[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 47 (Monday, March 19, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H1694-H1696]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2115
                           FBI INVESTIGATIONS

  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. Mr. Speaker, with so much going on these days in the way 
of investigations, we still have Robert Mueller, special counsel--of 
course, he was supposed to look into potential illegal collusion 
between President Trump and Russia, and it has morphed into basically 
whatever he wants to pursue.
  It is kind of like the investigation that James Comey as the Deputy 
Attorney General recommended that the then-Attorney General John 
Ashcroft should recuse himself, which he followed that advice, and then 
Mr. Comey was able to appoint his very dear friend and his child's 
godfather, Patrick Fitzgerald, to be the special attorney.
  Special attorney, special counsel, and Mr. Comey apparently knew at 
the time the investigation began that the person who leaked Valerie 
Plame's identity as CIA agent was named Richard Armitage, somebody they 
did not want to go after even though it was supposed to have been a 
crime. But they weren't interested in the crime. They were interested 
in nailing a person or persons.
  And it really appears that is not only what Patrick Fitzgerald did. 
He wanted somebody's hide, and apparently it was Dick Cheney's. He 
might have settled for Karl Rove. Apparently, the offer was made more 
than once. It was reported that Fitzgerald was offering Scooter Libby.
  If you can just give me anything that will convict Vice President 
Cheney, then we will make sure you don't have anything to worry about.
  But Scooter Libby was not going to lie to get himself out from under 
the gun, and as was reported, a witness against him, Judy Miller, later 
believed, when she found some notes, whoops, Libby had not lied as she 
apparently thought. Apparently, he was innocent, just as he had 
contended and, apparently, would have walked away without any problems, 
without the full force of the Federal Government going after him if he 
had just given him anything--that is Comey's child's godfather--given 
him anything that would have allowed him to convict Vice President 
Cheney.
  It appears Mueller's investigation now has ceased looking for a crime 
involving Trump and Russia and is focused on just finding something--
kind of like the effort that Comey's buddy--if it is Comey's buddy, 
since we are told that Comey and Mueller are basically joined at the 
hip, then it must have been Mueller's friend, too. But they wanted Vice 
President Cheney, and when Scooter Libby wouldn't lie and do that, 
well, they convicted him of lying when, apparently, he did not lie. He 
was innocent.
  You can go back and find these type of things in Robert Mueller's 
wake, whether it was as the assistant U.S. attorney in charge of 
criminal investigations in Boston when they were found later to have 
had people who worked for Mueller who were in bed with Whitey Bulger, 
the mob leader, and Mueller kept insisting that these four people who 
were framed by FBI agents should remain in prison and not be paroled. 
Two of them died in prison. There was ultimately a settlement, but 
Mueller couldn't be bothered with a settlement because of the actions 
of the people who worked for him.
  Just like he went after Dr. Hatfill, claiming that he was the anthrax 
killer, and some say that was the highest profile case this FBI 
Director had handled. Others would say it was the prosecution and 
conviction of Ted Stevens, U.S. Senator, which we later found out was a 
frame-up. The FBI is reported to have hidden evidence that completely 
exonerated him and manufactured evidence. After that came to light, his 
conviction, all of the case was dropped, as it should have been, well 
before it was ever even pursued. But they got the intended result.
  The trial, a week or so before his election, he was convicted and, 
therefore, lost the election. Kind of like what Mueller, as FBI 
Director, had his FBI do to Curt Weldon whom I saw stand at this podium 
numerous times and talk about the FBI had some information before 9/11 
that showed that they could have stopped it, something like that. But 
he just kept beating up on the FBI.
  I didn't have any idea whether what Curt Weldon was talking about was 
true or not, but I do know that just a few weeks before his reelection, 
after he had been easily reelected a number of times and after he was 
shown to have a decent lead over a very good Democratic opponent, 3 
weeks before the election, the FBI stormed his daughter's office, and 
Mueller's FBI had leaked the information, apparently, because the place 
was covered up with reporters of all kinds so that they could document 
the raid on Curt Weldon's daughter's office.
  Shortly thereafter, protesters with signs showed up at Curt's office, 
claiming that he had been caught red-handed, and the implications were 
clear from the FBI that Curt Weldon was guilty of something, and that 
brought about his defeat by about 2 percent.
  As I understand it, the year after that raid on the Weldons, the FBI 
contacted Curt Weldon's daughter and said: You need to come pick up all 
this stuff up.
  There was never a grand jury that we know of. There was no 
indictment. There was no real investigation. Mueller's FBI got tired of 
Curt Weldon making allegations from this podium I am standing at now, 
and they silenced him as a Representative.
  There is much more, but we find out, and there is an article in the 
American Thinker by Daniel John Sobieski, and it talks about Uranium 
One. It says: ``Back in July, I called for a criminal investigation 
into Hillary Clinton's collusion with Russia to turn over control of 20 
percent of our uranium supplies to Russian interests in return for some 
$145 million in donation to the Clinton Foundation. Now it turns out 
that there was one, an FBI investigation dating back to 2009, with 
current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Special Prosecutor 
Robert Mueller up to their eyeballs in covering up evidence of 
Hillary's collusion, bordering on treason, with a Vladimir Putin's 
Russia.''
  ``Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 
2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the 
FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry 
officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion, and money 
laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin's,'' says a report by the 
Hill.
  John Solomon, Alison Spann of the Hill, said this:
  ``Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the 
Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make 
secret recordings, and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed 
Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes 
and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI 
and court documents show.''
  So from today's report, we find out that the investigation was 
supervised by then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who is now President 
Trump's Deputy Attorney General, and then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew 
McCabe, who is

[[Page H1695]]

now the Deputy FBI Director under President Trump.
  Robert Mueller was head of the FBI from 2001 through September 2013, 
until James Comey took over as FBI Director in 2013. They were both 
involved in this Russian scam being that this case started in 2009 and 
ended in 2015.
  Let me insert parenthetically, Mr. Speaker, I don't know who 
recommended the U.S. attorney investigating Russian collusion with 
Hillary Clinton and with the trucking firm, with others here in the 
United States, but whoever recommended Rod Rosenstein to President 
Trump as Deputy Attorney General should be fired, whoever that was. 
They are not there to help President Trump.
  Further down, the article says: ``Tuesday, on Fox Business Network, 
`Lou Dobbs Tonight,' Breitbart editor at large and the author of 
`Clinton Cash,' Peter Schweizer said there needs to be a Federal 
investigation into the Russian uranium deal then-Secretary of State 
Hillary Clinton's State Department approved after the Clinton 
Foundation receiving $145 million from the shareholders of Uranium 
One. . . .''
  So it is rather interesting. The article goes on to point out that 
about the investigation into Hillary Clinton, and it points--it quotes 
from Schweizer, saying: ``A lot of people don't realize it now, in 
parts of the Midwest American soil is owned by Vladimir Putin's 
government because this deal went through.''
  He goes on and makes some interesting observations.
  At the conclusion, he says: ``Actually, we no longer need an 
investigation of Hillary Clinton and Uranium One. This FBI 
investigation in conjunction to what we already knew is prima facie 
evidence of criminal corruption and intentionally putting of American 
national security at risk for personal financial gain.''
  Then this article from Lee Smith, March 13, titled, ``Robert 
Mueller's Beltway Cover-Up.'' This points out that if the deep state 
here--and it does cross party lines. They wanted somebody to 
effectively cover up all of the leaks, each one of which is a crime 
punishable by time in prison. If the deep state here in Washington 
wanted somebody who could protect all of these criminals who are 
working in intelligence, or FBI, that regularly leak information to 
hurt people who threaten their power here in Washington, then they 
could not have a better person as special counsel than Robert Mueller, 
as overseen by Rod Rosenstein.
  It points out that ``Mueller took his job not at the behest of the 
man who by all accounts he is likely to professionally and personally 
disdain, Donald Trump, but of the blue-chip Beltway elite of which he 
is a charter member. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed 
him nearly a year ago to lead an investigation without parameters. 
That's because Mueller's job is to obscure the abuses of the U.S. 
surveillance apparatus that occurred under the Obama administration.
  ``The fact that someone at the level of former FBI Director was 
called in to sweep up the mess left by bad actors in the Bureau and 
Central Intelligence Agency and other parts of the intelligence 
bureaucracy suggests that the problems are even worse than previously 
thought. And that means the constituency from Mueller's political 
intervention is enormous.''
  Mueller is said to believe that the Eric Prince meeting, the 
reference back in January of 2017 with the Russian banker--that would 
be well after the election, obviously--was to set up a back channel 
with the Kremlin.

                              {time}  2130

  But that makes no sense. According to the foundational text of the 
collusion narrative, the dossier allegedly written by former British 
spy Christopher Steele, the Kremlin had cultivated Trump himself for 
years.
  So what is the purpose of a back channel when, supposedly, Vladimir 
Putin already had a key to the front door of Mar-a-Lago?
  Further, the collusion thesis holds that the Trump circle teamed with 
high-level Russian officials for the purpose of winning the 2016 
election.
  How does a meeting that Erik Prince had a week before Trump's 
inauguration advance the crooked election victory plot?
  It doesn't. It contradicts it. Erik Prince may well be involved with 
questionable practices that would make people's blood run cold--and he 
talks some about Erik Prince--but the idea that whenever anyone who 
supported Trump, or even voted for him, met with a Russian national, 
the dish on the menu was treason is the stuff of Cold War ``B'' movies. 
But it is also evidence of something more than prosecutorial overreach.
  The fact that Mueller has zeroed in on Prince points to a key motive 
behind his ongoing investigation. And he talks about Prince was thrown 
into the middle of Russiagate after an April 3, 2017, Washington Post 
story reported his meeting with the Russian banker.
  But how did anyone know about the meeting?
  After the story came out, Prince said he was shown specific evidence 
by sources from the intelligence community that the information was 
swept up in the collection of electronic communications and his 
identity was unmasked. The U.S. official or officials who gave his name 
to the The Washington Post broke the law when they leaked classified 
information.
  Then on further it says Mueller presumably knows whether Prince's 
name was indeed unmasked and then leaked to the press, and that the 
leak was a crime. Mueller certainly knows that most of the case he has 
regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election was built by abuses 
of the foreign intelligence surveillance apparatus and other related 
crimes that are punishable with jail time.
  The identity of Trump's short-term National Security Advisor, Michael 
Flynn, was swept up and leaked to the press in the same way as 
Prince's. It was leaked to the same newspaper, The Washington Post. As 
I explained last week, the identity of Attorney General Jeff Sessions 
was also unmasked from an intelligence intercept and leaked to The 
Washington Post. The fact that the FBI had secured a Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on Carter Page was also leaked to 
The Washington Post. The warrant on Carter Page was secured on the 
basis of findings in the Christopher Steele dossier, an unverified 
piece of opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and 
Democratic National Committee.
  As Director of the FBI during the post-9/11 period, when foreign 
intelligence surveillance and its abuses made regular, front-page 
headlines, Mueller knows exactly how the system can be abused and what 
the penalties are. He also recognizes that Russiagate is evidence of 
how it was abused and who abused it, including some of the same people 
he worked with during his 12-year tenure as FBI Director.
  The purpose of the Mueller inquiry is, therefore, not to investigate 
the most ludicrously seeming charges in the Christopher Steele dossier, 
but to protect the institution of the FBI, former colleagues, as well 
as the National Security Surveillance System. Therefore, the inquiry 
has to cover up the sinful origins of the collusion narrative itself, 
which was borne in repeated abuses of power and subsequent crimes 
committed by U.S. officials in the intelligence bureaucracy and the 
Obama administration.
  So, Mr. Speaker, regardless of what anybody thinks of President 
Donald Trump--and I know there are some Republicans who are unhappy 
that he was elected President and want him gone at all costs. And I 
know that most of the Democrats I know, it just grieves them to no end 
that he was elected; they want him gone at all costs. But at some point 
Members of Congress in the House and Senate have got to wake up to the 
fact that we have crimes being committed in the FBI and in our 
intelligence apparatus. There are people who are being paid with 
government checks who are out to destroy people who disagree with their 
power grabs and their crimes.
  This article points out Mueller's investigation has got to drag on as 
long as necessary to prevent any of the people who have committed the 
crimes of leaking and other crimes--leaking, lying, perjury, 
obstructing justice, trying to create an insurance policy to take out a 
sitting President of the United States. It is time we wake up.
  When elected officials in this city have to fear for their political 
lives by

[[Page H1696]]

people who they have given power in the FBI, DOJ, CIA, NSA, then the 
system is broken. It is out of control. And it is how you lose a 
democratic republic like we have, or like we used to have. It is time 
to get it under control.
  Mueller is not the answer. He is the problem. He is the poster child 
for the problem that he has created during his entire tenure. And if he 
had any decency, he would have never accepted this special prosecution 
on anything involving Russia because he had been involved in that 
investigation and because he remained silent or perhaps spoke up to 
keep it hush-hush.
  But he and Rosenstein both, they should have stopped the sale of 20 
percent of our uranium to a national enemy. Apparently the Obama 
administration was so intent on that reset because they felt like, you 
know, George W. Bush just overreacted; all Putin did was invade 
Georgia, one country invading another smaller, weaker country. They 
felt like Bush overreacted and said: You shouldn't be doing this; put 
some sanctions in place.
  So they wanted to show: We are just fine with you invading adjoining 
countries. Maybe even those that don't adjoin. But, sure, at least 
adjoining countries.
  Whether they knew it or not, they gave the green light to Putin to 
invade Crimea, to invade Ukraine. And they gave the green light--they 
had to know this, because it was part of what they did--to the sale of 
20 percent of our uranium to a country that most recently had its 
dictatorial leader bragging that he had missiles that he could put 
those nukes on that the United States couldn't stop. And those nukes 
can be tipped--at least 20 percent of them--with what Hillary Clinton, 
Mueller, Rosenstein had to be complicit in giving them, in letting them 
have.

  This is serious stuff. But until the leakers and the abusers of our 
intelligence system are brought to justice, then nobody who believes in 
representative government is safe. We end up like China, like Russia, 
where you are scared to death of the people behind the scenes, behind 
the government, or even the dictatorial leader because you know they 
made you and they can destroy you.
  And when the free press is not free, they are complicit in the 
assisting of the committing of crimes by gladly accepting the leaks, 
publishing them to complete the crime, we are in big trouble.
  So I would say, if Mueller had any decency, he would just resign. And 
he doesn't even have to explain how wrong it was for him to accept the 
appointment. I had hoped that the damage he did to the FBI would have 
come to an end when his 10 years were up. But, oh, no. President Obama 
was so thrilled with the things he was doing, he extended his term 2 
years and pushed it through Congress.
  People wouldn't listen to me when I said: Oh, no, this is not a guy 
you want for 2 more years. He has done enough damage.
  And any Republican who says, ``Oh, he will be fair,'' is either 
desperately wanting President Trump gone or is intentionally ignoring 
the facts of Mueller's background from the days as the assistant U.S. 
attorney in charge of crime in Boston, up through the present.
  There are a lot of innocent people who lie in his wake. Some of them 
got multimillion-dollar settlements for the damage Mueller did to them, 
but most didn't even get an apology. Mueller couldn't be bothered with 
how many millions were paid out in Boston because of what he oversaw. 
He couldn't be bothered with the $5.8 million that was paid to Hatfill 
because the FBI, under Mueller, and under his direction, apparently--
from what the article said, he took direct oversight over the Hatfill 
investigation, assuring, when there was no evidence that he committed 
any wrong, that he was still the one.
  It is time that Mueller's investigation come to an end. I think Lee 
Smith had it right. I think the article by Daniel John Sobieski had 
things right. We have already had an investigation of Russian 
collusion, and it was done by U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein and FBI 
Director Robert Mueller, and they shut her down, shut up the 
information so the Clinton Foundation could be the beneficiary. And 
goodness' sake, they were big-time beneficiaries.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________