[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 30 (Thursday, February 13, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H1145-H1150]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IMPORTANT ISSUES OF THE DAY

  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, it is an honor to be able to stand in 
this hallowed Hall and address some things that have occurred that are 
worthy of attention.
  Of course, there was applause in the gallery today on the passage of 
trying to restart the ERA. It is an amendment to the Constitution, and 
it was started back in the seventies. The amendment to the Constitution 
had a deadline as part of the amendment. The amendment did not get the 
required 38 states. The time lapsed. There was, as I recall, an attempt 
to extend the time, but some States that had been in favor of the ERA 
backed off.

                              {time}  1145

  So it is very clear to anyone who pays attention to the Constitution 
that, when an amendment to the Constitution by its own wording has a 
time deadline and that deadline is passed, then that amendment has not 
been ratified, is not part of the Constitution, and any efforts to 
change the amendment itself, including the deadline for ratification, 
would require beginning again.
  There is no more iconic liberal judge on the Supreme Court, not in 
history, than the former head, as I recall, of the American Civil 
Liberties Union. She was there back when the American Civil Liberties 
Union cared deeply about civil liberties and even took on some clients 
and some causes of people that most of us thought were not worthy of a 
lot of attention. But they were so committed to civil liberties back in 
those days, they were more concerned about civil liberties than they 
were the client. That was in the old days.
  Now, if it is not a liberal, then they are not concerned about civil 
liberties and abuses, since the Obama administration was the 
administration that so far appears to be the most abusive of the FISA 
courts, committing fraud upon the FISA courts.
  But in fairness to the administration, it appears the FISA court 
judges did not have sufficient integrity or pride in their position 
that they were offended by having fraud committed upon them, because, 
apparently, the disdain for Donald Trump, then President Trump and his 
administration was such that it was okay. They were okay to be 
defrauded as judges, which sure brings

[[Page H1146]]

the issue of the FISA courts into focus as that issue will be taken up, 
as I understand it, as will issues over parts of the PATRIOT Act and 
other provisions that give the Federal Government tremendous latitude 
to spy on American citizens.
  So it is an interesting time, though, where you never know where 
judges are going to come down. If somebody was appointed by a liberal 
judge, it is amazing; they appear to stay liberal, with disdain for 
conservatism and the strict language of the Constitution, wanting it to 
be a liberal, breathing, living document.
  On the other hand, Chief Justice Roberts has pointed out he doesn't 
believe there should be Obama judges or Trump judges or Bush judges 
because you can't characterize them that way.
  To an extent, he is right about that, because there are some 
Justices, particularly on the Supreme Court, who have been appointed by 
conservative Presidents who were liberals in conservative clothing, and 
they got on the Court and became some of the biggest flaming liberals 
we have ever had.
  So you can't tell that someone is conservative if they are appointed 
by a conservative President, but you sure can tell if somebody is 
appointed by a liberal President. They have shown that they will stay 
liberal and not change. So it has been interesting to see that kind of 
conversion.
  It appears pretty clear that some of these Justices, including Chief 
Justice Roberts, got into the position and began to care deeply about 
what the media and others thought about things they were doing.
  So, for example, with ObamaCare, he was, apparently, from the 
reports, concerned that he might go down in history as being too 
political of a Chief Justice if he struck down ObamaCare. So he took 
something that was clearly unconstitutional, in effect, rewrote it, and 
had a very hypocritical opinion.
  At page 14, I believe it was, he said, clearly, this is not a tax, 
because if it were a tax, Congress would have called it a tax, and they 
made clear it was not; and it is only a penalty, a fine, if you don't 
conform your conduct to the requirements of the legislation. Therefore, 
it is not a tax.
  Since it is not a tax, then the anti-injunction law that prevents a 
plaintiff from filing suit until a tax is not only assessed but paid 
and keeps the court from having jurisdiction to hear it until the tax 
is assessed and paid, that doesn't apply, so the court can take this 
matter up. And now that we take it up, 40 pages later, he said it is 
constitutional, in effect, because it is a tax.
  So he had to go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to what, in 
his mind, would prevent him from being classified as a political Chief 
Justice; but, as a result, he has become one the most political Chief 
Justices we have ever had--unfortunately for him and the country.
  So who knows. Maybe there will be people on the Supreme Court who 
will decide to rewrite the Constitution as he, in effect, rewrote the 
ObamaCare statute. But if you are actually going to follow the 
Constitution the way it is written and you are not going to rewrite the 
Constitution at the Supreme Court level, then the truth is, when an 
amendment fails by its own language and is not ratified, then anybody 
with any sense would understand you have got to start over.
  Though I have plenty of disagreements with Justice Ginsberg over some 
issues, she has tried to be a person of integrity. Talking about the 
ERA, she says:

       I would like to see a new beginning. I'd like it to start 
     over. There is too much controversy about latecomers--
     Virginia--long after the deadline passed. Plus, a number of 
     States have withdrawn their ratification. So if you count a 
     latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard the States 
     that said, ``We have changed our minds''?

  So it is interesting. Yes, this legislation passed.
  Jim Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin appropriately brought up the point 
that this is actually amending the Constitution; it is amending the 
constitutional amendment. So, to be appropriate, it is going to require 
a two-thirds vote in the House, a two-thirds vote in the Senate, and 
then 38 States, I believe it is, in order to have it ratified.
  That was overruled to reinforce the fact that what we did today is 
really not constitutional. If we had tried to ratify it as a new 
amendment, like Justice Ginsberg was talking about, a new 
constitutional amendment, then, actually, you would, as Justice 
Ginsberg said, have to be starting the process all over again, and that 
does require a two-thirds vote here and in the Senate.

  So what we did today made people that support it feel good, but it is 
not going anywhere; and even if it were, hypothetically, it just simply 
can't pass constitutional muster at the Supreme Court. A majority of 
the Court appears to believe that the Constitution means what it says.
  We had one vote today. It was on the ERA. So we didn't do anything 
terribly effective today as the House of Representatives.
  Also, I noted before I came over for the vote that, apparently, the 
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, it was reported--I don't know if 
other members of the majority signed the letter, but there was a letter 
to Attorney General Barr, and it expressed what sounded like the 
distress of the committee over Attorney General Barr's action in 
reining in prosecutors who have simply gotten out of hand.
  Attorney General Barr has the distinct advantage of having a bigger 
picture than these four very politically motivated prosecutors who were 
pushing so hard for virtually the maximum amount of time for Roger 
Stone to serve in prison.
  Anyway, if that letter was going to be truly accurate, it needed to 
say that this majority that has been trying to throw President Trump 
out of office, that has been using taxpayer funds for a number of years 
now to try to defeat President Trump in the 2020 election, which voted 
for impeachment knowing that President Trump was not going to be 
removed from office--so it seems the logical conclusion is, again, they 
were using taxpayer funds to campaign against President Trump, hoping 
they could besmirch him sufficiently, slander his name sufficiently, 
that it would help them defeat him in November.
  Whereas, the minority of the committee did not agree with the letter 
because it appears clear to all of the minority I have talked to that 
Attorney General Barr is trying to do something and incorporate 
something called fairness in our legal system, because he has seen you 
had people in the previous administration who strong-armed salespeople 
into selling guns to people they knew should not have them and that 
they would end up in the hands of, most likely, Mexican drug cartels. 
And that is what the administration wanted to do. They were assuring 
they would be able to follow the guns and intercede, but that is not 
what happened.
  Then we even saw emails that, after this was all exposed, there was 
an idea that, gee, maybe we can still use the fact that these guns went 
into criminal hands, even killed one of our own United States agents, a 
brave soul, Brian Terry, they were hopeful they could still use that to 
get antigun legislation passed simply based on their criminal activity 
in trying to get these guns into the hands of criminals who shouldn't 
have them.
  So nobody was held accountable for that. Nobody was held accountable 
for the guns that were forced into the hands of criminals, ultimately, 
one of which killed Brian Terry. Nobody was held accountable for any of 
that.
  Nobody was held accountable for destroying evidence after it was 
subpoenaed, even with a hammer, even with applications like BleachBit, 
destroying subpoenaed evidence. Nobody was held accountable for any of 
that.
  So across the Nation, it appears maybe a small majority, but a 
majority, understand and believe that there are two forms of justice in 
America: one for those high-ranking Democratic officials who are never 
held accountable at all, and one for Republicans whose lives are 
attempted to be destroyed and, in some cases, are destroyed.

                              {time}  1200

  In some cases, they did nothing wrong. In other cases, they agreed to 
plead to something just because the bully Federal prosecutors have 
threatened to go after their family and continue to harass them.
  I saw a former Member of Congress from Pennsylvania who had been 
blasting the FBI back during my first term,

[[Page H1147]]

2005-2006, and he was blasting them because he said--and I had not 
heard of it before, at the time--but a program called Able Danger had 
been able to identify a majority of the 9/11 hijackers. The FBI had 
that information. They did nothing with it.
  I didn't know if Curt Weldon, the Member of Congress from 
Pennsylvania, was accurate in what he was saying, but hearing him make 
these speeches over and over about how the FBI should have acted. They 
could have prevented thousands of lives from being taken, all of those 
people from having to jump to their deaths because they didn't want to 
be burned at the top of the World Trade Center. All of that could have 
been avoided if the FBI had stepped in and used the information they 
had to stop 9/11.
  I didn't know if that was true or not, but I was thinking, you know, 
Mueller and the FBI have to respond to Congressman Weldon in some way. 
They have to. This is really serious stuff. I thought they would make a 
statement and that they would come back with evidence to refute what he 
was saying, but they never did that.
  What Mueller's FBI did, though--it had to be with his approval, going 
after a Member of Congress. It was believed that they got a warrant 
because they raided his daughter's law office. They alerted the media 
for the early morning raids so there was plenty of media there and 
plenty of media at his congressional office. People were apparently 
warned in advance by the FBI because nobody else knew.
  They showed up with preprinted signs condemning Curt Weldon, caught 
red-handed, all of this stuff. It turned out, there was nothing ever 
done. He told me that, months later, he was contacted by the FBI and 
told: You can come get all of this material we seized in the raid.
  They did the raid 2 weeks before the election, as I recall, about 2 
weeks before the election. So the FBI, under Mueller, was able to 
singlehandedly defeat Curt Weldon. It helped the Democrat opponent to 
defeat Curt Weldon in the narrow loss that he had.
  So the FBI didn't respond with evidence. They just helped manipulate 
the election system so Curt Weldon would lose. He did, and he said that 
they told him to come pick up all of this stuff. They never did present 
it to a grand jury anyway. That was kind of shocking.
  So, clearly, Mueller and his FBI were motivated by shutting him up so 
he couldn't make speeches on the House floor anymore, and that is why 
the raid was conducted. But in his last most recent visit, Curt was 
telling me that--by the way, before I wrote about Curt Weldon, I had 
not seen him nor talked with him since 2006 when he left. I put that in 
the booklet I wrote titled ``Robert Mueller: Unmasked.'' I wrote about 
what happened to Curt.
  At this most recent visit this year, he told me that, as he 
understands, it turns out the FBI never even got a warrant. They just 
raided the office without a warrant, like any good dictator would have, 
the brownshirts. Law enforcement does, in places: We don't need a 
stinking warrant. We will just go harass and destroy.
  That is really shocking if there was not even a warrant. But Mueller 
was irritated, apparently, with Ted Stevens, so the FBI framed Ted 
Stevens. It turned out, after he was convicted right before his 
election--he lost narrowly as a U.S. Senator--an FBI agent filed an 
affidavit and established how they had created a case against Ted 
Stevens that didn't exist.
  Actually, Ted Stevens had overpaid for improvements to his home. It 
wasn't an illegal gift. He had overpaid, at one point telling the 
contractor: Look, I know I am overpaying, but I have people watching. I 
have to do everything by the book, so just cash the check--that kind of 
thing.
  Anyway, Mueller and his FBI helped defeat Ted Stevens by convicting 
him right before his election. But then that conviction was thrown out 
due to the prosecutorial misconduct and, I would say, crimes committed 
by at least one FBI agent, if not more, and also by prosecutors.
  They should have gone to prison for what they did, but I can't help 
but think that between what the FBI did to Curt Weldon, what they did 
to Ted Stevens, what they have done to other people with whom they 
disagree, that it had become a very dangerous place where, if you were 
in the right political persuasion or took the right positions on the 
right issues, then you could commit crimes, and the FBI would leave you 
alone.
  If you were of the wrong political positions, on the wrong issues, 
they would come after you even if they had to frame you or set you up, 
as they did Ted Stevens and Curt Weldon, destroying their political 
careers.
  So we are at a very dangerous time in this country's history. It used 
to be that the FBI had the reputation that it was the most trustworthy, 
effective law enforcement agency body in the world. But that has 
changed.
  Unfortunately, we have an FBI Director--an article said, at one time, 
back in the Bush administration, he had told James Comey, who has lied, 
obviously committed crimes--and we can debate about how high or low of 
a level. But he told Comey: Look, if you and Mueller are going to make 
a move, I want to be with you guys. I want to go where you are going, 
when you are going.
  Well, that guy who thought so highly of Mueller and Comey was put in 
a place he never should have been, and that is FBI Director at a time 
that needed cleaning up.
  So I am hopeful that in the days, weeks, or months ahead, we will get 
a new FBI Director who will be serious about punishing wrongdoing in 
the FBI, which I believe will help them get back their reputation.
  The more Christopher Wray appears to do more covering up than he does 
making accountable, he really needs to go sooner rather than later. 
They are not going to get their reputation back simply by ignoring 
things.

  Of course, the FISA court pointed out in an order, after going for 
years without having any pride or integrity in enforcing their 
jurisdiction and being offended by fraud upon the court, it finally 
came out and said: Okay, this one guy, Clinesmith, had changed the 
wording, basically going from saying he did work for the U.S. 
Government or the CIA to saying he did not.
  So, clearly, 180 degrees opposite of what the truth was, knowing it 
was false, he submitted it to the court. But that had been clear for 
months, if not years, and the courts did nothing.
  It is what keeps compelling me to think maybe we just need to get rid 
of the FISA court system and come up with a new way, because I am not 
sure that the court with the judges who have been appointed to be FISA 
judges, that we can save that system, that Americans can feel 
comfortable that their privacy and their civil rights are not being 
violated by an overzealous group, especially when you look at the 
thousands and thousands of FISA orders. In 2018, out of mass 
applications for warrants from the FISA court, I think there was only 
one they turned down.
  Some say: Well, maybe if we have an amicus, a friend of the court who 
will stand up for the party against whom a warrant is sought, maybe 
that would help provide enough protection for American civil liberties.
  But then we saw in December, I believe it was, FISA court, feeling 
the heat of all of those who have come to distrust FISA courts, 
appointed an amicus. It turned out the judge appointed the very lawyer 
who for years had been trashing Devin Nunes and others, who it turns 
out were 100 percent right in the things they said in their report.
  So it appeared clear that the FISA court was not serious about making 
fixes or changes or protecting civil liberties, but also it had gone 
into the Christopher Wray mode of covering up, hoping people wouldn't 
notice that so much illegality and impropriety had been going on.
  We are going to be taking up these issues, the controversial section 
215 from the PATRIOT Act and other things. Hopefully, we will take up 
the FISA court.
  I am hopeful that we will have bipartisan action because I know from 
my time on the Judiciary Committee, there have been Democrats--
previously, Chairman Nadler had been a staunch proponent of protecting 
civil liberties, but that appears to be more, nowadays, only protecting 
civil liberties if you are a Democrat, but not so much if you are part 
of the Trump administration or a friend of the President.

[[Page H1148]]

  Hopefully, we can get past some of that and do some good and actually 
do the job of protecting civil liberties.
  I have talked to Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren over the years, including 
more recently, because she, in the past, has been quite zealous for 
civil liberties. I understand she has a bill. Hopefully, that will be 
helpful in dealing with some of these issues.
  But I am still concerned that the abuses may have grown so profound 
that we may not be able to fix the FISA court system. We may need to do 
as some have said--I think Rand Paul has talked about just getting rid 
of it. But we will see where we go.
  That same kind of duality justice or dual justice has raised its ugly 
head in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. Jessie 
Liu was the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, and she had 
some people, it turns out, who were extremely partisan.
  In fact, in a case involving Imran Awan, an IT technician here, 
involved with working with computers for dozens of Democrats on Capitol 
Hill--since 2004, he had worked, like I say, for dozens of Democratic 
Representatives. And it is one of the things up here on the Hill, if a 
Member of Congress tells you, ``Oh, this is my computer person. He is 
great. She is great,'' then others will say, ``oh, I need somebody, so 
I will hire them.''
  Normally, somebody who does that, since you don't need them full 
time, they work part time. Under the rules, they are allowed to work 
for multiple offices as long as their income does not exceed the 
maximum amount allowed--I think it was around $170,000, something like 
that. You could work for multiple offices and accumulate up to that 
maximum. You can have multiple part-time employees. Apparently, that is 
what Imran Awan did, and he had a brother.
  If you are going to do that kind of work, you have to file financial 
information, financial statement information. It turns out, he didn't 
disclose about selling cars or some of the assets or businesses he had, 
and that is a Federal felony.

                              {time}  1215

  He also had filed under the requirements here if you buy something, 
and I think it is $500 or more, then you have to have the serial 
number, you have to keep track of it, and you have to be able to 
document where that item is at all times if it costs more than $500.
  When I came into office in 2005, there was some couch that was on my 
inventory. Nobody had seen the couch in many years, but I was told you 
can't take it off your inventory because it is part of your office. 
Well, if it had cost less than $500 then that would not have been an 
issue. I have no idea where that couch was or is. It wasn't around when 
I got here.
  But Imran Awan, apparently to get around the requirement of keeping 
serial numbers and keeping track of things that he purchased allegedly 
on behalf of Congress Members for whom he worked, he would list iPads 
that cost $799 as costing $499 and then say that an insurance policy 
for it cost $300, and that way it got around the requirement of keeping 
information on where those specific items were.
  It turns out from, what I have read, it appears he and his brother 
owed six figures to somebody foreign, I believe. And so instead of 
paying the person back, they put this guy, who was not a computer 
technician--just had various Members, oh, apparently he told them, this 
guy is going to help with your computer system, so we need you to put 
him on part-time for your office. So he had the Federal taxpayers 
paying their debt to this guy.
  It turns out he had two wives, and one was saying he had a tremendous 
amount of money. He is from Pakistan, and when he goes back, he is 
treated like a king by the secret police there, I believe it was ISI. 
He is constantly sending all kinds of computer equipment back to 
Pakistan since he was a Pakistan national.
  Anyway, he had some ties with some very questionable people. It 
sounds like maybe the FISA court should have been issuing warrants to 
look at some of his stuff.
  He was arrested in July of 2017 over his alleged involvement in 
double charging House Democrats for House IT equipment, House computer-
type equipment, and privately exposing private information online. A 
probe of him found more than tens of thousands of dollars in computer 
technical equipment had been stolen.
  He was indicted by a Federal District Court in August of 2017 for 
``conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, making false statements 
on a loan or credit application, and engaging in unlawful monetary 
transactions.''
  As I recall, he had, I believe it was a cousin who worked at 
McDonald's. He got him listed on the payroll for different House 
Members. I am sure they didn't know that he wasn't working. So he 
helped out the family by bringing in extra income for family members. 
Each one of those events would have been a Federal felony.
  Evidence indicates that Imran Awan and his team members were copying 
data from the computers of House Members to the House Democratic Caucus 
server and then even to private Dropbox accounts--totally inappropriate 
and absolute wrongdoing.
  He and his associates were even tossed off the House computer system 
because they provided false information to Capitol Police that being a 
fake copy of the Democratic Caucus' server. But incredibly none of that 
was used by Jessie Liu's attorneys against him. Instead, the U.S. 
Attorney's office for the District of Columbia opted to let him plead 
to a charge of just making a false statement on a loan application, 
disregarding the many, many felonies that could have been charged and 
pursued to just find out: Why are you such a hero back in Pakistan?
  What equipment are you sending back there?
  Where are you getting it from?
  How come you committed a felony by not listing your car dealership?
  Because as our intel people can tell you, Madam Speaker, one of the 
ways that money is raised for terrorist activity is through bogus car 
dealerships where cars are stolen and then shipped. We don't know what 
the situation was with Imran Awan's alleged car dealership because he 
didn't have a dealer lot anywhere.
  It is handy, though, no matter who you are, if you can have taxpayers 
pay back your loans by just listing them on the payroll of people whom 
you lied to about who is doing the work.
  The problem, though, if Jessie Liu and these Democrat attorneys in 
the D.C. U.S. Attorneys' Office had pursued Imran for anything other 
than making a false statement on his loan, then there would have been a 
lot of embarrassment for Democratic Members of Congress because they 
had some guy like that who was cheating taxpayers, cheating the 
government, and committing crimes working for them. In fairness, it is 
hard to believe they would have known the kinds of things he was doing 
and getting away with. Anyway, the Federal judge sentenced him.
  He filed saying he was broke, and he had no money. One of his wives 
said she was threatened by the FBI to keep her mouth shut, but she had 
indicated that he had all kinds of money. He had gold, and he had all 
kinds of money that he had been able to save while working for all 
these different Members of Congress. But he said he was broke. He filed 
something saying he was broke, and he couldn't pay anything. But then 
it came down to, in order to get probation he had to pay back six 
figures to the government. Somehow, he magically came up--I can't 
remember if it was 100 or $200,000--he came up with it. He paid it, 
even though he alleged he was flat broke.
  So when we hear about four Federal prosecutors who worked for U.S. 
Attorney of D.C. Jessie Liu being all upset over the Department of 
Justice wanting fairness for Roger Stone and not political vengeance, 
four of them quit. In analyzing who it is and what they were doing and 
why they quit, I think it is important to see who they are. There have 
been some good articles written about these people just in the last 
week.
  Jonathan Kravis was appointed by former President Obama to be 
associate White House Counsel where he served in 2009 and 2010. He 
worked for Williams & Connolly, a lobbying firm for which Kravis had 
worked. It has a long history of its employees donating large sums of 
money to Democratic candidates, organizations, and causes.

  He worked with Adam Jed to prosecute Paul Manafort. They went after

[[Page H1149]]

him with a vengeance for working for the Ukrainian Government. Manafort 
was cleared of all charges except two counts of conspiracy to defraud 
the U.S., for which Manafort is serving a 5-year prison sentence.
  Kravis and his wife are connected with Codepink that most people 
around here know is a far left, anti-war organization.
  Then Adam Jed, himself, apparently did work in 2003 or was a fellow 
at Humanity in Action group, a far-left-wing organization blatantly 
against political diversity.
  He defended the Affordable Care Act contraceptive mandate in the case 
Little Sisters of the Poor v. Sebelius. That is where the Federal 
Government was going after these nuns who took a vow of poverty but 
also a vow to help people, and they believed it was against their 
religion to help pay for abortions. Mr. Jed had no problem in pursuing 
these poor nuns. That is his choice, but it does give an indication of 
where he stood, and it is certainly not anywhere close to the beliefs 
on the pro-life positions of Donald Trump.
  Adam Jed also provided oral arguments to strike down the Defense of 
Marriage Act in the Defense of Marriage Act v. Windsor.
  He contributed $1,000 to Josh Kaul's candidacy for Wisconsin State 
Attorney General. Of course, Kaul was a lawyer for Perkins Coie which 
funneled money from the Hillary Clinton campaign to Christopher Steele 
who was the British spy who also apparently utilized other foreigners 
to try to affect the U.S. election in 2016. So, obviously, Adam Jed 
would have been supporting Kaul who worked for Perkins Coie.
  I know we don't hear a whole lot about it from the other side of the 
aisle, but the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC actually paid 
foreigners to try to affect our 2016 election.
  I constantly hear about how outrageous it was that the now-debunked 
allegations that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to affect our 
election, they don't want to talk about what is slam-dunk proved that 
the DNC and the Clinton campaign absolutely did pay foreigners to try 
to affect our election. One foreigner from Italy was involved and a 
foreigner from Australia.
  I know people like to say that there were no Ukrainians involved. 
That is totally debunked. The mere fact that Russia has constantly 
tried to affect our elections--so has China and so have other 
countries--does not mutually exclude the fact that there were 
Ukrainians who tried to affect our 2016 election. Exhibit A to me, 
Madam Speaker, would be you had the ambassador from Ukraine to the U.S. 
write an op-ed trying to prevent Donald Trump from being elected 
President.
  That is foreign interference within an election. So, anyway, I don't 
know where they are getting this stuff, oh, that is Russian propaganda. 
The only Russian propaganda that has been the most effective is 
propaganda from Russia that wants to divide America, and they have done 
a marvelous job at dividing America instead of bringing us together.
  One of the other attorneys who resigned all upset about the treatment 
of--well, Attorney General Barr wanting them to pull their fangs back 
in and not try to be so vengeful simply because Roger Stone was a 
friend of the President. There is no indication the President had hired 
him to do anything, but they sure went after him because of a 
connection.
  Michael Marando prosecuted the Imran Awan case. He is the guy who let 
him get away with all of this other activity without proper 
investigation.
  In fact, there was an inspector general here. She ended up being, I 
think, president of some international technology organization. She was 
amazing. She had all kinds of evidence to prove felony cases against 
Imran Awan, but representatives from the U.S. Attorney's Office, I 
don't know if it was Michael Marando himself, the FBI, working at their 
behest, ended up threatening her: Don't you bring your notebook with 
all that evidence.
  Then they turned around and later reportedly said: Oh, we interviewed 
her, she didn't have anything.
  Yes, when you ordered her not to bring it to show you the cases 
against Imran Awan.

                              {time}  1230

  But that is Michael Marando. He laid him off with a wrist slap. I 
don't see how you can find any other basis other than Marando's 
political motivation. But he didn't pursue any of these other charges, 
and the question still exists.
  As I understand, Imran Awan has filed a lawsuit, and it appears his 
intention is to try to get back on the gravy train here where he was on 
Capitol Hill, to get people to sign up to use him. I think there are 
enough people who got burned that it would probably be hard for him to 
do.
  But a lawsuit, of course, when I heard that he has a lawsuit, that 
means discovery is in order. I am hopeful discovery will bring out all 
the lies and the crimes that it appears that he has committed. But no 
thanks to Michael Marando. He certainly didn't do anything that would 
have hurt Democrats on Capitol Hill but went out of his way to want to 
destroy Roger Stone.
  Aaron Zelensky started his career as a special assistant to Koh, who 
was the State Department legal adviser in the Obama administration, but 
he has also clerked for what I felt was one of the most liberal judges 
ever, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
  He played a key role in obtaining a guilty plea from a guy who was an 
adviser at one time, Papadopoulos. This poor guy, he didn't have money. 
When the FBI and the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office came after him, 
Mueller's people, he didn't have money to fight.
  He was being overwhelmed. They intimidated him enough into his 
agreeing to plead guilty to a minor charge.
  But Zelensky was handpicked by Mueller when he was selecting people 
who hated Trump. Zelensky was handpicked to be an investigator in that 
probe. Before joining the Mueller team, Zelensky worked for Deputy 
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
  Anyway, these people certainly had a lot of political baggage. They 
were clearly on a vendetta. They weren't pursuing justice. They were 
pursuing political vendettas, trying to get at President Trump.
  There are tens of millions of dollars that were spent investigating 
what we now know was the Russia hoax. There was no collusion or 
conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, despite what people 
are trying to allude to now. It wasn't. The evidence wasn't there. 
Mueller was disappointed. Weissmann was disappointed. All of these 
left-wingers were disappointed that, despite all the intimidation, all 
the threats, they couldn't find somebody who could actually implicate 
any kind of collusion or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and 
Russia.
  But on Roger Stone's sentencing, when he was convicted, one of the 
charges was witness tampering. It sure sounds like he was kidding 
around by saying: Hey, I may have to come over and kill your dog.
  I mean, who says that if they are not kidding? That is not all that 
effective of a threat. But when you have a judge who can't stand the 
Trump administration, and you have a juror who gets on--I would really 
like to know what kind of questions the jury was asked during voir 
dire. If Roger Stone's attorneys did not ask the jury panel their 
feelings about Donald Trump, then it sure sounds like that would have 
been malpractice. Roger should have a great case against his own 
lawyers, plus a great case on appeal for their impropriety as his 
attorneys.
  But I find it hard to believe they wouldn't ask something about that 
because there is clearly some type of Trump derangement system. Some 
very smart, well-balanced people get so angry and frustrated over 
President Donald Trump that they don't think as straight as they 
normally would.
  But to have the foreperson of the jury, the head juror who controls 
the discussions, shut people down, encourage other people to speak--the 
head foreperson hates Donald Trump.
  Anyway, it is amazing the efforts that the Department of Justice, at 
least the U.S. Attorney's Office, had gone to, to become a tool for 
injustice. They wanted to max this guy out, the poor guy. Unbelievable.
  I have sent people to prison for life. I have sent people to prison 
for 10 years, 9 years. I have had to look people in the eye and order 
them to be taken to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and put to 
death. Those are serious matters, and you simply cannot let any

[[Page H1150]]

type of vengeance or political persuasion affect you.
  I know in east Texas, we have assistant U.S. attorneys who vote 
Democrat. But when it comes to enforcing the law, they enforce the law. 
They don't care what party you are. And it is so tragic, right here in 
our Nation's Capital, our own Justice Department, in our own D.C. U.S. 
Attorney's Office, you have people who are not nearly as just and fair 
as you find all over the country in most U.S. Attorney's Offices.
  Another issue of the local D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office was a guy 
named James Wolfe. He was indicted by a Federal grand jury on three 
counts of violating title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1001. At the time he 
made the alleged false statements to the FBI, James Wolfe was director 
of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and that 
was a position he had held for about 29 years.
  As the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence director of security, 
James Wolfe was entrusted with access to classified, secret, and top-
secret information provided by the executive branch, including the 
United States intelligence community that they provided to the Senate 
Select Committee on Intelligence.
  Wolfe was alleged to have lied to FBI agents in December 2017 about 
his repeated contacts with three reporters, including through his use 
of encrypted messaging applications. Wolfe is further alleged to have 
made false statements to the FBI about providing two reporters with 
nonpublic information related to the matters occurring before the 
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
  He was sentenced to 2 months in prison, 4 months supervised release 
for lying to the FBI. He has to complete 20 hours of community 
service--20 hours a month during his release for those 4 months--and 
pay a $7,500 fine.

  You compare what he did with what Roger Stone did. Roger Stone wasn't 
dealing with any classified information, secret or top secret. He used 
some bad judgment. But Jesse Liu's attorneys, these four who have now 
quit--thank God they quit.
  We need to get some people in there where, when it comes to 
prosecuting, it doesn't matter what the defendant's political 
persuasion is. You seek justice. And there are Democratic and 
Republican attorneys, prosecutors, around the country who are quite 
capable of doing that. So I sure hope that we will get some better 
attorneys in the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office.
  It is amazing. I thought about Sergeant York, that movie. I believe 
Gary Cooper played Sergeant York. They were in the trenches, and they 
couldn't see the bad guys to stop them. He ends up using a turkey call 
that he used back when he was turkey hunting. One after another, enemy 
soldiers would stick their head up, and he was able to knock them off 
and eventually capture this huge group. But in order to prevail, they 
had to get them to stick their heads up.
  I think that is what this Trump derangement syndrome has done. There 
are people who have been working pervasively and, apparently, with 
political vendettas, but they have been able to stay below the radar. 
Along comes President Trump, and they get so deranged that they expose 
who they are.
  So I thank all those political opportunists and zealots who use their 
position in the U.S. Government, including the Department of Justice, 
who have now exposed themselves.
  Vindman is one those people who have exposed his animosity, and it is 
really good that he is no longer part of the National Security Council. 
It is good his brother is no longer in the Office of General Counsel. I 
think we will see less leaks now that he is gone from there.
  Anyway, we are starting to see those people who have exposed 
themselves as political operatives, rather than doing justice, or 
following the orders of their Commander in Chief, we are seeing them 
exposed. We are seeing them moved out.
  I am hoping, in the days ahead, there will be a lot more of that 
occurring. I think justice will be served better so the American people 
can feel more like--and not one party or another. People need to be 
able to feel, as a whole, regardless of the political persuasion of 
some prosecutor, that justice is being pursued and done, as it is being 
done in so many Federal districts all over the country. It has been a 
problem here in Washington, D.C.
  When that happens, we will all be better off.
  Madam Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________