[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.
____________________