ben bradshaw raised mr cummings‘ role as head of vote leave.omeone who based the whole of their brexit campaign on the sovereignty of this place has treated this place with such contempt? and as the honourable gentleman says, there have to be proper sanctions involved with the contempt of this seriousness. thank you, mr deputy speaker. ijust want to say we had a very good discussion about this at the liaison committee, and i would agree with my right honourable friend there is a supreme irony here that the mastermind of the leave campaign, whose sole goal was about taking back control, is actually turning his back on this place in a show of arrogance and contempt that cannot go on marked and unpunished. the commons passed a motion, without a vote, to refer mr cummings to the committee of privileges. you're watching thursday in parliament, with me, alicia mccarthy. a parliamentary committee on climate change has told the government to act faster to cut carbon dioxide emissions. led by the former conservative environment secretary, john gummer, n

mr. cummings. mr. cummings: i want to thank the gentleman for yielding. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for four minutes. mr. cummings: for yielding me this time. mr. speaker, i oppose this rule. this week the house is considering dozens of bills to combat the opioid epidemic. these are small, bipartisan bills that we all support, but they are simply not enough. our country is in the midst of the greatest public health emergency in decades. we have all heard the grim statistics so i won't repeat them. yet none of the bills we're considering this week provide he dedicated and sustained resources we need to combat this crisis. president trump's own counsel of economic advisors found that the opioid crisis rightly cost our nation more than $500 billion in just one year. we could not just nibble around the edges. could not just rearrange the deck chairs on the titanic. we must treat the opioid epidemic like the true public health emergency that it is. i offered an amendment that could have changed this, but the house is not being allowed

mr. cummings: mr. speaker, in closing i must point out that my republican colleagues say they want to address the opioid crisis. they are standing silent as the trump administration actively tries to destroy the affordable care act's protections for people with pre-existing conditions, which is, by the way, includes substance use disorders. if we aren't going to take expand accesss to adigs -- additional treatment, at least we should all agree that we shouldn't rolled back protection that is prevent insurance companies from discriminating against people with substance use disorders. therefore, we should all be working to protect the affordable care act from the trump administration's efforts-e effort to destroy -- effort to destroy the etension protection it is provides. again, remind all of that that ondcp is a very important entity . and it has a job to do. it must be properly funded. and a lot of people when they give statistics about opioids and drugs, mr. speaker, they find themselves speaking abo

mr. schumer: thank you, congressman cummings. we'll take questions on this subject. reporter: -- \[inaudible] -- the president point to this report and say, look, james comey clearly violated protocol multiple times. i was completely justified in firing him. mr. schumer: the bottom line is the president said he fired him because of the russian investigation, on an interview with nbc. so, that speaks for itself. reporter: -- \[inaudible] -- concerned about the fact that the justice department waited until today to disclose the newly revealed text messages in which they talk about stopping donald trump, strzok said in that message, you know, saying we'll stop, it referring to trump becoming president. are you at all concerned about the conduct of peter strzok and these messages? mr. schumer: it's knot nothing new in this report -- it's nothing new in this report. strzok has made many bad comments and it led director mueller to remove him from his investigation as soon as those came out. i believe it was last february. several months ago. mr. nadler: the report finds, an

mr. cummings can have the amount of time he thinks is necessary, the other can have five minutes. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. first i want to thank you for your work and all of the ig's. both sides of the aisle have been impressed with their efforts, to staff, i thank you. i want you to focus on whether secretary clinton received a some of my colleagues put it, special treatment from the fbi and the doj? >> on the decision not to prosecute secretary clayton yuri court found that you found no evidence by the conclusion of the prosecutors were affected by biased or other improper considerations. rather, we determined they were based on the prosecutors assessment of the facts, the law, and past apartment practice. we want the justice department officials to make their decisions based on the facts, the law in the past apartment practices. practices. they interpreted the law to secretary clinton that was consistent with the departments approach including leadership in the 2008 decision not to prosecute former attorney general alberto gonzales. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> tha

mr. cummings. hold on a second, judge. i think we've got the sound bite from trey gowdy.t should conjure anger, disappointment and sadness in everyone who reads it. this i.g. report lays bare the bias, the animus, the prejudging of facts by senior fbi agents and senior attorneys. and attempts to minimize and mitigate this bias are so antinet call to what we want and deserve in our law enforcement officers. >> he is commenting directly on inspector general horowitz's testimony and trekker wray's testimony -- director wray's testimony yesterday. chris wray, the fbi director, was scorched by senator orrin hatch, a fellow republican, for attempting to minimize the bias in the fbi bay saying it was -- by saying it was a dozen people and we have 37,000 employees. and hatch was outraged, what do you mean it was a dozen people? it was the dozen people running the fbi. stuart: exactly. >> that is what trey gowdy was talking about. chris wray's not testifying today, it's just michael horowitz. stuart: okay. i want to get back to this kansas city id thing. a federal judge struck dow

mr. cummings can have the amount of time he thinks is necessary. ave five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. first of all i want to thank you mr. horowitz for your work and i want to thank all of the i.g.s. we have always been both sides of the aisle impressed with your efforts and to your staff. i thank you. mr. horowitz, i want to focus on whether secretary clinton received, as some of my colleagues put it, special treatment from the f.b.i. and d.o.j. on the decision not to prosecute secretary clinton, your report found, and i quote, we found no evidence that the conclusions by the prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations, rather we determined that they were based on the prosecutors' assessment of the facts, the law, and past department practice. we want justice department officials to make their decisions based on the facts, the law, and the past department practices. is that accurate? >> that's correct. >> your report also concluded the f.b.i. team interpreted and applied the law to secretary clinton in a wa

mr. cummings can have the amount of time he thinks is necessary, the other members will have five minutes. gentleman from maryland. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. first of all i want to thank you, mr. horowitz for your work and i want to thank all of the i.g.s. we have always been both sides of the aisle impressed with your efforts and i -- and to your staff i thank you. mr. horowitz, i want to focus on whether secretary clinton received as some of my colleagues put it, special treatment, from the fbi and the doj. on the decision not to prosecute secretary clinton, your report found and i, quote, we found no evidence that the conclusions by the prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper considerations, rather we determined that they were based on the prosecutor's assessment of the facts, the law, and past department practice. we want justice department officials to make their decisions based on the facts, the law, and the past department practices. isn't that a correct -- is that accurate? >> that's correct. >> and your report also concluded that the fbi team interpreted a

mr. horowitz, has been roundly praised by republicans, like trey gowdy, democrats, like elijah cummings,alled him professional, fair, fact centric and even handed. he worked under the bush administration, the obama administration. given all of that, this is still going to be spun always to sunday politically, right? >> yes, it is going to be political and if the president is happy with the report, he'll join in the chorus that horowitz is undoubtedly the fairest person that could have done this and you can be sure if some of his conclusions are against mr. trump's theory about what went down, horowitz will be denounced. so it is very, very political, comey will come up in it, mccabe will come up in it, just -- it is really going to be a comprehensive look at what happened during the election. so i think a very important document. >> interesting to note that horowitz did briefly overlap with comey while they were both working in the federal prosecutor's office in manhattan. how does that weigh in here? >> i don't think it weighs in. the reason i say that, poppy, an inspector general, by t

mr. horowitz, you are recognized for your opening statement. >> great. thank you. chairman gowdy and goodlatte, and thank you ranking members cummings and nadler and members of the committee. thank you for inviting me to testify today regarding the report we released last week. our 500-page-plus report provides a thorough, comprehensive, and objective recitation of the facts related to the department's and the fbi's handling of the clinton e-mail investigation. it was the product of 17 months of investigative work by a dedicated oig team that reviewed well over 1.2 million documents and interviewed more than 100 witnesses, many on multiple occasions. the review team followed the evidence wherever it led. and through their efforts, we identified the inappropriate text and instant messages discussed in the report. additionally, the oig's painstaking forensic examinations recovered thousands of text messages that otherwise would have been lost or been undisclosed. as detailed in our report, we found that the inappropriate political messages that we uncovered cast a cloud over the midyear investigation, sewed doubt about the credibility

mr. chairman, we need you, those children need you. i'm talking directly to my republican colleagues. we need you to stand up to president trump. >> katie: that was house top democrat elijah cummings getting emotional as the demonstration defends a policy that has resulted in thousands of children being separated from their parents. the president who will huddle with house republicans later today tweeting "democrats are the problem. they don't care about crime no matter how bad they may be. to pour into an investor country like ms-13. they can't win other terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters. homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen said it's their job to enforce existing laws and the congress is job to fix this. >> here's the bottom line, dhs is no longer ignoring the law. we are enforcing the laws as they exist on the books. as long as illegal entry remains a criminal offense, dhs will not look the other way. this entire crisis just to be clear is not new. it's been occurring and expanded over many decades. but currently, it is the exclusive product of loopholes in our federal immigration laws that prevent illegal immigrant minors and family members from

mr banks told mps that many of the stories that had appeared about the leave campaign were myths. it's quite interesting, go to dominic cummingsastrophysicists on the west coast. i think this isjust astrophysicists on the west coast. i think this is just nonsense. there's a lot of mess around some of these things. that's one of my big issues with some of the committee taking witnesses and the evidence given and thenit witnesses and the evidence given and then it turns into almost fact. a decision by spain to take in a migrant rescue vessel stranded in the mediterranean has been hailed by the italian interior minister as a victory for his government's immigration policy. italy and malta had both refused to allow the rescue ship aquarius, which was carrying more than 600 migrants, to dock at any of their ports. it's now been decided that the migrants will be transferred to other vessels before being taken to spain. mothers who decide not to breastfeed shouldn't be made to feel guilty, according to new advice from the royal college of midwives. the guidelines say that if a woman decides to bottle feed then her choice must be resp