[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 173 (Thursday, October 31, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H8709-H8713]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       IMPEACHMENT: THEN AND NOW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, we had a vote today. Some would say it 
was very important, but actually, it didn't do so much. In fact, it 
revoked some of our history, some of our precedent, some of our rules 
to take an unusual step toward supposed impeachment.
  I still continue to be of the opinion that we will not end up having 
a vote in this Chamber on whether or not to actually impeach President 
Trump because if that happens, it goes to the Senate. It gets slam-
dunked down in the Senate, both on the basis of a massive failure of 
due process as well as no direct evidence of any wrongdoing, unless we 
are talking about someone who is a Democrat and has held the second-
highest office before. But this is not due process.
  By the way, of course, once it gets to the Senate, they vote it down, 
and then it ensures a repeat of 1996, where the current President is 
reelected. I am sure my friends across the aisle don't want to do that.
  I am still of the opinion that I don't think we will end up with a 
vote to actually impeach or not impeach President Trump. We will see 
how that plays out. But it is worth looking at precedent, as an old 
history major who has never quit studying history.
  If we look at the impeachment committee authorizations in 1974 and 
1998, back then, when there was bipartisan concern about due process, 
not just one-sided concern, the authorization by the House directed the 
Committee on the Judiciary to investigate if there were sufficient 
grounds for impeachment.
  Currently, though, the Speaker directed six different committees, 
with the House Intelligence Committee at the forefront, to continue 
their ongoing investigations as part of what was called an impeachment 
inquiry.
  Regarding the subpoena power in 1974 and 1998, what was authorized in 
the resolution back in the days when there was concern about due 
process and fairness and ensuring justice would be done, the resolution 
authorized both the chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on 
the Judiciary to issue subpoenas acting jointly or unilaterally.

                              {time}  1300

  If either the chairman or the ranking member declined to act, then 
the other had the right to refer the decision to the full committee.
  Currently, under what we voted on today, it authorized the chair of 
the Intelligence Committee, Chairman Schiff, and Judiciary Committee to 
issue subpoenas, but the authorization to the ranking member only is 
with the consent or approval of the chairman. It is incredible.
  I mean, basically, our friends have said, well, it is like a grand 
jury. Well, I have been a prosecutor in front of grand juries. I have 
been a judge who impaneled grand juries, answered their questions, and 
dealt with issues that arose over grand juries. I am quite familiar 
with them.
  With a grand jury, every single person on the grand jury who is going 
to get a vote gets to hear every witness, gets to ask any question they 
wish, and they could even send the prosecutor out of the grand jury if 
they wish. He is only there as an adviser.
  But what we have had not only was a sham impeachment inquiry, but 
they actually had armed guards outside of the Sensitive Compartmented 
Information Facility, the SCIF. They had armed guards with guns to try 
to keep us out, people like me, on the Judiciary Committee, who is 
fully authorized, under the current rules, to sit in on any impeachment 
inquiry, participate, because the rules, through precedent, have made 
clear it is the Judiciary Committee that does that.
  The Speaker can't just stand up and say: ``I am changing all the 
rules unilaterally''--except for the fact that, in this case, that is 
exactly what happened. ``Forget the rules. I am decreeing these are the 
committees that will do an investigation.''
  And I didn't realize until we went into the SCIF, which I am 
authorized to do and which, under the rules, Judiciary having 
jurisdiction, I should have a right to hear each one of those 
witnesses.
  I didn't know until we got in there, it turns out, Chairman Schiff, 
each time a witness was about to begin to speak to the Intelligence 
Committee, the committees, he would instruct, now, this is 
unclassified, so if a question is asked that you think might end up 
revealing something classified, then you can just say you can't answer, 
it might reveal classified information.
  It sounds to me like that was instruction, when the Republicans ask 
you a question you don't want to answer, just say, well, it may reveal 
classified information, and you don't have to answer their questions.
  Except that then we find out that, in the more recent depositions, 
the witnesses were actually instructed not to answer questions.
  Well, this metaphor of a grand jury totally breaks down. It doesn't 
apply. There has never been a grand jury where one grand juror could 
tell the witness you don't have to answer these other grand jurors' 
questions, and we are going to put armed guards where people that are 
on the grand jury can't get in to hear the testimony if we don't want 
to hear the testimony.
  Sure, they will have to vote at some point, but we are going to put 
armed guards to keep the biggest part of the grand jury out of being 
able to see the witnesses, to see their countenance as they answered 
questions.
  It is why in military courts martial that I participated in, in 
Federal trials, in State trials we have an aversion to

[[Page H8710]]

having depositions. Yes, you have a lot of depositions in civil trials.
  But in criminal trials, something as important as liberty--and I 
would submit, a President being thrown out that was duly elected is 
just as important. In such a case, you get to ask the questions, see 
the questions; you get to hear the answers; and you get to observe the 
witnesses. It is important.
  Yet, under orders of the Speaker and Chairman Schiff, this so-called 
comparative grand jury kept the huge majority out of those hearings 
where we could hear and see for ourselves.
  Now we find out, through the vote today, that, yes, the Judiciary 
Committee is ultimately going to get this from the Intelligence 
Committee. But never in the history of this country have we had such 
gross unfairness that one party would put armed guards with guns to 
prevent the duly authorized people from being able to hear the 
witnesses and see them for themselves.
  Then, oh, we hear from this resolution today, we are going to send 
you the depositions after we get through doctoring and looking at and 
editing the transcripts. We will send you those so you have the 
evidence you need.
  That is not the kind of evidence that a coup should be based on. If 
we are going to have what they are trying to legalize as a coup, we 
ought to have a right to see each of those witnesses. And the only 
potential use for the depositions should be impeachment of those 
witnesses, nothing else, not for anything substantive.
  The President's attorneys, unlike in 1974 and 1998, were not allowed 
to be there or even see and hear the witnesses. So the references to 
this being a Star Chamber are not inappropriate. It is outrageous what 
has been going on for people who truly care about due process.
  Regarding the procedures now, the Judiciary Committee must operate 
pursuant to the procedures imposed by the chairman of the Rules 
Committee.
  Well, previously, one of the oldest committees in the House of 
Representatives, the Judiciary Committee, in prior impeachments made 
the rules for the impeachment hearing. We didn't have it dictated by 
the Rules Committee, no, because this is the Judiciary Committee. These 
are people who are supposed to have expertise in constitutional issues.
  So when you have the committee that has more expertise in 
constitutional issues, what did the majority do? We don't want the 
committee with the most expertise on constitutional issues dealing with 
these constitutional issues. We want to put armed guards outside a 
hearing and have it in a Secret Compartmented Information Facility.
  And we are not going to let the other side call their own witnesses 
so we get a fair picture of what actually went on, and we are not even 
going to let them ask questions we don't want them to ask. We will 
instruct the witnesses not to answer because, you see, they want it to 
be a one-sided, non-due process, sham court.

  It is about to push this country to a civil war if they were to get 
their wishes. And if there is one thing I don't want to see in my 
lifetime, I don't want to ever have participation in, it is a civil 
war.
  Some historian--I don't remember who--said guns are only involved in 
the last phase of a civil war. What is going on here has not protected 
the Constitution. It has not protected the institutions. It has not 
protected this little experiment in self-government. No.
  What it has done is put it all at risk because what some people in 
this body don't seem to understand is, when you set a precedent as 
dangerous as what we have been watching for the last 3 years, it won't 
be me, but there will be Republicans, if this isn't stopped, there will 
be Republicans who will take the precedent of what the Democrats have 
done here and use it against a Democratic President, try to set him up 
and create a coup.
  Like I say, it won't be me, but that is the way history works. When 
somebody sets a precedent, then eventually somebody also not concerned 
about due process is going to try to mimic that and go one further.
  In 1974 and 1998, the committee procedures during the Nixon and 
Clinton impeachment processes, they included the ability of the 
President's counsel to attend all hearings, including those in 
executive session; question any and all witnesses called before the 
committee; submit written questions for additional testimony; provide 
summaries of what he would propose to show; and respond to evidence 
received and testimony presented, either orally or in writing, as 
determined by the committee. The President's counsel could also review 
all evidence obtained in the course of the impeachment inquiry.
  Not only has the President's counsel not been allowed to do any of 
those things that have been done in the past to ensure due process and 
fairness, even the rest of this voting body that will have to vote on 
an impeachment were not allowed to see the witnesses, to hear the 
witnesses, to review the transcript until after they are through 
working with the transcripts.
  This resolution today, it bifurcates the impeachment, only allows the 
President's counsel to participate in Judiciary Committee proceedings. 
It provides no ability to participate in the ongoing Intelligence 
Committee investigation.
  If we presume that the procedures the Rules Committee has dictated to 
us on high allow the President's counsel to participate in Judiciary 
Committee proceedings at all, they will only have access to documents 
transmitted to the Judiciary Committee and not all the material 
obtained in the course of the Intelligence Committee's hearings.
  I just happen to have H. Res. 803 from 1974 that involved--well, it 
was from Chairman--Democratic Chairman Rodino, from the Committee on 
the Judiciary.
  See, that is the way it is supposed to be done. That is the way it 
has been done in the past, 1974, 1998.
  Under the rules that the Democrats passed earlier this year, in 
January, the rules say, if a rule is not specific about a matter, then 
precedence is the rule. That is the rule, and it has been ignored 
repeatedly.
  So we voted today basically rubberstamping the secret Star Chamber 
hearings, the one-sided questioning of the witnesses. Oh, we did hear 
today Republicans have equal time to the Democrats. It is just that 
Democrats could ask whatever they wanted and get answers, and 
Republicans couldn't.
  Impeachment in the past, when we have impeached Federal judges 
before, came through our Judiciary Committee, very bipartisan, because, 
even as recent as the last 10, 12 years, even Adam Schiff realized, 
when you are going to remove a Federal officer from a position he is 
duly placed in, you have got to make sure you provide due process, and 
you allow buy-in on both sides.
  There was no buy-in today because, even though there are some 
Republicans who are not big fans of the President, to put it mildly, 
they realize this process is an outrage, and it is a threat to our 
little experiment in self-government.

                              {time}  1315

  So an article comes out yesterday by Paul Sperry, entitled: ``The 
Beltway's `Whistleblower' Furor Obsesses Over One Name.''
  To my knowledge, I have not ever talked to this Paul Sperry with 
RealClearInvestigations, but he brings out a name that has been bandied 
about on the internet. A lot of people are speculating this guy was the 
whistleblower.
  Regardless of whether this guy is the whistleblower or not, it is 
important to look at what has been going on with him. Just forget about 
the claim he is a whistleblower; look at what he has been doing.
  The more you find out, the more you realize, wow, President Trump 
should have revoked clearances for prior potential conspirators long 
before he did.
  But then, in the article, it mentions a 33-year-old--we already knew 
he was a male, that he worked for Vice President Biden, this guy. He 
was held over from the Obama White House.
  And one of the things that President Obama was able to do so much 
better than President Trump was make sure that the people who worked in 
the White House, in the CIA, in the DOJ, the FBI, but especially in the 
White House, in the Old Executive Office Building for the Vice 
President, they made much better certainty that everybody there was 
going to be loyal to President Obama and Vice President Biden. They did 
a magnificent job of that.

[[Page H8711]]

  So anybody who is held over--in fact, I understand H. R. McMaster, 
great Obama Democrat loyalist that was working, continuing to work in 
the Trump administration, made clear that he didn't want to hear any of 
his people ever say again that someone was an Obama holdover. I guess 
he didn't want people outed in front of people loyal to the President 
as being loyal to President Obama.
  But McMaster also was a boss of this guy. He did work for Biden. He 
worked for CIA Director John Brennan.

  Brennan, as the article said, was ``a vocal critic of Trump who 
helped initiate the Russia `collusion' investigation of the Trump 
campaign during the 2016 election.''
  Further, this guy ``left his National Security Council posting in the 
White House's West Wing in mid-2017. . . .''
  This guy was working in the White House; Loved Brennan, loved 
McMaster, and he is in President Trump's White House and part of the 
National Security Council. They get to see everything that concerns 
anything on foreign policy and our own national security.
  But there were ``concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has 
since returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.''
  The article says: `` `He was accused of working against Trump and 
leaking against Trump,' said a former NSC official, speaking on 
condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.''
  Alas, this guy ``huddled for `guidance' with the staff of House 
Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, including former 
colleagues also held over from the Obama era whom Schiff's office had 
recently recruited from the National Security Council.''
  This guy ``worked with a Democratic National Committee operative who 
dug up the dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, 
inviting her into the White House for meetings, former White House 
colleagues said. The operative, Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian American 
who supported Hillary Clinton, led an effort to link the Republican 
campaign to the Russian Government. `He knows her. He had her in the 
White House,' said one former coworker. . . .''
  ``Documents confirm the DNC opposition researcher attended at least 
one White House meeting with'' this guy ``in November 2015. She visited 
the White House with a number of Ukrainian officials lobbying the Obama 
administration for aid to Ukraine.''
  And that is the aid we know we have seen, heard former Vice President 
Biden bragging: Hey, I am leaving in 6 hours, and if they want this $1 
billion, then they are going to have to fire the prosecutor, who just 
happened to be investigating the gas company that was giving millions 
of dollars to his son.
  The article says: `` `Everyone knows who he' ''--the whistleblower--
`` `is. CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times knows. 
Congress knows. The White House knows. Even the President knows who he 
is,' said Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst and National Security 
Advisor to Trump, who has fielded dozens of calls from the media.
  ``Yet a rare hush swept across the Potomac.''
  You know, normally, The New York Times and The Washington Post, they 
can't wait to out a whistleblower, can't wait, don't mind seeing them 
destroyed. But you look at a real whistleblower, not a fake one like we 
have here, a real whistleblower with direct information like Adam 
Lovinger, who, working in the Defense Department--I didn't know that 
this scheme went that far.
  But Lovinger is supposed to investigate improper payments by the 
Defense Department, and he saw hundreds of thousands of dollars being 
paid at different times to a guy named Stefan Halper, who is a 
professor, and he couldn't see anything in return for all the money.
  Then we have this investigation about President Trump and find out 
that, actually, Halper was getting paid by the Defense Department to 
help set up Trump campaign people so they could use that information to 
go before a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court and get a 
warrant to spy on the Trump campaign.
  Phenomenal. The Defense Department is paying a guy to help set up the 
Trump campaign before President Trump was ever elected so they could 
get warrants to spy on the campaign.
  It is incredible. The article says, ``Trump supporters blame the 
conspiracy of silence on a `corrupt' and `biased' media trying to 
protect the whistleblower from due scrutiny about his political 
motives. They also complain Democrats have falsely claimed that 
exposing his identity would violate whistleblower protections, even 
though the relevant statute provides limited, not blanket, anonymity, 
and doesn't cover press disclosures.
  ``His Democrat attorneys meanwhile have warned that outing him would 
put him and his family `at risk of harm,' although the government 
security personnel have been assigned to protect him.''
  And I come back to the facts. There are lots of people that have 
testified adversely to President Donald J. Trump. As far as I know, 
they are all still living, breathing, and saying nasty things about 
him. Their health is not put in jeopardy in any way. Their personal 
safety is not a problem.
  Now, that is not true of some other people that have been in high 
positions in this town where people end up dead in the morgue. I am not 
saying they caused it. I am just saying, if you are worried about 
outing some incident, somebody, President Trump is not the one you need 
to worry about.
  Fleitz said, ``They're hiding him. They're hiding him because of his 
political bias. A CIA officer specializing in Russia and Ukraine,'' 
this person, ``was detailed over to the National Security Council from 
the agency,'' meaning CIA, ``in the summer of 2015, working under Susan 
Rice, President Obama's national security adviser. He also worked 
closely with the former vice president.''
  That is the same Susan Rice--according to a book a few years after--
according to that book it reported that Secretary Clinton called her 
husband and said, they are wanting me to go out there and say this 
attack in Benghazi was all about a video. And the advice was, you know, 
you can't be the one that goes on the Sunday shows because nobody is 
going to buy that.
  So Susan Rice was picked to go out and tell people the attack in 
Benghazi was based on a video, when most everybody, maybe not Susan 
Rice, but most people who had looked into it at all knew it was not 
about a video at all. And the Obama administration had been warned 
repeatedly of the threat that was coming and didn't give them the 
security they needed, nor did they allow anyone to go lift a finger to 
help the people at Benghazi.
  And I love hearing people on the other side say, oh, you investigated 
Benghazi for so long and you had nothing. Yes, that is because the 
Obama administration wouldn't produce anything that we asked for, the 
important things we asked for. They covered things up. Same on Fast and 
Furious, and we didn't have a Speaker on the Republican side that would 
allow us to go to court and get those things released.
  So the more important things that got released were a result of 
Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton's folks going to court and getting the court 
order to get things produced, but still there was so much that was not 
produced we don't know all the facts about what happened.
  By the way, I do know that Intelligence people lied to the Republican 
chairman of Intelligence back then and he never would wake up and 
realize it. Because he reported to our Republican conference after 
Benghazi about 6 months after, well, guys, some of you have asked me, 
isn't there somebody at Walter Reed that was injured? We keep hearing 
rumors. And Mike said, no, I can tell you, there is no one who was 
injured at Benghazi that is at Walter Reed.
  I couldn't sit still anymore. It was in one of my trips to Walter 
Reed I met such a person. He was on the roof with Tyrone Woods and the 
other heroes. He had much of his leg blown off. And I had met him, and 
I honored his request for anonymity being out there.
  But I couldn't sit there and listen to the Republican chairman of 
Intelligence perpetrating what he thought was true but was not, and I 
knew it wasn't. I said, That is not true. He got red faced and said, 
That is true. I said, No, I had lunch with the one yesterday. He said, 
That is not true.

[[Page H8712]]

  And he told me later after the meeting, I have talked to our 
intelligence people, and they tell me that the guy you must have seen, 
he is not at Walter Reed, he comes there for physical therapy. And I 
said, No, I can tell you the building number and where his apartment 
is, and it adjoins the physical therapy. It is right there on Walter 
Reed.

                              {time}  1330

  Anyway, he didn't believe it.
  I had emailed this great hero and didn't hear from him for a couple 
of weeks. He later emailed back that: Gee, the strangest thing 
happened. I had the most painful surgery on my leg.
  He had numerous surgeries, but this was the most painful since half 
of it got blown off on that rooftop in Benghazi. He said: They 
medicated me because of all the pain. That night, in the middle of the 
night, these guys show up at our apartment there, and they moved my 
wife, my kids, all of us immediately off the hospital property. It 
doesn't make sense.
  Well, it made sense to me because we had intelligence people that 
were covering up the lie that they had told the chairman of the 
Intelligence Committee because he was a Republican chair. I bet they 
don't lie like that to Adam Schiff.
  Anyway, Federal records, according to the article, show that Biden's 
office invited this guy ``to an October 2016 state luncheon the Vice 
President hosted for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Other invited 
guests included Brennan, as well as then-FBI Director James Comey and 
then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper.''
  Several U.S. officials told RealClearInvestigations that the 
invitation that was extended to this guy, who was a relatively low-
level GS-13 Federal employee, ``was unusual and signaled he was 
politically connected inside the Obama White House.''
  Former White House officials said this guy ``worked on Ukrainian 
policy issues for Biden in 2015 and 2016, when the Vice President was 
President Obama's `point man' for Ukraine.'' He is a Yale graduate, 
speaks Russian, Ukrainian, as well as Arabic.
  ``He had been assigned to the NSC by Brennan. He was held over into 
the Trump administration and headed the Ukraine desk at the NSC,'' 
under President Trump, ``eventually transitioning into the West Wing, 
until June 2017. `He was moved over to the front office,' to 
temporarily fill a vacancy, said a former White House official, where 
he `saw everything, read everything.'''
  The official added that it soon became clear among NSC staff that 
this guy ``opposed the new Republican President's foreign policies. `My 
recollection . . . is that he was very smart and very passionate, 
particularly about Ukraine and Russia. That was his thing, Ukraine,' he 
said. `He didn't exactly hide his passion with respect to what he 
thought was the right thing to do with Ukraine and Russia, and his 
views were at odds with the President's policies.'''
  In May 2017, this guy went `` `outside his chain of command,' 
according to a former NSC coworker, to send an email alerting another 
agency that Trump happened to hold a meeting with Russian diplomats in 
the Oval Office the day after firing Comey, who led the Trump-Russia 
investigation. The email also noted that Russian President Vladimir 
Putin had phoned the President a week earlier. Contents of the email 
appeared to have ended up in the media, which reported Trump boasted to 
the Russian officials about firing Comey, whom he allegedly called 
`crazy, a real nut job.'''
  In effect, this guy ``helped generate the `Putin fired Comey' 
narrative, according to the research dossier making the rounds in 
Congress.''
  Anyway, it is a mess.
  Now, one of the things about whistleblower protections, though, is if 
you were to be prosecuted for committing a crime, then the 
whistleblower status could be used to help hold off potential 
prosecution. It is my understanding that it would not likely win the 
day, but it could delay a prosecution.
  Say, hypothetically, you worked for somebody like Brennan, or say, 
hypothetically, you worked for somebody like McMaster and Brennan, and 
you helped come up with a conspiracy to oust a duly-elected sitting 
President by alleging some conspiracy with Russia, and you found out 
that the Attorney General and the U.S. attorney assigned to investigate 
the origins of the Russia hoax were closing in on participants of your 
conspiracy.
  Well, if you had a really smart lawyer, he might just tell you, if 
you could get whistleblower status, if they start closing in on you, 
then we can start filing motions to keep you out of that prosecution 
because if you are a whistleblower, you are in a protected status. It 
shouldn't prevent the ultimate prosecution, but it could delay things 
for a while.
  So it could make sense, if you are a coconspirator and trying to 
bring down a duly-elected President, that you might want that 
whistleblower status.
  The problem with that is--and this is a problem for a tainted 
inspector general who would protect such a whistleblower--if you are 
complaining, it has to be, to get that status, somebody in your chain 
of command. The President, we were told, is not in the whistleblower's 
chain of command because that is outside, the CIA.
  It has to be within that leadership ladder, and the President is 
outside of that. So he wasn't a real whistleblower. Plus, a 
whistleblower has to have direct evidence.
  What we have seen with this march of the gossipmongers, as it is best 
described, that have been paraded into the secret Star Chamber with the 
armed guards outside of it so that other members of this grand jury 
can't get to see and hear the witnesses, it really appears to be a 
march of those who don't like President Trump and are willing to sully 
in some cases valiant military service, a great career. They are 
willing to have that tarnished and sullied by becoming gossipmongers.
  For example, one person who apparently had a great career in the 
Army, William Taylor, I understand he was in the infantry for 6 years. 
I was at Fort Benning for 4 years, and I can tell you, anybody who was 
a commander in the infantry didn't last any time at all if he allowed 
gossipmongers, like he has become, to come before him and say: Captain, 
Captain, I heard that somebody else heard something that was said.
  He would throw him out of the office: I am not going to be running a 
gossip column here. If somebody knows something directly, send them to 
me, but don't you come in here being a gossipmonger.

  Well, now he has become the gossipmonger. ``Well, I heard that 
somebody else heard that they heard the President say. . . .''
  I just come back to this, as someone who had to sit and listen and 
evaluate evidence and make life and death decisions in a courtroom, you 
analyze what kind of person this is before me as a witness. If you have 
a witness before you that is willing to try to destroy and remove a 
President from office who was duly elected under our Constitution, and 
they are now willing to use secondhand, thirdhand, fourth-hand gossip, 
it tells you they are not the great person that they once were. They 
are not the patriot they once were. They are nothing but gossipmongers.
  If you are going to be a fair arbiter of truth and justice, it should 
dramatically diminish your evaluation and analysis of what they have to 
say. This is not a classy person. This is a gossipmonger.
  That is what William Taylor became for the Intelligence Committee, 
and that is what Vindman became.
  Some have said: Oh, gee, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, he is the 
ultimate American. He even came in uniform.
  Well, I was trained that if you are going to say bad things about 
someone in your chain of command, including the Commander in Chief--
because a lot of us were not happy with President Carter when I was at 
Fort Benning, but we all knew you can't say anything negative about 
President Carter, especially not in uniform. It doesn't matter if it is 
true. You can't do it.
  He comes parading in, in his uniform, to try to take down a sitting 
President, and he uses gossip to do that.
  We also have to wonder, okay, so whistleblower number one, this great 
patriot, we are told--who he is not. He is a gossipmonger. Where did he 
get that information since he didn't get it

[[Page H8713]]

firsthand? He was not allowed to receive information about those 
telephone calls the President made to the leader of another country, so 
somebody violated the law by telling him. We don't know who that was. 
Whoever it was, Vindman or anybody else, there is a good chance they 
committed a crime.
  That crime and all the surrounding information about their crime 
should be admissible in helping impeach and analyze that witness's 
testimony. You ought to be able to pursue it, but we are told, when 
Republicans were asking Colonel Vindman who he told about this, who did 
he transfer information to, they were shut down by the chairman.
  That tells you the chairman must know what the answers were, and he 
didn't want the Republicans to have them. It sounds to me like there is 
a chance he committed a crime, and that was being covered up. 
Otherwise, if you want due process, if you want a fair process, if you 
want justice, then we have to hear the good, the bad, the ugly, so we 
can make a fair determination.
  Every person elected as a Member of Congress is going to have a right 
to vote on that impeachment, if it ever comes up, and we have a right 
to hear the witnesses. Anything else is a sham.
  By the way, this Colonel Vindman, it turns out, it has been 
published, he went to the stenographers. We had heard previously from 
the President there were four stenographers who take down everything.
  Well, I have used court reporters my whole adult life, and they miss 
a word from time to time. I have had to fix transcripts where they have 
missed something. We have that problem here. They are amazing. These 
stenographers are absolutely incredible, but they miss a word from time 
to time.
  But they have four. Apparently, we are told, the reason is that they 
don't want to tape it so that no foreign leader has to worry about ever 
hearing his own voice say things that he said in a private conversation 
with the President of the United States. So they have four 
stenographers so that they make sure they get exactly what was said.
  And this guy Vindman goes to the stenographers and tells them: I want 
to get these words inserted in the transcript, Burisma--the name of the 
gas company they are trying to go after President Trump and say he 
demanded information on them.
  Apparently, none of the stenographers heard that. It sounds like not 
only is he a potential criminal for leaking information to people who 
weren't supposed to get it, but there is also potential there that this 
is part--when you go to prove a conspiracy in Federal court, you have 
to prove not only that you plotted but that there was an overt act. His 
overt act of going to stenographers and trying to get words embedded 
into the transcript that the President didn't say could potentially be 
such an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.

                              {time}  1345

  There is a lot we don't know here, but this process has the 
possibility to bring this Nation's constitutional Republic to the brink 
of the end on our watch.
  This ought to be a bipartisan thing. You can hate a President; you 
can disagree with him; but let's make sure that we have due process so 
we don't get drug into a third world status.
  We know no country lasts forever, no country ever will. If we are 
going to perpetuate this any further, we have got to have some 
bipartisan concern for justice, for due process, for making sure that 
all of the protections to protect against a Star Chamber-type thing are 
not what we use here. Unfortunately, that is what we have been seeing 
for nearly 3 years.
  One of the things I was taught in law school is what separates us is 
that we don't just take somebody and try to find a crime. That is 
unconstitutional. You have a crime that you find was committed, and 
then you try to find out who probably committed it. When you get 
probable cause, you can get them indicted, then you can have a trial.
  What we have seen clearly is that, over 3 years ago, some people in 
Justice, FBI, Intelligence, maybe Defense, maybe somebody in the White 
House, decided: Here is Donald J. Trump. Let's find a crime, whether he 
committed it or not, that we can wrap around his throat.
  That is what we have been watching happen. They found somebody. Now 
let's find a crime that we can allege.
  The problem with this one about the quid pro quo, demanding 
something, they are going to have to prosecute Vice President Joe 
Biden. They are going to have to prosecute some U.S. Senators who have 
sent letters that have said: Gee, if you don't do this or that, we are 
going to cut off funding to you.
  Whoa, Joe Biden bragged about it: I told him that, if you want this 
billion dollars, you better fire that prosecutor.
  They are going to have to prosecute all of those people before they 
go after President Trump, and he didn't do anything nearly like he was 
accused of.
  There is nothing wrong with a President saying to a foreign leader: 
Your country apparently was involved in a conspiracy to affect our 
election. Could you help us out by giving us information about what 
happened? We just need to know.
  There is nothing wrong with it.
  And you look at the transcript not amended by somebody who was trying 
to set up the President, but by four stenographers who were intent on 
having everything in there that was said, and you see there was nothing 
wrong with this phone call. What was wrong was the process of trying to 
commit a coup d'etat and take out a duly elected President.
  It is time we wake up and we do what is right for this country.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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