[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 173 (Thursday, October 26, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H8262-H8267]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1215
ISSUES OF THE WEEK
The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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 interesting, when I am watching the
news or looking at a newspaper, I can see what kind of pictures are
there in the news story, and having been at press conferences where
print media that is extremely slanted will come up, the photographer
from such media source will come up and get right in front and then
start taking pictures and have their camera on nonstop, just click,
click, click, second after second. So you know they have got 100, 200
pictures.
It is easy to know what they are doing. They are taking as many
pictures as fast as they can. And you know that they are going to go
through and they are going to take the picture in which your mouth is
in the most contorted position, or where it looks like you are saying a
word that would be inappropriate for an elected official to say. You
know that is the picture they are going to put up, trying to make you
look as stupid as possible before you ever read the article.
For some of us, it is not difficult to make us look stupid. We can't
help our looks. But you just know before you ever read the article,
when you look at the picture, whether it is going to be a fair and
objective article, or whether it is going to be totally skewed and
totally subjective.
I notice that, too, sometimes when friends across the aisle come with
blown-up pictures. I can look at the pictures and tell whether it is
going to be a fair and objective dissertation I am going to hear from
my fellow Representatives across the aisle. But it is true of
Republicans as well. I just don't see those type of skewed pictures
very often at all, if at all, from the Republicans. But, anyway, it
seems to be a good rule of thumb. You look at the pictures and you can
tell whether it is going to be fair or it is going to be a total hit
piece.
I have been very interested, though, to watch during the course of
this last 9, 10 months as we come through 2017, the story nonstop from
Representatives across the aisle has been about Russia, Russia, Russia.
It sounds a bit like Sean Hannity, Russia, Russia, Russia, yes, but I
don't mind sounding like somebody I greatly admire.
But isn't it interesting that in the revelations that have been
coming out in the last few days, our friends across the aisle have not
been as anxious to run down and talk about Russia?
But somebody needs to talk about it. I have been talking about it for
quite some time, and for most of this year I have been pointing out
that we actually need a special prosecutor, a special counsel to
investigate former FBI Director Comey and to investigate the Clinton
ties to Russia and the over $100 million in contributions that came
from stakeholders, apparently, of Uranium One. It is just absolutely
incredible.
What is amazing, though, there are bound to be so many fingers going
out emanating from that deal that we have not seen or heard of. We
didn't know what was going on, and now we know that the FBI headed by
Director Robert Mueller, at the same time that he was purging the FBI
training materials of anything that offended radical Islamists that
want to kill us, at the same time he was not investigating properly
tips about the older Tsarnaev being radicalized that he was going to
kill people. Let's face it, when we get a tip that somebody has been
radicalized as an Islamist, it means they are likely going to commit a
terrorist act and try to take innocent lives, as Tsarnaev and his
brother did.
The FBI didn't properly investigate. They didn't know what to ask.
They didn't know how to investigate whether or not somebody had been
radicalized because Robert Mueller had purged the training materials so
they couldn't know what to ask, how to know if somebody has been
radicalized, or they are a peace-loving Muslim, or they are radical
Islamist.
Mueller prevented that from happening because he was so taken up with
the idea of being friendly and neighborly, he called it his outreach
program. He even testified before our Judiciary Committee years ago
after I was there about--he kept wanting to make the point that the
Muslim community is exactly like every other community. Again, the
Muslim community is just like every other community.
He kept making that point over and over as Democrats asked him
questions. And then he talked about his lovely outreach program with
CAIR--the Council on American-Islamic Relations--that has ties that
were named as codefendants supporting terrorism with those who were
actually convicted of supporting terrorism.
Yet, even though the FBI had the evidence that convicted these
supporting terrorists, and even though there was plenty of evidence
that the people who he was trying to be friends with had radical
terrorist ties, he continued his so-called outreach program
[[Page H8263]]
as people were plotting to kill Americans among those that he was
trying to have meals with and be friendly with.
But I asked him the question: You keep saying that the Muslim
community here in America is just like every other community, and you
keep bragging about your outreach program with the Muslim community. So
I would like to ask you, Director Mueller, how was your outreach
program going with Jews, Catholics, Baptists, and other religious
groups? How is that outreach going? How is your outreach going with the
Buddhists and the Confucianists?
Anyway, that was the basic question I asked. Of course, he was taken
aback and he couldn't explain because eventually we got the truth.
There is no outreach program like that that the FBI had with any other
religious group.
So it is kind of disingenuous, if not to say dishonest, to say that a
group that requires special attention and coddling is somehow exactly
like every other group in America. No, they require special attention,
at least that is what Robert Mueller thought.
I don't think any religious group that believes in our Constitution
and supports our Constitution requires any such special attention, as
Robert Mueller was giving the outreach partner CAIR that has done so
much damage to America and continues to undermine evidence to find,
arrest, and convict radical Islamists.
It is normally like clockwork. As soon as a radical Islamist has
committed a terrorist act, it really is like clockwork. You can count
on CAIR--C-A-I-R; not the kind that actually helps people around the
world, but CAIR--to be out there with the news conference saying: This
guy was not one of us.
But at some point, I hope that people who are Muslims will quit
listening to CAIR and will listen to the words of a much wiser
individual, President el-Sisi in Egypt, who stood in a room with imams
and told them: We have got to get our religion back away from the
radicals, or they are going to destroy it.
That is a courageous man, and I don't find that kind of courage among
the people who have these press conferences to deflect instead of
helping us find and capture the radical Islamists before they kill too
many people. They are out there trying to make it appear that they are
not really radical Islamists; that they are something else. No, they
are radical Islamists. They clearly are.
I was kind of saddened that General Kelly ended up being the chief of
staff for President Trump because I thought he was starting out to do a
superb job as Secretary of Homeland Security.
It turns out, as some of us had warned, that during the Obama
administration, all of this blather about countering violent extremism,
CVE, that found its way into legislation that this body passed: Oh,
let's don't call it ``fighting radical Islamists.'' Call it,
``countering violent extremism.''
Well, some of us had figured out the game, and Michele Bachmann was
one of those people. Yes, it is not countering violent extremism. It is
fighting radical Islam. Thank God President Trump is now occupying the
Oval Office. He understood that ISIS was not just a JV team. They are
people who are radical Islamists and they would love to kill as many
Americans as possible. They didn't need to have their groups
denigrated. They needed to have their groups destroyed.
These were not people who were going to be rehabilitated. They were
radical extremists that actually believe with all of their heart that
they win a place in paradise by killing innocent people.
If you really want to go back to why there is an English translation
copy of the Koran in the Library of Congress that was purchased, owned
by Thomas Jefferson, it was because he was negotiating with the radical
Islamists, the Barbary pirates in North Africa. He was so well-
educated, so well-read, he couldn't understand why the Barbary pirates,
who were radical Islamists, kept attacking American ships.
As he indicated: We are not a threat to you. We don't even have a
Navy to speak of. We are not your enemy. We don't understand why you
keep attacking American ships.
And he was told that, under their belief system, those Islamists
believed they went to paradise if they died killing what we would
consider innocent people and they consider people worthy of death; they
would go to paradise.
Jefferson, as well-read as he was, he couldn't believe that there was
any religion anywhere in the world that believed you could go to Heaven
or paradise if you are killed while you are killing innocent,
unsuspecting people who are not military. They are not a threat to the
radical Islamists's life, yet they thought they were going to go to
paradise and have 70-some-odd virgins or so waiting for them. He
couldn't believe it. So that is when he got his own copy of the Koran,
because he just couldn't believe there was a religion that believed you
could go to paradise if you are killing innocent people.
Hopefully that will set the record straight with some folks who
thought it showed how open-minded Thomas Jefferson was. Actually, he
was quite open-minded. Some have tried to denigrate him because he had
slaves. The man made plenty of mistakes, and one of them was an
egregious wrong he did upon John Adams.
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They had been friends for years. It was Adams who asked him to do the
first draft of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was wise
enough that, when he did the first draft of the Declaration of
Independence, if you look at the different grievances that he set out
as to why they should be independent from England, the longest
paragraph of the grievance was about how King George allowed slavery to
ever start in America.
At the time, Virginia had a law making it illegal to free your own
slaves, so he was law-abiding. But he believed that one of the worst
things that ever happened to America was King George's allowing slavery
to start and exist in this country and that it was going to cause
massive problems that would be very difficult to cure. He was exactly
right on all fronts.
There are some even claiming that George Washington should have his
name removed from schools or public places when the fact is there would
be no free America without George Washington having lived at the time
he did. I believe with all my heart that George Washington was the man
for such a time as that. There has never been a man in all of history
who led a military in a revolution, won the revolution, and then
tendered his resignation, as we see down the Hall, his outreached hand.
I think it is the most important scene in all of the Capitol. It is a
massive mural. He is handing in his resignation. He sought no further
power.
He could have been king of America or an emperor. There were a couple
of coups they tried to involve him in. He stopped them. Anybody else in
the world we know from history would not have done what he did. He was
reluctant to take any power, yet because of his humility and his focus
on creating a free and independent land, we have a free and independent
land.
Yes, he had slaves, but he was dealing with a Virginia where there
was a law against freeing the slaves. But even so, he put in his will
that their slaves would be free upon the death of his wife. Certainly,
there are better ways to have done that. He was trying to abide by the
law.
We have such an incredible history with people like Washington. Some
of us were attending an address by an author who had researched and
done a biography on Benjamin Franklin, over at the Library of Congress,
we were hearing. Someone asked him: Is there anybody you can think of
in modern America who reminds you of Ben Franklin? He said: Actually,
we have got many people who are witty, clever, and very inventive. Yes,
Ben Franklin was an absolutely incredible man.
Of course, I am paraphrasing. But he said: It wasn't like he was
George Washington. There was only one of those, just only one of those.
We had the director of The Society of the Cincinnati speak at the
Library of Congress on one occasion. He was asked--since most
biographers, the more they dig into the background of an individual,
and he had studied Washington every year of his adult life--did he come
to a point where he had less respect for Washington because of all of
the details he discerned about Washington's life.
[[Page H8264]]
He indicated that he could honestly say that, in addition to knowing
more about Washington every year of his adult life, that he had more
respect, admiration, and awe of George Washington with each passing
year, with every bit of information he learned. That is the kind of
incredible history we have, the kind of selflessness.
People say, oh, yeah, but Washington, look at the big payoff he got.
He didn't take a salary, but, boy, did he take a lot of money after the
Revolution.
Actually, he didn't take a salary. He didn't take a payoff. He was
reimbursed some of his out-of-pocket expenses. He had been paying for
spies to work for the country. He had paid so much out of his own
pocket, and he was only seeking part of what had come out of pocket
knowing that, if the Revolution failed, not only would he have been
killed, but, obviously, his family would not have had all that money he
spent.
So I think that kind of puts in perspective, when we start looking at
people who are willing to sell off America's national security for
millions of dollars--well, you have to admire their appreciation for
large amounts of money, but not at the price of selling our safety.
So, for all this year, I have been saying that Robert Mueller should
never have accepted the role of special counsel because we knew that
James Comey was such a close and dear friend of his, and Comey was a
witness central to this investigation. He could not be a fair arbiter,
a fair investigator. If he had been properly morally inclined, he
should have said: I can't be the special counsel because I am too
close--especially to Comey--to these people.
Comey, himself, testified that, before he testified up here at
Congress, he talked to Mueller. There is a 2013 Washingtonian article
that was just a long, glowing piece on Comey that, in effect, if the
world were burning down, the one person Comey would know would be right
there with him would be Robert Mueller standing with him. These guys
were so close. He looked at Mueller as a mentor. They were really
tight.
The question in my mind, because of that tightness, since we know
Comey leaked in order to, as he said, try to get a special counsel,
that Mueller encouraged him to do that: Was Mueller behind this setup
to get a special counsel so he could be appointed and start making
massive amounts of money and hire all of these Republican-hating
Democrats, contributors to Hillary Clinton, some of them?
Wow, what a great setup for a guy who obviously held grudges against
some Republicans. This is somebody who should not have been appointed,
even though he was appointed to be Director of the FBI by George W.
Bush.
Obviously, George W. Bush was trying hard to pick the right people
and taking other advice like his father's mistake in appointing David
Souter. Wow, what a disaster that appointment turned out to be. He
turned out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing, appearing to act as one
thing when we saw his teeth as he went to the Supreme Court.
Edith Jones and David Souter came under consideration. I have been
told they were both sitting in the White House as President H.W. Bush
tried to figure out which one to appoint. If he had appointed Edith
Jones, history would be totally different, and we would not have either
Justice Kagan or Justice Sotomayor because whom he appointed would
never have resigned during President Obama's Presidency. So those kinds
of mistakes have long-reaching effects.
But President Bush appointed Mueller. And the more I find out, unlike
the director of The Society of the Cincinnati finding out about
Washington and growing in awe and admiration, the more I find out about
Robert Mueller, the more concerned I am. The disclosures this week
about what this man knew, what this man was involved in, and what he
did--I thought he was accepting the role of special counsel because of
some possible revenge motive: he had a dislike for some Republicans,
loved the idea of doing what Patrick Fitzgerald did, who happened to be
not just a friend of James Comey; he was the godfather of a Comey
child.
Of course, we found out later that Comey recommended to Attorney
General Ashcroft he should recuse himself so that he could appoint the
godfather of his child, Patrick Fitzgerald, to be the special counsel.
We found out this year, well, Comey leaked information--which may or
may not have been a crime; it needs to be investigated--in order to get
a special counsel appointed.
So he is using the same type of manipulative behavior as he did to
get the godfather of his child appointed special counsel in order to
get the one guy who would be with him through thick and thin, no matter
how bad things got, Robert Mueller, get him appointed special counsel.
I had no idea that Robert Mueller had been involved and been Director
of the FBI as they investigated Russia's efforts to corner the market
on uranium and to spend millions and millions of dollars to acquire
United States uranium. He is Director of the FBI. They are
investigating this.
Even knowing that, it appears that he and now-Deputy Attorney General
Rosenstein actually covered up their investigation so that people would
not get upset with Secretary Hillary Clinton for being an approver of
the deal of selling America's uranium to an enemy of the United States.
According to all the Democrats, for all this year, Russia, Russia,
Russia is this big horrible enemy, and how dare anybody do business
with them. It turns out that, actually, they were the ones who were
involved in this terribly sordid business of selling our national
security to the Russians.
The FBI had investigated. They had all of this information, and they
even had an FBI informant, as Mueller knew as Director of the FBI. The
informant had been working with the Russians. It was an undercover
operation, perhaps the most important one the FBI had going on at that
time.
They did have the operation going on under Director Mueller of
creating a fictitious case against Senator Ted Stevens, Republican from
Alaska, in which they created evidence. They conspired to hide evidence
that completely didn't just exonerate Ted Stevens; it showed that he
was law abiding. They hid that evidence, and they manufactured a case
that would cost him his Senate seat.
The loss of his Senate seat ended up putting him on a small plane
that crashed, and he lost his life. As far as I know, there were no
ties of the plane crash to Mueller, but Mueller was the FBI Director.
Thank God that there was an FBI agent involved in that investigation
and that, after Ted Stevens was convicted, he couldn't stand it. His
conscience would not allow him to sit quietly by after the FBI and the
U.S. Attorney--but this FBI lead agent, under Director Mueller as
Director, just fabricated a case.
It turns out not only did Ted Stevens not accept hundreds of
thousands of dollars of improvements to his home without paying for
them, he paid more, hundreds of thousands more, than the improvements
were worth. Apparently, there was even evidence that they covered up
where the contractor is saying: Look, Ted, you are paying more than we
are charging you.
Stevens would say: Look, I am constantly being watched. People don't
like my political positions, so I have got to be so far above and
beyond ethical and moral that I have got to pay more. Just accept the
checks for overpayment.
The guy is overpaying, and yet they came after him knowing that this
was an innocent man. They prosecuted him and convicted him.
So after the whistleblower FBI agent comes forward under Director
Mueller's leadership, what happened? The informant was ordered to be
kept from investigating any criminal cases, which meant he had no job
at the FBI. He went ahead and did as he was being pushed to do.
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He went ahead and resigned. Thank God for a man with a conscience
like that.
His affidavit made clear that the lead agent had manufactured
evidence and hid evidence from the defense counsel, because they had
come in with warrants and taken everything: computer drives, thumb
drives, documentary evidence, and gone to the bank and gotten his
documents. He did not have any evidence to show you how innocent he
was, because the FBI had taken it.
[[Page H8265]]
I know FBI agents who are the most honest people I have ever met. We
have thousands of them in this country. Thank God for them.
But what happened under Director Mueller's leadership?
Well, the whistleblower that exposed the fraudulent misconduct gets
run out of the FBI, under Director Mueller.
And what happened to the one who fabricated the evidence, fabricated
the case, hid evidence that showed Ted Stevens' innocence?
When Mueller is Director, that FBI agent continued to get accolades
and be moved on to investigate some of the most important cases the FBI
had. That was Director Mueller.
He also had a policy he created called the 5-year up-or-out policy,
which an article in The Wall Street Journal pointed out years ago. It
ended up destroying or running off thousands and thousands of years of
experience from the FBI, weakening this incredible investigative body
that, until Mueller got there, was the best investigative body in all
of America.
But after running off thousands of thousands of years of experienced
FBI agents so that he could have less experienced agents--agents who
would not have the experience to say: But, Mr. Director, that would be
a mistake, which was done in 1985 or 1992, and it didn't work out--no,
he had people with no experience.
I know from being a prosecutor that right out of law school you are
ready to put the bad guys away. You are going to push the line to the
limit. You are going to do your job, salute the flag, and it always
helps to have experienced people around to say: Look, I know you mean
well. That is not a good idea.
Mueller liked to run those people off. He spent millions of dollars
that some agents pointed out was being wasted on programs that were
wasteful and ineffective.
Now that we know what is coming out this week, I am surprised how
naive I continue to be. I thought Mueller accepted the job of special
counsel to investigate the Russia-Trump alleged relationship because it
would be a great job and he could carry out vendettas that he might
have. That was so naive.
Now we know that he had an investigation of Russia. He had an
undercover informant for years working on the case and that he covered
up that investigation, along with Rod Rosenstein, so that Hillary
Clinton could make this deal, approve the deal.
And yes, there were other people who approved the deal. I believe
that Attorney General Eric Holder also approved the deal and also
helped covered up the investigation to show the investigation would
show, from all the indications, that Russia was committing crimes in
America to get ahold of our uranium.
Knowing that, if that investigation were made public, there is no way
Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder could have approved the deal that was
selling off 20, 25 percent of America's uranium to Russia. She could
never have done that.
If she hadn't done that, there is not any doubt in some of our minds
that the investors, the stockholders, ultimately, of Uranium One
certainly would not have contributed over $100 million to the Clinton
Foundation, and Russia would not have been paying half a million
dollars for one short speech--remarkably, it is hard to believe from
the State of the Union Addresses he gave, but he actually could give a
short speech and get half a million dollars for one short speech.
He didn't get paid that much for other speeches. What was so special?
Could it be that Hillary Clinton was so critical in persuading others
to sign onto allowing Uranium One to get so much of our uranium? Gee,
perhaps that is why Russia was so emboldened?
Then we find out there is more than that. The Democratic National
Committee, we are told, were helping pay for this dossier that just
created the most lurid, ridiculous allegations against Donald Trump as
a candidate, trying to destroy his Presidency.
Not only that, the DNC was involved, and the Clinton campaign may
have been involved, and the FBI gets involved with that, and it appears
they may have used the DNC to pay for manufactured evidence that was
absolutely false and that could be used to get the FBI, under Mueller's
control and the U.S. Attorney's Office, under Rosenstein's control, to
go after the Trump campaign and possibly get wiretaps, based on the DNC
Fusion GPS manufactured evidence.
So going back to Mueller accepting the appointment as special counsel
and Comey possibly committing a crime the way he went about leaking
private information to The New York Times, it appears, if you look at
his contacts and who reported what from The New York Times and what
could have only been known by James Comey--it is possible he did it six
other times--it is possible James Comey committed crimes in one or all
of those six other leaking occasions, if he was the source, as it
appears he may very well have been.
Now, it becomes more clear in my naivety in thinking Mueller had
personal motivation, including getting paid for a job he would love to
do to go after people he didn't like in the Republican Party, including
Donald Trump. But now it is becoming more clear. Comey needed Mueller
to be a special counsel, and he admitted it in testimony here. He
leaked information, which may have been a crime, in order to get a
special counsel that he had to have known was going to be Robert
Mueller, his friend joined at the hip, and that his other friend,
Robert Rosenstein, would certainly appoint Mueller, because Rosenstein
and Mueller were involved in covering up the FBI's investigation of
Russia and their efforts to get uranium.
If Mueller and Rosenstein hadn't covered up that and helped seal that
information and gotten the informant to agree to a nondisclosure
agreement, then Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation would be
short megamillions that they received as a result--it certainly
appears--of the uranium transfer from the U.S. to Russia.
So, Mueller and Rosenstein and Comey all needed Mueller to be
appointed, and Mueller needed to accept appointment as special counsel,
because he had to cover up the cover-up that he and Rosenstein had been
involved in years earlier in order to facilitate the deal that was made
to sell off our national security.
President Trump had this great plank in his platform as he ran for
President that we need to bring in money that Americans have earned
overseas back into the United States. Well, it has never been here, but
bring it into the United States.
But these American citizens and American companies have had to leave
it in foreign banks and in foreign businesses in foreign countries
because, in some countries, they pay 50, 60, 70 percent tax on it. If
they bring it into the United States, they will be required to pay
probably 40 percent, plus penalty and interest. So 35, 39 percent, plus
penalty and interest. They can't afford to do that or they would be
paying more tax than the money they earned. So they had to leave it in
foreign countries and in foreign banks.
Former FDIC Chairman Isaacs came to the Hill back when this doofus
named Henry Paulson was telling us we had to give him $700 billion so
he could buy mortgage-backed securities and save our economy.
In our private conference call--I will never forget--he said: I have
got to have $700 billion to buy these mortgage-backed securities
because nobody knows what they are worth and only the government has
the wherewithal to buy those. Hold them until they get value back, and
that will save all these banks and keep them from going under, which
would destroy the United States economy and take us back to a day worse
than September of 1929. So you have got to give me $700 billion to buy
these mortgage-backed securities.
When we were allowed to punch in and ask a question, somebody in my
party beat me to the question, and it was this: Secretary Paulson, if
nobody knows what these mortgage-backed securities are worth, how do
you know you need $700 billion to buy them?
I will never forget his answer: ``We just needed a really big
number.''
When I heard that, I knew that this bozo did not need $700 billion.
We shouldn't have trusted him as Secretary of Treasury. But he got his
$700 billion. Between him and Geithner, they bailed out their friends,
they bailed out the big banks while the community banks were being
punished. They had to borrow money at regular
[[Page H8266]]
rate, and they made sure that their friends, the investment banks that
brought us to the brink of ruin, got money for nothing. In fact, they
got big bailouts. That was a bad day in American history.
Isaacs had the idea that you don't need to take taxpayer money. If
you will just say the United States Congress should pass a bill that
says anything we declare to be a troubled company or a troubled asset,
if that is invested in by American companies, American individuals who
have earned money overseas, never brought it into the country, if they
will bring that money from those foreign countries and invest it in
what Congress labels as troubled, they will pay no tax on bringing that
money into the country. Then we will probably have a trillion dollars
come in. You won't need the $700 billion in taxpayer money or borrowed
money from China to bail out the banks. You will have Americans who
will invest in those with money they earned overseas. You don't need
TARP. It won't be the government getting into bed with the big banks
and the terrible precedent that will set. That was a great idea.
But Paulson was so determined to let his enemies like Lehman Brothers
go bankrupt without help and to allow his company Goldman Sachs to be
the big dog, that he didn't want to do Isaacs' idea, and he convinced
enough Members of the House, both Republican and Democrat, to give him
$700 billion, because he needed a really big number.
Well, President Trump had that similar idea: let's allow American
money to come into America that is earned overseas, and that will get
our economy going. Americans will bring this money in, and it will be
great for the economy. That is what we need to get the economy going.
Well, little did we know that, years before, candidate Donald Trump
had the idea of bringing in American-earned money from foreign
countries to get our economy going. Yet Hillary Clinton had the idea of
selling off our national security to get megamillions to go to the
Clinton Foundation, her and her husband's bank account, to get the
economy going in America.
{time} 1300
Wow, that was a great idea, wasn't it?
We sell off some of our national security to bring in foreign money,
specifically, Russian money to get our economy going. And if she had
been elected President, then the cover up that Mueller and Rosenstein
did of the original investigation into Russia's efforts to corruptly
buy American uranium and corner the market, that would continue to be
covered up.
Wow, what a great deal. Even though Hillary Clinton did not win the
election, Donald Trump did. And they got Donald Trump's Attorney
General to recuse himself so that Rosenstein, a guy that participated
in covering up the original FBI investigation, could appoint someone
else who helped cover up that original uranium investigation with the
Russians and make him special counsel so that not only would he make a
lot of money and get to work with lots of people he liked that hated
Trump and loved Hillary, but he could also cover up the prior coverup,
even though Hillary didn't get elected. Amazing the kind of stuff that
is coming out now.
The work that John Solomon and The Hill have done has been
extraordinary. I have got an article from October 25: ``FBI informant
in Obama-era Russian nuclear bribery was cleared to testify before
Congress.''
That is great news. Despite Mueller and Rosenstein's efforts to keep
their prior Russian investigation that they covered up so that the
Russia uranium deal could go through, wow, we may actually get to find
out about that now that the FBI informant has been cleared under the
current Justice Department, under Jeff Sessions. We will get to find
out more about that Russia effort to corner the market using U.S.
uranium.
An article from FOX News: ``Gag order lifted: DOJ says informant can
speak to Congress on Uranium One, Russia bribery case with Clinton
links.''
And then I was glad to see a friend down the hall, Chuck Grassley, a
senator there from Iowa. He is calling for special counsel in the
Uranium One scandal. Of course, that is appropriate.
The FOX News article: ``Clinton mum on Fusion GPS scandal as Dems'
dossier denials pile up.'' That is from October 26.
So now there are indications the Democrat National Committee, a
Member actually paid for this fictitious dossier that could be used to
get warrants to investigate political opponents in a Presidential race.
This is incredible. Absolutely incredible.
Even going back to Tammany Hall, as far as I can recall, they didn't
have an FBI Director and an Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General
that had helped cover up a prior investigation so that their friends
could make millions of dollars.
Let's see. There is an article in The New York Times from Jo Becker
and Don Van Natta, Jr. This goes back January 31 of 2008. It indicates:
``Late on September 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian
mining financier, Frank Giustra, touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly
picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the
west, a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could
fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot
pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.
``Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra''--I will just say
``Mr. G''--``was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former
Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience,
it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. G on his luxuriously
appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former President of the United
States, Bill Clinton.
``Upon landing on the first stop of the three-country philanthropic
tour, the two men were whisked off to share a sumptuous midnight
banquet with Kazakhstan's President . . . whose 19-year stranglehold on
the country had all but quashed political dissent.''
Another man ``walked away from the table with a propaganda coup after
Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader's bid
to head an international organization that monitors elections and
supports democracy. Mr. Clinton's public declaration undercut both
American foreign policy and sharp criticism of Kazakhstan's poor human
rights record by, among others, Mr. Clinton's wife, Senator Hillary
Rodham Clinton of New York.
``Within 2 days, corporate records show that Mr. G also came up with
a winner when his company signed preliminary agreements giving it the
right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan's
state-owned uranium agency. . . . `'
So it is just incredible. The deeper you get in this stuff, the more
it smells.
A Wall Street Journal article written by Holman Jenkins, Jr.: ``The
FBI's Political Meddling.'' Interesting story. I like the way it starts
because it starts referencing a movie, I believe. ``Let's give
plausible accounts of the known facts, then explain why demands that
Robert Mueller recuse himself from the Russia investigation may not be
the fanciful partisan grandstanding you imagine.
``Here's a story consistent with what has been reported in the
press--how reliably reported is uncertain. Democratic political
opponents of Donald Trump financed a British former spook who spread
money among contacts in Russia, who, in turn, over drinks, solicited
stories from their supposedly `connected' sources in Moscow. If these
people were really connected in any meaningful sense, then they made
sure the stories they spun were consistent with the interests of the
regime, if not actually scripted by the regime.
``The resulting Trump dossier then became a factor in Obama
administration decisions to launch an FBI counterintelligence
investigation of the Trump campaign, and after the election to trumpet
suspicions of Trump collusion with Russia.
``We know of a second, possibly even more consequential way the FBI
was effectively a vehicle for Russian meddling in U.S. politics.
Authoritative news reports say FBI Chief James Comey's intervention in
the Hillary Clinton email matter was prompted by a Russian intelligence
document that his colleagues suspected was a Russian plant.
``Okay, Mr. Mueller was a former close colleague and leader but no
[[Page H8267]]
longer part of the FBI when these events occurred. This may or may not
make him a questionable person to lead a Russian-meddling investigation
in which the FBI's own actions are necessarily a concern.
``But now we come to the Rosatom disclosures last week in The Hill. .
. .
``Here's another story as plausible as we can make it based on
credible reporting. After the Cold War, in its own interest, the U.S.
wanted to build bridges to the Russian nuclear establishment. The Putin
government, for national or commercial purposes, agreed and sought to
expand its nuclear business in the U.S.
``The purchase and consolidation of certain assets were facilitated
by Canadian entrepreneurs who gave large sums to''--drum roll--``the
Clinton Foundation, and perhaps arranged a Bill Clinton speech in
Moscow for $500,000. A key transaction had to be approved by Hillary
Clinton's State Department.''
How about that?
``Now we learn that, before and during these transactions, the FBI
had uncovered a bribery and kickback scheme involving Russia's nuclear
business, and also received reports of Russian officials seeking to
curry favor through donations to the Clinton Foundation.
``This criminal activity was apparently not disclosed to agencies
vetting the 2010 transfer of U.S. commercial nuclear assets to
Russia.''
That is why, Mr. Speaker, I refer to the original FBI and DOJ coverup
involving Mr. Rosenstein and Mr. Mueller, which was going to be able to
be covered up. That is, so we understand the plot here, Mueller as FBI
Director, and Rosenstein working as U.S. Attorney or deputy U.S.
Attorney, whatever he was at the time. It is interesting, I hear a
rumor that he may have even signed on part of this sealing documents to
help cover up the original investigation. It would be interesting to
see if he did that. Wow. If it turns out he signed off to get the FBI
investigation document sealed, and Mueller, as FBI Director, was
charting the course to get this thing sealed, covered up, well, the
guys that did the coverup are in charge of the investigation, which
would allow them to cover up their prior coverup, which would look bad
since they covered it up to allow the Hillary Clinton approved deal
selling United States security via our uranium to Russia.
I didn't realize how bad Russia was until my friends across the aisle
and Secretary Clinton--candidate Clinton--defeated candidate Clinton
kept talking about how bad Russia was. Well, they about convinced me.
But this article says: ``The criminal activity was apparently not
disclosed to agencies vetting the 2010 transfer of U.S. commercial
nuclear assets to Russia. The FBI made no move to break up the scheme
until long after the transaction closed. Only 5 years later, the
Justice Department, in 2015, disclosed a plea deal with the Russian
perpetrator so quietly that its significance was missed until The Hill
reported on the FBI investigation last week.''
They almost, if not for the good work of Mr. Solomon and I think
somebody else at The Hill, might have been missed entirely. So good
work. There are some potential Woodwards and Bernsteins out there, in
addition to the hardworking news investigators with places like The
Daily Caller and Judicial Watch, Conservative Review, and others.
The article goes on to say: ``The agency, when Mr. Mueller headed it,
soft-pedaled an investigation highly embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton as
well as the Obama Russia reset policy.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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