[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 58 (Wednesday, April 11, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H3137-H3141]
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 gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I come into the conclusion of a very 
interesting day and week. Our current Speaker of the House, of course, 
has announced that he is not going to be seeking reelection. I think he 
made it clear before he was elected Speaker that he really wasn't 
seeking the position. He didn't really want the position. He had other 
things in mind. He enjoyed his chairmanship, but he ended up stepping 
up to the plate, being elected Speaker. And for his willingness to 
serve, he is to be applauded.
  I have appreciated having a Speaker who, even when we disagreed, I 
knew he always tried to be honest and was somebody that wanted to do 
the right thing. So I appreciate that very much. We hadn't always had 
that, and I appreciated having that from Speaker Paul Ryan.
  Some of my colleagues have said: ``Gee, Louie, we have gotten calls 
saying you ought to run for Speaker again.'' And so I really appreciate 
that, but I need to make clear: Back in December of 2014, after the 
Speaker--at that time, John Boehner--had pushed through a CR/Omnibus 
bill that immediately broke many of the promises that got Republicans 
elected back to the majority in November of 2014, after the promises, 
so many of our promises and the Speaker's promises were broken in that 
December 2014 CR/Omnibus, a number of us realized, we have got to have 
a new Speaker. We can't go through 2 years like this, these kinds of 
outrageous, broken promises with the country suffering under ObamaCare, 
so many problems that were before us.
  So we began to try to get enough Republicans. We did the numbers. We 
knew that if all of the Republicans voted, we needed 29 Republicans to 
vote for any living person to be Speaker who was not the current 
Speaker, John Boehner.
  And we tried for like 3 weeks. We couldn't get more than nine people 
to agree to vote for someone other than John Boehner. The vote was 
coming up on the House floor on Tuesday, and on Friday night I got a 
call from Thomas Massie and Jim Bridenstine, two of the finest people 
who ever served in Congress--two of the smartest as well, people of 
real integrity. And Thomas said, ``Louie, Jim had a brilliant idea, and 
we need to talk to you about it.''
  And Jim Bridenstine, who, like I say, was brilliant, served our 
Nation in the Air Force, graduated from Rice University, which has 
rather high standards of intelligence to be admitted. And Jim said: 
``Hey wait, Thomas, would you repeat that part about a guy from Rice 
having a brilliant idea, you being a guy from MIT?''
  And anyway, they got on and they said: ``We are stuck with nine 
people. We can't get past nine people. We need

[[Page H3138]]

29 Republicans to vote for somebody besides Speaker Boehner.'' And if 
we can get to 29, of course, that was our goal. The whole goal, 
though--to make a full disclosure--the plan was, if we could get 29 
Republicans to vote for somebody besides John Boehner, then that would 
throw it into a second ballot for the first time since 1923.

                              {time}  1830

  There was some point back in the 1800s, mid-1800s, when they had over 
60 ballots cast before they elected a Speaker. But that was a goal, and 
we knew if we got 29 and we got to a second ballot, then we could call 
for an emergency conference among the Republicans, go down and meet in 
HC-5 downstairs, and we knew the 29 of us would be belittled, fussed 
at, and yelled at.
  I could say: Look, you can yell at us and call us whatever names you 
want, but we are not changing our vote. So let's agree to a compromise 
Speaker.
  By that afternoon, we expected to have a compromise Speaker. There 
were a number of potential people who would have been acceptable. That 
was the plan.
  Thomas, Jim, and I, all three, knew that if I announced, then there 
would be an awful lot of people in our party who would hate me for the 
rest of my life or their life, whichever came first. The point that 
Thomas and Jim made was that we have a number of our Members who have 
been hearing from constituents who have said: Look, we want you to vote 
for somebody besides John Boehner for Speaker. There had been a poll 
done that showed that, as I recall, 61 percent of nationwide Republican 
voters across the country wanted somebody besides John Boehner as 
Speaker.
  So as some of our Members heard from constituents saying to vote for 
anybody but Boehner. They said: I would. I would vote for anybody but 
John Boehner if someone else formally announced. But no one has 
formally announced, so I am not just going to throw my vote away, and 
that would satisfy their constituents.
  Thomas' and Jim's point was that, if you announce, then they will 
hear from all of those thousands of constituents saying: Hey, you said 
if somebody announced, and now a Republican has announced, so keep your 
promise and vote for somebody besides Boehner.
  The thinking of Thomas and Jim was that, if we do that and you 
announce, then that would make those guys so uncomfortable that had 
been promising I would vote for anybody but Boehner if somebody 
announces, that we could finally get to the 29. We have been stuck on 
nine for weeks now.
  So I had asked them to let me give it some thought overnight. The 
next morning, there was a conference call already scheduled with all 
nine of us. I said: Let's talk about it in the morning and give me a 
chance to think about it.
  What occurred to me is what I told the other eight Members who had 
agreed to vote for somebody besides the current Speaker, John Boehner: 
Look, guys, I have given this a lot of thought. If I am the only one 
who announces, then you will have both mainstream media and you will 
have Republican and Democratic reporters casting this as an election 
between this crazy guy from Texas, even though I feel quite certain 
that I scored much, much higher than my opponent would have at that 
time. They will say that he is crazy, and poor John Boehner is dealing 
with this crazy guy.
  I said that what occurred to me is that, if one of you guys sent out 
word that you were announcing, then I could ask FOX News if I could 
come on to announce, and during the announcement I could make clear 
that this isn't about me being Speaker. It is about getting a different 
Speaker. So-and-so announced yesterday; somebody else may announce 
tomorrow. It is about getting a new Speaker.
  Ted Yoho said: Well, Louie, if that is all it will take to get you to 
announce, I will send out an announcement this afternoon announcing 
that I am running for Speaker.
  I said: Okay. Ted, if you announce you are running for Speaker, send 
out that announcement today. As soon as it goes out, I will call FOX 
News to see if I can come on.
  That all happened. Ted sent out the press release. I called FOX News, 
and they let me on early that morning. I made it back from Dallas to 
Tyler in time to go to church, and the struggle was on.
  But I knew, and all eight of our other patriot Republicans in the 
House knew, that by my announcing formally as a candidate for Speaker, 
which would bring about so much response from their constituents 
demanding that Members vote for somebody besides Boehner now that 
somebody has formally announced, those people who were made to feel 
very uncomfortable because of my announcement and the wrath they heard 
from constituents, some would probably never forgive me and would be 
angry with me. It would mean that I would never be able to be elected 
to any position. Even if we had a dogcatcher in the House, I could 
never get elected to that after I worked to have made that many people 
angry.
  And I made a lot of people angry. People were calling by the 
thousands up here. I had many Members tell me they had gotten over 
1,000 calls from constituents saying: Vote for Louie.
  There was one article that got it right, that reported accurately 
that I was overheard a number of times saying: Look, guys, you know 
that Boehner is going to be mad at you if you don't vote for him; but 
you know he is going to be doubly mad at you if you vote for me because 
of how strongly he feels about me. So vote for anybody. You pick a 
living person and name them as your vote. We have got to have 29. If we 
get 29, we will have a compromise candidate for Speaker. Clearly, it 
would never be me after I made that many people angry.
  So overnight, Sunday night, we started getting new people to pledge 
that they were willing to vote for someone besides Boehner. I 
encouraged people to vote for somebody besides me so you don't make 
Boehner totally mad.
   Jim Bridenstine said: Louie, I am going to nominate you on the 
floor, and all I would ask is that you at least vote for yourself if I 
am going to nominate you so that I am not the only one voting for you.
  He had been hearing me tell others to vote for anybody but me; it is 
fine. We just need to get to 29.
  So I said: Absolutely, Jim. If you are gutsy enough to stand up and 
nominate me for Speaker, I will absolutely vote for myself so that you 
don't look, in some way, lame.
  I will always treasure and appreciate the words that Jim Bridenstine 
said and the things that he spoke during his nomination, even during so 
much of the uproar against me by some of my colleagues. It still warms 
my heart to hear what Jim Bridenstine had to say here on the floor 
about me.
  He has been nominated by our President to be head of NASA. 
Bridenstine is probably one of the smartest people to be named as head 
of NASA. He has been in the sky. He has served his country nobly and 
well, both flying planes and flying the rules of the House here in 
Congress. He would be an absolutely incredible asset to NASA and to 
this country once he is confirmed.
  I had asked some other people--I imagine Jim knows--but what I have 
heard from other people is that it is not the Democrats who have a hold 
on Jim Bridenstine for head of NASA; it is actually our own Senator 
Marco Rubio. Now, that is what I was told by some people I trust.
  If that is the case, I know that Bridenstine didn't support Senator 
Rubio in the primary for President, but Bridenstine is one of the 
finest, most qualified, and most intelligent people we could ever hope 
to have as head of NASA. If what I was told is true, that for some 
reason Marco Rubio has a grudge against Jim Bridenstine, I hope that he 
will do the right thing, put that grudge aside, whatever it is, and get 
this incredibly noble and qualified man into being head of NASA. We 
can't keep hurting our country with these kinds of actions by 
Republicans.
  So I appreciate very much, Madam Speaker, people calling and 
encouraging me to run for Speaker, but I knew exactly when I announced 
for Speaker before, there would be people who would likely never 
forgive me for making their lives so uncomfortable. I had a goal. I 
just knew in my soul, if we didn't get a new Speaker soon, we would 
lose the majority at the end of 2016.
  If Congress had been in such dismal shape in 2016, it would have hurt 
any chance we had of possibly winning the

[[Page H3139]]

Presidency. I just knew this country was in such rough shape that we 
had to do that. Even though it meant people hating me and being angry 
at me for years to come, it was worth it to try to help my country. I 
was willing to do that.
  So I appreciate the calls, and I appreciate the encouragement, but I 
was willing to sacrifice any possibility that I would ever be elected 
to anything by other Members of Congress in order to get a different 
Speaker.
  We ended up with Paul Ryan, and despite our disagreement on some 
things, I knew he was always trying to be honest, and I will always 
appreciate that. We all know that we did not lose the majority in the 
House and our failure under Speaker Boehner did not hurt us and keep us 
from being able to elect a Republican President. So I think those are 
good things that arose out of it, but now we need to be looking ahead 
for the future.
  I do think that people--unlike me--who might have a chance to be 
elected Speaker and who have not done things like anger my colleagues 
by announcing back in 2015, people who have a chance need to put 
together a plan of action, something like a Contract with America, not 
a farce like was put together that Speaker Boehner helped direct, which 
was the Pledge to America. As soon as we were elected after that 
pledge, the pledge was abandoned by Speaker Boehner.
  We need an agreement: You reelect us to the majority, here are the 
things we are going to do, and then do them.
  I appreciate what my friend  Thomas Massie said to a reporter earlier 
this afternoon. The reporter was demanding of Congressman Massie what 
he saw would ultimately be the result of a race for Speaker.  Thomas 
Massie said: Well, I see this race for Speaker a lot like NASCAR. There 
are many, many laps to go, and I am sure there will be some spectacular 
crashes before we finish that race.
  So I think that could very well be the case. There are many, many 
laps to go in the race for Speaker that we didn't even know about until 
this morning, and Thomas is probably right. There will probably be some 
spectacular crashes along the way in that race to be Speaker. We just 
need people who believe in the power of prayer to be praying for an 
honest and honorable Speaker who will follow the right plan, and then 
we will go from there.
  Also, I want to touch on this incredible investigation not of a 
crime--we have long since gotten past a special counsel, Special 
Counsel Mueller, investigating a crime which, under laws and 
regulations, is a requirement to even appoint a special counsel. You 
have to have a crime in order to have a special counsel. As we found 
out, there was no crime that could be pointed to, yet they raised the 
question maybe the Trump campaign somehow colluded with Russia.
  As we have heard from Comey and so many others, there is no evidence 
of Donald Trump colluding with Russia or the Trump campaign to change 
the outcome of the election.

                              {time}  1845

  So what the special counsel's job has morphed into, illegally, I 
might add, is the special counsel no longer being in pursuit of a 
specified crime in the appointment of special counsel to investigate; 
but he now has a person target, Donald Trump, and he has taken his job 
to be search everything you can, now raid his lawyer's office so that 
you can try to find some crime unrelated to Donald Trump that you could 
use in evidence to prove against his lawyer, Michael Cohen.
  And then, once we have found sufficient crimes, we will tell Michael 
Cohen: Okay, we have got evidence that will put you in prison for life, 
or 1,000 years, whatever they are going to do, unless you agree to tell 
us something--don't care if it is true or untrue; we need you to say it 
is true--that Donald Trump committed a crime, and then we won't 
prosecute you.
  That has to be what that big raid was all about, because even if 
Donald Trump told his attorney, Mr. Cohen, anything that had to do with 
a potential crime for which Mr. Cohen was representing him, they could 
not introduce that. That would be privileged, covered by the attorney/
client relationship, the privilege. I know absolutely, without any 
question in my mind, that Donald Trump never made a question admitting 
guilt in anything because he certainly convinced me that he is not 
guilty of anything. Nothing that has been proven.
  But as The Heritage Foundation established in recent years, there are 
so many laws that carry criminal penalties that incorporate regulations 
that unelected bureaucrats have put in place so that if you violate a 
regulation, then you could be convicted, put in prison.
  We have had hearings in prior years in Judiciary Committee. The 
estimate is probably over 5,000 Federal crimes. And we are not even 
sure how many there are, but probably over 5,000. And so many of them 
incorporate regulations: If you violate the regulation promulgated by 
this agency or department, then you are guilty of a crime, and you can 
go to prison.
  So we heard some horror stories; such as, the gentleman, nerd, up in 
the northwest trying to create some kind of new, better battery. And he 
knew the laws and the requirements how to take care of chemicals, and 
he was very fastidious in doing that, followed the law, legal 
requirements, on keeping chemicals that he used to try to develop this 
battery. And one day he is driving along in his little fuel-efficient, 
small car, and he has three suburbans swoop up: one behind, one in 
front, one to the side. They force him off the road. They grab him out 
of his little car, throw him to the ground, boot in the back, handcuff 
him. He had no idea what he had done, and he didn't learn for quite 
some time.
  But he had sent some chemical to Alaska to be used to help research 
what he was trying to establish in making a new battery. This was my 
understanding from the testimony we had at the hearing. So, since he 
was sending something by mail to Alaska, then, under venue statutes, 
that allowed the U.S. attorney to prosecute either in his home State, 
in the continental U.S., or in Alaska; and since he really wasn't 
friends with anybody in Alaska, they drug him up to Alaska, threw him 
in jail there with a high bond for no reason other than the Justice 
Department being ruthless.
  And they tried this man for committing the heinous crime of violating 
a regulation that required, if someone sent this particular substance 
through the mail, it had to go by ground. He knew that. He checked the 
box to mail by ground only. He didn't realize that even when you check 
the box ``by ground only'' there was a regulation that said that wasn't 
good enough; you also had to get this Federal stamp to put on there 
that had a picture of an airplane with a line across the airplane so 
that it wasn't supposed to be taken in the air.
  He got thrown to the ground, badly abused, taken to jail in Alaska, 
tried for a Federal felony because he didn't put a little sticker on 
with a plane with a line through it. Well, the jury did the right 
thing. They did a jury nullification and found him not guilty, although 
technically he was guilty of not putting that little sticker on there. 
They felt like he had been punished enough. They found him not guilty.
  So he was ready to go home, but the Justice Department was so angry 
that he had been acquitted that they looked for anything to try to keep 
him incarcerated. And what they came up with was another statute that 
said, if anyone ever leaves certain substances unattended for so many 
days, then they are strictly liable, they are guilty of a Federal 
felony of abandoning these chemicals. And there is no defense for the 
fact that you were kept away from those chemicals 100 percent 
involuntarily, against your will.
  So, as I understood from what we got at our hearing, he ended up 
being convicted of abandoning these chemicals, even though he didn't 
abandon them. The Justice Department was guilty of that, not him. But 
those were the regulations. They were properly stored, but he was 
forced to go to Alaska. He couldn't stay there with his chemicals, and 
he went to prison for that.
  Now, I bring all that up to say that there are probably thousands of 
cases like that. We heard about a number of others. And The Heritage 
Foundation's point was that probably most Americans have committed 
Federal felonies we don't even know about because of some technical 
violation like that gentleman had that ended up with him being 
incarcerated for 18 months or so.

[[Page H3140]]

  So if we abandon the constitutional approach to proving crimes in 
America that you are innocent until proven guilty and that judges are 
not allowed to give search warrants, or even arrest warrants, unless--
well, for search warrants, under the Fourth Amendment, items are 
described with particularity that are to be searched for, and the area 
to be searched is identified with particularity. You have got to be 
specific.
  And in this case, we have a special counsel who is out of control. I 
have told the President, I have said in the media: Mueller should be 
investigated himself. And I can't help but think that Rosenstein, as 
deputy attorney general, and Mueller, as special counsel, are running 
out the clock on statutes of limitation for any crimes they may have 
committed in stifling the investigation under Rosenstein's control as 
U.S. attorney and Mueller's control as FBI Director into Russia trying 
to gain control over American uranium.

  And we also know that Comey has admitted he leaked information, which 
should be pretty easy to prove is a crime. He admitted it. He should be 
investigated. Each time Mueller's special counsel team has leaked 
information, it most likely has been a crime as well, for which Mueller 
needs to be investigated and held to account.
  Each time there has been a leak about the President that contained 
information that it was a crime to leak, Mueller should have been all 
over that. But the trouble, we know, if he were to be investigating the 
most obvious crimes being committed, then he would be most likely under 
arrest himself.
  We need to know: Rosenstein and Mueller, were they complicit in 
helping ensure that Russia would end up with such a sizable amount, 20 
percent or so, of our uranium? They had a person under cover that was 
giving them information showing that Russians were committing crimes; 
and, as far as we can tell, they made sure nothing was done so that 
nothing would prevent some of the Cabinet members approving the sale of 
U.S. uranium. That needs to be investigated.
  The leaks that we know have been committed that are crimes, they need 
to be investigated. Obviously that is going to take a second counsel, a 
special counsel. And no, even appointing a current U.S. attorney 
somewhere to investigate the special counsel and Comey and Rosenstein, 
it is going to have to be outside of the current Justice Department, 
outside the current U.S. attorney.
  And it seems pretty clear to me, no one would need as many of the 
heartless prosecutors as Mueller has hired. It is obvious he is on a 
witch hunt. Seemed pretty obvious to some of us that, by his outrageous 
activity in raiding a lawyer's office, he was probably hoping the 
President would fire Mueller. That is an indication he really doesn't 
have anything; he has gotten desperate and is trying to manipulate 
lawyer Cohen and, in the alternative, trying to get evidence that they 
could use to squeeze Cohen to get him to testify, even creating a crime 
if he has to. That seems pretty serious.
  But you look at the history of what Robert Mueller has been engaged 
in, the way he destroyed the life of Ted Stevens. He probably would 
still be a Senator today and be alive were it not for Robert Mueller's 
FBI.

                              {time}  1900

  And what of the supervising FBI agent who we found out had helped 
manufacture evidence and hid evidence that proved Ted Stevens was 
innocent--not just a reasonable doubt, definitely proving he was 
innocent? Well, she continued on with the FBI. I don't know if she is 
still with them, but the person who was the whistleblower was run out 
of the FBI pretty quickly. He was notified he would not be allowed to 
investigate any more criminal cases, which means he has got to get out.
  So Mueller made sure the guilty, malicious prosecuting FBI agent was 
rewarded and the honest, honorable FBI agent was punished. We saw what 
he did to Dr. Hatfill, who was not guilty of any crime, yet Mueller was 
incessant in trying to establish that he was guilty for a number of 
years without any proof whatsoever. And that is, of course, why Dr. 
Hatfill ended up with a $6 million or so settlement from the Federal 
Government.
  But the great consistent thing about Robert Mueller--no matter how 
many lives he destroys, how many people, like the two in Boston who 
died in prison of a crime that Mueller's FBI agents he was supervising 
had totally framed--he was still there at the end trying to keep them 
from being paroled, even till eventually they ended up with a $100 
million-plus settlement--but no matter how many lives he destroys, how 
many people he pushes for malicious prosecution, how many businesses he 
may jeopardize, his great consistency is he never apologizes. It 
doesn't matter who he destroys or what he destroys. He won't ever 
apologize.
  And you got to really admire a guy who is so strong-headed that 
despite any crimes that he or those working for him may commit or 
people who may die, as happened at Boston as he refused to adequately 
investigate the--twice, the tip that was given twice by Russia that the 
older Tsarnaev was a radical Islamist and going to kill people. Under 
Mueller, he made sure that FBI agents purged the training material, and 
then he made sure that--from what agents have told me, they make you, 
as an FBI agent, feel like that if you receive a complaint or a notice 
that an American citizen has noticed suspicious activity by somebody 
who says appears to be a practicing Muslim, but they are gathering 
guns, maybe gathering materials to build bombs or like the guns out in 
San Diego, what Mueller made sure his agents were trained to know when 
they got a complaint about a potential radical Islamist threat is it 
tells you that the person making the complaint or giving the 
information about a potential radical Islamist terrorist is an 
Islamophobe and you really need to investigate the person making the 
complaint about or giving the information about the potential 
terrorist, that is who you need to investigate. As I have been told by 
former FBI agents, it was like Mueller made us look under every rock 
for Islamophobes rather than looking for radical terrorists.
  What a legacy. It will be in history books in years to come. Not 
current ones. Because as long as the Federal Government is involved in 
education, history is not taught, and when it is, so often it is not 
taught appropriately, but perhaps it is after the rise and fall of the 
United States, but at some point history books will record how amazing 
it was that America could select a special counsel who had done so much 
damage, blinding the FBI of its ability to see what a radical Islamic 
terrorist was doing, and maliciously prosecuting people, and they are 
going to say: Are these potential indications of the fall of the 
civilization that rewards people who are not actually defending the 
country but prosecuting patriots within the country? It is a very 
interesting time.
  I don't think we have to get to that. I think if we can get a second 
special counsel to investigate Comey; his mentor and bosom buddy, 
Robert Mueller; and Mr. Rosenstein--I mean, for heaven's sake, we find 
out that Mr. Rosenstein not only was involved in the Russian 
investigation, knew that they were trying to illegally obtain U.S. 
uranium, but that he also signed at least one of the requests for a 
warrant extension on a Trump campaign member, even when he knew that it 
was salacious allegations, that the allegations were not verified, and 
that the Clinton campaign was behind the production, as was a foreign 
intelligence agent out for hire who also hated Donald Trump.
  So, I mean, for heaven's sake, Mr. Rosenstein obviously committed at 
least one fraud upon the FISA court, which brings me back around again 
to the point: I think it is time to get rid of the FISA courts. Let's 
go back to having Federal courts that can be trusted but just can't 
make everything secret.
  Let's make sure that we have a legitimate judge who can't be sure 
that everything will be so secret that he or she feels comfortable just 
granting 99.9 percent of the requests. I know I have read the one that 
was made for a warrant to get Verizon to disclose all of its 
information about all of its customers; and when I read the affidavit 
that came out from WikiLeaks and I read the application, I was 
astonished.
  It burst my bubble of thinking we could trust the FISA courts because 
there was no particularity. It said, just

[[Page H3141]]

basically, we don't know of any crimes being committed, but we do need 
every Verizon customers' records, and that is what the application 
said. Yeah, we just need every--we need a warrant to require Verizon to 
give us every customers' records, all the records they have got.
  And the judge, a nominated and confirmed Federal judge just signed 
off on it. Oh, sure, you want every record. No crime has been 
committed. There is no particularity of describing a particular thing 
to be seized or a person who has committed a crime or anything like 
that, just give us all the records you have got on everybody you got 
records on. And the FISA court judge just signed it.
  Again, I come back to the fact: any judge--Federal, State, or local--
who has lawyers come before that court and commit a fraud upon the 
court, as blatant as was committed in extending, getting a search 
warrant and continuing a search warrant on a member of the Trump 
campaign, even though it was such a brief time, and four times they got 
that warrant, extended three times, apparently, and the judges are not 
outraged enough to call the lawyers to account?

  Well, we find out at least one of the parties involved was apparently 
dear friends with the Federal judge, so I guess, to that Federal judge, 
if you are a dear friend and you lie to the judge or you participate in 
the fraud upon the court, it is okay, because you are friends; whereas, 
an honorable, upright, honest American would be outraged that a friend 
would participate in a fraud upon the court.
  But until we can see that the FISA courts can be trusted, I think we 
need to come back to that issue. We need to redesign courts. Yes, I 
know there are agents in this world who want to destroy the United 
States of America and our freedom, and some things would need to be 
done in camera, some records would need to be sealed, but we can't keep 
doing this where FISA judges can make outrageously unconstitutional 
rulings, granting warrants, and no accountability.
  And the thing here is, I would be saying this if this were being done 
to a Democrat. I would be saying this if it were done, you know, to 
anybody. It is just so wrong, and I am hoping that eventually, at some 
point, some of my friends across the aisle will say: Wait a minute, we 
can't keep allowing the United States Department of Justice to be 
spying on American citizens. We surely can go a ways further as a 
nation before we become quite so Orwellian as has occurred in the FISA 
court and in this special counsel vilification of individuals.
  They have got their person. Now, I am sure they would be pleased to 
indict the President if they could find that perhaps he ever mailed a 
substance that didn't have the little sticker with the airplane on it 
with a line through it. They are looking for anything they can get. It 
is like Eric Holder said recently in an interview: I know Robert 
Mueller, and he won't stop until he gets something on Trump--something 
like that.
  I think he is right. It is time to fire Rosenstein. It is time to 
have Rosenstein, Mueller, and Comey investigated. It is time to get 
down to what we know has been occurring, that it so clearly appears to 
be Federal felonies.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________