Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Joe Neguse (D-Co 2)
“I rise today to sound an alarm about something dangerous and dark and pernicious that is happening inside our government. I recognize there are only a handful of my colleagues in the Chamber to hear that alarm. A few folks in the gallery. But I pray that Americans writ large will hear it.”
Washington, D.C. — Today, Colorado Congressman Joe Neguse delivered an address on the House Floor “Sounding the Alarm” for the American people about the rampant corruption of the Trump administration. The 41-year-old millennial lawmaker, who represents Western and Northern Colorado, addressed the Chamber and Americans writ large to expose the Trump administration’s pay-to-play self-enrichment schemes and demand that Congress vindicate the Constitution and put a stop to the President’s corruption.
Neguse called on his Republican colleagues specifically to stand up for hard-working American taxpayers and to confront President Trump and his inner circle’s reckless self-dealing. His closing remarks were interrupted by the Speaker Pro Tempore, but not before he delivered a grave warning from America’s Founding Fathers about the corrosive effects of corruption in government.
To see the full video of Congressman Neguse’s remarks, click HERE.
A full transcript of his remarks is available below.
NEGUSE: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to sound an alarm. To sound an alarm about something dangerous and dark and pernicious that is happening inside our government.
And I recognize there are only a handful of my colleagues in the Chamber to hear that alarm. A few folks in the gallery. But I pray that Americans writ large will hear it.
George Orwell, in his famous book 1984, wrote of a time when, “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
His warning proved prescient, because today the Trump administration asks the American people to ignore what they see with their own eyes and what they hear with their own ears, which is the complete corruption of their government from the inside out.
The Trump administration’s pay-to-play schemes are literally ripping off hard working American taxpayers as we speak. We see the evidence everywhere.
A $10 billion payout that Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America, now demands from his own Treasury Department in a lawsuit that he filed against the IRS. And, by the way, who does he demand pay him this $10 billion? The American taxpayer.
Countless pay-to-play schemes. Vanity projects that have consumed his administration. All paid by American taxpayers.
They are stripping the pocketbooks of Americans to line their own.
Last weekend, The New Yorker reported that the president and his family have raked in $4 billion in personal profits by leveraging the presidency. Think about that. $4 billion dollars.
And you know the most salient example of this, by the way, we just learned about in the last seven days. An exposé by the Wall Street Journal about a scheme that the Trump administration engaged in last year.
The Trump family, according to these public reports, sold a 49% stake in their crypto company to a member of the Emirati Royal Family. They did so for nearly half a billion dollars.
We don’t know every detail of this transaction. We do know that the Trump family received $187 million from that transaction. A payday entangling the president’s financial interests with a foreign country.
And months later, we know that the Trump administration approved a crypto deal with the UAE that included transferring advanced U.S. technology and AI chips.
Mr. Speaker, this is corruption, plain and simple.
It is the prioritization of personal profit over the national security interests of our country. The country we all love so dearly.
It is wrong. It is immoral.
And my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say nothing.
Worse. Some of them defend this conduct. Notwithstanding that they know it is unlawful, that it is violative of our Constitution.
We have an Emoluments Clause, Mr. Speaker, for a reason.
The Foreign Emoluments Clause in our Constitution was one of the few provisions to survive and be transferred from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution in 1787. It was contemplated for precisely a scenario as this one.
George Mason, one of our founding fathers, during the Constitutional Convention he warned his fellow delegates that, “If we do not provide against corruption, our government will soon be at an end.”
His words, they are as true today as they were when he said them 240-some-odd years ago.
It is shameful, the lack of courage from my Republican colleagues. It is repugnant to the Constitutional order that we all have been sworn to defend, to protect, to vindicate.
So, the question I have, Mr. Speaker, for my Republican colleagues, for every American of good faith is when is enough enough?
[Gavel bangs, interrupting. SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: The Gentleman’s time…]
How many sweetheart deals will Republicans refuse to defend?
The corruption must end, Mr. Speaker.
[SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE:…has expired.]
The corruption must end.
[SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: The Gentleman is no longer recognized.]
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