[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6219-6223]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             CURRENT EVENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it's always an honor to come to the floor 
of the House of Representatives, especially when there's so much of 
great importance occurring in our Nation at this time.
  We do need health care reform, and I appreciate my friends across the 
aisle talking about the importance of good health care.
  I've continued to hear people find that they are going to lose their 
health insurance. I was talking to numerous employers this past week 
who say, I want to compete and have been notified insurance is going up 
higher next year. I heard from a small business employer, I'm not going 
to be able to carry insurance. I love my employees. I provide them good 
insurance. But come January, too many of my competitors have said they 
can't afford to keep the insurance for their employees, and so they're 
going to drop it and pay the $2,000 fine because $2,000 is so much 
cheaper than the cost of health insurance.
  The reason we were told for pushing through the ObamaCare bill in a 
very partisan way was because there were 30 million or so who did not 
have insurance; and as some have indicated, there may be that many who 
lose their insurance as a result of ObamaCare. So I'm very concerned.
  I, like my friends across the aisle, want to make sure not that 
people have insurance necessarily, but that they have affordable health 
care. And I'm hearing from health care providers that they're hearing 
from people who are no longer going to carry insurance for their 
employees, that it's going to be more and more expensive to provide 
health care since they made money off those who had insurance; and 
without people having the insurance they had in the past, as the 
President promised and has been made very clear was not true, there 
will be more pressure on those who are paying for their health care to 
pay substantially more, which means there are more people who will not 
be able to afford it, and it will break the system. Of course, with 
health insurance companies complaining that because of the things 
they're forced to cover, their insurance is going to necessarily have 
to go up.
  There will likely be insurance companies that will have to give up 
the health insurance business, and then the administration can complain 
that, Well, we thought we were going to be able to work with the greedy 
health insurance companies; but as it turns out, they've gone out of 
business and doctors have abandoned their practices and retired early. 
So it looks like the government is going to have to take over the 
health care business.
  Under ObamaCare, the Federal Government is already going to have 
everybody's health records. Their most private and personal secrets 
between them and their health care provider will then be available to 
the Federal Government and, as I understand it, to General Electric, 
who this administration, because of their great support of General 
Electric in this administration and their cozy working relationship, 
they'll have the contract to take care of everybody's health care 
records. So that will be just delightful.
  The tragic thing, just as the one lady asked during the town hall 
that the President had at the White House when she asked about her 
elderly mother getting a pacemaker, though she was of late years--I 
believe 95--and that she's had the pacemaker for 10 or 11 years, would 
the panel that decided who would get what treatment, would they 
consider the quality of life of an individual in determining whether or 
not they get a pacemaker or such things, and the answer the President 
ultimately gave is, Well, let's face it. Maybe we're better off telling 
your mother that instead of a pacemaker you get a pain pill.
  So it's very clear that as we approach the day when ObamaCare kicks 
in fully, there will be more and more seniors, whatever age this 
panel--it's not really a death panel--but it will decide who gets 
pacemakers and who is perhaps too old or maybe has lived a good life 
but now is beyond being worthy of, in this administration's opinion, 
getting a new knee or a new hip or back surgery, those kinds of things. 
You'll have bureaucrats that are deciding those issues all in the name 
of helping people with their health care. Because as anyone who 
seriously looks deeply into socialized medicine finds out, the only way 
for socialized medicine to stay afloat is if you have people dying 
while they're waiting on a list to get their particular procedures.
  I mentioned on the floor, I believe last year, about a report from 
England that they're hoping to reduce the length of time that patients 
have to wait for their procedures, whether therapeutic or diagnostic, 
surgery, therapy, whatever it is, reduce that wait from the time it's 
prescribed until the time it's obtained down to 10 months.

                              {time}  2040

  Well, there are a lot of people that we know find out they have 
cancer, they have some problem, perhaps need a bypass, and if they 
don't get it immediately, then they don't make it for 10 months. So 
that's where we are headed and eventually people will see that, and I 
just hope and pray it's not too late so enough people will put pressure 
on their Members of Congress, and especially the Senate, to repeal 
ObamaCare and get us true health care reform so that people can have 
the health care that they want to have, they deserve to have. And for 
those who are truly--and only those who are truly--chronically ill or 
chronically poor and are not able to work or obtain affordable health 
care, then those people, as a caring society, we would take care of.
  But since ObamaCare cut $700 billion from Medicare, it's now 
appearing to more and more seniors that this administration effectively 
took money for treatment that they would get and provided that to 
young, healthier people who probably could, or possibly have their 
employer provide it if the employers were not being penalized for doing 
so, but whose employers will likely give up that insurance, and we'll 
see that as time goes on.
  But nonetheless, seniors, although they were told by this 
administration and told by some people across the aisle that they 
wouldn't lose their doctor, well, many have already lost their doctor. 
People were told, if you like your insurance, you can keep it; and 
we've already found that's not true. So my heart breaks for people who 
are going to need health care in the next few years and are simply not 
going to be allowed to have it because the government will stand 
between them and the health care they need.
  I do recall seeing the President on video saying some years back that 
he wanted single payer health care, the government taking over all 
health

[[Page 6220]]

care, but we couldn't get there in one step. As you examine ObamaCare 
and you see it is ultimately going to bankrupt health insurance 
companies, it is going to drive doctors out of the profession, it is 
going to ultimately bring down the standard of care, we see that it has 
now set up the whole system to fail so that down the road the 
government will say, just as then Senator Obama said, we will get to 
government-run health care because, gee, the greedy insurance companies 
went bankrupt trying to be greedy and doctors got out of the business, 
and now it looks like the government is going to have to take it over, 
just like we hoped.
  If there was ever any aspect of life that would ensure that the 
Federal Government could dictate people's lives to them, it would be 
health care. When the government controls all health care, the 
government will control all people in this country because they will 
make the decision basically who gets what treatment, when we get to 
that point, and I'm hoping and praying we will repeal ObamaCare before 
that happens. It's going to require a new Senate, obviously.
  Well, another area that has had a lot of government intrusion has 
been in the area of the First Amendment. So many people simply do not 
understand and do not appreciate that the First Amendment does say, 
``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, 
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.''
  So we've had so many areas in which the government has moved forward 
to establish a nonreligion, has forced, like in the case of the major 
who shot and killed 13 of our servicemembers at Fort Hood, he and his 
Islamic faith were forced upon people who needed counseling about 
having to go, Christians who had to go to the Middle East, to Iraq, to 
Afghanistan, to serve their country. They had to get counseling from 
someone who made very clear that his faith was everything, and his 
faith in Islam so overwhelmed him that not only must it have affected 
the advice he gave to Christians who were forced to see him, but it 
also caused him to shoot and kill even those he had not wounded with 
his words.
  But there does seem to be a war on Christianity in this country. 
Certainly, as the Founders anticipated, there should not be an 
establishment of religion, but most important was that they not 
prohibit the free exercise of religion.
  When I was in the Army for 4 years, I had so many Christian friends. 
I had friends that were not. But I had so many Christian friends, and 
it seemed that especially around east Texas, where I grew up, so many 
Christians, those that came from Christian backgrounds, also had 
instilled not only a faith in God but also a love of country because of 
just how blessed this country has been, and because they understood 
that since most of the Founders had this Christian faith and over half, 
about two-thirds were even ordained Christian ministers, the signers of 
the Declaration of Independence, they wanted freedom of religion. So 
you could be an atheist. You could be a Muslim. You could be a 
Buddhist, whatever. You could believe in the power of crystals and 
nothing else, whatever it was, because it was the Christian faith. If 
it is truly Christian, then it provides everyone with the freedom of 
choice, as God has given us.
  There are other religions that do not give freedom of choice. And we 
know, as the Islamic countries, where we're not allowed, even as 
Members of Congress, to carry in a Bible or to talk about our faith at 
all, they clearly prohibit the free exercise of religion. Even since 
this country and so many thousands of Americans laid down their lives 
to bring freedom to Afghanistan, this country gave Afghanistan a 
constitution in which shari'a law was the law of the land, and the last 
report I saw indicated that the last Jewish person had left Afghanistan 
and the last Christian, public Christian church had closed. So there's 
no freedom of religion there. There's no freedom of religion even in 
allied nations like Saudi Arabia or even in Egypt, not complete freedom 
of worship, even when Egypt was more of an ally than a country that 
elected a Muslim Brotherhood member who wanted to see the great state 
of America destroyed.

                              {time}  2050

  This has been a country where anyone, any religious beliefs, would 
have freedom of religion. But when we get away from the Judeo-Christian 
faith, whose notions founded this country, then there is no protection 
for all religions.
  So it was interesting to see, especially, having been in the Army, 
having had friends that made careers out of the military--so many that 
started with me stayed in for a career--to see, last week, that and, as 
this headline says, ``Pentagon Confirms May Court Martial Soldiers Who 
Share Christian Faith.''
  This May 1st article by Ken Klukowski said:

       The Pentagon has released a statement saying that soldiers 
     could be prosecuted for promoting their faith: ``Religious 
     proselytization is not permitted within the Department of 
     Defense. Court martials and nonjudicial punishments are 
     decided on a case-by-case basis.''
       The statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart 
     News report on Obama administration Pentagon appointees 
     meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein to 
     develop court martial procedures to punish Christians in the 
     military who express or share their faith.
       (From our earlier report: Weinstein is the head of the 
     Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and says Christians--
     including chaplains--sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in 
     the military are guilty of ``treason'' and of committing an 
     act of ``spiritual rape'' as serious a crime as ``sexual 
     assault.'' He also asserted that Christians sharing their 
     faith in the military are ``enemies of the Constitution.'')
       Being convicted in a court martial means that a soldier has 
     committed a crime under Federal military law. Punishment for 
     a court martial can include imprisonment and being 
     dishonorably discharged from the military.
       So President Barack Obama's civilian appointees who lead 
     the Pentagon are confirming that the military will make it a 
     crime--possibly resulting in imprisonment--for those in 
     uniform to share their faith. This would include chaplains--
     military officers who are ordained clergymen of their faith 
     (mostly Christian pastors or priests or Jewish rabbis)--whose 
     duty, since the founding of the U.S. military under George 
     Washington, is to teach their faith and minister to the 
     spiritual needs of troops who come to them for counsel, 
     instruction or comfort.
       This regulation would severely limit expressions of faith 
     in the military, even on a one-to-one basis between close 
     friends. It could also effectively abolish the position of 
     chaplain in the military, as it would not allow chaplains, or 
     any servicemembers, for that matter, to say anything about 
     their faith that others say led them to think they were being 
     encouraged to make faith part of their life. It's difficult 
     to imagine how a member of the clergy could give spiritual 
     counseling without saying anything that might be perceived in 
     that fashion.

  World magazine has an article entitled ``Religious Battle Lines,'' 
posted May 2, 2013. And in that article by Edward Lee Pitts, it says:

       In a provocative piece at The Huffington Post written 
     before his Pentagon visit, Weinstein, who served in the U.S. 
     Air Force said, ``We face incredibly well-funded gangs of 
     fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow 
     Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of 
     Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our Nation's 
     Armed Forces.''
       After the meeting, a column appeared in The Washington 
     Post, largely sourced by Weinstein, which portrayed him as 
     heroically taking on and lecturing the Pentagon brass. That 
     piece in the newspaper's On Faith section opened by 
     suggesting that, while Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has 
     Pentagon budget concerns, ``there are much more serious 
     issues he must deal with. Religious proselytization and 
     sexual assault are at the top of the list.''

  Well, if Secretary Hagel were talking about the type of 
proselytization that has gone on among our military members that has 
caused anyone to yell ``Allahu Akbar'' and then go about killing fellow 
members of the service, then I would certainly understand why Secretary 
Hagel would be concerned about that kind of proselytizing.
  But for anyone to talk about sedition and treason and Christians 
basically acting in an unconstitutional way by expressing or utilizing 
their freedom of religion, for him to promote the prohibition of the 
free exercise of religion, would be actually encouraging treason, and 
it would be so very unconstitutional.

[[Page 6221]]

  So it's quite interesting, when you find people who are educated 
beyond their ability such that they could read the Constitution and not 
understand the second clause that does not allow prohibition of the 
free exercise of religion.
  We got an explanation from DOD and the Air Force on what they really 
meant after people started objecting to this. And the Air Force 
statement said this:

       When on duty, or in an official capacity, Air Force members 
     are free to express their personal religious beliefs as long 
     as it does not make others uncomfortable. Proselytizing 
     (inducing someone to convert to one's faith) goes over that 
     line. Leaders must avoid the actual or apparent use of their 
     position to promote their personal religious beliefs to their 
     subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any 
     religion.

  As this matter from Fox News says:

       Lieutenant Colonel Tingley's last sentence is troubling. An 
     Air Force officer was told he could no longer keep a Bible on 
     his desk because it ``may'' appear that he was condoning a 
     particular religion. Air Force officers must be allowed to 
     live out their faith in a way that is consistent with their 
     faith. If the Bible is important, then an Air Force officer 
     should be able to have one on his desk. Air Force officers 
     should be allowed to attend chapel, lead prayers, even speak 
     in chapel or lead Bible studies if it is consistent with 
     their faith. This statement does not help. What does ``as 
     long as it does not make others uncomfortable'' mean? Who 
     decides? How much of this policy did Mikey Weinstein 
     influence?

  These are all good questions, because if the standard is that you may 
be allowed to express your religious beliefs unless it makes someone 
uncomfortable, then that is basically a prohibition of anybody's 
freedom of religion, if they are a Christian.
  Mr. Weinstein doesn't seem to be bothered. I haven't seen an 
expression of concern about anybody yelling ``Allahu Akbar'' and 
killing 13 other servicemembers as an expression of religion. He 
doesn't seem to have found that treasonous or problematic. But some of 
the rest of us do.

                              {time}  2100

  So I hope that common sense and reason will win out, especially 
considering the historic nature of our Constitution. And those who 
parrot the words ``separation of church and state'' as if they are in 
the Constitution I find don't often know that those are not in the 
Constitution and are not aware that Thomas Jefferson coined that phrase 
in a letter to the Danbury Baptists where he also coined the phrase, 
``wall of separation.'' And this is a President who, it has been 
confirmed by secular and even the Congressional Research folks, that 
Jefferson most Sundays when he was here in Washington would normally 
ride a horse down Pennsylvania Avenue and attend a nondenominational 
Christian worship service here in the Capitol just down the Hall in 
what we now call Statuary Hall but where they, back then, for most of 
the 1800s, had a Christian worship service.
  The first woman to address a group in the Capitol did so, a female 
evangelist, a Christian evangelist spoke down the hall. The first 
Catholic to address a group in the Capitol did so just down the Hall. 
The first African American to address a group in the Capitol did so 
down the hall. It is a very historic place just down the hall where 
Church was held for most of the 1800s, a Christian, nondenominational 
worship service. So it is rather historic. And it was a Christian 
chapel to which George Washington went with all the other leaders after 
he was sworn in in 1789 and went down the road there in New York from 
the Federal building where he was sworn in to the chapel that was the 
only building at ground zero that was completely unaffected by the 
horrible fall of the World Trade Centers after they were attacked by 
people filled with hatred, an evil people, radical Islamists, who 
thought that in their religion, radical Islam, that they would find 
virgins in paradise by killing thousands of innocent people. So, 
hopefully, the military will take another look at this. I hope and pray 
they will.
  For most of this country's history, Members of Congress, even still 
we have Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle who quote 
Scripture from the Bible as a resource or a confirmation for a 
particular bill or position that they are taking. Going back to our 
very inception as a country, that was considered a wise thing and not a 
treasonous thing as Mr. Weinstein, so unfamiliar with our history, 
would attempt to have people believe.
  It was the incredible Martin Luther King, Jr., an ordained Christian 
minister, that sought to apply the teachings of Jesus and the 
philosophy of Jesus through nonviolence to force the Constitution to be 
interpreted to mean exactly what it said, and that is the kind of basis 
from which there is legitimacy to treat all people equally. As 
Jefferson made clear, if people do not realize that their liberty comes 
from God, then they will not long keep that liberty. I think he said he 
trembled at such a thought.
  This Wednesday, we are going to have a hearing in the Oversight 
Committee regarding what happened at Benghazi on 9/11 of last year. I 
will be honored, humbled and honored, to escort the widow of Ty Woods, 
one of the two former Navy SEALs who was killed when help did not come, 
for whatever reason, whoever ordered help not to come in a timely 
fashion, and this hearing will hopefully shed a little more light on 
that.
  An article from Breitbart came out 5 May, 2013, by John Sexton. He 
says:

       In an appearance on ``Face the Nation'' this morning, 
     Representative Darrell Issa revealed several new pieces of 
     information about the Obama administration's controversial 
     description of the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, 
     casting doubt that the White House mischaracterized its cause 
     by mere accident.
       ``The talking points were right and then the talking points 
     were wrong,'' Issa explained in response to a question about 
     reporting at the Weekly Standard. The CIA and Greg Hicks, who 
     took over as Charge d'Affaires in Libya after the death of 
     Ambassador Chris Stevens, both knew immediately that it was 
     an attack, not a protest.
       Hicks, who did not appear on the show but whose reactions 
     were featured based on transcripts of interviews with Issa's 
     committee, said he was stunned by what U.N. Ambassador Susan 
     Rice claimed on five different news shows on September 16. 
     When she appeared on ``Face the Nation,'' she followed an 
     interview with the President of Libya who claimed he had ``no 
     doubt'' it was a terror attack. Moments later, Ambassador 
     Rice contradicted him and claimed a spontaneous protest was 
     more likely.
       Acting Ambassador Hicks watched the Sunday shows and said 
     he found this contradiction shocking. ``The net impact of 
     what has transpired is the spokesperson of the most powerful 
     country in the world has basically said that the President of 
     Libya is either a liar or doesn't know what he is talking 
     about,'' he accused. Hicks added, ``My jaw hit the floor as I 
     watched this. I have never been as embarrassed in my life, in 
     my career as on that day.''
       Hicks believes the stunning failure of diplomacy on the 
     Sunday news shows explains why it took the FBI 3 weeks to 
     gain access to the Benghazi site. The U.S. had effectively 
     humiliated the Libyan President on national TV. That 
     decision, he believed, probably compromised our ability to 
     investigate and track down those responsible.
       According to Hicks, no one from the State Department 
     contacted him about what Ambassador Rice would be saying in 
     advance. The next morning he called Beth Jones, Acting 
     Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs, and asked her why 
     Ambassador Rice had made the statements she had. Jones 
     responded, ``I don't know.''
       A report published Friday by the Weekly Standard suggests 
     that State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland took issue 
     with the initial talking points and, with backing from the 
     White House, removed any evidence of al Qaeda involvement and 
     of prior attacks on Western targets in the region. According 
     to emails reviewed by the Weekly Standard, Nuland said her 
     superiors were concerned about criticism from Congress.

                              {time}  2110

  You don't have to be trained in the Diplomatic Corps to understand 
that if the President of Libya, where our consulate was attacked, said 
this was not a protest, it was an attack by extremists, that since this 
administration needed his administration's assistance in investigating 
the matter, that they may have just alienated the President of Libya 
and negated efforts to bring the people responsible to justice.
  Of course there's no real explanation as to why it would take 8 
months just to put up three pictures, as has been done, to try to 
identify the perpetrators of what happened in Libya. Heck,

[[Page 6222]]

when that was done regarding the perpetrators in Boston, it wasn't 
months that it took to identify those individuals; they precipitated 
bringing things to a head rather quickly. Isn't it interesting that 
it's only after tremendous congressional pressure to get to the bottom 
of what actually happened at Benghazi so that we can try to avoid it 
for the future that all of a sudden there is interest in actually 
trying to capture the people responsible.
  CBS News, May 6, by Sharyl Attkisson, has a headline of an article: 
Diplomat: U.S. Special Forces told ``you can't go'' to Benghazi during 
attacks:

       The deputy of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens has 
     told congressional investigators that a team of Special 
     Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the 
     September 11, 2012, attacks was forbidden from doing so by 
     U.S. Special Operations Command South Africa.

  This is just shocking to think that we had people armed, equipped, 
able, as we know now if this is true, they should have been able to 
save the lives of those two heroes--Ty Woods and Glen Doherty--and also 
the State Department individual that had most of his right leg blown 
off up there with them. They could have saved all of them if they had 
been allowed to go protect the people who were sent there to serve by 
this administration.
  Another article, the Washington Times has a headline: ``U.S. could 
have halted Benghazi attack with a flyover.'' This is according to a 
diplomat. This article by Shaun Waterman, dated Monday, May 6, 2013, 
says:

       U.S. air power could have headed off at least part of last 
     year's terror attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, but 
     American officials never asked for overflight permission 
     because there were no airborne tankers available to refuel, 
     according to the House Oversight Committee's investigation.
       Gregory N. Hicks, who became the chief of the U.S. mission 
     when Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed in the 
     attack, told House investigators Libya would have given the 
     U.S. permission to do the fly-over.
       Democrats have accused the Republicans of running a ``one-
     sided investigation.''
       Mr. Hicks will testify on Capitol Hill this week along with 
     several others who will detail the conflicting stories the 
     Obama administration told in the days after the attack, which 
     left Stevens and three other Americans dead.
       Mr. Hicks was deputy chief of mission at the embassy in 
     Tripoli when the U.S. post in Benghazi was attacked by 
     heavily armed extremists on September 11.
       In interviews last month, Mr. Hicks told investigators with 
     the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that an 
     overflight by a U.S. F15 or F16 might have prevented the 
     second phase of the attack.
       After the diplomatic post was over-run and set ablaze that 
     night killing Stevens and Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, 
     the survivors took refuge in a nearby CIA building called the 
     annex. That building was in turn attacked at dawn on 
     September 12, when a mortar barrage killed former SEALs Glen 
     Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
       ``If we had gotten clearance from the Libyan military for 
     an American plane to fly over Libyan air space . . . if we 
     had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over 
     Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I 
     believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the 
     annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have 
     split,'' Hicks told House investigators.

  Another article from Fox News, also dated May 6, 2013, is titled: 
Clinton Sought End-Run Around Counterterrorism Bureau on Night of 
Benghazi Attack, Witness Will Say at Hearing.

       On the night of September 11, as the Obama administration 
     scrambled to respond to the Benghazi terror attacks, then-
     Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aid effectively 
     tried to cut the Department's own Counterterrorism Bureau out 
     of the chain of reporting and decision-making, according to a 
     ``whistle-blower'' witness from that bureau who will soon 
     testify to the charge before Congress, Fox News has learned. 
     That witness is Mark I. Thompson, a former marine and now the 
     deputy coordinator for operations in the agency's 
     Counterterrorism Bureau.

  It goes on down, it says:

       Fox News has also learned that another official from the 
     Counterterrorism Bureau--independently of Thompson--voiced 
     the same complaint about Clinton and Under Secretary for 
     Management Patrick Kennedy to trusted national security 
     colleagues back in October.
       Extremists linked to al Qaeda stormed the U.S. Consulate 
     and a nearby annex on September 11 in a heavily armed and 
     well-coordinated 8-hour assault that killed the U.S. 
     ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other 
     Americans.
       Thompson considers himself a whistle-blower whose account 
     was suppressed by the official investigative panel that 
     Clinton convened to review the episode, the Accountability 
     Review Board. Thompson's lawyer, Joseph diGenova, a former 
     U.S. attorney, has further alleged that his client has been 
     subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed 
     superiors at State, in advance of cooperation with Congress.

  Down further it says:

       ``You should have seen what (Clinton) tried to do to us 
     that night,'' the second official in State's Counterterrorism 
     Bureau told colleagues back in October. Those comments would 
     appear to be corroborated by Thompson's forthcoming 
     testimony.
       State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the 
     counterterrorism officials' allegations ``100 percent 
     false.'' A spokesman for Clinton said tersely that the charge 
     is not true.

  It says:

       Daniel Benjamin, who ran the Department's Counterterrorism 
     Bureau at the time, also put out a statement Monday morning 
     strongly denying the charges.
       ``I ran the bureau then, and I can say now with certainty, 
     as the former Coordinator for Counterterrorism, that this 
     charge is simply untrue,'' he said. ``Though I was out of the 
     country on official travel at the time of the attack . . .''

  And it goes on. But that seems to be the way, when this 
administration wants somebody to say, as he did, a charge is simply 
untrue and to strongly deny charges, they seem to have to call on 
somebody who had no firsthand information, which is why so many people 
were questioning why Ambassador Susan Rice was called upon to make the 
Sunday morning show round and constantly tell people that apparently it 
was the result of a protest and was not al Qaeda related, when in fact 
as people knew that night at the time of the attack, this was a 
coordinated effort. There was no sign of protest.
  So the way the administration appears to have operated is to have 
people come forward who had no firsthand information, give them their 
talking points, as Susan Rice was given--an intelligent person. She's 
told by people apparently she trusts, here's what you need to point 
out, here's what you need to know. And then those people have plausible 
deniability of what the real facts are because they've just been handed 
talking points.
  So it is a very serious matter when we're trying to get to the truth 
because it does matter. It makes the difference between whether or not 
we learn from mistakes that were made and correct them for the future, 
or whether we refuse to learn from history, refuse to learn from the 
mistakes that were made so that we become, as the old saying says, 
destined to repeat them.

                              {time}  2120

  So it does matter, and it matters very much to Ty Woods' widow, who 
will be here for the hearing. She does have interest because it does 
matter to her.
  What difference does it make? It will matter to the loved ones of 
those who will die in the future if we don't get down to what actually 
occurred, what mistakes were made so we can avoid them being made in 
the future. It makes a lot of difference to those who don't want their 
loved ones to die in the service of this country.
  Now, there are also reports out there that, as I read already, that 
there was a group of Special Forces who were ordered to stand down and 
not go forward and help those at Benghazi. As the article from CBS News 
points out, there may have been a Special Forces team that was ready to 
go and then they were told you can't go. It is just incredible to think 
that someone may have given such an order and not allowed the military 
to go forward.
  There are rumors afloat that people in the military, people in the 
State Department, have been told not to talk to Members of Congress 
about what happened at Benghazi. If there is anything to those 
accounts, one thing that is often helpful is to go to the law itself. 
18 U.S.C., section 1505 is entitled, ``Obstruction of Proceedings 
Before Departments, Agencies, and Committees,'' and, in part, says: 
``Whoever corruptly''--and I'm just reading what might be applicable if 
this were ever to arise and someone ever were to instruct members of 
the military or

[[Page 6223]]

members of the State Department or any agency of the Federal Government 
not to communicate with Members of Congress, this bears noting.

       Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any 
     threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or 
     impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the 
     due and proper administration of the law under which any 
     pending proceeding is being had before any department or 
     agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise 
     of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or 
     investigation is being had by either House, or any committee 
     of either House or any joint committee of the Congress.

  It goes on to say they'll be punished.
  That's a rather serious matter, so hopefully nobody is out there 
giving such instruction or has not been out there giving such 
instructions, because when members of the military or the State 
Department or intelligence departments or Justice Departments have 
information and they have been asked to provide such information and 
anyone instructs them in any way that may impede Congress' recovery of 
such information, then they need to look at 18 U.S.C.
  Also, 18 U.S.C., 371:

       If two or more persons conspire either to commit any 
     offense against the United States, or to defraud the United 
     States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any 
     purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect 
     the object of the conspiracy, each shall be--

  And then it talks about their fine and imprisonment.
  And then, of course, this under 18 U.S.C., section 2:

       Whoever commits an offense against the United States or 
     aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces, or procures its 
     commission is punishable as a principal. Whoever willfully 
     causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him 
     or another would be an offense against the United States, is 
     punishable as a principal.

  So, basically if somebody is encouraged not to be forthcoming or 
honest with the Congress, you run into some issues there as well.
  I hope people will take note of our laws, and hopefully there's no 
truth to the rumors afloat that such instructions had been given 
because, just as I was so greatly offended when the national security 
letter system was abused and we had an inspector general report about 
that, I didn't care that it was a Republican administration that was 
abusing people's freedom and I spoke out.
  And I hope that friends across the aisle, as this information 
continues to be forthcoming about misrepresentations that were made 
publicly by this administration, intentionally and knowingly, that 
others, friends across the aisle, will stand up, as I did, about the 
Bush administration, their Justice Department, and demand justice. I 
demanded a resignation from the FBI Director back then. We have an 
obligation, and it goes beyond party loyalty.
  When people were killed who were sent to Libya to serve this 
country--and we had two former SEALs who went and gave their lives to 
try to save, and who did save, American lives--the least people 
stateside can do, the least those who were reportedly told you can't go 
help these people, the least they can do since they were not allowed, 
according to the story, not allowed to go give Ty and Glen backup then, 
I hope and pray they'll have the courage to give them backup now so 
there will be no more Tys and Glens that will have to give their lives 
in the future because inadequate security was provided and a State 
Department was stumbling through relations in a tough situation and 
then sent people forward with statements that those who sent that 
person forward knew were not true, I hope that we'll have people, not 
just those that are now coming before the committee on Wednesday, but 
others, for the sake of Ty and Glen, Mr. Speaker, I hope people who are 
in the service or former servicemembers that may have personal 
information will give them the backup now that they're gone that they 
would have wanted if that was them who gave their lives.
  Mr. Speaker, with that I yield back the balance of my time.

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