[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9628-9635]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           THE PEOPLE'S NIGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Walker) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I ask unanimous consent that 
all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend 
their remarks and include extraneous materials on the topic of my 
Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from North Carolina?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, tonight is a night about accountability, 
about taking responsibility. Many of my colleagues that will speak here 
tonight were sent by districts of people who wanted to hold this 
government accountable in both the fiscal and social arenas.
  I think back today, though it was unplanned, on June 15, 1775, 240 
years ago this very day, George Washington accepted the position as 
commander in chief of the Continental Army.
  Washington was serving in the Second Continental Congress as a 
delegate from Virginia when his peers voted unanimously to hand him the 
reins of the entire Revolutionary Army.
  About 100 paces from where I am standing, on the back of these 
Chambers, standing in the Capitol's rotunda is the history of how 
America was birthed into existence. It is displayed through the most 
glorious artwork.
  Of all those paintings in the rotunda, I am most intrigued by John 
Trumbull's work on Washington submitting his resignation in 1783, after 
completing his assignment, through struggles and severe setbacks, more 
than 8 years after accepting the position.
  Now, while some of these paintings depict those of conquests or 
discoveries, this particular work captures the great character of 
Washington. You see, Congress had granted Washington the powers 
equivalent to a dictator; yet the humility and the wisdom of Washington 
understood that, for a republic to survive, it must be held accountable 
by the people.
  His resignation that day stated this:

       I resign with satisfaction the appointment I accepted with 
     diffidence or a lack of self-confidence in my own abilities 
     to accomplish so arduous a task which, however was superceded 
     by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of 
     the supreme power of the Union, and the patronage of Heaven.

  You see, Washington had resolved that a citizen-ruled government, 
though different than others in the past, had a chance to do something, 
to be something, something exceptional. Two hundred and forty years ago 
today, Washington laid the cornerstone of freedom through 
accountability to the people with a unique blessing from the divine 
power of Heaven.

                              {time}  2015

  That is why we have assembled tonight, to talk about what 
Washington's vision was: a citizen-ruled government that would hold the 
Federal Government and this administration accountable.
  Tonight I would like to introduce the chairman of the House Oversight 
and Government Reform Committee, a committee that I am privileged to 
serve on, someone who has been a champion on government oversight.
  I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz).
  Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

[[Page 9629]]

  And I thank those who are with us tonight because this topic is one 
of, I think, the most important to our Nation. It certainly was key to 
the foundation of this Nation.
  And the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Walker) is right, because 
if you go back and you read that farewell address that Washington gave, 
it is one of the most inspirational pieces. He had the power. He had 
the position. He had the respect of the people. But he did probably the 
most admirable thing that we have seen in this Nation, in that he 
voluntarily gave it up because he knew that the power didn't reside in 
the President. He knew that the power didn't reside in him, as an 
individual. He understood that the power of this Nation stood with the 
people. And with that power comes a responsibility. It is a 
responsibility that all of us hold, as citizens of the United States of 
America. For it is truly a privilege and an honor to be a citizen in 
this country.
  I hearken back a couple hundred years ago to those who blazed new 
trails and decided that this Nation was going to be an inspired nation, 
inspired by God, that we weren't bashful about recognizing that God 
played a role in our lives and that the power of prayer was an 
important part of our Nation.
  But also incumbent upon that was that every man, woman, and child--
every able-bodied person--do their part, that we all had accountability 
and responsibility not only to take care of ourselves but to also do 
what we can to help foster a greater community.
  You see, this was a new idea. It wasn't that way across the world. 
There were dictators, and there were others that really wanted to rule 
and control people. But the inspiration that our Founders had in the 
foundation of our Nation was rooted in this idea that the people--the 
people--had the power.
  Fast-forward now to those who serve--whether they serve in the armed 
services, whether they serve in the Federal Government or the State 
government or wherever they might serve, it should be a recognition 
that we serve the American people, that we serve them.
  So as we look at all the issues that face us--whether we are going to 
spend money, whether we should pass this bill or not--let's remember a 
couple of things.
  And I would mention this to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. 
Walker) because I know he knows this. And I know it. But I want my kids 
to know it.
  As we look at things we do in Congress, as we look at the men and 
women who serve our Nation, most do it in a very admirable way. They 
are patriotic. They are hard-working. They care about this Nation. But 
we have some that don't really meet that standard. And it is probably 
most fair, most humane, most decent that we hold people to a high 
standard.
  One of the things I want my kids to understand about government, 
about life in general, is that when they talk about the government and 
they talk about the Federal Government, it is really interesting. We 
will have this happen in our committee from time to time. We will say, 
well, whose money is it? And they will say, well, it is the 
government's money.
  No, it is not. It is the people's money.
  You see, every time we decide to spend money in Congress, what we are 
really deciding is, should we pull money out of somebody's pocket--
should we pull money out of your wallet, take it over here, and hand it 
to somebody else?
  Now there are some worthwhile causes for doing that, right? There are 
some worthwhile things to do: the protection of our Nation, for our 
armed services. I buy that. I get that. But we are spending far too 
much money on too many things. We can't be all things to all people.
  So going back to my original premise here, as I try to teach my own 
kids and try to remember myself, we have to be exceptionally 
responsible stewards of these assets and resources that aren't ours. 
They are an individual's.
  For you see, at the heart of this, it is something that I think 
President Washington understood: that the most powerful thing upon our 
Nation is the power of the people, and it is their own self-
determination that should rule the day. You limit their self-
determination the more you regulate them and the more you pull that 
money directly out of their pockets and give it to somebody else.
  Now, there is room for regulation. There is room for certain things 
in the public good. But I tell you, most of what happens, most of what 
goes on in Washington, it is far too much. It is excessive. And we have 
to remember at its core that accountability and responsibility for 
those of us who are fortunate enough to serve in a public role is 
imperative, but it is also imperative that each individual takes upon 
themselves their own accountability and their own responsibility.
  As able-bodied men and women, children, you have got to pull your own 
weight. You have got to carry your own bucket. You have got to do what 
you have got to do not only to help yourself but to help your 
community, your friends, and loved ones as well.
  And that is the heart of what I think the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Walker) brings to this body. I know he cares about it 
passionately. It is what we are here talking about tonight. There are a 
host of examples where we are not holding people accountable, and we 
want to change that. I hope we are able to talk about that a bit 
tonight. But for the moment, I would say to the gentleman, thank you 
for allowing me to participate.
  Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Chairman Chaffetz. We are going to talk about 
some specific egregious behavior.
  It wasn't long that I was here and serving with Chairman Chaffetz on 
the House Oversight Committee that we were requested to meet with the 
inspector general of the EPA. It was in that moment, only weeks after I 
had arrived, that here we have an inspector general, a gentleman 
appointed by the President, who had reached out to us in his tireless 
efforts to even so much as to get the EPA to respond. The arrogance 
that stems from that agency has been grossly misused and abused.
  It is my privilege tonight to acknowledge one of my North Carolina 
colleagues to talk specifically more about the Environmental Protection 
Agency. With that, I yield to the gentleman from the Charlotte, North 
Carolina, area, Mr. Hudson.
  Mr. HUDSON. I thank you for your strong leadership here in Congress. 
Often a new Member of Congress comes to town and spends a little bit of 
time learning the ropes, maybe sitting in the back row observing, but 
that is not true of Mark Walker. Mark Walker has quickly become a 
leader in Congress and particularly on issues such as this.
  Tonight is the people's night. Government accountability is the 
topic.
  I thank the gentleman for bringing up the issue of the EPA. We had a 
hearing Friday in the Energy and Commerce Committee, on which I serve, 
in which we had the acting assistant administrator who oversees the 
Clean Air Act. We were looking at this new proposed rule that the EPA 
has put out having to do with ground-level ozone.
  Now in 2008, the EPA issued a rule that brought the levels of ground-
level ozone down to 75 parts per billion. Based on that number, many 
counties in North Carolina and across this country were out of 
attainment.
  Everyone wants clean air. Everyone wants clean water. Even those of 
us who are concerned about jobs know that if you don't have clean air 
and clean water, you can't attract industry, and you can't have 
businesses grow in your community. But you have to look at the real 
science, and you have to look at the real numbers. And the truth is, 
since 1980, we have cut ground-level ozone levels 30 percent in this 
country. We have done a tremendous job, and that has been driven by 
industry.
  This new rule was issued in 2008, but the instructions to States 
weren't issued until March of this year. So in March of this year, the 
EPA finally told the States how to comply with these new levels of 75 
parts per billion. But now they have come out with a new rule that 
says, we are going to

[[Page 9630]]

drop that to 65 or maybe even 60. If that is the case, every county in 
North Carolina--except one county in western North Carolina--would be 
out of attainment.
  So what does that mean? That means you can't have a road project. It 
means you can't build a new home. It means you can't add any jobs to 
any existing industry. It means you can't bring any new industry into 
the State. And they are doing this at a time when we haven't even 
implemented the old rule, when we have already cut ground-level ozone 
30 percent.
  So what I would say is, let's wait and look at the science. Let's 
look at the real health impacts. Let's see what the results of the 
current regulations are before we rush out with some new regulations 
which we are told could cost as much as 270,000 jobs in North Carolina. 
I have seen a figure of 1.3 million jobs in the country. Before we 
bring on this cost, before we threaten these jobs, before we basically 
shut down all growth and development, let's take a look at the actual 
science.
  So this is just one example of one agency that is overreaching. We 
have got other examples. You have got the IRS using ``the dog ate my 
homework'' excuse to duck responsibility. We have also got the 
Department of Veterans Affairs failing to provide adequate care for our 
heroes.
  When he established the VA, President Abraham Lincoln promised that 
our Nation would take care of our men and women in uniform and their 
families who have served and defended our country.
  Mr. Speaker, it is an understatement to say that today, the VA is 
failing and falling extremely short of that promise that President 
Lincoln made. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have endured 
traumatic experiences on the battlefield and should not have to 
continue to fight to receive proper care when they return home.
  Make no mistake, there are many good and dedicated people at VA 
medical facilities across the country who do a tremendous job every day 
caring for our veterans. In fact, many of the folks working at VA 
facilities are veterans themselves. The problem is, the bureaucracy has 
gotten so massive and so out of control, the resources are wasted and 
the quality of care delivered to veterans has decreased.
  This culture of unaccountability has led to long wait times, 10,000 
disability claims still in backlog, and millions of our tax dollars 
wasted. Our veterans are being ignored and tragically, in some cases, 
left to die.
  It was George Washington who has been talked about by my colleague. 
Mr. Walker mentioned the anniversary of him resigning his commission. 
George Washington said: ``The willingness with which our young people 
are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be 
directly proportional to how they perceive how the veterans of earlier 
wars were treated and appreciated by their Nation.''
  Mr. Speaker, I know we will continue our efforts to reshape the 
culture at the VA, but it is high time this administration takes 
responsibility and joins those of us who want to give veterans a 
choice.
  Every veteran in this country should have the choice to go to any 
doctor of their choosing, and the VA should not have to preapprove it, 
and the VA should pay for that medical care. That is the proposal that 
I have talked about. I think that is the way that we could finally end 
these wait times, and we can break down these backlogs.
  I call on the administration to work with us. It is time for the 
people to have accountability from their government. It is time for our 
veterans to have accountability from the VA. They put everything on the 
line for our country, for our freedom. It is time for us to do the 
same.
  God bless our veterans and their families. It is time to get to work.
  Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Representative Hudson, for the passionate 
remarks regarding our veterans.
  It is a shame, the abuse that we see sometimes of the veterans. But 
there has probably been no greater abuse than that of our own Internal 
Revenue system. With 75,000 pages, 8,000 pages that have been added 
under this administration, we can see why abuse and corruption exist.
  What better person to speak on that than an economics professor. So I 
now yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Brat), a new Member of 
the Congress.
  Mr. BRAT. Thank you, Mr. Walker.
  Mr. Speaker, earlier this month, more details emerged about the IRS' 
targeting of conservative groups, where the agency tried to extort 
information on donors, find out what Members talked about at their 
meetings and probe into what Members did in their very free time.
  We learned this month that the IRS had set up yet another roadblock 
to prevent Congress and the American people from getting to the bottom 
of this scandal.
  The IRS established a team of hundreds of lawyers to redact 
information from the documents Congress had requested for its 
investigations. This obstruction makes me extremely concerned for every 
American who voices political beliefs that don't agree with this 
administration's, whether they are conservative, liberal, green, 
religious, or agnostic.
  I am grateful for the organization in my own district that exposed 
this scandal to the American people. The Richmond Tea Party was the 
first in the country to go public with the IRS' abuse. Once it was 
exposed, conservative groups from all over the country came forward and 
revealed that they were victims of the same IRS tactics.
  The IRS specifically targeted groups with ``Tea Party'' and 
``patriot'' in their names because of their political positions. The 
IRS targeted them for increased scrutiny, and it delayed processing 
their applications for nonprofit status.

                              {time}  2030

  Let me go over that again just real slowly so the American people 
understand what is going on here.
  The Tea Party group, the T stands for ``taxed enough already.'' They 
are being targeted by the very government agency tasked with ensuring 
fairness in our tax revenue collections system. The irony could not be 
clearer. The groups were subjected to unprecedented and intimidating 
questioning. The IRS demanded resumes of board members, lists of all 
donors, and screen shots of blogs and social media posts to determine 
if their speech was acceptable to the Big Brother government. The 
agency asked some groups for minutes of every board meeting as well as 
lists of positions they took on certain issues.
  On April 15, 2009, thousands of average Virginians showed up to the 
Richmond Tea Party's first rally in the pouring rain to stand together 
against government run amuck and President Obama's promise to 
fundamentally transform America. People became engaged--many for the 
first time. After word of IRS targeting broke, people stopped coming to 
meetings and stopped giving money for fear of being targeted 
themselves.
  It has been 2 years since the Justice Department opened its 
investigation, and it has been 2 years of waiting as nothing ever seems 
to happen. The IRS has tried to cover its tracks at every turn. It lied 
to the public and to this Congress about its secret targeting program. 
To this day, document requests submitted by Congress remain 
unfulfilled. The IRS complained it had lost thousands of emails 
belonging to Lois Lerner. Since then, the inspector general recovered 
more than 6,000 of them. They were located where anyone would expect: 
in the IRS data backup facility.
  Congress held Lois Lerner in contempt after she claimed she knew 
nothing about the targeting and refused to answer questions about it. 
Yet the Obama Justice Department--the Justice Department--has never 
prosecuted her. This all creates the frightening potential that we 
could foresee a repeat of this very same behavior in the future. We 
need this President and this administration to live up to their promise 
of transparency rather than their practice of obstruction.
  Mr. Speaker, we in Congress can put an end to this kind of 
mistreatment of

[[Page 9631]]

our citizens by passing a fair tax or a flat tax. Either tax system 
would treat citizens more equally and would take away the IRS' power to 
discriminate and investigate against Americans who hold beliefs 
contrary to those in power.
  Ladies and gentlemen, the right to express your political views is so 
critical to the foundation of a free society that it is enshrined in 
our First Amendment--the First Amendment. Our very freedoms and the 
future of our constitutional form of government depend on the ability 
of all Americans to freely exercise that right. That is why it is 
incumbent upon this Congress to put forth every effort to protect that 
precious right and to hold those who would infringe upon it accountable 
to the fullest extent of the law.
  Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Congressman Brat. I appreciate your shedding 
light.
  Mr. Speaker, this administration, from the very beginning, went a 
long way in promising transparency and accountability. In fact, it was 
President Obama himself who expressed: ``My administration is committed 
to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.'' In the 
same speech, President Obama went on to say: ``Transparency promotes 
accountability and provides information for citizens about what their 
government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government 
is a national asset.'' President Obama said: ``My administration will 
take appropriate action consistent with law and policy to disclose 
information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and 
use.'' Well, that is what he said, but it has been the exact opposite 
for the Department of Justice.
  Many of us have heard about Fast and Furious, and we may have time to 
get to it. What I want to talk about tonight is Operation Choke Point, 
and here to do that tonight is one of the strong conservatives in all 
of Congress, my colleague from South Carolina, Mr. Mick Mulvaney.
  Mr. MULVANEY. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina. I thank him 
for doing this. I think it is wonderful that we are having a night 
designated as the people's night. You would think that we would do that 
just every day in here, but I think that more often than not we 
probably don't, so it is good to be here to talk about things that 
affect the people.
  Some things that affect the people, Mr. Speaker, back where I live is 
Operation Choke Point. Where I live, people buy guns at gun shows. They 
use pawnshops. They might go to a payday lender every now and again. 
They might go and buy ammunition. Because of what has happened in 
Operation Choke Point the last year and a half or so, they are starting 
to lose the ability to do that.
  I want to explain to people very briefly what Operation Choke Point 
is. This is not some rightwing conspiracy. It is not some Internet 
myth. This has been acknowledged by the Department of Justice.
  Several years ago, the DOJ, along with the FDIC, one of the banking 
regulators, set out to attack legal businesses, businesses that were 
perfectly legal and permitted under the law, but they were in disfavor 
with this administration. Instead of trying to drive those businesses 
out of business by using the law, this administration decided to use 
the regulatory environment. Instead of going directly after those 
businesses, this administration went after their banks and said:

       Look, we know that this pawnshop is a legal business, and 
     we know that you have done business with them for a long 
     time, but we could really make your life difficult if you 
     continue to bank this particular pawnshop. In fact, your life 
     will be much easier if you didn't bank this pawnshop.

  Time and again, Mr. Speaker, what we found was these small 
businesses--a woman-owned business in my district--losing their banking 
relationships. The banks that had 25-year relationships with them would 
come to them and say:

       Look, we simply can't bank with you anymore. It is too 
     difficult to do. There is too much pressure to stop.

  I had a woman-owned business, a pawnshop in my district. She tried to 
expand the business so that the business was big enough to give to both 
of her sons. She was a single mother. She wanted to get the business 
big enough to where both boys could inherit part of the business. She 
went to her local bank where she had more than a 20-year relationship, 
and she was told that, no, that she was now too hot to handle. Not only 
could they not give her a loan to expand the business, they had to pull 
back on the services they already provided.
  There is another business elsewhere in the State, a large financial 
concern, and a little tiny piece of what they do is payday lending. You 
can say what you want to about it, Mr. Speaker. You may not like payday 
lending. A lot of people don't. But people use it, and people need it.
  I will never forget when I was in the State legislature, we had a 
hearing on payday lending. One of the witnesses that spoke before me in 
the senate was an employee of one of the local credit unions. I knew 
who she was. I walked up to her afterwards and said: You are here to 
talk in favor of payday lending?
  She said: Yes.
  I said: But you work for a credit union.
  She said: Yes.
  I said: Why are you here?
  She said: Because everybody in town knows who I am. I am having a 
tough divorce, and I need a little bit of money. If I go to my local 
bank or I go to my credit union where I work, everybody is going to 
know about it. I don't want people to know about my business.
  She needed that particular service. Folks need this service. It may 
not be the proudest thing we do as a nation, but people need it.
  This company in Greenville, South Carolina, had a little, tiny piece 
of their business in payday, a 30-year banking relationship for all the 
rest of their businesses. The bank came over one day and said: Look, we 
are under a great deal of pressure. We are going to have to pull all 
our relationships with you.
  Maybe 5, maybe 2\1/2\ percent of their business was payday, and now 
this large employer in my district is struggling to find financial 
services.
  It is so offensive, Mr. Speaker, that a couple of months ago, the DOJ 
finally acknowledged that it was wrong, and they agreed to stop the 
program. The FDIC agreed to stop as well. All I can tell you is that 
while the letter went out saying it was stopped, we are still hearing 
stories to this day that it is still going on.
  My dad told me about a year ago, I had been here 3 years at the time, 
and he started paying attention to politics after I got here. He said: 
Do you want to know the difference, Mick, between government today and 
government when I was your age?
  I said: What is that, Dad?
  He said: When I was your age, you might not like what the government 
did, you might not like the party that was in power, but it never even 
occurred to us to be afraid of the government. It never even occurred 
to us that we might be targeted for what we believe or what we think or 
what we do for a living. That is what is different now.
  Mr. Speaker, people are afraid of their government. And if you are 
home tonight, you are watching this, and you run an ammunition store in 
Union, South Carolina, you are legitimately afraid that the government 
is going to try and come and put you out of business. That is a 
dramatic change, Mr. Speaker, and not a change for the better.
  To that extent, a group of men and women come here tonight at the 
invitation of the good gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Walker), come 
and just tell people that we think it is wrong, too, we have heard what 
they have had to say back home, and just deliver the message that they 
are not alone, that there are some men and women here in Washington who 
are just as outraged as they are, and they are dedicated to making sure 
that when our time here is done, they won't have to fear their 
government anymore.
  So with that, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina, again, for 
setting up this Special Order.

[[Page 9632]]


  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, when we talk about accountability, we think 
of great leaders here in the Congress, even people who have reached out 
as mentors. I can think of no one higher that has that honor for my 
respect than the colleague, the part of our delegation from North 
Carolina, Mr. Mark Meadows, and with that, I yield to him.
  Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for his 
leadership and truly for being willing to be the voice of the American 
people.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to really highlight what so many Americans 
have a hard time understanding, and that is why we as the American 
people can continue to allow a government to overreach its true 
authority and not be reined in, Mr. Speaker. So tonight I want to 
highlight just a few things.
  Before I do that, I think it is important that we talk about the 
Federal workers here that work for the American people, the vast 
majority of which--I would say almost 99 percent of which--are 
dedicated public servants who each and every day give their utmost for 
their fellow man, truly, to serve this great country.
  So tonight, Mr. Speaker, I rise to really highlight some of those 
that give the rest of those great Federal workers a bad name. For many 
of us, they also give us a reason to pause and say: Wait just a minute. 
How can that happen in this great land?
  So tonight I feel like it is important that we identify some of these 
workers who truly have displaced the trust of the American people. They 
have taken Federal tax dollars, they have continued to take a salary, 
and yet what we find is they did not uphold their constitutional duty 
to do what is right on behalf of the American people.
  We know one example is with the EPA, the gentleman who worked to 
define the Clean Air Act. We found that, over time, he was not even 
showing up for work, that he would continue to be paid for years and 
years and years, that he was paid without showing up. Now, certainly 
his colleagues would have to know that there was an empty cubicle next 
to them, but yet, for over a decade, we have an EPA employee who 
pretended to be a CIA agent.
  Now, when we start to look at this, here he was not showing up for 
work. He was traveling all over the world at taxpayers' expense. 
Indeed, what he was continuing to do is pretend like he was an employee 
of the Federal Government, but not showing up.

                              {time}  2045

  So my question is really more about accountability, Mr. Speaker. 
Where was the management team? Where was the accountability? We can 
understand one bad apple, but where was the management?
  Well, let me tell you where they were. This particular EPA employee 
decides that they are going to go and they are going to retire, and so 
all the management comes together. They give him a great retirement 
party. He retires and he says: But wait just a minute. You need to 
continue to pay me because I am still working for the CIA.
  Now, the sad part about it is they continued to pay him for another 
18 months. And, Mr. Speaker, I don't know about you, but that is just 
hard to believe. It is the thing that novels are made of, but yet this 
is not fictitious; it is the truth.
  We have got other EPA employees that are there that are watching porn 
on their government computer over 6 hours a day for 4 years. Where is 
the oversight there?
  And yet, when people are willing to blow the whistle and say, ``This 
is not right with some of my colleagues,'' what do they meet with?
  Well, we heard at a hearing just this last week that a whistleblower 
for the Department of Homeland Security in their EB-5 program was 
punished because she dared to speak up.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I think it is time that the American people start 
to hold the management of Federal workers accountable because they are 
entrusted with that trust that needs to be carried out each and every 
day. And so tonight I am here to call out Mr. Mayorkas. Recently, an IG 
report identified Mr. Mayorkas as doing special favors for political 
operatives--allegedly, the Governor of Virginia; allegedly, the brother 
of our former Secretary of State.
  What the American people will not stand for, Mr. Speaker, is a double 
standard. If political favors are going to be given out, the people who 
give them out should be held accountable. And I appreciate the 
gentleman from North Carolina, his leadership, because not only is this 
service on Oversight and Government Reform designed to make sure that 
we get to the truth of it, but he is unrelenting in his willingness to 
go after those who live by a double standard.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina.
  Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Congressman Meadows. I appreciate your words 
tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of interest these days in the growing 
list of candidates that we have running for the 2016 Presidential 
election, and one of the things that drove me to make a decision in 
running for Congress to begin with was the great abuses that we have in 
some of the particular agencies.
  Three years ago, none were more glaring than the State Department and 
the actions taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. To this 
day, I can't understand why she could look and even hug a family and 
tell them point-blank that this was about a video. Nine days later, our 
President followed up with pretty much the same inaccurate jargon.
  It is my privilege to yield to the gentleman from Colorado, 
Representative Ken Buck, my friend, tonight, who is going to talk some 
about her work and her time. He is a great conservative from the State 
of Colorado.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and my friend from North 
Carolina for putting this together and for yielding to me.
  Many of us know that today marks an important anniversary in world 
history. Eight hundred years ago, following a populist revolution led 
by courageous English barons demanding the protections from executive 
overreach, England's King John signed into law a document known as the 
Magna Carta. This ``Grand Charter'' marked the first time that 
everyone, including kings, were subjected to the rule of law, that 
everyone would enjoy the benefits of due process and equal protection 
under the law.
  The Magna Carta inspired our Founding Fathers to demand liberty in 
the Declaration of Independence. Many Magna Carta principles appeared 
again in the United States Constitution. This one single document 
became the basis of our Republic and established one of our greatest 
founding principles, the rule of law, and the rule of law remains as 
important as ever.
  President Obama is working to fundamentally transform our laws 
without consent, granting citizenship to illegal immigrants, making 
recess appointments to the NLRB when the Senate
is not in recess, and changing the healthcare law without an act of 
Congress.
  The IRS ignored the rule of law by targeting and harassing 
individuals based on their political beliefs. And who could forget the 
ATF's Fast and Furious program, which allowed U.S. weapons to be walked 
across the U.S.-Mexico border in hopes of catching Mexican drug lords, 
but ended with the tragic murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian 
Terry.
  It is time to prevent future would-be monarchs from being elected and 
further eroding our proud tradition for the rule of law. While the 
Clinton family has been known to play by their own set of rules and has 
a laundry list of scandals that goes back decades, I am squarely 
focused on two dubious, dishonest, and dangerous scandals that Hillary 
Clinton was involved in while serving as Secretary of State.
  As the Nation's top diplomat, Secretary Clinton used her position of 
power to create her own set of rules, using a personal email account 
for official State Department business. She continued to do so even 
after issuing a memo calling on staff to use official government email 
accounts.
  Secretary Clinton ignored the rule of law when she deleted over 
30,000 State

[[Page 9633]]

Department emails from a personal server located in the basement of her 
Georgetown mansion. What makes this worse is that she deleted these 
emails even as Congress called for her to release them. Storing these 
emails on a private server violates Federal records law. Deleting these 
emails also raises questions not seen since the IRS targeting 
investigation. What is she hiding in these deleted emails? Did she even 
consider what might happen if these records fell into the wrong hands? 
Would she even know if her server had been breached?
  Secretary Clinton proudly stated during a March 10 press conference: 
I fully complied with every rule I was governed by.
  Americans will never know because she ignored the rule of law. By 
exclusively using a personal email account to conduct State Department 
business, Secretary Clinton put the State Department at a great risk 
just for her personal convenience. The Secretary of State is also not 
allowed to conduct and store official State Department business on a 
private, unsecured server. If any other hard-working American conducted 
their business this way, they would be out of a job and most likely in 
jail.
  This brings me to the Clinton family's next scandal. While Hillary 
Clinton served as Secretary of State, the Clinton family foundation 
continued to accept millions of dollars in donations from foreign 
governments. All told, seven foreign nations, including Kuwait, Qatar, 
Oman, and Algeria, donated money to the Clinton Foundation during the 
time Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
  These contributions raised questions about Secretary Clinton's 
independence and ethical judgment. But when some of the $1 million 
donations in question came from nations like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the 
United Arab Emirates, and Oman, it raises concerns about whether these 
nations were hoping to gain better diplomatic ties to the United States 
through sizable donations to the Clinton Foundation. When the Secretary 
of State is playing fast and loose with the rule of law, even ignoring 
a memorandum of understanding with the White House regarding a 
questionable donation from the Algerian Government, it is extremely 
difficult to trust her judgment or her word when she claims not to have 
broken any laws.
  The rule of law has been a core principle since our founding. Brave 
men and women have fought and died to protect this idea and preserve 
the liberty we hold so dearly. This is why I find it especially tragic 
that Secretary Clinton blatantly ignored the rule of law.
  The Magna Carta's anniversary is a great opportunity to remember the 
courageous barons who secured the rule of law. We must restore this key 
principle and stop the attacks on our founding principles. It is our 
job to safeguard those liberties and protect the America we know and 
love for generations to come.
  Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Congressman Buck.
  With that, it is my privilege to yield to the gentleman from Georgia, 
Congressman Jody Hice, my colleague and a former fellow minister.
  Mr. JODY B. HICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
North Carolina.
  Mr. Speaker, I continue to be just astounded at the lack of 
accountability and transparency surrounding the scandal with the IRS as 
it relates to conservative groups and the targeting that the IRS had 
towards those groups.
  It is absolutely unacceptable that we have waited now for over 2 
years to get answers to this scandal and the targeting of conservative 
groups. Right at the epicenter of all of that is Lois Lerner. We 
requested emails some 2 years ago and only right now, 2 years later, 
some of these requests for emails are coming to light. These documents 
and communications requested should have been brought forth long ago. 
In fact, we are at the time now in this investigation, we are at the 
point now that I believe we need to seriously question the process by 
which Congress' requests for information from the IRS are being handled 
by the IRS.
  One example, Mr. Speaker, in the Oversight and Government Reform 
Committee, where I have the distinct honor of serving, it came to light 
in that committee that the IRS actually formed a special project team 
in order to deal with the Lois Lerner investigation.
  According to testimony by Ms. Mary Howard, who is the Director of the 
Privacy, Governmental Liaison and Disclosure for the IRS, according to 
her testimony, all congressional subpoenas, requests for information, 
Freedom of Information Act requests, and other investigative requests 
were directed to this special group, this special project team, rather 
than going through the normal process of investigations that other 
similar investigations might go through.
  According to her testimony, Mr. Speaker, these requests were handled 
primarily by the IRS Commissioner and the IRS Office of Chief Council 
rather than the normal process. In other words, this special project 
team handled the issue with Lois Lerner differently than they handle 
other similar investigations.
  Ms. Howard's testimony further revealed that the IRS, on numerous 
occasions, went away from the standard way of dealing with freedom of 
information requests and, if her testimony is true, the handling of the 
FOIA requests not only for Ms. Lois Lerner, but for other 501(c)(3) and 
(c)(4) organizations, and may have gone beyond what is even permissible 
under the Freedom of Information Act.
  Following her testimony, Chairmen Chaffetz and Jordan sent a letter 
to the IRS Commissioner, John Koskinen, requesting more information so 
that the Oversight Committee could better understand the process that 
they used in dealing with Ms. Lois Lerner. And I am told that, even as 
recently as this past Friday, the letter received back from the IRS is 
totally inadequate. It does not answer the questions, and here we are 
still years removed from it.
  Mr. Speaker, it is extremely frustrating that now, 2 years later, we 
are still dealing with this issue. It is frustrating that in the 
Oversight and Government Reform Committee we are still dealing with the 
deplorable activities of how the IRS has been handling this.
  It is up to Congress. We must continue pushing forward for increased 
accountability and transparency in all areas of our government, 
particularly as it relates to this with the IRS.
  I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina.
  Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Congressman Hice.
  With that, I yield to the gentleman from the State of Texas, Mr. John 
Ratcliffe, one of our sharpest new Members from the State of Texas, a 
district attorney, who we asked specifically to come out to share some 
thoughts tonight specifically about some of the continued abuses.
  Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina 
for yielding this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, the most fundamental principle of our criminal justice 
system is that we are innocent until proven guilty. Operation Choke 
Point turns that most sacred tenet on its head.
  When President Obama and his administration uses agencies like the 
Department of Justice and the FDIC to target legal businesses without 
due process, without any public debate, and when he bases his attacks 
not on the rule of law but on his own political beliefs, well, that is 
a tragic breakdown of the system of checks and balances and separation 
of powers that our Founding Fathers deliberately designed.
  Mr. Speaker, Operation Choke Point is just flat wrong. Folks all 
across the Fourth Congressional District of Texas in cities and towns 
like Bonham, Denison, Sulphur Springs, Texarkana, and Sherman, they all 
just want to run their businesses and enjoy their freedoms without fear 
of persecution from a President that has overstepped his authority time 
and time again.
  Many of the Texans that I represent are deeply troubled and concerned 
about Operation Choke Point, an initiative which is pressuring banks 
and

[[Page 9634]]

others in the financial industry to deny access to financial services 
to businesses like gun sellers and coal producers.

                              {time}  2100

  My constituents see this operation for what it really is, a blunt 
weapon that targets and stigmatizes entire industries that the Obama 
administration dislikes, instead of an honest effort to get rid of 
actual bad actors and lawbreakers.
  Sadly, as a direct result of Operation Choke Point, legitimate 
businesses in Texas and across the country have been forced to close 
simply because the President and his activist bureaucrats have a 
political agenda, and they don't like what these businesses are 
selling. When you weaponize your government to go after folks you don't 
like and when you target your own citizens as political enemies, that 
is the way that Third World governments operate, not the greatest 
country the world has ever seen.
  Mr. Speaker, this is the United States of America, and our government 
should never go after its own citizens for political reasons. This is 
especially outrageous when the administration does so by targeting the 
Bill of Rights, and that is exactly what is happening here.
  When you specifically target gun dealers and ammunition 
manufacturers, that is an affront to and an assault upon our Second 
Amendment rights. No President or administration is above the 
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I have met recently with far too 
many honest, hard-working, law-abiding folks in the gun industry who 
have been politically targeted by this initiative.
  We can't allow this administration to continue to target legitimate 
businesses, like gun stores and cigar and pawn shops, through Operation 
Choke Point, just because the President doesn't like what they sell. 
Pressuring and forcing banks to stop engaging with legal industries 
needs to stop. We can't allow unelected bureaucrats to make such a 
brazen, backdoor assault on legitimate businesses and the hard-working, 
law-abiding citizens who own and operate them.
  In July of 2014, one of the Judiciary subcommittees on which I now 
serve held a hearing on Operation Choke Point, and because of that 
hearing and of the due process concerns raised by the testimony there, 
the DOJ and the FDIC announced it would rescind its list of so-called 
high-risk merchants.
  That move seemed to be an apparent recognition of the fact that 
Operation Choke Point is wrongfully inflicting collateral damage on 
legitimate businesses that are losing access to financial services. 
Despite this acknowledgment and admission from those at the top, 
companies across my district tell me that the administration's foot 
soldiers on the ground simply haven't gotten the message yet. The 
harassment is continuing, and this is simply unacceptable.
  Mr. Speaker, we should stand up for the rights of every American. I 
am saddened to see a President who is so out of touch with what has 
made this country great, who is so out of touch that he would use an 
army of unelected bureaucrats to attack businesses that don't toe the 
ideological line with his administration.
  Mr. Speaker, congressional oversight demands that we refuse to step 
aside, that we refuse to let this unprovoked attack on our 
constitutional and fundamental rights go unchallenged. I will continue 
to stand watch against this overreach. My colleagues and I will not 
allow our constituents' rights to be violated or our Constitution to be 
trampled.
  Mr. WALKER. I thank Congressman Ratcliffe for his powerful stance.
  Mr. Speaker, since 2012, one of the bulldogs that has been holding 
the IRS accountable is the Congressman from central Florida. At this 
point, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. DeSantis).
  Mr. DeSANTIS. I thank my friend from North Carolina.
  Mr. Speaker, if you are a taxpayer and if you become subjected to an 
IRS audit, you have got to prove and justify what you have submitted to 
the IRS. If you tell the IRS, ``I don't really have those documents. 
They were destroyed, and there is nothing I can do. Let's just move 
along,'' I don't think most IRS agents are going to accept that, and I 
think the taxpayer would likely find himself in hot water.
  I think it is really unacceptable that the IRS seems to think it 
could operate under a totally different standard than the standard that 
it imposes on American taxpayers.
  We have been going through this now since 2013 with Lois Lerner and 
the targeting scandal in our trying to get more information. Last year, 
before Congress, John Koskinen, the IRS Commissioner, said: We are 
going to produce Lois Lerner's emails. We will produce all of them. We 
have nothing to hide.
  A couple of months later, he said: Actually, most of Lois Lerner's 
emails were destroyed because, you see, they are held on these backup 
tapes, and we recycle the backup tapes. We destroy the tapes, so there 
is just nothing we can do here. We are just going to move along, and we 
are not going to participate in any meaningful way with your 
investigation.
  Most Americans didn't accept that, and it really was not worth the 
paper it was printed on in terms of an excuse. It was, obviously, much 
different than what the IRS would impose on a taxpayer, but it was even 
more than that. It was more than just a weak excuse; it was false.
  Once Koskinen said that the emails were destroyed--guess what?--the 
Inspector General for Tax Administration in the Treasury Department did 
basic due diligence and said: Do you know what? I am going to check to 
see whether Koskinen is telling the truth.
  What did the IG do? He drove out to West Virginia where they have the 
warehouse of all of the backup tapes. What did they find? The Lois 
Lerner emails on the backup tapes. They were there the whole time. Now, 
they have pulled thousands and thousands of Lois Lerner emails.
  These are emails that are, in many cases, different than the emails 
that the IRS begrudgingly produced to Congress and to the American 
people. This is a major, major issue. Of course, there is the 
targeting, but then there are the lengths that the IRS has gone to 
stymie Congress' investigation.
  Just this week in Federal court, they are fighting Judicial Watch. 
They don't want to turn over even these new emails that the Treasury 
Inspector General for Tax Administration provided to the IRS.
  They are saying: We can't turn them over to you now in the course of 
the litigation. We are not going to turn them over to Congress because 
we need to check to see whether there are any duplicates from the 
emails that we have already turned over.
  Really? Who cares? Give us the emails. Give the American people the 
truth. What they are trying to do is to stonewall and drag this out as 
long as they can, hoping that the American people will forget about it. 
Then, basically, they get away scot-free, with nobody in their 
organization being held accountable.
  I think it is a test of this institution here in the Congress about 
whether somebody like Commissioner Koskinen is going to be held to 
account for misleading Congress, for providing false information to 
Congress.
  The fact of the matter is, if an American taxpayer were hauled in 
front of a Federal grand jury or a Federal court and if he gave 
testimony like that, that was not true, he would face consequences. You 
can bet your bottom dollar.
  I think the IRS is kind of the grossest example that we have in 
Washington of really a fundamental problem with how our government 
operates, which is that the people who work and operate in and around 
Washington, D.C.--6 of the 10 wealthiest counties in our country are 
now suburbs of Washington, D.C. We are not producing shale here. We 
don't have technology--nothing--in Washington.
  It is all because of the power and growth of government, so people 
inside the beltway are not held accountable. You have people at the 
IRS, and you

[[Page 9635]]

have people at the EPA, and you have people in all of these different 
agencies. Essentially, they are allowed to operate under a lower 
standard of conduct than what an American taxpayer or a citizen would 
be allowed or permitted to do by the government. That is unacceptable.
  I think that this IRS issue is as important a government 
accountability issue as we are facing in this Congress. I think it is a 
test for the House as to whether we are going to be serious about this 
and hold these IRS officials accountable.
  I am glad my friend from North Carolina had the time here today. I 
think it was very productive to listen to some of the other Members. I 
just want the American people to know that I am committed to getting to 
the bottom of this and to holding these people accountable not only for 
the targeting, but for obstructing the investigation when it has been 
obstructed over and over again.
  Mr. WALKER. I thank Congressman DeSantis.
  Mr. Speaker, tonight, in closing, we have had an evening which we 
have called and labeled ``the People's Night,'' one of many that we 
plan on holding. I thank the dozen or so colleagues who have shown 
their concern.
  We talk much about awareness these days, but few times do we get to 
the accountable and to the action step process. Government has run 
amuck. That is why many of us ran to begin with.
  I sent out an email this afternoon, asking a few of the constituents 
back home what some of the things are they are concerned about. The 
president of our local women's Republican club sent back two paragraphs 
and listed about 12 or 13 things. Those are the kinds of things we need 
to be calling out.
  It has been a privilege to be with my colleagues this evening. I 
appreciate their time as they continue to show strong support for these 
wonderful men and women.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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