Ranking Member Jamie Raskin opening remarks at antitrust subcommittee hearing

thank you very much uh Mr chairman and thank you to the ranking member of the subcommittee Mr Nadler uh and thank you to my colleague chairman Jordan and thanks to all of our Witnesses for being here with us today um I was surprised to hear my friend from Ohio uh talking about a a transgender comic book from I can't remember which country but uh if there's a form of government expenditure taking place that we have a problem with isn't that why the Cong Congressional over oversight function exists don't we have a whole oversight committee which you serve on which I've served on which can do that do we really need to hire a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk to go out and do it for us we're about to enter into a budget process right now we can deal with it ourselves Mr chairman last 22 days Donald Trump's billionaire government has taken a wrecking ball to public institutions in the rule of law in America they agent of chaos is Elon Musk a quote special government employee purportedly working on technological reform more crucially he's a big businessman whose floundering Tesla sales in Europe create huge financial pressures for him according to the business press even more crucially he's a government contractor who collects billions of federal taxpayer dollars every single year and yet has not filed a single employee ethics disclosure form as required by law he has access not only computers controlling his own billion doll payments from us the people but to computers containing his contractor Rivals contract bids their contracts their invoices and their payment systems yet he has not shown us a single conflict of interest waiver form for these multiple egregious apparent conflicts of interest he and his mutant teenage racist computer hackers have taken possession of financial payment systems at the United States Department of Treasury meaning data access to the private Private Financial records of every American citizen every member of Congress every Federal prosecutor every regulator who's supposed to be looking at what his business does every private lawyer and every federal judge who they're now calling for the impeachment of because they dare to speak up for the rule of law what could go wrong with this situation fortunately we do still have an article three a working Federal Judiciary which has issued no fewer than 12 injunctions in three weeks 12 temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions in three weeks against the illegality of this Arrangement including an Junction against any further unlawful seizure possession and Corruption of Americans private financial data now the Elon Musk cyber raid against our data and privacy infrastructure has set the stage for the administration's outrageous and unprecedent violation of congressional lawmaking and spending power that's what the first hearing of the subcommittee should be about Mr chairman the blatantly legal and quickly reversed freeze on billions of dollars in federal grants already appropriated by the United States Congress programmed by the agencies contracted for by government lawyers and in the proper pipeline for payment the flagrantly illegal efforts to not pay federal workers and honor our contracts for work already rendered to condition federal funds on totally madeup restrictions never voted on much less approved by Congress in the scandalous effort to dismantle and neutralize entire federal agencies like Noah usaid and the cfpb spitting in the face of congressional power enactments and Appropriations an Appropriations Act is a federal law like any other law like the law for example against violently assaulting federal police officers an Appropriations Act is not not a recommendation or a bargaining maneuver with executive branch it is a law it must be enforced this Administration needs a constitutional refresher course Mr chairman the Preamble of the Constitution says we the people in order to form a more perfect union establish justice ensure domestic tranquility provide for the common defense promote the general welfare and preserve to ourselves and our posterity the bless blessings of liberty do hereby ordain and establish the constitution of these United States and the very next sentence of the constitution establishes in article one the Congress of the United States possessing all of the legislative power some of my colleagues have taken and saying we're three co-equal branches I I beg to differ we're not three co-equal branches not at all first of all co-equal is not even a word right that's like extremely unique it doesn't mean anything so they're saying three equal branches I don't think so read James Madison The Federalist Papers Congress is the predominant Branch Congress is the lawmaking Branch it's Congress check out Article 1 Section 8 all of the powers we have to regulate commerce domestically and internationally to pass the budget to appropriate money Congress does that and then Article 1 Section 8 Clause 18 and all other powers necessary and proper to the execution of the foregoing powers and after all of that you get to four short paragraphs in Article 2 my friend Mr Jordan has been quoting the first sentence all over TV he thinks that that he somehow has a knockout argument he says the executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America yes indeed Mr Jordan that's where the executive power is vested but what is the executive power the core responsibility of the president of the United States is to take care that the laws are Faithfully executed right not defied not violated not trashed not Rewritten to take care that the laws are Faithfully executed which is precisely what's not happening today as they say oh well uh Elon Musk he's got all the power of the president Donald Trump himself could not be doing what Elon Musk is doing in Washington today he can't evaporate Aid he can't nullify the cfpb he can't destroy an agency set up by us on a bipartisan basis in Congress nobody in the executive branch has that yeah the president is on top of the executive branch but we're the lawmaking power and who sorts out the conflict if there's a conflict the courts do and what have the courts been saying they've they've said a dozen times in three weeks that they're violating the Constitution of the United States and the laws passed by Congress that's what's going on in America today that's what we should be having a hearing about not some Eerie academic uh conversation about the administrative State uh whatever they mean by that I yield back Mr chairman