[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 97 (Wednesday, June 7, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H4693-H4698]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kustoff of Tennessee). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is always an honor to be here. I do 
greatly appreciate my friend from Hawaii, her views. I know she is a 
person of integrity; calls them like she sees them. I appreciate her 
very much.
  There are just a number of things that really need to be called out. 
Here is an article from the Guardian. Julian Borger, June 6, that would 
be yesterday. The headline is: ``Cancel Donald Trump state visit, says 
Sadiq Khan, after London attack tweets.''
  It states: ``London mayor says U.S. President is wrong about many 
things and that state visit to Britain should not go ahead.
  ``The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has called on the British Government 
to cancel a planned state visit by Donald Trump after being criticized 
in two tweets by the U.S. President.''
  Now, it really is interesting that the London mayor, after he has his 
citizens--his people are viciously mutilated, killed in the streets of 
his city, and, instead of being--going through a self-examination, is 
there something more I could have done as mayor of this town? Is there 
something more I could have encouraged? Is there something more we 
could have done here in England, in Great Britain, in the U.K.? Is 
there something we could have done that I, in a position of authority, 
could have done to stop this, to help, at least help stop this?
  But Mr. Sadiq Khan apparently didn't go through that, as people were 
grieving, not just in London but all over the world, here in the United 
States, praying for the families, grieving with those who were 
attacked, so many attacked, dozens attacked, instead of perhaps 
wondering, maybe we don't have our policies quite right, this is yet 
another attack, and maybe the Britain leaders should have thought, you 
know, we have been saying that the real key--it has been said around 
Europe, maybe the real key to stopping radical Islam and the mutilation 
of innocent people, the slashing of throats, the beheading, the 
terrible things that have been done by radical Islamists, maybe the way 
to stop them we were told--not maybe--they said the way to stop them is 
the Paris climate accord.
  If we just show them enough love as they are beheading us, or 
slashing our throats, and we have signed on, and we are fully part 
embraced in the Paris climate accord, you know, the radical Islamist 
murders will stop. That is the kind of baloney we have been told.
  And in England, there are people who have indicated as much, how 
outrageous it was that President Trump pulled the United States out of 
the Paris accord, because he saw the damage that was going to be done 
to the United States economy. He saw the damage that would be done to 
the United States jobs.
  I talked to people in east Texas last weekend, different places 
around east Texas, and they kept coming back: I am so grateful that 
Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris accord. One of them has a new--
some type of concrete business. They have got rights to a specific 
process that is great for the environment. It is green.
  So then we find out our business was going to be devastated if we 
stayed in the Paris climate accord. It would have gutted our business. 
We would have been having to file for bankruptcy. Others, you know, the 
same day, last Saturday, were telling me the same things, different 
places, same song. We found out how much our business would have been 
gutted if the President had not pulled out of the Paris accord.
  And, of course, we want to be fair to the 160 countries or so that 
have condemned the United States, said that we are the one partner in 
the Paris climate accord, just like in Kyoto, and Reykjavik, and all 
these others, the United States is the most important partner in those 
accords. Well, yeah, I guess so.
  We were going to be the one country that was going to pay billions of 
dollars to other countries because we have been successful, and we have 
been innovative, and our Constitution, the brilliance of the Founders 
to ensure in our Constitution that we were going to reward intellectual 
property, intellectual thought, would stir intellectual creations. And 
we loved this idea of private property, you know, before the

[[Page H4694]]

last 50 years, we loved this idea of private property, and the Nation 
has grown.
  But as, you know, people have continued to make inroads, taking away 
private property rights, of course, the economy doesn't grow at the 
rates that it has in previous days. But at least by pulling out of 
Paris, we have got a shot to continue to be the most humanitarian, the 
most charitable Nation, I believe, in the history of the world; that 
even Solomon's Israel did not have the kind of freedoms and the kind of 
individual ability to be charitable.

  Billions of dollars that have been given. I don't know. Maybe 
trillions over the years in today's dollars around the world for so 
many good purposes. And yet if we had stayed in the Paris accord, we 
would have done so much damage to our own economy.
  So I have told many people, thank God, and thank Donald Trump that he 
got us out of that mess, so that we can continue our climb out of the 
economic malaise of the Obama years; that we can continue to get back a 
thriving economy that has been so sluggish for so many years now; not 
the artificial growth bubble that was created late in the Clinton 
years, that was bound to burst, not that kind but based on real jobs 
and manufacturing jobs coming back.
  I know from studying history, I think President Trump knows just from 
his business acumen, that any nation that is considered an 
international world power, that cannot produce and manufacture the 
things that are needed in a time of war will not remain a world power 
past the next war. It won't. So it brings us back to a great thing to 
get rid of the Paris accord.
  Now we have got to cut taxes. And I know there is a lot of screaming 
from the left about how, gee, wanting to cut taxes for the rich. Well, 
actually, under President Obama, there was so much damage done to the 
middle classes. The middle class shrunk in numbers of people, it 
appears, while the gap between the poor and the rich got even bigger. 
And as President Obama is on video admitting, it must have been tough, 
but he admitted, yeah, it is true. It was true.
  It is true that, under President Obama, for the first time in the 
history of the United States of America, first time, 95 percent of the 
Nation's income went to the top 1 percent. So we have heard all this 
stuff about Republicans helping the rich and hurting the poor.
  There is no President's policy in the history of our Nation that has 
done more damage to the poor, to the middle class, than the policies of 
the Obama administration. There is no President's administration that 
has done more damage to shrink the middle class and to widen the gap 
between the poor and the rich. And most of those rich who give money 
seem to just keep giving to the Democratic Party.

                              {time}  1800

  You know, I love, whether it is Republicans, Democrats, or 
Independents coming up with a great idea and making money on it. It is 
fantastic. You know, as long as it is legal, but it is fantastic.
  With all of my faults, jealousy is not one I suffer from. It is great 
to see anybody work hard or come up with something innovative, and make 
money. I think it is fantastic. I love the fact that this Nation, for 
most of our history, has done what we could to incentivize that 
process.
  So the mayor of London condemning President Trump.
  Well, who is this guy?
  He has got plenty of his own problems. He has got plenty of his own 
issues. But it wasn't just the mayor of London, Mr. Sadiq Khan. We also 
heard from the Acting U.S. Ambassador over in London, Lewis Lukens, and 
he sent out this message: ``I commend the strong leadership of the 
mayor of London as he leads the city forward after this heinous 
attack.''
  And by virtue of this statement, of course, he is incorporating the 
decisions by the mayor of London, the decisions by those with whom the 
mayor of London is consorting, those decisions that have allowed so 
many radical Islamists to be creating plots and plans to kill 
Londoners. That has been going on, we find out after this attack. We 
should have known from the one before, the one before, the one before, 
that this has been going on.
  Lewis Lukens, our highest U.S. ranking official in London, basically 
condemned President Trump by siding with the mayor of London, who is 
more concerned about condemning the President of the United States than 
he is about grieving for his own people, or doing everything within the 
mayor's conceivable power to stop the next radical attack.
  Under the thinking of people like the mayor of London, there should 
not have ever been an attack in England, not recently, for sure, 
because they didn't pull out of the Paris accord. And if the Paris 
accord was going to save the world from radical Islam, then, wow, all 
of the attacks should be happening in the United States of America.
  Unless we get our friends on the other side of the aisle to help us 
as we need to do to pass legislation that give us the protection we 
need, the attacks will be coming. But it wouldn't make sense--if you 
believe people like this, and those that say Paris is the key to ending 
radical Islam, it wouldn't make sense that London would be hit twice 
instead of the United States. They didn't pull out. They condemned us 
for pulling out.
  So it makes you think, when you really look at everything, maybe the 
key to defeating radical Islam is what Americans who have fought them 
know: there is only one way to defeat radical Islam, and that is to 
defeat it; to fight it, kill it, defeat it.
  I saw President Carter here on television here in the last few days. 
I had it on mute, so I don't know what he said. A sweet man. Of course, 
he does seem to have some pretty strong anti-Semitic feelings, so it is 
hard to feel too much about the sweetness when you see and hear 
comments that make you know he really doesn't care much for certain 
Jews or Israel. But I know he meant well when he abandoned the Shah of 
Iran, not a nice man like Qadhafi--not a great man, not a nice man, but 
at least he was keeping radical Islam in the box, keeping it boxed up.
  When President Carter saw the Shah deposed and the Ayatollah Khomeini 
comes into Iran, he didn't recognize that he had literally opened 
Pandora's box, and it was going to be a plague upon the world for years 
and years to come, and that thousands and thousands of Americans would 
die trying to put radical Islam back in the box from which President 
Carter let it escape and from which President Obama encouraged more--
not intentionally, but the actions have consequences, and Americans 
have continued to die and will continue until radical Islam, with the 
help of our Muslim friends that don't want to be ruled by radical 
Islamists, with their help--we have got to have their help--we can get 
it back in the box the way it once was.
  But there are people like Lewis Lukens, our highest ranking U.S. 
official in London, who don't recognize this. But the name to so many 
sounded familiar, Lewis Lukens. I know I have heard that name before. 
Oh, well, after tweeting out, or sending out the message from the U.S. 
Embassy in London, taking sides in favor of the mayor of London over 
the President of the United States--let's see, who is this--as the 
article from Monica Showalter says:
  ``So who is Acting Ambassador Lewis Lukens anyway?
  ``Turns out he's a career diplomat, with nearly 30 years' experience 
in assorted outposts. His most prominent positions, however, have been 
at the side of the person who must have served as a sort of mentor, 
then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, serving as her chief 
administrative officer. In that time frame, he managed to reach the 
inner circle of Clinton's tight little circle of acolytes--on the same 
level as Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin.
  ``In testimony to Congress, Lukens claimed to have come up with the 
idea of having Clinton set up a private server.''
  Oh, that is right. He is the genius that came up with the idea of 
having Hillary Clinton have a private server so it was more easy for 
our enemies to hack classified information. But then again, we find 
out, well, it really didn't make that much difference because she was 
sending it to Huma Abedin, who was sending it to Mr. Weiner.
  Anyway, it turns out, all kinds of felonies were being committed, 
Federal laws being violated. Of course, under Director Comey, he didn't 
want to pursue anybody like that because he is

[[Page H4695]]

sure they meant well, even though they were violating the law right and 
left.
  But Lukens takes the side of the mayor, and he is the same guy that 
came up with the private server idea for Hillary Clinton. So I know, on 
behalf of those who supported President Trump, we greatly appreciate 
the damage that he did to the Democratic Party. Lukens--and, hopefully, 
he won't be long for being the highest ranking U.S. official in London. 
Hopefully, we can send somebody over there that doesn't have great 
ideas like he had for Hillary Clinton that causes our British friends 
the kind of trouble he caused for Hillary Clinton.

  And then we have got this from Will Carr, WGMD News Radio:
  ``Concerns are being raised on Capitol Hill about whether partisan 
politics could impact the 2020 Census and swing congressional 
redistricting in favor of Democrats.
  ``FOX News has learned that last summer, a pro-Democratic analytics 
firm that described itself as `a platform for hope and change'. . . .''
  Wow. Yeah, as we saw over the last 8 years, 95 million Americans--the 
highest number in our history--even gave up looking for work. So they 
weren't reflected in the unemployment numbers, but they just gave up. 
It was so hopeless. So much for hope and change.
  Anyway, this analytics firm is ``a platform for hope and change,'' 
but it `` . . . included as a subcontractor in a $415 million 
advertising contract for the 2020 Census.
  ``The data firm, Civis Analytics, was founded by the chief analytics 
officer on former President Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign.
  ``Since congressional redistricting, which occurs every 10 years, is 
based on the results of the national Census, the chairman of the 
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is now asking the 
Secretary of the Department of Commerce to ensure that the Census will 
be conducted in a nonpartisan fashion--and that redistricting will not 
be impacted.
  `` `In 2016, the Bureau awarded an advertising contract that included 
a subcontractor with close ties to the partisan politics that 
reportedly ``spun out of'' the reelection campaign of President Obama,' 
Senator Ron Johnson''--our friend from Wisconsin--``wrote to Commerce 
Secretary Wilbur Ross in a letter obtained by FOX News.''
  Our friend, Senator Ron Johnson, says: ``This partisan lineage raises 
concern in light of a Democratic initiative to use the results of the 
2020 Census to draw district lines in a manner favorable to Democratic 
candidates.''
  So, wow, what a deal. The Obama administration has got their own 
consulting firm helping with the 2020 Census. That ought to concern a 
lot of people that want to make sure that our little experiment as a 
democratic republic does not come to an end. As Ben Franklin warned, we 
could have it as long--if we could keep it, that is.
  But the shocking story today that I am not hearing enough talk about, 
and printed out by Circa, John Solomon and Sara Carter today: ``A 
former U.S. intelligence contractor tells Circa he walked away. . . .''
  This is a U.S. intelligence contractor.
  Where have we heard that term?
  That is what we were told that Edward Snowden was.
  Well, this says: ``. . . he walked away with more than 600 million 
classified documents on 47 hard drives from the National Security 
Agency and the CIA, a haul potentially larger than Edward Snowden's now 
infamous breach.''
  But it sounded like a good thing.
  It says: ``And now he is suing former FBI Director James Comey and 
other government figures, alleging the Bureau has covered up evidence 
that he provided them showing widespread spying on Americans that 
violated civil liberties.
  ``The suit, filed late Monday night by Dennis Montgomery, was 
assigned to the same Federal judge who has already ruled that some of 
the NSA's collection of data on Americans violates the U.S. 
Constitution's Fourth Amendment, setting up an intriguing legal 
proceeding in the Nation's Capital this summer.
  ``Montgomery says the evidence he gave to the FBI chronicle the 
warrantless collection''--not just phone metadata--``of phone, 
financial and personal data and the unmasking of identities in spy data 
about millions of Americans.
  `` `This domestic surveillance was all being done on computers 
supplied by the FBI,' Montgomery told Circa in an interview. `So these 
supercomputers, which are FBI computers, the CIA is using them to do 
domestic surveillance.' ''

                              {time}  1815

  Gee, we have been assured that does not happen. We have been assured 
in hearings in our Judiciary Committee over the last 12 years I have 
been here--and we have had a lot of hearings on these issues. We have 
been assured this isn't happening. This guy who knows enough to steal 
600 million classified documents on 47 hard drives without getting 
caught says it is happening.
  Mr. Speaker, let me parenthetically insert here, we have had a number 
of conversations with FBI and different intelligence officials, because 
section 702 that allows this kind of widespread collection, if we are 
going after what we were told would be foreign terrorists, known 
foreign terrorists, and they happened to capture an American, the name 
is masked. You can't get that information. There has to be probable 
cause to get anything about the American. We are finding out names have 
been unmasked.
  Now, this information by Montgomery is that things are leaked about 
Americans. Widespread information is being collected on Americans with 
no probable cause they committed any crime.
  I have told numerous DOJ and intelligence officials--and I am very 
serious about this--they must show that they can police their own ranks 
of people who are violating Americans' civil rights and gathering 
information in ways Orwell could never have dreamed of. As my friend 
Thomas Massie was pointing out today, Orwell thought it would take 
people to spy on other people. He never dreamed that we, the 
government, would be able to collect warehouses full of information on 
little disks that would be used and pulled out later any time they 
wanted to go after an individual--but it sure looks like it is 
happening.
  If our own justice and intelligence officials cannot police 
themselves and produce the very people who have leaked information and 
who have unmasked information, I will join with many of my friends on 
the Democratic side of the aisle to vote against them ever having those 
types of powers again. They are going to have to police themselves. 
They are going to have to produce the people who have been leaking, who 
have been unmasking, and who have been spying on Americans without 
legal authority. They are going to have to produce those people, 
because if they can't and if they don't, they have no business having 
this kind of power. I know it has got a lot of our justice officials 
and intelligence officials upset.
  Based on the way things have been going and from what we keep finding 
out, I am sure somebody has been going through my background with a 
fine-tooth comb looking for anything so they can take me out, but good 
luck.
  I am sure, as Heritage Foundation has written before, probably most 
Americans are committing a number of Federal crimes a day we don't even 
know about. So, apparently, it can be done if Heritage is right, as I 
think they are. But the fact is it ought to scare every American that 
there is this much Federal intervention in their own personal lives.
  The truth is we have got to get rid of the Consumer Financial 
Protection Bureau. They have no right and they have no authority under 
our Constitution to gather people's financial information unless there 
is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed and that this 
person has committed the crime, and then get a warrant to get it. It is 
time to end that for real. It is time to end this kind of personal 
snooping on American citizens.
  This article goes on and says: ``Documents obtained by Circa outside 
of the lawsuit show that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington in 
2015 approved a grant of limited immunity for Montgomery so he could 
explain how he managed to walk out of his contract and the buildings he 
worked in with

[[Page H4696]]

the classified material'' on 47 hard drives.
  ``He said he returned the hard drives to the FBI, a fact confirmed in 
government documents reviewed by Circa.
  `` `They're doing this domestic surveillance on Americans, running a 
project on U.S. soil,' Montgomery alleged. He did not disclose the 
classified name of the project but said he revealed all aspects of the 
project during his interview with the FBI.
  `` `Can you imagine what someone can do with the information they 
were collecting on Americans, can you imagine that kind of power.'
  ``Officials with the FBI and CIA declined to comment due to current 
and pending litigation.
  ``The FBI contacts with Montgomery were encouraged by a senior status 
Federal judge who encouraged the two sides to meet rather than allow 
for any of the classified materials to leak, according to interviews 
Circa conducted.
  ``Montgomery's lawsuit, which included his lawyer, the well-known 
conservative activist Larry Klayman, alleges Montgomery provided 
extensive evidence to the FBI of illegal spying on Americans ranging 
from judges to businessmen like the future President Donald Trump.
  ``The suit did not offer specifics on any illegal spying, but it 
accused the Bureau of failing to take proper actions to rectify 
Montgomery's concerns.
  ``Montgomery divulged to the FBI a `pattern and practice of 
conducting illegal, unconstitutional surveillance against millions of 
Americans, including prominent Americans such as the Chief Justice of 
the U.S. Supreme Court' ''--wow--`` `other Justices, 156 judges, 
prominent businessmen, and others such as Donald J. Trump, as well as 
plaintiffs themselves.' ''
  That is the allegation in the suit.
  `` `Plaintiffs were assured that the FBI, under Defendant Comey, 
would conduct a full investigation into the grave instances of illegal 
and unconstitutional activity set forth by Montgomery. However, the 
FBI, on Defendant Comey's orders, buried the FBI's investigation 
because the FBI itself is involved in an ongoing conspiracy to not only 
conduct the aforementioned illegal, unconstitutional surveillance, but 
to cover it up as well,' the suit added.
  ``Klayman and Montgomery also alleged that they have evidence that 
they themselves have been improperly spied upon by U.S. intelligence. 
The suit named numerous other defendants as well, including NSA 
Director Mike Rogers, former CIA Director John Brennan, and even former 
President Barack Obama.

  ``Court records indicate the suit was assigned in Washington to U.S. 
District Judge Richard Leon, who in 2015 issued an historic ruling that 
the NSA's past bulk collection of Americans' phone records most likely 
violated the Constitution.''
  Thank God he ruled as he did.
  ``The agency has since ended that practice but the pending case, 
which is winding its way through appeals and motions, is likely to 
shine a light on whether Americans' civil liberties were violated 
during more than a decade of the war on terror.''
  This is incredible.
  Then, when we hope the courts may be our help, we see another answer 
that is incredibly discouraging, Federal courts stepping in where they 
have no authority. Federal court, district court, court of appeals, 
they have no authority to grant standing to people that are not in the 
United States, standing and rights to people that are not American 
citizens and not on American soil. But that is the effect of what they 
are doing when they say that the President and, actually, Congress, 
which gave the President much of the power he has on the issue of 
travel bans and immigration, that we don't have the authority.
  Well, under the Constitution, we do have the authority. Congress has 
the authority and the President has authority to protect us when it 
comes to national security. He has authority to make decisions like he 
has. There is no constitutional right under the United States 
Constitution for someone in another country to have a right to come 
into the United States. There is no such constitutional right.
  For any harebrained judge in America to say that indicates that this 
is like artificial intelligence becoming self-aware: Wow, I can do 
whatever I want.
  Once it becomes like AI, once it becomes self-aware, then it begins 
to protect itself. Anyone who has authority or ability to rein them in: 
We have got to slap them down and limit their ability to rein us in 
with our artificial intelligence--which is more than some of the judges 
have.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not singling out an individual so I am not 
violating the House rules.
  But this is serious. This is a blow to our experiment as a little, 
self-governing republic. It is a threat to our ability to proceed as 
such.
  But every Federal court except for the Supreme Court owes its entire 
existence and jurisdiction to the United States Congress. Congress 
brings those courts into being, and we can take them out. Congress 
gives them their jurisdiction, and we can take them out.
  I think it is time to begin to take out some of these courts that, 
like artificial intelligence, have become self-aware and now are trying 
to lash out and take power away from those under our Constitution that 
have it and to take it unto themselves in a self-protection mode.
  It is getting dangerous in the United States of America for a number 
of reasons. Radical Islam is only one of the reasons, but courts are 
going so far to overrule common sense and overrule the words of the 
Constitution and overrule the words of lawfully passed bills in the 
House and the Senate signed by Presidents and approved in other case 
law.
  Courts are coming back now and just deciding: We are like artificial 
intelligence. We are most important now that we are self-aware as the 
courts, and we are going to do everything we can to limit congressional 
authority and executive authority and bring all power and protection 
unto ourselves in the courts.
  It is getting dangerous from a constitutional standpoint. All of this 
is occurring.
  There is an article from Conservative Review by Daniel Horowitz, June 
5: ``7th Circuit Codifies Transgenderism into the Constitution.''
  The courts did such a great thing in America pointing out the 
importance of immutable characteristics. Characteristics that are 
immutable are not changeable, whether it is the color of the skin, a 
race, or a gender. Things that are immutable need to be protected from 
discrimination.
  Once the courts began to get into protecting characteristics that 
change on the whim of the carrier of those characteristics, then the 
courts started getting us into an area that also is a threat to a 
constitutional republic with private property rights, with privacy 
rights, and with the freedoms that we used to have and that are being 
infringed.
  When the courts come back and say that you have to protect non-
immutable characteristics that may change day to day wholly in the mind 
of the proponent, where does it stop?

                              {time}  1830

  It is a destructive force. We all agreed on race, everybody I know. I 
am sure there are some racists in America. In fact, I know there are 
still some. We have got some people who, I can't believe, after the 
lessons that should have been learned from the Holocaust, hate Jews, 
hate Israel, want it destroyed, removed. Incredible.
  The courts are saying we have to preserve some right that none of the 
rest of us can know, some characteristic none of the rest of us can 
know. It could change moment by moment. One moment someone is saying: I 
feel like a girl; I am going in the girl's restroom; or I feel like a 
boy today.
  Who can know? If it is not apparent, then how can somebody be said to 
be bigoted against or take some action against when you couldn't even 
know what was in their head? How did I know?
  I didn't discriminate against somebody for something I didn't know 
they had. It was all in their mind. How can I know? When the courts get 
us into that kind of quagmire, we can't recover. It will sink our ship.
  In this case, as Daniel Horowitz says:
  ``Last week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals became the latest 
Federal appeals court to codify

[[Page H4697]]

transgenderism into law and the Constitution.
  ``Although Obama's executive mandates for transgender bathrooms have 
gone by the wayside, thanks to Attorney General Jeff Sessions 
overruling the liberal whims of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the 
courts are engaging in their own social transformation on behalf of the 
defeated Democrats.
  ``In Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District, a unanimous opinion 
from the three-judge panel ordered a Wisconsin school district to allow 
a girl to use the boys' bathroom in school. Following in the footsteps 
of the Sixth and Fourth Circuits, this Seventh Circuit panel, which 
included GOP-appointee Ilana Rovner, ruled that the 1972 title IX 
education law and the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause cover 
transgenderism as a protected class.
  ``As the courts redefine our national sovereignty, rewrite election 
laws and redistricting in favor of Democrats, redefine criminal justice 
law for mass murderers, and mandate publicly funded abortions, they are 
using their self-acclaimed status as kings to redefine sexuality 
retroactive to laws and amendments codified long before the sexual-
identity movement was in vogue.
  ``In an emotional screed disguised as law, this opinion uses male 
pronouns to describe a woman with female parts. In any other era, these 
judges would have been deemed mentally unstable to serve on a bench.
  ``While refusing to recognize biological sex as immutable--or, even 
significant--the court contended that there is absolutely no disruption 
or privacy concerns over opposite sexes using the wrong bathrooms:
  ``A transgender student's presence in the restroom provides no more 
of a risk to other students' privacy rights than the presence of an 
overly curious student of the same biological sex who decides to sneak 
glances at his or her classmates performing their bodily functions.
  ``The court then appealed to common sense to disregard any remaining 
privacy concerns as `conjecture and abstraction.'
  ``Why is it I have a sneaking suspicion that when title IX was 
drafted in 1972, much less when the 14th Amendment was drafted in 1867, 
they completely understood the privacy concerns but would have never 
fathomed judges maniacally referring to a Y chromosome as an X 
chromosome?
  ``Amazingly, the legal liberals are the ones with the hypocritical 
arguments, even according to their own twisted logic. How could this 
school district be guilty of violating equal protection and engaging in 
stereotyping for actually applying science equally, and not going along 
with the deliberate stereotyping requested by the plaintiff?
  ``There is no greater stereotype than saying that a girl, despite 
being a girl, should be treated like a boy because she acts out in a 
`manly' way. The entire sexual-identity movement is built upon the very 
sex stereotypes they want to codify into law but also protect from 
discrimination.
  ``This is part of a broader hypocrisy in which the transgender lobby 
is filing lawsuits to apply disability laws to gender-confused 
individuals, but, on the other hand, are suing on discrimination 
grounds for stereotyping and recognizing this `disability' as a 
disability and not as a natural phenomenon.
  ``Either way, the courts will always reach the legal conclusion that 
best promotes the socially licentious political outcome . . . even when 
the `jurisprudence' is contradictory.
  ``Last year, the Fourth and Sixth Circuits said that transgenderism 
being codified into civil rights and the Constitution is `settled law,' 
demonstrating how irremediably broken the courts are. This is not just 
the Ninth Circuit; we have yet to find a single circuit willing to 
understand the most immutable laws of nature. Thus, it is not 
surprising that almost every court is creating a right for Somalis to 
immigrate. If marriage and human sexuality are subjective, so are the 
borders of a nation.
  ``Although the Supreme Court punted the Fourth Circuit case, Grimm v. 
Gloucester County, because that one was built upon Obama's obsolete 
transgender mandate, it is quite clear that another case will end up 
before the high court within the next year.
  ``Given Justice Anthony Kennedy's history on this issue--and his 
penchant for being influenced by growing momentum in the lower courts 
and the legal profession--it's fairly safe to say we will be confronted 
with the transgender version of Obergefell in the near future.
  ``The transgender case comes just 2 months after the Seventh Circuit 
codified sexual orientation into Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.''
  That is a court passing legislation illegally, unconstitutionally, 
just by fiat by the court. Their signature, just like any good 
oligarch.
  ``This circuit, like many others, is drifting more and more to the 
far left. A number of the GOP appointees, such as Richard Posner and 
Ilana Rovner, are among the worst offenders.
  ``There are only two reliable originalists on the court, Michael 
Kanne and Diane Sykes. That is why it is so important for Trump to 
immediately fill the two vacancies on the court with known 
originalists. Even more importantly, this is yet one more reason to 
make the courts less consequential by reforming their jurisdiction and 
scope of power.''
  And I would add, taking them out. If they are that irresponsible, 
let's take them out.
  What they refuse to look at is real science--real medical science. 
That is exactly what Dr. Paul McHugh did. He published this article in 
The Wall Street Journal on May 13, 2016. It was updated, apparently, 
from June 12, 2014.
  This was the head of psychiatry, Dr. Paul McHugh, at Johns Hopkins 
Hospital, the first hospital in America to have actually carried out 
sex-change operations in America.
  These were liberal, far-thinking, far-reaching ideas within surgery 
at Johns Hopkins. Well, yes, we can cut off organs, change their 
sexuality. Dr. Paul McHugh was head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins.
  Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 10 minutes remaining.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Dr. McHugh is a man who knows the medical science, not 
some idea that fleets by that may be gone tomorrow about someone's 
sexuality.
  Dr. McHugh says:
  ``The transgendered suffer a disorder of `assumption' like those in 
other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the 
disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems 
given in nature--namely one's maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of 
disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and 
bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical 
reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are 
overweight.''
  He goes on and says:
  ``With body dysmorphic disorder, an often socially crippling 
condition, the individual is consumed by the assumption `I'm ugly.' 
These disorders occur in subjects who have come to believe that some of 
their psycho-social conflicts or problems will be resolved if they can 
change the way that they appear to others. Such ideas work like ruling 
passions in their subjects' mind and tend to be accompanied by a 
solipsistic argument.
  ``For the transgendered, this argument holds that one's feeling of 
`gender' is a conscious, subjective sense that, being in one's mind, 
cannot be questioned by others. The individual often seeks not just 
society's tolerance of this `personal truth' but affirmation of it. 
Here rests the support for `transgender equality,' the demands for 
government payment for medical and surgical treatments, and for access 
to all sex-based public roles and privileges.''
  He goes on and says:
  ``We at Johns Hopkins University--which in the 1960s was the first 
American medical center to venture into `sex-reassignment surgery'--
launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered 
people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most 
of the surgically treated patients described themselves as `satisfied' 
by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no 
better than those who didn't have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we

[[Page H4698]]

stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a `satisfied' 
but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically 
amputating normal organs.
  ``It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 
study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most 
illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that 
should give advocates pause,'' including the courts that think that 
they can see a fleeting thought in a litigant's mind and say, Oh, there 
is a fleeting thought, that is an immutable characteristic. Therefore, 
we are going to give it rights, even though we can't see it, we don't 
know what it is. We have just got some idea, so we will call it an 
immutable characteristic.
  But according to the Karolinska Institute study--which is a long-term 
study, and, for 30 years, they followed 324 people who had sex-
reassignment surgery.
  ``The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the 
surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental 
difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 
twentyfold above the comparable nontransgender population. This 
disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the 
growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after 
surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery 
prescription.''
  Some of these Federal judges don't realize they are contributing to 
problems of indescribable proportions that may not be known, as the 
study indicated, for 10 years or so.
  As Dr. McHugh points out:
  ``Another subgroup consists of young men and women susceptible to 
suggestion from `everything is normal' sex education, amplified by 
internet chat groups. These are the transgender subjects most like 
anorexia nervosa patients: They become persuaded that seeking a drastic 
physical change will banish their psycho-social problems. `Diversity' 
counselors in their schools, rather like cult leaders, may encourage 
these young people to distance themselves from their families and offer 
advice on rebutting arguments against having transgender surgery. 
Treatments here must begin with removing the young person from the 
suggestive environment and offering a counter-message in family 
therapy.''

                              {time}  1845

  ``Then there is this subgroup of very young, often prepubescent 
children who notice distinct sex roles in the culture and, exploring 
how they fit in, begin imitating the opposite sex. Misguided doctors at 
medical centers including Boston's Children's Hospital have begun 
trying to treat this behavior by administering puberty-delaying 
hormones to render later sex-change surgeries less onerous--even though 
the drugs stunt the children's growth and risk causing sterility. Given 
that close to 80 percent of such children would abandon their confusion 
and grow naturally into adult life if untreated, these medical 
interventions come close to child abuse.''
  And that is basically what these Federal courts are contributing to. 
As Dr. McHugh says, they come close to child abuse themselves. He 
didn't say that about the courts; that is my insertion. But as Dr. 
McHugh, after being open to helping the transgendered every way that 
was available, he bases his decision on science, on medical science, on 
study, not on some whim of someone with a fleeting idea in their mind, 
maybe it lasts for decades, maybe it doesn't.
  But Dr. McHugh says: ``A better way to help these children: with 
devoted parenting.''
  It is not taking them away by the government or some busybody 
leftwing kooks that think they know better than their own parents. Of 
course there are parents that aren't fit. I have sentenced some to 
prison, and I hope some of them never get out of prison. They are a 
danger. But for heaven's sake, let's allow good parenting.
  Dr. McHugh says and finishes: ``At the heart of the problem is 
confusion over the nature of the transgendered. `Sex change' is 
biologically impossible.''
  Those are Dr. McHugh's words: ``Sex change is biologically 
impossible.''
  He says: ``People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change 
from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or 
masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil rights matter and 
encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and 
promote a mental disorder.''
  That is what our Federal courts are engaging in. They are promoting a 
mental disorder, as it has been called in the DSM.
  We ought to be about helping these people, not dividing America. But 
as the studies have indicated, 80 percent of these children that have 
such ideas, as others have said and he has said, how many of us know 
girls that were tomboys growing up but ended up being some of the most 
beautiful and feminine women later. Some may say that is sexist, but 
there are men who may grow up acting feminized and they grow up to be 
some of the most handsome, beautiful men you would ever know, but quite 
masculine.
  These courts are not helping. They are playing with the latest fad, 
and their playing is doing massive destructive damage to our United 
States Constitution, to our court system, to our freedom, and to what 
is left of our Republic.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________