[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 6, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H3440-H3444]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my dear friend and
colleague, Ms. Frankel, for a wonderful presentation.
I know, in having traveled with Congresswoman Frankel, that we share
a great respect and admiration for the nation of Israel, and we should
be the best friend Israel has in the world because they believe in the
things we do, in the same values.
Where else in the Middle East do people get to vote, whether you are
Muslim, Jewish, Christian, except in Israel? If you are a woman, where
are you respected and given the full rights that men have, except for
in Israel? Where in the Middle East are homosexuals not persecuted and
even killed?
We ought to be Israel's best friend in the world; and I am very
concerned that, at times, it feels like we may not be. So I join my
friend in wanting to do everything we can to shore up that relationship
with Israel, and I thank her for her dedication.
I also believe firmly that it is true that those who bless Israel
seem to end up being blessed. Go figure. So I am grateful for that
presentation.
Mr. Speaker, I did want to answer or attempt to answer a question
that I have been asked many times about media reporting and
presentations and why some stories get covered by the mainstream media,
particularly by the three main networks for broadcast television and
CNN and MSNBC as well.
I saw a chart that was put together by a group, called the Minority
Report, but I wasn't as interested in the group as I was in finding out
if the relationships set forth in the chart were actually accurate, so
I had my staff help me. Let's find out. Is this chart really accurate?
I was really staggered by what was in the chart.
This is not the entire chart, but it is most of it. Their chart was
entitled, ``Keeping It in the Family,'' and it was very interesting.
As you see the chart here, at CNN, the vice president and deputy
bureau chief in Washington is Virginia Moseley, who is married to Tom
Nides, who is the former Deputy Secretary of State under Hillary
Clinton, the former Secretary of State.
You have Bianna Golodryga, married to Peter Orszag, who was the
former Director of the Office of Management and Budget under the Obama
administration. You have Ben Sherwood, and he is the brother of Dr.
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, who is the former adviser to Joe Biden and
also an adviser to the President.
At ABC News, you have Ian Cameron, who is the former executive
producer of ``This Week,'' and he is married to someone named Susan
Rice, who, obviously, was the National Security Advisor to the
President before she went to the U.N.
You have Claire Shipman, who is married to someone named Jay Carney.
Claire Shipman is a correspondent with ABC News. Then you have Matthew
Jaffe, who is married to Katie Hogan. Katie Hogan was the Deputy Press
Secretary for President Obama's 2012 reelection campaign; and she is
the spokesperson for Organizing for Action, OFA, which is working hard,
apparently, to turn Texas blue, as they say. Anyway, Matthew Jaffe is a
reporter with ABC News.
Then not to leave out NBC News, you have Robert Gibbs, the former
White House Press Secretary for President Obama. You have him as a
contributor to NBC News. You have the former senior adviser to the
President, David Axelrod, who is known for the massive and important
advice he has given to President Obama as a senior political analyst
for MSNBC.
Oh, we don't want to forget, over here, CBS News. You have the
president of CBS News, who is David Rhodes. David Rhodes is akin to--is
the brother of--Ben Rhodes, who is the person who coined the phrase
``kinetic military action,'' instead of using the word ``war.''
He coordinated the edits, apparently, of the Benghazi talking points,
and of course, he had a great deal to do with what was done in Libya by
this administration and the way that was discussed with the media.
So it is not necessarily surprising that Sharyl Attkisson ran into
the buzz saw she did at CBS News when the president of CBS News is the
brother of someone who was helping pull the strings at the White House.
In fact, some of the articles that were pulled to point out some of
these relationships--an article by Ed Morrissey on April 29 of 2014
talked about the newly released White House email, which shows that the
Rice talking points on Benghazi were politically motivated.
It says, in part, in the article:
The YouTube story was designed to distract from ``policy
failures,'' according to Barack Obama's aide Ben Rhodes--or
the brother to the president of CBS News.
Then it goes on to set out part of Mr. Ben Rhode's email, and he says
in the email, Ben Rhodes does--the brother of David Rhodes, the
president of CBS News:
To convey that the United States is doing everything that
we can to protect our people and facilities abroad; to
underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet
video and not a broader failure of policy; to show that we
will be resolute in bringing people who harm Americans to
justice and standing steadfast through these protests; to
reinforce the President and administration's strength and
steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.
On the toplines, he says:
Since we began to see protests in response to this Internet
video, the President has directed the administration to take
a number of steps. His top priority has been the safety and
security of all Americans serving abroad.
Indeed, that was exactly what people in the administration were
saying. That was what the people at CBS News were parroting. Since that
came from the brother of the CBS News president, that seems to have
worked pretty effectively.
There is another article here, ``Worldly at 35, and Shaping Obama's
Voice.'' It was an article in The New York Times in March of 2013 by
Mark Landler.
It says:
As President Obama prepares to visit Israel next week, he
is turning, as he often does, to Benjamin J. Rhodes, a 35-
year-old Deputy National Security Advisor with a soft voice,
strong opinions, and a reputation around the White House as
the man who channels Mr. Obama on foreign policy.
{time} 2000
Mr. Rhodes is drafting the address to the Israeli people the
President plans to give in Jerusalem. But his influence extends beyond
what either his title or speech-writing duties suggest. Drawing on
personal ties and a philosophical kinship with Mr. Obama that go back
to the 2008 campaign, Mr. Rhodes helped prod his boss to take a more
activist policy toward Egypt and Libya when those countries erupted in
2011.
On further in the article it points out:
Two years ago, when protesters thronged Tahrir Square in
Cairo, Mr. Rhodes urged Mr. Obama to withdraw three decades
of American support for President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. A
few months later, Mr. Rhodes was among those agitating for
the President to back a NATO military intervention in Libya
to head off a slaughter by Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.
Further down in the article it says:
At the White House, Mr. Rhodes first came to prominence
after he wrote Mr. Obama's landmark address to the Muslim
world in Cairo in June, 2009. The speech was notable for Mr.
Obama's assertion that governments should ``reflect the will
of the people,'' prefiguring his policy in dealing with Mr.
Mubarak and Colonel Qaddafi.
Another article from March of 2011 by Rick Moran. It starts out with
a reference to Alice in Wonderland, when Rick Moran says:
A ``war'' is a war, is a ``war,'' right? Not if you live in
the Rabbit Hole and have to answer to Alice--
talking about Alice in Wonderland--
as Commander in Chief.
But Byron York is quoted--and I take it this was an article by Byron
York inserted in Mr. Moran's piece--and says:
[[Page H3441]]
In the last few days, Obama administration officials have
frequently faced the question: Is the fighting in Libya a
war? For military officers to White House spokesmen up to the
President himself, the answer is ``no.'' But that leaves the
question: What is it?
In a briefing onboard Air Force One Wednesday, Deputy
National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes--
Again, this is 2011--
--took a crack at an answer. ``I think what we are doing is
enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals,
which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a
humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone,'' Rhodes
said. ``Obviously, that involves kinetic military action,
particularly on the front end.''
That came from Ben Rhodes.
And then Mr. Moran's article says:
What we are doing in Libya is making war, whether the Obama
administration admits it or not. People aren't getting killed
by ``kinetic'' anything. They are dying the old-fashioned
way--they are getting blown up.
This gives a whole new meaning to ``KIA.''
Another article from Patrick Howley from May 11, 2013, entitled,
``Top Obama Official's Brother is President of CBS News, May Drop
Reporter Over Benghazi Coverage.''
It says:
The brother of a top Obama administration official is also
the president of CBS News, and the network may be days away
from dropping one of its top investigative reporters for
covering the administration's scandals too aggressively.
Down further it says:
That reporting revealed that President Obama's Deputy
National Security Advisor, Ben Rhodes--brother of CBS News
president David Rhodes--was instrumental in changing the
talking points in September, 2012.
The article further down says more about Mr. Rhodes being a 35-year-
old New York native; David Rhodes, president of CBS news since 2011.
So it is rather amazing, but it should be more clear to people.
People wonder why the mainstream gives such favorable coverage to the
Obama administration. Well, blood is thicker than water, is one saying.
In the case of our mainstream media, they totally dropped the ball on
Benghazi and continue to report on anything else they can besides
Benghazi.
I am very grateful that the mainstream media on the left and right
back in the seventies did not drop the Watergate investigation. They
stayed on it until the truth came out. Back in those days, the
mainstream media was so important to protecting our freedom and
protecting Americans from a President who had an enemies' list and
protecting America from a President that seemed a bit paranoid at
times.
A man, a fellow Christian and an amazing man of faith after his
conversion during the Watergate investigation, Chuck Colson, talked in
his book, ``Born Again'' about how after the Kent State debacle and
students were killed, it turned basically into a bunker at the White
House. It was ``we'' against ``they,'' and if you were critical at all,
you didn't deserve to be in the bunker. You were an enemy.
We are very fortunate that when a President begins to have that kind
of mentality and so afraid of anybody who is critical, we are fortunate
he did not understand just how far a President, how far an
administration could push the IRS into going after political enemies,
as we have now seen that it has.
Whether or not the IRS's weaponization was before the 2012 election,
the President had a call to arms right here in front of the House and
the Senate and the Cabinet members, Joint Chiefs of Staff and Supreme
Court, sitting right here, when he mistakenly asserted what he believed
were facts about the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court, and
it was so wrong, to the point that Justice Alito sat right here just
feet away from where I am standing, shaking his head and saying, Not
true, not true, not true.
Nonetheless, people at the IRS heard the call. They paid attention.
And they came to understand that maybe the Supreme Court says
conservatives can run ads and get involved in political issues like
union groups do, but maybe we can stop them. And they effectively did
that by putting their investigations into their tax status on hold and
refusing to give them any kind of decision until well after the 2012
election, thereby silencing those voices.
I have had reporters who obviously don't understand the Tax Code and
the power of the IRS say, Well, what difference does it make? Those
groups probably shouldn't have been applying for tax status like they
were anyway. Obviously, showing the ignorance of the reporters when
they ask such questions. Because the way the Internal Revenue Code is
set up, if someone in the general population just decides I want to get
a bunch of friends together who have political beliefs like I do and we
are going to pool our money together and then we are going to start
spending it on issues to educate the American public, and somebody has
got to account for all that money, you don't want the IRS coming after
you as you accumulate money to spend on political education of America.
So you have to go begging to the IRS for the proper designation so
that you can go about gathering money without them coming against you
as being a single individual raising money to spend on political
issues.
That also, Mr. Speaker, is one of the reasons why we need to throw
out the Internal Revenue Code. Just pass a bill that says as of a
certain date the Internal Revenue Code will be totally void, and that
gives us a deadline to shoot for.
I like the idea of a flat tax. There are people that I love and
respect that think a fair tax is a better way to go. But by scrapping
the Internal Revenue Code, throwing it out on a date certain, then we
would only have so long to get a new Tax Code figured out. We would be
serving notice to people that that is when it would change.
I have heard our President say so many times that people need to pay
their fair share. Well, it doesn't look like that is ever going to
happen until we have a flat tax, where if you make more, you pay more;
you make less, you pay less. That is what we ought to be doing.
Anyway, as a result, we have an IRS that became weaponized on behalf
of one political party and one administration. And we do need a special
prosecutor. I have been pointing that out for quite some time. There
are criminals laws that may have been violated. That is why we need a
special prosecutor, not the Justice Department. We have seen their kind
of ``just us'' rather than ``justice.''
We need a special prosecutor that is not appointed by Eric Holder. We
need to get to the bottom of who violated the law. Because it appears
laws were broken.
But some wonder why the mainstream media doesn't get into the IRS
weaponization more. We see the familial relationships between the
mainstream media--not that I am saying CNN and MSNBC on the extreme
left are mainstream media, but they are part of the media who avoids
reporting anything negative about this President. Well, you hate to
report things negative on your own family. So that is understandable.
So, Mr. Speaker, it explains a lot, once you begin to see all of the
marriages and all of the sibling relationships between this
administration and people in the media--siblings in the media--people
calling the shots and giving the advice in our major news media.
Mr. Speaker, we also sometimes are a little surprised as the
mainstream media tries to desperately change the subject from the false
reports and statements that were made about Benghazi and the coverup
that we are now finding out about Benghazi. They are constantly trying
to change the subject, in their desperation to protect their familial
relationships in the administration.
I had a call today wanting me to come on the news tomorrow and talk
about climate change. It used to be called global warming until people
realized, wow, it is not really warming anything very serious, so we
better start calling it climate change. And as any real scientists
know, when you come up with a scientific theory, then there are certain
facts that will prove your theory or your assertion. But when we talk
about climate change, people are not doing that.
{time} 2015
Whatever happens, if there are a lot of tornados, they say: see, it
is climate change. If there are very few tornados, they say: see, it is
climate change. If we have numerous hurricanes, they say: see, it is
climate change. If there are not many hurricanes, they say: see, it is
climate change.
[[Page H3442]]
No matter what happens in the weather, we are told it is climate
change. The truth is I believe in climate change. I not only believe in
climate change, I know it is happening, usually, most places, four
times a year. They are called seasons.
Then we have climate changing--I will never forget, back in the
midseventies, there was a cover of one of the main American magazines
about how we were approaching--heading into a new ice age. I thought,
well, that doesn't make sense. I do believe the Bible, and I don't
believe the world is going to end in ice.
That just doesn't seem right, yet we heard scientists telling us: oh,
no, we are at the beginning of a new ice age in the mid-1970s. We are
at the beginning of a new ice age.
They were wanting to change everything we were doing. Oh, we have got
to change everything we are doing about power, about fossil fuels,
everything because we are at the beginning of a new ice age. About 10
years later, people saw: well, we may be slightly warming, so we had
better quit talking about global cooling, and now, we are talking about
global warming.
There is an interesting article that came out today from Mario Lewis
entitled, ``National Climate Assessment report: Alarmists offer untrue,
unrelenting doom and gloom.''
This article today says:
Tuesday, the U.S. Government's Global Change Research
Program released its latest ``National Assessment'' report on
climate change impacts in the United States.
As with previous editions, the new report is an alarmist
document designed to scare people and build political support
for unpopular policies such as carbon taxes, cap-and-trade,
and EPA regulatory mandates.
Also in keeping with past practice, the latest report
confuses climate risk with climate change risk.
Droughts, storms, floods, and heat waves are all part of
the natural climate. Our risk of exposure to such extremes
has much more to do with where we happen to live than with
any gradual climate changes associated with the 1.3 degree
Fahrenheit to 1.9 degree Fahrenheit increase in average U.S.
temperature since the 1880s.
Since even immediate and total shutdown of all carbon
dioxide-emitting vehicles, power plants, and factories in the
U.S. would decrease global warming by only a hypothetical and
undetectable two-tenths of a degree Celsius by 2100--
Eighty-five years, even if they got everything they wanted for 85
years, the article says:
It is misleading to imply, as the report does, that the
Obama administration's climate policies can provide any
measurable protection from extreme weather events.
The assessment is flatout wrong that climate change is
increasing our vulnerability to heat stress. As hot weather
has become more frequent, people and communities have adapted
to it, and heat-related mortality in the U.S. has declined.
Cities with the most frequent hot weather, such as Tampa;
Florida; and Phoenix, Arizona, have practically zero heat-
related mortality. That is the most probable future for most
U.S. cities if global warming continues.
The report also foolishly predicts that climate change
``intensify air pollution.'' As EPA's own data show, despite
allegedly ``unprecedented'' warming, the U.S. air quality has
improved decade by decade since 1970 as emissions declined.
The report blames climate change for the Midwest drought of
2012, but the government's own analysis concluded otherwise:
``Neither ocean states nor human-induced climate change,
factors that can provide long-lead predictability, appeared
to play significant roles in causing severe rainfall deficits
over the major corn-producing regions of central Great
Plains.''
This assessment ignores substantial data and research,
finding no long-term increase in the strength and frequency
of tropical cyclones and no trend in extreme weather-related
damages once losses are ``normalized'' or adjusted for
changes in population, wealth, and consumer price index.
For example, the report says trends in the frequency and
intensity of tornadoes are ``uncertain,'' whereas, in fact,
there is no trend, and a new study by University of Colorado
Professor Roger Pielke, Jr., finds ``with some certainty''
that ``the number of years with very large tornado losses has
actually decreased'' during 1993-2013 compared to 1950-1970.
Similarly, the U.S. is currently in the longest period on
record with no major category 3-5 hurricane landfalls.
This good news is not included in the report.
The assessment gives short shrift to the warming ``pause,''
which it calls ``short-term.'' In the assessment, the
``pause'' is depicted as running from 1998 through 2012. That
is 15 years. In fact, the pause is now 17 years and 8 months
long.
More tellingly, the assessment does not discuss the growing
divergence between climate model predictions and
observations.
The divergence, now in its 34th year and accelerating due
to the pause, raises questions about the climate sensitivity
assumptions on which dire climate change scenarios depend.
Climate sensitivity is an estimate of how much warming will
eventually result from a doubling of atmospheric carbon
dioxide concentrations relative to preindustrial levels.
In its discussion of sensitivity, the assessment basically
endorses the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's
2007 ``likely'' sensitivity range of 3.6 to 8.1 degrees
Fahrenheit and ``best estimate'' of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
It neglects to mention that, partly due to the pause and
model overshoot of observed temperatures, the IPCC's 2013
report lowered the bottom end of the likely range and
declined to offer a ``best'' estimate.
More importantly, the assessment presents the debate over
climate sensitivity as a ``he said, she said,'' as if a
single paper by John Fasullo and Kevin Trenberth balances out
some 16 recent papers indicating that the IPCC climate
sensitivity estimates are too hot.
In other words, they are just wrong.
The article says:
So despite an occasional fig leaf to hide the nakedness of
its alarm message, the report does acknowledge that climate
change has lengthened growing seasons, helping to make food
more abundant and affordable, the assessment is unrelenting
gloom and doom.
Its only hopeful message is that it's not too late to
implement Kyoto-style climate policies.
Sorry, that's not good enough even for government work.
Mario Lewis is a Ph.D., a senior fellow at Competitive Enterprise
institute.
And it really is important to real realize what is at stake here. It
is something that shocked me back when we were trying, in my freshman
term, to amend and reform the Endangered Species Act that has wreaked
such havoc with our economy and continues to cause people to lose jobs.
There was reported decline in the unemployment rate from 6.7 to 6.3,
and you heard all of the mainstream media, in helping their family
members in this administration, just all abuzz and aglow with how
wonderful that four-tenths of a percent drop was, failing completely to
mention that that was only a fraction of the 800,000 who got so tired
of not finding work--800,000 people gave up and quit looking for work
and are now considered, under statistics, to no longer be unemployed,
even though they are unemployed.
It doesn't account for all the people that are underemployed, that
are out of college and can't find jobs; the historic high unemployment
rate of our veterans coming back and looking for jobs, even as this
administration not only wants to cut the military back to a fraction of
its former self, back to pre-World War II levels, when we were not a
superpower, and hatred and genocide began to reign supreme.
That doesn't explain why the administration and some people here in
the House, friends of mine here in the House, that are saying: You know
what? Let's give the few jobs left in our military to people that are
not lawfully in this country.
If they will do that, even though it will displace one of the few
military jobs left after we cut the military back so far and even
though it will push them into an even-growing high unemployment rate
for veterans, let's go ahead and give those few jobs left to people who
are not lawfully in the country. It is not a good idea.
After pushing for over a year and a half for a select committee to
get to the bottom of what happened at Benghazi and after we still
haven't gotten to the bottom of the Department of Justice's role in
forcing guns, which we know they did, forced guns to be sold to
criminals and people that should not have had guns, that ended up with
drug cartels in Mexico, with reports of hundreds of Mexicans killed by
the weapons we forced into improper and illegal criminal hands, we--
being the Justice Department of this administration--we haven't gotten
answers to that.
That is why, even today, as I stand here, the highest-ranking law
enforcement officer in the land stands in contempt of Congress;
although I was gratified to hear him say, in answer to a question of
mine, that I am not supposed to ever presume that it wasn't a big deal
to him.
Unfortunately, he said, a year ago to ABC News that it wasn't any
kind of big deal at all because, to be a big deal, he would have had to
have respect for the people that voted for the contempt;
[[Page H3443]]
and since he had no respect for the people that voted for the contempt,
it wasn't a big deal to him.
So a year ago, it wasn't a big deal; and this year, apparently, it is
still a big deal, but I am not supposed to think that it is not a big
deal to him, even though that is what he said, and the familial
relationships in the mainstream media continue to give cover.
As I have continued to complain about the inadequate investigation
into the Tsarnaevs--the failure of this administration to properly
investigate the Tsarnaevs, even after the Russians, who are not our
friends, gave us, twice, a heads up. Look out. The older Tsarnaev has
been radicalized.
Now, you have got people in the mainstream media parroting what the
Obama administration is saying. Well, those darned old Russians, they
should have given us more information.
They did us a favor giving us a heads up. We are not their friends.
They gave us a heads up anyway.
They don't even--they purged the FBI training material, so our agents
don't know the proper questions to ask to find out if someone has been
radicalized.
{time} 2030
They won't allow people that have spent their adult lives studying
radical Islam--people like that, like Steve Coughlin--they are not
allowed to even go give a briefing to people to explain what radical
Islam is.
And then we hear people like the Department of Homeland Security
Secretary at the time, Janet Napolitano, who seemed to take the
position that, gee, you know, we are just not able to connect the dots.
But yet it appears that, under her watch, not only did she promote what
Egyptian Muslim Brother publications said were top Muslim Brother
people into top Homeland Security and Obama administration positions,
but she gave a secret clearance--and there is no way it could have been
given after proper vetting because proper vetting would have showed
that he was a main speaker giving tribute to the man of vision, the
Ayatollah Khomeini, who has a foundation called the Freedom and Justice
Foundation, which is the same name as the Muslim Brother political
party in Egypt who defended the convicted terrorist supporter of the
head of the Holy Land Foundation, said there was nothing wrong with
what he was doing.
I am very proud of the Senator from Iowa. I want to do a shout-out,
Mr. Speaker, down the hall and read a letter from Senator Grassley. I
was just there in Iowa a few days ago, Senator Grassley's territory.
The senior Senator from Iowa, Charles E. Grassley, wrote a letter to
the new Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, and he said:
My office recently received copies of disturbing internal
Department of Homeland Security, DHS, emails regarding the
admittance of individuals into the United States with
potential ties to terrorism.
The May 2012 email chain between U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, ICE, and U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, CBP, surrounds the question of whether to admit
someone who had scheduled an upcoming flight into the U.S.
Allegedly, the individual was a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood and a close associate of a supporter of ``Hamas,
Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic jihad.'' According to the
same email, the individual had been in secondary inspection
``several dozen times of the past several years,'' but had
not had a secondary inspection since 2010.
One of the responses to the initial email states: ``The CBP
National Targeting Center, NTC, watch commander advised that
the subject has sued CBP twice in the past and that he's one
of the several hands-off passengers nationwide. Apparently,
his records were removed in December 2010, and the DHS
Secretary was involved in the matter.'' The email continues:
I'm puzzled how someone could be a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood and unindicted coconspirator in the Holy Land
Foundation trial--
Which, parenthetically, was a trial in which people were convicted of
supporting terrorism, providing financial support for terrorism,
convicted, and this individual mentioned was a named coconspirator in
the pleadings.
The message and the email goes on:
--be an associate of (redacted), say that the U.S. is staging
car bombings in Iraq and that it is okay for men to beat
their wives, question who was behind the 9/11 attacks, and be
afforded the luxury of a visitor visa and de-watchlisted. It
doesn't appear that we'll be successful with denying him
entry tomorrow, but maybe we could reevaluate the matter in
the future since the decision to de-watchlist him was made 17
months ago.
Senator Grassley's message to Secretary Johnson of DHS said:
In order to understand the events described in these
emails, please provide the committee with answers to the
following questions:
One, why was this individual removed from the watchlist in
December 2010?
Two, please describe the nature, extent, and reasons for
the involvement of the DHS Secretary or her staff in the
removal of the individual from the watchlist.
Three, what is the current watchlist status of this
individual?
Four, how many people are on the hands-off list mentioned
in the email?
Five, what qualifies someone to receive the ``hands-off''
designation?
Six, does filing a lawsuit result in being designated
``hands-off'' and, thus, avoiding secondary security
screenings?
Seven, who makes the determination that an individual
should be considered ``hands-off''?
Senator Grassley says: I would appreciate receiving answers to these
questions by March 3, 2014. Should you have any questions regarding the
letter--and he goes on, and he signs it, Charles E. Grassley, Ranking
Member.
Then there is an attachment to his letter. And there is so much that
is redacted here, Mr. Speaker, that there are a lot of gaps. But even
so, it is easy to see how serious this is.
This was from Thursday, May 10, 2012, not quite a year before the
Boston bombing. But as was pointed out in the letter, this email was
from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer to the U.S.
Customs and Border Patrol protection. The body says:
The NTC watch commander advised that the subject has sued
CBP twice in the past and that he's one of several hands-off
passengers nationwide. He said he checked if there was a copy
of the lawsuits filed against CBP in the historical logs. Can
you pass the lawsuits if they are at NTC? I assume the
lawsuits were against the heads of DHS and presume it was a
civil proceeding, but who knows where it was filed, since the
subject lives outside the U.S. I didn't know that a Canadian
citizen who lives in (blank) could sue DHS. Also not sure if
the lawsuits were regarding him being stopped frequently or
his admissibility/inadmissibility or both. If the lawsuits
weren't about his admissibility/inadmissibility, we should
proceed forward regarding that once the lawsuits are
reviewed.
If the lawsuits aren't readily accessible at CBP/NTC, I can
check with someone at CBP headquarters to get them.
Apparently his records were removed in December 2010, and the
DHS Secretary was involved in the matter.
I'm puzzled how someone could be a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood and unindicted coconspirator in the Holy Land
Foundation trial, be an associate of (blank), say that the
U.S. is staging car bombings in Iraq and that is okay for men
to beat their wives, question who was behind the 9/11 attacks
and be afforded the luxury of a visitor visa and de-
watchlisted. It doesn't appear that we'll be successful with
denying him entry tomorrow, but maybe we could reevaluate the
matter in the future since the decision to de-watchlist him
was made 17 months ago. Thanks.
And then the name is blotted out.
Anyway, other messages. One in response down the email chain:
I spoke with CBP (blank) who is obviously very familiar
with this traveler. I am of the opinion that (blank) meets
the parameters for refusal based on the three INA 212(a)(3)
terrorism charges and that when he enters the U.S. on a B1/B2
for lectures/speeches for organizations or for events where a
registration fee is required or admission needs to be paid,
he should probably be seeking an R-1 or an O-1 visa instead.
Perhaps one of the reasons he has not applied for an O-1
visa or R-1 visa is because of the terrorist-related
questions these forms ask that he would then be forced to
answer.
Does NTC have any background information or guidance it can
share on the logs or former records this subject has had? Or
if he has applied for any waivers of inadmissibility? Does
NTC have any objections if CBP denies admission to (blank)
under either terrorism grounds or improper nonimmigrant visa?
Based on a review of the statements of the subject, I think
it is clear that he meets the definition of endorsing and
inciting. If he'd like to enter the U.S. in the future, he
can seek a waiver to overcome those inadmissibility grounds,
but none has been sought to my knowledge.
And the email prior to that said:
Yesterday afternoon, we, HSI (blank) office, received a
lead regarding (blank) AKA (blank), an Egyptian-born Canadian
citizen who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and close
associate of (blank), an individual residing in (blank) who
supports Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic jihad.
(Blank) has been looked at in secondary inspections several
dozen times over the past
[[Page H3444]]
several years. However, he has not been secondaried since
(blank) 2010. (Blank) has a reservation to depart (blank)
Canada at (blank) on this Friday morning for a flight to
(blank) that stops in (blank) first.
He is scheduled to speak at some conference, in some city, on some
night--it is all blacked out.
I am passing this right up to (blank) at HSI to forward to
CBP regarding possible inadmissibility grounds related to INA
2012(a)(3) terrorism charges because (blank)'s potential
inciting, endorsing, and association with terrorists. (Blank)
has been looked at in the past, but hopefully this collection
of 20 supporting open source articles will assist with making
an informed inadmissibility determination.
But anyway, apparently, despite all of those open inadmissibility
issues, according to the later email, the Secretary of the Department
of Homeland Security herself at the time, Janet Napolitano, had a
hands-off list apparently including people like this member of the
Muslim Brotherhood.
When it comes to the Boston bombing, I have met some of the Boston
Police. I was impressed. And I would bet if the City of Boston Police
Department had been given a heads-up by either the FBI or CIA that the
Russians say this Tsarnaev guy has been radicalized, is capable of
murder, then it would have entirely changed the investigation by the
Boston Police Department into people that were killed that were known
to Tsarnaev.
And I would bet you, since I am not aware of the Boston Police
Department having had their training materials purged to exclude
anything that might offend a radical Islamist, they may have been able
to go out to the mosque and ask about Tsarnaev if they had known the
allegation that he had been radicalized, and they may have been able to
answer better questions about the type of Islamic leaders that the
older Tsarnaev liked, that he read, that he endorsed, and they could
have made a better decision than our own Justice Department did on
whether or not he had been radicalized.
{time} 2045
That should have been shared with the Boston police. If they had had
that information without having had their training materials purged,
they may have done a better job of protecting those people at the
Boston Marathon.
Then you read emails going back and forth among our ICE agents,
Customs and Border Patrol people who were shocked that a guy who is a
Muslim Brother, who has incited people to hatred against the United
States, who was a named coconspirator with people who were convicted of
supporting terrorism, how it is the Secretary of Homeland Security
could give him a pass, just as she did to a reported member of the
Muslim Brotherhood--reported by an Egyptian magazine supportive of the
Muslim Brotherhood--how she could just give him a secret security
clearance. And even after I tell her about his downloading two
documents from a classified source that she gave him access to and
pointed out to her about a reporter saying he had tried to shop the two
documents, she said she investigated, but I know they didn't because
they never even talked to that one reporter that knew about the
documents being shopped. They never checked.
As far as I know, he is still giving advice at the top level of
Homeland Security as a Muslim Brother, according to the Egyptians. He
is given access to our classified documents, and then we see that same
Homeland Security Secretary that gave him access to classified
documents that he reportedly--and according to somebody I trust--he had
shopped them and tried to get a national news media to publish them.
They didn't even look into it. They didn't even investigate that
properly.
How safe can America be when Homeland Security is creating hands-off
lists that put us at risk? With that, I yield back my time.
____________________