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Collins statement on second special counsel’s report hearing

June 20, 2019

"I hoped the John Dean hearing was the end to the circus, because no matter how many times we 're-live' the findings of the report, the conclusions will not magically change. . . . Given the majority’s actions in preparing for this hearing, I fear we are once again turning this committee into a farce. The attorney general made the Mueller report public two months ago. We can all read it for ourselves. We all know what it says. The 'Lesson from the Mueller report' is no conspiracy."

WASHINGTON — Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, made the following opening statement today at the committee's second hearing on the special counsel’s report. Below are the remarks as prepared. Ranking Member Collins: Mr. Chairman, the title of this hearing is “Lessons from the Mueller report, Part II: Bipartisan Perspectives.” This hearing was pitched to us as a “second obstruction hearing,” and we, on very short notice, worked to find a witness to address Volume II. We were successful, and I am very happy Mr. Prikash is here. However, I’m concerned the majority’s witnesses may not be here to discuss Volume II, or to offer “bipartisan perspectives.” I am glad we are allegedly focusing on election security today, but I urge the majority to stop trying to re-do the Mueller investigation and hold a hearing promptly on election security. We don’t need theater. We don’t need John Dean, Part Two. As to the substance, I’d like to remind everyone: Democrats spent two years claiming the president was a Russian asset who conspired with the Kremlin to steal the election. The special counsel spent two years investigating whether the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia. Well, the special counsel finished his investigation and found no Americans, no one on the Trump campaign, conspired or coordinated with Russians. That was great news for America. I thought it would be great news to all Americans. To my surprise, it wasn’t. Democrats were not only disappointed, they were angry. Angry the president was not a Russian asset. Imagine disliking a president so much you wished he were a foreign agent. That’s where Democrats are today. Despite the Mueller report’s conclusion there was no conspiracy, Democrats have spent the past few months trying desperately to revive their Russia conspiracy theory. Democrats spent two years calling Mueller’s team the best of the best, but, since they didn’t like the outcome, Democrats now want to play prosecutor and re-do Mueller’s investigation. They launched their Mueller do-over when the chairman sent document requests to 81 individuals and entities connected to the president. The “81 investigation,” as I call it, was quickly abandoned in favor of Plan B. As Plan B, Democrats manufactured a fight with the attorney general. They issued a subpoena directing the attorney general to violate the law by producing grand jury material to Congress. Unsurprisingly, the attorney general declined to break the law. Rather than engage in the traditional accommodations process, the chairman held the attorney general in contempt in record time and on flimsy grounds. Did the chairman learn from that experience? No. The Democrats overplayed their hand again with Plan C, when they subpoenaed testimony and documents from former White House counsel Don McGahn. The Democrats subpoenaed McGahn knowing every president since at least the 1970s, including Presidents Clinton and Obama, claimed immunity over Congressional testimony from close presidential advisors. The Trump Administration, like Clinton and Obama, claimed immunity over McGahn’s testimony, and McGahn did not appear. When Plans A through C failed to accomplish anything of substance, Democrats decided to bring in the heavy artillery for Plan D. Was Plan D Mueller himself? No. That would make too much sense. Was it a pivot to focus on the actual findings of wrongdoing in the Mueller report related to foreign election interference? No. That would be too productive. How about focusing on real issues facing Americans like the border crisis? No, that would be too compassionate. Instead, Plan D was John Dean. Yes, the convicted felon from the Watergate scandal who has spent the past 40 years telling anyone who will pay him that anything that walks is worse than Watergate. You can guess how Plan D fared. It backfired. The Columbia Journalism Review ran the headline: “Democrats’ John Dean hearing is a flop.” Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty — no friend of the Trump Administration — wrote: Perhaps the best thing that could be said about the hearing was that no one repeated a stunt quite like the one that Rep. Steve Cohen pulled last month in that same room, when he ate from a bucket of chicken. The fact Democrats believed the American public would be energized by John Dean, who has done nothing relevant since the 1970s, shows how desperate and out of touch they’ve become. That desperation showed when, after the Dean hearing bombed, at least one member of this committee scolded MSNBC for ignoring the Dean hearing. I hoped the John Dean hearing was the end to the circus, because no matter how many times we “re-live” the findings of the report, the conclusions will not magically change. Instead, we are ignoring more pressing issues, but, as I said last week, our actions expose our real priorities. So what hearing did the chairman schedule for this week? “Mueller report, Part II: Bipartisan Perspectives.” Well, we know that’s not what we’re here to discuss. Given the majority’s actions in preparing for this hearing, I fear we are once again turning this committee into a farce. The attorney general made the Mueller report public two months ago. We can all read it for ourselves. We all know what it says. The “Lesson from the Mueller report” is no conspiracy. So, without further ado, let the show begin.