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“TROUBLING TIMES” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H5700-H5702 on Aug. 2, 2012.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
{time} 2000
TROUBLING TIMES
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 5, 2011, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, these are interesting times we live in, and it's nice to follow my friend, Mr. Shimkus, a graduate of the United States Military Academy, a servant of this country in the military, and still a servant in this country. It's good to call him friend. Hopefully he calls me friend, as well.
These are troubling times. When the name Justice Department depicts something other than justice, it's a very troubling time. Some of us are extremely familiar with the prosecution of what most would consider the most significant, largest prosecution of terrorism support and funding in the United States history, which occurred in Federal district court in Dallas, Texas. It was begun under the Bush Justice Department, all part of the aftermath of 9/11 because, as President Bush indicated, we can't just go after the people that actually plotted and carried out the events of 9/11, who plotted and carried out other terrorist attacks against the United States. It's not enough. We've got to go after those who have supported those efforts at terrorism, have supported the killing of innocent people around the world. And particularly, we have to protect Americans. And for those who have supported terrorism and continue to support terrorism, the United States must step forward in order to protect itself.
The Justice Department in November of 2008, I believe, got convictions of the individuals they had prosecuted in the Holy Land Foundation trial. Not only did they get convictions, they got over 100 different counts in which they got convictions. Through that, there were names of coconspirators who were named and set forward in the pleadings, and evidence was introduced, admitted into evidence at trial that showed there were groups and individuals in the United States that were supporting terrorism, and there was significant evidence to support that.
In fact, two of those groups, CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America, ISNA, had moved that their names be stricken from the pleadings as named coconspirators in supporting terrorism. At that time, the acting U.S. Attorney did a very good job not only in the prosecution, but also in the pleading to the Federal district court there before Judge Solis, and he established plenty of evidence so that Judge Solis found there was plenty of evidence to support the coconspirators continuing to have their names in the pleading, and they were not satisfied with the ruling of the Federal district court. They appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ended up ruling that, yes, there was plenty of evidence to support the fact that CAIR, ISNA, and others were supporting terrorism, so their names would not be stricken from the pleadings, they would be kept in the pleadings as named coconspirators of terrorism.
After that very successful prosecution that was in conformity with President Bush's promise that if you're not with us, you're with them, and those who support terrorism would be made to account, that began the first stage of the prosecution of supporters of terrorism. Those were people and individual cases, those were organizations right here in America that were supporting terrorism, funding terrorism. Yes, they were supporting charities. Yes, they were giving money to good causes. That acted as a cover for them also funding terrorism, funding known terrorist organizations who had actually killed people and destroyed things, committing acts of war.
Then, the Attorney General became Eric Holder. The President, the Commander in Chief, became Barack Hussein Obama. We know it's okay to use the President's full name, because he proudly uses it when he goes to Muslim nations. In fact, the first nations the President went to and apologized for America's arrogance and divisiveness, dismissiveness were Muslim nations. In fact, going to Cairo, he snubbed America's ally, Israel's ally, Mubarak, who is not a fine, upstanding wonderful man but a man who had managed to keep some peace along the Israel border, a man who had agreements with this government just as this government had agreements with Qadhafi, despite the blood on his hands from terrorist involvement himself. In fact, I've read of reports of people even from our own Senate who have been over there, one who had tweeted that he had met with Colonel Qadhafi: ``He was an interesting man. I met with him at his ranch.'' I understand that Senator now says that tweet didn't come from him.
But there were Americans from this government negotiating with Qadhafi, working out agreements, and then they turned their backs on people with whom they had worked agreements: Mubarak, Qadhafi. I don't think we should have worked agreements with Qadhafi because of the blood on his hands, American blood on his hands. But it had been done, and yet this Nation turned its back on allies. It was no surprise to me to read that the King of Jordan--another person with whom we have a relatively good relationship--had sought an appointment with Ahmadinejad in Iran once he saw the way this administration not only turned its back on allies, but also would contribute to bombing to get them out of office. It's an amazing thing.
Then, being part of the Judiciary Committee here in Washington, some of us became very troubled that despite all of this substantive evidence--I've got a stack of it in my office from that Holy Land Foundation trial--substantiating allegations, at least to the satisfaction of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the district court, that CAIR and ISNA and others should be named coconspirators, this Justice Department chose not to prosecute anyone else. Once again, using the old tactic, Well, the Bush administration didn't prosecute them. They did stage one, they got the initial prosecutions, and if those were successful, they intended to continue looking and pursuing all those who were implicated and could have cases proved, especially where there was substantial evidence, as there was with CAIR and ISNA.
Instead of prosecuting CAIR and ISNA, this administration--and there's no question about this--despite the fussing and nay-saying of some once proud journalists of some once proud journalistic television networks, once proud newspapers, despite their failure to do their homework, despite their taking the easy road and simply asking opinions, Well, what do you think about these terrible accusations, and getting opinions instead of simply digging and looking at the facts and presenting the fact, they sought opinions on things that people had not even read. They asked opinions about letters that people had not read. They asked opinions about general tenor without actually showing people the tenor of the letters.
{time} 2010
And, unfortunately, some are always willing to respond without having read or reviewed the matter before them which they are being questioned about.
But the facts are the facts. On the White House's own Web site, last time I checked, there were references to ISNA. There are references to ISNA's president, Imam Magid, who, as I understand, has now written a letter wanting condemnation of me and others who simply set out factual recitations to five different departments and then asked the question, Would you please investigate to see the extent of Muslim Brotherhood influence in this administration in this department.
We know there's Muslim Brotherhood influence. The question is how much influence is there?
When the White House's own Web site was carrying compliments, such as those spoken by Denis McDonough, the number two person in our National Security Agency, complimenting Imam Magid for the wonderful prayers he had given inside the sanctity of the White House itself, for the White House's iftar celebration during Ramadan. Compliments to Imam Magid, the president of the main coconspirator, for the wonderful introduction he gave the number two person in the National Security Agency.
And within the FBI itself--it took until 2009 for the FBI to finally write a letter saying, Gee, because of all this evidence that came out about CAIR supporting terrorism in the Holy Land Foundation trial in 2008, we have suspended our relationship with them. At one place in the letter, they referred to it as a ``partner'' or a ``partnership.''
So there's no question there is Muslim Brotherhood influence in this administration. Anybody that says otherwise will likely find that they will end up at the lowest level of Nielsen ratings in their history, or at least in 20 years or so, because they simply are not doing their homework. It's much easier to bash the messenger than it is to actually do homework. And in fairness, I know there have been lots of budget cuts. It's tough for some entities, some networks to do the research they once did when they were much more popular. But, nonetheless, the truth is the truth. Facts are facts.
The question remains: Just how extensive is the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in this administration? We know that the ACLU and CAIR have been demanding documentation of what trainees have been taught in our Justice Department, in other departments, making FOIA, Freedom of Information Act, requests trying to get information on what we are training our undercover agents, if any we have.
Apparently, this administration has no problem outing people we have undercover in dangerous situations. At least somebody who has information about the very inner workings of this administration has leaked classified information. It remains to be found out who it is, but it is somebody that has access to some of the most important classified inner workings.
Yet you've got CAIR and the ACLU demanding information about the information that was used to train these people. And the facts are that if you ever disclose that--and as I understand, our Justice Department was preparing to provide all that information to CAIR and to ACLU--and if they provide all of the information on exactly how people who have been undercover in radical Islamic situations, it will be easy for those individuals to be outed and killed because they'll know what their training is and their approach to radical Islam. They'll know the methods and means of our undercover, of our intelligence. And yet this administration continues to cater to such requests to accommodate complaints about CAIR.
CAIR individuals can call the White House, as apparently was written up in material in the media after last August. They were complaining about people who were going to give a seminar to hundreds of law enforcement individuals. CAIR makes one call, as it was reported at least, makes a call to the White House. The seminar gets canceled. Hundreds of law enforcement individuals do not end up being taught about the inner workings of those who want to kill and destroy our way of life. And CAIR is happy.
Just how far does the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood go? We know from the evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial that ISNA is the largest Muslim Brotherhood front organization in America. And President Obama has had President Imam Magid in the inner sanctum of the State Department to listen to the speech that he gave, trying to upstage Prime Minister Netanyahu when he was on his way over here in May of last year.
The report was that Imam Magid had actually given him advice on what he should say. Who knows, perhaps what Imam Magid said was, Oh, yes, Israel has agreed to go back to the 1967 boundary lines, so you can include that in your speech. Who knows.
We wanted an Inspector General investigation to find out in the State Department, Defense Department, intelligence department, in these five departments just how extensive is the Muslim Brotherhood influence. We know it's there. Most Americans know it's there. There are some that still drink the Kool-Aid and refuse to acknowledge the facts that have been proven in court.
There are facts that actually the prosecutor of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings has pointed out in his article--that's Andrew McCarthy--he has pointed out, We proved to New York jurors, wonderful New York jurors, beyond a reasonable doubt that there was this radical Islamic presence in America; and they did want to take over our country, that there is a civilization jihad. Some want to do it radically with violence. Some want to take over from inside our own governmental and civic organizations, and they're working toward that goal.
There's no question about so many of these things. The question is, How far does the influence go? That's what we need to know.
So we asked the question, and we had Attorney General Holder before our committee last year. And he was asked the question, Did you or did politics have any consideration in the refusal to prosecute any of the other named coconspirators about which the Fifth Circuit said there is plenty of evidence to support their involvement? Was there political involvement in that decision?
Well, we didn't know it at the time; but since then, more recently, in the last couple of months, we've had the Attorney General testify before our committee that there are political aspects to justice, from his standpoint, which fly in the face of everything that any good law school, any legitimate law school has ever taught its law students.
Justice is supposed to be blind. That's why the statue that depicts justice, holding the scales of justice, is blinded, is wearing a blindfold. Because justice is blind if it's real justice. And if justice is not blind, if we're looking to who it is and politically what the consequences will be, it's not justice. There are no political aspects to justice--or it's not true justice. And I'm afraid that's where we've gotten to in this so-called Justice Department.
So we had the Attorney General say, Oh, no, no, no. There is no political involvement. In fact, I said to my friend Trent Franks, Gee, in fact, the U.S. Attorney handling that--I believe it was quoted in a newspaper--I believe it was the Dallas News--he said there was no politics involved in those dismissals because there was just no case there. There was no evidence to support it.
{time} 2020
Well, I happened to have read that Dallas Morning News report, and I happen to have read the quotes from that acting U.S. Attorney. And yes, he did say it was local; politics weren't involved. But that is not what he said. He says no, the evidence wasn't there, which is entirely different since he was not under penalty of potential jail when he spoke to a reporter, but he was under potential penalty of jail. If you ever commit a fraud upon a court by not giving all of the information or misrepresenting to a judge or tricking a judge by not being truthful, you can be looking at jail time. Lawyers before me knew that. I didn't care about politics, but I cared about truth.
I cared about it in the Bush administration. So when we found out there were abuses of the National Security Letter, I was furious. And I grilled the Bush director of the FBI at that time. I was surprised there weren't more Democrats that were nearly as outraged as I was because that was so offensive. It was so improper. It was so unjust. I don't care who the President is; justice is justice. And for our Attorney General to act like oh, no, no, there wasn't anything. And then I know. I read the pleadings of that U.S. Attorney where he said there's plenty of evidence to support the name of CAIR and others being in here. And he convinced the Fifth Circuit of the same thing. So he was either lying to the courts or he was lying to the paper about the evidence.
And now, after having had the head of civil rights of this Justice Department, Mr. Perez, testify that gee, there was no political aspect in the decision not to pursue the New Black Panther Party for what they did at a polling place in Pennsylvania, and now we have found out this week, Human Events has a great article, ``Federal judge rules political appointees interfered with voter intimidation case.'' That's from August 2, posted at 2:12 p.m.
There's one from the American Spectator about the fact that Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general, is one of the most destructive forces against the rule of law in this Nation, including being the man responsible for the DOJ dropping charges again the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation in Philadelphia during the last Presidential election. It goes on to talk about he appeared before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Constitution, which is a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, and it goes on to say that he questioned Assistant Attorney General Perez over the administration's commitment to First Amendment rights. His questions were prompted by a Daily Caller article from late last year in which Perez was quoted as warmly embracing the proposals of Islamist advocates in a meeting at George Washington University, among them a request for a legal declaration that U.S. citizens' criticism of Islam constitutes racial discrimination.
Well, we know that one of the 10-year goals of the Muslim Brotherhood is to subvert the U.S. Constitution to sharia law. And once they convince enough people that it should be a crime to burn a Koran or to criticize Islam, then they can check that box.
I believe in the Bible. My eternity is based on belief of the Bible. But I also know under the U.S. Constitution, you can burn a Bible. I took a pledge and was willing to lay down my life, my 4 years in the Army, for our flag, but I also understand it's constitutional to burn a flag. And yet we have people in this injustice department saying they want to make it a crime to criticize Islam. No wonder they're purging their training materials, eliminating references to Islam.
As one intelligence officer of this government told me, we are blinding our ability to see our enemy, and that can and will have dangerous consequences if we don't turn it around.
Mr. Speaker, wrapping up here before we take this August recess that isn't a recess because we will be in pro forma session, we're willing, most of us, Republicans are willing to come back. All we have to know is that the Senate is finally doing something to pass some of the jobs bills we've sent their way. And in fairness, what we need is Republican leadership that will say okay, Senate, you want this bill, then you are going to have to pass some of the economic and jobs bills that will get this economy going, but we haven't used the leverage Republicans in the House have. And, unfortunately, with all of the talk about agreeing to another CR, it just means that we'll have finished out 2 years without cutting anything significant, as we promised 2 years ago after the biggest wave election in American history since the 1930s.
It's time for Americans to make clear you want Congress to do what was promised when the Congressmen got elected. And if we do that, it doesn't matter how obstructive the Senate is, it will make it even more clear if we use our leverage and say: Hey, people, the government is shut down on weekends, you seem to live okay. Let's get back to just essential needs of the government. Allow a shutdown of other things. Pass my bill that will make sure our military gets paid during a shutdown, we know Social Security recipients will still get their payments in the event of a shutdown, and keep the government shut down until everybody understands we're going to start living within our means as a Congress, like all Americans have to do, or declare bankruptcy. They have to do that. We can't afford to declare bankruptcy. We must get this government under control. I hope that constituents across the country during this month will make that clear, and we'll replace the Senators who are standing in the way of getting this economy going, that we'll replace the administration who is creating injustice and allowing radical Islamic jihadists to have any influence at all.
The Secretary of Homeland Security sat there and told me that it did absolutely not happen, that a member of a terrorist organization had been allowed in the White House; 6 days later, she not only admits to the Senate that it did happen after she told me absolutely not, but she said: Oh, but it's okay; we vetted him three times.
It's time for a government that is more considerate and concerned about providing for the common defense, of getting out of the way and letting the economy grow than they are about playing favorites, playing to their cronies, and playing against religious freedom.
And with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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