mr. rosen, mr. donahue, the answer to select committee questions for hours about the very same topics we would like to address. many others have done the same. there is nothing a stringer about congress seeking the testimony of a former executive branch official. the white house chief of staff is cooperating with our investigation. i have considered your clocks objections and rejected him. he was provided the opportunity to return to the deposition and he refused to do so. around 8:00 last evening, mr. clark's attorney read a letter to the committee. another in a long series of long letters stating that mr. clark now intends to assert his fifth amendment privilege against incriminating himself in this process. he offers no pacific basis for that search. he offers no facts that would allow the committee to consider it. mr. clark had the opportunity to assert this privilege in response to questions we intended to ask him in the november 5 deposition. he declined to do so. he walked out. this is a last

mr. rosen, mr. donahue, the -- and they answered the select committees questions for hours about the very same topics we would like to address. many others have done the same. there is nothing extraordinary [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] himself in this process. he offers no pacific basis for that search. he offers no facts that would allow the committee to consider it. mr. clark had the opportunity to assert this privilege in response to questions we intended to ask him in the november 5 deposition. he declined to do so. he walked out. this is a last-ditch attempt to delay the committee proceedings. however, for the minute privilege, even though mr. clark previously had the opportunity to make these names on the record, the select committee will provide him another chance to do so. i have informed mr. clark attorney that i am willing to convene another deposition if mr. clark with assert that p

mr. rosen daily: he was a 17-year-old radio man stationed at pearl harbor when he was woken by the sound of a japanese surprise attack. charlie immediately raced to the window of the ship where he saw a nearby hangar go up in a flume of flames. plume of flames. he grabbed a rifle and climbed on the roof where he and other volunteers started firing at the attacking planes. some of the first shots fired by americans in world war ii. his heroism and that of others on that day undoubtedly saved lives and their bravery and resolve should be commended. he served for nearly five years in the united states navy. charlie lives in montana and will be celebrating his the 8th birthday on -- 98th birthday on december 23. on behalf of all montanans and grateful nation, i thank him for his service and wish him an early happy birthday. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yield back. for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i re

mr. rosen, mr. donoghue. they answered the select committee's questions for hours about the very same topics we'd like to address with mr. clark. many others have done the same. and there's nothing extraordinary about congress seeking the testimony of a former-executive branch official. even the former-white house chief of staff is now cooperating with our investigation. as permitted by house rules, i considered mr. clark's objections and rejected them. the select committee provided him the opportunity to return to the deposition and he refused to do so. i want to note that around 8:00 last evening, mr. clark's attorney sent a letter to the committee. another, in a long series of long letters, stating that mr. clark now intends to assert his fifth amendment privilege against incriminating himself in this process. he offers no specific basis for that assertion. he offers no fact that would allow the committee to consider it. of course, mr. clark had the opportunity to assert this priv privilege and any other i

mr. rosen's instructions and doj policy according to the senate report, mr. trump who offered to appoint mr. clark acting attorney general. during a meeting on january 2nd, 2021, clark told rosen he might be persuaded to turn down the president's offer to have him replace rosen if rosen sent out the proposed letters. after he refused to send the letters, clark informed rosen on january 3rd that clark intended to accept the president's offer to replace rosen. doj leadership threatened to resign if the president appointed clark as acting ag and the plan to replace rosen and proceed with clark's efforts did not advance. so it was this threat of a mass resignation in this period these days before the insurrection. that stopped this from happening and it's another sort of sliding doors moment for me of how close we came. we came really close to a guy named jeffrey clark to being the acting ag. he wrote a letter on doj letterhead telling georgia to do what donald trump told ralphensburger to do, find the votes for him. at what point do we stop saying ah, coup plot,

sort of parallel track that ran parallel to mr. rosen and mr. donahue, who were on the phone with trump receiving orders to declare the election corrupt, meadows was running the clark operation at d.o.j., it would appear. >> meadows was doing everything. and, you know, nicolle, i think this is a moment where we need to step back and make sure people understand who mark meadows was at this time. you worked in the white house. you understand the role of the chief of staff. the chief of staff is the agent in charge the president's wishes. it is his job to do what the president wants him to do. and so what you are really seeing here in all these documents, that jump didn't want the military to respond to the capitol. trump told people to go to the capitol and fight. trump was trying to get people to overturn the election. and mark meadows was carrying out his wishes. and the idea that he is going to talk about this stuff in his book and he's going to give these documents to the committee, but then he's going to rest on some kind of privilege? privil

rosen, just declare the election corrupt and me and my allies will do the rest and mr. rosen. >> right. so, what -- >> and what would have happened if they had gone along with it? what would have happened if the department of justice had been mobilized? what would have happened if mike pence said, yes, sir, i'm not going to count those electoral votes. we've seen what the attempt looks like. we haven't seen what happens if there's no one to say "no" to the trumpists. >> you know, a.b., we spend a lot of time talking about liz cheney in the last hour and her seek and destroy mission to if not eradicate trumpism and the anti-democratic impulses from the republican party, at least name and shame them. it's amazing that as the committee gets their hands on more evidence of the egregious nature of the coup plot, that no more republicans come to the cause that liz cheney and adam kinzinger are fighting. what's your sense on why that is? >> yeah, it is really upsetting. i mean, i think that it's heartening that liz cheney and adam kinzinger, because of what they've learned in the in

mr. tester. ms. sinema. ms. rosen. mr. lujan. mr. hickenlooper. mr. warnock. mr. wicker, no. mr. thune, no by proxy. mr. blunt. no. mr. cruz, by proxy. miss fisher, mr. moran, no by proxy. mr. sullivan, no by sullivan, mrs. blackburn. mr. young. >> no by proxy. >> mr. lee, >> by proxy. mr. johnson. mrs. capito. mr. scott. miss lummis. miss cantwell. aye. >> thee are 14 the noes 14. the commit will report the tie vote to the floor of the senate. that conclude our markup for this morning. so we'll now turn to hearing -- again thank our colleagues for their attendance today. thank you for helping us get these important nominations filled. we look forward to working with all of them. now we will turn to our hearing this morning. our hearing is a very important set of nominees. i want to welcome them and their families to the dais. thank you so much for being here. first we will consider the nomination of gigi sohn to be commissioner of the federal communications commission. welcome to you and your family who i understand is joining you today. the pandemic demonstrates how essential b

mr. clark's acting attorney general. acting attorney general rosenevidence regarding these issues. and we have received evidence that others worked with mr. clark, we're aware of these plans. scott perry, introduced jeffrey clark, to former president, to donald, trump according to a report released in october by this judiciary committee. the committees chairman bennie thompson, his letter to congressman perry also states, we are aware, that you have multiple text and other communication with president trump's former chief of staff. regarding mr. clark. and we also have evidence indicating that in that timeframe, use and communications to the former chief of, staff using the encrypted signal app. yesterday, republican member of the select committee, congressman adam king zinger, said this about his republican colleagues. >> do you think, that some of your republican colleagues, bear direct responsibility, for that riot? >> it's possible, i'm not ready to kind of go to that point. yeah i want to let the facts dictate it. but i will tell you, after ther

mr. donahue from the rosen/trump conversation where trump says according to the verbate notes, just declare election corrupt, me and my allies will do the rest. they just wanted a designation. they new the d.o.j. wouldn't couldn't announce fraud and get evidence. because they knew they couldn't find any. rudy giuliani was getting laughed out of every court he walked into. he was "snl." "snl" was the reality. what do you think about where they are and what they will be able to do when as liz cheney said they have weeks and weeks of public hearings? >> i think that we haven't been able to see -- and it's really different from the impeachment hearings is that here you have a set of real insiders in that white house. and we don't know what snippets of conversations people heard. we don't know how they were engaged in the -- around the white house. and all of that is going to come out in these public hearings. so this is why i think it's really important. and i view this as very different. although i thought the impeachment hearings were serious and important, this is different because we have i

first people that went and told the story of the strain donald trump put on the law were jeffrey rosen and mry 6th. bill barr left. he said, i'm out. i don't know where this is heading but i'm out of here. they left it with these two. they testified before the senate judiciary committee even before testifying before the 1/6 committee. they've done both. but maya, to your point, this opinion came out about 35 minutes ago. i've been on the air the whole time but it's just been flagged for me how this ends and i want to read this to our viewers who frankly have gotten farther than i have. the opinion ends like this. for all the foregoing reasons, and as harry and others already described, they go through the extraordinary nature of the events, the branches, the role of this committee and the current president's privilege being what trumps any ex-president's claims to it and they write this. for all the foregoing reasons, former president trump has not shown that he is entitled to a preliminary injunction. we do not come to that conclusion lightly. the confidentiality of presidential communicatio

mr. chair. >> thank you thank you jacky rosen and i have a question for judge scott, as you know very high volume of cases and vacancies on the bench of created two considerable backlog of cases anything numbers of the committee would like to hear from each of you that if confirmed, how will you manage your caseload officially also ensuring that each person that comes before you has meaningful opportunity to be heard. we will start with judge scott and then than the next person, i would appreciate it. >> thank you and as you mentioned, the court, has quite and currently proximally 15 vacancies onpr a part and i suspect the moral, because of the retirements of my colleagues. and certainly the committee are scheduling these hearings on these nominees are being confirmed, will assist with the backup log and support and have more able bodies to deal with the issues and also the courthouse continue to operate in the pandemic, also in a court also handled virtually. and i'm happy to report that the jury trial another civil and other positions are being scheduled in myre perspective, this will certainly

rosen with us. important things for mark meadows. congresswoman cheney said the committee has received a number of extremely interesting nonprivileged documents from mr. meadows. you have some new reporting. tell us what this means, extremely interesting. >> extremely interesting -- let's remember he has handed over more than 6,000 pages of documents. voluntarily. no claim of privilege. so what i'm told is in there are text messages and emails from his personal phone and personal email. that's critical. these are not white house work phones where he might be able to claim privilege. and my source told me that, quote, what they're saying is that he's, quote, exchanges texts and emails with a wide range of individuals while the attack is under way. so people are texting him, and the committee now has this. who is mark meadows with? he's with donald trump at the white house. so likely what we're seeing here are people saying, what's the president doing? why isn't he doing anything? so these are critical, critical, realtime communications the committee now has. >> any more visibility on who he is texting with? >> we don't know yet. but a lot of people ha

mr. chairman, thank you. >> thank you senator blackburn and i want to thank senators rosen and hank and looper for their indulgence. >> thank you so much. it is great to serve alongside you on the subcommittee. covid-19 has put a strain on all of us and it has been particularly challenging to our health care systems. the one consequence of that is that it has forced advances in telemedicine that otherwise would have taken decades. in response to the pandemic, cms allowed telehealth flexibilities and encouraged medicaid programs to follow suit. so, this is some innovation that is a consequence of the challenge. this has allowed patients to remain in the safety of their homes while receiving care, it has allowed providers the safety to provide high-quality care and to be reimbursed for it. however, due to the politics of health care coverage in our country, medicaid non-expansion states like georgia have left some 4.4 million americans in the coverage gap. in the case of georgia, 500,000 georgians cannot access these services. that means georgians are forced to delay lifesaving treatment in the midst of a pandemic.

rosen: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the president pro tempore: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr.umer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, pursuant -- the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the following nomination, which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, united states agency for international development. atul atmaram gawande to be an assistant administrator. mr. schumer: madam president, pursuant to senate res. 27, the judiciary committee being tied on the question of reporting, i move to discharge the senate judiciary committee from further consideration of the nomination of holly a. thomas of california to be united states circuit judge for the ninth circuit from the judiciary committee. the presiding officer: under the provision s. res. 27, there will now be up to four hours of debate on the motion equally divided between the two leaders or their

mr. schumer: the send the cloture motion to the desk. the clerk: do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 567, jessica rosen worstle of account to be a member of the federal communications commission signed which 17 senators as follows. mr. schumer: the ask consents the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to legislation session. the presiding officer: those opposed to aye. those opposed, no. the motion is agreed to. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to executive session to consider executive calendar number 480. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor, aye. mr. schumer: aye. the presiding officer: the nos. the ayes have it. it the motion is agreed to. the clerk: nomination, national mediation board, deirdre hamilton of the district of columbia to be a member. mr. schumer: i send the cloture motion to the dervetion. the presiding officer: clerk will report. the clerk: we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provision of rule 22 do hereby move to bring to close executive calendar number 480, deirdre hamilto