The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“ISSUES OF THE DAY” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H5279-H5282 on June 19, 2018.
The State Department is responsibly for international relations with a budget of more than $50 billion. Tenure at the State Dept. is increasingly tenuous and it's seen as an extension of the President's will, ambitions and flaws.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ISSUES OF THE DAY
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ferguson). 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, it is great to hear my friend Congressman Lewis. He does a great job explaining such matters.
We had an interesting combined hearing today in the Judiciary Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. We heard from the inspector general of the Department of Justice, Mr. Horowitz. It was interesting testimony.
But having reviewed the record, it is interesting, because he quoted prosecutor one, prosecutor two, agent one, agent two, agent three, these different people, different prosecutors, different agents that he was relying on; their comments, their opinions, their suggestions; the SSA, Supervisory Special Agent, recommendation and comments on things that should have been and should have not been; and things that were proper and improper. But we had no information who these people were.
The whole reason for the inspector general investigation was because of the massive amount of clear bias that had been unearthed within the Department of Justice, including the FBI that is, of course, under the Department of Justice.
So we are being asked to accept all this information from the inspector general when so much of it depends on the opinions and the comments and the assessments of people whose identity we didn't even know.
So not only did we not know their identity, we don't know if they have texts and emails that are just as condemning of Donald Trump and laudatory of Hillary Rodham Clinton. We don't know what their positions are. And we found out from the inspector general that he didn't make any inquiry. He didn't check on them.
But I know from my days trying cases as a prosecutor, or as a felony judge in Texas, the lawyers, when they are picking a jury, as to who will sit in judgment on their case, they have a right to know the biases and prejudices, or potential biases and prejudices, of anyone who may be sitting in judgment on their case. So that is why voir dire, as we say in Texas, is allowed, questions of the potential jurors.
Normally, how one votes is completely inappropriate to ask about. That is a secret ballot for a good reason. However, if one of the people on the ballot is the defendant in the case, is a civilian party in a civil case, then the attorneys are going to want to find out: Were you for or against this person? Did you have a bumper sticker for this person or against this person? Did you have a sign in your yard? Did you go around doing block walks trying to push for this candidate?
And as a judge, I know defendants' attorneys. If it were a defendant who had been a candidate, they would be pushing to ask those questions, to find out those questions, and it could lead to challenges for cause in Texas courts--I think in Federal courts as well.
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Even if it didn't, I have heard defense attorneys argue many times: We cannot adequately exercise our preemptory strikes if we don't know about potential biases. So we need to know: Did they support this candidate? Were they against this candidate?
I know initially the response of one of my Democratic friends was: Gee, we never ask about how somebody voted.
No, we don't. It is not appropriate--unless someone who is on the ballot is being judged in that court. The same should be true for a grand jury. The same should be true for anybody who is going to pass judgment, and that should also include the people who are charged with bringing forth justice, not the concept of ``just us'' we have experienced during the recent two terms, but the concept of true justice.
Proverbs talks about the blessed nature of a government that doesn't judge because somebody is rich, doesn't judge because somebody is poor, doesn't give more favor to somebody who is rich, and isn't biased for somebody because they are poor, but does make just decisions based on the case, not on someone's social standing, be it rich or poor. Some are tempted to be biased for the poor, some biased for the rich. But real justice is just following the law regardless of someone's background.
So it is a bit of an anathema, it seems, that you have got an inspector general report based on people who may have worse biases than the people whom they are judging. We don't even know. So I was a little surprised by that.
We had a record of over 500 pages that was just full of some of the worst illustrations of biases ever imaginable. It was interesting. I didn't realize, but apparently back, I believe it was in 2012, there was a case that was lost that the Justice Department was prosecuting during the Eric Holder days. I had never seen this information until today and didn't see it until after the hearing, but apparently it was even one case where the jurors found somebody not guilty because information came in about the same kind of texting and emails that we were seeing regarding the hatred by some in the Justice Department and the FBI against Donald Trump and for Hillary Clinton.
There was a time when the Federal Department of Justice and the FBI were considered the best law enforcement, the best at providing justice anywhere in the world. That time is not now. In fact, we know that under Eric Holder and Attorney General Lynch, the U.S. Department of Justice went after police departments, local law enforcement, and using the power and almost unlimited money of the Department of Justice, they could overwhelm and force a local law enforcement office into agreeing to a consent decree where the U.S. Department of Justice got to basically supervise whatever they did.
Based on the kind of prejudice, bias, and outrageous actions within the United States Department of Justice and the FBI, it looks like some of those police departments that ended up agreeing to consent judgments might be better off suing the U.S. Department of Justice, exposing how biased and prejudiced they were during the period during which the Department of Justice came after them and was trying to supervise them, show how biased and prejudiced they were. So maybe the local police department should end up getting to tell the Department of Justice when they are acting appropriately and when they are not.
For heaven's sake, it is just incredible how such a great justice organization has been not just compromised, but devastated like a cancerous prejudice and bias, incapable of rendering fair, blind decisions without regard for any bias in favor of or against a litigant.
What a change. What a difference. President Obama is right. He did fundamentally transform America. I really would never have thought we would see the Justice Department after those 8 years end up like it is.
It didn't come out in the hearing, but I was given to understand that after the shock subsided somewhat of Donald Trump winning November 2016 that there was a massive effort just at a rapid pace to try to move people who had been politically appointed by the Obama administration in the Department of Justice and the Department of State, but especially DOJ, Homeland Security, political appointees, trying to get them into civil service jobs so that the Trump administration would not be easily able to get rid of them as every other administration does.
When a new administration comes in, the political appointees tender their resignations. Most are accepted, some are not. But instead of doing something like that, what we were hearing was that the Obama administration was trying to put them into cubbyhole civil service jobs, so that basically they could still utilize the prejudices and biases that were built up during the Obama administration.
It is just such a dangerous time. As I was sitting there for the hearing, it dawned on me that the kind of bias, just rabid prejudice and hatred not only for a candidate, but the disgust that was on parade in the texts, the email messages, just extraordinary, but that that kind of bias and prejudice may very well be the second biggest threat to Federal justice in America.
It is a cancerous bias. It is probably a cancerous bias in stage IV where it just is eating its way through, creating big holes where there was once a solid Justice Department.
What occurred to me was that that may be the second biggest threat to Federal justice in America, that cancerous bias. But perhaps the biggest threat to Federal justice in America is that I think for the first time in American history, you have one of two major political parties has about half of the country's support without anybody being horribly offended that this kind of bias and prejudice was driving a Justice Department.
I keep going back to when President George W. Bush was in the White House, and when we found out about the abuses of the National Security Letters, FBI agents just sending them out willy-nilly, just sending them out on fishing expeditions. That was not authorized. That was not lawful. Somebody needed to pay a price.
In retrospect, it is directly, as Robert Mueller said, that was his responsibility, his fault. Yes, it was. He should have been fired. He should never have been allowed to get close to anything attempting to pervert justice in America.
Unfortunately, he wormed his way in through his joined-at-the-hip buddy, Comey, leaking information in order to get a second counsel, that second counsel being his joined-at-the-hip buddy, Mr. Mueller. He should never have allowed that to happen. If it was a fair and just Justice Department, Rosenstein would have recused himself, Mueller would have recused himself and said: I am not the proper person to do this special counsel job because of my strong friendship, maybe even mentorship--whatever you want to call it--with James Comey; and also the fact that I was FBI Director working with the U.S. Attorney named Rosenstein, and my go-to guy, Weissmann, and we were the ones who were investigating Russia's illegal efforts to obtain United States uranium.
Of course, they helped quash information about that so that the Commission on Foreign Investment in the United States could approve the sale, that would open the way for beneficiaries of that sale to donate
$145 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as paying off Bill Clinton to make speeches for a short amount of time. There is just so much that stinks to high heaven here in Washington.
We don't even know anything about the biases and prejudices of those people on whom Mr. Horowitz was relying to reach his conclusions. But it is worth looking at some of the things that were recommended.
For example, you had a man named Pagliano--and this is according to the Horowitz report--Pagliano was a critical witness because he set up the server that Clinton used during her tenure.
In other words, he set up the unsecured server which we now know was hacked. And I think my friend Andrew McCarthy makes a great point in an article today when he points out the mere setting up of that unsecured server out from under the government watch for the purpose, according to James Carville--he may have been trying to make a joke, but it actually was an indication of the mindset of the Clintons, when he said: Hillary didn't want Louie Gohmert rifling through her emails.
She didn't want proper oversight, so she intentionally and knowingly had a server set up that was not secure, was out from under government protection and control, also knowing she might be able to get away with not turning in emails because they were not under government control.
How there could be 500-plus pages of bias shown in this report, and then a conclusion that there is no evidence of any bias in the investigation? My gosh, that is a lay-down, slam-dunk prosecution right there. You could have indicted Mr. Pagliano, who was certainly far more responsible for potential crime than Mr. Manafort is, clearly.
In the Horowitz report he says: The supervising special agent told us that the FBI did not consider Pagliano a subject or someone they would prosecute in connection with the midyear--talking about the Hillary Clinton investigation. The FBI believed his testimony was very important and providing immunity was an effective way to secure his testimony.
So this guy sets up the unsecured server, and it carried we now know for certain classified information.
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We knew there was going to be a good chance he would have had to have known that. But if that supervising special agent and the Horowitz team had not been so favorably inclined not to find any wrongdoing, then certainly they would have recognized that this is a guy who could and should have been indicted.
Of course, I don't advocate that people be unfairly treated as Paul Manafort was, where you go busting down his door in the early morning hours when you know he is not a threat; there is no reason to bust down a door in those early morning hours, no reason to ransack a house, other than trying to intimidate.
But nobody tried to do anything, not even indicting or bringing him before a grand jury to potentially pursue him, because the prosecutors, many of them have told me: Man, this is a real easy one, much easier than organized crime. All you have to do is go after Pagliano, go after a couple of these other people, and once they see they are looking at years in prison, yes, they will tell you exactly what Hillary Clinton told them and others told them. And then you go to the next one and make the case that that testimony gives you.
None of that was done. It was all done in a way to protect Hillary Clinton, no question.
That report talks about Combetta. It says Paul Combetta is the one that later wiped emails from that private server in March of 2015. The report says that the investigation's team members told the inspector general Combetta was an important witness for several reasons, including his involvement with the culling process and the deletion of emails and his interactions with several people who worked for Clinton.
Several of the midyear--they call them midyear; it is the Clinton team members--stated that, after conducting two voluntary interviews of Combetta, they believe Combetta had not been forthcoming about, among other things, his role in deleting emails from the PRN server following the issues of a congressional preservation order.
The witness further stated that Combetta's truthful testimony was essential for assessing criminal intent for Clinton and other individuals because he would be able to tell them whether Clinton's attorneys, Mills, Samuelson, or Kendall, had instructed him to delete the emails.
So this is the way you work up through a prosecution. They didn't indict Combetta. This says the supervising special agent told us he believed Combetta should have been charged with false statements for lying multiple times. Well, if that had happened, then you go to him and you say: This is how many years you are looking at.
I have seen incredibly professional FBI agents in the field do just that: Here is what you are looking at. You are going to talk to your lawyer. You are going to decide what to do. We want you to see the evidence we have.
Then they would lay out the evidence: Here is evidence that might help. You might think it is exculpatory, but we here is the evidence that we have that we believe will overwhelm that. It is incriminating. We are not wanting you to make a statement now. You talk to your lawyer. See if you would like to assist us.
Then when you realize that, wow, their evidence is overwhelming, I am dead meat, I am going to prison, then let's see what kind of deal we can make.
Then you make a proffer: Here is what my client will say if you will give us this plea agreement or this agreement, maybe an immunity agreement, you work that out. That is how you go about proving a case.
None of that was done. The FBI and the Department of Justice attorneys, people who absolutely loved and worshiped Hillary Clinton and absolutely despised and hated Donald Trump didn't do any of that. They protected the people who would have been critical witnesses.
We get around to Mr. John Bentel. He worked at the State Department for 39 years. Here is what the IG report said:
Both agents who interviewed Bentel told us that he was uncooperative and the interview was unproductive. However, they attributed these problems to nervousness and fear of being found culpable.
Agent three--whoever that was, with whatever biases he had--told us that he did not believe that immunity was necessary and it did not help the investigation because Bentel was not forthcoming during his interview.
That makes no sense. That is the kind of guy where you go ahead and you have got enough evidence, you indict him, and then he gets a little more cooperative through his lawyer. The guy helped commit crimes, apparently. Then you see about getting more cooperation when he is looking at being convicted and doing a long time in prison.
But he did not have any of that done. There was not even a threat of prosecution. He wasn't prosecuted because bias affected the outcome of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. If he had been prosecuted, he would likely have been quite cooperative as a witness in establishing what really happened. But he knew he was guilty. He had a guilty conscience, which is obvious from what these people said in their statements.
So what about Cheryl Mills? She was treated as if she were an attorney for Hillary Clinton. She was allowed to sit in on the interview of Hillary Clinton that was not recorded, and, basically, she was assured in advance that she would be given a pass.
But Cheryl Mills is one who actually went through the Clinton emails. Because of her position, she was in a position to make sure they did not turn over any emails that would have incriminated Cheryl and Hillary Clinton. And instead of doing anything that would have brought that to light, they give her an immunity deal. They let her consult.
There is a massive question here of conspiring to obstruct justice, yet they gave them a pass.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Horowitz really did appear as if he were trying to do something so that he could kind of say he was placating two different sides. On the one hand, over 500 pages absolutely documenting the horrendous bias and prejudice that permeated an actually cancerous kind of bias that was eating through the Department of Justice and FBI, then turns around and gave Democrats what they would hope to have: Oh, no, there was no evidence that bias affected the investigation.
Well, how about the fact that there is no attorney-client privilege if an attorney and a client are conspiring to obstruct justice or are absolutely obstructing justice?
In such a case, you don't give immunity to the attorney, the counselor, potential codefendant, and say: Here, you go through the evidence and you tell us what you are going to let us have, and then you destroy anything at all that you think might not be helpful to you and Mrs. Clinton and give us what you think will be safe to give us.
It is absolutely incredible. The very fact that that was done, that she was allowed to sit in on the interview, she was allowed to go through and screen the emails for her and her client that could have shown any possible crimes there is an outrage.
We need a second special counsel, and we need it now.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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