[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 206 (Thursday, December 19, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H12285]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 INDICTING CONGRESS FOR ABUSE OF POWER

  (Mr. MASSIE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. MASSIE. Madam Speaker, just a few hours ago, this body voted for 
impeachment, so I rise today to speak about an abuse of power.
  Congress has the sole power to declare war and the awesome 
responsibility to decide when, where, and for what purposes our 
soldiers will be asked to give their lives. Eighteen years ago, this 
body misappropriated that power by issuing an open-ended authorization 
to commit our soldiers to fight anywhere on the globe.
  The so-called war on terror has claimed the lives of more American 
soldiers than lives of civilians who were lost on 9/11, not to mention 
over 100,000 lives of foreigners not associated with terror.
  In the last week, this Chamber has passed over 6,000 pages of 
legislation, and it spent over a trillion dollars. Tragically, we just 
funded the 19th year of the war in Afghanistan, without changing or 
even defining a strategy for winning or ending that war.
  So I close by indicting this very body for an abuse of power: abuse 
of our war powers and abuse of our power of the purse.

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