Today, after  President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and subsequent remarks in Helsinki, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) motioned for the House Judiciary Committee to adjourn the current hearing on social media filtering and go into executive session, in order to discuss threats to our electoral process from Russia.

Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler’s remarks, as prepared, are below:

“Mr. Chairman, on July 10, 2001, the Phoenix Field Office of the FBI forwarded a memorandum to headquarters to advise the Bureau of an effort by Osama bin Laden to send associates to the United States to enroll in civil aviation courses.  In the words of former CIA Director George Tenet, “the system was blinking red.”

“For a host of complicated reasons, the Bush Administration did not follow up adequately, and two months later, on September 11, in my district, the World Trade Towers fell.

“Mr. Chairman, on Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted twelve Russian nationals for hacking into the DNC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and several state election systems.       

“This indictment is a remarkable piece of forensic work.  With the aid of the Intelligence Community, the Special Counsel can name the specific Russian military intelligence officers at the keyboard on a given day.  And, in the words of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats—a distinguished former Republican Senator and President Trump’s handpicked Director of National Intelligence—our digital infrastructure is “literally under attack” by the Russian government as we speak.

“Mr. Chairman, this latest indictment can surely be seen as the equivalent of the Phoenix Memo about 9/11.  It is a warning.  We must heed it.  Yesterday, in Helsinki, President Trump said he does not believe it.  He sided with Vladimir Putin over his own Intelligence Community.  And he continues to undermine American law enforcement, proclaiming on the world stage that our laws are meaningless, that the work of investigators has been worthless, and that no one should take the Special Counsel seriously.

“This is a catastrophe in the making.  If we do not take any action, the American people may not trust the outcome of the next election.     

“And instead of taking action in this Committee, instead of refuting the President with information you and I have both read, Mr. Chairman, we spent six more hours questioning Lisa Page about Cheryl Mills’s laptop and Hillary Clinton’s email.

“This is a national emergency and our silence is unacceptable.  Our nation is under attack. Accordingly, under Committee Rule III(b) and House Rule XI(g)(2)(A), I move that the Committee go into executive session for the purposes of discussing the evidence in our possession that speaks directly to the Special Counsel’s indictment and to the President’s apparent submission to the Russian government.”

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