[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 21 (Tuesday, February 7, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H1072-H1075]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mast). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate my friend, colleague--
actually, dear friend--Steve King, and his points he is making--right 
on track.
  I hesitated for a number of days now about making public reference to 
this, but it needs to be addressed and it needs to be looked at, and 
people need to be aware so that mistakes do not continue to be made. 
This is a story from John Stanton, February 2, 2017, BuzzFeed: 
``Congressional IT Staff Under Investigation In Alleged Procurement 
Scam.''
  And this is February 2, so several days ago--5 days ago. It says: ``A 
lawmaker briefed on the matter had said House officials had told staff 
from affected offices that contractors had been arrested, but late 
Thursday night US Capitol Police spokesperson Eva Malecki told BuzzFeed 
News that no arrest had been made. The USCP is investigating House IT 
support staff.''
  Now, that is the technologically proficient staff members that work 
on congressional computers, that work on our technology, so it was 
quite disturbing to see this some days back.
  This says: ``Five men who had access to the House of Representatives' 
entire computer network are under investigation Thursday evening 
following a months-long investigation by federal law enforcement 
officials, according to a lawmaker briefed on the raid.''
  Well, it sure wasn't me because I didn't know anything about this 
until I read it a few days ago.
  ``Although the lawmaker said House officials had told staff from 
affected offices that contractors had been arrested, late Thursday 
night, US Capitol Police spokesperson Eva Malecki told BuzzFeed News 
that no arrest had been made, but that USCP are investigating members 
of the House IT support staff.
  `` `At the request of Members of Congress, the United States Capitol 
Police are investigating the actions of House IT support staff,' 
Malecki said in a statement. `No Members are being investigated. No 
arrests have been made. It should be noted that, administratively, 
House staff were asked to update their security settings as a best 
practice. We have no further comment on the ongoing investigation at 
this time.'
  ``According to the member, the chiefs of staff for 20 lawmakers were 
summoned to a closed-door meeting with House administration officials, 
who briefed them on the incidents. The chiefs were told the men were 
conducting a procurement scam, although officials acknowledged the 
men--whose staff were told were brothers--had access to virtually all 
of the computer systems used by the affected lawmakers. Members were 
also told Thursday night to change the passwords to their email and 
other applications.
  ``The news has rattled nerves on Capitol Hill, especially after the 
series of high-profile political hackings over the last year. `They 
said it was some sort of procurement scam, but now I'm concerned that 
they may have stolen data from us, emails, who knows,' the lawmaker 
said.''
  Then this was added: ``This post has been updated and corrected with 
new information from US Capitol Police, which said no arrests have been 
made but there is an active investigation ongoing into IT staff who 
were involved in alleged procurement scam. A lawmaker briefed on the 
situation had told BuzzFeed News that arrests were made.''
  And then yesterday we had this update from Politico, ``House staffers 
under criminal investigations still employed,'' by Heather Caygle.
  ``Multiple Democratic lawmakers have yet to cut ties with House 
staffers under criminal investigation for wide-ranging equipment and 
data theft.
  ``Imran Awan, a longtime House staffer who worked for more than two 
dozen Democrats since 2004, is still employed by Rep. Debbie Wasserman

[[Page H1073]]

Schultz, though his access to the House IT network has been blocked 
since last week.
  `` `At this time we are continuing to gather information from House 
officials and will determine the best approach to move forward once we 
have reviewed that information,' David Damron, communications director 
for Wasserman Schultz, said in an email when asked by POLITICO if Awan 
was still working for the Florida Democrat.''

                              {time}  1930

  Mr. Speaker, I might insert parenthetically that although you can't 
judge much from a name, one can't help but wonder, because of all of 
the outcry about the Russians, if maybe these brothers--well, I started 
to ask--have some Russian connection, but there doesn't appear to be 
any.
  ``Multiple relatives of Imran Awan, including his wife Hina Alvi, 
Abid Awan and Jamal Awan--all House staffers until recently--are also 
being investigated in connection to the alleged procurement scam, 
according to a senior House official close to the investigation.
  ``Alvi has worked for more than a dozen House Democrats and the House 
Democratic Caucus since 2007. At least one member, Rep. Gregory Meeks, 
New York, is still employing her.
  `` `My office is in the process of gathering information to make a 
determination in the near future about the employment of Ms. Alvi with 
our office,' Meeks said Monday in a statement to POLITICO.
  ``Five House staffers are accused of stealing equipment from members' 
offices without their knowledge and committing serious, potentially 
illegal, violations on the House IT network, according to multiple 
sources briefed on the investigation.
  ``Top staffers for lawmakers impacted by the scam were briefed last 
Thursday. A source in the briefing said the Sergeant-at-Arms confirmed 
the U.S. Capitol Police is conducting an active criminal investigation 
but said no arrests have been made.
  ``Imran Awan was first employed on Capitol Hill by former Rep. Robert 
Wexler in January 2004 as an `information technology director.' Awan 
has worked for at least 25 other House Democrats since that time as a 
shared employee providing technical support including to previous House 
Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra, currently the California 
attorney general.
  ``Imran Awan has a longtime relationship with some members, including 
working for Meeks and Becerra starting in 2004 and joining Wasserman 
Schultz's office in 2005.
  ``Several Members who have employed Imran Awan and Alvi in the past 
confirmed to POLITICO they terminated their employment late last week.
  ``Jamal Awan worked as a House IT staffer for more than half-dozen 
House Democrats since 2014, according to LegiStorm, a website that 
tracks congressional employment. Abid Awan worked for more than a dozen 
House Democrats as a systems administrator since 2005, according to 
congressional records.
  ``Another House staff with connections to Imran Awan is also under 
investigation, according to the senior House official.
  ``No one named in this POLITICO report as being under investigation 
returned multiple calls and emails requesting comment over the past 
several days.''
  Capitol Police have not returned calls.
  So it is extremely disconcerting. All of us have to hire people to 
help us with our jobs, and most all of us need computer assistants. I 
can't help but reflect back, there is a new policy last year that was 
instituted that requires every employee that may have access to the 
computer systems, the massive databases and emails of Members, such 
confidential information, they need a background check, but at the same 
time, there was the requirement that had to be certified by the Member 
or the administration officer in a congressional office, you either 
certify that this person has had the required background check to be 
allowed to access this confidential information on computers in the 
congressional offices. Some of these Members were part of the 
Intelligence Committee having access to top secret information. So this 
is quite serious.
  There was another--there were two possibilities. One, you certify 
this person had the proper background check done. And, number two--it 
was an ``or in the alternative''--if this person works for more than 
one person--which computer personnel often do because you don't need 
them full-time, you just need them when something goes wrong or perhaps 
when they're needing to break into your computer and steal your data--
you could sign and certify that this person works for more than one 
Member of Congress. Therefore, I don't believe the background check is 
necessary.
  So I hope all of my colleagues will make note that there may be 
people on the Hill that don't have the best intentions with our 
computer data, including access to classified information. So no matter 
who they are, even if somebody is worried, because of their background 
or where they were born, that somebody might scream bias or prejudice, 
we just need to have everyone who has access to classified information 
to have a background check even if they work for multiple people. We 
just need to do that. Lessons, apparently, are still being learned in 
that regard.
  As we continue to hear from some friends here in Washington and some 
going nuts around the country about a Muslim ban, which is completely 
false and completely untrue, something we are not hearing a lot about 
is the horrors being experienced by Christians in the Middle East. Even 
Secretary John Kerry had acknowledged there was an effort, a genocide, 
in other words, an effort to wipe out every Christian because of their 
religious beliefs in the Middle East.
  So you would think that if we were going to be the big-hearted 
nation, which we have repeatedly been throughout history--not always, 
but certainly most of the time, more than any other nation in history--
then you would think that our hearts would go out to the Christians 
being persecuted in far greater percentages than any other religious or 
racial group in the Middle East.
  Yet this story from Townhall, ``Christians Were Persecuted In Every 
Corner of Globe in 2016,'' points out: ``Not only did the persecution 
of Christians increase in 2016, it also spread to every corner of the 
globe, according to Open Doors USA's latest World Watch List.
  ``The annual report ranks the worst 50 countries for Christians 
trying to live out their faith, and while some findings are not 
surprising, like North Korea topping the list for the 16th consecutive 
year, the group is troubled by the overall rise in the number of 
incidents considered persecution.''

  It is getting worse than ever. Of course, the current Secretary-
General, when asked a year and a half or so ago why the percentage of 
Christian refugees from the Middle East being helped is so much lower 
than the actual percentage of Christians living in the area, his 
response was, in essence, that, well, they were so historically 
important to the areas in which they lived, it was important that they 
be left there. In other words, we need to leave them where they are 
being murdered to extinction.
  Then that guy with that kind of sensitivity for a genocide gets 
promoted to be Secretary-General of the U.N., which, to me, is all the 
more reason it is time to get out of the United Nations. Since a 
Rockefeller Foundation of some kind controls the land and it is to be 
used by the U.N., as long as the U.N. remains the main headquarters, 
then all we have to do is start denying visas and privileges to come in 
until we have extreme vetting for people that may be improperly using 
their positions at the U.N. If that proves too much of a burden, then 
they can go to Brussels or Istanbul or wherever. We might as well let 
them go to Syria. That seems to be where they want to be most involved, 
I guess.
  It was certainly worth noting Jordan Schachtel in Conservative Review 
has pointed out: ``The Middle East country of Kuwait issued its own 
`Muslim ban' in 2011, citing the `instability' from several terror 
hotbeds in the Middle East.''
  That is rather interesting because the United States has not and does 
not have a Muslim ban at all. Christians,

[[Page H1074]]

atheists, Jews, and Hindus were all just as prohibited as any Muslim 
from the seven countries that the Obama administration named as being 
troubled. And the Trump administration didn't just name them as 
troubled; it actually took action and did something about it.
  We have this story from Liam Deacon, Breitbart, that the Islamic 
State is paying migrants smuggling fees for them if they join a jihad. 
So more good news. As President Trump is trying to protect America, 
more stories emerge that make what President Trump did even more 
important.
  I was hearing something on FOX News. They had a panel. There was one 
panel member that repeated--and I know she didn't mean it to 
intentionally misrepresent the facts, but she did in saying that no one 
has been arrested from one of those seven countries for any terrorist 
activity. Or maybe she said not committed any.
  So it seems that it is worth taking a look at Neil Munro's article 
from Breitbart: ``Seattle Judge Was Ignorant About Jihad Convictions 
Prior to Imposing Refugee Reform Ban.''
  ``The Seattle judge who temporarily banned the White House's refugee 
reform plan acted after mistakenly claiming the federal government has 
not arrested jihadi migrants from the seven Muslim countries covered by 
the reform.
  ``But the federal government has arrested and jailed at least 76 
people since 2001 from the seven countries covered in the first stage 
of the president's reform, which was announced late January.
  ``That fact means there is a huge error in the judge's rationale for 
imposing a `Temporary Restraining Order' ban on the president's popular 
reform of the expensive refugee and immigration programs.
  ``In a hearing before the decision, Judge James Robart told a lawyer 
from the Department of Justice that the federal government has not 
arrested people since 2001 from any of the seven countries named in the 
reform, since the 2001 atrocity in New York. `How many arrests have 
there been of foreign nationals for those seven countries since 9/11?' 
he asked.
  ``The justice department's lawyer replied, `Your Honor, I don't have 
that information,' prompting Robart to answer his own question.''
  The judge said: ``Let me tell, you, the answer to that is none, as 
best I can tell. You're here arguing on behalf of someone that says we 
have to protect the United States from these individuals coming from 
these countries and there's no support for that.''

                              {time}  1945

  All of us are ignorant of some areas. What is incredibly problematic 
is when you have a judicial official, a Federal judge with a lifetime 
appointment not only ignorant, but uses his ignorance as the basis of 
an illegal, unconstitutional order and then adds arrogance to his 
ignorance. This is shear, unadulterated, arrogant ignorance by Judge 
Robart.
  So, as a former judge and chief justice, I can sure understand 
someone who is not a lawyer or somebody who was a lawyer and somebody 
who was a former judge or even a current judge saying this is a so-
called judge.
  You would like to think that judges, if they are going to be 
arrogant, they will be arrogant about their knowledge in some area that 
others don't have, instead of being arrogant about ignorance that puts 
the American public in jeopardy.
  The Constitution and the laws passed by this Congress and signed by 
our President make clear that the President has the authority to do 
exactly what he did. Whether you like it or not, whether I like it or 
not, he does have that authority, based on our national security, 
because we gave it to him.
  What we did not give the President was authority to do an amnesty 
program, as President Obama pointed out more than 20 times. He just 
didn't have authority to do what he ultimately did when he realized the 
Senate would not work with the House to stop him.
  A judge who should know better and who is allowed to remain a judge 
only so long as he is acting in good conduct appears to be acting in 
very bad conduct.
  A database was built by the Senate's Immigration Subcommittee. Why 
would they have to build this? Because President Obama made sure that 
his administration kept as much secret as they could about who was 
operating as terrorists in America.
  Not only that, when some of us would try to gather such information 
like my repeated requests to the Obama administration and to the 
Justice Department, Would you let Congress have the documents that you 
gave to people convicted of terrorism in the Holy Land Foundation 
discovery phase, we repeatedly were shunned, and there was just 
repeated obfuscation. They did not produce what they should have, and 
America is more at risk now than it has been in a long time.
  So what can we expect from the Ninth Circuit? Well, they have a 
history of not following the Constitution, not following precedent. 
They are rather liberal. I am hoping we can do something about that 
circuit. I would like to restrict their jurisdiction to controversies 
that arise in their building. We have total authority to eliminate 
them.
  I see I am joined by my friend, Mr. Rohrabacher. I didn't know if the 
gentleman desires to speak.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I will speak after the gentleman 
completes, but I would also just like to note that I agree with 
everything that he has been talking about for the last 20 minutes. I 
hope the American people start paying attention.
  The fact is, the two of us are in a very small cadre of patriots that 
have been here in Washington for the last 20 years trying to stop this 
massive flow of illegal immigrants into our country, realizing that 
this doesn't only mean that people's wages would go down because we 
have people bidding down the wages of our people, not only is the crime 
in our area worse, not only is the money being drained from our health 
systems and schools--money that should be going to our own citizens are 
going to illegals--as we have always realized, with a flood of illegals 
into our country, some of the people riding that wave of illegals are 
terrorists who mean to destroy the American way of life and would kill 
our people in order to terrorize our Nation into retreat from 
involvement in the world.
  I have been very honored to stand with the gentleman from Texas in 
these battles over these last 20 years. I would hope that the election 
of President Donald Trump reflects the fact that the American people 
are waking up to the significance of this issue.
  We see people on the Senate side shedding tears for a temporary halt 
in immigration from areas where terrorism is known to exist and radical 
Islamic terrorism exists there. But they are shedding tears that a 
couple of hundred people, yes, were put in a bad situation. A couple of 
other lives were disrupted. They were innocent people.
  But in order to save American lives, we are not going to put 
foreigners who are trying to come here at some kind of discomfort? 
Well, I think Donald Trump has demonstrated his primary objective is to 
secure the safety of the people of the United States of America.
  I have been so proud to stand with the gentleman from Texas in 
getting behind Mr. Trump on this very important goal.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I am so grateful to my friend from California. We have 
traveled around the world and stood for people who weren't able to 
stand for themselves, and I look forward to continue doing that.
  Just to continue on, Ken Klukowski has a terrific article, ``Travesty 
of Legal Errors in Immigration EO Lawsuit.'' It is a great article 
pointing out problems with Judge Robart's decision.
  Then, this article from Hans von Spakovsky on February 6 from Daily 
Signal, he points out:
  ``This fact is obvious from an examination of his seven-page order, 
which contains absolutely no discussion whatsoever of what law or 
constitutional provision the president has supposedly violated. That 
temporary restraining order is now on an emergency appeal before a 
panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.''
  It contrasts a 21-page opinion issued by Massachusetts District Court 
Judge Nathaniel Gorton. ``Unlike Robart, who totally ignored the 
federal statute, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), cited by Trump in his executive 
order, Gorton bases his decision denying the temporary restraining

[[Page H1075]]

order on an examination of the extensive power given to the president 
under that statute. . . . ''
  The article goes on: ``That is exactly what the president has done.''
  Whether you agree or disagree, he had the power to do it.

  The order signed on January 27 on Protecting the Nation From Foreign 
Terrorist Entry into the United States suspends for only 90 days, 
unlike the 180 days President Obama did for Iran, the issuance of visas 
to anyone--not Muslims--just to anyone from those countries of concern 
as classified by the Obama administration.
  And then Gorton goes on to make further notes, saying ``the decision 
to prevent aliens from entering the country is a `fundamental sovereign 
attribute' realized through the legislative and executive branches that 
is `largely immune from judicial control.' ''
  And then it goes on in this article to quote the Supreme Court.
  ``Robart's opinion ends with a claim that seems like a joke.
  ``He says that `fundamental' to his work is `a vigilant recognition 
that--the court--is but one of three equal branches of our federal 
government. The work of the court is not to create policy or judge the 
wisdom of any particular policy promoted by the other two branches.
  ``Instead, says Robart, his job is `limited' to `ensuring that the 
actions taken by the other two branches comport with our country's law, 
and more importantly, our Constitution.' ''
  That shows that he intentionally and knowingly abused his authority 
as a judge by not citing either one.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________