america that the american people deserve and we have to get our country back on track and with that i will yield. >> did the committee subpoena hunter biden today? >> the chair recognizes pursuant to the order at the request of the minority witnessed the chair declares the committee in recess for ten minutes, then we will come back and may have to recess again for a vote. conditioned $

billion of american tax money on the firing of the prosecutor pressuring the company hunter biden sat on the board of. by the way was getting paid $1 million a year. today we will learn about that

brand. >> the american people are tired of this charade and as i said before my republican colleagues are some fully grasping at straws. while they worked to cut costs of prescription drugs and expand student loan forgiveness and mitigate the threat of gun violence, republican members of congress continue to chase after russian disinformation campaigns from the 2020 election which have been thoroughly debunked again and again. and, as usual, in this committee, we do know who is in charge. it is the bond list, broke bluffer twice impeached and four times indicted and insurrection initiator, election denying self-declared dictator on day one and puppet for putin. the one who wants to terminate

the constitution and defund the fbi. the one who romanticized exchanging letters with the north korean dictator kim jong- un, the one who just last week embraced the autocrat and hungry to discuss diabolical plans to destroy our democracy and the one who proposed a policy to ban muslims from this country and the one who just this week said any jewish person who votes for democrat hates the religion and israel. the one who called neo-nazis carrying tiki torches good people in the one who referred to african nations as i quote countries and the one who called nfl players names about brutality that continues to evade or justice systems and the one who called mexicans

those and the one who told women of color born in the united states elected to congress in serving on this very committee to go back to their own countries and the one who bragged about grabbing women by their private parts. the one who confused his victim whom he claimed wasn't his type for his very own ex-wife and the one who is an admitted and committed adulterer who attempted to pay off a star for her silence . the one who is public we mocked people all with disabilities. the one who dodged the draft and referred to prisoners of war as losers, the very people who paid a high price so we could enjoy the freedoms that far too many of us take for granted and the one who boasted about being able to stand in the middle of fifth avenue to shoot somebody and not lose votes. the one who promoted political and physical violence multiple times including, most recently at my rally in the home state of ohio where he declared there would be a bloodbath if he

didn't win. the one who intentionally denied covid was deadly and eventually suggested testing injecting bleach into our bodies to kill the respiratory virus that took the lives of 1 million people in the united states. the one who ordered his son-in- law get top secret security clearance overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials, who, according to this committee's chairman, admitted the former presidents son-in-law crossed the line of ethics by accepting a $2 billion investment into that very same son-in-law's fledgling firm only six months after leaving the white house. if any of this sounds crazy, it is because it is. this may sound unbelievable, but it is all true. these are facts, indisputable facts, a thing that is known and proven to be true.

this may be a foreign concept to some of my colleagues, but for those of us who still have a relationship with the truth, please note this is not in exhaustive list of inappropriate and unethical and questionable behavior by the maniacal manipulator of mar lago because i could go on, but i only have five minutes. yet here we are again trying to make sense out of nonsense and i would humbly respectfully ask my republican colleagues on this committee to stop falling over yourselves to win the approval of one because millions of people are depending on you to defend our delicate democracy. with that i yield the remainder of my time to the ranking member. >> i don't know if there is much time left but thank you for that eloquent and compressed recitation of some of what we have lived with over the last few years. >> we recognize the gentleman from kansas. >> i want to talk about me and 2017 and to be clear hunter biden was doing business with

them while his dad was vice president and are you aware of that? >> yes. >> rob walker told us that before the committee. i want to talk to you about your meeting with joe biden, hunter biden and jim biden in may 2017 with other members bringing up the meeting you had at the beverly hilton the night before that conference, but i want to talk about the next day when you went as his guest to that conference. you did watch joe biden deliver a speech and then you had a follow-up conversation with them, correct? >> correct. >> what did he tell you during that conversation? >> as i have already publicly shared, i was brought backstage by his team because he had just given his keynote and we just exchanged pleasantries and i walked him out to his car and he specifically thanked me for the work i was doing with his son and brother and asked me to keep an eye on them. >> my understanding is that after joe biden left, you went across the street to the

peninsula hotel and had a long conversation with his brother jim biden? correct? >> i did. >> it's my understanding you asked him how they did the business while joe biden was a political figure in what was his response? >> correct. i was concerned and asking from a position of concern and gym biden's -- jim biden's response was plausible deniability. >> he would be kept in the loop but you couldn't talk about it especially in writing? during your transcribed interview with the committees you set a very interesting phrase, say it, forget it, regret it and does this sound familiar? is this consistent with your understanding of how the bidens do business? >> very much so. yes. >> but it does look like somebody made a mistake. mr. bobulinski, you created two companies of the bidens and i want to show you an infamous email discussing the ownership structure of one of these countries. and you can see on the screen

20% 20% 20%. who is the big guy in this? >> the big guy is 100% joe biden. >> hunter biden didn't respond by saying, knock it off and we can't include him, did he? >> no. that is a critical point. >> did you ever get a text message or group text message or anything like that saying, guys, knock it off, joe biden isn't involved in this deal? >> no. the whistleblowers have a text exchange where they talk about everything else but that and the reason why they weren't talking about it is because everybody knew joe biden was the big guy. >> hunter biden begged for a public hearing, but it turns out he is too afraid of accountability to show up and tell the truth to the american people. but americans don't need his

testimony to know they are being gas lit by this president. it is blatantly obvious to anybody paying attention that joe biden is the big guy and the cefc deal broke the rule of the biden family businesses and they are now trying to cover it up. joe biden said repeatedly that his family never made a dime from china. but mr. bobulinski just confirmed that hunter, jim, and the big guy himself all got a cut from that cefc china energy deal. let me be clear. the only service the biden family ever provided was their ability to leverage the office of the vice president of the united states to cash and overseas. my democratic colleagues are going to try to tell you that joe biden wasn't on the final ownership structure agreement. but isn't it true that if somebody were holding joe biden's part in the company it wouldn't appear in the document? isn't that the point of this email the hold joe biden's part

so his name wouldn't be in the document? isn't this plausible deniability and action? >> it appears that way. >> plausible deniability only gets you so far. i will fast-forward from may until the end of july 2017 when they cut you out of the deal. i will show you a message that hunter sent to his business partners and put it on the screen. he writes, "i am sitting here with my father. and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled." so when hunter biden is desperate for money, the old trick of jim biden of plausible deniability doesn't cut it. when desperate times call for desperate measures, hunter biden let the cat out of the bad -- bag and said the quiet part out loud and gave the game away by calling on his father to help him shake down his chinese business partners for the money. and it worked. mr. chairman, i yield back.

>> a point of inquiry. what was the last image we saw that you put up? where did that come from? i want to authenticate that. >> this is the ways and means committee exhibit 300. >> the chair recognizes the last question. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome to the gop's day long campaign for donald trump. i want to start with mr. galanis to connect some dots that haven't been connected in this hearing. you are serving just under 16 years among other things for what has been said today, defrauding a tribal nation and specifically a tribal corporation held by this tribe which is why you are testifying from a prison today. i would like to ask you, mr. galanis, have you had an attorney representing you

before this committee from last december and that attorney's name is mr. mark pel letter? correct? >> that is correct. >> when you first testified before this committee in a taped interview, you're actually stopped by him from answering just a simple question about how you met him and who exactly was paying your legal fees. i do want to make sure the american people understand exactly who he is because he is in fact a former lawyer to donald trump who served in the administration and the office of management and budget and was at the center of the ukrainian pressure campaign for which donald trump was impeached and he was the chief lawyer when he withheld aid to ukraine to try to extort the ukrainian government into investigating him to support donald trump's campaign and

literally he wrote that memo to help withhold those funds and i want to dig in on this pressure campaign and he is here to discuss is an eyewitness and we do appreciate your being here and i will move through this quickly so ask for simple yes and no answers. you testified today that donald trump repeatedly asked you and through rudy giuliani to put pressure on the ukrainian government to dig up dirt on joe biden to support his campaign, correct? 's >> 100%, yes. >> as you see here you are very much a business associate of rudy giuliani during this time and as established in your testimony you traveled to and met with the ukrainian officials and told them that the white house would support or withhold support in aid to ukraine if it didn't cooperate with this bribery essentially?

>> correct. >> donald trump's administration and specifically the office of management and budget did withhold that foreign aid in 2019. and here is the guy who did it. he is representing the witness who is literally on zoom with us for this committee today. it is the reason why donald trump was impeached the first time. and the man at the center of that scheme is involved in the house gop's inquiry. i also want to point out that mr. paoletta is very much in bed with the thomases and in fact he represented clarence thomas's wife and her involvement in the stop this deal before the january 6 committee and actually also goes on vacation with mr. harlan crow in the thomases. this man has an interesting roster and participation in this hearing. but the bigger picture here is

that the presence of mr. paoletta is another indication of the way in this hearing and this impeachment inquiry is part of donald trump's larger misinformation campaign, just like it was in 2020, where in addition to pressuring and withholding aid to ukraine, rudy giuliani in the trump organization as was established by mr. parnas, planted a story in the media. and now here we are four years later as they have dredged it back up and planting it back in the media using congress and using this committee and using a baseless impeachment supported by donald trump's own allies on this committee to push that information out. as members on this committee have trafficked false evidence planted by a russian operative to the fbi and is now in jail

for that. all of this is in the service of propping up the criminal enterprise for which donald trump is at the top and has already been twice impeached, and rudy giuliani and others have been exposed as they continue to traffic in russian disinformation that not only props up donald trump but props up vladamir putin himself and his goals back in russia and in the ukraine. i do just want to point out that, once again, as i said, when we had the false impeachment hearing a few months ago, that, once again -- >> time is expired. >> we have the hands of donald trump all of this hearing. >> just to state that you did make a mistake and said mr. -- mr. parnas was a republican witness and he is very much your witness. >> but i was a republican for