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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 H2737-H2741 on March 14, 2019.
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:
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ISSUES OF THE DAY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, as most Members are heading back home, I was reminded in the elevator of someone who said: Well, you know, you guys are getting off this week. I have told friends and some of the media that you guys take vacations all the time.
I explained: You don't want us in session every day. Every day we are in session, we pass something that could be law restraining you in furtherance of your freedoms.
It is a good thing when Members of Congress go home, as most of us do. It is tougher for those on the West Coast, but most of us go home each weekend during recesses or maybe a quick trip to speak here or there just outside of the district. But it is a good thing for Members of Congress to go home and to hear from people back home. That is good. Anyway, sometimes the rigors at home are even more than we face here.
There are at least three things I want to address today. One of them is information that has come out.
I was there for a number of the depositions that were taken behind closed doors of witnesses--formerly from the Justice Department, some still with the Justice Department--regarding what Gregg Jarrett called
``The Russia Hoax,'' and he documents why that sounds like an appropriate title.
There is an article from FOX News about this by Gregg Re. This quoted Lisa Page. She was an interesting witness. It was interesting watching her testify.
As a former judge who has tried a tremendous number of cases in Federal court, State court, and military court, it is interesting watching people testify. Most you can get a little tell when they are being dishonest, but it has been amazing to me, especially since I have been in Congress, how many people can look you in the eye and lie. You know they are lying; they know they are lying; and often you can see they don't care. People like that are often able to pass polygraph tests because you have got to have a conscience. You cannot have numbed your conscience to the point that you are not affected by your own lying anymore.
Lisa Page's presentation as she testified was tremendously different from Peter Strzok as he testified behind closed doors. It was amazing to watch that guy. Because of his answers, I knew he was lying. And it appeared to me that there were no tells, that he just didn't seem to be bothered by the fact and that he could sit there and lie under oath. I thought perhaps he would be a great candidate to pass a lie detecter test when he is lying.
But then somebody told me, actually, he failed two lie detecter tests in the FBI, but somebody like Lisa Page removed those from his file. It is great to have friends to help you out when you do wrong and they can cover for you.
And I am being sarcastic, for friends who cannot figure that out.
But the article points out that former FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, testified: ``The FBI was ordered by the Obama DOJ not to consider charging Hillary Clinton for gross negligence in the handling of classified information.''
It goes on and says: ``Page's testimony was perhaps the most salient evidence yet that the Justice Department improperly interfered with the FBI's supposedly independent conclusions on Clinton's criminal culpability''--well, stating that that came from John Ratcliffe, a colleague of ours from Texas, here in Congress. He was questioning her, and he says: ``But when you say advice you got from the Department, you're making it sound like it was the Department''--talking about the Department of Justice--``that told you: You're not going to charge gross negligence because we're the prosecutors and we're telling you we're not going to--''
And Lisa Page interrupted and said: ``That is correct.''
Lisa Page also testified that ``the DOJ and FBI had multiple conversations . . . about charging gross negligence,'' and the DOJ decided that the term was ``constitutionally vague,'' which is really interesting because as a judge, as a lawyer, I tried cases in which gross negligence was alleged. I am not aware of any court case ever indicating that gross negligence was unconstitutionally vague. Maybe there is a case that says that. I am not aware of one.
But if there were to be one from the Supreme Court, then there would be massive criminal and civil judgments that would be due to be undone and be reversed because most lawyers who have done any research, tried any cases, or done adequate reading know that the term ``gross negligence'' is not unconstitutionally vague, nor is it negligence.
Now, different States in the Federal Government may have slightly different definitions of negligence and gross negligence, but they are substantially the same. It has just never been a problem with constitutional vagueness from the term ``gross negligence.''
Understanding that, it would bring one to the conclusion, if Lisa Page is correct, that the prosecutors in the Obama Justice Department were saying Hillary Clinton was grossly negligent handling classified material but gross negligence is too vague so we are not going to charge her, then it shows one of two things: the Obama DOJ had some of the most ignorant lawyers in the country working there, or the Obama DOJ had some exceedingly dishonest lawyers working there. You choose.
Going back to the article, it says: ``In July 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey''--parenthetically, I would insert, another real peach--
``publicly announced at a bombshell press conference that Clinton had been `extremely careless' in handling classified information. . . . Federal law states that gross negligence in handling the Nation's intelligence can be punished criminally with prison time or fines, and there is no requirement that defendants act intentionally. . .
. Originally, Comey accused the former Secretary of State of being
`grossly negligent' ''--using that term ``grossly negligent''--``in handling classified information in a draft dated May 2, 2016, but that was modified to claim that Clinton had merely been `extremely careless' in a draft dated June 10, 2016.''
Comey also said: ``Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information''--I mean, I am sure the guy from the Navy that snapped a few pictures on a submarine and had absolutely no ill intent whatsoever, though he apparently was acting recklessly and ended up doing prison time, I am sure he would love to know that there was such a high standard applied to Hillary Clinton while he, who put his life on the line, ended up having to do prison time for far less mens rea than, according to Comey, what Hillary Clinton had.
``Then-Obama administration Attorney General Loretta Lynch was spotted meeting secretly with former President Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac as the probe into Hillary Clinton, which Lynch was overseeing, continued.''
And that is pretty amazing: two planes just happen to sit down and get over to where two people can get together. If it weren't for the reporter who spotted a guy he thought to be Bill Clinton, we would never have known about this.
I wonder how many DOJ officials would have lied about this if no one had spotted it. I mean, they lied enough about other things, but they got busted being seen out in a remote spot on the tarmac get-together while the DOJ jury was still out on what they were going to do about Hillary Clinton and she had not testified.
And then we find out, actually, they never had her testify. They gave immunity to her lawyer, Cheryl Mills, and all these people who had direct evidence of potential crimes.
And the prosecutors--and I have been one. You don't give immunity to someone without knowing what they are going to say. If a lawyer comes to you and says, ``My client wants immunity,'' then you say, ``Give us a proffer. What is your client going to say?'' Because we are not just handing out immunity and then there is nothing worth giving immunity to get.
Yet the Obama Justice Department handed out immunity like candy to anybody, it appeared, who was associated and had evidence of potential crimes. They could have gotten a subpoena and gotten laptops of the witnesses, but, instead, the Obama Justice Department said: Do you know what? We will give you immunity not knowing what you are going to say because we really don't want you to say anything.
That is my interpretation, after having read the immunity agreement.
And, look, the evidence you have got, we just want to look, but we promise you we will never use any of it and we will give the stuff back. We just want to look.
That is outrageous. Were these prosecutors that incompetent or were they that dishonest? It is up to individuals to judge for themselves. But to use a term coined by James Comey, no reasonable prosecutor would have done what they did in that case. They sure didn't do it when they were trying to chase down anything they possibly could regarding our current President, Donald Trump.
It was revealed last month that FBI's top lawyer in 2016 thought Hillary Clinton and her team should have immediately realized they were mishandling `` `highly classified' information based on the obviously sensitive nature of the emails' content sent through her private server. And he believed''--this is the FBI's top lawyer--``that she''--
Hillary Clinton--``should have been prosecuted until `pretty late' in the investigation, according to a transcript of his closed-door testimony before congressional committees last October.''
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And, of course, being pretty late in the investigation, actually goes along with what Lisa Page said; that DOJ prosecutors said, we are not charging her.
And then that ties in nicely with the FBI lawyers saying, Okay, I thought she should have been prosecuted. But then it ties in, by the time the DOJ lawyers/prosecutors said ``we are not charging her,'' then he decided, Okay, maybe she shouldn't be.
Among the texts between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok was one concerning the so-called ``insurance policy.''
During her interview with the Judiciary Committee, July 2018, Page was questioned at length about the texts, and essentially referred to the Russia investigation, the insurance policy referred to the Russia investigation, while explaining that officials were proceeding with caution, concerned about the implications of the case while not wanting to go at a total breakneck speed and risk burning sources, as they presumed Trump would be elected anyway.
Further, Lisa Page confirmed investigators only had a paucity of evidence at the start.
Comey, last December, similarly acknowledged that when the FBI initiated its counterintelligence probe and possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russian Government in July 2016, investigators, ``didn't know whether we had anything,'' and that, ``in fact, when I was fired as Director in May 2017, I still didn't know whether there was anything to it.''
And that was from Comey.
Trey Gowdy had asked, ``I want to believe the path you threw out in Andy McCabe's office, that there is no way he gets elected, but I am afraid we can't take the risk. It is like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you are 40.'' And that was the quote from the text sent from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page in August of 2016.
So clearly, they were talking about coming up with this bogus Russia investigation as an insurance policy just in case Donald Trump got elected, then they could try to take him out of office, basically, a DOJ coup for the first time in the history of this country.
And, unfortunately, there is no George Washington around to stop this attempted coup that continues today.
``So, upon the opening of the crossfire hurricane investigation''--
which was the name that these DOJ officials who have been shown to have acted totally inappropriately; that is the name they gave the investigation into Donald Trump--it goes on to say ``we had a number of the discussions up through and including the Director regularly in which we were trying to find an answer to the question, right, which is, is there somebody associated with the Trump campaign who is working with the Russians in order to obtain damaging information about Hillary Clinton? And given that it is August, we were very aware of the speed and sensitivity that we needed to operate under.''
It is really amazing.
You see, the way our justice is supposed to work in the United States, and in every State in the union, if you have probable cause to believe a crime was committed, then you can go after someone for that crime.
In the case of Donald Trump, his campaign, and those that worked with him, they did just the opposite. They said, Here is Donald Trump, he has got a chance of winning--though we don't think he will--so let's try to find something.
And if you go back and look, you can find an Op Ed written by, I believe, Bruce Ohr. And basically, it was from 2007 talking about Russia collusion. And, of course, Donald Trump was not mentioned at all. And then when they came up with this Russia hoax investigation without any evidence at all, there are indications that somebody--
perhaps Brennan--had asked the British to spy on Americans so it wouldn't be Americans spying on Americans, which is not supposed to happen unless there is probable cause to believe they have engaged in a crime or--under the Patriot Act--that they are conspiring with a known foreign terrorist.
That is what we were sold when the Patriot Act was reauthorized.
But as we have come to find out that has been greatly loosened up by the DOJ, CIA, NSA, and they pretty much go after everybody they want to.
I found out--I had not been aware of it until this week--that clear back in 2012, the Obama Justice Department made a motion to the FISA court to allow them to unmask information about American citizens if--
under this new incredibly relaxed language--it might be of assistance to someone outside the scope that is supposed to be allowed to see this information, if it might assist them in assessing other information.
Well, it doesn't get much more vague than that. And I know from having been on the Judiciary Committee for years, that until the Obama Administration, I had a lot of colleagues on the other side of the aisle that were extremely concerned with privacy issues and the government gathering evidence without probable cause and the government violating the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
Somehow during those years, I lost my colleagues on the other side that quit being as concerned about privacy invasions and Fourth and Fifth Amendment violations, but I am not aware of anybody on our Judiciary Committee that knew about this motion to just blow the door wide open. And, I think, against the wording of the law, they came up with a motion and got a judge to sign off, apparently, to say, Okay, yes, you can unmask and spread information to anybody outside the originally indicated circle, if it might help them assess other information.
For Heaven's sake, that is an outrage. I couldn't believe it when I was reading that motion.
And what I am saying, Mr. Speaker, it is not classified. It was ordered declassified back years ago. But I haven't met anybody here in Congress that was aware that in 2012, back at that time, the Obama DOJ was going to blow the door open and start spreading information that people should never have had it, making sure they got it.
And perhaps, that explains to some extent how somebody like Samantha Power could have, I think it was hundreds of American citizens' information unmasked. I mean, basically, they were running our intelligence agency as a political operation to go after anyone that they felt like might be a potential problem for a Democratic administration.
Very, very alarming.
This article from Town Hall is really talking about the bill H.R. 1.
I love the idea of making information more public. It was called For the People legislation. This article says that is really for the government. I would submit it is really more for Democratic politicians. The things in there that would degrade our election process are phenomenal.
We really ought to be going back to paper ballots; that would be the appropriate thing to do, and put proper safeguards on those ballots. I think it would be a good thing to do.
I also like Ron Kind's bill--he has been filing ever since he has been here--that would require each person seeking Federal elected office to disclose the identity of anyone who donates anything. You have got a $200 floor. And I like what Ron Kind, my colleague on the other side of the aisle, his bill he has been pushing for years, you know, whether you are a Republican or Democrat, we want to eliminate this having people donate without knowing who is donating.
It leaves open the possibility--and surely, it has happened--that somebody with a lot of money could give $50, $50, $150, over and over and over.
And since you don't have to report it, who it came from, they could be violating--and criminally violating--our election laws.
So I hope that we will have some cleanup of election laws, but not the kind of thing that allows you to go out and harvest votes that didn't happen until after the election.
We have an election day in this country. And to leave that election open so that you could have a Lyndon Johnson style of finding votes after the fact--whether they voted in alphabetical order or not--is just not a good idea. It leaves an opening for stealing elections.
We have an election day, and there ought to be a cutoff; no ballots accepted after this day, at this time. And don't come bringing in a bunch of ballots the next day after you find out how many ballots it is going to take to overturn the election that finished the day before.
I mean, it is third world-type activity with this election. If we heard that a dictator somewhere had put into place some of the things in H.R. 1, we would be outraged and say that is what a dictator does, and it is not right. You are trying to manipulate the election, and it is totally inappropriate.
Another topic that is, I think, very important, we took up in Judiciary Committee a bill called the Violence Against Women Act; it hadn't been reauthorized in a while. And there has been inequality in the treatment of women compared to men in a number of ways that needed to be addressed. And the Violence Against Women Act addresses some of those.
But now this bill goes too far and does damage to so many of the equality gains by women over the decades. And one of the problems created in the new Violence Against Women Act involves what most people call transgender, but the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition--which in many ways the DSM-4, DSM-5--they begin to incorporate a great deal of politics in some areas as much as they incorporated medicine.
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The definition or the term given in DSM-5 for what is commonly called transgender is someone who suffers from gender dysphoria. That is a bit of a reclassification from where DSM-III and DSM-IV were.
The definition they give for gender dysphoria is ``distress that accompanies the incongruence between one's experienced and expressed gender and one's assigned or natal gender.''
Then it also defines dysphoria as a condition in which a person experiences intense feelings of depression, discontent, and, in some cases, indifference to the world around them.
Some have said, well, dysphoria is the opposite of euphoria, so it is someone who has difficulty dealing with the gender with which they were born. That is someone unhappy with, confused about, displeased with, or depressed about the gender which they have.
We have made so much progress over the years. I saw it as a felony judge. So often in cases involving domestic abuse, involving sexual assault, the women have not been treated fairly, and they have been demonized. Their victimization has not been properly considered.
Over the years, we have gotten better and our justice system has gotten better. It certainly has in Texas.
Some people, including my old friend, former Congressman Ted Poe, another former felony judge from Houston, saw the way women were not always treated properly as victims of sexual assault.
Most D.A.'s offices were required to have victim's assistance that could help, advise, counsel, and comfort victims of sexual assault. But this Violence Against Women Act that was passed by the committee with many of the Republicans voting ``no''--maybe all of us; I am not sure--
it sets women's rights back significantly.
I am pointing this out with a heart that has broken for women who I have seen so abused. Sometimes it was even harder on the women because they would end up blaming themselves. There were many times when I would call either a woman victim or a child victim up because I could tell they had that mentality that ``I probably deserved what I got.''
After the trial was over, I would tell them: You need to understand, this is not your fault. You didn't deserve this. This was a crime committed against you. You had nothing to do with this. It was nothing that you should have done. It was a crime being committed against you, and you were not properly protected. For that, I am sorry.
Again, this Violence Against Women Act does not take into account what has come to be known. As we have tried to be more sensitive and caring, and appropriately so, for female victims of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and aggravated sexual assault, the crimes against women can be, obviously, committed against men and have been. But most often, it is against women and, therefore, deserves special consideration.
If you go to health.com, this site has information talking about female victims of sexual assault. Most people are familiar with post-
traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, for soldiers. But this points out:
``In some ways, the trauma from sexual assault may be worse than the trauma from combat because, normally, soldiers are prepared and trained for combat.'' It points out that PTSD affects about 3.5 percent of U.S. adults, but women are twice as likely as men to have PTSD.
For those who are not aware, there is a difference between men and women, and these kinds of statistics bear that out.
Another article from Lindsay Burgess in March of 2018 says: ``For survivors of sexual assault, the odds of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, are high: Up to 94 percent,'' and it is talking about women who experience or are victims of assault, ``experience symptoms during the first 2 weeks after the incident, and up to 50 percent may struggle long term. For these survivors, day-to-day events
. . . can hit especially hard. And like any mental health issue, PTSD can be debilitating.''
It also goes on to point out: ``PTSD is commonly associated with combat veterans, but around 50 percent of PTSD cases in the U.S. develop in the aftermath of sexual or physical violence. Despite the high number, it is important to recognize that some sexual assault survivors feel `okay' afterward, and that is equally valid.
`` `Being sexually assaulted or abused is such an invasion of our body, personal space, and safety,' says Kandee Lewis, executive director of The Positive Results Corporation. `People often can't move past that point.'
``Psychotherapist Akiami McCoy, LCSW, LCSW-C, explains that PTSD is more common among survivors who felt that their lives were in danger during the assault. `The brain does not perform well for a victim during a sexual assault,' says McCoy. She explains that this is because the `fight or flight' response kicks in. `Unfortunately, most victims are overpowered, and they can do neither. They may instead disassociate themselves from the act, and that is where the mind escapes the body until the assault is over.'
``Because dissociation is common among sexual assault survivors, during and after the event, a 2015 study looked into and found strong links between dissociation and PTSD.''
It goes on to say that most people who have lived through major trauma don't develop PTSD. Unfortunately, survivors of sexual assault and rape have particularly high chances of experiencing symptoms of the disorder.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of rape victims experience at least some PTSD symptoms within just 2 weeks. Almost a third of all women continued to experience their symptoms 9 months after being raped. Overall, more than two-thirds of all victims of sexual assault and rape develop stress reactions that qualify as moderate or severe.
In a study published in 2005 in the journal ``Behaviour Research and Therapy,'' a team of British researchers explored the connection between unwanted memories in survivors of sexual assault and the severity of PTSD symptoms. The researchers found that assault survivors who are easily and frequently triggered by visual reminders of their trauma can experience a sharp increase in their symptom's intensity.
Then this goes--I guess it is commonly reported--that one out of four women will be victims of sexual assault. When you consider, if that is accurate, those kinds of numbers, that you have that many women who have been sexually assaulted, and they go into a public restroom that is for women, in a confined space, having a biological man come walking in because he indicates he feels like a woman that day, it can trigger those experiences of sexual assault all over again.
Why would we do that? Women have made so much progress toward equality. And I understand the hearts of my Democratic friends who wanted to allow transgenders to go in any restroom they feel like they should go into. I understand they want to help people who are often victims of abuse themselves. I get the desire to help them, but why traumatize women when it is unnecessary?
We had people in the community say, well, there is no indication anybody has ever been bothered by having a biological man come into a women's restroom or private facilities for women. I am sure they were being sincere. They were not familiar, but they abound.
That is why there is a lawsuit in Fresno, California. This is a homeless shelter. Who goes to homeless shelters? Often, very often--and I have been there; I have talked to them--it is women who have been sexually abused. Often, it is domestic abuse by a partner or a spouse or a husband. They have nowhere else to go. They are afraid if they go to a friend's home, that husband will find them. They do have to be careful.
Right in Marshall, Texas, the inspiration for Kari's Law that we passed in the last Congress, she was afraid of her husband. He was abusive, but she was supposed to let him see the kids. He took them to a hotel room, and he pulled her into the bathroom and beat her with his fist for many minutes. Eventually, he took a knife and began stabbing her over 20 times, ultimately killing her, while her young daughter was trying to dial 911, not knowing she had to dial a prefix.
It was one event out of far too many events where a victim of domestic abuse, just trying to hang on and not be abused further, they go to a homeless shelter, having been abused, beaten, many times raped, and they think, at a homeless shelter, they would be protected against triggers that would make them relive the trauma of their aggravated rape.
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When you talk to people who work in those facilities, they work there because they care deeply about women who have been harmed. They have immense hearts caring deeply. That is why they are there. Yet this law will end up forcing these women to be cohabitating with biological men.
Whether they are honest about feeling like a woman or not, why should we pass laws that force women victims of sexual assault to be further traumatized?
That is not appropriate for a government role.
In this case from the ``Toronto Sun,'' a predator--who claimed to be transgender--because of his sexual crimes had been declared to be a dangerous sexual offender. Let's face it, like this guy in Toronto, Canada, since you don't have to have any overt proof, Mr. Speaker, no patent proof that you feel like a woman, you can just say it, and people under the new Violence Against Women Act have to recognize it, then this will not be an isolated incident.
I have seen it, I have prosecuted it, and I have sentenced it. These predators look for any way they can to get a woman in a defensive position--a woman or a child--someone whom they can render helpless. If they will drill holes through walls so they can spy, do you think they wouldn't go to the trouble of walking in?
Because if you drill a hole and spy, Mr. Speaker, you can be arrested for being a Peeping Tom. But if you, under the new proposed laws, simply say: ``I feel like a woman today,'' then you can go in and be a voyeur all you want to, and it opens the door to sexual deviants that should not have a door available to them.
There is another here from ``The Courier'' in the U.K. The mom of a supermarket sexual assault victim warns that her attacker will strike again.
Regarding the lawsuit from the Eastern District of California about the man who claimed to be transgender, why would we pass a law that would undo the great appropriate advances that have occurred for women's rights toward equality and toward not being victimized?
I know the intention is to try to help people who have gender dysphoria, gender confusion, from being victims so they can walk into any restroom they want to, but it is a mistake that will do far more damage to women, and it is just tragic to have that kind of law included in the Violence Against Women Act.
It was mentioned by a friend across the aisle--and I know his motivation. He has a big heart and he cares about people who are victims, and that includes people who have gender dysphoria--but he was bragging about--apparently according to what he said--that equality law was being passed yesterday that will open the door to equality for transgender across sports and education and across the board.
We are already seeing something that is just incredible. Martina Navratilova is probably one of the top five women tennis players of all time and has been an icon for so many tennis players, especially for liberal tennis players, liberal women, because she has fought so for gay rights. Yet she is now being attacked because she dared to say that she didn't think that someone who is a biological man with biological advantages over a biological woman, in most cases, should be able to compete in women's tennis.
How is that something to beat her up for verbally?
How is that something to abuse her for?
What will happen to the great progress of equality for women if that bill becomes law will be it will eliminate women's sports. You may occasionally have a woman who desires to compete as a man who is extraordinary and can win some things. The doctors talk about the potential for greater muscle mass, they are built differently, can do better in some sports than women can, as a general rule. And, yes, I know there are women that could kick the rear of many men, including me, I know, I get that. But we are talking about competition at the highest levels, and it is grossly unfair to allow a biological man to compete in women's sports. No matter how gender dysphorically confused the person is, it is unfair to the great progress of women's equality.
What that bill will do if it becomes the law is it will bring an end to women's sports. You will be left with mainly men's sports and co-ed sports--co-ed sports consisting of the women and the men who say they are women, and it will end the equality, the fairness that has come to be known in Title IX and through women's sports and women's professional sports, that they will become co-ed sports. It is tremendously unfair to women.
Now, the final thing I want to bring up is the resolution we took up in here regarding hate last week. The reason that all came about were specific comments by a Member of the House that most everyone here, not all, but most believe were anti-Semitic. For those in Congress who don't understand, anti-Semitic comments are not criticism of one person for something they have said or done. That is not anti-Semitic, even if that person happens to be Jewish. It is not. So when I criticized George Soros for damage I believe he has done to my country by the things that he has contributed to, by the damage he has done to countries yearning to be free in Europe as he has pushed them toward socialism--why would a billionaire push people toward socialism?
Because socialism means everybody is treated equally.
It is because he knows that in a Socialist country after you eliminate the middle class, what you are left with, Mr. Speaker, is a very thin veneer of a ruling class and everybody else who is ruled over by the ruling class. That is where socialism goes. Some billionaires think, oh, they will be there in that tiny, little, ruling class, not understanding that historically if you go to full-bore socialism or communism, you are going to end up killing off the billionaires and taking their money. So it is an amazing thing to see that.
I am also aware that even Israel's defense ministry has pointed out the damage that George Soros has done to Israel. Because I have criticized George Soros, people say: Oh, you are anti-Semitic.
It is not anti-Semitic to criticize somebody for things they have done, things they are paying for, or things they are contributing to just because they happen to be Jewish. What makes it anti-Semitic is when you slander or libel an entire race or group of people and smear them as all having the same characteristics and belittle them as a group.
So there was a resolution that was supposed to address specific anti-
Semitic remarks by a Member of Congress, and then we hear, well, there were protests because they didn't want her condemned for anti-Semitic remarks. So it got watered down.
I printed out the copy of the resolution as it was at 3 o'clock that afternoon. I came over here ready to speak against that resolution because it had been so watered down, and I was told: well, actually, that one got pulled and they watered it down even further, and here is the new one, as of about 3:20 that afternoon.
It kept being watered down until it basically said that we are against all kinds of hate. Of course, they didn't mention the kind of political hate that would cause a Democrat--and if it had been a Republican who supported Donald Trump, that would have been what everybody talked about, oh, gosh, this is what Trump inspires, but since it was a Bernie Sanders supporter, I don't know of any Republican, including me, who has blamed Bernie Sanders for the criminal who shot Steve Scalise and tried to kill my baseball friends and colleagues. He wanted to kill them all, but that wasn't singled out.
In fact, when we were taking testimony on gun crime in Judiciary, the majority would not even allow Steve Scalise to testify. Oh, well, if he comes in and testifies, it might open the door to all kinds of other Members of Congress.
Well, why don't you just say that we will restrict the testimony from Members of Congress to those who have been shot by somebody who hates them and their party?
How about that?
But Steve was not even allowed to come testify before our committee. That kind of thing was not mentioned in what was, basically, we are against all kinds of hate, except for that, and we are also not going to call out the hate that causes the hate hoaxes which there seem to be a rash of people saying they are the victim of some hate when actually it is their hate that created a hoax.
But I have made loud and clear repetitiously, the reason I and 22 others voted against that resolution was because it did not do what it should have done, and that is, call out specific anti-Semitic comments.
Now, some were bothered that I said that there is no moral equivalence between the Holocaust and say the years of slavery, the slavery that is continuing today. I was shocked to find out this year that there are 40 million slaves in the world today, more than any time in history. We ought to do all we can to stop it. It is horrendous. It did so much damage to the core of this country for far too long. But there is a special hatred that the Jewish people have experienced that we need to stop when it starts. For those morons who didn't know, I voted against the first anti-hate resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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