[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6912-6917]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas

[[Page 6913]]

(Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my dear friend and 
colleague, Ms. Frankel, for a wonderful presentation.
  I know, in having traveled with Congresswoman Frankel, that we share 
a great respect and admiration for the nation of Israel, and we should 
be the best friend Israel has in the world because they believe in the 
things we do, in the same values.
  Where else in the Middle East do people get to vote, whether you are 
Muslim, Jewish, Christian, except in Israel? If you are a woman, where 
are you respected and given the full rights that men have, except for 
in Israel? Where in the Middle East are homosexuals not persecuted and 
even killed?
  We ought to be Israel's best friend in the world; and I am very 
concerned that, at times, it feels like we may not be. So I join my 
friend in wanting to do everything we can to shore up that relationship 
with Israel, and I thank her for her dedication.
  I also believe firmly that it is true that those who bless Israel 
seem to end up being blessed. Go figure. So I am grateful for that 
presentation.
  Mr. Speaker, I did want to answer or attempt to answer a question 
that I have been asked many times about media reporting and 
presentations and why some stories get covered by the mainstream media, 
particularly by the three main networks for broadcast television and 
CNN and MSNBC as well.
  I saw a chart that was put together by a group, called the Minority 
Report, but I wasn't as interested in the group as I was in finding out 
if the relationships set forth in the chart were actually accurate, so 
I had my staff help me. Let's find out. Is this chart really accurate? 
I was really staggered by what was in the chart.
  This is not the entire chart, but it is most of it. Their chart was 
entitled, ``Keeping It in the Family,'' and it was very interesting.
  As you see the chart here, at CNN, the vice president and deputy 
bureau chief in Washington is Virginia Moseley, who is married to Tom 
Nides, who is the former Deputy Secretary of State under Hillary 
Clinton, the former Secretary of State.
  You have Bianna Golodryga, married to Peter Orszag, who was the 
former Director of the Office of Management and Budget under the Obama 
administration. You have Ben Sherwood, and he is the brother of Dr. 
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, who is the former adviser to Joe Biden and 
also an adviser to the President.
  At ABC News, you have Ian Cameron, who is the former executive 
producer of ``This Week,'' and he is married to someone named Susan 
Rice, who, obviously, was the National Security Advisor to the 
President before she went to the U.N.
  You have Claire Shipman, who is married to someone named Jay Carney. 
Claire Shipman is a correspondent with ABC News. Then you have Matthew 
Jaffe, who is married to Katie Hogan. Katie Hogan was the Deputy Press 
Secretary for President Obama's 2012 reelection campaign; and she is 
the spokesperson for Organizing for Action, OFA, which is working hard, 
apparently, to turn Texas blue, as they say. Anyway, Matthew Jaffe is a 
reporter with ABC News.
  Then not to leave out NBC News, you have Robert Gibbs, the former 
White House Press Secretary for President Obama. You have him as a 
contributor to NBC News. You have the former senior adviser to the 
President, David Axelrod, who is known for the massive and important 
advice he has given to President Obama as a senior political analyst 
for MSNBC.
  Oh, we don't want to forget, over here, CBS News. You have the 
president of CBS News, who is David Rhodes. David Rhodes is akin to--is 
the brother of--Ben Rhodes, who is the person who coined the phrase 
``kinetic military action,'' instead of using the word ``war.''
  He coordinated the edits, apparently, of the Benghazi talking points, 
and of course, he had a great deal to do with what was done in Libya by 
this administration and the way that was discussed with the media.
  So it is not necessarily surprising that Sharyl Attkisson ran into 
the buzz saw she did at CBS News when the president of CBS News is the 
brother of someone who was helping pull the strings at the White House.
  In fact, some of the articles that were pulled to point out some of 
these relationships--an article by Ed Morrissey on April 29 of 2014 
talked about the newly released White House email, which shows that the 
Rice talking points on Benghazi were politically motivated.
  It says, in part, in the article:

       The YouTube story was designed to distract from ``policy 
     failures,'' according to Barack Obama's aide Ben Rhodes--or 
     the brother to the president of CBS News.

  Then it goes on to set out part of Mr. Ben Rhode's email, and he says 
in the email, Ben Rhodes does--the brother of David Rhodes, the 
president of CBS News:

       To convey that the United States is doing everything that 
     we can to protect our people and facilities abroad; to 
     underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet 
     video and not a broader failure of policy; to show that we 
     will be resolute in bringing people who harm Americans to 
     justice and standing steadfast through these protests; to 
     reinforce the President and administration's strength and 
     steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.

  On the toplines, he says:

       Since we began to see protests in response to this Internet 
     video, the President has directed the administration to take 
     a number of steps. His top priority has been the safety and 
     security of all Americans serving abroad.

  Indeed, that was exactly what people in the administration were 
saying. That was what the people at CBS News were parroting. Since that 
came from the brother of the CBS News president, that seems to have 
worked pretty effectively.
  There is another article here, ``Worldly at 35, and Shaping Obama's 
Voice.'' It was an article in The New York Times in March of 2013 by 
Mark Landler.
  It says:

       As President Obama prepares to visit Israel next week, he 
     is turning, as he often does, to Benjamin J. Rhodes, a 35-
     year-old Deputy National Security Advisor with a soft voice, 
     strong opinions, and a reputation around the White House as 
     the man who channels Mr. Obama on foreign policy.

                              {time}  2000

  Mr. Rhodes is drafting the address to the Israeli people the 
President plans to give in Jerusalem. But his influence extends beyond 
what either his title or speech-writing duties suggest. Drawing on 
personal ties and a philosophical kinship with Mr. Obama that go back 
to the 2008 campaign, Mr. Rhodes helped prod his boss to take a more 
activist policy toward Egypt and Libya when those countries erupted in 
2011.
  On further in the article it points out:

       Two years ago, when protesters thronged Tahrir Square in 
     Cairo, Mr. Rhodes urged Mr. Obama to withdraw three decades 
     of American support for President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. A 
     few months later, Mr. Rhodes was among those agitating for 
     the President to back a NATO military intervention in Libya 
     to head off a slaughter by Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.

  Further down in the article it says:

       At the White House, Mr. Rhodes first came to prominence 
     after he wrote Mr. Obama's landmark address to the Muslim 
     world in Cairo in June, 2009. The speech was notable for Mr. 
     Obama's assertion that governments should ``reflect the will 
     of the people,'' prefiguring his policy in dealing with Mr. 
     Mubarak and Colonel Qaddafi.

  Another article from March of 2011 by Rick Moran. It starts out with 
a reference to Alice in Wonderland, when Rick Moran says:

       A ``war'' is a war, is a ``war,'' right? Not if you live in 
     the Rabbit Hole and have to answer to Alice--

talking about Alice in Wonderland--

     as Commander in Chief.

  But Byron York is quoted--and I take it this was an article by Byron 
York inserted in Mr. Moran's piece--and says:

       In the last few days, Obama administration officials have 
     frequently faced the question: Is the fighting in Libya a 
     war? For military officers to White House spokesmen up to the 
     President himself, the answer is ``no.'' But that leaves the 
     question: What is it?
       In a briefing onboard Air Force One Wednesday, Deputy 
     National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes--


[[Page 6914]]


  Again, this is 2011--

     --took a crack at an answer. ``I think what we are doing is 
     enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, 
     which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a 
     humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone,'' Rhodes 
     said. ``Obviously, that involves kinetic military action, 
     particularly on the front end.''

  That came from Ben Rhodes.
  And then Mr. Moran's article says:

       What we are doing in Libya is making war, whether the Obama 
     administration admits it or not. People aren't getting killed 
     by ``kinetic'' anything. They are dying the old-fashioned 
     way--they are getting blown up.
       This gives a whole new meaning to ``KIA.''

  Another article from Patrick Howley from May 11, 2013, entitled, 
``Top Obama Official's Brother is President of CBS News, May Drop 
Reporter Over Benghazi Coverage.''
  It says:

       The brother of a top Obama administration official is also 
     the president of CBS News, and the network may be days away 
     from dropping one of its top investigative reporters for 
     covering the administration's scandals too aggressively.

  Down further it says:

       That reporting revealed that President Obama's Deputy 
     National Security Advisor, Ben Rhodes--brother of CBS News 
     president David Rhodes--was instrumental in changing the 
     talking points in September, 2012.

  The article further down says more about Mr. Rhodes being a 35-year-
old New York native; David Rhodes, president of CBS news since 2011.
  So it is rather amazing, but it should be more clear to people. 
People wonder why the mainstream gives such favorable coverage to the 
Obama administration. Well, blood is thicker than water, is one saying.
  In the case of our mainstream media, they totally dropped the ball on 
Benghazi and continue to report on anything else they can besides 
Benghazi.
  I am very grateful that the mainstream media on the left and right 
back in the seventies did not drop the Watergate investigation. They 
stayed on it until the truth came out. Back in those days, the 
mainstream media was so important to protecting our freedom and 
protecting Americans from a President who had an enemies' list and 
protecting America from a President that seemed a bit paranoid at 
times.
  A man, a fellow Christian and an amazing man of faith after his 
conversion during the Watergate investigation, Chuck Colson, talked in 
his book, ``Born Again'' about how after the Kent State debacle and 
students were killed, it turned basically into a bunker at the White 
House. It was ``we'' against ``they,'' and if you were critical at all, 
you didn't deserve to be in the bunker. You were an enemy.
  We are very fortunate that when a President begins to have that kind 
of mentality and so afraid of anybody who is critical, we are fortunate 
he did not understand just how far a President, how far an 
administration could push the IRS into going after political enemies, 
as we have now seen that it has.
  Whether or not the IRS's weaponization was before the 2012 election, 
the President had a call to arms right here in front of the House and 
the Senate and the Cabinet members, Joint Chiefs of Staff and Supreme 
Court, sitting right here, when he mistakenly asserted what he believed 
were facts about the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court, and 
it was so wrong, to the point that Justice Alito sat right here just 
feet away from where I am standing, shaking his head and saying, Not 
true, not true, not true.
  Nonetheless, people at the IRS heard the call. They paid attention. 
And they came to understand that maybe the Supreme Court says 
conservatives can run ads and get involved in political issues like 
union groups do, but maybe we can stop them. And they effectively did 
that by putting their investigations into their tax status on hold and 
refusing to give them any kind of decision until well after the 2012 
election, thereby silencing those voices.
  I have had reporters who obviously don't understand the Tax Code and 
the power of the IRS say, Well, what difference does it make? Those 
groups probably shouldn't have been applying for tax status like they 
were anyway. Obviously, showing the ignorance of the reporters when 
they ask such questions. Because the way the Internal Revenue Code is 
set up, if someone in the general population just decides I want to get 
a bunch of friends together who have political beliefs like I do and we 
are going to pool our money together and then we are going to start 
spending it on issues to educate the American public, and somebody has 
got to account for all that money, you don't want the IRS coming after 
you as you accumulate money to spend on political education of America.
  So you have to go begging to the IRS for the proper designation so 
that you can go about gathering money without them coming against you 
as being a single individual raising money to spend on political 
issues.
  That also, Mr. Speaker, is one of the reasons why we need to throw 
out the Internal Revenue Code. Just pass a bill that says as of a 
certain date the Internal Revenue Code will be totally void, and that 
gives us a deadline to shoot for.
  I like the idea of a flat tax. There are people that I love and 
respect that think a fair tax is a better way to go. But by scrapping 
the Internal Revenue Code, throwing it out on a date certain, then we 
would only have so long to get a new Tax Code figured out. We would be 
serving notice to people that that is when it would change.
  I have heard our President say so many times that people need to pay 
their fair share. Well, it doesn't look like that is ever going to 
happen until we have a flat tax, where if you make more, you pay more; 
you make less, you pay less. That is what we ought to be doing.
  Anyway, as a result, we have an IRS that became weaponized on behalf 
of one political party and one administration. And we do need a special 
prosecutor. I have been pointing that out for quite some time. There 
are criminals laws that may have been violated. That is why we need a 
special prosecutor, not the Justice Department. We have seen their kind 
of ``just us'' rather than ``justice.''
  We need a special prosecutor that is not appointed by Eric Holder. We 
need to get to the bottom of who violated the law. Because it appears 
laws were broken.
  But some wonder why the mainstream media doesn't get into the IRS 
weaponization more. We see the familial relationships between the 
mainstream media--not that I am saying CNN and MSNBC on the extreme 
left are mainstream media, but they are part of the media who avoids 
reporting anything negative about this President. Well, you hate to 
report things negative on your own family. So that is understandable.
  So, Mr. Speaker, it explains a lot, once you begin to see all of the 
marriages and all of the sibling relationships between this 
administration and people in the media--siblings in the media--people 
calling the shots and giving the advice in our major news media.
  Mr. Speaker, we also sometimes are a little surprised as the 
mainstream media tries to desperately change the subject from the false 
reports and statements that were made about Benghazi and the coverup 
that we are now finding out about Benghazi. They are constantly trying 
to change the subject, in their desperation to protect their familial 
relationships in the administration.
  I had a call today wanting me to come on the news tomorrow and talk 
about climate change. It used to be called global warming until people 
realized, wow, it is not really warming anything very serious, so we 
better start calling it climate change. And as any real scientists 
know, when you come up with a scientific theory, then there are certain 
facts that will prove your theory or your assertion. But when we talk 
about climate change, people are not doing that.

                              {time}  2015

  Whatever happens, if there are a lot of tornados, they say: see, it 
is climate change. If there are very few tornados, they say: see, it is 
climate change. If we have numerous hurricanes, they say: see, it is 
climate change. If there are not many hurricanes, they say: see, it is 
climate change.

[[Page 6915]]

  No matter what happens in the weather, we are told it is climate 
change. The truth is I believe in climate change. I not only believe in 
climate change, I know it is happening, usually, most places, four 
times a year. They are called seasons.
  Then we have climate changing--I will never forget, back in the 
midseventies, there was a cover of one of the main American magazines 
about how we were approaching--heading into a new ice age. I thought, 
well, that doesn't make sense. I do believe the Bible, and I don't 
believe the world is going to end in ice.
  That just doesn't seem right, yet we heard scientists telling us: oh, 
no, we are at the beginning of a new ice age in the mid-1970s. We are 
at the beginning of a new ice age.
  They were wanting to change everything we were doing. Oh, we have got 
to change everything we are doing about power, about fossil fuels, 
everything because we are at the beginning of a new ice age. About 10 
years later, people saw: well, we may be slightly warming, so we had 
better quit talking about global cooling, and now, we are talking about 
global warming.
  There is an interesting article that came out today from Mario Lewis 
entitled, ``National Climate Assessment report: Alarmists offer untrue, 
unrelenting doom and gloom.''
  This article today says:

       Tuesday, the U.S. Government's Global Change Research 
     Program released its latest ``National Assessment'' report on 
     climate change impacts in the United States.
       As with previous editions, the new report is an alarmist 
     document designed to scare people and build political support 
     for unpopular policies such as carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, 
     and EPA regulatory mandates.
       Also in keeping with past practice, the latest report 
     confuses climate risk with climate change risk.
       Droughts, storms, floods, and heat waves are all part of 
     the natural climate. Our risk of exposure to such extremes 
     has much more to do with where we happen to live than with 
     any gradual climate changes associated with the 1.3 degree 
     Fahrenheit to 1.9 degree Fahrenheit increase in average U.S. 
     temperature since the 1880s.
       Since even immediate and total shutdown of all carbon 
     dioxide-emitting vehicles, power plants, and factories in the 
     U.S. would decrease global warming by only a hypothetical and 
     undetectable two-tenths of a degree Celsius by 2100--

  Eighty-five years, even if they got everything they wanted for 85 
years, the article says:

       It is misleading to imply, as the report does, that the 
     Obama administration's climate policies can provide any 
     measurable protection from extreme weather events.
       The assessment is flatout wrong that climate change is 
     increasing our vulnerability to heat stress. As hot weather 
     has become more frequent, people and communities have adapted 
     to it, and heat-related mortality in the U.S. has declined.
       Cities with the most frequent hot weather, such as Tampa; 
     Florida; and Phoenix, Arizona, have practically zero heat-
     related mortality. That is the most probable future for most 
     U.S. cities if global warming continues.
       The report also foolishly predicts that climate change 
     ``intensify air pollution.'' As EPA's own data show, despite 
     allegedly ``unprecedented'' warming, the U.S. air quality has 
     improved decade by decade since 1970 as emissions declined.
       The report blames climate change for the Midwest drought of 
     2012, but the government's own analysis concluded otherwise: 
     ``Neither ocean states nor human-induced climate change, 
     factors that can provide long-lead predictability, appeared 
     to play significant roles in causing severe rainfall deficits 
     over the major corn-producing regions of central Great 
     Plains.''
       This assessment ignores substantial data and research, 
     finding no long-term increase in the strength and frequency 
     of tropical cyclones and no trend in extreme weather-related 
     damages once losses are ``normalized'' or adjusted for 
     changes in population, wealth, and consumer price index.
       For example, the report says trends in the frequency and 
     intensity of tornadoes are ``uncertain,'' whereas, in fact, 
     there is no trend, and a new study by University of Colorado 
     Professor Roger Pielke, Jr., finds ``with some certainty'' 
     that ``the number of years with very large tornado losses has 
     actually decreased'' during 1993-2013 compared to 1950-1970.
       Similarly, the U.S. is currently in the longest period on 
     record with no major category 3-5 hurricane landfalls.
       This good news is not included in the report.
       The assessment gives short shrift to the warming ``pause,'' 
     which it calls ``short-term.'' In the assessment, the 
     ``pause'' is depicted as running from 1998 through 2012. That 
     is 15 years. In fact, the pause is now 17 years and 8 months 
     long.
       More tellingly, the assessment does not discuss the growing 
     divergence between climate model predictions and 
     observations.
       The divergence, now in its 34th year and accelerating due 
     to the pause, raises questions about the climate sensitivity 
     assumptions on which dire climate change scenarios depend. 
     Climate sensitivity is an estimate of how much warming will 
     eventually result from a doubling of atmospheric carbon 
     dioxide concentrations relative to preindustrial levels.
       In its discussion of sensitivity, the assessment basically 
     endorses the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 
     2007 ``likely'' sensitivity range of 3.6 to 8.1 degrees 
     Fahrenheit and ``best estimate'' of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. 
     It neglects to mention that, partly due to the pause and 
     model overshoot of observed temperatures, the IPCC's 2013 
     report lowered the bottom end of the likely range and 
     declined to offer a ``best'' estimate.
       More importantly, the assessment presents the debate over 
     climate sensitivity as a ``he said, she said,'' as if a 
     single paper by John Fasullo and Kevin Trenberth balances out 
     some 16 recent papers indicating that the IPCC climate 
     sensitivity estimates are too hot.

  In other words, they are just wrong.
  The article says:

       So despite an occasional fig leaf to hide the nakedness of 
     its alarm message, the report does acknowledge that climate 
     change has lengthened growing seasons, helping to make food 
     more abundant and affordable, the assessment is unrelenting 
     gloom and doom.
       Its only hopeful message is that it's not too late to 
     implement Kyoto-style climate policies.
       Sorry, that's not good enough even for government work.

  Mario Lewis is a Ph.D., a senior fellow at Competitive Enterprise 
institute.
  And it really is important to real realize what is at stake here. It 
is something that shocked me back when we were trying, in my freshman 
term, to amend and reform the Endangered Species Act that has wreaked 
such havoc with our economy and continues to cause people to lose jobs.
  There was reported decline in the unemployment rate from 6.7 to 6.3, 
and you heard all of the mainstream media, in helping their family 
members in this administration, just all abuzz and aglow with how 
wonderful that four-tenths of a percent drop was, failing completely to 
mention that that was only a fraction of the 800,000 who got so tired 
of not finding work--800,000 people gave up and quit looking for work 
and are now considered, under statistics, to no longer be unemployed, 
even though they are unemployed.
  It doesn't account for all the people that are underemployed, that 
are out of college and can't find jobs; the historic high unemployment 
rate of our veterans coming back and looking for jobs, even as this 
administration not only wants to cut the military back to a fraction of 
its former self, back to pre-World War II levels, when we were not a 
superpower, and hatred and genocide began to reign supreme.
  That doesn't explain why the administration and some people here in 
the House, friends of mine here in the House, that are saying: You know 
what? Let's give the few jobs left in our military to people that are 
not lawfully in this country.
  If they will do that, even though it will displace one of the few 
military jobs left after we cut the military back so far and even 
though it will push them into an even-growing high unemployment rate 
for veterans, let's go ahead and give those few jobs left to people who 
are not lawfully in the country. It is not a good idea.
  After pushing for over a year and a half for a select committee to 
get to the bottom of what happened at Benghazi and after we still 
haven't gotten to the bottom of the Department of Justice's role in 
forcing guns, which we know they did, forced guns to be sold to 
criminals and people that should not have had guns, that ended up with 
drug cartels in Mexico, with reports of hundreds of Mexicans killed by 
the weapons we forced into improper and illegal criminal hands, we--
being the Justice Department of this administration--we haven't gotten 
answers to that.
  That is why, even today, as I stand here, the highest-ranking law 
enforcement officer in the land stands in contempt of Congress; 
although I was gratified to hear him say, in answer to

[[Page 6916]]

a question of mine, that I am not supposed to ever presume that it 
wasn't a big deal to him.
  Unfortunately, he said, a year ago to ABC News that it wasn't any 
kind of big deal at all because, to be a big deal, he would have had to 
have respect for the people that voted for the contempt; and since he 
had no respect for the people that voted for the contempt, it wasn't a 
big deal to him.
  So a year ago, it wasn't a big deal; and this year, apparently, it is 
still a big deal, but I am not supposed to think that it is not a big 
deal to him, even though that is what he said, and the familial 
relationships in the mainstream media continue to give cover.
  As I have continued to complain about the inadequate investigation 
into the Tsarnaevs--the failure of this administration to properly 
investigate the Tsarnaevs, even after the Russians, who are not our 
friends, gave us, twice, a heads up. Look out. The older Tsarnaev has 
been radicalized.
  Now, you have got people in the mainstream media parroting what the 
Obama administration is saying. Well, those darned old Russians, they 
should have given us more information.
  They did us a favor giving us a heads up. We are not their friends. 
They gave us a heads up anyway.
  They don't even--they purged the FBI training material, so our agents 
don't know the proper questions to ask to find out if someone has been 
radicalized.

                              {time}  2030

  They won't allow people that have spent their adult lives studying 
radical Islam--people like that, like Steve Coughlin--they are not 
allowed to even go give a briefing to people to explain what radical 
Islam is.
  And then we hear people like the Department of Homeland Security 
Secretary at the time, Janet Napolitano, who seemed to take the 
position that, gee, you know, we are just not able to connect the dots. 
But yet it appears that, under her watch, not only did she promote what 
Egyptian Muslim Brother publications said were top Muslim Brother 
people into top Homeland Security and Obama administration positions, 
but she gave a secret clearance--and there is no way it could have been 
given after proper vetting because proper vetting would have showed 
that he was a main speaker giving tribute to the man of vision, the 
Ayatollah Khomeini, who has a foundation called the Freedom and Justice 
Foundation, which is the same name as the Muslim Brother political 
party in Egypt who defended the convicted terrorist supporter of the 
head of the Holy Land Foundation, said there was nothing wrong with 
what he was doing.
  I am very proud of the Senator from Iowa. I want to do a shout-out, 
Mr. Speaker, down the hall and read a letter from Senator Grassley. I 
was just there in Iowa a few days ago, Senator Grassley's territory. 
The senior Senator from Iowa, Charles E. Grassley, wrote a letter to 
the new Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, and he said:

       My office recently received copies of disturbing internal 
     Department of Homeland Security, DHS, emails regarding the 
     admittance of individuals into the United States with 
     potential ties to terrorism.
       The May 2012 email chain between U.S. Immigration and 
     Customs Enforcement, ICE, and U.S. Customs and Border 
     Protection, CBP, surrounds the question of whether to admit 
     someone who had scheduled an upcoming flight into the U.S. 
     Allegedly, the individual was a member of the Muslim 
     Brotherhood and a close associate of a supporter of ``Hamas, 
     Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic jihad.'' According to the 
     same email, the individual had been in secondary inspection 
     ``several dozen times of the past several years,'' but had 
     not had a secondary inspection since 2010.
       One of the responses to the initial email states: ``The CBP 
     National Targeting Center, NTC, watch commander advised that 
     the subject has sued CBP twice in the past and that he's one 
     of the several hands-off passengers nationwide. Apparently, 
     his records were removed in December 2010, and the DHS 
     Secretary was involved in the matter.'' The email continues:
       I'm puzzled how someone could be a member of the Muslim 
     Brotherhood and unindicted coconspirator in the Holy Land 
     Foundation trial--

  Which, parenthetically, was a trial in which people were convicted of 
supporting terrorism, providing financial support for terrorism, 
convicted, and this individual mentioned was a named coconspirator in 
the pleadings.
  The message and the email goes on:

     --be an associate of (redacted), say that the U.S. is staging 
     car bombings in Iraq and that it is okay for men to beat 
     their wives, question who was behind the 9/11 attacks, and be 
     afforded the luxury of a visitor visa and de-watchlisted. It 
     doesn't appear that we'll be successful with denying him 
     entry tomorrow, but maybe we could reevaluate the matter in 
     the future since the decision to de-watchlist him was made 17 
     months ago.

  Senator Grassley's message to Secretary Johnson of DHS said:

       In order to understand the events described in these 
     emails, please provide the committee with answers to the 
     following questions:
       One, why was this individual removed from the watchlist in 
     December 2010?
       Two, please describe the nature, extent, and reasons for 
     the involvement of the DHS Secretary or her staff in the 
     removal of the individual from the watchlist.
       Three, what is the current watchlist status of this 
     individual?
       Four, how many people are on the hands-off list mentioned 
     in the email?
       Five, what qualifies someone to receive the ``hands-off'' 
     designation?
       Six, does filing a lawsuit result in being designated 
     ``hands-off'' and, thus, avoiding secondary security 
     screenings?
       Seven, who makes the determination that an individual 
     should be considered ``hands-off''?

  Senator Grassley says: I would appreciate receiving answers to these 
questions by March 3, 2014. Should you have any questions regarding the 
letter--and he goes on, and he signs it, Charles E. Grassley, Ranking 
Member.
  Then there is an attachment to his letter. And there is so much that 
is redacted here, Mr. Speaker, that there are a lot of gaps. But even 
so, it is easy to see how serious this is.
  This was from Thursday, May 10, 2012, not quite a year before the 
Boston bombing. But as was pointed out in the letter, this email was 
from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer to the U.S. 
Customs and Border Patrol protection. The body says:

       The NTC watch commander advised that the subject has sued 
     CBP twice in the past and that he's one of several hands-off 
     passengers nationwide. He said he checked if there was a copy 
     of the lawsuits filed against CBP in the historical logs. Can 
     you pass the lawsuits if they are at NTC? I assume the 
     lawsuits were against the heads of DHS and presume it was a 
     civil proceeding, but who knows where it was filed, since the 
     subject lives outside the U.S. I didn't know that a Canadian 
     citizen who lives in (blank) could sue DHS. Also not sure if 
     the lawsuits were regarding him being stopped frequently or 
     his admissibility/inadmissibility or both. If the lawsuits 
     weren't about his admissibility/inadmissibility, we should 
     proceed forward regarding that once the lawsuits are 
     reviewed.
       If the lawsuits aren't readily accessible at CBP/NTC, I can 
     check with someone at CBP headquarters to get them. 
     Apparently his records were removed in December 2010, and the 
     DHS Secretary was involved in the matter.
       I'm puzzled how someone could be a member of the Muslim 
     Brotherhood and unindicted coconspirator in the Holy Land 
     Foundation trial, be an associate of (blank), say that the 
     U.S. is staging car bombings in Iraq and that is okay for men 
     to beat their wives, question who was behind the 9/11 attacks 
     and be afforded the luxury of a visitor visa and de-
     watchlisted. It doesn't appear that we'll be successful with 
     denying him entry tomorrow, but maybe we could reevaluate the 
     matter in the future since the decision to de-watchlist him 
     was made 17 months ago. Thanks.

  And then the name is blotted out.
  Anyway, other messages. One in response down the email chain:

       I spoke with CBP (blank) who is obviously very familiar 
     with this traveler. I am of the opinion that (blank) meets 
     the parameters for refusal based on the three INA 212(a)(3) 
     terrorism charges and that when he enters the U.S. on a B1/B2 
     for lectures/speeches for organizations or for events where a 
     registration fee is required or admission needs to be paid, 
     he should probably be seeking an R-1 or an O-1 visa instead.
       Perhaps one of the reasons he has not applied for an O-1 
     visa or R-1 visa is because of the terrorist-related 
     questions these forms ask that he would then be forced to 
     answer.
       Does NTC have any background information or guidance it can 
     share on the logs or former records this subject has had? Or 
     if he has applied for any waivers of inadmissibility? Does 
     NTC have any objections if CBP denies admission to (blank) 
     under either terrorism grounds or improper nonimmigrant visa?

[[Page 6917]]

       Based on a review of the statements of the subject, I think 
     it is clear that he meets the definition of endorsing and 
     inciting. If he'd like to enter the U.S. in the future, he 
     can seek a waiver to overcome those inadmissibility grounds, 
     but none has been sought to my knowledge.

  And the email prior to that said:

       Yesterday afternoon, we, HSI (blank) office, received a 
     lead regarding (blank) AKA (blank), an Egyptian-born Canadian 
     citizen who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and close 
     associate of (blank), an individual residing in (blank) who 
     supports Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic jihad. 
     (Blank) has been looked at in secondary inspections several 
     dozen times over the past several years. However, he has not 
     been secondaried since (blank) 2010. (Blank) has a 
     reservation to depart (blank) Canada at (blank) on this 
     Friday morning for a flight to (blank) that stops in (blank) 
     first.

  He is scheduled to speak at some conference, in some city, on some 
night--it is all blacked out.

       I am passing this right up to (blank) at HSI to forward to 
     CBP regarding possible inadmissibility grounds related to INA 
     2012(a)(3) terrorism charges because (blank)'s potential 
     inciting, endorsing, and association with terrorists. (Blank) 
     has been looked at in the past, but hopefully this collection 
     of 20 supporting open source articles will assist with making 
     an informed inadmissibility determination.

  But anyway, apparently, despite all of those open inadmissibility 
issues, according to the later email, the Secretary of the Department 
of Homeland Security herself at the time, Janet Napolitano, had a 
hands-off list apparently including people like this member of the 
Muslim Brotherhood.
  When it comes to the Boston bombing, I have met some of the Boston 
Police. I was impressed. And I would bet if the City of Boston Police 
Department had been given a heads-up by either the FBI or CIA that the 
Russians say this Tsarnaev guy has been radicalized, is capable of 
murder, then it would have entirely changed the investigation by the 
Boston Police Department into people that were killed that were known 
to Tsarnaev.
  And I would bet you, since I am not aware of the Boston Police 
Department having had their training materials purged to exclude 
anything that might offend a radical Islamist, they may have been able 
to go out to the mosque and ask about Tsarnaev if they had known the 
allegation that he had been radicalized, and they may have been able to 
answer better questions about the type of Islamic leaders that the 
older Tsarnaev liked, that he read, that he endorsed, and they could 
have made a better decision than our own Justice Department did on 
whether or not he had been radicalized.

                              {time}  2045

  That should have been shared with the Boston police. If they had had 
that information without having had their training materials purged, 
they may have done a better job of protecting those people at the 
Boston Marathon.
  Then you read emails going back and forth among our ICE agents, 
Customs and Border Patrol people who were shocked that a guy who is a 
Muslim Brother, who has incited people to hatred against the United 
States, who was a named coconspirator with people who were convicted of 
supporting terrorism, how it is the Secretary of Homeland Security 
could give him a pass, just as she did to a reported member of the 
Muslim Brotherhood--reported by an Egyptian magazine supportive of the 
Muslim Brotherhood--how she could just give him a secret security 
clearance. And even after I tell her about his downloading two 
documents from a classified source that she gave him access to and 
pointed out to her about a reporter saying he had tried to shop the two 
documents, she said she investigated, but I know they didn't because 
they never even talked to that one reporter that knew about the 
documents being shopped. They never checked.
  As far as I know, he is still giving advice at the top level of 
Homeland Security as a Muslim Brother, according to the Egyptians. He 
is given access to our classified documents, and then we see that same 
Homeland Security Secretary that gave him access to classified 
documents that he reportedly--and according to somebody I trust--he had 
shopped them and tried to get a national news media to publish them. 
They didn't even look into it. They didn't even investigate that 
properly.
  How safe can America be when Homeland Security is creating hands-off 
lists that put us at risk? With that, I yield back my time.

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