Protecting Our Democracy Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, this bill does not look back.

Yes, we saw the abuses of Donald Trump over using the 1976 National Emergency Act in ways that it had never ever been used before to move money around to things because he couldn't get it appropriated through a Republican Senate and a Republican House. He couldn't get it done, so he moved the money around.

Anybody who works in the House of Representatives or the Senate should be insulted that you want to empower a President--what about if Joe Biden starts doing that? Don't you want to have these tools? Or any other future President of either party?

This isn't about Donald Trump. It is about the Trump era, which exposed things that need to be fixed, and this law does that.

Subpoena power--our subpoenas should be enforceable, whether they are from a Democratic Congress or a Republican Congress. They are not.

The Department of Justice needs to have a firewall between the White House and the Department of Justice. You can't have the President calling up the Department of Justice, telling them to prosecute people or make stuff up. Any President of any party shouldn't be able to do that.

Then the President embargoed, stopped money that Congress, a Republican Congress, had sent for Ukraine. Just stopped it. But apparently, on the other side of the aisle, they feel like their job is to be handmaidens in case Trump comes back.

They don't want to put in the protections now when Joe Biden is there, who they carry on about as abusive all the time. Why not put in the protections now? Because you want Donald Trump to be able to come back and continue these sorts of abuses.

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