[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24400-24407]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Conaway). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, once again, it is an honor to come 
before the House. We want to thank not only Democratic leadership but 
everyone within the Democratic Caucus for coming to this floor night 
after night in a fight for what is right in America and to make sure 
that we work as much as we can in a bipartisan way to bring about the 
best of America. We have to fight for that position.
  A lot has happened today, Mr. Speaker, in the Capitol. A lot has 
happened in the capital city in the last days. A lot will happen in the 
days to come. And it is how we move from this point on. If we are 
willing to travel the road of bipartisanship, carrying out oversight, 
making sure that our country is being told the truth, making sure that 
our troops are being told the truth, making sure that we as a Congress 
do what we are supposed to do constitutionally for the American people, 
then I believe that our future will be bright.

                              {time}  2100

  Or there is another road that could be traveled and has been traveled 
upon quite a bit in the 109th Congress, the

[[Page 24401]]

road of strict partisanship, abusing the rules of the House to extend 
votes even when the majority is not winning so that they can win even 
though the ideas may not be in the best interest, in many cases, of the 
reason why we came to the floor in the first place, i.e., the energy 
bill, the prescription drug bill, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
  Also on that road is the road of cronyism, the culture of corruption 
and cronyism; and I think it is something that we need to disabuse 
ourselves of and move on the road of bipartisanship, move on the road 
of cooperation, move on the road of leveling with the American people.
  So we do have a choice. There is a fork. Unfortunately, I would say 
that just picking up the paper, Mr. Speaker, just looking at the news, 
it looks like the majority has taken the fork of partisanship, 
endorsing the culture of corruption and cronyism. I want to make sure I 
am clear when I say culture of corruption and cronyism: A, condoning 
it, not calling Federal agencies, the executive branch, and some 
legislative branch operations or on the floor or before committee when 
we see this activity taking place.
  Cronyism: a perfect example, Mr. Speaker, as I stand here now, Mr. 
Michael Brown still enjoys full salary at FEMA even after the debacle 
of Katrina, admitted by the administration, admitted by many Members of 
this House; but he still enjoys full salary of the taxpayers' dollars, 
$148,000-and-change. The Secretary of the Department of Homeland 
Security has endorsed his extension by saying that we can learn from 
Michael Brown.
  Mr. Speaker, I cannot wait until Secretary Brown comes before the 
Homeland Security Committee, because I have one question: What benefit 
to the taxpayers of the United States does Michael Brown have or 
possess as it relates to his experiences from Katrina? Did we not 
already have 60 days of a contract that was extended and then 30 days 
more extension of the contract? Mr. Speaker, I ask the colleagues of 
the House and level-minded Members of goodwill to please answer the 
Department of Homeland Security, to save the taxpayers' money, and turn 
their back on cronyism in the Federal Government.
  Today I am joined once again by the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. 
Wasserman Schultz) and also the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan); and we 
come to the floor, as the Members know, Mr. Speaker, week after week 
and now night after night, to not only bring to the Members but to the 
American people what we are doing and also what we are doing wrong. But 
it just seems like the wrong is overwhelming, and we feel it is our 
obligation to bring it to the attention of the Members and the American 
people.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding to me.
  It is a pleasure to join him once again, and we appreciate Leader 
Pelosi's giving us this opportunity to talk about the issues that are 
important not just to our generation but to the citizens of this 
country who really need to hear both sides of the story, which they are 
most definitely not hearing from now.
  And the gentleman mentioned the extension of Brownie's contract. I 
was struck by the fact when we learned that, and I think we just 
learned that last week, that his contract was extended ostensibly to 
glean more advice from him on what the Department of Homeland Security 
and FEMA should be doing in the aftermath of hurricanes. And we are 
still, unfortunately, in the middle of hurricane season. Our respective 
districts were just struck by Hurricane Wilma, and one of the things 
that we have learned in the aftermath of Wilma now is that it has 
really become clear that the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA 
have learned nothing from the aftermath of Katrina, the blown aftermath 
of Katrina, and then Rita and then from Rita to Wilma.
  Communication failures, an inability of our cities to get generators 
to run their lift stations, sewage backing up in the streets, gaping 
holes in condominiums and mobile homes. It is pouring rain today in 
south Florida, which is pouring more misery on top of people who have 
already been through so much. And how does Secretary Chertoff respond? 
He extends Michael Brown's contract by 30 days. This is a person who 
President Bush ultimately was forced to admit was not able to handle a 
job the size of Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath, so much so that 
essentially he was forced out.
  But now, because they are so married to the cronyism, the culture of 
corruption and cronyism and the lack of competence runs so deep and 
they are so unwilling to give it up and to admit that they are 
incorrect that they give him an extension and continue to pay him 
$148,000 a year. This is what they are rewarding. They reward 
incompetence. They thrive on cronyism and corruption and unethical 
behavior. It is just unbelievable.
  I think this is a good time to turn to our first chart here, if the 
gentleman is ready to do that.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. I was looking at the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and looking at those charts over there. 
They are so breathtaking.
  And turning over to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz), we were working very hard over the last weeks or so dealing 
with Wilma, the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. Inslee) has joined 
us tonight, who has so much to add to this conversation.
  I will give the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) the honors of 
recognizing someone else who has joined us here on the floor.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, my good friend and mentor, Congressman 
Delahunt, is also here to help us explain how. This man was a 
prosecutor, a district attorney in the great State of Massachusetts. So 
he understands exactly what, I think, we are going to go through here. 
And he volunteered his services. This is the kind of gentleman that we 
are dealing with here, to come down and help us kind of walk through 
this.
  We are going to lay out for the American people tonight exactly what 
has been going on here with the CIA leak, and we have all of these 
examples, and we have had example after example after example over the 
past year of different reasons, really, quite frankly, since the war, 
about what has been going on and how this administration has misled the 
Congress and misled the American people. So we kind of want to go 
through chronologically exactly what has been happening.
  I am going to take a couple minutes here just to walk through this 
and lay the foundation. We are going to actually have the next hour as 
well; so we are going to have some time to go through, but I think it 
is important, as we have all talked about already, to let the American 
people know exactly what has been happening.
  Now, this was President Bush's original promise when he was the 
Governor of Texas. He was running for the Presidency of the United 
States. He said, ``In my administration we will ask not only what is 
legal but what is right, not just what the lawyers allow but what the 
public deserves.''
  So this President came in with a pretty high standard of how he 
wanted his administration to run, and we all respected the President 
for that. I remember his saying and the Vice President saying time and 
time again, We are going to bring honor and dignity to the White House.
  We see where he got it, from his father, who was a very good man. 
This is his talking about former CIA head talking about leaks: ``I have 
nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by 
exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most 
insidious of traitors.'' That is President 41.
  Former Republican National Committee Chair Ed Gillespie, who might as 
well be the Chair of the committee that heads up the Katrina 
investigation because it is so partisan, this is what he said when he 
was asked on ``Hardball'' with Chris Matthews: ``I think if the 
allegation'' of the CIA leak

[[Page 24402]]

``is true, to reveal the identity of an undercover CIA operative, it's 
abhorrent and it should be a crime, and it is a crime.''
  And Chris Matthews said: ``It'd be worse than Watergate, wouldn't 
it?''
  And Gillespie said: ``Yeah. I suppose in terms of the real-world 
implications of it. It's not just politics.''
  So first President Bush, Ed Gillespie. The President came into 
office. He was from Texas. He did not want Potomac fever. He was going 
to bring a fresh, new approach to Washington. Then once the leak stuff 
starting coming out, he says now: ``If somebody committed a crime, they 
will no longer work in my administration.''
  And that is true. The original person now, Scooter Libby, who has 
been indicted for perjury, false statements, and obstruction of 
justice, has resigned. So that is good. The President's original 
statement said that ``if anyone in this administration was involved in 
it, they would no longer be in this administration.''
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, could you read that again, sir?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. ``If anyone in this administration was involved in 
it, they would no longer be in this administration.'' That is what the 
President said. That is not what Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr. Inslee, Mr. 
Delahunt, Mr. Meek, Mr. Ryan said. The President of the United States 
said that. So now we are basically saying that this President said if 
anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would be out.
  So let us see what actually happens here. This is from the 
indictment, quoted from the indictment: ``On or about July 10 or July 
11, 2003,'' Scooter ``Libby spoke to a senior official in the White 
House, Official A.'' Now, we have come to know that Official A is 
actually Karl Rove. Official A has now been outed as Karl Rove, ``who 
advised Libby of a conversation Official A had earlier in the week with 
columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson's wife was discussed as a CIA 
employee involved in Wilson's trip. Libby was advised by Rove, 
``Official A'' in the indictment ``that Novak would be writing a story 
about Wilson's wife.''
  That is from count one, obstruction of justice, in the indictment of 
Scooter Libby. Remember the date, July 10, middle of the summer.
  Now, Karl Rove, a couple of years ago, in September of 2003, the 
fall, a couple months later, the end of September, September 24, to ABC 
News producer Andrea Owen, when she asked: ``Did you have any knowledge 
or did you leak the name of the CIA agent to the press?'' Karl Rove 
said no. In July, in the indictment, he is the one talking to Scooter 
Libby about Novak using it in the article. That is a lie. He lied to 
the American people on ABC News.
  Asked again, Rove revises his answer. This is in July 4 of 2005, just 
this past summer: ``I'll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole 
thing broke some number of months ago. I didn't know her name, and I 
didn't leak her name.''
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. 
Wasserman Schultz).
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me 
because in between these two charts or slides, I want to tell my 
colleagues what I saw when I was watching ``Good Morning America'' 
yesterday morning, Mr. Speaker.

                              {time}  2115

  Matt Cooper, the Time Magazine reporter who was one of the reporters 
involved in all of this and testified in front of the grand jury and 
initially resisted in terms of his willingness to testify, had an 
exchange with Charles Gibson on Good Morning America yesterday.
  Matt Cooper acknowledged, in questioning from Mr. Gibson, that he 
initially heard from Karl Rove about the identity of Joe Wilson's wife 
and what she did for a living. Charles Gibson in this exchange said, 
``So, you, I am sure, will likely be called to testify at Mr. Libby's 
trial, and will you be testifying to those facts?'' In other words, he 
asked will you be testifying that you initially heard about Joe 
Wilson's wife's profession and what she did and her identity from Karl 
Rove? And he said, ``Well, that is the truth, and I plan on testifying 
about what I know.''
  Then Charles Gibson asked Matt Cooper, ``Is there any possibility 
that you are not correct?'' Because, you know, Mr. Cooper, the other 
side will say, opposing counsel will try to say that perhaps you are 
mistaken or you misunderstood or there was some matter of clarity, lack 
of clarity on your part. He said, ``Well, I was taking notes during 
this conversation, and I am pretty clear. I am going to go in and 
testify to what I was told.''
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman will yield, so Cooper is going to 
say that Rove told him.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, 
Cooper is going to say at trial, if asked, that Karl Rove was the first 
person to tell him Valerie Plame's identity.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Wow.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I thought that was important.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That is very important. That is huge. Here we are, 
in the indictment he knows in July. In September of 2003, a couple of 
months after he had already known and told Libby, he denies it to the 
American people. He lies about it. In Washington, you know, you 
misrepresent, you mislead. In Ohio, you lie. We tend in the Beltway 
here, people who get ``Potomac fever'' tend to soften it up like it is 
kind of okay. In Ohio this is a lie. So Karl Rove lied to the American 
people.
  Now, not only did he lie to the American people, this poor fellow 
here, Scott McClellan, who is the spokesperson for the White House, 
says on October 3, which is after July when Rove already knew and told 
Libby, after September, when he already denied it once to ABC News 
again, Scott McClellan goes out in public and says, those individuals, 
Karl Rove, Elliot Abrahms and Scooter Libby, assured me they were not 
involved with this.
  So they lied to their friend and colleague Scott McClellan as well. 
So here is where we are right now.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And subsequently made a liar out of Mr. 
McClellan. He is the spokesperson standing in front of the American 
people and the White House press corps. In fact, I heard an exchange 
yesterday between him and the White House press corps where he was 
pressed by them to acknowledge that he basically was trotted up there 
to the podium and forced to lie to them, unknowingly perhaps. But in 
addition to being lied to, he lied to the press and to the American 
people.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, 
now we have to be very careful with this next example, because although 
we can say that Karl Rove lied, we have to be very careful to respect 
to the Office of the Vice President here, and we intend to do that. 
This is the next set of facts. This is also from the obstruction count, 
count one, obstruction of justice in the indictment of Scooter Libby.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the reason why 
we want to be careful as it relates to the Office of the Vice President 
and President is because we respect the rules of the House, unlike some 
folks on the majority side that expand the rules of the House for their 
own gain. I just want to bring that clarification.
  I do not want the Members, Mr. Speaker, to feel we are scared to call 
a spade a spade. We just want to respect the rules of the House, and I 
think that is very appropriate and in order in this case.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman will yield further, absolutely. 
This is from count one of the obstruction of justice indictment of 
Scooter Libby, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. We 
have got to keep the dates straight again here.
  On or about June 12 of 2003, which again is the summer of 2003, Libby 
was advised by the Vice President of the United States, who is 
currently Dick Cheney, that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA in the 
Counterproliferation Division. Libby understood that the Vice President 
had learned this information

[[Page 24403]]

from the CIA. That is what the count says. That is what the indictment 
says, that the Vice President on or about June 12.
  Here we have the Vice President on Meet the Press in September, 
September 14 of 2003, a couple of months later.
  Mr. Russert asks, ``He,'' Ambassador Joe Wilson, ``says he came back 
from Niger and said that in fact he could not find any documentation 
that in fact Niger had sent uranium to Iraq or engaged in that activity 
and reported it back to the proper channels. Question: Were you briefed 
on this finding in February or March of 02?'' Russert asked Dick 
Cheney.
  Dick Cheney says, ``No, I do not know Joe Wilson. I have never met 
Joe Wilson. No, I do not know Joe Wilson.''
  The indictment tells us that on June 12 he is telling Libby about Joe 
Wilson. And then he says a couple months later to Tim Russert, ``I do 
not know Joe Wilson.'' That is misrepresenting the facts. That is 
misleading, in my estimation, the American people once again.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I guess the 
question then comes down to what the definition of ``know'' is then. Is 
that really the problem?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman will yield, I think so. What do 
you mean by ``know.''
  Mr. INSLEE. I know what the Vice President meant by ``know.'' It was 
clear from any fair reading of this situation that when a person knows 
that the person they are trying to punish was an agent for the CIA and 
was involved in giving that information to a subordinate who destroyed 
the career and outed a security agent of the United States Government, 
and then would not want the public to know he was involved in that 
despicable act, he would say ``I do not know Joe Wilson,'' even though 
he knew Joe Wilson's name, what his wife did for a living, that she 
worked for the CIA, and, if he disclosed that, it would destroy her 
career and out an intelligence agent of the United States of America.
  He may not have known him and shaken hands with him, but he departed 
from the truth on a most grievous matter involving the intelligence 
service of the United States of America.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, that is a great segue into what we are 
going to get into, which is the damage that has been done to the 
Central Intelligence Agency on this.
  Here we have the Vice President told Libby about Joe Wilson's wife 
and then two months later denied even knowing who this person was. We 
have Karl Rove in the indictment known as ``Official A'' who said that 
Novak was going to write a story about this, and two months later on 
ABC and then a couple years later he denies even knowing Joe Wilson or 
having anything to do with this.
  Now, is this illegal? We do not know just yet with Karl Rove, because 
this investigation is still open. But did Karl Rove lie to the American 
people? Yes. And he should leave office immediately, because he broke 
trust with the American people.
  We have our good friend from Massachusetts, a former prosecutor, a 
former DA with a very distinguished career in law enforcement here to 
join us.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I thank my 
friend, and again I want to congratulate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Ryan) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) for really doing a public service. 
But I think it is important for a moment to reflect not just on this 
particular case, but what has characterized this administration from 
the onset, and that is a total lack of transparency, a total lack of 
genuine consultation. Secrecy, if you will.
  What I find most fascinating are those members of the administration, 
people of good conscience, who have left the administration and are now 
speaking out. These individuals are good Republicans, good conservative 
Republicans who embrace genuine American values.
  One of them is a former colonel in our military service, Larry 
Wilkerson. He also happened to be the Chief of Staff for the former 
Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Here is what he recently wrote in a 
column that I think provides the context for why this occurred. It 
gives us an insight into what was happening on the road to war and how 
little information the American people were given, how little 
information Members of Congress were given.
  Here is what Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to 
Secretary of State Colin Powell, had to say on October 25 of 2005. One 
can go to the Los Angeles Times, and this same opinion piece was 
printed elsewhere.
  ``In President Bush's first term, some of the most important 
decisions about U.S. national security, including vital decisions about 
post-war Iraq, were made by a secretive, little known cabal. It was 
made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick 
Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Its insular and secret 
workings were efficient and swift, not unlike the decision making one 
would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy.''
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Congressman, that is not you saying that. Who is 
saying that? Who wrote that?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. That is Colonel Larry Wilkerson, a Republican, former 
Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
  Let me just say, and this is an understatement, this is disturbing. 
But this is the atmosphere, this is the context, this is why we find 
ourselves in the situation where it is an embarrassment and it erodes 
the image of the United States. Whether you supported the war or you 
did not support the war, it is eroding the image of the United States 
all over the world, not just in the Middle East, not just in Europe, 
but in Latin America and in Asia.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, when you 
have that kind of mindset where you think you can get away with 
everything, when you think you can make these decisions in a box and 
you can take a country to war, as Thomas Friedman says, ``on the wings 
of a lie,'' then you end up with all the stuff we are already talking 
about. They just take it to the next level, and they think they can lie 
to the American people, lie to the grand jury and obstruct justice.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, what the 
gentleman from Ohio is saying is true, and I will just sum this all up. 
I have seen this with the Republican policies here under the President, 
as the means justifying the ends. In other words, they were determined, 
the President and his Republican colleagues that supported him in this 
secrecy and this coverup, were determined to go to war.
  So it did not matter what the means were, they were going to get 
there. If that meant that they had to out a CIA agent and if it meant 
that they had to not tell the truth about what was happening in Iraq, 
if it meant that they had to go after those people who were trying to 
tell the truth and basically honestly tell us what was going on in 
Iraq, that did not matter, because they had to go to war. They had to 
attack Iraq. They had to go in there and get Saddam Hussein. So it did 
not matter what the means were, they were going to achieve that.
  It is the same thing we had in the Watergate years with President 
Nixon. I hate to bring that up again, but it is true. The means justify 
the end.
  But we see this over and over again with the Republican leadership 
and with the President Bush's policies, that they will go to whatever 
ends to achieve their goal. So there is no accountability. There is no 
feeling on anybody's part that they have to tell the truth or that they 
cannot ridicule people or destroy people's lives if they can accomplish 
their goal.

                              {time}  2130

  And that is basically wrong. It is very undemocratic. I mean, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts talked about the basis for democracy. The 
basis for democracy is free speech, that people can get up and express 
their views. But they do not want to hear

[[Page 24404]]

the other views. They do not want to hear what the truth is about 
whether or not there was uranium coming from Niger to Iraq. They did 
not want to hear the CIA estimates that were saying that it was 
unlikely that Iraq was going to attack the United States, it was 
unlikely that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They did 
not want to hear the truth, because they wanted to go to war. And this 
attitude is pervasive.
  I mean, you have talked about it and the gentleman from Florida has 
talked about it here on the floor with so many other things that the 
Republicans do, not wanting to have hearings, not wanting to have 
bipartisan investigations of the hurricane, because they do not want to 
get at the truth. They have this ideology that says, this is the way it 
is going to be; and if you do not like it, we do not want you around 
here. We do not want to hear dangerous points of view, and it is a very 
dangerous view.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If my friend from New Jersey would yield for a moment, 
I would direct my colleagues' attention to Wednesday, October 22, the 
Congressional Quarterly Today that you all know we receive once a week 
here. What is the headline? Just to reinforce and corroborate what 
Frank Pallone just said: ``GOP Says No to Probe of CIA Leak.'' Again 
and again and again, secrecy. Let us not look at it, because maybe we 
will find something ugly. Maybe we will find something that will 
embarrass the administration. Maybe we will find something that will 
embarrass the majority party and erode their power.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The Republicans.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Correct. Let me suggest this: what is at risk here is 
not the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party, but the viability 
and the health of our democracy. That is why, along with some very good 
Republicans, we are insistent that transparency be reintroduced into 
the legislative process.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if we had that transparency here, 
if the leadership here were willing to engage in transparency and get 
to the bottom of whether or not prior to the declaration of war and 
taking us into the Iraq war and misrepresenting facts to Members of 
this body, if they were willing to do that, then we would not be in the 
position that we are in today, so much so that today in the United 
States Senate, Minority Leader Harry Reid had the courage to use a rule 
that has not been used in 20 years, at least 20 years, rule XXI that 
has not been invoked in 20 years, to bring the Senate into a closed 
session because of the foot-dragging and hemming and hawing and hand-
wringing over exposing the information on how it is that we ended up in 
the Iraq war, and making sure that they get to the bottom of how much 
information, following September 11 and prior to September 11, the 
administration actually had and whether it was available.
  None of that information has been forthcoming. There has been 
opaqueness, not clarity, not transparency, so much so that Minority 
Leader Reid had to force the Senate into closed session today in order 
to try to push them to get that part of the investigation rolling. It 
is just absolutely inexcusable.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, one individual in the Senate said 
the Senate was hijacked, as though someone came in with a gun, waving 
it and saying, I am here to take over; but simply using the rules of 
that body, the Senate, just like we use the rules here in the House 
towards the benefit of the American people. Reports have said that what 
came out of it is hopefully a report that will surface in a couple of 
weeks about some of our intelligence failures.
  I can say that Mr. Inslee, a couple of speakers ago, mentioned the 
fact of outing a CIA agent, and I must say my good friend from the 
Garden State New Jersey and also Mr. Delahunt stated that a CIA agent, 
a clandestine agent, was outed, but a number of agents were outed. A 
number of agents, agents that we will not even know their names for 
now, left up to this White House; they may be outed tomorrow, if they 
get in the way. I think that it is 110 percent correct, as Mr. Pallone 
said, if you get in the way, and I do not even like to use the word 
``Republican,'' because I have a lot of good friends who are 
Republicans and I have some folks on the majority side that I know that 
they go home every night and lift the toilet seat up, and they are 
literally sick. They have to put their heads in a porcelain bowl 
because they are sick of what is going on in this institution.
  It is shameful that we would sit here under regular order when CIA 
agents are being outed and being proven in indictments that they are 
outing these individuals for political gain. It is beyond politics, far 
beyond politics, what is going on.
  I just want to read something here. Mr. Delahunt, we call those 
individuals like the colonel and others third-party validators. We want 
to make sure that the Members are not sitting in their offices 
thinking, oh, well, they go in the back and they just draw this stuff 
up. Members, the American people, Mr. Speaker, all they have to do is 
pick up the paper. They do not even have to turn the page; it is right 
there on the front page, what is happening in the moment.
  And the question is, when folks start looking at the 109th Congress 
what we did and what we did not do and what we allowed to happen, we 
have an obligation, Democrat, Republican, and the one Independent in 
this House have an obligation to call the question on why we are 
allowing a number of things that are happening to our country, our 
country, our country, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, those that 
are not even registered to vote and those individuals that are seeking 
to become citizens in this country, it is our responsibility. It goes 
far beyond winning and losing here in this House and the games that are 
being played on a bill or two.
  I just want to read here what was printed on the 10th, just a couple 
of days ago: a small Boston firm, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, 
listed as her employer, suddenly was shown as a bogus CIA front. Her 
alma mater in Belgium discovered that it was a favorite haunt for 
American CIA spy activity.
  Now, this is a front. This is a company that we had set up. I did not 
know about it. I am pretty sure none of us knew about it. But the 
individuals in the White House that have the highest security 
clearances knew about it, outed this agent and outed a number of other 
agents behind enemy lines in a forward area. It is like saying, it is 
like calling up the enemy and saying, there are some marines right 
outside of Mosul, okay, and they will be there at 12 o'clock, to the 
insurgents. That is how deep this is.
  We have individuals that are running around here without weapon, some 
folks have put their life on the line for this country, and it is 
shameful for the people that have the highest security clearances and I 
must add, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, appointed to have those security 
clearances.
  Now, you speak of Mr. Rove. I mean, the way this indictment reads, 
obviously a lot of thought has gone into it. Statements were made to 
this grand jury, and he is still available and working as the deputy 
White House chief of staff, sitting in on meetings, the highest 
security clearance, hearing what the President hears, hearing what the 
Vice President says.

  I am glad that I am not a CIA agent. I am glad I am not a clandestine 
agent working on behalf of this country, because I may very well be 
outed because I am talking about it. This is very dangerous. This is 
very dangerous, Mr. Pallone, what you mentioned. It is very dangerous 
when not Big Government, just a few individuals in the government, take 
it upon themselves, they have the prerogative to out individuals that 
are career CIA agents. There is something fundamentally wrong with 
that, and it is very serious.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The gentleman makes a great point. We need to 
reiterate this to our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to the American people, 
that this outfit that is currently in charge of the House and the 
Senate and the White House will do anything that they need to do to 
promote and bolster their

[[Page 24405]]

party, the Republican Party. They will be willing to do anything. And 
they have proven, not just violating the rules of the House or the 
spirit of the rules of the House by keeping the clock open so that they 
can pass legislation at 3 in the morning 15 times, or lie about the 
prescription drug bill, or lie about the war, but to out a CIA agent to 
benefit yourself politically is outrageous.
  As my friend said, that is no different, especially in the 21st 
century when we are dealing with intelligence, the war on terrorism is 
a war of intelligence, and so those covert operatives are foot soldiers 
in forward areas; and it is, as has been stated, the moral equivalent 
of outing a CIA agent, outing a CIA agent is the moral equivalent of 
telling the enemy where the marines are, and they are coming.
  Mr. PALLONE. Let me just briefly, because the gentleman from Ohio 
always says that we need to point out how things would be different if 
the Democrats were in the majority, if the Democrats were in control. 
And I always like to, because I guess I am the one who has been here 
the longest, take us back to another era.
  I remember when the Democrats were in the majority here and I told 
you before, the Energy and Commerce Committee that I serve on, we would 
have investigation after investigation. This is when we had a 
Democratic President; it did not make any difference. We would have 
investigations of agency actions. Whether it was Health and Human 
Services, Department of Education, we would bring them before the 
committee and the Democrats were in the majority and we would ask all 
of these serious questions about fraud and abuse and whether or not too 
much money was being spent. And if a Republican wanted to bring up an 
issue and criticize the White House or criticize the Democrat in the 
White House, nobody stopped them. Nobody sought to put an end to that.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So the gentleman is saying that when we were in 
charge, we actually put the country before our own political party.
  Mr. PALLONE. Absolutely. I will take you even further back. You read 
about Jefferson and Adams and how they used to go at it on the floor 
and debate and argue and have totally different point of views and 
then, at the end of the day, they would be friends. They actually 
enjoyed the political debate and the fact that somebody was disagreeing 
with them. I mean, this notion that you go after the guy who you 
disagree with, or who is trying to bring out something that shows that 
you are not correct, that is un-American.
  I do not want the public to think that this is what we do down here, 
that we just try to destroy the person who has a different point of 
view, or who is trying to bring out the truth that we do not agree 
with. That is not what the country is all about. This is supposed to be 
a country of free speech and free ideas and free flow of ideas. You 
start getting into this whole notion that if somebody disagrees with 
you, you are going to destroy them, then that is the end of democracy. 
I mean, this is serious stuff, I agree, not only with regard to the 
outing of CIA agents, but just the whole idea of going after your enemy 
because you do not like what he says. It is un-American.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, again, I think that Larry Wilkerson said 
it very eloquently. It is more characteristic of a dictatorship than a 
democracy. Tragically, the Republican leadership in this House has 
succumbed, if you will, to this insistence on secrecy that has really 
been embraced by the White House. Again, this is from last week's CQ 
Today: Republicans are resisting requests for congressional inquiries 
into a possible scandal linked to the Bush administration's rationale 
for invading Iraq. The debate over congressional involvement mocks a 
reversal for the GOP majority, which once had an appetite for layering 
congressional investigations of alleged executive branch wrongdoing 
atop criminal probes.
  What we have here is an abrogation of responsibility by the 
Republican leadership to conduct oversight; and they have become part 
and parcel of a cabal, if you will, of secrecy with this White House. 
And maybe this is what we get when we have a single-party State.
  Mr. Speaker, again, CQ Weekly, this is back in July. This is an 
independent publication, nonpartisan in nature; but it has become a 
topic of discussion and concern among people who are avid supporters of 
the concepts of free institutions in a democracy.

                              {time}  2145

  It is classified. Subject: Secrecy in Washington. Date: July 18, 
2005. Secrecy is becoming the rule, and there is a whole bunch of 
redactions, rather than the exception in the Bush administration. But 
it is hard to hold the Government accountable if no one knows what it 
is doing, and that is what is happening. And the American people ought 
to be aware that we do not know what is happening. We as Members of 
Congress do not know what is happening.
  And it does not just impact issues like this. Go back to when we had 
that Medicare vote. You remember that. We were not allowed access to 
the Medicare actuary's estimate of cost for the so-called prescription 
drug plan. Can you imagine that?
  Then the debate here on the floor, the issue of cost was some $395 
billion; and many Members on the Republican side expressed concern. The 
White House knew all the time that it was far in excess of $500 
billion, and they would not even disclose it to Members of their own 
party. Talk about secrecy. Talk about consultation. It is missing in 
Washington. We have become and we are making America a secretive 
society, and it is time together we take America and make it better for 
all of its citizens.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It has been such a pleasure to serve with the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) on the Judiciary Committee, 
and his eloquence and knowledge and commitment to making sure that 
truth is told is absolutely laudable.
  You know, to follow up on what you are saying, there are consequences 
to the actions that they are taking. It is not just about that it is 
outrageous that they have to be right and that they are dictatorial and 
that they insist on having their way and that, during one of the 
debates in the last Presidential election, President Bush actually 
could not think of something, of an instance in which he had been 
wrong. I mean, this is how arrogant this administration has become. 
This is how deep seated the culture of corruption and cronyism and 
incompetence has become. But it is the results of that arrogance and 
that attitude that is what is truly troubling. And troubling is too 
easy a word.
  The other day we went beyond 2,000 men and women who are dead. Dead. 
Whose families are in tears. Whose mothers will never be the same again 
because they had to be right. Because it did not matter whether the 
information they had was true. They were just going to disseminate it. 
Because they had decided, clearly in advance of September 11, that they 
were going to take us into war in Iraq.
  There are documents, like the Downing Street Memos that have come 
out, that show that they were fitting the facts around their previously 
arrived at decision. Sure, it is not President Bush's daughters. It is 
not Karl Rove's kids. What is Karl Rove still doing there?
  Let us go back to the first slide that you had up there. Does it 
appear as though the President has stuck to his commitment as a 
candidate, which was, in my administration we will ask not only what is 
legal but what is right, not just what the lawyers allow but what the 
public deserves.
  This is a man who has compromised our national security. This is a 
man who has compromised not just a covert CIA's operative life but the 
lives of countless operatives who worked with her, who has helped send 
more than 2,000 Americans to their deaths. For what? For what?
  You know, last year, during the campaign, you had thousands and 
thousands of security moms who went to the polls, and but for just 
about everything else that they cared about, they

[[Page 24406]]

cared most about making sure that their children were safe. They went 
and cast their ballot for this President, because they trusted him the 
most to protect them in a time of national security, against terrorism 
and disaster.
  Now we have seen just how well he measures up in terms of his ability 
to protect people after a natural disaster. And clearly there have been 
troubling aspects of what they knew in advance of September 11 and 
whether they could have even prevented September 11 from happening, 
given the information that they had.
  Now they led us into war with misleading information, prevarication, 
I will use every other word except the word I am not allowed to use as 
a result of our rules. But how can they not care about that?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I would like the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
Inslee), who has been focused on this issue for some time, we would 
like to hear some of his thoughts on what is happening right now.
  Mr. INSLEE. Well, Mr. Speaker, if I may, speaking from the State of 
Washington, what is happening right now is that a young man that I 
watched growing up, my neighbor's son, I watched him growing up, 
playing football, spunky, hard-working young man, he is due to go to 
Baghdad in January; and we all are obviously concerned about it. He is 
proud of his service. We are proud of his service. We wish the best for 
him. But it gives a personal dimension to what we are talking about 
here tonight. Because the reason that this young man that I watched 
grow up is going into the killing fields of Baghdad is because an 
administration started a war based on false information.
  So this is a very personal matter as well as a public matter in my 
neighborhood; and it seems to me that, under those circumstances, for 
him and his mother and his father and his neighbors and all of the 
other young sons and daughters that could be in Iraq for we do not know 
how long, this administration owes it to come clean with the American 
people to tell us how this debacle happened, that they sent our sons 
and daughters into war based on a falsehood.
  They have not done that yet. They have not come clean. And I want to 
note why this is so important.
  I just had dinner with the Chief of Operations for the U.S. Navy, and 
one of the things we talked about was the need to improve our human 
intelligence. It has been debased over the years. We have just lost the 
spies, the old-fashioned spies we have had; and we thought we could do 
it all electronically. That does not work.
  We talked about the need to increase our human intelligence, to do 
old-fashioned networks of spies. What does it do to our ability to 
recruit spies when it comes out that the Chief of Staff of the Vice 
President of the United States, at least under this assertion, was 
involved with outing the intelligence agency of the United States, 
which also exposes every single person that Ms. Plame had dealt with 
when she was overseas. Everyone she had ever met is now under suspicion 
as well.
  What does that do to our ability to recruit new spies 
internationally? And what does it do to the sons and daughters we are 
sending to Iraq?
  The administration still has not come clean. And let me just make a 
suggestion for the administration's own benefit, for their own benefit. 
We have seen this same error repeated over and over again, of 
administrations that get their hand caught in the cookie jar. What do 
they do? They get in the bunker. They start trying to hide the ball. 
They do not come clean. And these things drag out for years.
  You know, if the Vice President or President had come forward 2 years 
ago and said, this is how this happened. This is where the intelligence 
came from. This is what Scooter Libby said. This is what Karl Rove 
said. I insist that they tell the truth, and I am going to insist on 
that or I am going to fire them on the spot. Forget the grand jury. 
This could have been over with 2 years ago. Instead, we are here 
talking about it tonight.

  Now I want to mention one other thing I think is important in this. 
We are not sitting here as some criminal tribunal. We are Congressmen 
and women. We are not jurors. There is this grand jury and this pending 
indictment. There is a presumption of innocence. Mr. Libby is still 
presumed innocent in the eyes of the law, and I am going to treat it as 
such.
  But what we are here to do is to make sure that if an administration, 
Republican or Democrat, tells us tomorrow that Iraq has nuclear weapons 
and we have to do something about it, that we can trust our 
administration with this information.
  And I got to tell you, I cannot trust my executive branch of the 
Federal Government now to tell me what is going on in Iraq, Syria or 
Korea or anywhere else, because the President still has not come clean 
fully about what happened in Iraq, and that is very, very important.
  I used to prosecute cases. I was a prosecutor, just misdemeanors. 
They were not higher-level felony cases. But I learned one thing in 
talking to police officers, and that was that there are certain things 
when you watch people that can indicate that they are up to no good, 
and one of those things is what is called furtive behavior. The 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) is an old prosecutor. He 
knows about this.
  Furtive behavior means when somebody does something that looks they 
are trying to hide. When you do something that looks like you are 
trying to hide, it makes you think that person thinks that they have 
something to hide, which suggests that they are up to no good.
  Well, let me suggest that there are two things that give me a little 
pause here. Mr. Libby, when he was talking to all of those reporters, 
according to Judith Miller, Judith Miller said that Mr. Libby said, 
hey, when you identify me as the inside source of all of this 
information, do not identify me as Chief of Staff of the Vice 
President, or even the executive branch, call me an ex-Congressional 
staffer.
  Now if that is not furtive behavior I do not what is.
  The second thing that causes me pause is that on September 14, 2003, 
we have got it up on one of those charts, Tim Russert, who is 
interviewing the Vice President of the United States, asks the Vice 
President, says, Mr. Wilson came back from Niger and said that in fact 
he could not find any documentation that in fact Niger had sent uranium 
to Iraq or engaged in that activity and reported back to the proper 
channels. Were you briefed on his findings in February or March of 
2002?
  Vice President Cheney responds, no, I do not know Joe Wilson. I never 
met Joe Wilson.
  Now, why wouldn't the Vice President of the United States of America 
just tell the truth and say, yes, I know Joe Wilson. We looked into 
some issues. I had Libby look at it. Why would he not come out and tell 
the truth? Instead, what he says is, I do not know Joe Wilson, which we 
now know, according to Mr. Libby, assuming that is accurate, according 
to the indictment, the Vice President is the one that told Mr. Libby 
about Joe Wilson. Yet 3 months later we have the Vice President of the 
United States telling America he did not know Joe Wilson.
  Now this causes me pause as an old prosecutor. And this is not a 
criminal matter. From my basis, we should not be wrapped about the axle 
of criminality but we should insist that Americans be able to trust the 
administration when it comes to war and peace; and we do not have that 
level of trust right now.
  We need the cooperation of the President of the United States and the 
Vice President to come clean about what happened here and ask and 
answer questions that both Congress has, which they have refused to do, 
that is why we have the other Chamber wrapped up in this issue today, 
and ask questions that we ask essentially of the President and the Vice 
President. America deserves that.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, I believe you have the next hour, sir. 
We are running out of time. What I am going to do is, if you could, we 
want to

[[Page 24407]]

get that Web site so we can click over and have more time so that we 
can continue to talk about this issue.
  I am pleased that the Members who have been following this issue for 
a very long time on behalf of the American people are here. If you can 
give the Web site, I would appreciate it, real quick.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. You can get ahold ofusat 30somethingdems@
mail.house.gov. We are going to get up these facts on the Web site, 
too, so you can follow them.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, we want to thank the Democratic 
Leader and the Democratic leadership for allowing us to have this hour.

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