00:00In an effort to sustain the trust of the American people, it is our determination to proceed.
00:06Granting a request to stay these proceedings until the criminal case resolved
00:12in no way diminishes the importance of what this committee is doing.
00:18In no way does it take away this committee's ability to self-regulate
00:25or the House's ability to regulate the members.
00:28All of those things are still going to be here as soon as the criminal case is resolved.
00:35And if this committee were to defer and were to stay the hearing
00:41until after the criminal case was resolved,
00:44it would be doing so in support of the United States Constitution.
00:55Hearings like today's are very rare.
00:58As the committee often loses jurisdiction over respondents before this phase of the committee process.
01:05And the allegations before us are extremely serious.
01:09They not only concern an individual member's conduct,
01:13they also implicate the public's confidence in the House's integrity as an institution.
01:18And if proven, they would demonstrate that the representative violated, if proven,
01:25multiple House rules and federal statutes.
01:28The adjudicatory subcommittee is, of course, aware that the representative,
01:33Representative Scherfelis McCormick has been indicted on federal charges and a criminal trial is pending.
01:38We carefully considered her request to stay these proceedings pending the outcome of that criminal case.
01:47Yet we unanimously declined to do so, given our committee's independent mandate to self-regulate member conduct
01:56and the constitutional limitations the executive branch faces in investigating members of Congress.
02:02Inquiry to determine whether Representative Scherfelis McCormick conduct violated House rules.
02:10She is not guilty of these allegations.
02:13She's absolutely innocent.
02:15She's looking forward to being in criminal court in order to prove her innocence, which I'm confident she's going to
02:22be able to do.
02:26But she's in between a rock and a hard place right now when the committee says,
02:31well, give us all of your files and allow us to cross-examine you about everything that happened.
02:38Well, if she complies with that, if she engages in that process of turning everything over and speaking to the
02:46committee,
02:47everything she turns over, everything she says to the committee could potentially be used against her
02:52in a subsequent trial and a subsequent trial.
02:55I'm not saying it or investigative matters, regardless of the individuals involved or the surrounding circumstances.
03:04As we return from our deliberations, it is the decision of the subcommittee that the respondent's motion to reconsider is
03:15denied.
03:16We will then move forward at this point with the motion for summary judgment.
03:21I'd like to recognize the ranking member on the committee of ethics for an opening statement.
03:27Amen.
03:27The
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