[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 53 (Thursday, April 18, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H2153-H2155]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CURRENT EVENTS IN REVIEW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.

[[Page H2154]]

  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  With the news yesterday of the terrible explosion in West, Texas, our 
thoughts, hearts, prayers go out to those people so terribly harmed and 
adversely affected and to the loss of lives, just as we continue to 
remember those who have lost family, friends, loved ones, limbs in 
Boston.
  West, Texas, is often known for their West Fest in the fall of the 
year. They always advertise as having the best kolaches anywhere in the 
world. It's just a beautiful little town, a wonderful little town, but 
it is rocked and needs our prayers. That is, in fact, what the mayor of 
West, Tommy Muska, said:

       We need your prayers. There's a lot of people that got 
     hurt. There's a lot of people, I'm sure, who will not be here 
     tomorrow.

  They're still trying to dig out from under that devastating explosion 
that occurred there at the fertilizer plant, so we will continue to 
remember those people.
  It is also interesting and worthy of note that, in the news, we now 
find that we have confessions in the murders of the Assistant District 
Attorney in the neighboring county of where I live, over in Kaufman. 
The Assistant District Attorney, Mark Hasse, and the District Attorney, 
Mike McLelland, and his wife were killed back on March 30 of this 
year--the DA was. Mark was killed back on January 31.
  That was so tragic, and any of us who have ever been prosecutors or 
judges as I have--and my friend Ted Poe has been a judge--you suffer 
the death threats and the slings and arrows that come at you; and I 
think, in a way, it was preparation for slings and arrows verbally that 
would come in Congress. These were real bullets that were used to kill 
a prosecutor, an Assistant DA and a District Attorney, and anytime law 
enforcement is threatened in such a way, it's a threat to the rule of 
law; it's a threat to the country.
  Sadly, after those two heinous murders in Kaufman, the Southern 
Poverty Law Center came out--for which this administration has helped 
achieve a very special place, unfortunately, of credibility when they 
do not deserve credibility because of the pain and suffering that the 
institution has caused--and there were articles written. Here is one 
from ABC with the headline ``Aryan Brotherhood of Texas Among Groups 
Eyed in Prosecutors' Murders.''

  The article from April 2 says:

       The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a white supremacist prison 
     gang, has become one of the top focuses of authorities 
     investigating the murders of two Texas prosecutors, sources 
     told ABC News.
       Prosecutors from Kaufman County, Texas, had helped imprison 
     dozens of Aryan Brotherhood of Texas members late last year, 
     the sources said.
       In recent weeks, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike 
     McLelland and his top assistant, Mark Hasse, were murdered in 
     shootings that have left investigators hunting for clues.
       Cops are poring over hundreds of old cases that Hasse and 
     McLelland prosecuted and following clues that involve not 
     just the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, but Mexican drug 
     cartels, local drug traffickers and other violent 
     individuals; but they are aggressively pursuing a possible 
     Aryan Brotherhood link, sources said.

  It was nice of ABC to give so much weight and credibility to their 
sources that obviously did not have any clue whatsoever of what they 
were talking about because, just as was reported by people back at the 
time, they were concerned about the former justice of the peace's 
possible involvement.
  In the same way, the Southern Poverty Law Center began its bigoted 
approach toward a group like Family Research Council and all those who 
happen to hold religious beliefs affirmed in the Bible, constantly 
referred to in this Chamber and in the Chamber down the Hall, where 
nondenominational Christian worship services were held through most of 
the 1800s and where President Thomas Jefferson--who coined the phrase 
``separation of church and State'' and said there should be a wall of 
separation--felt there was no problem with having a nondenominational 
Christian worship service in the United States Capitol and, in fact, at 
times, had the marine band come to play the hymns.
  I have a bill that would require a plaque be put down the Hall so 
people would know. We're not advocating to have church services every 
Sunday down there--it's completely unnecessary--but it is important for 
people to not have this view that is completely inappropriate by people 
who would attempt to rewrite history.
  The Family Research Council, as do so many other Christian groups, 
holds to the religious belief about marriage as was recognized by Jesus 
at his first recorded miracle at a wedding between a man and a woman, 
as is recorded in the Old Testament, in Genesis: that God saw man alone 
and felt it would be better for him to have a helpmate and then created 
woman.
  Regardless of how anyone believes everyone got here, I love the way 
the late Bob Murphey from Nacogdoches used to explain in his country 
way--though he was a brilliant intellect, he explained things in a 
countrified fashion--``I feel sorry for atheists. I really do. They 
have to believe that nobody, plus nothing, equals everything.''

                              {time}  1440

  Well, the people that met through most of the 1800s down the Hall, 
most of them hoped for the day when slavery would be gone. Many of them 
attended church services down the Hall, including John Quincy Adams, 
spent their lives fighting to end slavery in America, pushing for that 
day as William Wilberforce did in England; and yet because the Family 
Research Council held the beliefs about marriage being between a man 
and a woman, that most people have in recorded history, and has, 
although there are some people who interpret the Bible differently, if 
you look at the real interpretation, there is no mistake, what it says 
and what it means, but because people hold the values that the Pilgrims 
depicted down in the rotunda, having a prayer meeting with an open 
Bible believed, as the Family Research Council held the same views 
about marriage that George Washington did, who's considered the father 
of the country, because the Family Research Council held the same views 
about marriage that DeSoto, who is pictured down the Hall in the 
rotunda, finding the Mississippi River and being so overwhelmed that 
there was this incredible amount of freshwater this far inland, they 
commemorated the spot, as depicted in that massive mural, by digging a 
hole and planting a cross there to commemorate the spot.
  Since the Family Research Council believed that marriage was the same 
thing as Pocahontas and those present for her baptism depicted down the 
Hall in the rotunda believed, because the Family Research Council 
believed that marriage, as all 56 of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence depicted in the rotunda, because the Family Research 
Council had the same religious convictions about marriage of all of 
those people depicted down the Hall, as I've mentioned, the Southern 
Poverty Law Center claimed that Family Research Council was a hate 
group and stirred up animosity against them that eventually played a 
role.
  As we found out later, no one wanted to jump to conclusions, but it 
was very clear that their branding the Family Research Council and 
Chick-fil-A as being hateful simply because they held religious beliefs 
protected by our Constitution that marriage is between a man and a 
woman, the Southern Poverty Law Center stirred up hate, animosity, and 
rage against the Family Research Council. And on the fateful day not so 
long ago, a gunman came to the Family Research Council with a bunch of 
Chick-fil-A sandwiches and a gun. And but for the valiant work of the 
man that stopped him and got shot in the process, there could well have 
been 15 dead Family Research Council employees with 15 Chick-fil-A 
sandwiches beside them.
  There is an article here written by Bryan Preston on April 15, 2013. 
It says:

       News broke Friday afternoon that an arrest has been made in 
     the murders of three people. Those murders, of Kaufman County 
     DA Mike McLelland; his wife, Cynthia; and prosecutor Mark 
     Hasse, triggered national coverage. As R.S. McCain notes, 
     MSNBC's Chris Matthews ran an 8-minute segment on the 
     killings on April 3, detailing the widespread belief that 
     Aryan Brotherhood white supremacist/thug groups were behind 
     the killings.

  Now I live in east Texas, and the widespread beliefs in east Texas 
were not that the Aryan Brotherhood had been involved in this. Usually, 
they take actions crazy enough to indicate they're not trying to hide 
from anything they did. It just didn't sound like

[[Page H2155]]

those people. Yet that's what some were stirring up, the sources at 
NBC.
  The article goes on:

       But if the reports out of Kaufman County are correct, the 
     Aryan Brotherhood isn't behind the crimes. Former Kaufman 
     Justice of the Peace Eric Williams is.

  And we know now, a couple of days later, his wife has also confessed 
to being part of it. So it was the JP and his wife.
  But this article says:

       CBS reports that Williams was arrested Friday and charged 
     with making ``terroristic threats,'' which includes 
     threatening county employees and issuing demands that had to 
     be met at a ``certain time on a certain date.'' A storage 
     shed was searched, weapons were found, and they're being 
     tested for ballistics. Capital murder charges may come in a 
     day or two.
       According to the report, Williams had a history with both 
     McLelland and Hasse. The two had prosecuted and secured a 
     conviction against him in 2012 for burglary and theft by a 
     public servant. Surveillance cameras caught Williams taking 
     computer equipment from a county building. As part of his 
     appeal, Williams claimed that McLelland and Hasse did not 
     like him. As the case unfolds, it is starting to look like a 
     local vendetta, not part of a national anything by a 
     political-crime syndicate like the Aryan Brotherhood.
       Where did MSNBC and other national media quickly get the 
     idea that the Aryan Brotherhood was involved? Possibly from 
     the Southern Poverty Law Center, which on January 31--a 
     day after Hasse's murder--posted a lengthy piece by Mark 
     Potok bringing up the AB link. Potok also showed up on 
     MSNBC April 1, the day after the McLellands' murders, to 
     once again point the finger at the Aryan Brotherhood.

       Other press followed up, as Stacy McCain notes, flowing 
     from that January 31 article posted by the Southern Poverty 
     Law Center. But if Williams is the killer, then it looks like 
     the SPLC got the whole story wrong. Meanwhile, on the ground 
     in Kaufman County, suspicion was already falling on Williams 
     much earlier, according to Stacy McCain.

  This says:

       The pieces might have fallen into place earlier--Mark 
     Hasse's murder might have been solved, and Williams arrested 
     before McLelland was killed--if law enforcement hadn't wasted 
     time chasing the ``white supremacist'' wild goose, when the 
     DA himself tried to tell them who murdered Mark Hasse.
       Country Judge Bruce Wood said Sunday that McLelland 
     repeatedly told him that McLelland believed Williams was 
     behind Hasse's slaying. The first time was in the emergency 
     room in the hours after Hasse was shot down by a mysterious 
     gunman dressed in black.
       He was distraught, Wood said. He very pointedly said to me, 
     I know who did this. I said, Well, who, Mike? He said, Well, 
     Eric Williams.
       McLelland, who worked for years as a diagnostic 
     psychologist described Williams as a ``narcissistic 
     psychopath'' during that conversation and others. Woods said 
     McLelland never elaborated on why he thought Williams was 
     involved.
       On March 27, Woods said he met with McLelland in the county 
     judge's office. I said, Are you still convinced that it's 
     Eric Williams? Woods recalled he said, Absolutely.
       The SPLC and its ``hate watch'' and ``hate map'' fuel media 
     and left wing speculation while helping the center generate 
     donations, and the latter even inspired an attempt at a mass 
     killing at the headquarters of the Family Research Council 
     last year. This time, the SPLC might have misdirected law 
     enforcement long enough for a man to commit murder. One 
     Federal prosecutor quit a case on April 3, citing the danger 
     of dealing with the Aryan Brotherhood after those original 
     three murders.

  It is clear that there is hate in the heart of the Southern Poverty 
Law Center individuals who would stir up such hatred toward whites or 
toward a fantastic Christian group like the Family Research Council, 
and like other Christian groups of all types of races, against my black 
friends here in Washington who simply believe what they read in the 
Bible about marriage. And because they believe what they read in the 
Bible about marriage, you have a group in this country that is so full 
of hate that they can't stand the thought of someone having religious 
beliefs different from theirs, so they stir up hatred and animosity.

                              {time}  1450

  I was totally against the hate crimes bill. And yet this is a group 
that wanted a hate crimes bill, yet they're stirring up hate. As a 
Christian, it is my prayer that those in the Southern Poverty Law 
Center that are so filled with jealousy and hate and animosity will 
come to know the peace that passes all understanding that will allow 
this Nation to heal so many wounds that will only fester with a group 
like that stirring up hatred. We will continue to hope and pray for 
such peace and the complete diminishment and dissolution of hatred of 
such a vile nature within the hearts of those people there, so they 
could come to the point of being able to hold hands and sing songs and 
hymns together as so many did around this country on 9/12 of 2001, as 
I've done with others, different races, creeds, right here in 
Washington, D.C., because we share a love for our Nation and a love for 
God. And when we do that, there's no hyphenated American.
  That was the one thing, with all the heartache, the anguish on 9/12 
of 2001, that was so amazing. We were Americans. We were not hyphenated 
anything. We were Americans. We were one people. Out of many, we came 
together as one.
  And it continues to be my hope and prayer that groups that stir up 
hate like the Southern Poverty Law Center and brand others as hate in 
an attempt to disguise their own will come to know peace and will come 
to know love and will take the example of the man whose bust is down in 
the rotunda as well, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who advocated to the 
very end peace and the love that Jesus showed to all of us. May the 
Southern Poverty Law Center find such love and such grace.
  We also had a story here, April 17, by Helle Dale, Congressional 
Hearing Produces Shocker on Benghazi:

       Kudos to members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee for 
     squarely placing Benghazi on the table at today's hearing 
     with Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry's answers were 
     nothing less than shocking.
       What we learned is that State is conducting yet another 
     internal review of Benghazi, initiated by Kerry himself 
     immediately after taking office and allegedly due soon. This 
     amounts to a huge indictment of the credibility of Kerry's 
     predecessor Hillary Clinton and of the investigation by the 
     State Department's Accountability Review Board. Clearly, even 
     John Kerry is not confident in the Obama administration's 
     version of events.
       Kerry promised the committee that he would ``clear the 
     air,'' though he also repeatedly used the phrase that 
     clearing the air needs to be done ``so we can move on'' to 
     far more important issues.

  I am so grateful to Secretary Kerry for taking that position. We do 
need to get to the truth. The dead at Benghazi, the dead Americans, cry 
out for truth. Those who were harmed and hurt, Americans there, deserve 
the truth. Hopefully we will get that.
  Mr. Speaker, with so much suffering and anguish right now in America, 
it is still the greatest nation in the history of the world. May God 
guide the leadership in this country that we don't drop the ball and 
fail on our watch, that we show ourselves to be worthy recipients of 
the gifts of liberty given to us by prior generations, all coming, as 
the Founders noted, as a gift from God.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________