evidence

mainly let's go down that path. do not do the things i have seen issa do. if he does not like something he does not present it. the man who started this, the conservative public and who said this is not political. he was trying to figure out how to deal with the c4's. we hopefully will move forward from here but i wanted to make it clear as to what happened in there. thank you. i'm not going to get into this. i've been practicing law for 40 years. you see these kind of things but the thing we are determined is not to be distracted, to get to the truth. i see it as a distraction. i do not worry about disrespect. >> [inaudible] >> i do not.

based upon the experts we talked to, he is to be counsel for ethics, house counsel said [inaudible] when it comes to rights and think we have to be careful with people's rights. and keep in mind that before she came in the first time her lawyer sent a letter saying that she was going to take advantage of the fifth amendment rights. and then she came in and said the same thing. her intention was definitely to do that. there may be differing opinions but we felt comfortable and keep in mind, one of the things i asked for before we voted the last time was to bring in experts and let the committee

have the opportunity to hear from the experts. chairman isaiah refused that. i have to go, guys. >> as most of you know, chairman the committeen before any committee democrat had a chance to utter a single

syllable. the house rules say each member is supposed to get five minutes. chairman issa went on for about 15 minutes. when i sought recognition, he quickly adjourned the hearing, turned off my microphone, and refuse to allow me to make any statement or ask any questions. he cut off my microphone because he did not like what i had to say or what he thought i might say. his actions undermined the integrity of our committee and they prevent us from doing responsible and effective oversight. the question i wanted to ask was an attempt to help the committee's investigation. my question was about an offer from his learner's attorney to provide a proffer to the committee. i want that proffer. i wanted to hear what her

attorney would have said. i want that information. i think the entire committee is entitled to that information. i think the congresses. it does not give her immunity and it does not bind the committee. it could have given us some information the chairman was asking about yesterday. he asked ms. learner 10 questions. all of those could have been answered by a proffer from her attorney. we ended up not getting any information. not only were the chairman's actions and abuse of authority, they were counterproductive. house republicans have abandoned responsible oversight by declining to take basic investigative steps, promoting unnecessary political conflict, and making false claims about the white house.

he for the committee received any documents or interviewed any witnesses, the chairman claimed on national television that, this was a targeting of the president's political enemies. the problem is even inspector general russell george found no evidence of any white house involvement or political motivation. the committee has interviewed 38,000 employees who have said the same thing. there was no white house involvement or political motivation. an irs official in cincinnati, a self-identified conservative republican manager, told us the same thing. it is interesting that that gentleman has never been brought before the committee. it started with him. yet republicans remain fixated on falsely accusing the white house attorney and its political enemies in an attempt to reignite the partisan inquiry before the november elections.

this is only one example of the larger pattern of unsubstantiated claims in two weeks ago chairman issa claimed that former secretary of state hillary clinton told leon panetta to stand down after the attacks in benghazi. "the washington post" fact checker gave this four pinocchios. this past monday chairman issa went on national television and repeated these claims. the fact checker gave him four more pinocchios. i cannot keep up with all of his pinocchios. i understand house republicans have called it quits in terms of legislating any more this year.

the result is that all they have left with our records and abusive investigation. the result is that all they have left with our records and abusive investigation. this is a waste of resources and does nothing for the american people. we need to raise the minimum wage. we need to enhance the earned income tax credit. we need to ensure our citizens get health care. we need to do the work that the american people sent us to washington to do. now it gives me a privilege to introduce the chairman of the ways and means -- the ranking member of the ways and means committee, mr. levin. >> let me try to place this in context. as you know, the ways and means committee has had jurisdiction over this matter.

from the beginning it was clear what the republicans were after. there was zero evidence of political motivation. we have had five hearings in ways and means. $14 million has been spent by irs. so with no evidence what is going on here, the political motivation is not that of anybody but the republicans. i remember the first hearing we had. the chairman said there was a culture of cover-up. there was zero evidence of this. what is happening here is the republicans are determined to keep this issue of the irs alive as part of their twin strategy

attacking health care and essentially claiming without any foundation political motivation, trying to tie it to the white house. what happened yesterday -- and i saw, elijah, the tape on it -- i find it hard to believe except the history of the chairman. what happened yesterday was this political strategy of the republicans -- and i want to say let one last thing. i have been told when asked by some of you of the speaker what he thought, he said that the chairman was in his rights or something like that. that cannot be the protocol of this institution. when i saw darrell issa in action yesterday, i thought back

of all my years here, and i think he has brought this to an unbearable crescendo. it has to stop. a privileged resolution was filed today. i hope it can be brought up, and i hope the republicans will decide there is some waters' edge to politics. next will be another gentleman from michigan, the ranking member from judiciary, mr. conyers. >> thank you. you are almost as nice and polite as elijah cummings himself. i appreciate that. i am here merely to point out on the committee that i have been on longer than anybody else, on the judiciary committee.

it is beginning to show a little bit of partisanship. and one of the things that is disturbing to me is that we get bills that are clearly going nowhere, that the senate probably has a stack of bills from the house judiciary, the senate judiciary committee, in which they point out that they have no intention of taking them up. we keep sending them frequently tired old bills, limiting abortion rights, sometimes bashing immigrants, taking it

easy on corporate polluters and other wrongdoers. and we are considering even today another anti-regulatory bill that will force agencies to prioritize speed over safety. we are hoping that we can discontinue this democracy suspended business and urge our chairman to discontinue obstructing the legislative process and sometimes ignoring the priorities of the american people. thank you.

>> it is great to be here with my colleagues to talk about the serious issues. i think last fall during the 16-day government shutdown, you saw republicans suspend democracy in the entire house of representatives when they changed the rules in order to continue shutting down the government. what we saw yesterday was democracy being suspended in committees of the house of representatives. it was an incredible abuse of process, trying to shut down the ability of mr. cummings to make his statement, and we hope that we are not going to see a continuation of this throughout the house of representatives. it is unfortunate because as result of the antics and abuse

we saw from mr. issa, we are not able to focus on the things the american people want to be focused on. we were focused yesterday in the budget committee, trying to talk about the proposals the president has put forward to create more jobs in the country, to expand opportunities to more people in the country, and yet on the floor of the house we were voting for the 50th time to end the affordable care act and in the oversight and government affairs committee we saw an effort to shut down democracy in order to try to protect his failing narrative that republicans have about this political conspiracy coming out of the white house. they have not a shred of evidence. they're getting frustrated. instead of owning up to that failure, they are lashing out and engaging in abusive processes. the last thing i want to say is with respect to the irs issues, what republicans are deadly afraid of is that the public

will find out who is spending the millions and millions of dollars to try to influence elections around the country, what interests are trying to buy a congress that will help adopt policies to support those special interests. that goes to the core of the issue. this is not as republicans would have you believe about first amendment rights, the right to engage in political process. people can spend as much money in elections today as they want, period. the question is whether the public has a right to know who is financing those campaigns. and for some reason republicans are really afraid of letting the public know who is trying to spend gobs and gobs of money to influence these elections. that is their core concern, and,

again, as eight of the nine supreme court justices have said, transparency is important to accountability, and accountability is fundamental to our democracy. you see republicans simply trying to shut down and distant -- and suspend democracy in the house, and it is a sad day for the congress, and i now am pleased to introduce the terrific ranking member of the rules committee, louise slaughter. >> good morning. i am delighted to be here with my friends this morning. we have reached a boiling point. i want to say to you, because none of you are interested in what we are doing up here, that this is really an important piece of work. what is happened in this place week after week in the house is nothing short of legislative malpractice. the congress of the united states used to be the gold standard of legislatures. we were doing what we were doing to make this the most incredible country on earth.

now what are we doing? i want to give you numbers. i want to be brief. what happened yesterday to ranking member cummings -- this is the first time that the ranking members of gotten together to complain -- was so outrageous, demeaning, so awful in every respect that we just absolutely have reached the boiling point. if you pay any attention to rules, a powerful committee, i have been telling you for years here, that every week we are here the estimated cost of running the house of representatives in one week is $24 million. ok? the first 33 times that we voted to kill the health care bill, it took 80 hours of legislative work and cost about $48 million.

it has gone way beyond that now. what happened, you heard about the irs, was all the money that they have spent for nothing. because we do not do legislation that is intended to ever become law in this land, and i think secretly many of them are glad for that, because we come here, 435 of us are brought here every week to do what basically amounts to a press release. please pay some attention. the public needs to know. if you have a house of representatives that talks about nothing but cost, nothing but spending, it would take away food stamps, that thinks it is immoral to help with an employment insurance, but is throwing away money on useless legislative processes that go nowhere, and they have wanted to. now, last election, 1.4 million more people voted democrat than for republicans in the house.

half the population of the united states, their representatives, are not going to have amendments. whatever they may want on the bill is not going to be considered. you call that democracy? please think about what is happening here. we are going to come back next week and we are going to try again to humiliate the president of the united states, to try to insinuate that the man is a law breaker. we have sunk to such a low when it comes to legislation. yesterday, and i want everyone of you to have a piece of it, we put in the record, 50 pieces of legislation crying out for attention.

what we do the same thing over and over and over again. it has gotten to the point where we can stay home and somebody can just go in a room and put repeat on the record player and have it all over again. it is full of sound and fury meaning nothing. and they want it that way. for goodness' sake, every week it is let's destroy the epa. all regulation is bad, they say. all of the things we have worked for all these years so you can breathe clean air, eat safe food, all that means absolutely nothing. that is why we are here today. we have got to get the public aroused so the public knows what is happening here. nothing. nothing.

what i cannot understand, all of you who are so related, and i read you everyday day and i don't take my eyes off the news -- i haven't read a book in two years because i have to watch what you guys are doing all the time -- you never say a word about it and not a inc.. -- not a thing. you may say the most unproductive congress. think about the money that is being wasted here week after week to make that political statement. it is costing is not just in terms of infrastructure, education, health care, but what is costing to our self perspective and the way we look to the rest of the people in this world. i am so happy to be here today. i feel really liberated someone today. pension here. we need everybody to know exactly what is going on here. up, and our part, show we go through the motions.

but jefferson's manual is not a part of what we are doing here. you can fool some of the people all of the time. press paying attention to the government helps us not to be doing that. thank you very much. >> yesterday, he told me after the hearing whether chairman issa disrespected you, today, you're calling on him to apologize. and he said with your conduct you should be apologizing to him. >> i did not want to get caught up in the disrespect issue because i see much of this as a defection. it is what i said. i apologize for the fact that

chairman issa yesterday could have gone a proffer and failed to do so. we could have gone information. i apologize for our committee not addressing the issues of the american people. credit cardget fiasco. mortgage lenders who admitted they have failed the american people. hospitals, most of which in the united states have a shortage of life-saving drugs -- these are the kinds of issues that we ought to be dealing with. hold 25 hearings on the affordable care act. wouldn't -- i don't want to get caught up in that. this is not the first time, by the way, that chairman issa has shut mike's down. at some point, we have to have -- and my point in the committee theerday -- we have to have

quorum in these committees. and you cannot set out the minority party. basically what happened yesterday, chairman issa held a -- and thenthence shut it down before the democrats could have one syllable. there is absolutely something wrong with that picture and i would hope that speaker weiner would not want to have that situation -- speaker boehner would not want to have that situation. i cannot imagine that any of them, if they were chairpersons, shutting down the mike. i just can't imagine that your and i met what i said. it is un-american. it is unfair. and i reminded chairman issa that each one of my colleagues on the democratic side, we were also elected by 700,000 people. chairman issathat

had been negotiating with the attorney for ms. lerner. he didn't include us in that process, by the way. apparently, there was some efforts to -- the attorney was agreeing to do a proffer. for some reason, chairman issa shut that down. he did not accept of a proffer. simply efforts were to get to the point of getting a proffer from the attorney. the attorney would tell us what if she had said answered the question. again, he shut me down because he did not want to hear what i was saying or what he thought i would say. that is un-american. i'm sorry. yes. that thentioned republicans are saying that he is abusing his executive

authority. >> here is what happens. we get these worked over bills and i sometimes think that they write them in a basement room down here. no committee process whatever. often, we are called in for an emergency meeting to do something. as i said again, it is simply part of what the message is that they are turned to get to their base. but while they are doing that, and they could be doing that on their own time, the infrastructure in this country is falling apart. but that is what they are going to do. they will bring back these old bills. the constant haranguing of the president, i really thought the hadcle the other day that me trebly in parallel the same time, don't think that anybody could do that. maybe the wizard of oz. but it is part of the denigration of the presidency and i think it does us all a great deal of harm as well as the charade that goes on here that passes for legislature does

the same thing. >> the question to mr. cummings chairman issa meeting with republicans in canadian looking -- and moving forward potentially with contempt. did he talk to you at all about that? ,f he does go ahead and do that what will be the response from democrats? >> let me go back to with this gentleman asked. one of the things i came up yesterday that we found out while chairman issa was asking the questions of ms. lerner was that apparently they had betweenions and talks issa and her attorney. and they asked for a postponement. that is what we found out yesterday. a postponement. it sounded like she was willing to come forth in a week. for some reason, chairman issa would not grant that postponement.

is he afraid of what she might say? i'm not sure. the content is along,ed, you know, all what happened as her attorney, from the very beginning before the last hearing, he wrote was sent said that she was going to assert the fifth. she came in and made a statement and asserted the fifth. because she made that statement, she -- they claimed that she had waived it. think that her intention was to assert the fifth. our experts told us that she did not waive that right. so we stand by that. we don't think that she waived her fifth amendment rights. when somebody's attorney has saidthem, when they have it, it certainly shows an intent to do it. and basically we should not necessarily be in a gotcha kind of situation when it comes to the people's rights. or anybody's rights.

>> an irs official is taking the fifth amendment -- taking the fifth because of what she has to say. she is trying to take the fifth year. you are fighting over her taking the fifth. >> no, no, no. i practiced law for quite a few years. when it comes to the constitution, we all, you and everybody in this room, have a right against self-incrimination , period. any of us can assert that in the appropriate forum. asserted, she has a right to do that. that is the constitution. that's all i'm saying. you may argue with that and you way or another -- any way or another. as i said to my committee, i respect the constitution. without the constitution, i would not be standing here.

>> can you talk more about the four response to this? there was a resolution or something filed. privilege so -- privilege resolution was filed because of the abuse of process. by chairman i said. if this house of representatives is going to function as it should in a democracy, people have to abide by the rules. and rules are designed to ensure a democratic process. are designed- they to make sure all the people's views are represented. and when you violate those rules, you are locking up democracy and that is what happened. in order to make sure that we keep the norm of condit in the house of representatives, in order to protect the democratic process, it is really important to hold people accountable when they violate the rules.

you asked an earlier question about the president and the legislation. it was asked if it was on his authority. someder if there are members of the republican house who think the president exceeded his authority when he sworn in -- when he was sworn in as president of the united states. they have never accepted the fact that he is the president of the united states and there are members here who do not accept the fact that this is opposed to be a democratic is a tuition, the people's house -- democratic institution, the people's house. they have to play by the rules and protect democracy. what you saw yesterday was a complete violation of those rules. >> have you and chairman issa spoken directly one-on-one? >> i haven't talked to him. but i can tell you this. a number of the republican members in our committee have come up and said to me don't tell him.

i apologize. you shouldn't have been treated that way. a number of them, republicans on our committee. thank you. >> the house decided not to censure, simone issa. and housman cummings accepted his apology. a report on mr. cummings said, he hopes, as they move forward, that they will respect all the opinions of members of the committee and seek resolution instead of unnecessary conflict. true knee ofed the the irs over tea party groups. consideredley can be to be fi