[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 38 (Wednesday, February 26, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H1219-H1223]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           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, first, I want to address a bill that we 
voted on this afternoon, one of the three bills under the suspension of 
the rules, H.R. 35, to amend section 249 of title 18, United States 
Code, to specify lynching as a hate crime act.
  I was in the Judiciary Committee when we took up the hate crimes act. 
I know there were people who said because of James Byrd, the African 
American who was drug behind a truck by three individuals, that that 
was a poster case that demanded hate crime legislation.
  Actually, I was quite comfortable if all three of the defendants in 
that case had gotten the death penalty. In Texas, we do have the death 
penalty for such a crime as that. Two of the three got the death 
penalty. One got life in prison. And I felt like the death penalty, 
from everything I had read, was appropriate.
  I am someone who has looked two defendants in the eye and sentenced 
them to death. It is a very somber, serious thing to do, but the crimes 
justified it in those cases.
  I was talking to my friend, Congressman   Bobby Rush, a man who has 
been fighting injustice and unfairness, seems like, his whole life. He 
is absolutely one of the kindest, most decent people to talk to and 
deal with here in Congress. He is just a real gentleman. This was 
Congressman Rush's bill. And I mentioned to him after the vote--I did 
vote ``no'' on this.
  Now, there are some great findings for the first six pages. But at 
page 7, we finally get to actually what the act does. It says: Whoever 
conspires with another to violate section 245, 247, or 249 of this 
title or section 901 of the Civil Rights Act shall be punished in the 
same manner as a completed violation of such section, except that if 
the maximum term of imprisonment for such completed violation is less 
than 10 years, the person may be imprisoned for not more than 10 years.
  That is ridiculous. First of all, I have trouble with the Federal 
nexus of lynching. I would, like in the James Byrd case, prefer that 
those defendants be tried under the Texas capital murder statute rather 
than under the Federal hate crimes law. Because under the Texas capital 
murder laws, the defendants could get the death penalty. And they 
should have been tried under that and should have gotten it.
  I have such respect for Congressman Rush. Lynching is more serious 
than a 10-year maximum sentence. And I would much rather, if somebody 
is lynched in Texas, they be subject, under Texas law, to the death 
penalty rather than a 10-year maximum. It sends entirely the wrong 
message about how serious this is. I couldn't vote for a 10-year 
maximum when we are talking about lynching.
  I know there are some States that don't have good criminal laws, that 
maybe they would prefer the Federal Government try such cases. But 
Congressman Rush said this was the best he could get an agreement on. 
But, God bless him, he knows better than most people how serious this 
is.
  So on the one hand, I applaud his efforts at trying to bring people 
to justice who would commit such a heinous act, and I regret needing to 
vote ``no.'' But I just felt like this is too serious to be handled at 
such a low level.

                              {time}  1600

  So I thank Congressman Rush for his efforts. He is indeed a very fine 
man. It is a pleasure to interact with him here in Congress, but I 
couldn't vote for that. That is just too serious.
  I have had a friend I met here years ago named Philip Haney. He was 
one of the finest, most patriotic, competent people I have ever known 
in my life, a man of absolute honesty, complete integrity, who cared 
deeply about the future of this country. He also was a

[[Page H1220]]

Christian brother, and that certainly affected so much of what he did.
  Philip studied Arabic culture and language while he was working as a 
scientist in the Middle East before he became a founding member of the 
Department of Homeland Security in 2002. He was there at the beginning 
when Homeland Security became a Department for the first time. He was a 
Customs and Border Protection agriculture officer.
  He was a scientist by education and training. It was amazing how 
organized and how brilliant he was. I constantly marveled at his 
ability to organize facts in his own head and memorize them, remember 
things so clearly.
  But after he advanced as a CBP officer, where he served several tours 
of duty at the National Targeting Center near Washington, D.C., he was 
quickly promoted to its Advanced Targeting Team, which was an 
unprecedented accomplishment for an agent on temporary duty assignment.
  The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Award was something he was 
presented in recognition of his exceptional contributions to 
interagency national security successes. He won numerous awards and 
commendations from his superiors for meticulously compiling information 
and reports that led to the identification of hundreds of terrorists.
  He specialized in Islamic theology and the strategy and tactics of 
the global Islamic movement. He wrote a book after he left and retired 
from government service, a takeoff on the Obama administration's 
slogan, ``See Something, Say Something.''
  But, as he experienced firsthand, he saw things that were a threat to 
this country, he said something, and he was severely punished for it, 
because apparently the Obama administration had some radical Islamic 
ties that they did not want anybody, including Philip Haney, to expose.
  So, he had a book that he wrote, ``See Something, Say Nothing,'' and 
it documented the Obama administration's effort to obfuscate the role 
that radical Islam played in numerous terrorist attacks that took place 
in America from 2008 to 2016.
  One review of Philip's book described it as an expose of a 
politically correct Federal Government that capitulates to a subversive 
enemy within and punishes those who reject its narrative.
  In 2016, he, as a whistleblower, testified before the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, chaired by then-Senator Ted Cruz, to allege that 
the Obama administration had acted irresponsibly concerning Islamic 
extremism. Philip Haney claimed that the administration had acted in 
favor of political correctness rather than take actions that may well 
have prevented the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando and 
the San Bernardino shooting in December of 2015.
  He was investigating groups that helped radicalize normal Muslim 
believers, radicalizing them to the point that they would commit acts 
of terror, and he found some ties. It was amazing, when he got ahold of 
a string, how he could trace that string back to its roots.
  He once said that he did, at the Department of Homeland Security, 
what he did with bugs: He followed the trail and found the nest. It was 
amazing how he could do that, and that is the reason he was cited as he 
was.
  In fact, this letter from June 8 of 2012 to Officer Philip B. Haney:

       On behalf of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, I commend 
     your outstanding contributions while assigned to the National 
     Targeting Center-Passenger. Your display of dedication and 
     effort in the fight against terrorism has been exemplary.
       Your talents and professionalism have contributed to the 
     continued achievements of the NTC-P. You played a key role by 
     providing support to the CBP mission and the NTC lead role in 
     defending and protecting our Nation's borders. A key 
     component of the National Targeting Center-Passenger's 
     success is the invaluable people, like you, who perform the 
     work in our important mission. I am confident to know that 
     CBP can rely upon you to provide expertise to combat threats 
     against our Nation.
       Additionally, your expertise and experience has been 
     invaluable while assigned to the Advanced Targeting Team. 
     Your research on the Tablighi Jamaat Initiative has assisted 
     in the identification of over 300 persons with possible 
     connections to terrorism. The assistance you have provided in 
     the development of this initiative has been key to the future 
     success of the project. The National Targeting Center looks 
     forward to your continuing support and assistance in the 
     program.
       Once again, thank you for your unfailing commitment to the 
     success of the National Targeting System mission. Your 
     professional actions and achievements reflect favorably on 
     you and all of the Customs and Border Protection.
       Thank you for a job well done.

  Well, that was June of 2012. It wasn't terribly long after that he 
had been entering information on radical Islamic ties with people in 
the United States, attempting to come into the United States, with ties 
to people in the United States. He was documenting all those things.
  We had a Secretary of Homeland Security who bragged about how 
Homeland Security could connect the dots, and then he was ordered to 
start removing these dots, so to speak. He was ordered to start 
deleting thousands of pages of data that he had carefully researched 
and identified that would help protect America.
  That was during the Obama administration.
  He was scared for his country, that the Obama administration would 
make him delete, and there was an occasion when he was watching his 
computer and somebody started deleting hundreds of pages of documents 
as he watched, hundreds of pages of information that would have helped 
keep America safe for the future.

  There was an opportunity the House of Representatives had--we were in 
the majority--where he could have been brought in as a specially 
requested agent for the House. Apparently, there were people who were 
afraid that he had so much information that the Obama administration 
might come after anybody who was attempting to help or protect him and 
the valuable information he had.
  He wasn't brought in. He was told: Oh, go file an IG complaint with 
the Homeland Security inspector general.
  I implored him that that would be a mistake because the inspector 
general at that time at Homeland Security had already been cited for 
falsifying an IG report to protect the Obama administration. We knew 
that it was not going to be a fair inspector general investigation.
  In fact, he became a whistleblower, filed his IG complaint about the 
Obama administration deleting so much data from its database to help 
identify terrorists, and, clearly, for anybody who was involved in that 
effort to purge our computer data on foreign terrorists, his complaint 
could be seen as a threat to expose people within the Obama 
administration who were involved in purging or, as one of our intel 
people--Homeland Security, like DOJ, began to blind itself of the 
ability to see our enemies.
  That is why, even though he was investigating Tablighi Jamaat and the 
manner in which normal Muslim believers were converted into radicals 
who would be capable of murder, there were a number of things that he 
noticed that they did to move people in that direction.
  He identified that the people at San Bernardino who killed, I think 
it was, 14 Americans there, that, if he had been allowed to pursue his 
investigation, would have identified those people.
  We blinded ourselves of the ability to see our enemy, and we also had 
not been training people.
  Philip had identified a female in California involved in the 
shooting. She took on the name of a famous radical Islamic male 
terrorist. If he had been allowed to question her, he would have 
immediately known: There is something very wrong here. Why would you 
take on the name of a male terrorist, historic terrorist?
  But it had been made very clear in the Obama administration that, if 
you are too active in pursuit of radical Islamists, it is not going to 
go well for you.

                              {time}  1615

  And, in fact, after he filed the IG report, I think it was an effort 
for some in the Obama administration to protect themselves. We have now 
seen it occur with the Trump campaign.
  There was a Grand Jury that was convened to go after and try to 
destroy Philip Haney's life. His wife, Francesca, was a college 
professor, and the trauma of being raided, constantly harassed, and 
questioned, seeing one of the finest, most honest and honorable 
protectors of America in our history,

[[Page H1221]]

Philip Haney, she saw him just being savaged. And it ended up resulting 
in her going to the hospital. Whether it was a full-blown nervous 
breakdown or not, I am not sure, but it sent her to the hospital to 
have the United States Government go after a man she knew was a hero 
for and to the United States.
  Well, Philip was so meticulous, so organized. They couldn't find 
anything with which to indict him. They were trying to drag up 
something, but he had documented well everything he had ever done. It 
was the way he was. It is who he was. They couldn't find anything to 
indict him. They had already moved him in basically a closet, kept him 
from doing the job he was the best at in protecting America. And 
finally they basically said, we can't find anything. So, look, if you 
will just agree to retire, then we will let everything go, but you have 
got to destroy stuff in your possession.
  Well, he retired, and that is when he wrote the book See Something, 
Say Nothing. He had been savaged by his own government, his own country 
that he was trying to protect.
  And I had commented to him about his book. He had given me a draft to 
read before it was published. I said, Philip, you don't really name a 
whole lot of names in this book about where the problems have been. He 
said, ``I know, this is just the first draft. I will do another that 
names names.'' And that is what he was working on.
  After Francesca died about a year ago, he moved to California and was 
near his sister, Diana. I was so thrilled to get a text from Philip 
saying basically, I have met someone. She is wonderful. They were soul 
mates. And I texted him that I had a minister friend that had said, you 
know, it is interesting, when men who have been in long marriages have 
their wife pass away, it is not unusual; in fact, it may be average, to 
have them remarried in 6 months. Of course, he volunteered, women that 
had been in a longstanding marriage when their husband dies, a lot of 
them don't ever want to remarry. It is an interesting difference.
  I wasn't surprised that Philip had found love again. Philip and 
Denise were going to be married on April 4. It appeared he would be 
coming back to work for the United States Government and finally be 
able to put to full use his incredible knack for rooting out 
terrorists.
  I was amazed, because when you met Philip, you weren't sure. He was 
kind of a quiet guy, and you didn't realize at first just how brilliant 
he was. He could ask questions--and I know he did this with people 
trying to come into the country--and he got people to volunteer 
information. I bet they thought, oh, this guy, what a doofus. What does 
he know? He got them to volunteer information that I doubt I could have 
ever gotten out of them, no matter how tough a cross-examination I had 
done. But Phil in his amazing way, he could get information out of 
people. It was amazing what he was able to do and capable of doing.
  So he had hoped to be coming back in the next few weeks to work for 
the Federal Government. But then he got some news last week that he 
needed to have open heart surgery. The chances of success were very 
good. Complete success shouldn't be too long of a recuperation time. 
And he passed that along to the person that he was going to be coming 
to work for in the Federal Government. Sent him a text, I have got to 
have open heart surgery next week, but basically hope to be available 
for work shortly after that. Short recuperation.
  Philip either talked or texted with his sister virtually every day, 
and they texted up to the evening last Thursday. And Friday he was 
found in his car with a gunshot wound and a gun nearby.
  I think the Amador County law officials are doing a decent job. They 
seem to be very committed. But his book was going to name names of 
people that put this country at risk. He was getting married April 4. 
Finally going to be able to come back to the U.S. Government and use 
his incredible talents and ability to spot danger for our country and 
stop it, and he ends up with a bullet in him.
  So the investigation is ongoing. He is severely missed by those of us 
who loved him. We had talked back before he filed the IG complaint, I 
had been concerned about his safety with all the information he knew 
and the people that could have gotten in trouble. And we had a mutual 
pact, if it was said either one of us ended up having committed 
suicide, then the other is going to make sure that truth wins out.
  He was so organized, though. He had made it clear to his sister that 
there was something he was going to do and something he was doing, he 
said you need to come over because I have got everything laid out. If 
something happens during the heart surgery next week, I have everything 
laid out. And that is how he was, everything was so organized. I would 
love to be as organized as Phil.
  Philip had such a positive outlook on things. He had been through a 
horrendous time with his wife having been made ill by the raucous Obama 
administration coming after him to try to shut him up.
  See, that is a real whistleblower. He testified before the Senate. 
That is what a real whistleblower does. A real whistleblower does not 
remain anonymous. They come forward, subject themselves to cross-
examination, and supposedly have protection.
  But that is not what happened in the Obama administration. In fact, 
the Obama administration prosecuted more people for leaking than every 
other administration in our country's history added together. They went 
after whistleblowers. Rather tragic. I can't adequately express it.
  February 5, 2016, The Hill had an article about Phil. ``DHS Ordered 
Me to Scrub Records of Muslims with Terror Ties.''
  Conservative HQ, George Rasley has done a really nice piece; ``In 
Memoriam: Philip B. Haney, 21st Century Paul Revere.''
  Fox News had an article by Nick Givas, ``Philip Haney, DHS 
Whistleblower During Obama Era, Found Dead, Police Say.''
  Joe Martin, ``Philip Haney: Whistleblower and Happy Warrior.''
  What an amazing man. I miss him. I miss getting his cheery text 
messages. And I know his fiance and his sister and even his brother-in-
law misses getting those messages, as well.
  So there is big news supposedly that the Trump administration is now 
trying to make sure that people that are working for the Trump 
administration are actually working for it and not against it.
  And the truth is, President Trump got some bad advice from people 
that were not concerned about his achieving the goals he promised he 
would work toward, but they were interested in stopping him.
  We found out after the George W. Bush administration there were 
holdovers from the Clinton years that would tell President Bush, yes, 
sir, we will take care of it, and then drag their feet and made sure 
what he wanted didn't happen, and even would leak information to try to 
stop President Bush from achieving what he hoped to achieve. And we 
have certainly seen that occur in the Trump administration.
  In fact, an article mentions Rich Higgins, he had prepared 
information, basically a memo, on how to move forward and how the Trump 
administration could protect itself from people that would try to stop 
President Trump and to make sure that people working for him were 
actually working for him.
  But a buddy of Mr. Brennan and Mr. Clapper, named H.R. McMaster, 
found out about the memo and instead of rewarding Rich Higgins for his 
brilliant work to help the Trump administration, he had him perp walked 
out and refused to let him even go back to his office. Because Mr. 
McMaster, despite his front and his sucking up to President Trump, he 
was all about stopping President Trump.
  And for his time there he may have helped on some little things, but 
overall he was making sure--it certainly appeared to me he was making 
sure--that President Trump didn't achieve the goals he hoped to, and, 
in fact, was heard to bad-mouth, say vulgar things about President 
Trump. So it was good when he was gone.
  And President Trump has continued to work on efforts to get people 
that actually want to help him achieve his goals. And naturally deep-
state establishment people in Washington, they don't want to see that 
happen, so they

[[Page H1222]]

throw up things like, oh, gee, the Trump administration is on a witch 
hunt. It is not on a witch hunt. It just wants people that will work to 
help the President achieve his goals.
  If, for example, you have an inane person working with the National 
Security Council and in his mind he knows everything that anybody needs 
to know about Ukraine, and he puts together talking points for the 
President to use in talking to the President of Ukraine and the 
President doesn't follow his expert talking points because the 
President is foreign policy when he gets elected, not what some 
lieutenant colonel thinks--but you can tell Vindman got a burr in his 
saddle, so to speak, when the President didn't follow his talking 
points to a T.

                              {time}  1630

  He needed to go. It appears he likely leaked information to the so-
called whistleblower, not a real whistleblower.
  A real whistleblower is a man of courage and integrity, like Phil 
Haney. That is a real whistleblower.
  A real whistleblower is somebody like Adam Lovinger, who sees that 
the Department of Defense is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, 
multiple payments, to some professor in London named Stefan Halper, who 
happens to be setting up the Trump campaign so that they can get 
warrants against it, and the Department of Defense is paying this guy. 
But Adam's job is making sure the Defense Department was getting their 
money's worth when they paid, and he couldn't see they were getting any 
money's worth from this Stefan Halper guy in London.
  If the left really wants to see somebody prosecuted who was in the 
U.S. Government who was paying for foreign interference in our 
election, maybe they should start with the guys that came after Adam 
Lovinger, a real whistleblower, not like this guy that filed a secret 
complaint that wasn't firsthand, had no personal knowledge. They just 
knew they wanted to stop President Trump and didn't mind putting the 
United States Government at risk by doing so, because, after all, they 
hated the President.
  So it is worth looking back a little bit.
  Here is an article from October 19, 2016, titled ``Obama's plan to 
make the administrative state permanent,'' by Nathan Mehrens. This is 
before the election, a month before the 2016 election. He points out 
that: ``President Obama's cronies are being placed into permanent staff 
positions in the Federal Government, and the administration is not even 
bothering to follow its own personnel rules which govern the process.''
  Apparently, there were people in the Obama administration that 
realized: You know, there is a chance Trump could win this election. 
Even though we are sure the American people will elect Hillary Clinton, 
there is a chance.
  There are supposedly around 4,000 people or so that an administration 
appoints into politically appointed positions, but those people are 
subject to being fired on the whim of a new President. So, according to 
this article, the Obama administration started taking people who were 
political appointees and moving them into career appointments.
  We have even seen a case in Arizona where a Federal employee commits 
a Federal crime, is found guilty of a Federal crime, and a court comes 
back later and said: Eh, that wasn't an adequate basis to fire a 
Federal employee.
  Well, once you get into a position like she was in, it is hard to 
root them out even when they have committed a Federal crime in their 
job. That was in the VA. We have changed the law with regard to VA to 
make it easier to fire felons that commit felonies when they are in 
their job at the VA.
  The Office of Personnel Management's Director in November 2009 made a 
big show of a new policy requiring prior approval for these 
conversions, taking a political appointee and what is called burrowing 
them into the Federal Government so they will be part of the deep 
state, hard to ever get rid of, when they are nothing but political 
hacks.
  This statement says:

       I believe we must hold ourselves and the government to a 
     higher standard, one that honors and supports the President's 
     strong commitment to a government that is transparent and 
     open. OPM's responsibility to uphold the merit system is not 
     limited to Presidential election years nor to competitive 
     service appointments. That is why I am instituting a change 
     in OPM policy with respect to hiring political appointees for 
     civil service jobs.

  They go on to say that in order to convert somebody from political 
appointee to career civil service status, they have to get the 
permission of OPM. But as the article says, apparently, some agencies 
didn't see the need to bother with that permission, and they processed 
conversions without OPM permission.
  So we see what is happening.
  Here is another article, this one is from November 27, after 
President Trump was elected:

       Congressional Republicans are warning the departing Obama 
     administration against moving any more political appointees 
     into career jobs.

  But that is what they had done.
  It says: ``Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, has asked Acting 
OPM Director Beth Cobert for weekly reports on all conversions or 
attempted conversions.''
  But I would be willing to bet they didn't get what they were asking 
for, certainly not all of it.
  This article is from December 8, 2016. This is from the Daily Signal, 
Fred Lucas: ``After President Barack Obama exits office, at least 88 of 
his political appointees will likely remain working in the Federal 
Government under a Donald Trump administration, according to numbers 
from the Office of Personnel Management.''
  It goes on to talk about ``Federal agencies selected 112 political 
appointees for career civil service jobs,'' and that is just in 
December. They had about another 6 weeks to be moving people from 
political appointee positions into civil service so that when President 
Trump came in, he would have people in key positions who would hate 
him, be loyal to people like Sally Yates and President Obama, others, 
Brennan, Clapper. They could undermine the Trump administration, as 
they have been doing for 3 years now.
  In Axios, Jonathan Swan comes out with an article this week that 
appears to be taking aim at some people who are friends of the 
President who are trying to help him figure out who it is that is 
undermining and has no interest in helping President Trump achieve his 
goals and, in fact, has an interest in destroying them.
  Three years in, I would think a President should be entitled to 
people working for him who are actually working for him and not against 
him, but I am sure there will be more people who I classify as heroes 
trying to help President Trump make America even greater by getting the 
people out that are trying to stop what he promised to do.

  People will come after one of my heroes, Ginni Thomas, the wife of 
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Barbara Ledeen, and those 
who are coming after people that are trying to help President Trump, 
have people who actually like him working for him, not people who can 
just suck up to him, but people who will actually like him, support his 
agenda, and want to help, and I think we will be seeing a lot more of 
that.
  It is a shame that they have not been doing articles pointing out 
some of these duplicitous people who say they are loyal to the Trump 
administration, and they do all they can to undermine it and violate 
their oaths.
  I still believe if Durham doesn't end up indicting some people who 
could go to jail, we won't get the country back.
  There is no deterrence in what has gone on so far. People abused the 
FISA court system, repeatedly lied to a Federal judge or judges in the 
FISA court to get warrants to spy on the Trump administration.
  If there are no consequences, if people who have made it an 
instrument of politics to use the intelligence community, Department of 
Justice, Department of Defense, State Department to try to defeat a 
Presidential candidate, and then when he gets elected, try to remove 
him from office, if there aren't multiple people who go to jail for 
what they have done, the crimes committed, then there is no deterrence. 
They will be up to it even bigger, but next time, they will have 
figured out where they made mistakes in getting caught and being 
unsuccessful, and we will lose the

[[Page H1223]]

freedom we once had to select our own leaders.
  But I don't hear of these authors. I don't read any of these authors 
actually condemning the DNC, the Clinton campaign, the Department of 
Defense, the DOJ in using and getting help from foreigners to try to 
combat the Trump campaign and to affect our election.
  Anybody who would say on this floor that there were no Ukrainians 
involved in trying to affect our election, they are just ignorant. You 
know, there is no harm, we are all ignorant of some things, but they 
are ignorant of the facts.
  We can start with the op-ed that the Ambassador from Ukraine wrote 
before the election, trashing President Trump. That is trying to affect 
our election by a Ukrainian, and we know it had to go a lot deeper than 
that.
  I would love to see some of these folks who want to come after 
President Trump and come after those of us who would like free and fair 
elections, I would like to see them be more fair on both sides of the 
aisle, as far as where crimes have really been committed.
  If we are going to preserve this little experiment in self-
government, there needs to be multiple people go to jail for the crimes 
they have committed. If that doesn't happen, we are in big trouble.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________