[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 56 (Thursday, March 27, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H1322-H1325]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AND STILL I RISE: CENSURED BUT NOT SILENCED
(Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Green
of Texas was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority
leader.)
Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, proudly I stand here today proudly
to say: And still I rise.
And still I rise, a proud, liberated Democrat, unbought, unbossed,
and still unafraid. And still I rise, Mr. Speaker, not only as a proud,
liberated Democrat, but also, Mr. Speaker, censured, not silenced,
censured but not silenced. I still carry my cane, which has been called
many things, but for me it provides comfort.
It provides comfort because I am a believer in the 23rd Psalm, that
part about ``Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil . . . Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort
me.''
This is my comfort.
Mr. Speaker, there are people who don't believe that I should have
the free speech that the Constitution affords me, and I am not always
in the company of people who can protect me. So my cane has become my
staff and my rod that comforts me, Mr. Speaker.
I wish it were different, but it is not. We seem to live in a society
now where if you are willing to speak truth to power there are
consequences beyond simply having those who differ with you give their
retorts. There are some who want to do more than give retorts. So we
have to find ways to comfort ourselves when we no longer have those who
are assigned the responsibility of providing us comfort. Protection is
another way of saying comfort.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today because I want to expose what has been
called to our attention in many different ways over the last many
hours.
Mr. Speaker, we are at this moment in our country engaging in a big
lie coverup. It is a part of a chat-gate, a big lie coverup.
Chat-gate, Mr. Speaker, is a security breach not defined as such
because the person who would define it as such, if he should do so,
would inculpate himself. So the Secretary of Defense, who has the
responsibility of defining whether certain information is classified or
not, chooses not to define that which is intuitively obvious as
classified, he chooses not to define it as classified. He does not want
to inculpate himself. So he has the ability to exculpate himself by
simply saying something that clearly is classified saying that it is
not.
Mr. Speaker, while he can say so, I think the American public will
have the final word and will be the final judge.
I am honored to tell you who the players are in this coverup. One
person is, quite frankly, a person who merits a lot of accolades. He is
a person who ought to be acknowledged for the courage that he has
demonstrated. He is a person who brought this to the attention of the
public. He is a person who had no desire to be a part of this coverup,
but he is only there in that he was the person who, in a sense, acts as
a whistleblower. I am talking about Mr. Goldberg with The Atlantic
magazine.
Mr. Goldberg is the person who had messages sent to him that he did
not seek and that he did not ask for. According to the reports that I
have read and you have probably seen and heard televised, he was there
minding his own business when he received messages, messages that were
intended for a select group of people, many of whom I will name in just
a moment.
In receiving these messages, he was made privy to information that
should not have been exposed to the public. In the opinion of many
experts, they should not have been exposed to the public.
I will read some of the information that was captured by Mr.
Goldberg.
Mr. Goldberg captured this, and this comes from The Atlantic
magazine. They published this information. It has been made public. My
belief is that the persons who engaged in this coverup had no desire to
have this published, but once it was, there was a decision made by the
person who had the power to do so to say: Well, it is simply not
classified information, so no big deal.
Here is the big deal. Mr. Goldberg indicates that at 11:44 a.m.
eastern time--he gives the name of the person, it is the Secretary of
Defense, posted in the chat in all caps: ``TEAM UPDATE:'' Then, Mr.
Goldberg indicates that the text beneath this began: ``TIME NOW
(1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED''--with, it says w--``w/
CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.'' We are a go for mission
launch.
Let's go on. These are excerpts. I shall not read it all.
The next comment reads: ``1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike
package)''.
Thereafter: ``1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)''.
Thereafter: ``1536: F-18 2nd Strike Starts--also, first sea-based
Tomahawks launched.''
Now, all of this was intended for a select group of people. It was
not intended that this be published, but since it has been published,
the Secretary of Defense has indicated that this was not classified
information. Now, if the Secretary of Defense who was a participant in
this chat, what I call the ``chat-gate,'' if the Secretary of Defense
sincerely believes that this is not classified information--and there
is more of it, I have only read you some excerpts--if he sincerely
believes this, then he is not the person who should be charged with the
responsibility of making a decision as to whether this type of
information is classified.
That is because there is no way a person who has intelligence at
heart and an understanding of it within the mind to conclude that this
is not classified information.
Too many experts differ with him. We had persons who are on the
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the House to indicate
that this was clearly classified information. In fact, they indicated
that things that are less serious in nature have been classified. But
the Secretary of Defense has the ability to exculpate himself, so his
exculpatory statement is that this is not classified information.
[[Page H1323]]
I believe that if any other person beneath the Secretary of State had
allowed such information, the same information, to be exposed to the
public, then I don't think the Secretary of State would have come to
the same conclusion.
The Secretary of State has sacrificed his honor and his dignity by
indicating that this is not classified information. But he didn't do it
without the aid and comfort of some others.
Let's just talk about the other people who were on this call--pardon
me--this chat with the Secretary of State:
We had the Vice President of the United States of America as a part
of the chat. Now, I don't believe that the Secretary of Defense and the
Vice President of the United States would get on a chat and have this
type of information that I have called to your attention much more
available, they would not get on a chat and have this be exposed to the
public. There was no desire that it be exposed to the public. They said
it is sensitive information. It is sensitive because it is classified
information that has not been declared such because it would inculpate
the Defense Secretary.
So you have the Vice President of the United States on the chat, then
you have the CIA Director. Now it is the Vice President of the United
States, Secretary of Defense, and the CIA Director, and this is not
classified information that they are discussing. They are just having a
little talk that could be exposed to the public, but they chose not to
but for it having been sent to Mr. Goldberg.
Mr. Goldberg, by the way, deserves a Congressional Medal of Honor. He
is the hero in this story. He is the person who has had the courage and
also the wisdom and insight to understand that before you release this,
you need to do some checking. So he did his due diligence before
releasing information.
Mr. Goldberg, the person who released it, has been called many names
by people who would not have him release the information. Mr. Goldberg
has been scorned. He is a person who called to our attention something
that was done improperly, and yet he is being made the villain. He is
not the villain. He is the hero in this process, and he ought to be
acknowledged as such.
I am going to have a flag flown over the Capitol of the United States
of America in honor of Mr. Goldberg for what he has done. I will not
allow his reputation to be tarnished without a fight to protect it. I
am going to do what I can to protect his reputation.
So we have the Director of National Intelligence on the call, on the
chat. The Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of State
were on the chat.
Again, the Defense Secretary, the Vice President, the CIA Director,
the Director of National Intelligence, and also Special Envoy Witkoff
were on there. Witkoff was on there, and by the way, he was in Russia
at the time he was on. We all know that you should not be on an
unsecured line if you are going to be in Russia talking. Those of us
who have been to Russia are very much aware. Of course, the Secretary
of State was on.
{time} 1200
These are the players. All of them were on a chat and all of them are
engaged in the coverup of this big lie. It is a coverup because they
all have at one time or another implied or stated explicitly that this
was not classified, that this was not classified. They had the cover of
the Secretary of Defense to give them this opportunity to contend that
it wasn't classified because he had to protect himself. To protect
himself, he declassified what should have been classified. He avoided
being inculpated by declassifying this information that should have
been classified.
Now, this is egregious. It is always said that the coverup is more
egregious than the action that precipitates the coverup. It is true.
The coverup is more egregious than the action that precipitates the
coverup. There is something that occurred here that is more egregious
than the action that precipitated the coverup, than the coverup itself,
and that thing is the ability of all of these actors to do this and
commit any Federal crime with impunity. As a matter of fact, we could
say it is with immunity.
These actors, these participants, they all have the blessings of the
President of the United States of America. The President of the United
States of America is now under the impression that he has absolute
immunity, knowing that he is not likely to be prosecuted for anything
other than impeachment while he is holding the office of the
Presidency. Knowing this, believing he has absolute immunity and having
already demonstrated that he will accord exoneration by way of pardon
to people who would assault the citadel of democracy, the Capitol of
the United States of America, assault it, and he, the President of the
United States, used his awesome pardon power, the awesome power
accorded him in good faith under the Constitution of the United States
of America, he uses it to release, and to a certain extent to
exonerate, a limited extent, persons who actually assaulted the
Capitol.
Now these participants in this event, they know that they have got
the President backing them up. They know that even if they commit a
Federal crime all the President has to do is pardon them. It is really
that simple. You have got a President now who sits on high,
understanding that all beneath him, all of his minions, all of his
plutocrats and others who are beneath him, he has the ability to
protect them from breaches of the Federal law.
This is more egregious than the action that precipitated the coverup
and the coverup itself, to know that we now have an administration
where all of the parties involved can rely on one person to protect
them regardless as to what they do if it is a Federal offense.
Yes, there was a coverup.
Yes, that coverup is something that they understood they could get
away with even if they were caught red-handed. They knew they could get
away with it because they knew that the President was there to back
them.
By the way, the President is also there to do what he normally does,
and that is throw his acolytes, his underlings, his persons who are
beneath him, if you will, throw them under the bus, and he did. He
threw them under the bus. He doesn't know anything about this. He just
happens to have heard about it. The President gets briefings on all
important issues, but for him to sit and say, oh, I know nothing about
it, which is what he always does, and then he pushes someone else under
the bus, but he knows that he can push them under the bus and then
extricate them because he has the magic wand, the power to pardon. He
will use it, as has been demonstrated by his causing many persons who
assaulted the Capitol, persons who came here with gallows, persons who
came using flags and trying to stab and all sorts of sprays, persons
who came into the Capitol and defecated, he caused all of these persons
to be released, if not all, I would say to you nearly all. I don't have
the exact numbers, but he went on a rampage and just started pardoning
people who engaged in this assault on the citadel of democracy.
We have ourselves now a circumstance where people who are trusted
with the Nation's most sacred secrets--sacred, they are so important
that they are really sacred, sacred secrets--these persons have
demonstrated that they will forfeit their dignity, their self-respect,
and their honor. They will forfeit these things to protect themselves
and to protect the President, themselves and the President.
What we have when this occurs with all of these people doing this, we
have now a group of people who have sacrificed their honor. When you
sacrifice your honor in this fashion, the people who serve under you
lose respect for you. They lose respect for you. There are men and
women, persons in our military, who no longer respect the persons who
serve in these high and lofty positions. They don't respect them
because they are persons with a reasonable amount of intellect,
superior intellect, and understand that this whole scenario, this
fiasco, this level of buffoonery, they understand that this is not
based on truth to say this was not certified, this was not classified
information. It wasn't certified as such, but it was classified. The
only reason it was not certified as such is because the Secretary of
Defense would inculpate himself if he should do so. He would put
himself in harm's way.
[[Page H1324]]
He chose to keep himself out of harm's way. His cohorts agreed with
him. They all now are going to contend that there is nothing to see
here, just a chat between persons who happened to want to discuss
sensitive information, and the reporter who reports it, he is the
culprit in all of this.
The people who serve in our military, they know better, and they know
now that the people at the top are not honorable people. That has an
impact on morale. Don't you think for one second that someone in the
military will not at some point in time use the same argument that you
are using. They are going to mention how this very incident occurred
and how people just walked away from it unscathed. That is what they
will do. People are not going to allow this to just be a one-off. If
something happens and they should be charged and they believe this
scenario can aid and comfort them with their defense, they will use it.
We now have at the highest levels of our government people who have
given up their dignity, their self-respect, and they no longer have the
honor and respect of a good many people that serve under them.
Mr. Speaker, this is a very sad time in the history of our country,
very sad. Here is a final reason why it is sad. I was silenced in a
sense when I was shouted down by my colleagues. They shouted me down
when I was trying to explain to the President--I never called him a
name. I merely said to him: ``You do not have a mandate, you do not
have a mandate'' to cut Medicaid. My colleagues were shouting loudly to
prevent my voice from being heard, at least that is the way I received
it. So I repeated what I said. Their voices grew louder. I repeated it
again, and I was removed. I am not mad at the Speaker. I am not angry
with them. I am not angry with anyone. I was censured for what I did. I
was censured, not silenced. My voice will not be silenced. I was
censured, but not silenced.
Here is the point: What I did this Congress decided--not all, not
all, let me not include everyone, but all of my colleagues across the
aisle and 10 colleagues from this side of the aisle, they decided that
I should be censured. I hold no animus toward any of them.
I want to make a point. The President of the United States and his
men and women are now going to perpetrate this coverup and walk away
unscathed except for loss of dignity, self-respect, and honor.
Mr. Speaker, I would rather be censured than lose my dignity,
sacrifice it, my self-respect. I admitted that I did what I did
intentionally. They won't admit that they were in this chat and that it
should have been in a much more secured location. They won't admit it.
They don't have the self-respect and the dignity to just tell the truth
about what happened. I admitted that I did it intentionally. I said
that when you do things and you do them with intent and if it is a form
of protest in my case then you have got to be prepared to suffer the
consequences. I have been prepared to suffer the consequences. It
doesn't mean that I agree. You don't have to agree with the
consequences you suffer, but you have to be prepared. They chose not to
be prepared, chose not to suffer any consequences by covering up with a
big lie.
I respect Mr. Castro. I saw him. When he questioned those persons who
were before him yesterday and when he questioned them about this he
called each name--I have such great respect for Congressman Castro. He
had the courage to tell them to their faces that they were lying. It
takes courage to do what he did. Courage is what is missing. You have
got to have courage if you want to make big change. You have got to be
willing to stand and say it as he did. This is not to say that others
did not deliver great commentary. I singled him out because of the way
he did what he did and in the presence of the people. He didn't wait
until he was out behind their backs to say what he said. He said it in
front of their faces. In my neck of the woods when you tell a person
something to his face or her face or their face, that says something
about you as a person. This is why I wanted to tell the President to
his face that you don't have the mandate to cut Medicaid and Medicare,
by the way, as well, and Social Security. He doesn't.
All of this, all of this, this censure of a person for speaking out
against a President who, by the way, on that same evening called
Democrats lunatics--there was no censure of the President, no
reprimand, nothing said from the House, just the President being
himself. Others on the other hand can be censured for calling things to
the President's attention. I am also the only person to have ever been
removed, evicted from a joint session of Congress, the only one.
{time} 1215
I am only saying this because I don't want anyone to believe that
this censure and this eviction is the end of the story. It is just not.
I am grateful to all of those who have been kind to me and for the
well wishes that I have received and all of the persons who have
indicated that they would have me speak at various events.
I am grateful to you, but I want you to know that the story does not
end with the censure, just as the story with these persons who engaged
in this coverup will not end with them simply saying that this was not
classified information. It will not.
The story is still unfolding and still being told. In the end,
posterity will judge all of us. Posterity will see and know the truth.
Time tells. History judges. The truth is known. The truth will be
known.
At some point, someone is going to reveal even more information about
what happened on that chat. It will happen maybe not now, maybe not
this year, but at some point in time, the story is going to be told.
All of them will have to face a shaming that they have tried to avoid
by contending that classified information was not such.
You cannot get away with this kind of thing. ``The arc of the moral
universe . . . bends toward justice.'' What you have done is unjust,
and it will be told. The story will be told truthfully.
I close with this: We who are given the honor of serving have been
accorded the trust of the public. It is said that we hold public trust.
When we hold public trust and we make mistakes, believe it or not, you
can say that you made a mistake, or you can say: I didn't make a
mistake. I did this intentionally, and I am going to suffer
consequences. I am prepared. I may not agree with them, but I am
prepared.
We hold public trust. Those persons who participated in this coverup
are not persons worthy of holding public trust.
Mr. Secretary of Defense, you, sir, should not hold public trust. You
are not the person to determine whether something is classified or not.
You have demonstrated, wittingly or unwittingly, that you are not
capable of doing it. You just don't have what it takes within to speak
the truth when you have committed a transgression. You shouldn't hold
public trust.
Sir, you should do the honorable thing. You should resign. If you
don't resign, the people of this country, notwithstanding all of the
President's power, the people of this country, we the people, will have
the last word.
You are going to see protests. You are going to see more protests
because we the people refuse to allow coverups to go unnoticed. You are
going to see more protests, but I say to everybody: Make it a peaceful
protest. Do not protest in any way other than with peace in your mind
and your head and your heart.
Peaceful protests. Peaceful protests can make a difference.
It made a difference for the farmers when they came here with
Tractorcade and protested their farmlands being foreclosed on.
It made a difference when the military veterans came to Washington,
D.C., to protest the bonuses that they were promised.
It made a difference when Dr. King came here and stood on the Mall
and read his ``I have a Dream.'' Actually, he didn't read it. He
actually stated it, his ``I have a Dream'' speech, when he gave that
``I have a Dream'' message.
It makes a difference. Peaceful protest makes a difference. It is as
American as the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock.
Peaceful protests will continue. I will be a part of it. If I should
get in the way, as John Lewis says it, I will be prepared to suffer the
consequences, but I refuse to give up my right to protest. We the
people will have the last word.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
[[Page H1325]]
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to address their
remarks to the Chair.
____________________