[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 85 (Thursday, May 16, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H3323-H3326]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        WEAPONIZATION OF THE DOJ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Good) for 30 minutes.


                             General Leave

  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their 
remarks and include extraneous material on the topic of the subject of 
this Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, of all of the harm done over the 
past 3 years by Democrats, perhaps most damaging has been the loss of 
faith and trust in our most sacred institutions, especially our 
judicial system and our Federal law enforcement.
  Like never before, the Department of Injustice has explicitly 
demonstrated a willingness to target conservatives and political 
opponents. They are not even pretending anymore.
  Whether conducting SWAT raids in tactical gear at the homes of pro-
life protesters, targeting and arresting concerned parents at school 
board meetings, buying private data on those exercising their Second 
Amendment rights, surveilling Catholics practicing their faith in 
Richmond, or the disparate treatment of January 6 prisoners, it is no 
surprise that half of the country doesn't trust the people in power in 
this administration.

                              {time}  1900

  Of course, their biggest and most immediate target is the 47th 
President of the United States because they know that Donald J. Trump 
is the primary obstacle to their quest to conquer and control the 
citizens of the United States, stripping them of their pesky 
constitutional freedoms.
  The egregious lawfare, the abusive legal persecution of President 
Trump, is nothing more than election interference at the highest 
levels. It is a violation of voters' rights. It is criminal conspiracy. 
Their aim is to put in jail the only person, President Trump, who is 
protecting the American people from 4 more years of descent into an 
abyss from which we would never recover.
  Democrats know with our country and every American far worse off than 
they were 3 years ago, they cannot beat President Trump at the ballot 
box. Whether you are talking about the border invasion, whether you are 
talking about the surrender of our energy independence, whether you are 
talking the onslaught of regulations that is costing the average family 
thousands of dollars, whether you are talking about the 40-year high 
inflation that Americans are suffering under, whether you are talking 
about our weakened military or our weakened foreign policy and the 
conflicts all over the world that didn't exist when President Trump was 
in office, Americans in this country are much worse off than they were 
3 years ago when President Trump was in office.
  The department of injustice, because they cannot beat him at the 
ballot box in November, colludes illegally and unconstitutionally with 
these rogue prosecutors and judges in New York and Atlanta.
  They send Matthew Colangelo from the Department of Justice to New 
York. They corroborate with Fani Willis' boyfriend, who bills the 
Georgia taxpayers for hours spent working with the Department of 
Justice. The judge in New York City, who just happens to be assigned 
somehow every high-profile case of persecution of high-profile 
conservatives, abuses his power by declaring a gag order, not to ensure 
the defendant, President Trump, gets a fair trial but to prevent 
President Trump, the defendant, from defending himself in the court of 
public opinion.
  The efforts to rig the 2020 election included the suppression of 
conservative views, the phony Russia collusion scandal, spying on the 
Trump campaign, the dirty Steele dossier, the relaxation of voting 
procedures in the name of COVID to facilitate the ability to cheat.
  Their efforts to rig the 2024 election, however, are much more 
explicit and transparent: prevent President Donald Trump from being on 
the ballot. When that failed, keep him off the campaign trail and bleed 
his resources. Better still, the coup de grace for them: Put him in 
jail via dishonest convictions and crooked courts while he waits for 
what will surely be certain victory by appeal.
  As always with these people, the process is the punishment. In fact, 
this judge in this New York City trial, his daughter is raising 
millions of dollars off the trial for the Democratic Party.
  The ex-con, the star witness, admitted today to multiple counts of 
perjury in his testimony under oath. These ridiculous trials, so-called 
improper business records, so-called overvaluation of assets, alleged 
document mishandling in Florida for a President who can declare 
anything declassified by simply possessing it, alleged election 
interference--that is rich coming from the Democratic Party and these 
rogue prosecutors colluding with the DOJ. All of this began when 
President Trump declared his candidacy for reelection.
  Who was harmed by these alleged crimes? Who were the victims? What 
was the real crime? Of course, no one, no one, and nothing. This is not 
going to work. The American people know it for what it is.
  The truth and the law are on the side of President Trump, and he is 
going to be the 47th President.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).
  Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for doing this.
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to try to dovetail with what Mr. Good has 
talked about, and that is the weaponization of the Federal Government 
against American citizens for political purposes.
  It is bad enough when it becomes weaponized against American 
citizens, but it becomes actually exponentially worse when it becomes a 
tool of authoritarianism to actually attack political opponents.
  Why is it worse? It is worse because it undermines the very 
foundation of the rule of law and of the free association and free 
speech of American citizens, from which we recognize all of our 
political apparatus.
  Let's think about this. We know the committee of weaponization, the 
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, 
recently put out a report dealing

[[Page H3324]]

with the misuse of financial records of Americans. Imagine if the 
Federal Government could get ahold of everybody's credit card 
statements. Well, they can, actually. Why can they? Because they have 
asked for it, and the banks and credit card companies, many of them, 
have actually turned that information over to the FBI and the 
Department of Justice.
  For what reason? There is no particular reason. There is no indicia 
of probable cause or suspicious behavior. They are just acquiring 
metadata so they can go after and pursue the individuals.
  We see the same thing with this movement to buy up additional 
metadata from data brokers, private commercial data brokers. They do 
that so they can avoid the requirements of suspicious conduct or 
probable cause.
  That is what went on when the FBI actually did millions of queries on 
American citizens and did hundreds of thousands of illegal searches of 
the data of American citizens.
  They didn't have probable cause. There was nothing, according to 
statute. This is part of the problem with the FISA statute. They had no 
reason to believe that any of those searches would lead to finding 
criminal conduct, yet they still went after these American citizens.
  The DOJ and judiciary are joined by the ATF. The ATF has been going 
after firearm licensees, distributors, trying to find technical errors 
showing up because this is the way the Biden administration is trying 
to disarm the American public.

  It just goes on. Every institution has been weaponized. The military 
has been weaponized.
  It looks like General Perry is here. He might want to talk about 
that.
  The education system is weaponized. You know what happens when you 
have a generation or two that has been indoctrinated into how bad this 
country is, that we have no moral high ground, that we don't respect 
freedom, that we are going to basically embrace critical race theory 
and that type of the thing.
  First of all, you remember that when they did this, they said there 
is no such thing as critical race theory. That is what the Democrats 
said here. We were in Judiciary. We had debates on it. They said there 
is no such thing.
  Of course, there is such a thing. Critical theory grew right out of 
the Frankfurt School, the philosophical group that was led by Jurgen 
Habermas, Theodor Adorno and the others in the Frankfurt School. They 
came over and created the critical theory.
  In the early seventies, a law professor created the notion of 
critical race theory. He published articles. It was adopted. The 
reality is what has happened with that is you have an indoctrinated 
generation that believes that America is no good, was no good, and will 
never be good because it is systemically and inherently problematic. It 
is not just critical race theory. There is a whole bundle of other 
critical arguments related to critical theory.
  You have district attorneys and county attorneys who have run on the 
notion that those who commit violent crime are misunderstood and should 
be released into the public, and that those who are victimized become 
marginalized, which is why I introduced the ALVIN bill, which was to 
get at Mr. Bragg in New York, and the WILLIS Act.
  What are these meant to do? They are meant to use what the Founders 
gave us within the Constitution, which is our opportunity to use the 
funding streams and the purse strings to actually try to bring a 
runaway executive branch back in.
  This all culminates in today's actions. What do we see happening? I 
won't steal my friend's thunder because he was talking about former 
President Donald Trump, who is undergoing four pieces of lawfare. Those 
lawfare originated right in the White House. They are coming down from 
President Biden. How do we know that? Because the paramour of Fani 
Willis came up and met in the White House to get instructions. How do 
we know that? Because Jack Smith, who is prosecuting him here on the 
Mar-a-Lago case, went to the White House multiple times to get 
instructions. How do we know that? Because Alvin Bragg also met with 
the White House. How do we know that? Because Matthew Colangelo, one of 
the high-ranking DOJ lawyers, left that DOJ and went to Alvin Bragg's 
office after Alvin Bragg and everybody else who looked at the case that 
is going on in New York City said there is no there there.
  By the way, they probably were also told your two star witnesses are 
Stormy Daniels, who has basically said multiple times--four different 
times--there was never any interaction between her and Donald Trump, 
and then Michael Cohen, who has a long string of convictions for lying. 
He lied about lying, and then he lied about lying about lying today. We 
heard it in the hours of testimony we saw.
  The next step is, how else do you weaponize government? You use it to 
shield bad acts from the public. Let me give you one. This is my last 
one. Today, the Judiciary Committee voted to hold Merrick Garland in 
contempt of court. Tonight, I anticipate the Oversight Committee will 
do the same.
  What did the Biden administration do? President Biden has asserted 
executive privilege. Now, I want my colleagues to think about this for 
just a moment. The rationale for the executive privilege based on what 
Merrick Garland said today, both in an oral and written statement, was 
two reasons. Number one, we are not going to be able to pursue 
sensitive investigations. He didn't say how that works, but that is not 
a reason for executive privilege. It isn't. The other thing with regard 
to executive privilege is they talked about politics and the political 
ramifications if this audio recording was released.
  Now, you have already released the transcript. By the way, both of 
those arguments are undercut because you already released a written 
transcript.
  The only reason not to bring out the recording is because you were 
abashed, embarrassed because you either doctored your transcript, your 
written transcript, or because the performance is so egregiously bad in 
the oral transcript. Neither of those will work.
  I am going to call right now and remind everybody that we can take 
action here. We should. I will just tell you that that is another way 
that you can weaponize government. That is to hide information, fail to 
be transparent. That is what this administration has done.

                              {time}  1915

  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Biggs, an 
esteemed member of the Judiciary Committee for his comments.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry), 
my good friend.
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the House Freedom 
Caucus and the former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus for their 
comments.
  I am happy to join in a colloquy with them over the abuses of power 
and the dangers of the abuse of power.
  The Framers of the Constitution noted that it was the avarice of man, 
the avarice of mankind, the greed of mankind that compelled them to set 
this government up the way they did, so that there were three separate 
but coequal branches that would compete with one another and hold each 
other in check, Mr. Speaker.
  It all depended on a few things. It depended on a public, it depended 
on men and women that would take care, who would put things above 
themselves that are bigger than themselves. It depended on a people 
that believed in the sanctity and the providence of God.
  Mr. Speaker, it is a little ripped up here because I carry it with me 
everywhere, but this is the Constitution of the United States of 
America. I think you can clearly see it is a piece of paper for all 
intents and purposes. It cannot defend itself. It rides around in my 
pocket. It depends on people of integrity to defend it, to uphold it 
and this judicial system we have.
  This system of justice we have is no different.
  If people are willing to abuse it, it can no more defend itself than 
this piece of paper known as the Constitution can defend itself. It 
depends on us. When it is so willingly abused for avarice, for the 
greed of mankind, there is little that can be done about it.
  This body can do little. Unfortunately, the little we can do there 
has been no interest shown in doing it,

[[Page H3325]]

which is the power of funding it. Unfortunately, while we see the 
abuses, while we watch the abuses front and center, the power that we 
have to say we will stop it, we have, unfortunately, given them more 
authority, given them more money than they have even asked for to 
continue to abuse it.
  My friends, my colleagues visited a courthouse today with the former 
President of the United States for a case in which there is no crime 
enumerated because there is no crime--specious witnesses to say the 
least, unfortunately. It is a sad tale no matter which way you look at 
it.
  The reason I am bringing it up and the former speaker brought it up 
is because you know who can't bring it up? The defendant, the former 
President of the United States as a defendant can't bring it up because 
there has been a gag order placed on him.
  Mr. Speaker, gag orders are meant--and I am not an attorney, but I 
think my good friend from Arizona would admit--to protect the accused. 
Yet, the accused is the one who can't speak in his own defense on his 
own behalf. Meanwhile, the people that are accusing him, the awesome, 
unbelievable power of the State--when I say the State, the government, 
the Federal Government, unlimited resources provided by taxpayers, that 
is what the accused is up against.
  We know because we have seen from history that the accused is the one 
who is little able to defend themselves, guilty or not guilty, so we 
want to provide every single protection to the accused, just in case--
just in case, Mr. Speaker, they might not be guilty as charged.
  Yet, in this instance, the avarice of man, the guilt and the greed of 
mankind has compelled this side of the aisle to go after with such a 
vengeance and use the instruments and the authority of the Federal 
Government to go after their political rivals.
  They are blinded by their greed.
  They are blinded by their hatred.
  They are blinded by their need to control power so much so that they 
will do anything, and they have done anything.
  We are watching the case in Florida where now we found out the 
evidence was tampered with. Oh, my goodness, it sure appears like, 
forget the evidence being tampered with, because it is being tampered 
with by the same people who appear to have set up the whole charade in 
the first place, again, against their political rival, the former 
President of the United States, who might very well be the next 
President of the United States.
  I say all that to say this: History has shown us--and if you have 
traveled at all and watched conflicts around the world--that these 
injuries that occur from one side to the other tend to repeat 
themselves because then if there is going to be a redress--in other 
words, if there is going to be a fix or a solution to that egregious 
misuse of power, then the other side is compelled to it when they are 
in a position of authority. It takes unbelievable will and integrity to 
say we are not going to engage in that kind of thing. If we are in a 
position of authority, we are not going to succumb to the greed and the 
avarice of mankind if you put us in authority.
  Mr. Speaker, we all fall short of the grace of God, and the 
temptation can be overwhelming, which is why it is so important that 
both sides lay down their greed and say: We are going to try and do 
this fair and square. We are going to try to do this the right way. We 
are going to try to win the argument and not use the instruments of 
Federal power where we otherwise could. We are not going to do that.
  Unfortunately, we are in the unchartered territory of the United 
States of America where that is not the case. This is the charted 
territory of many despots, dictators, and tyrants around the globe 
throughout history, and now it has come home to America. Unfortunately, 
in one of the major political parties in the United States of America. 
We are watching it weaponized not only against President Trump but 
average citizens, average citizens who fear that if they might speak, 
that they might be held in contempt, and they might be bankrupted by 
somebody that disagrees with them politically.
  I will turn it back to my good friend from Virginia and thank him for 
the time and for bringing the subject up.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Biggs) for some final thoughts.
  Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate both of the chairmen for their 
comments.
  I want to add just a couple things. We are a constitutional republic. 
We are not a democracy. A constitutional republic actually elects 
representatives to make decisions and represent the will of a district 
or a State. That is the distinction.
  Democracy actually comes from the Latin word ``demos''. It is where 
the people themselves are voting directly on the issues and decisions 
to be made. That is really what happens in a democracy, which is why 
the Founders warned us and said: You have a constitutional republic, 
you don't have a democracy. You don't have a democracy because 
democracies have been short and turbulent in their destruction.
  As one historian said in about 1804, it has been the sad history of 
democracies that as soon as people realize they can vote themselves 
benefits from the government, they do so, and the government 
terminates. So we have a constitutional republic.
  We have separation of powers both horizontally and vertically. James 
Madison taught us very clearly that we should honor those separations 
rigidly.
  When we talk about horizontally, we always think of the legislative 
branch, the executive branch, and the judiciary, which by the way, are 
not coequal branches. The Founders were very clear on this. They 
described the judiciary as the weakest branch. We control their 
jurisdiction, except for in a few cases of original jurisdiction. We 
create the Article III courts with the exception of the United States 
Supreme Court.
  The executive branch has very limited powers. In fact, they thought 
the executive branch itself, the Presidency would be more ceremonial 
than substantive, and the legislative branch would be small with 
enumerated powers, but because the House of Representatives was elected 
directly by the people, it would have the purse strings.
  The Senate was to be elected by the State legislatures, and they were 
to represent the States' interests.
  Well, what has happened is we are upside down. We are so upside down 
because every State--having spent many years in the State legislature, 
and I think my colleagues know this.
  What happens is this: We spend about 80 percent of our time in the 
State of Arizona trying to respond to Federal mandates passed by this 
bunch of yo-yos or by the bureaucracy where they were telling us things 
like, gee, in Phoenix, Arizona, what we want you to do is we want you 
to water down your dust because the number one particulate in the 
Phoenix metro area is dust. That is your biggest pollutant. Water it 
down.
  The other half is EPA saying: You can't water it down because we are 
watching you on your water usage. This is from people who are cubicle 
dwellers who are controlling, without any understanding, 5.5 million 
people in the Phoenix metro area.
  They become weaponized. They are nameless. They are faceless. They 
are the D.C. cartel, which consists of bureaucracy, media, and 
lobbyists. That is your cartel. They have taken the institutions of 
this country, and they have weaponized them against the American 
people.
  It is time for this body to say we are the ones closest to the 
people, and we must do all we can. We may not have leverage over the 
Senate now, we may not have leverage over the executive branch now, but 
we must do and can do everything possible to restore the separation of 
powers both horizontally and vertically. If we did that, I guarantee 
you what would happen is this weaponization would dissipate. It 
wouldn't go quietly in the night, but we have felt it wrap around our 
necks like the flaxen cords of sin, and we have got to begin cutting it 
off.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Biggs for his 
comments.
  We have seen over the last 3 years the consequence of electing people 
who will abuse power, weaponize the Federal Government against citizens 
and

[[Page H3326]]

political opponents, and carry out disparate justice treatment based on 
political views.
  Both Chairman Perry and Chairman Biggs have spoken eloquently about 
the Constitution, our true north, our compass, which is just a minor 
inconvenience to the folks on the other side, who have a mentality of 
show me the man, I will show you the crime.
  We cannot let them win in this endeavor. We must hold them 
accountable. That is why it was a privilege today to go up, Mr. 
Speaker, and defend our former President and future President of the 
United States for the abuse of power that is being directed at him 
right now as they target truly the American people as he stands in 
their way.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________