[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 152 (Friday, September 20, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H7860-H7864]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                RETRACTIONS OF NEW YORK TIMES' ARTICLES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
King) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to be 
recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States House 
of Representatives.
  And I come to this floor to talk a little bit today about what is 
happening to our Nation, our society, our culture, our Constitution. 
And these are topics that have been debated in this Chamber for a long 
time, but some things have happened that never happened before.
  And so I would start first with: It seems to me our leader seems to 
be a high respecter of the credibility of the New York Times. So I put 
together a document here that I thought might be interesting to him, 
and I would go through just a few of them, the articles that have come 
up in the New York Times, that have had to be retracted.
  Let's see: There are the articles about Russian meddling in the 
election that had to be retracted.
  They had to apologize for ruining Wen Ho Lee's career and life.
  And the New York Times admits that one of the reporters engaged in 
frequent acts of journalistic fraud, widespread fabrication and 
plagiarism, and found problems in at least 36 of the 73 articles 
written by a single individual since he had started.
  Further, the Times admits--that is the New York Times--that Judith 
Miller took journalistic shortcuts, and that New York Times' editors, 
``failed to dig into problems before they became a mess.''
  They did become a tremendous mess. Remember, that was the allegation 
that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Well, we got 
into a war over that one, didn't we, over the New York Times--at least 
in part.
  Most of us will remember in 2006, when the New York Times covered an 
alleged rape by Duke--or multiple rapes, I should say, by the Duke 
University Lacrosse team. The Times coverage was biased towards the 
accuser, despite the fact that it ended up being a hoax and there was 
little evidence supporting the accuser's case.
  And those young men on the Duke Lacrosse team were run through the 
wringer. They were excoriated; they were pounded on by the national 
media, not only the New York Times, but that is one of the things that 
triggers it.
  Then, again, there is a New York Times article that questioned John 
McCain's relationship with a lobbyist. And that faced widespread 
criticism to the article implying that McCain had a romantic 
relationship with a lobbyist. They had to issue a correction, that they 
did not intend for the article to imply a romantic relationship. Well, 
they did imply that. They just said they didn't ``intend'' that.

  And so somehow, the Times thinks they should have a pass for their 
own definition of intent, even though time after time after time, the 
Times has been found to be less than credible.
  The President of the United States has poured forth his ire against 
the New York Times, and called them the ``lying New York Times,'' ``the 
fake news New York Times,'' ``the failing New York Times,'' and 
probably a number of descriptions that I haven't uncovered here, Mr. 
Speaker.
  But in 2009, the New York Times' appraisal on Walter Cronkite had to 
have eight different corrections due to just factual inaccuracies. And 
this is a newspaper, of course, that America used to depend upon.
  And then in 2015, the New York Times published an article claiming 
that new figures surrounding China's rate of coal usage could affect 
U.N. climate talks when, in fact, those figures were so outdated that 
the U.N. was already aware of that particular uptick. So, again, 
distorted information.
  But what is consistent with this? What are the common denominators? 
And that is, their misinformation in the New York Times almost always 
fits their narrative.
  And then in 2017, the New York Times incorrectly stated that China

[[Page H7861]]

was in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Well, that starts a whole 
national debate of what is going on. If China is in the TPP, and we are 
not in the TPP, and then the debate churns along, well, how are we ever 
going to get back into the TPP? And we have to take China in with us, 
if they will let us in. China wasn't part of the TPP--just 
misinformation. And that was an obvious one that it would have failed 
even the most rudimentary of fact-checks.
  I would go further, in 2017 the Times, because of a--their words--
``because of an editing error,'' quoted three tweets from General 
Michael Flynn's parody account attributing the quotes to General Flynn, 
further damaging General Flynn's reputation, and probably contributing 
to the difficulties that the proud patriot has had as he wound up his 
career serving our country. An editing error caused these three tweets. 
They weren't editing errors. They were just picking up--because the 
parody account fit the Times narrative, they accepted the narrative 
without checking on it. That is my assertion here, and I believe it is 
true.
  Again, in 2017, the New York Times claims that Trump visited Israel 
during the campaign, which actually it was planned, but it was canceled 
for political reasons, I presume. And to be relatively astute on 
allowing then-President Barack Obama to be in charge of foreign policy.
  In fact, I have a personal experience with that, when I thought 
during the campaign it would be wise for then-candidate Trump to have a 
meeting or two with some key players around the world. But when I 
raised that issue, I got the straight answer back, which was, No, we 
don't want to have any kind of implication that we are conducting 
foreign policy as a candidate for the President of the United States. 
That is up to the current Commander-in-Chief, and that transition after 
the election can take place in due course.
  They were exactly correct in that and conducted themselves 
accordingly, but the allegations that were in the paper would indicate 
the opposite of that.
  I have a number of other stories in here. In fact, I have only gone 
to the top of page 2, and there is about seven pages, maybe eight pages 
in here, Mr. Speaker. But I think it is clear that if anybody is going 
to hang their hat on something that they see printed in the New York 
Times, they are going to find themselves--if that narrative happens to 
fit the narrative that the New York Times pushes and promotes--you 
ought to be very suspicious of the facts and the allegations around 
that.
  I would go through a few cases that come to mind. Also, in America 
where misinformation came out, it happened to fit the narrative of the 
left, and so the New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, on 
and on--Huffington Post--they pick up that narrative, embellish the 
narrative, and they look for another way to add to that narrative, if 
it is a narrative that fits their ideology and their preconceived 
notions of what they think of their political opposition.
  We think back to the best example we have is now-Justice Brett 
Kavanaugh, who was put through a confirmation wringer that only had 
been matched, perhaps, by Justice Clarence Thomas.
  What do they have in common? They are both constitutionalists. They 
are both originalists. They are both textualists. And they are both in 
the process of moving America back to the Constitution, its original 
intent. And understanding the text of the Constitution has to mean what 
it was understood to mean at the time of ratification.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask you just to think about that. If the 
Constitution is a living and breathing document, and this definition 
can change on the fly, then what kind of a deal do we have at all with 
our Founding Fathers and with our posterity?
  Can you imagine signing a contract--I have spent my life in the 
construction business--and can you imagine signing a contract, and 
during the course of that contract, the words in that contract have to 
mean a defined, precise, black-and-white meaning. And those words are 
on paper so that the deal doesn't change. That is what a contract is.
  You put words on paper, you sign that document, and that says, I am 
committed to the language in this Constitution--or the contract--and 
the intent of this language in the contract, or the Constitution, and I 
will follow through on that, and I will complete my side of this 
agreement. That is a contract.
  The Constitution is a written contract that lays down the foundation 
of our government, and it is the supreme law of the land. And it went 
on paper, on parchment. It went on parchment and was signed and 
ratified by the Thirteen Colonies so that they said, We are going to 
keep our part of this bargain. This is the deal.

  You would have never ratified that Constitution back in the day if 
somebody would have said, well, it is a living, breathing document. We 
can redefine these words in here and ignore others and be able to just 
work our way around it, and we will get some activist justices that 
will work with us on this and give us precedent cases that undermine 
the original intent of the Constitution.
  That is what has been going on in this modern era, probably longer 
than I recall, but I would say at least back to the Warren Court. And 
yet today, we have Justice Clarence Thomas, who is an originalist, a 
textualist, and he believes the Constitution has to mean what it was 
understood to mean at the time of ratification.
  And if we don't like that, that is why we have the amendment process, 
Mr. Speaker. And that is the nominee Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and that 
is nominee Justice Neil Gorsuch. And I believe that is the case also 
for Justice Alito, and most of the time, I think it is also true for 
Chief Justice John Roberts. But if we don't have a guaranty from our 
Constitution, we don't have a foundation for America and our 
government.
  And then that puts it into the hands of the willy-nilly attitudes of 
what might be a majority in the Supreme Court or the will of the people 
here on the floor of the House of Representatives, who sometimes just 
turn our back on the Constitution. That contract of our Constitution 
has to mean what it was understood to mean at the time that it was 
ratified.
  And so why was the big fight then pushing back against Brett 
Kavanaugh when he was before the United States Senate to be confirmed?
  And the reasons for that are the other side--the left, the radical 
left, that is sometimes supported by the militant left--doesn't want to 
live under our Constitution. They want to change it. They want to move 
America. They want to attack the pillars of American exceptionalism. 
And they have much of the news media as their allies.
  So as the news media pours forth these erroneous stories and they put 
misinformation into the eyes and ears of the American people, while 
they are doing that, they are pitting the American people against the 
American people. And you saw that during the confirmation process of 
Justice Kavanaugh.
  And he faced--this is just my memory, but I believe there were 
something like six different accusers that they accumulated over time. 
And these accusers, one of them was Christine Blasey Ford, who sat over 
there with her hair inside of her glasses and told us how bad this was.
  But her testimony could not be corroborated, and that was actually 
the verdict that came down when Justice Kavanaugh was confirmed before 
the United States Senate. Neither could the testimony or the affidavits 
or the narratives of the others be corroborated.
  And so of those five or six accusers then, none of them held up under 
the scrutiny, under the light of day, even though the New York Times 
and The Washington Post, and all these publications I have listed, and 
many more, came at it as if Christine Blasey Ford was the gold standard 
for a witness with integrity. And it is clear she was not.

                              {time}  1230

  Well, they beat up so badly on Justice Kavanaugh that, at one point, 
one of the Democrat Senators asked him the question: You have gone 
through a lot. You have been faced with all this criticism.
  Essentially, I will paraphrase and summarize how I understood that, 
and

[[Page H7862]]

it is not a quote from the Senator, but it was essentially this: We 
have beaten you up so badly and mercilessly. We damaged your reputation 
so badly. We destroyed your character. You have to be personally just 
crushed. So, how, if you are confirmed as a Justice on the Supreme 
Court, can you sit in impartial judgment on ruling on the Constitution 
and the rule of law? Aren't you going to be tempted to retaliate 
because of what all you have been through?
  Those are not the exact words, but that was the theme.
  Now, think of this. If somebody is put forward before the public in a 
nomination process or some other type of scrutiny and they are so 
mercilessly pounded by the leftist media--and, in some cases, 
collaboration from Republican leadership--that their reputation is so 
badly damaged, the question comes up: Well, can Justice Kavanaugh do 
his job now that we have eviscerated him through this confirmation 
process?
  Oh, I think he can do his job all right, and I think he can do it 
clearly and with a cool hand and a cool head and an analytical mind. 
And I think Justice Kavanaugh is doing and will continue to do this: 
bring America back to the Constitution, bring America back to the 
original intent, bring America back to the text of the language that is 
in the Constitution.
  And, if Americans don't like the results of those decisions, we have 
a method to amend the Constitution rather than simply distort it by 
judicial activism. And that is about the best way to get revenge on 
people who put our Constitution under threat by the tactics that they 
are using in the confirmation process.
  Well, that process that they were trying to deny the confirmation of 
Justice Kavanaugh failed, and he is confirmed, and he is serving with 
dignity and honor. And he should be allowed to do that for life if he 
chooses.
  But they mounted another effort at him a week or so ago, and it 
turned out to be another false story. The New York Times, in 
particular, didn't bother to write into the story that the woman who 
allegedly had experienced some type of harassment, and maybe even 
physical harassment--and I say ``allegedly''; allegedly, in case The 
New York Times missed it the first time I said it--that she didn't have 
any recollection of the incident whatsoever. They knew that, and it is 
reported that the reporters who wrote the story had that line in their 
story and that it was taken out by the editors.
  So, think of that. The editors at The New York Times are redacting 
language, but disappearing language, so that the meaning of the story 
is different and it can be as pejorative as possible against a seated 
Justice on the United States Supreme Court. That is appalling.
  And is it willful? Well, that question hangs out there: Is it 
willful?
  I will say this. There is a Supreme Court precedent case out there 
from about 1964 called The New York Times--excuse me. It is Sullivan v. 
The New York Times Company.
  That was a case where, in Alabama, during the civil rights 
disruptions of the sixties, there was a story that had multiple 
falsehoods in it that was designed to be pejorative against the law 
enforcement and the people in Alabama near the Selma area.
  And I am not actually sure that was Selma, but it was in Alabama.
  In any case, the story that came out in The New York Times was 
inaccurate on step after step. They argued that they locked the 
cafeteria shut so that they could starve the students out. Or they 
reported that. They reported that students were refusing to register 
and, essentially, leaving college. Neither one of those things were 
true.
  They argued that they circled the building with law enforcement 
officers essentially arm in arm. That wasn't true. There were about 
four other falsehoods. They had to be manufactured because what would 
they be based on, things like that.
  Yet, when they went before the Supreme Court in the middle of the 
1960s, Sullivan v. The New York Times Company, the Supreme Court came 
down with a decision, which is, well, The Times is protected because 
they are a print publication, and we have to allow them their First 
Amendment right--freedom of the press--even if it is false, even if it 
is blatantly false, even if it is obviously false. It just has to be 
willfully and maliciously false in order for them to be liable.
  That case needs to come back before the United States Supreme Court 
and be reconsidered. And I am told that there are one or more Justices 
on that bench who would welcome such a case to make it to the Supreme 
Court, and I think I have named those two most likely to welcome that 
case here already.
  So I am frustrated by this. I am glad that this case, this second 
round, Kavanaugh 2.0 in malicious media meddling, is pretty much now in 
the rearview mirror now that the truth has been applied to the story a 
little bit better.
  But this country is not off of this hook by any means. We have a 
long, long ways to go before we can get down to what is true. And I 
think Congress is going to have to act at some point. I don't think it 
is going to happen in this Congress. There has to be a majority change 
in this Congress. But we are going to have to act.
  And the stories that have been served up to the American people--I 
brought up the Kavanaugh story as the first one. Then you can move 
along a little bit, and I will take you to--let's see. Let's do 
Covington Catholic.
  The Covington Catholics were here during the March for Life. That 
would be around January 22. A lot of young men, and, also, at least one 
of them was wearing a MAGA hat, a ``Make America Great'' cap, a red 
one.
  They were down by the Lincoln Memorial, and there was a story that 
there was a Native American who was beating a drum in the face of this 
young man, and the young man just stood there and maintained his 
posture, his composure, his expression.

  And that just seemed to be what all the media would pile on, that 
they had been disrespecting a Native American who was beating a drum in 
his face, and that clip of the close-up seemed to be enough just to 
reinforce a lot of critics that the young man from Covington Catholic 
somehow carried an attitude that should be punished.
  So they excoriated him through every media that I can think of, and 
that young man and the school went through days and days and days of a 
lot of public criticism, grief that was poured forth upon them.
  And I can say with experience that, if you don't have experience with 
public grief being poured on you, it hurts a lot more the 1st time than 
it does the 2nd, 5th, 10th, 20th, 50th, or 100th time.
  You do build scar tissue to this, but you can't imagine that a young 
man from Covington Catholic has scar tissue built up at all. Who could 
imagine that this would be the case?
  So, they took that heat and that beating--the whole school, but he in 
particular--for over a week until there was a video that emerged that 
panned back and showed what really went on. There was no antagonism 
from the Covington Catholics.
  There were bad words being hurled back and forth, but I don't think 
anybody picked up any bad words coming from those young people from 
Covington Catholic. Yet they got the blame for all of this when they 
were standing there innocently and probably stunned at the environment 
they were in.
  I can't imagine they came out of their home State and went into the 
middle of that, I would say, semi-demonstration environment when they 
were being intimidated by groups shouting back and forth at them and a 
drum being beaten in their face.
  You would be amazed. I recall my first experience with these things 
in this town. It was March 18 of 2003 when there was an antiwar 
demonstration that took place. I thought: I need to see this.
  So I went over there near the Washington Monument where they were 
ginning up, the antiwar demonstrators. They had two great, big speakers 
up on a stage that were about the size of refrigerators, microphones, 
and they were ginning up the crowd.
  As I walked around through that crowd--I went incognito, by the way, 
too, Mr. Speaker. I put on my old, vintage Washington Redskins 
sweatshirt and a cap so I could just, hopefully, blend into the crowd.
  I saw every variety of anti-Americanism that I had ever seen. A lot 
of it was profane. They ginned them up, and then they marched off over 
to the west,

[[Page H7863]]

around the west side of the White House, and then came back down 
through Pennsylvania Avenue.
  I sat there, in the middle there, what I call the grassy knoll, and 
watched them go by for an hour and three-quarters, a human river of 
discontent and anger and anti-Americanism.
  I saw a young lady, maybe 16 or 17 years old, run over and spit in 
the face of an officer who was standing there.
  I saw two marines standing on the side of the street. They were 
holding their American flag up, and a young man from the demonstrating 
crowd ran over there, grabbed a hold of that flag. They held their 
flag, but he ripped the top half of the flag off, and he danced around 
the street tearing it up in strips and wearing it around his neck and 
others' necks as if it were some kind of a trophy to tear up the 
American flag and then demonstrate.
  I saw a photographer there who had a camera and who was going to 
clean the lens on his camera. He reached in his jacket pocket and 
pulled out a crumpled American flag, a small, silk flag, and used it to 
clean that lens. You could tell by the habits of the way he handled it 
that that is just what he did; he kept the American flag for a rag to 
clean the lens on his camera while he took pictures of anti-
Americanism, hatred of America, and every kind of countercultural thing 
that you can think of.
  That is what we are faced with, the kind of people in that 
demonstration, the kind of people who were down here at the Lincoln 
Memorial who were trying to intimidate the Covington Catholics.
  So, you know how that one ended, Mr. Speaker. I will say another one.
  Now, remember, this one also fit the narrative. Justice Kavanaugh, 
the stories against him, they picked the ones that fit the narrative 
and drove them.
  Their narrative on Covington Catholics was these must be conservative 
pro-lifers--and they are--so we have got to find a way to actually 
expose something that is in their heart, which is, by the way, faith 
and love. They didn't expose that. That was the Covington Catholics.
  Jussie Smollett alleged that he was the subject of, at least, a lynch 
threat and that they had, what, poured bleach on him and whatnot. That 
went on for awhile. That story was all ginned up because these were 
supposedly racists who were going to lynch Jussie Smollett in Chicago.
  But I saw the video of the two men who went into the convenience 
store to buy those items that he had put on top of him, that little bit 
of a kind of a scrawny rope that didn't look to me that it was a rope 
you would use for that. But that and the other items that were there, 
all of it was on video, purchased at the convenience store.
  It was reported, at least--now I don't know if it is true--that they 
were paid something like $3,500 to do their part in this.
  And Jussie managed to wear that rope all the way back to his 
apartment before he was interviewed by the police.
  Yet, still, the story went through and through, and now the Federal 
Government needs to get involved in it. I believe they are doing a full 
investigation of what looks like, let's say, a less than enthusiastic 
local prosecutor there in Chicago.

  But that is another story that fit the narrative. Surely, there are 
people out there who are racist who would go out and get rope and 
bleach and whatever and wait in the middle of a 20-below-zero night to 
waylay Jussie Smollett at a place like that.
  It happened to be about the only location where there were not 
surveillance cameras. Carefully thought out? Only partly.
  But that fit the narrative. That was published. It was The New York 
Times, too, but it was many others, Mr. Speaker.
  Who am I forgetting now? There are a number of others. I happen to be 
one. So, I am waiting for a report to come down that would lay out what 
is going on in this Congress.
  But I revere this Constitution. I carry one in my jacket pocket every 
day. When I say the Pledge, my hand is inside my jacket because my hand 
is on that Constitution, which is as close to my heart as I can get it. 
I believe in it, and I believe our job is to restore this Constitution 
back to its original meaning and intent.
  The pillars of American exceptionalism are identified, most all of 
them, in the Bill of Rights itself. The central pillar of American 
exceptionalism is the rule of law. There are a number of things around 
that rule of law that we need to remember: innocent until proven 
guilty, a right to face your accusers, you get to face a jury of your 
peers. All of that is there.
  We have other pillars of American exceptionalism. Freedom of speech 
is a pillar. Freedom of religion. Freedom of the press. Freedom of 
assembly--peaceable assembly, I might add. All of those are pillars 
that this shining city that Ronald Reagan described to be on the hill, 
I say, is supported and held up and built upon those pillars of 
American exceptionalism.
  And I mentioned the rule of law, the central pillar, without which 
the rest of this collapses. Without freedom of the press, the rest of 
this collapses because corruption has, then, a free rein.
  But when the media gets corrupt and the government gets corrupt, as 
we saw in the fall of 2016 and on into the beginnings of the Trump 
administration, when the major branches, major divisions, departments 
within our government are weaponized against a candidate for the 
Presidency, a President-elect Donald Trump and then an inaugurated 
President Donald Trump, when those branches of government are 
weaponized against him, that is weaponization against we, the people, 
against our Constitution, and it undermines our freedom.

                              {time}  1245

  And when the abuse of those constitutional rights empowers media 
outlets to turn their targets, unjustly and dishonestly, against a 
duly-elected President of the United States, or a duly-elected Member 
of the United States Congress, that--meaning me, in case you are 
wondering, Mr. Speaker--threatens our republic. And this republic will 
eventually collapse if we continue down this path.
  We must preserve those rights that are in our Constitution, including 
innocent until proven guilty; the right to face your accusers; a jury 
of your peers; due process. That has to all be there.
  The President hasn't had due process. I haven't had due process. But 
I have added up a few things. There are currently four Members of this 
Congress, Mr. Speaker, that don't have committee assignments; four.
  One of them resigned from the Republican Party and from his committee 
assignments; so that takes it down to three.
  Two of them are indicted for Federal charges. That takes it down to 
one.
  Then, the one in this Congress--being me, Mr. Speaker--and we look 
back through history all the way back to 1900, and we find one other 
Member of Congress that didn't have committee assignments since 1900. 
That happened to be James Traficant in about 2001. He happened to be 
one that was removed from his committee assignments shortly after he 
voted for Dennis Hastert, a Member of the opposite party, and went 
against many of the platform positions of the Democratic party. They 
decided he wasn't a Democrat any longer and removed him from his 
committees.
  But in 120 years, there has only been one, other than those that I 
mentioned; that is James Traficant. And he was, later on, indicted and 
convicted on nine or ten Federal charges of fraud, corruption, taking 
bribes and racketeering, and those kinds of things. He was found guilty 
of all of them and served some time in prison.
  So these are very serious charges when you are convicted of Federal 
felonies and removed from your committees. I don't think it is right to 
remove someone from a committee when they are charged because if they 
are indicted, they are innocent until proven guilty. So why would you 
punish somebody if they are innocent until proven guilty?
  That defies a foundational principle of our government.
  But, nonetheless, the charges, at least, are serious Federal felony 
charges for two seated Members today. Charges were certainly serious 
for James Traficant, who spent time in prison.
  Why does   Steve King not have committees? Because of a misquote in 
the

[[Page H7864]]

New York Times for the simple purpose of an allegation of politically 
incorrect speech.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________