[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 116 (Tuesday, July 11, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H5425-H5429]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2015
                           HEALTHCARE ISSUES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it has been interesting to hear all the 
rhetoric about Republican efforts that a majority of Americans have 
wanted us to take. Going back to even before ObamaCare was passed, the 
majority of Americans didn't want ObamaCare passed.
  I have been amazed at some of the rhetoric from across the aisle, I 
think from the former Speaker, who said something about how open their 
process was.
  Really?
  Anyway, I know sometimes our memories aren't what they once were. 
That was not a terribly open process. I believe the Speaker back then 
said: We don't need any Republican vote and we don't want your input. 
Basically those were the words I recall.
  People were promised over and over again by the President of the 
United States that if you like your insurance, you can keep your 
insurance. On at least one occasion he even said the word ``period,'' 
there are no exceptions. If you like your insurance, you can keep your 
insurance.
  So it was quite disappointing. Some of us knew this was a disastrous 
bill. I did read it. I didn't have to wait until Speaker Pelosi passed 
it to find out what was in it. I read it and I knew it was going to be 
a disaster.
  Then, after it passed, we ultimately find out that they knew well in 
advance that if you liked your insurance, there was a very good chance 
you would not be able to keep your insurance, period. It wasn't true. 
All those, including the President, went around saying: If you like 
your insurance, you can keep it. According to statements after the fact 
by people involved, yes, they talked about it and they knew people were 
going to lose their insurance. They are going to lose their doctor, 
they are going to lose their healthcare provider, but we can't say 
those things and still pass this bill. We can't let that get out there.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I just want people to remember how this disastrous 
legislation ever came about in the first place, and how, going against 
the will of the American people to pass the disastrous bill--around 
2,500 pages is what my two volumes came to--but people knew it was 
going to do lot of damage to people's health and their lives. As we 
know, when you cannot get the healthcare you need or the lifesaving 
healthcare you have been getting, you no longer live.
  It is amazing now, after ObamaCare passed 7 years, to find out things 
about the knowing design of ObamaCare. They knew that insurance 
companies, under ObamaCare, were given incentives not to have the best 
people to treat cancer, the best cancer healthcare providers, the best 
cancer lifesavers in the network.
  They had incentives under ObamaCare to not include the best 
physicians and hospitals that will save the lives of people who have 
cancer; don't include the best healthcare providers that will help 
those save their

[[Page H5426]]

lives, or at least prolong the lives of those with AIDS; don't include 
in your insurance coverage the best healthcare providers for those with 
heart problems.
  If you don't include the best healthcare providers for cancer, AIDS, 
heart problems, or whatever it is, then people who are going to cost 
you a lot of money will not likely choose your insurance.
  It was all part of the design to implode healthcare in America, 
destroy the broken system we had so that people would eventually throw 
up their hands and say: Well, I didn't originally want healthcare, but 
surely anything will be better than what we have.
  Apparently, from the beginning, the intention was to set it up to 
give Big Pharma, to give some insurance companies, basically, not only 
incentives, but mandates that would force their prices ever upward. As 
Big Pharma knew, they were going to make profits like they had never 
made in their history.
  As I have told some of the Representatives before, when they signed 
onto ObamaCare, they basically signed your own death warrant. Yes, you 
will make tens, maybe hundreds of billions more than you have in the 
past, but eventually it will lead to your industry being controlled by 
the government in such a way that you will be like pharmaceutical 
companies in Third World countries where they are allowed to collect 
the costs of production and maybe a small percentage above that, which 
means there are no new lifesaving, life-enhancing drugs being produced 
in countries like that. Eventually, down the road, ObamaCare would 
destroy the incentives to create new lifesaving drugs and it would be 
the end of this incredible run of decades of the most incredible 
advances in medicine in the history of the world.
  Some medical historians say that maybe 100 years or so ago, protocols 
around the time of World War I were the line of demarcation in our 
history. Somewhere around the early 20th century, early 1900s, there 
was a point where--before that point in time, if you went to a doctor, 
your odds were better of getting worse. If you go to a doctor seeking 
help for a healthcare problem, the odds were you would get worse. On 
the other side of that line, in the early 1900s, was a point that if 
you went to a doctor for healthcare help, your odds of getting well 
were better than of getting worse.
  So it is pretty remarkable, if those historians are right, that for 
the thousands of years of recorded history, it is only the last 100 
years where you had a chance of getting better if you sought medical 
help than of getting worse if you got medical help.
  Look at what has happened since then. It is just incredible, 
especially since the 1950s. I would submit that the Founders' vision in 
creating copyright and patent protection for intellectual creations and 
thought helped drive those developments in healthcare. It made a lot of 
people wealthy. But there is nothing like real incentive, more luxury, 
more freedom, more enjoyment because of the huge rewards of great 
intellectual creations. Healthcare had just become incredible.
  I began to notice after I got to Congress that my friends across the 
aisle were completely skewing the massive difference between health 
insurance and healthcare. Health insurance was an even newer thing to 
most Americans. For healthcare--as we say, maybe the historians are 
right--it is around 100 years ago that, for the first time, you had a 
better chance of getting better than you had of getting worse after 
seeking a doctor's help. But wow, the advances, the progress that was 
made.
  The more the government interferes and dictates who gets what, the 
more rationed care you get, the less advances in healthcare, the less 
incentives there are to create lifesaving, life-enhancing medications. 
When government is the most powerful player in healthcare, you will 
always end up with rationed healthcare.
  Some point to the situation with the small child, Charlie Gard, in 
the U.K. They say that is what happens when you have bureaucrats 
deciding who gets to live and who has to die. But the more appropriate 
analysis, I think, is they are not actually deciding so much the 
ultimate conclusion of who gets to live and who has to die, but what 
they are really doing to get there is deciding, rationing, which lives, 
in the opinion of government bureaucrats, are more important or may be 
more helpful to the socialist movement, to the bureaucratic 
entrenchment than someone else.
  If you are perceived by the government bureaucracy or the government 
bureaucrats, the D.C. bureaucrats as being a threat to more 
government--more powerful government, more control of the individual, 
if you are a threat to those things, then you can pretty well be 
assured that when your situation is analyzed by the bureaucrats, you 
are not going to be eligible for the lifesaving medications and you are 
not going to be eligible for the hip replacement because we looked at 
your age and you have had a nice life and it is time to give it up. We 
don't have enough for everybody to have everything we want, so we in 
Washington will decide who gets to live and who gets to die. Actually, 
we decide who gets what treatment.
  In the case of Charlie Gard, it is not a lack of concern about life; 
it is just in the opinion of the bureaucrats, where it always goes with 
socialized medicine. We only have limited government resources, 
therefore, we have to be careful whom we help. In their opinion, 
Charlie Gard may not make it.

                              {time}  2030

  The way Americans, a majority of Americans, at least, used to feel 
was every life is worth trying to protect. Of course, along came Roe v. 
Wade and made clear only those lives are worthy of protecting if a 
mother wants to protect them.
  We even had people in the previous administration that had voted, 
made the pronouncement through their actions and votes, statements, 
that even if a child is born alive after an attempted abortion, in the 
opinion of those individuals, like our former President, you still 
should be able to kill the child even if the child is born alive 
because the mother wanted the child aborted, so go ahead and kill the 
child.
  I am grateful for all the stalwarts over the years, but I believe we 
have seen a change in that philosophy in the realization, like with the 
heartbeat bill, that says, in essence, if a child has a heartbeat, they 
are a living person and may not be aborted.
  So it is an interesting time here in America, but it has now resulted 
in a lot of rhetoric that is really outrageous. You know, I have said 
for years here on this floor that, with all the allegations, 
statements, verbal wars that have gone on across the aisle, you know, 
we know that no one on the Democratic side wants to harm people, wants 
people hurt. We don't question their motives, and yet, as I am in my 
office hearing friends across the aisle--okay, I am using the term 
``friends'' loosely--but hearing them use terms about how we want 
people to die. We have come to a sad place in our history.
  This story, June 30, from FOX News, was reporting on statements made 
by some individuals. This quote said--this is from Massachusetts 
Senator Elizabeth Warren: ``These Medicaid cuts are blood money. People 
will die. Let's be very clear: Senate Republicans are paying for tax 
cuts for the wealthy with American lives.''
  Senator Bernie Sanders appeared on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' to 
predict thousands would die if a projected 23 million drop or lose 
their insurance. And Senator Sanders accused Republicans of trading 
healthcare for tax breaks to the rich: ``Is this what America is 
supposed to be about, taking away health insurance from kids with 
disabilities, from people with cancer in order to give tax breaks to 
the billionaires?
  ``Let us be clear, and this is not trying to be overly dramatic: 
Thousands of people will die if the Republican healthcare bill becomes 
law.''
  Well, you want to fact-check that, of course. If the Republicans' 
healthcare bill, whatever it says in the Senate, is passed, thousands 
of people will die. If the bill is not passed, thousands of people will 
die. So I guess we can't say it is not true. People are going to die 
whether it passes or not, but the implication is that Republicans, 
through their efforts, are going to kill people.
  What I would just like is an acknowledgment from our friends across 
the aisle, like Senator Sanders, that there

[[Page H5427]]

have been people since ObamaCare has passed who lost their insurance, 
lost their healthcare provider, didn't get the treatments they needed, 
their way of life was harmed; and there are bound to have been a lot of 
people who died sooner than they would have earlier if the President's 
words had not been hollow that, if you like your insurance, you can 
keep your insurance, and if ObamaCare had not rewarded insurance 
companies for not including places like MD Anderson, treating for 
cancer, or good healthcare providers.
  Obviously, if they have the best healthcare providers for cancer, for 
these other life-ending diseases, then people will use their insurance, 
drive up the cost; so it really created an incentive for insurance 
companies not to get the best end-of-life treaters in their network. To 
their credit, some have, but many haven't. So it has been amazing.
  Here is other rhetoric. The former Senator, Hillary Clinton, said: 
``Forget death panels. If Republicans pass this bill, they're the death 
party.''
  I mean, maybe that is one of the reasons she didn't win. I mean, that 
is just an outrageous thing to say.
  This article goes on to say: ``Some Democrats traveled the country to 
ring the alarm. Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper came to Washington 
to lobby against the measure, which he said was immoral and would lead 
to 100,000 deaths by 2026.''
  Now, there is this liberal group, apparently, Center for American 
Progress, liberal think tank--I don't know what their tank is full of, 
but it is obviously more socialistic thinking. But according to this 
liberal group, the Center of American Progress, if 23 million fewer 
people have health insurance, then the coverage losses from the Senate 
bill would result in 27,700 additional deaths in 2026 and 217,000 over 
the decade.
  Well, isn't that interesting. There is nothing that they can 
adequately point to as a factual basis. Any citing of CBO, whose margin 
of error on ObamaCare could have been anywhere from plus or minus 200 
to 400 percent--CBO is not a source that should ever be cited with a 
straight face. They just shouldn't be.
  I agree with my friend, Dr. Arthur Laffer, that when it comes to tax 
reform, we just need to forget CBO. They don't know ``sic `em'' from 
``come here.'' They explain, yes, they create these models, so they 
don't really come up with a score. They create models that provide us 
the scores: garbage in, garbage out.
  So it has just gotten to be a sad state of affairs because people are 
hurting across America. And I know there is apparently 25 percent in my 
district. I have heard them. I understand they want to keep ObamaCare. 
They want to move towards socialism. They like the government having so 
much control over their lives. Just go ahead and check them into an 
Orwellian center and let them enjoy Big Brother taking care of them.
  But I do represent their best interests, and I think the 75 percent 
in my district are right about what will be best, that ObamaCare needs 
to be repealed. We need to get relationships back between a patient and 
a doctor without an insurance company or a government in between them--
except for very rare occasions--as it once was. It used to be the 
government didn't have anything to say much at all about that other 
than having the FDA, things like that. But insurance companies came 
along, and they were only for catastrophic problems, so we still had 
complete control of our healthcare.

  I do appreciate, greatly appreciate, House Minority Leader Nancy 
Pelosi referencing the need to honor God. That means a lot to me. Her 
statement that to minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of 
worship, to ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us, but 
if the government is big and strong enough to say who gets healthcare 
and who doesn't, who gets treatment, who gets the lifesaving care and 
who doesn't, then that is to put government in the place of God, and 
nothing dishonors God more than to have any person or any entity that 
believes it is the substitute for God.
  The United States Government is not a substitute for God. Without 
God's blessing, as our Founders repeatedly made clear, we wouldn't have 
even the freedom we have today.
  Joseph Schmitz, on July 5, wrote a terrific article, and it is 
absolutely worth every Republican taking note of. I would encourage my 
friends across the aisle to take note of it, but I understand their 
positions. They cannot participate in the repeal of ObamaCare because 
they staked the majority--well, they staked future socialism on this 
bill.
  Mr. Schmitz says: ``In early 2016, Congress passed H.R. 3762, a law 
that would have repealed most of ObamaCare. On January 8, 2016, Obama 
vetoed that would-be ObamaCare Repeal Act.
  ``240 years earlier, Congress declared `to a candid world' that, `The 
history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated 
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment 
of an absolute tyranny over these States.' Among other usurpations 
specified in the Declaration of Independence, `He' ''--talking about 
the king--`` `has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither 
swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.'
  ``Our 1776 Declaration of Independence concluded, `We, therefore, the 
representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, 
assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world' ''--that is not 
the government. That is appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world--`` 
`for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by authority 
of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare that 
these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent 
states; . . . and for the support of this declaration, with a firm 
reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to 
each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.'
  ``In July 2017, Congress should likewise acknowledge the `swarms of 
officers' harassing our good people under the guise of ObamaCare and 
reenact the 2016 ObamaCare Repeal Act.
  ``Note well below the revenue-raising nature of the ObamaCare repeal 
sections of H.R. 3762, keeping in mind that ObamaCare originated in 
2009 as the `Senate Health Care bill,' and the Constitution provides 
that, `All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of 
Representatives.' '' That is Article I, section 7, clause 1.

                              {time}  2045

  And he goes on for quite some time to cite all the different sections 
in ObamaCare that actually make it a revenue-raising bill. Section 204 
has the individual mandate mandating people have to pay money and buy 
something; section 205, an employer mandate mandating that they must 
pay a massive tax like the individual or pay for insurance, buy a 
product. For the first time in American history, citizens are required 
to buy a product, employers are ordered to buy a product. Section 206, 
Federal payments to the States; section 209, repeal of the tax on 
employee health insurance premiums and health plan benefits; section 
210, repeal of the tax on over-the-counter medications.
  I am sorry. These are the names of the sections in the House bill. 
Those were not in ObamaCare. These are the provisions in the House bill 
that would repeal all these taxes, as Chief Justice Roberts called 
them.
  So these are all good sections, is what Joe Schmitz is pointing out, 
individual mandate, employer mandate, getting rid of those, Federal 
payments to States. It is just taking out a repeal of the employee tax. 
So there we go. It is eliminating so much of the taxes on individuals, 
repeal of the tax on over-the-counter medications.
  This was the Democrats, without a single Republican vote, who passed 
this legislation, ObamaCare, the ACA. They put a tax on over-the-
counter medications, they put a tax on employee health insurance 
premiums and a tax on health plan benefits, and they put a tax on 
health savings accounts. They had already paid money on that that went 
in it, but anyway.
  So the Republican bill that President Obama vetoed, it would repeal 
limitations on contributions to flexible spending accounts. You can put 
as much as you want in there. It would repeal the tax on prescription 
medication. ObamaCare actually put a tax on your precious prescription 
medications that are saving people's lives.

[[Page H5428]]

  Anybody who would have the gall after voting for all these taxes put 
on the backs of poor people who can't even hardly afford their 
prescriptions as they are, and, yes, they have been skyrocketing under 
ObamaCare, and to say that Republicans are trying to harm people and 
dishonor God, for Heaven's sake, read your own bill.
  They put a tax on medical devices. Senior citizens who had to have 
help moving or walking, you got to pay a tax on that, and we don't care 
if you can't afford the tax and you can't move around anymore. We are 
the government.
  That was the ACA, ObamaCare, that put that tax in place, and another 
health insurance tax in the bill, and it eliminated the deduction for 
expenses allocatable to Medicare part D subsidies. It placed a tax 
called a chronic care tax, there was a Medicare tax increase, there was 
a tanning tax, there was a net investment tax, all kinds of taxes in 
ObamaCare. They hammered the American people.
  We were promised--President Obama stood right there and promised no 
money would pay for abortions under his healthcare bill, under the 
healthcare bill they were going to pass. That is what he said. He said 
no people illegally in the United States were going to get their 
healthcare on the backs of people in America legally. Both of those 
were not true. It turns out Joe Wilson was prescient.
  It is time to wake up. We were sent back into the majority because 
ObamaCare was passed, and we are going to be sent back in the minority, 
appropriately, if we don't repeal it.
  President Trump has made clear in a recent tweet: Look, if you guys 
can't pass the replacement now, at least pass the repeal, then we can 
start moving together on a replacement.
  Surely the Democrats will want to come and not be so obstructionist 
once their precious ObamaCare has been struck down; then maybe they 
will actually work with us to create a better system, but it is time to 
wake up, it is time to repeal ObamaCare.
  Now, I want to touch on one other subject, Mr. Speaker, and that is 
involving all this mess, these allegations about Russia.
  It was not Donald J. Trump nor any Republican who told the Russians--
the Russian leaders, actually: I will have a lot more flexibility after 
the election.
  That can only mean one thing: I am going to give away a lot more of 
America's strength, helping you out in Russia. As you are trying to get 
stronger, I am going to give away a lot more of our strength, maybe our 
edge over your military. I will have more ability to give that away 
after I am elected to a second term. Tell Vladimir.
  It was not a Republican, certainly not anyone associated with Donald 
Trump, who went to Russia with a supposed reset button, couldn't get 
the translation right, but wanting to reset the relationship.
  And for those who didn't follow history well back then, the reason 
there was a strain in the relationship between the United States and 
Russia was because George W. Bush as President of the United States 
stood on principle, and when the country of Russia, under Putin, 
attacked Georgia, President Bush, appropriately, was outraged, and he 
pushed for sanctions to let Russia know that the United States does not 
approve of Russia attacking sovereign countries.
  So the message that President Obama and Hillary Clinton wanted to get 
across to Putin and the Russians was, with a wink and lots of pats and 
happy times: Look, George W. Bush as President, we think, overreacted 
when you attacked Georgia, you know. So we want to let you know we want 
a reset button, because under President Obama and me, Hillary Clinton, 
we are not going to overreact when you attack neighboring sovereign 
countries. We are okay with that, see, and we want things reset. We are 
not going to get upset like Bush did when you attacked a neighboring 
country.
  That is the message that came across very loud and clear to Putin and 
those around him.
  I would like to think I learned during my summer as an exchange 
student in the Soviet Union a little bit about the way a lot of 
Russians think. I get surprised when people say: It is so hard to read 
Putin. No, it is not. The man was part of the KGB. He wants the glory 
days of the old Soviet Union back even though they were built on a 
skeleton that could never maintain the weight that such a Socialist 
country was putting on that frame.

  So then we find out here, this was back in January, January 11, 2017, 
an article in Politico of all places, surprise, surprise, by Kenneth P. 
Vogel and David Stern, it says: ``Ukrainian government officials tried 
to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his 
fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top 
Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the 
matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's 
allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a 
Politico investigation found.
  ``A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the 
Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian 
Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top 
campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct 
knowledge of the situation.''
  This is Politico reporting on the collusion between Hillary Clinton, 
her campaign, and the country of Ukraine to stop and defeat Trump.
  Now, where has the Politico reporting on this issue been since 
January? I appreciate them pointing this out back in January, but 
apparently at this point back in January, Politico had not yet gotten 
the word from their friends on the Democratic side of the aisle: hey, 
hey, kind of soft-pedal that stuff where we colluded with the 
Ukrainians to try to take Trump out, because we are going to make that 
a big allegation about Trump and the Russians, so kind of back off 
that. Let's take the spotlight off that one.
  The article goes on: ``The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the 
race, helping to force Manafort's resignation and advancing the 
narrative that Trump's campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine's foe 
to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally 
directed than Russia's alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic 
emails.
  ``Russia's effort was personally directed by Russian President 
Vladimir Putin. . . . ''
  So they go on and try to do what they can to help, you know, salvage 
some respect for the Democrats here. There is little evidence of such a 
top-down effort by Ukraine, but the fact is Ukraine did collude with 
Hillary Clinton's campaign, and they were successful in helping the 
Trump campaign, Manafort had to be fired, and they are still trying to 
create clouds surrounding that. But anyway, how about that?
  Well, it leads to one conclusion, and that is that it is part of the 
evidence that we have got to have an independent counsel, and I don't 
mean Robert Mueller. I am talking about an independent counsel, not one 
that is bosom buddies with Comey; and not one that can't stand Trump; 
and not one that is going to run out, not hire any Republicans for his 
staff who love Trump, but just hire people who can't stand him and 
wanted Hillary elected.
  This is a guy who has been vindictive, who has worked closely with 
Comey in the past, and he is in no position whatsoever to judge 
anything about James Comey.
  If you go back and look at what is required under 28 CFR 45.2, it 
provides that a Department of Justice attorney should not participate 
in investigations that may involve entities or individuals with whom 
the attorney has a political or personal relationship.
  Mueller and Comey are buddies. They have closely consulted on so many 
things.

                              {time}  2100

  For example, this story from June 7, 2017, by Josh Siegel, says:
  ``Former FBI Director Jim Comey `closely coordinated' with Special 
Counsel Robert Mueller before his planned testimony before the Senate 
Intelligence Committee about his interactions with President Trump.
  ``FOX News reported a source close to Comey said the former FBI 
Director consulted with Mueller about how to approach Thursday's Senate 
Intelligence Committee hearing. The Department of Justice appointed 
Mueller

[[Page H5429]]

special counsel to lead the investigation of Russia's involvement in 
the 2016 election, and any possible collusion with the Trump campaign. 
Mueller and Comey were longtime colleagues at the Justice Department, 
and legal experts say it would not be unusual for a special counsel to 
be in contact with somebody who is a party to its investigation.''
  Mueller and Comey were longtime colleagues at the Justice Department.
  Well, anyway, there needs to be an independent counsel who will 
investigate the goings-on between Robert Mueller and James Comey with 
the recent revelations about Comey's very apparent release of 
classified information.
  Bob Mueller is not in a position to judge him. And a great piece of 
evidence that Robert Mueller is not fit to be the special counsel 
investigating this matter is the fact that he didn't recuse himself 
because of his close relationship with Comey, and how Comey is a 
critical witness in what he accuses Trump of, which doesn't seem to 
really be a crime.
  But, based on Comey's testimony before the Senate, it bears going 
back and looking at a normal FBI employment agreement that says: I will 
surrender upon demand by the FBI or upon my separation from the FBI all 
materials containing FBI information in my possession.
  They also have a breach of contract case there because the FBI 
Director carried stuff with him, that he prepared on his government 
time with his government equipment, saved with his government 
equipment, and passed on, apparently, with his government equipment, 
that appears to have been classified, according to the new releases 
coming out now.
  If you look at Comey's conduct in the past, as this article from 
Mollie Hemingway on June 12, 2017, pointed out, he had pressured John 
Ashcroft to recuse himself from the responsibility of investigating the 
supposed, the alleged, leak of Valerie Plame's identity. It turns out 
the prosecutor knew on day one who it was--Richard Armitage--but he 
wasn't honest enough to say: ``We know. I don't need to spend millions 
and millions of dollars of government tax dollars and waste thousands 
and thousands of hours investigating. We know the answer.''
  No, no, no. This was Comey's dear friend, Patrick Fitzgerald--not 
just a close personal friend, but godfather to one of his children--and 
Comey gave the role of special counsel into that leak on Valerie 
Plame's identity. It was Comey who gave that to Patrick Fitzgerald, his 
close friend.
  What a travesty that turned out to be. That was a fraud upon the 
American Government by Patrick Fitzgerald. He knew on day one the 
answer to his investigation, but he wanted a scalp, so he wasted a 
tremendous amount of time trying to get one. A 3-year investigation.
  And what did he end up doing?
  Fitzgerald ended up prosecuting ``Scooter Libby for''--as she says--
``wait for it, obstruction of justice. Comey was unconcerned about the 
jailing of journalists and never threatened to resign over this 
infringement on First Amendment freedoms.''
  So, since Mueller did not have the moral sense to recuse himself when 
he was offered this special counsel job because of his close personal 
relationship with James Comey and who he has hired since then, it is 
very clear, the President is not going to be able to fire him, because 
there would be such screaming about the Saturday Night Massacre. 
Mueller knew that, and this is part of his vindictiveness. When it 
became clear from Comey's testimony that there was no conclusion with 
Russia by President Trump, then he leaks out that: Oh, I am 
investigating the President for obstruction of justice.
  Why would he do that?
  Because by leaking out that he was now investigating the President--
if the President fired him after he leaks out that he is investigating 
the President, then you would have the allegations of the Saturday 
Night Massacre and all this kind of stuff.
  So the only way forward is the appointment by President Donald Trump 
of an independent counsel that is truly independent.
  Mr. Speaker, we do not need someone who has been contributing to 
Hillary Clinton or to Barack Obama or to any major Democrat or to any 
major Republican. We need somebody that is going to be a fair arbiter 
in this pursuit of justice so that he can investigate Mueller fairly 
and impartially. And the relationship, whether Comey and Mueller 
consulted, as they did on so many things, like his Senate testimony, 
about some of the things--well, like the leak that Comey testified to 
that appears, potentially, to have been a crime.
  We need to know what Mueller knew. Obviously, Robert Mueller is not 
going to resign, so the President couldn't very well fire him. But we 
have got to get to the bottom and find out what really happened so that 
justice is done.
  The projecting by one group of people on the Republican Party conduct 
they engaged in and projecting it on the Republican Party as if it was 
they that did what this group did, it is time to have all this 
investigated. We are not going to get it with Mueller, a dear friend of 
Comey. It is time to have a true independent counsel.
  The only one way we can do that appropriately is if President Trump 
finds somebody truly independent, truly not a political animal, who can 
investigate. And that is not Rosenstein, that is for sure, as well. 
Then we can get to the bottom and see that justice is done.
  So here is our work. Let's stay here and work until we get ObamaCare 
repealed, tax reform passed and signed into law, and let's encourage 
the President to appoint independent counsel so that we can finally see 
justice in this case, where currently all we have is what one friend 
referred to as a big fraternity party among the Muellers and Comeys and 
their buddies in that fraternity.

  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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