[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 179 (Friday, November 3, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H8487-H8489]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, it is certainly an honor and pleasure to 
follow my dear friend from Iowa with whom I got to share a little time 
last

[[Page H8488]]

weekend, be out in God's nature and just enjoy the best Iowa has to 
offer, and Steve King is one of those best things.
  Well, we have heard a great deal about the New York terrorist, 
although I believe Governor Cuomo told us there are no terrorist ties 
initially, before he had any time to know anything, really. But that 
seems to be kind of the way most mayors where these terrorist attacks 
occur respond. They immediately declare, ``This is not terrorist. No 
terrorist ties.'' And then, lo and behold, we find out, eventually, 
there certainly are.
  One of the problems that has been created during the last 8 years and 
a little bit during the last part of the Bush administration is the 
development discussion of countering violent extremism. But I do want 
to touch on something about the diversity visa lottery program.
  My first year in Congress, in 2005, we eliminated the diversity visa 
lottery program--at least voted in the House to eliminate it--but the 
Senate would not take it up, wouldn't take it up. We had a Republican 
majority in the House and Senate, and the Senate wouldn't take it up.
  Then, in November of 2006, we lost the majority in both Houses. And, 
of course, the Democratic majority in both Houses loved the diversity 
visa lottery program. In fact, I have a floor speech from Senator Chuck 
Schumer where he extols the virtues of the diversity visa lottery 
program. Here are some highlights.
  Senator Schumer said--this is May 24, 2006: ``As a Member of the 
House, I helped create this program, which my colleague, Senator 
Kennedy, created in the Senate in 1990.''
  He said: ``In fact, my city of New York has dramatically benefited 
from this program, and diverse countries such as Ireland, Poland, and 
Nigeria have had large numbers of immigrants to be able to come, set 
roots, and help the diversity of New York and of America.
  ``So this is an excellent program. Nobody has said it has done a bad 
job.''
  Those were his comments in 2006.
  Well, I am here to say it has done a bad job. So now nobody can say 
that nobody has said it has done a bad job, because I am saying it has 
done a bad job.
  No matter how noble the original idea was, you should never trust the 
country's security to a lottery. That is insanity.
  Of course, in a speech back in 2006, then Congressman Schumer, now 
Senator Schumer, said--or, actually, he was a Senator in 2006. But 
Senator Schumer said: ``I think America should admit many more of those 
people but not at the expense of this small, successful program that 
guarantees that other countries, such as the Irelands, the Polands, and 
the Nigerias that are unable to have immigrants come in for family 
reasons, can get people to come into this country.''
  Senator Schumer also said, about the diversity visa lottery program: 
``But one of the things great about America is, again, we allow people 
from all over the world to come here.
  ``So I plead with my colleagues, keep the diversity visa program.''
  He said: ``As I ride my bike around New York City on the weekends, I 
see what immigrants do for America. This program has dramatically 
helped. Neighborhoods such as Woodlawn and Greenpoint have been 
revitalized by new Irish and Polish immigrants. Neighborhoods such as 
East Flatbush and Harlem have been revitalized by West African 
immigrants. We don't have to stop this program.''

                              {time}  1315

  Well, again, it is insanity to trust our national security to a 
lottery, and that is what the diversity visa lottery program does.
  We have had terrorists, and we have known it for a number of years, 
that have been getting their names into the lottery so that hopefully 
they would win the lottery and come to America to kill Americans.
  I understand that there was a stepped-up effort in the last couple of 
years to vet people a little better, but the trouble here is, as then-
Director Comey of the FBI testified before our Judiciary Committee, we 
have got nothing to vet these people against, so many of them, from 
Syria, from Yemen.
  He said in Iraq, we had all of the government records. It turns out, 
even with all the government records, they let in two terrorists. We 
had fingerprints of theirs on IEDs that killed Americans, and they let 
them in, and eventually realized they had made a mistake. So they said 
we are going to step up our vetting after they realized they had 
admitted known terrorists into the United States that created IEDs to 
kill and maim Americans.
  They could say we were stepping up the vetting program, but when 
there is no information--this is what Comey said. With Iraq, we had the 
government records, we had fingerprints, we took fingerprints off IEDs.
  Syria, Yemen, we have got nothing. The government there doesn't give 
us their records. We have nothing to work from. In Syria, for a while, 
ISIS had taken over one of the printing facilities where they could 
print the passports. So we had no information to work from. We didn't 
know what was true and what wasn't.
  So, once again, we were trusting our national security and the lives 
of Americans to a fatal game of Russian roulette, but it was from the 
Middle East, it was from Uzbekistan, it was from places where people 
have been radicalized.
  I have got the numbers here. In fact, let's see, diversity visa 
program statistics, as I understand, the New York terrorist, the ISIS 
supporter who killed eight people, wounded so many others, in 2011, we 
had 5,091 from Uzbekistan. There were none from Poland, and in the top 
ten, there were certainly none from Ireland.
  We had, in 2012, 4,800 from Uzbekistan; and even better news, we had 
4,453 from Iran. For those who are not keeping track, the Iranian 
Government has not given us information that we can count on about 
people in Iran who want to come to America, and we know Iran is the 
largest national supporter of terrorism in the world. So we don't have 
much of anything to vet these people on, but, you know, Senator Schumer 
said it is a great program, and nobody said anything against it as he 
rides his bicycle around.
  Well, fortunately he wasn't riding his bicycle around in front of the 
terrorist that was allowed in on the program he thinks was so grand. 
And, frankly, I am grateful he was not on his bicycle in front of that 
terrorist killer that his program let in.
  In 2013, Uzbekistan, we had 5,101 come in from Uzbekistan. We did 
have 2,038 come from Poland that year.
  In 2014, another 6,027 that we could not adequately vet coming from 
Iran. Some of them we could with relatives, but many of those people 
simply could not be vetted. We don't know if they were sent here by the 
Iranian Government to kill Americans or not.
  In 2015, we have another 4,992 from Iran; Uzbekistan, we had another 
4,368.
  So we don't have the numbers from 2016 yet, unfortunately, but 
hopefully that gives some idea of what we are dealing with.
  We also need to understand that government officials tell us: You 
know, we had no indication this guy was a terrorist.
  There were even people from the government, the Feds, who were 
saying: Gee, you know, this was not a known person.
  This New York terrorist, not a known person to the Federal 
authorities.
  Well, it turns out, in 2015, they interviewed him. He had terrorist 
ties.
  The thing people need to understand is--and I have been saying this 
for years, I have grilled Director Mueller on this issue. I was 
contacted by one media outlet that says: Why are you just bringing this 
up now about the purge of training materials?
  My goodness. I have been talking about this for years, I have been 
made fun of about this for years, but I have been right about it for 
years, Michele Bachmann and I.
  It should not have been classified what they took out of the FBI 
materials, but they classified it so we couldn't show America how 
stupid some of their purging was, how senseless, how, as some of our 
agents told me, we are blinding ourselves of the ability to see our 
enemy.
  So I grilled Mueller some years ago over the fact that they got a 
heads-up twice that the older Tsarnaev brother was radicalized, he was 
a terrorist, he

[[Page H8489]]

was a threat to American lives. They didn't do anything; the CIA didn't 
do anything.
  The FBI finally sends some agents out. They interviewed the older 
Tsarnaev, but they didn't know what to ask. They don't know what the 
signs are of someone who is radicalized, because they have had beat 
down their throats for so long, and this was the Obama administration, 
they had the FBI's Guiding Principles document on training. And this 
was the document that the FBI used to say: Oh, no. We have got to be 
politically correct. We can't teach people about how to find and spot a 
radical Islamist.
  So there was a purge of FBI training materials.
  There is a fantastic Judicial Watch special report, it can be found 
on their website, dated December 5 of 2013, ``U.S. Government Purges of 
Law Enforcement Training Material Deemed `Offensive' to Muslims.''
  Who was complaining? Well, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, 
the Islamic Society of North America, and they just happened to have 
known contacts who were named as coconspirators supporting terrorism in 
the Holy Land Foundation prosecution.

  What did Mueller's FBI do under Mueller's specific direction? They 
created an outreach program. They called them their community outreach 
partner for these people who judges said: No. There is plenty of 
evidence to show that these people have ties supporting terrorism. No. 
We are not going to eliminate their names.
  The Dallas Federal Court said that; the Fifth Circuit Court of 
Appeals in New Orleans said that. It didn't make it to the Supreme 
Court, but two courts said: Yeah, there is plenty of evidence to see 
there are plenty of ties here, evidence of their ties to known 
terrorists.
  So it wasn't until 2008, after years of having this evidence, that 
Director Mueller sent kind of an apologetic letter to CAIR, Council on 
American-Islamic Relations, saying: You know, we better suspend our 
community partnership for a while.
  It is just unbelievable, but it was the political correctness during 
the Obama administration that has gotten people killed, because they 
purged our training material. And God bless Ken Jensen, FBI agent. He 
had prepared the 700-page training materials that Mueller ordered 
destroyed.
  Somebody needed to study that material before they went out and 
talked to Tsarnaev. If they had, they would have recognized this guy 
has probably radicalized, and we better be on the alert. They could 
have saved lives at the Boston Marathon if Mueller had not prevented 
them from knowing how to do their job. And he is special counsel.
  By the way, Madam Speaker, the former Director of the FBI who blinded 
the FBI of their ability to see terrorists, why do we think he came out 
with the indictments exactly when he did? Well, I can tell you why, 
because he is as easy to read as anybody in the world. He came out with 
those indictments when he did because he had people starting to call 
for his resignation, starting to demand that he be removed, demanding 
that he recuse himself. Even The Wall Street Journal, that has been 
very sympathetic, they pointed out it was time for him to go. What did 
he do? He immediately comes out with indictments to show: No, no, no. 
You can't demand that I go. I am too relevant.
  You look at those indictments, and I am for punishing anybody who has 
committed a crime, but there was no need for a special counsel to come 
up with what he did. The FBI could have done that. The Department of 
Justice could have done that. We didn't need Mueller and 20 lawyers, 
all of these Hillary Clinton sycophants, in there to come up with this. 
The DOJ could have done this. It was just a ridiculous couple of 
indictments to be spending all these millions of dollars for.
  We also know that same kind of conduct occurred when Comey came to 
the Hill and testified there is no trace of evidence of collusion 
between President Trump and the Russians.
  Well, Mueller had to be puckering up, because he knew: Uh-oh. Now 
there is testimony from the FBI Director that there is no basis for me 
to be special counsel and to have hired all these people. Wow. So the 
President could be in line to fire me, because now we have testimony 
from the FBI Director there is no basis for this investigation. Shut 
her down.
  So that night, they leak out he is investigating President Trump for 
obstruction of justice. Excuse me? We all know what that so-called 
evidence was. They will never, ever get a conviction, because it was 
not obstruction of justice.
  Obstruction of justice is when you do what Comey and Loretta Lynch 
did to prevent a proper investigation, and you make an agreement with 
potential defendants that if they will just give you their laptops and 
let you look at them, you will destroy all that you find, and you will 
never use any of that information to prosecute them, and you give them 
immunity from prosecution. That is not what you do if you are going to 
prosecute a case. No.
  You get them in a bind and then you tell them: Here are the charges 
you are looking at unless you come clean and identify the person above 
you with whom you were working and what they did.
  Then you work up the chain to the big fish, which is how organized 
criminal organizations have been prosecuted over the years. It would 
work in this case, but Director Comey was so busy figuring out how to 
explain how Hillary Clinton should not be prosecuted, though the 
evidence was basically for a slam dunk case of conviction, that he 
overlooked properly pursuing the case.
  We don't need Director Mueller. We need him gone, and we need a 
special prosecutor to get into this, clearly, since Jeff Sessions 
recused himself on anything involving Hillary Clinton and Russia. And 
we can't have Rod Rosenstein, for heaven's sake, now that we know that 
he and Mueller should not be involved in this special counsel 
situation, because they both were engaged in the coverup of the initial 
Russian investigation that revealed Russia was trying to corner the 
market on uranium, and they had to seal that, because if they hadn't 
sealed that and covered up that evidence and that investigation, then 
Hillary Clinton would not have been able to hit the Russian 
megamillions lottery by authorizing the sale of uranium to Uranium One 
that ends up in Russian hands.
  Bill Clinton wouldn't have gotten $500,000. He didn't hit the 
megamillions, except for the 145 or so that went into the Clinton 
Foundation.
  Mueller cannot possibly investigate this. He is in it up to his 
eyeballs, and so is Rosenstein. They both ought to do the decent thing. 
I know it is not characteristic, but they ought to do the decent thing 
and resign and let somebody that is not completely submerged in the 
original coverup investigate this whole matter.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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