The panel’s chairman said Wednesday that the records are crucial to determining whether StemExpress is illegally profiting from the fetal tissue trade. The company has said it loses money on those transactions.

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“The panel is entitled to this information so we can answer the question. … Did companies improperly profit?” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). “A subpoena is not a suggestion. It is a lawful order, and a subpoena is to be complied with.”

Democrats, who opposed the panel’s creation and have called for its shuttering, renewed their objections to the Republican inquiry at the Wednesday meeting. They raised several procedural and substantive objections to the contempt-of-Congress resolution and ultimately walked out of the meeting before the final vote after an unsuccessful attempt to adjourn the meeting.

“This whole process is illegitimate, and we are not willing to participate in it,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), the panel’s top Democrat, told reporters afterward.

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Another panel member, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), called the proceeding a “kangaroo court.”

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The next steps for the contempt resolution are unclear. The full House would have to approve the measure before it is referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. After the vote Wednesday, Blackburn said that “we will leave that for leadership to decide.”

Democrats said that because the panel is officially an Energy and Commerce subcommittee, the full committee would need to approve the contempt measure before it moves to the House floor.

The House last passed a contempt-of-Congress resolution in 2014, after former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner declined to testify before a House committee.

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Republicans said that StemExpress’s unwillingness to share the records they sought suggested possible wrongdoing: “There is obviously something that is being hidden here,” said Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.).

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“What payment have they received that they don’t want us to see?” added Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.).

But StemExpress said that they have cooperated with the probe and have been willing to cooperate further.