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“ISSUES OF THE DAY” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4848-H4850 on June 12, 2017.
The Department is one of the oldest in the US, focused primarily on law enforcement and the federal prison system. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, detailed wasteful expenses such as $16 muffins at conferences and board meetings.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ISSUES OF THE DAY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues' tribute to the victims of that terrible tragic murder spree by a radical Islamist who said he was doing it for the Islamic State. The attorney general herself indicated that we have a tape of him saying he is doing it for the Islamic State.
There is nothing that justifies such an outrageous murder of even one innocent victim, much less the dozens that were mowed down by what could normally, in the old days, be said to have been a crazed killer. But he wasn't so much crazed as he was driven by a radical Islamic agenda, the same radical Islamic agenda that caused 30 million, mostly Muslim, Egyptians to rise up. Coming near the anniversary of that event in Egypt, the greatest peaceful uprising in the history of the world, the Egyptians said: We don't want a Muslim brother, we don't want a radical Islamist controlling our country.
It was rather tragic that the shooter--and I don't want to give him any more notoriety than necessary, so I won't mention his name--was not a lone wolf, as is so often supposed and we were led to believe repeatedly during the Obama administration. But as Reporter Patrick Poole indicates, he was yet another known wolf. The FBI knew he was and the local law enforcement knew who he was, which brings me to a point I wanted to discuss tonight.
Robert Mueller is the special prosecutor who now needs to resign. He was the FBI Director that had the FBI training materials purged so FBI agents could not know what they were looking for in a radical Islamist. He changed the training. He purged it to please the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
As one intelligence officer said: We blinded ourselves of the ability to see our enemy.
That is what FBI Director Robert Mueller did.
When challenged in a hearing where I was questioning him over the pitiful investigation of the Tsarnaev older brother after Russia had notified us twice in the United States of his radicalization, after the second time, finally, ho-hum, Mueller's FBI not being adequately trained to recognize what a radical Islamist believes, how they act, what they do, what they are studying, what they are memorizing, what they wear, what their personal appearance is, they are not trained to recognize, they didn't know what they were looking for.
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They didn't know what they were looking for. They go out. The best we can find out, they talked to Tsarnaev, and he said, ``No, I'm not a terrorist,'' basically.
So, not knowing what else to do, since Mueller had destroyed the proper training to recognize radical Islamists, they went and talked to his mother who assured them, ``No, he's a good boy; he's not a terrorist,'' and the result was people murdered and maimed at the Boston Marathon.
The result of the FBI going after those who would try to teach others what real radical Islam was, the results of dumbing down the FBI and their ability to spot people who wanted to kill others in the name of Allah: people killed at Boston, people killed in Orlando. And it wasn't any more the fault of guns in Orlando than it was the fault of a white truck in London.
It is the people who use those weapons to kill; otherwise, it is a matter of defense, the great equalizer. The truck is a great means of conveyance.
But Robert Mueller has created problems for this country, and there are a lot of people that are buried now. Perhaps they would, perhaps they would not be deceased if Robert Mueller had done his job and had been as concerned about finding radical Islamists in America as he was--as he told me, they didn't go to the Boston mosque where Tsarnaev surely gave evidence of being radicalized. That is not his words. I said: You didn't even go to the mosque to find out, to talk, to investigate.
The best he could do is come back and say: We did go to that mosque as part of our outreach program, part of the lovely sit down, chat, have some tea, whatever--I don't know what they had, water, whatever it was--make merry, chat. While Tsarnaev was plotting to murder many people, as many as he could at the Boston Marathon, Bob Mueller and his FBI are making merry at the Boston mosque that he did not even know who started it. I asked him that. He didn't know.
I said: Did you even know that al-Hamoudi started that mosque? No, he didn't know that. Al-Hamoudi is doing 23 years--23 years--in Federal prison for supporting terrorism. And as I understand, I had heard that that was more to the credit not of Mueller's folks, but of help from England. How ironic is that?
But I see that I have a friend here. I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Arrington).
Honoring the Life of Coach Spike Dykes
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I love everything about west Texas. I love the beautiful sunsets and the starry nights. I love that our farmers and ranchers feed and clothe the American people. I love that we produce more fossil and renewable energy than any other region in the United States.
People from all over the country rely on west Texas to make America great, but the greatest contribution from our region is our people. The people of west Texas have a distinct friendliness, a can-do spirit, a humble demeanor, a unique sense of humor; and on April 10, 2017, we lost one of our very own who embodied these attributes like no one else.
Former head football coach at Texas Tech and favorite son of west Texas, Spike Dykes carved his legacy into the bedrock of our region and into the hearts of hundreds of student athletes and thousands of fans across this country.
A small town kid from Ballinger, Texas, who achieved his wildest dreams of becoming a Division I head football coach, Coach Dykes went on to lead the Red Raiders to seven straight bowl seasons and was later inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.
I had the honor of calling Spike Dykes ``Coach'' for a short time when I walked on the Texas Tech football team, and later I had the honor of calling him my friend.
We are all saddened by his passing, and our prayers are with his children and my friends, Rick, BeBe, Sonny, and their families.
Thank you, Coach, for your colorful wit and country wisdom. Thank you for leaving a legacy of love for people and all things west Texas. Thank you for teaching us that in life, like the game of football, it is not whether you win or lose; it is who you are; it is how you play the game.
God doesn't make them any better than you, Coach. God bless.
Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Texas, a great, noble tribute.
I wish that it were I who was standing here to say glowing things about people that have been running the FBI; but President Trump as a candidate said he wanted to come drain the swamp, and the more we dig, the more it appears to be a swirling cesspool up here.
We had a man who had been running the FBI who came before the Senate, a Senate committee and testified that he did a memo after talking to President Trump, that he had never felt the need to do a memo after talking to President Obama or President Bush or to take notes like he did; but he was afraid that Trump might lie sometime in the future, and so he felt it important to do a memo, to write some notes. That is what he said.
Rather incredibly, he didn't find a need to do a memo after Attorney General Loretta Lynch, according to him, told him what really has to be a lie. She knew that Hillary Clinton was being investigated for a crime. It was a criminal case, a criminal investigation. She directed FBI Director Comey not to use ``investigation,'' use ``matter.'' Well, it was an investigation, and to say anything other than that was a lie.
But how ironic that he was afraid Trump might lie in the future; whereas, he had an Attorney General that made him feel a little uneasy, but he didn't write any notes. So what about his credibility?
Well, he said he took those notes as a recollection refreshed. And those of us that have tried cases, been judges, you know, we know that past recollection recorded can be an exception to the hearsay rule. But if he signed an FBI employment agreement, which people are supposed to sign, it should have included these words: ``All information acquired by me in connection with my official duties with the FBI and all official material to which I have access remain the property of the United States of America. I will surrender upon demand by the FBI, or upon my separation from the FBI, all materials containing FBI information in my possession.''
That means that if an FBI agent, Director, FBI employee makes notes, makes a memorandum to refresh his recollection later, it is not a personal piece of property any more than what Sandy Berger stuffed in his socks was personal property to him. It doesn't matter that he prepared it. It was done while being paid by the FBI, on FBI time, regarding FBI matters. As FBI Director, he was talking to the President.
How ironic, also, we have no memos after President Obama made the basic statement that he didn't think Hillary should be prosecuted. We haven't heard any outcry from the great Director Comey about how wrong that was. What an obstruction of justice by President Obama. We didn't hear any of that.
I mean, that is about as direct as you can get when the President was talking on television and told the world, and the fact that you may say it out front to the world doesn't make it any less intimidating or directional than if you look somebody in the face one on one and tell them. It is not a defense to say it on television, and yet he wasn't concerned by that.
So we start looking a little deeper since it appears he wasn't being honest about being his personal property, and you would like to think that he had a good legal education, but Alan Dershowitz has made clear that the FBI--there is nothing wrong if the President tells him we are not prosecuting this individual for this crime. I am pardoning him here and now. He has the power.
All power that Director Comey has is derived from his boss, the President. So why would he go back and do a memo and consult or, I believe the more proper word is ``collude'' with others at the Justice Department about what the President said?
Because, make no mistake, if any of those individuals at the Justice Department who were colluding with James Comey after he met with the President, if they thought there was an obstruction of justice and they didn't report it as they did not, then they committed a crime. So why would they not report it?
It appears there can only be one answer. Surely they did not intend to commit a crime by misprision of a felony if they really believed it were obstruction. So it appears, since they clearly did not think that there was obstruction of justice in the President's use of the word
``hope,'' then they must have surely applauded James Comey's writing of a memo, writing of notes so that he could pull it out later and use it to go after the President. There can be no other reason that he did what he did.
He either committed a crime by not reporting obstruction as soon as he possibly could, or he was colluding with his colleagues to bring down the President of the United States. So, the more we find as we dig, the more of a cesspool it appears to be here in Washington.
Mollie Hemingway has done an extraordinary job today from The Federalist. She goes through, she has an article: ``James Comey Has a Long History of Questionable Obstruction Cases.''
I wish I had remembered these, and I feel a bit guilty that I didn't realize at the time these things were going on, the miscarriage of justice that was occurring at the hands of James Comey and Bob Mueller.
She brings up Frank Quattrone, ``a banker who Comey pursued relentlessly on banking-related charges without fruition. But while he couldn't find any wrongdoing or criminal conduct, he went after him for supposed `obstruction of justice' because of a single ambiguous email. Sound familiar?
``Before he was indicted''--talking about Quattrone, before Quattrone was indicted--``Comey made fall statements about Quattrone and his intent. The first trial ended in a hung jury, but the second one got a conviction.
``That conviction was overturned in 2006. Quattrone was so scarred by the harassment''--by Comey--``he began funding projects designed to help innocent people who are victims of prosecutorial overreach or other problems.''
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``He said his motivation for supporting such projects was that at the very moment he was found guilty in the second trial, he realized there must be innocent people in prisons who lacked the financial resources to fight for justice. He also started the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
``Quattrone has noted, with interest, the disparities in how he was treated by Comey for a single ambiguous email compared to his handling of Hillary Clinton's email server scandal,'' with thousands, tens of thousands of email.
How about Martha Stewart? ``You might remember Martha Stewart being sent to jail. You might not remember that James Comey was the man who put her there, and not because he was able to charge her for anything he began investigating her for. The original investigation was into whether Stewart had engaged in insider trading. They didn't even try to get her on that charge. Gene Healy wrote about it in 2004, warning about Federal prosecutorial overreach.''
By Comey, of course. He said, ``Comey didn't charge Stewart with insider trading. Instead, he claimed that Stewart's public protestations of innocence were designed to prop up the stock price of her own company . . . and thus constituted securities fraud. Stewart was also charged with making false statements to Federal officials investigating the insider trading charge--a charge they never pursued. In essence, Stewart was prosecuted for `having misled people by denying having committed a crime with which she was not charged,' as Cato Institute Senior Fellow Alan Reynolds put it.
``The pursuit was described as `vindictive' in The New York Times and
`petty and vindictive' in The Daily Beast.
``But she still served a 5-month prison sentence.''
Stephen Hatfill, and this is one that really gets me to my core. I did not remember the outcome, and I feel guilty, but I was handling felony cases back in Texas at the time.
``The FBI absolutely bungled its investigation into the Anthrax attacker who struck after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Carl Cannon goes through this story well, and it's worth reading for how it involves both Comey and his dear `friend' and current special counsel Robert Mueller. The FBI tried--in the media--its case against Hatfill. Their actual case ended up being thrown out by the courts:
``Comey and Mueller badly bungled the biggest case they ever handled. They botched the investigation of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks that took five lives and infected 17 other people, shut down the U.S. Capitol and Washington's mail system, solidified the Bush administration's antipathy for Iraq, and eventually, when the facts finally came out, made the FBI look feckless, incompetent, and easily manipulated by outside political pressure.
``More from Cannon, recounting how messed up the attempt to convict Steven Hatfill for a crime he didn't commit was:
``In truth, Hatfill was an implausible suspect from the outset. He was a virologist who never handled anthrax, which is a bacterium. Ivins, by contrast, shared ownership of anthrax patents, was diagnosed as having paranoid personality disorder, and had a habit of stalking and threatening people with anonymous letters--including the woman who provided the long-ignored tip to the FBI. So what evidence did the FBI have against Hatfill? There was none, so the agency did a Hail Mary, importing two bloodhounds from California whose handlers claimed could sniff the scent of the killer on the anthrax-tainted letters. These dogs were shown to Hatfill, who promptly petted them. When the dogs responded favorably, their handlers told the FBI that they had
`alerted' on Hatfill and that he must be the killer.
``When Bush administration officials were worried about the quality of the case Mueller and Comey had, the two men assured them. `Comey was
``absolutely certain'' that it was Hatfill,' Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said.
``Such certitude seems to be Comey's default position in his professional life,'' Cannon wrote. He shouldn't have been certain in this case. After the six years the FBI spent destroying his life, they settled a $4.6 million lawsuit he filed and officially exonerated him.''
Good work, James Comey and Bob Mueller. You ruined the life of a man with no evidence at all, but told the Bush administration, oh, we are absolutely certain this is the guy.
What about Scooter Libby, and Judith Miller? I didn't remember this:
``After pressuring John Ashcroft--I am reading through the article--
``After pressuring John Ashcroft to recuse himself from the responsibility on the grounds of potential conflicts of interest, Comey gave Patrick Fitzgerald, his close personal friend and godfather to one of his children, the role of special counsel into the investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA employee. Some conflicts of interest are more important to Comey than others, apparently.
``Fitzgerald immediately discovered that Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the leaker. Of course, the FBI and Department of Justice had known that all along, so Comey's push for a special counsel is . . . intriguing.''
There was no reason for a special counsel. The FBI knew it. The Department of Justice knew it. They pushed for one anyway. Comey was at the middle of it.
Mueller, you know, his close friend, of course, but Fitzgerald was the godfather of one of his children, for heaven's sake.
``The 3-year investigation was a cloud over the Bush administration''--which didn't seem to bother Comey at all, oh, of course not--``and resulted in nothing but the jailing of a journalist''--who was protecting a source, even though they didn't need it. Wow, how mean-spirited--``. . . and a dubious prosecution of Scooter Libby for, wait for it, obstruction of justice. Comey was unconcerned about the jailing of journalists and never threatened to resign over this infringement on First Amendment freedoms.''
And it talks about Hillary Clinton in this article, but I am telling you, Mr. Speaker, this is a scary time in America.
You have this article from John Hinderaker, June 10, Power Line, quoting Senator Warner:
``And so, in all of your experience''--he is talking to Director Comey--``this was the only President that you felt like, in every meeting, you needed to document, because at some point, using your words, he might put out a non-truthful representation of that meeting?''
Comey says: ``That's right, Senator.''
He goes on: ``. . . I had a one-on-one meeting with President Bush about a very important and difficult national security matter.
``I didn't write a memo documenting that conversation either--sent a quick email to my staff to let them know there was something going on, but I didn't feel, with President Bush, the need to document it in that way, again, because of--the combination of those factors just wasn't present with either President Bush or Obama.''
This article goes on to point out that is simply not true. That was a lie.
And whoever remembered that a book named ``Angler'' was written by Barton Gellman, with Comey as his big chief source, went so far as to be able to quote the conversation after working with Comey, and in the footnotes from the ``Angler,'' it says: ``Quotations from the Bush-
Comey conversations are taken verbatim from unclassified notes describing Comey's report of the meeting shortly afterward.''
But Comey's email that he says he just let them know that there was something going on, here is what he said in his email, because it was printed in ``Angler.''
``The President just took me into his private office for a 15-minute, one-on-one talk. Told him he was being misled and poorly served. We had a very full and frank exchange. Don't know that either of us can see a way out. He promised he would shut down 5/6 if Congress didn't fix FISA. Told him Mueller was about to resign. He just pulled Bob into his office.''
Yeah, he didn't just say something was going on. He told him what happened. He memorialized that visit with a note, and then in the book, it is word-for-word, according to Mr. Comey, what was said, and it makes him to be out all American, clean, honest, upstanding, fine law enforcement officer, when it turns out he was anything but that.
``The real pattern,'' as it says here at the end of the article is that, ``Comey is a snake in the grass who creates tendentious, self-
serving memos that can later be used to cover his own rear end or to discredit presidents, but only if they are Republicans.''
Gellman's phrasing was clumsy in the article, but this is serious stuff that it turns out, oh, four members of Mueller's team have donated to Democrats. Well, isn't that cozy? Comey closely coordinated with Mueller on Trump testimony. We heard from the FBI Director that he actually did collude with other members at the Justice Department.
It is so clear. There are people at the Justice Department out to get President Trump, out to get Attorney General Sessions. They are out to get every one of them, and just the way they did, the man they said there was no question was the culprit in killing people with anthrax, that was a lie.
And they don't care who gets hurt. It is time to dismiss the special prosecutor; see if we really need one because now we know that Comey manipulated the system exactly the way he manipulated it when he told John Ashcroft he should recuse himself so he could appoint Patrick Fitzgerald, give him the appointment, that is.
Enough is enough of Comey, of Mueller. It is time to drain the swamp, and they will go down the drain when we do.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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