Congressman Cohen Responds to Misleading Statements at a Hearing on Upholding Standards of Member Conduct

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), the Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, today responded to increasingly bellicose misstatements about the way he conducted a hearing on "The Constitutional Framework for Congress's Ability to Uphold Standards of Member Conduct" on Thursday. The occasionally contentious hearing was intended as an academic examination of the history of member discipline and expulsion and the procedures available to the U.S. House of Representatives in reviewing its members' conduct.

Congressman Cohen released this statement:

"The Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Mr. Jordan, knows that the Committee has rules for the use of video during a hearing. He did not provide our clerk with any notice – certainly not the required 48-hour notice -- and therefore was not permitted to share his video. I'll note that this is not the first time that the Ranking Member has tried to break the rules and get cute with a last-minute video presentation, attempting to jam in his ‘evidence' and then screaming about ‘censorship' when he is turned down. If he is actually interested in showing video in the hearing room, he can abide by the protocols that were set in place under a Republican chairman and have been observed ever since. If he is not, some might accuse Mr. Jordan of being more interested in theatrics than the work of the Committee.

"As for his mischaracterization of my statement that I saw Congresswoman Boebert leading a tour days before the January 6 attack on the Capitol, he is either ill-informed or needs to revisit the source material to correct his assertions. A careful reading of the CNN interview transcript would show that I said the tour could have been the entirely innocuous exercise of a newly sworn-in freshman Member. His attempt to politicize Thursday's hearing with his outrageous assertions undermined the subcommittee's intent to conduct a needed academic review of standards of Member conduct."