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Q: Did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi break the law by ripping up the presidents State of the Union address?

A: Legal experts have widely dismissed the idea that Pelosis copy of the address would be subject to a criminal statute cited by some conservatives.

Did Nancy Pelosi tear up an official copy of the speech at the State of the Union Address? Is she liable for any legal penalty?

While House Speaker Nancy Pelosis supporters praised her decision to publicly rip up her copy of President Donald Trumps State of the Union address at the end of his Feb. 4 speech, conservatives lambasted the act, calling it partisan and childish. But some, including the president himself, went further by alleging that the act was illegal.

First of all, its an official document, Trump told reporters. Youre not allowed its illegal what she did.

The claim that Pelosi violated federal law circulated widely on social media before Trump himself made the suggestion it was advanced by Charlie Kirk, of the prominent conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, and by Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, who called for an ethics investigation and said the act was a potential violation of law (18 USC 2071).

Readers asked us about the claim and about a viral story circulating online with the headline, Nancy Pelosi Fined $40K for Destruction of Government Property. That false story was first published on a website that calls its work satire.

Legal experts have widely dismissed the notion that federal prosecutors would try to apply the criminal statute cited by Gaetz which deals with concealment, removal, or mutilation of federal records to Pelosis ripping up a copy of the speech.

A saving grace of federal criminal law is that its applied by prosecutors, judges, and juries with common sense, Daniel Richman, a law professor at Columbia Law School, told us. Richman, who previously served as chief appellate attorney in the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York and was a legal adviser for former FBI Director James Comey, added: That approach makes it impossible to see the aggressive recycling of a non-unique document as anything more than that.

Similarly, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who served as an impeachment expert for House Republicans, concluded that it would not be considered a violation of the law.

The specific statute in question refers to someone who willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of anycourt of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of theUnited States.

I am not convinced that this is a covered document. The law does not prevent the destruction of any government document in any form. If so, we would have nothing but warehouses from sea to sea, Turley wrote on his blog.

Turley opined that the copy is a historic document worthy of preservation as one of two copies hand delivered by the President to the Vice President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives and that it should be preserved. But, he said, It is a copy and a court would likely decline to read the law broadly to find a violation on the margins of the defined covered conduct.

Another provision of the statute applies to the destruction of such records by those with custody of the records generally those considered having responsibility for their maintenance. Turley said Pelosi wouldnt be considered a custodian of the copy she received.

Some law professors also have argued that the First Amendment, or the U.S. Constitutions free speech or debate clause, could be further protection for Pelosi.

Its worth noting that the National Archives and Records Administration will preserve a copy of the speech from the White House.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) preserves and provides access to the permanent records of Federal Agencies and the President in accordance with laws and regulations that govern the disposition of those records, the agency said in a statement. NARA will receive the Presidents version for preservation as a permanent record in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.

NARA also said that while it holds the historical records of the House and Senate, those records remain the legal property of the respective Chambers [t]he rules governing those records are not determined by federal laws or overseen by NARA, but rather by each Chambers agreed upon rules. The agency said it does not have information about the record status of Speaker Pelosis copy of the speech.

The conflict reveals the fuzzy rules surrounding the Houses record status of the specific copy given to the speaker.

Turley, in his blog, said: I cannot find any source that stipulates the preservation of this document or even requires that it be given to the Speaker.

The day after the State of the Union address, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer debated the matter on the House floor. Hoyer argued that Pelosis conduct was protected by the First Amendment and McCarthy countered by saying Pelosi had no right to destroy this document. But the question of whether the specific, printed version of the speech given to the speaker constituted a document of the House went unanswered.

Gaetz, in a column on the website Townhall.com, argued that the signed versions handed to Vice President Mike Pence and Pelosi, as the leaders of the Senate and House respectively, are original documents that are not the personal property of the two recipients, but instead, the permanent record (and property) of the two chambers of Congress. When the document is received by the Speaker of the House, it becomes an official record of the House of Representatives.

We asked Gaetzs office to point us to documentation or evidence that stipulates that process and record-keeping protocol. His office told us that the information was relayed by Republican Rep. Mike Johnsons office and that Johnsons office gathered the information from officials in the House clerk and House parliamentarian offices.

A spokesperson for the House clerk, on the other hand, told us in a statement that the Congressional record of the State of the Union address is the transcribed remarks, as recorded by the Official Reporters of the House. The Clerk of the House has a duty to preserve documents transmitted to the Clerk, and a duty to publish the State of the Union address. The Clerk received the Presidents prepared State of the Union remarks electronically, which will be preserved for the National Archives.

Consistent with precedent and practice in prior Congresses, immediately after the Presidents address to the joint session of Congress, the House, without objection, ordered the Presidents remarks to be printed, the statement said. The Government Publishing Office has accordingly published the Presidents remarks as a presidential address before a joint session of Congress.

18 U.S. Code 2071. Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally. U.S. Code. Accessed 7 Feb 2020.

Gaetz, Matt (@RepMattGaetz). BREAKING: Im filing an ethics complaint against @SpeakerPelosi for destroying @realDonaldTrumps State of the Union speech. Her conduct was beneath the dignity of the House, and a potential violation of law (18 USC 2071). Nobody is above the law. She must be held accountable. Twitter. 5 Feb 2020.

Garvey, Todd. Understanding the Speech or Debate Clause. Congressional Research Service. 1 Dec 2017.

House of Representatives. Congressional Record. Vol. 166, No. 24. 5 Feb 2020.

Remarks by President Trump Before Marine One Departure. White House. 7 Feb 2020.

Richman, Daniel. Professor of law, Columbia Law School. Email to FactCheck.org. 10 Feb 2020.

Turley, Jonathan. No, Nancy Pelosi Did Not Violate Federal Law . . . Just Decades Of Tradition. JonathanTurley.org. 6 Feb 2020.

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Email sent to FactCheck.org. 7 Feb 2020.

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Pelosi, a Ripped Speech, and the Records Debate - FactCheck.org

NASA astronaut Christina Koch just spent 11 months in Earth orbit, and she'd welcome a trip much farther afield.

The U.S. space agency is working to land two astronauts, at least one of whom will be a woman, on the surface of the moon by 2024, as directed last year by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. NASA has not yet selected those two spaceflyers, but Koch said she'd definitely answer the call if her name came up.

"Of course, me or anyone in our [astronaut] office would be honored beyond measure to be a part of that mission," Koch said during a news conference on Wednesday (Feb. 12). "Any of us would be ready and honored to accept that mission if it were offered to us."

Photos: Astronaut Christina Koch returns to Earth after record spaceflight

Koch came back to Earth last Thursday (Feb. 6), wrapping up a historic 328-day mission aboard the International Space Station. No woman has ever served aboard the orbiting lab for a longer continuous stint, and Koch's mission came up just 12 days shy of the American single-spaceflight record, which Scott Kelly set in 2016.

These long-duration missions are designed to help NASA and the international human-spaceflight community prepare for trips to deep-space destinations, especially Mars, which is a six- to nine-month ride away from Earth using current propulsion technology.

NASA aims to put boots on the Red Planet sometime in the 2030s, and the agency plans to use the moon as a steppingstone on that epic journey. The 2024 lunar landing, which is part of NASA's Artemis program of moon exploration, is designed to advance this long-term vision.

Indeed, Artemis aims to establish a sustainable human presence on and around the moon by the late 2020s,a different goal than the flags-and-footprints approach of the Apollo program. This work, in turn, will enable the giant leap to Mars, NASA officials have said.

"It is certainly a very exciting time to be part of the NASA family, when we are looking to go back to the moon, to go in a different way to go to stay, to go for all and by all," Koch said. "So, it's a privilege to be here at this time."

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Will record-setting NASA astronaut Christina Koch be the 1st woman on the moon? - Space.com

Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Rep. David Kustoff greet supporters at Memphis International Airport on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2020.(Photo: Max Gersh / The Commercial Appeall)

One of Shelby County's congressmen didn't attend President Donald Trump's State of the Union this week. The other is condemning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for ripping up the president's speech after he finished.

In U.S. Reps. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, and David Kustoff, R-Germantown, the partisan divide over President Donald Trump is as apparent as it is anywhere.

After the speech, Pelosi ripped up Trump's address. And that prompted Kustoff to weigh in on Twitter Thursday.

Further coverage: Mike Pence said he came to Memphis 'to pay a debt of honor and respect' to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

TVA negotiations:TVA says it's not negotiating with Memphis. Here's its final offer.

"Speaker Pelosis actions at the #SOTU were disgraceful and deeply disrespectful to the American heroes honored in @realDonaldTrumps address. That is why I supported @RepKayGrangers resolution to condemn the Speakers shameful behavior. Her actions must be held accountable," Kustoff said.

U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, introduced the resolution on Wednesday. Kustoff's response to it fits the pattern of his responses to the extraordinary events unfolding in Washington. While Cohenhas sought to remove the president from officefor years, Kustoff, whose district includes parts of 13counties besides Shelby, has stood by Trump, like nearly all Republicans.

Cohen used a similar tone to describe why he was skipping the State of the Union.

"Iwill not be a witness to puffery and prevaricationflowing while our Constitution and our laws are disrespectfully and dangerously flouted.While I will always respect the officeof the President, its current inhabitantdemonstratesdaily thathe does not," Cohen said.

When the U.S.Senate voted to acquit the president and end his impeachment trial Wednesday, Kustoff tweeted, "I commend the Senate for acquitting@realDonaldTrump today and putting an end to this partisan endeavor. The fact is, President Trump did nothing wrong, and todays acquittal proves just that."

Cohen, on the other hand, though he has said conviction was unlikely for months, expressed disappointment and said voters should focus on removing Trump in November.

"His ignominious impeachment will always be the legacy of his reckless and lawless presidency," Cohen said."A bipartisan majority of Congress has voted to impeach or convict him, and thats a blemish on his record that the American public should consider in evaluating his remaining time in office."

Samuel Hardiman covers Memphis city government and politics for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by email at samuel.hardiman@commercialappeal.com.

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Shelby County's two congressmen have wildly different takes on Trump's acquittal, State of the Union - Commercial Appeal

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Vice President Mike Pence waves as he arrives at the 128th Air Refueling Wing near Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport on Air Force Two before President Donald Trump was to hold a campaign rally at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena in Milwaukee Jan. 14, 2019. Pence was expected to attend the rally with the president.(Photo: Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

MADISON - Vice President Mike Pence will speak to hundreds of students inside the Wisconsin State Capitol Tuesdayin what may be the first statehouse visit by a sitting vice president.

Pence will deliver a speech in the rotunda of the Capitol to as many as 700 Wisconsin studentswho attendprivate voucher and charter schools a rally meant to promote alternatives to traditional public schools that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said Monday he won't attend.

Pence's potentially unprecedented visit underscores the role Wisconsin will play in President Donald Trump's re-election bid and puts an issue in focus that has divided the Capitol for years.

Wisconsin is home to the nation's first private school voucher program launched in Milwaukee 30 years ago and to one of the most aggressive expansions of private school subsidies in recent years.

Republican lawmakers under former Gov. Scott Walker created three new voucher programs in the last decade, providing taxpayer-funded vouchers to 43,450 low- and middle-income students who want to attend private schools, arguing students who lack the financial means to move to a higher-performing school should be able to enroll in them anyway.

More than half of those students attend schools in Milwaukee.

Evers as state schools superintendent oversawthe state's 422 school districts and its private schools for 10 years beginning in 2009, just before GOP lawmakers expanded vouchers statewide.

In that time, Evers argued the state couldnot properlyfundits public schools while also expanding taxpayer-funded private voucher and charter school options without a funding increase for public schools.

RELATED: Evers says VP Mike Pence should be challenged on dairy crisis during his visit to Wisconsin

The debate over vouchers escalatedafter Walker and GOP lawmakers created a statewide program in 2013, and the vast majority of students who ended up receivingtaxpayer-funded subsidies to enroll in private schools were already attending them.

In his first budget, Evers proposed freezing or scaling back enrollment in the four voucher programs until lawmakers found a new way to fund public schools and vouchers for private schools. GOP lawmakers ultimately removed the proposal from the spending plan.

Now, Pence visits the Capitol to promote public school alternatives after expanding vouchers in Indiana when he was governor andas part of the Trump administration, which backs expanding public school alternatives to all students.

It's likely the first time a sitting vice president or president has likely been inside the Capitol building in its more than acentury of existence, according to Legislative Reference Bureau chief Rick Champagne.

Pence is visiting the Democratic stronghold of Madison but is addressing parents and supporters of school vouchers and charter schools an audience more friendly to the president.

Marquette University Law School poll director Charles Franklin said public opinion has generally been divided, but in 2015, a majority opposed eliminating limits on the voucher programs while in 2013 half of voters polled supported expanding the subsidies.

In 2019,polling showed 46% of registered voters polled opposed Evers' budget proposal to freeze enrollment in voucher schools and suspend creation of charter schools while 41% supported the idea. Thirteen percent weren't sure.

Contact Molly Beckat molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

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Mike Pence may be first from White House to visit Wisconsin statehouse - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Earlier today, as The Daily Wire noted, Vice President Mike Pence was in Jerusalem, Israel to attend the World Holocaust Forum. This years Forum is themed around the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis infamousAuschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Vice President Mike Pence delivered a stirring speech in Jerusalem before an audience that included world leaders and Holocaust survivors, vowing that never againshall the world allow the atrocities committed by the Nazis to be repeated, Fox News reported. Pence spoke on behalf of the United States, joined by leaders of more than 40 nations, at IsraelsYad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Pence, a devout Christian who previously served as Indiana governor and a U.S. congressman from the Hoosier State, is a longtime friend of the Jewish people and a staunch supporter of the Jewish state of Israel.

To look at Israel is to see that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob keeps his promises, Pence has said at the annual Christians United for Israel national convention. Like all of you, my passion for Israel springs from my Christian faith. The songs of the land and the people of Israel were the anthems of my youth. As for me and my house, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem and all who call her home. Its really the greatest privilege of my life to serve as Vice President to a President who cares so deeply for our most cherished ally.

Because the editors of The Daily Wire believe that the vice presidents remarks are particularly moving and deserve to be widely read, we are reproducing them in full (with hat tip to The Times of Israel):

President Rivlin, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Your Majesties, Presidents, Excellencies, honored survivors and distinguished guests: It is deeply humbling for me to stand before you today, on behalf of the American people, as we mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

On this occasion, here on Mount Herzl, we gather to fulfill a solemn obligation an obligation of remembrance: to never allow the memory of those who died in the Holocaust to be forgotten by anyone, anywhere in the world.

The word remember appears no fewer than 169 times in the Hebrew Bible for memory is the constant obligation of all generations.

And today we pause to remember what President Donald Trump rightly called the dark stain on human history the greatest evil ever perpetuated by man against man in the long catalogue of human crime.

The faces of a million and a half children reduced to smoke under a silent sky for the crime of having a single Jewish grandparent. The night Elie Wiesel called seven times sealed consumed the faith of so many then, and challenges the faith of so many still.

Today we remember what happens when the powerless cry for help and the powerful refuse to answer.

The towns name was Owicim. As part of their plan to destroy the very existence of Polish culture, the Nazis gave Polish towns German names. And this one they called Auschwitz.

When soldiers opened the gates of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, they found 7,000 half-starved, half-naked prisoners, hundreds of boxes of camp records that documented the greatest mass murder in history. Before the war was over, in its five years of existence, more than 1.1 million men, women, and children would perish at Auschwitz.

As my wife and I can attest firsthand, from this past year, one cannot walk the grounds of Auschwitz without being overcome with emotion and grief. One cannot see the piles of shoes, the gas chambers, the crematoriums, the lone boxcar facing the gate to the camp, and those grainy photographs of men, women, and children being sent to their deaths without asking: How could they?

Today we mourn with those who mourn and grieve with those who grieve. We remember the names and the faces and the promise of the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.

Today we also pay tribute to those who survived, who all these years have borne witness to that evil and have served mankind by their example.

And today we honor and remember the memory of all the Allied forces, including more than two million American soldiers, who left hearth and home, suffered appalling casualties, and freed a continent from the grip of tyranny.

And, finally, we pay tribute to the memory of those non-Jewish heroes who saved countless lives those the people of Israel call the righteous among the nations.

In an age of indifference, they acted. In an age of fear, they showed courage. And their memory and their example should kindle anew the flame of our hearts to do the same in our time.

We must be prepared to stand as they did against the wave of their times. We must be prepared to confront and expose the vile tide of anti-Semitism that is fueling hate and violence all across the world. And we must stand together.

In that same spirit, we must also stand strong against the leading state purveyor of anti-Semitism, against the one government in the world that denies the Holocaust as a matter of state policy and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. The world must stand strong against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

And, finally, we must have the courage to recognize all the leaders and all the nations that are gathered here that, today, we have the responsibility and the power to ensure that what we remember here today can never happen again.

Mr. Prime Minister, as we honor and remember the six million Jewish martyrs of the Holocaust, the world can only marvel at the faith and resilience of the Jewish people, who just three years after walking in the valley of the shadow of death, rose up from the ashes to reclaim a Jewish future and rebuild the Jewish State.

And Im proud to say, as Vice President of the United States, that the American people have been with you every step of the way since 1948. And so we will remain.

As President Trump declared in his historic visit to Jerusalem, the bond between our two peoples is woven together in the fabric of our hearts. And so it shall always be.

Today we remember not simply the liberation of Auschwitz but also the triumph of freedom a promise fulfilled, a people restored to their rightful place among the nations of the Earth. And we remember we remember the long night of that past, the survivors and the faces of those we lost, the heroes who stood against those evil times. And today we gather nearly 50 nations strong, here in Jerusalem, to say with one voice: Never again.

Through pogroms, persecutions, and expulsions in the ghettos, and finally, even through the death camps, the Jewish people clung to an ancient promise that He would never leave you or forsake you and that he would leave this people to inherit the land that he swore to your ancestors that he would give them.

And so, today, as we bear witness to the strength and the resilience and the faith of the Jewish people, so too we bear witness to Gods faithfulness to the Jewish people.

May the memory of the martyrs be enshrined in the hearts of all humanity for all time.

May God bless the Jewish people, the State of Israel, the United States, and all the nations gathered here.

And may He who creates peace in the heavens create peace for us and for all the world.

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Mike Pence At World Holocaust Forum: 'We Bear Witness To God's Faithfulness To The Jewish People' - The Daily Wire