[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 239-244]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          REGULATORY GRIDLOCK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Jenkins of West Virginia). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. 
Hardy).
  Mr. HARDY. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, this is our first week back in session after spending 
the holidays in our districts. While we were meeting with our 
constituents and enjoying the company of loved ones, the Federal 
bureaucracy was firing on all cylinders, cranking out thousands of 
pages of regulations.
  Mr. Speaker, I hold in my hand what our regulators were doing on 
Christmas Eve. In my other hand I am holding 298 pages of what our 
Federal regulators were doing on New Year's Eve.
  This breakneck pace of activity, deep within the bowels of our 
executive branch, capped off a record year for the Federal Register, 
the official record of the government's regulatory and other actions.
  The grand total for 2015 was 82,035 pages of regulations. This leaves 
the current administration with an annual page count of nearly 80,000 
per year and puts it on pace to contribute more pages of regulations to 
the Federal Register than any other administration in American history.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a perversion of our Founding Fathers' intent and 
a disservice to the American people.
  Article I, section 1, of the Constitution vests all legislative power 
in a Congress of the United States, not with regulatory agencies.
  Article I, section 8, of the Constitution vests all the power to make 
all laws in Congress to the United States, not with regulatory 
agencies.
  Article II, section 3, of the Constitution clearly states that the 
President shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. That 
means executive agencies execute the laws as Congress intended, not 
that they make their own.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no ambiguity. Federal laws get made right here 
on this floor and in the other Chamber across the rotunda and nowhere 
else. But over the past 228 years, the founding principles have been 
manipulated.
  With this massive expansion of the Federal Government's role during 
the New Deal, agencies were awarded rulemaking authority through acts 
of Congress. This statutory authority was granted to allow our Federal 
agencies to better implement the law in a growing, complex Nation. But 
it was not a blank check.
  Unfortunately, far too many here in Congress have been complicit in 
delegating our sacred lawmaking authority to legions of unelected 
bureaucrats. How can this be?
  We are the first branch of government, the branch that is closest to 
the people. We are directly accountable to our constituents. It is 
because of that accountability that we must reclaim that constitutional 
duty to make all laws.
  That is why I am a proud original cosponsor of the REINS Act of 2015 
and why I voted to pass that important bill last year. The REINS Act 
takes the important step of requiring congressional approval of all 
major rules. This is a huge improvement over the current status quo 
under the Congressional Review Act.
  The default standard for all major rules should be rejection unless 
they are congressionally approved, not acceptance until rejection.
  The Congressional Review Act is a failed attempt to reclaim our 
exclusive legislating authority. Rejecting one single rule on ergonomic 
chairs in 20 years is simply unacceptable. We need laws with more 
teeth.
  The bills we passed this week, including the SCRUB Act of 2015, will 
help in this effort.
  Mr. Speaker, something needs to change. Churning out thousands of 
final rules on tens of thousands of Federal Register pages each and 
every year is hamstringing our economy and crushing our businesses.

                              {time}  1345

  According to a study done by the National Association of 
Manufacturers, complying with the Federal regulations costs Americans 
$2.028 trillion in lost economic growth each and every year. That is 12 
percent of our GDP down the drain.
  As a former small-business owner, I can tell you that mom-and-pop 
shops aren't poring over each and every issue of the Federal Register, 
and they sure aren't doing it on Christmas Eve. Unlike large 
corporations that can afford armies of attorneys to navigate the 
complex Federal bureaucracy, small businesses are left hanging out to 
dry.
  As the people's House, we are advocates for the people we represent. 
We serve them. We are accountable to them. We owe it to the people to 
go on record and vote on major rules that impact their daily lives.
  I challenge any President or elected official to say that the 
American people don't deserve the right to hold their government 
accountable.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, news surfaced today. Here is a story from 
Ed Morrissey: ``Has the State Department released a smoking gun in the 
Hillary Clinton email scandal? In a thread from June 2011, Hillary 
Clinton exchanges emails with Jake Sullivan, then her deputy chief of 
staff and now her campaign foreign-policy adviser, in which she 
impatiently waits for a set of talking points. When Sullivan tells her 
that the source is having trouble with the secure fax, Hillary then 
orders Sullivan to have the data stripped of its markings and sent 
through a non-secure channel.''
  Then it is quoting from the email: ``If they can't, turn into 
nonpaper with no identifying heading and send nonsecure.''
  The article goes on to say: ``That's an order to violate the laws 
handling classified material. There is no other way to read that 
demand. Regardless of whether or not Sullivan complied, this demolishes 
Hillary claim to be ignorant of marking issues, as well as strongly 
suggests that the other thousand-plus instances where this did occur 
likely came under her direction.''
  Fox News also noticed the email this morning, although they don't 
have a copy of it linked. And it is quoting: ``However, one email 
thread from June 2011 appears to include Clinton telling her top 
adviser Jake Sullivan to send security information through insecure 
means.
  ``In response to Clinton's request for a set of since-redacted 
talking points, Sullivan writes, `They say they've had issues sending 
secure fax. They are working on it.' Clinton responds, `If they can't, 
turn it into nonpaper with no identifying heading and send nonsecure.'
  ``Ironically, an email thread from 4 months earlier shows Clinton 
saying she was `surprised' that a diplomatic officer named John Godfrey 
used a personal email account to send a memo on Libya policy after the 
fall of Muammar Qaddafi.''
  The article goes on later: ``Did those talking points get illegally 
transmitted on Hillary Clinton's order? If so, then Sullivan may find 
himself in legal trouble, too. Paragraph (g)''--quoting from the law--
``makes it clear

[[Page 240]]

that `each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the 
punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such 
conspiracy.'
  ``This explains why more than a thousand pieces of classified 
information have found their way into Hillary's unauthorized and 
unsecured email system--and why the markings have been stripped from 
them. Hillary herself apparently ordered the Code Red, so to speak.
  In an update, the author says: ``There are a few people wondering 
whether the `TPs'''--or talking points--``in question in this thread 
were classified in the first place.
  ``There are a couple of points to remember in that context: 
Unclassified material doesn't need to be transmitted by secure fax; if 
the material wasn't classified, Sullivan would have just faxed them 
normally.
  ``Ordering aides to remove headers to facilitate the transmission 
over unsecured means strongly suggests the information was not 
unclassified. On top of that, removing headers to avoid transmission 
security would be a violation of 18 USC 793 anyway, which does not 
require material to be classified--only sensitive to national 
security.''
  Also: ``State did leave this document unclassified, but that's 
because there isn't any discussion of what the talking points cover. 
They redacted the subject headers with B5 and B6 exemptions, invoked to 
note that the FOIA''--Freedom of Information Act--``demand doesn't 
cover the material.
  ``Ordering the headings stripped, and Sullivan's apparent reluctance 
to work around the secure fax system, makes it all but certain that the 
material was classified at some level--and Hillary knew it.''
  Just breaking news of interest.


                   Activities of Abdurahman Alamoudi

  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, a matter of grave concern continues to 
arise stemming back from a man who was born in Eritrea named Abdurahman 
Alamoudi. And this is from DiscoverTheNetworks.org.
  He, Mr. Alamoudi, immigrated to the United States in 1979. That would 
be the same year, Mr. Speaker, you will recall, that radical Islam 
declared war on the United States, attacked our embassy in Tehran, took 
over 50 Americans hostage, and held them for over a year.
  That same year, that year, 1979, is the year Mr. Alamoudi came to the 
United States, and then he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1996.
  In 1981, he founded the Islamic Society of Boston. It is not in this 
article, but I have also seen the documentation of his founding. And it 
is, I think, worth noting that the Islamic Society of Boston that Mr. 
Alamoudi founded, the two mosques in the Boston area, one of which 
produced the Tsarnaev brothers, where they worshipped and learned more 
about Islam.
  This article says, from 1985 to 1990 Mr. Alamoudi served as executive 
assistant to the president of the SAAR Foundation in Northern Virginia.
  In 1990, Alamoudi founded the American Muslim Council. The following 
year, he established the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans 
Affairs Council, whose purpose was to ``certify Muslim chaplains hired 
by the military.''
  During the 1992 Presidential election cycle, Alamoudi courted both 
the Democratic and the Republican Parties. When Bill Clinton emerged 
victorious, Alamoudi increased his donations to Democrats. He went on 
to serve the Clinton administration as an Islamic affairs adviser and a 
State Department ``goodwill ambassador'' to Muslim nations.
  In 1993, the Defense Department certified Alamoudi's American Muslim 
Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council as one of two organizations, 
along with the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, 
authorized to approve and endorse Muslim chaplains.
  Among the chaplains endorsed by Alamoudi's group was James Yee, who 
eventually would be arrested in 2003 on suspicion of espionage.
  Mr. Speaker, it is very reassuring that this man arrested on 
suspicion of espionage here in the United States was certified by Mr. 
Alamoudi's group.
  In March 1993, Alamoudi disparaged the Federal Government for the 
``flimsy'' evidence it had used as a basis for arresting Mohammed 
Salameh, a suspect in the World Trade Center bombing of February 26 of 
1993. Salameh was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison on 
what, apparently, Mr. Alamoudi thought was flimsy evidence.
  It goes on: ``In 1995, Alamoudi helped President Clinton''--
interesting verb that, helped--``Alamoudi helped President Clinton and 
the American Civil Liberties Union develop a Presidential guideline 
entitled `Religious Expression in Public School,' which established a 
legal justification upon which the ACLU would file lawsuits restricting 
Christmas celebrations and removing Nativity scenes from public 
schools.
  ``Alamoudi made numerous controversial statements during the 1990s 
and early 2000s, including these:
  ``In 1994 he said: `Hamas is not a terrorist group . . . I have 
followed the good work of Hamas.
  ``In March 1996, Alamoudi said he was `honored to be a member of the 
committee that is defending' Islamic Association of Palestine''--or 
IAP--``founder Musa Abu Marzuk, who in 1997 would be deported from the 
United States because of his Hamas-related activities. `I really 
consider him to be from among the best people in the Islamic 
movement.'''--that is a quote from Alamoudi--``Alamoudi added. `Hamas . 
. . and I work together with him.'''
  In December of 1996, as Alamoudi continued to work with the Clinton 
administration to find good Muslims to work in the government, Alamoudi 
told a meeting of the IAP: ``I think if we were outside this country we 
can say, `Oh, Allah, destroy America,' but once we are here, our 
mission in this country is to change it . . . You can be violent 
anywhere else but in America.''
  ``In October 2000, Alamoudi attended an anti-Israel protest outside 
the White House, where he proudly declared himself `a supporter of 
Hamas' and `a supporter of Hezbollah.''' And apparently there is video 
of that.
  In 2000, Alamoudi literally ``began making regular trips to Libya, 
where he met with government officials to discuss strategies by which 
they could create `headaches' for Saudi Arabia.
  ``In January 2001, Alamoudi attended a conference in Beirut with 
leaders of numerous terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, Hamas, 
Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad.
  ``In June 2001, Alamoudi was a guest speaker at a Northern Virginia 
conference where senior Islamic militants from throughout the Middle 
East were gathered. Many of the speakers denounced the `Zionist entity 
that aims to destroy the Muslim ummah,' or community.

                              {time}  1400

  ``That same month, Alamoudi attended a briefing on President Bush's 
faith-based initiative, and the White House invited him to the post-9/
11 prayer service on September 14th at the National Cathedral in 
Washington.
  In September 2003, British customs officials arrested Alamoudi at 
Heathrow Airport as he was returning from Libya with 340,000 in cash 
given to him by President Muammar Qadhafi to finance a plot involving 
two U.K.-based al Qaeda operatives intending to assassinate Saudi Crown 
Prince, later King Abdullah.
  Alamoudi was subsequently extradited to the United States. In October 
2003, he was arrested at Dulles Airport on charges of having illegally 
accepted $10,700 from the Libyan mission to the United Nations.
  ``With Alamoudi in custody, federal authorities released a transcript 
of a telephone conversation in which he had: lamented that no Americans 
had died during al Qaeda's 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya; 
recommended that more operations be conducted like the 1994 Hezbollah 
bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people 
died; and clearly articulated his objective of turning America into a 
Muslim nation.
  ``Alamoudi was indicted not only for his illegal dealings with Libya, 
but also for tax evasion and immigration fraud. He ultimately pled 
guilty to, and was convicted of, being a senior al Qaeda financier who 
had funneled at least

[[Page 241]]

$1 million into the coffers of that terrorist organization. He also 
acknowledged that he had pocketed almost $1 million for himself in the 
process. In October 2004, Alamoudi was sentenced to 23 years in federal 
prison.
  ``During the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development trial of 
2007, which examined evidence of the HLF's fundraising on behalf of 
Hamas, the U.S. government released a list of approximately 300 of 
HLF's `unindicted co-conspirators' and `joint venturers.' Alamoudi was 
named in that list . . . In addition to the affiliations listed above, 
Alamoudi has also been, at various times, a board member of American 
Muslims for Jerusalem; the head of the American Task Force for Bosnia; 
a board member of the Council for the National Interest Foundation; a 
director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR''--which, 
by the way, Mr. Speaker, has very open access to the highest officials, 
including the President.
  They are the ones that got Langley to call off a 2-day seminar for 
law enforcement on radical Islam and got the rules changed so people 
that were American experts on Islam could not talk to any U.S. 
Government group about radical Islam unless they got approval from 
people like those that CAIR approved of.
  CAIR--we are talking also about a named co-conspirator in the Holy 
Land Foundation trial in which convictions were obtained for principals 
in the Holy Land Foundation for supporting terrorism. I would humbly 
submit that had Eric Holder not become Attorney General and Barack 
Obama not become President of the United States, many, if not all, of 
those co-conspirators would have been then indicted and tried as 
supporters of terrorism.
  Instead, a new President and a new Attorney General came in, and 
instead of being indicted and tried for supporting terrorism as they 
were named in the Federal District Court in Dallas and the Fifth 
Circuit Court of Appeals said in opinions--there was plenty of evidence 
to support that they were co-conspirators--well, the new administration 
dropped the matter, and these people became helpful to the 
administration in advising on Islam.
  It also notes that Mr. Alamoudi was a founding trustee of the Fiqh 
Council of North America, a board member of the Interfaith Impact for 
Justice and Peace, a regional representative for the Islamic Society of 
North America--which was also a named co-conspirator for supporting 
terrorism--a board member of Mercy International, president of the 
Muslim Student Association of the U.S. and Canada, a board member of 
the Somali Relief Fund, secretary of the Muslim Brotherhood Affiliated, 
Success Foundation, and director of the Talibah International Aid 
Association.
  In fact, in an article back in 2004,
Andrew C. McCarthy noted that: ``Abdurahman Alamoudi was sentenced 
today to 23 years' imprisonment for terrorism financing, false 
statements on his naturalization petition, and tax violations. The 
sentence was imposed by Judge Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court 
in Alexandria, Virginia.
  ``Alamoudi was influential in the American Muslim circles, and thus 
in Washington. He participated in several political and charitable 
organizations, founding the American Muslim Council--an enthusiastic 
supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah. The federal government permitted him 
a key role in selecting the Islamic clerics who minister in the 
military and in the prison system. Over the years, moreover, he 
occasionally traveled the globe as an emissary of the State Department.
  ``As we now know, he also traveled to Libya, engaged in financial 
transactions with Qadhafi's government, and collected hefty sums, 
including the $340,000 seized from him when he was arrested last year, 
which were designed to be routed back to his causes in the U.S. without 
the knowledge of American authorities. All of those activities violate 
the International Emergency Economic Powers Act imposes terrorism-
related sanctions prohibiting unlicensed travel to and commerce with 
Libya.''
  I will parenthetically insert here that it had to be very convenient 
for Mr. Alamoudi, this convicted supporter of terrorism, to be working 
for the State Department as he went to different countries and 
apparently continued to conspire to support terrorism as the State 
Department funded his travel on its behalf.
  But also found was this article. The author was Brian Blomquist and 
the date is June 27, 2003. It is an article about the esteemed U.S. 
Senator Charles, or Chuck, Schumer entitled, ``Schumer wants fanatical 
imams rooted out of jails, armed forces.''
  The article says: ``Militant Muslim imams are preaching a distorted, 
hateful form of Islam to U.S. soldiers and federal prisoners, creating 
a `dangerous situation,' Senator Charles Schumer charged yesterday.
  ``Schumer said the problem is that the Pentagon and the federal 
Bureau of Prisons select Muslim imams on the advice of Islamic groups 
in the grip of the fanatical Wahhabism strain of the religion.
  ```While the potential Wahhabi influence in the U.S. Armed Forces is 
not well documented, these organizations have succeeded in ensuring 
that militant Wahhabism is the only form of Islam that is preached to 
the 12,000 Muslims in federal prison,' Schumer said at a Senate hearing 
on extremist Wahhabi Islam, which has been linked to terrorism.
  ``In February, the New York prison system barred its top Muslim 
chaplain from its prison facilities after the imam, Warith Dean Umar, 
said the 9/11 hijackers should be treated as martyrs.
  ```The imams flood the prisons with anti-American, pro-bin Laden 
videos, literature and sermon tapes . . . The point of prison should be 
to rehabilitate violent prisoners.'''
  Mr. Schumer is so right.
  The article goes on: ``The Bureau of Prisons uses the Graduate School 
of Islamic and Social Sciences, which is under investigation for 
possible funneling of money to terrorists, and the Islamic Society of 
North America, which has board members with terror links, Schumer 
charged.
  ``American Muslim Foundation President Abdurahman Alamoudi said his 
organization had no role advising the Pentagon. Alamoudi said he 
formerly gave the Pentagon advice on selecting imams, but `they pushed 
me out.'''
  Well, we know that that was not until right before the British 
Government arrested Alamoudi and then provided apparently the U.S. 
Government plenty of evidence to show that Alamoudi was supporting 
terrorism.
  That is why I was so shocked, since the FBI got information from 
Britain, gathered their own information that they had been gathering at 
least since 1991 on radical Islamic beginnings here in the United 
States, that during the Bush administration the FBI would have a 
partnership outreach program with the Council of American-Islamic 
relations, of which Mr. Alamoudi was a board member. CAIR was a named 
co-conspirator for supporting terrorists, which the courts have said 
there is plenty of evidence to support that they are. While the FBI had 
gathered such evidence, they were outreach partners with this 
organization, CAIR, named as a co-conspirator with the Holy Land 
Foundation.
  This article from WND, ``Pentagon admits chaplains from Muslim 
Brotherhood group,'' published on March 6, 2014, by Aaron Klein said: 
``The U.S. Army and Air Force has selected two Muslim chaplains from a 
program run by an Islamic group closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood 
that was named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-
conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.
  ``WND broke the story in 2011 that the controversial Islamic Society 
of North America, or ISNA, is the official endorsing agency for the 
U.S. Armed Forces Muslim chaplain program.
  ``WND further reported that year that the Muslim chaplain program was 
founded by a terror-supporting convict, while the Army's first Islamic 
chaplain, who is still serving, has been associated with a charity 
widely accused of serving as an al-Qaida front.
  ``Now, ISNA has announced that two of its former applicants for 
chaplaincy were selected to serve on active duty in the United States 
Army and Air Force.

[[Page 242]]

  ```The significance of this news is that the Department of Defense . 
. . has not selected an ISNA-endorsed chaplain for active duty in over 
15 years,' said the ISNA press release.
  ``ISNA Chaplain Services Director and Islamic Endorsing Agent Abdul-
Rasheed Muhammad said in a statement that the two chaplains selected 
for active duty are ready to serve Allah and the country--making the 
statement in that order.
  ```After speaking by phone with both soldiers, it was more than clear 
both were eager and ready to serve Allah and country'. . . `May Allah 
bless our new chaplain candidates and their families as they prepare 
for new challenges and opportunities in the Army and Air Force Chaplain 
Corps,' said Muhammad.
  ``While the new chaplains' ties to ISNA has received some attention 
in the conservative blogosphere in recent days, missing from the 
conversation is the larger partnership between the U.S. military and 
not just the ISNA but also other terror-tied groups.
  ``In fact, Muhammad himself, the ISNA's endorsing agent, has been 
tied to a group accused of serving as an al-Qaida front.''
  By the way, parenthetically, 1993 was the year in which we had 
another terrorist attack, that being the first attempted bombing, or 
the first bombing, of the Word Trade Center in an attempt to bring it 
down and kill tens of thousands of Americans.

                              {time}  1415

  ``Since the Muslim chaplain program's inception in 1993, ISNA has 
been the official endorsing agency of the new chaplains.
  ``In 2005, ISNA initiated a yearly Muslim chaplain conference that 
includes leadership talks for chaplains in both the military and the 
U.S. prison system.
  ``Discover the Networks notes that ISNA--through its Saudi-
government-backed affiliate, the North American Islamic Trust--
reportedly holds the mortgages on 50 percent to 80 percent of all 
mosques in the U.S. and Canada.
  ```Thus the organization can freely exercise ultimate authority over 
these houses of worship and their teachings,' states Discover the 
Networks.
  ``ISNA was founded in 1981 by the Saudi-funded Muslim Students' 
Association, which was founded partially by the Muslim Brotherhood. The 
two groups are still partners.
  ``WND previously attended an MSA event at which violence against the 
U.S. was urged by speakers.
  ```We are not Americans,' shouted one speaker, Muhammad Faheed, at 
Queensborough Community College in 2003. `We are Muslims. The U.S. is 
going to deport and attack us! It is us versus them! Truth against 
falsehood! The colonizers and masters against the oppressed, and we 
will burn down the master's house!'''
  Well, Mr. Speaker, with those kind of comments coming at their 
meetings, it is so wonderful that principles from these organizations 
have such close ties with the current leadership in the country, in the 
White House, in the State Department, and in the Justice Department.
  This article goes on:
  ``ISNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document, `An 
Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in 
North America,' as one of the Brotherhood's likeminded `organizations 
of our friends' who shared the common goal of destroying America and 
turning it into a Muslim nation, according to Discover the Networks.
  ``Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz describes ISNA as `one of the chief 
conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the 
United States.'
  ``According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, ISNA `is a radical 
group hiding under a false veneer of moderation' that publishes a 
bimonthly magazine, Islamic Horizons, that `often champions militant 
Islamist doctrine.' The group also `convenes annual conferences where 
Islamist militants have been given a platform to incite violence and 
promote hatred,' states Emerson. Emerson cites an ISNA conference in 
which al-Qaida supporter and PLO official Yusuf Al Qaradhawi was 
invited to speak.
  ``Emerson further reports that in September of 2002, a full year 
after 9/11, speakers at ISNA's annual conference still refused to 
acknowledge Osama bin Laden's role in the terrorist attacks.
  ``Also, ISNA has held fundraisers for terrorists, notes Discover the 
Networks. After Hamas leader Mousa Marzook was arrested and eventually 
deported in 1997, ISNA raised money for his defense. The group also has 
condemned the U.S. government`s post-9/11 seizure of the financial 
assets of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
  ``ISNA, meanwhile, has an extensive relationship with the Obama 
administration, which recently announced it is open to diplomacy with 
the Muslim Brotherhood.''
  Mr. Speaker, this is where I have to say, having visited with leaders 
in the Middle East, Muslim leaders who are actually friends of the 
United States, not in official open meetings, but when we get in 
private, they ask the question: Why does your U.S. administration 
continue to support the Muslim Brotherhood? Do you not understand the 
Muslim Brotherhood has been at war with the United States since 1979, 
and you have got friendly Muslims that want to help you--I would submit 
that the current President of Egypt is one of those--and yet you are 
insistent on helping the Muslim Brotherhood that is at war with the 
United States? Oh, not with violence yet, but they claim they are 
getting so much accomplished in taking over the United States without 
violence, that they don't want to use that yet. That will come later if 
necessary. But right now they are doing such a good job as advisers and 
in important positions in the administration that they should not be 
using violence.
  Well, back to the article:
  ``The relationship began even before Obama took office.
  ``One week before last year's presidential inauguration''--again, 
keeping in mind this article is from 2014.
  ``One week before last year's presidential inauguration, Sayyid 
Syeed, national director of ISNA's Office for Interfaith and Community 
Alliances, was part of a delegation that met with the directors of 
Obama's transition team. The delegation discussed a request for an 
executive order ending `torture.'
  ``ISNA President Mattson represented American Muslims at Obama's 
inauguration, where she offered a prayer during the televised event. 
Mattson also represented ISNA at Obama's Ramadan dinner at the White 
House.
  ``In June 2009, Obama senior aide Valerie Jarrett invited Mattson to 
work on the White House Council on Women and Girls, which Jarrett 
leads.''
  Yeah, that is what you want. You want someone who supports the Muslim 
Brotherhood's idea that women don't have rights. They have no business 
showing their face in public or driving or having property. Yeah, that 
is what you want advising the White House on women's issues, for 
heaven's sake.
  The article goes on:
  ``One month later, the Justice Department sponsored an information 
booth at an ISNA bazaar in Washington, D.C.
  ``Also that month, Jarrett addressed ISNA's 46th annual convention. 
According to the White House, Jarrett attended as part of Obama's 
outreach to Muslims.
  ``In February, Obama's top adviser on counter-terrorism, John 
Brennan, came under fire for controversial remarks he made in a speech 
to Muslim law students at an event sponsored by ISNA at New York 
University.
  ``In his speech, Brennan, who later became CIA director, stated that 
having a percentage of terrorists released by the U.S. return to 
terrorist attacks `isn't that bad,' since the recidivism rate for 
inmates in the U.S. prison system is higher.
  ``He also criticized parts of the Bush administration's response to 
9/11 as a `reaction some people might say was over the top in some 
areas' that `in an overabundance of caution we implemented a number of 
security measures and activities that upon reflection now

[[Page 243]]

we look back after the heat of the battle has died down a bit we say 
they were excessive, OK.'
  ``WND reported Brennan stated at the ISNA-organized event that the 
Obama administration is working to calibrate policies in the fight 
against terrorism that ensure Americans are `never' profiled.
  ``Speaking at the question-and-answer session, Brennan declared 
himself a `citizen of the world.'
  ```We need to be looking at ourselves as individuals. Not the way we 
look or the creed we have or our ethnic background. I consider myself a 
citizen of the world,' he said.
  ``Brennan told the audience the Obama administration is trying to 
`make sure that we as Americans can interact in a safe way, balance 
policies in a way that optimizes national security but also optimizes 
the opportunity in this country never to be profiled, never to be 
discriminated against.'''
  Yes, that is right. Sure. If you hate America and you want America's 
Western lifestyle and freedoms destroyed, you want women subjugated, we 
shouldn't profile people just because they want America destroyed as 
part of their religious beliefs. That kind of thinking gets a nation in 
trouble. And, thus, we are in trouble.
  This article was published this week, January 5, 2016, from Jennifer 
Hickey, ``Ripe for Radicalization: Federal Prisons `Breeding Ground' 
for Terrorists, Say Experts.'' Here we are in 2016 substantiating the 
statements that Senator Chuck Schumer made back in 2003 that our 
prisons have been, for years now, a breeding ground for radical 
Islamism.
  Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, we have allowed 
people who have been named--and for which the Federal courts have said 
there is plenty of evidence to support that they are co-conspirators in 
financing terrorism and supporting terrorism--we have allowed them to 
pick imams, approve imams, put imams in our military and in our 
prisons. Is it any surprise that 13 years after Chuck Schumer raised 
that issue, that since nothing has been done about it, that the Federal 
prisons are a breeding ground for radical Islamists?
  This quote from Representative Stephen Fincher, my friend from 
Tennessee, says: ``Over the years, our Federal prisons have become a 
breeding ground for radicalization.''
  That is supportive of what Chuck Schumer said years ago.
  In fact, this article by Carol Brown, December 5, 2014, american
thinker.com, ``Prisons are Breeding Grounds for Jihadist'':
  ``Muslims comprise 15% of the prison population. This number far 
exceeds the percentage of Muslims in the general population. It is 
eighteen times greater, to be exact.''
  So there are 18 times more Muslims in Federal prison than the 
percentage of Muslims in the general population. That raises issues, 
questions, and problems.
  ``Put another way, there are about 2.4 million Muslims in the United 
States and 350,000 of them are in jail. That means more than 12% of 
Muslims in America are incarcerated.
  ``Reports on the number of prisoners who convert to Islam vary and 
are framed in different ways. Some sources estimate 40,000 prisoners 
per year convert. Others put the numbers closer to 135,000 per year. 
Some posit that 80% of inmates who `find faith while in prison convert 
to Islam.'
  ``One thing is for sure: The majority of those who convert to Islam 
in prison are black, with as many as one in three black prisoners 
converting. The number of Hispanic prisoners converting to Islam is 
also on the rise.
  ``These numbers are staggering. And the implications are serious, as 
will be addressed further on in this article.
  ``There are numerous reasons why conversions to Islam are 
skyrocketing in our jails.
  ``Many prisoners feel angry, disenfranchised, and yes, even 
victimized and wronged by society. Many harbor a deep disdain for 
America. They are, therefore, prime targets for recruitment to a 
religious ideology that shares many of these attitudes.
  ``In addition, Islamic teachings are often framed as a noble code of 
ethics to live by. Case in point: The Nation of Islam is the largest 
prison ministry.''
  I am sure they are meaning the largest prison ministry in the United 
States.

                              {time}  1430

  Mr. Speaker, this is going on as I speak. It has been going on for 
the 13 years since Chuck Schumer brought it up in the Senate, and we 
don't appear to have learned any lessons from this.
  My friend Dana Rohrabacher is pushing that we invite the President of 
Egypt, President el-Sisi, to come speak to a joint session of Congress. 
I was talking to Chairman Royce about it. He believes it would be a 
good idea.
  Our majority whip, Steve Scalise, just met with President el-Sisi in 
Egypt. I am thrilled he did. He is a Muslim leader who understands the 
Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to freedom in Egypt and in America and 
in Europe. It is time we did something about it to protect ourselves.
  You don't have to profile Muslims, but you should be profiling those 
who are studying radical Islam, like Qutb, like in his booklet 
``Milestones,'' which Osama bin Laden said radicalized him--or helped.
  Yet, this administration will not allow our Justice Department, our 
intelligence departments and agencies, and our State Department to be 
educated on radical Islam. So, of course, you are going to be admitting 
a woman who takes a man's name that denotes a terrorist Islamic 
Jihadist from hundreds of years ago, Tashfeen Malik.
  Our Homeland Security has run off people who are real patriots, like 
Phil Haney, and who are brilliant on the issue of radical Islam. We 
have run them out.
  The message is clear that you had better not study radical Islam and 
you had better not know anything about radical Islam in Homeland 
Security because, if you do, we will run you off if we don't do 
something worse. Thank God Phil Haney had such a clean record. They 
were looking for anything.
  Our country is in trouble, and there are people who want to destroy 
it. It is ridiculous that anybody still has to say: We know all Muslims 
are not terrorists. Of course, they are not. But it is ridiculous to 
continue to allow and to even encourage radical Islamist imams in our 
prisons to transform prisoners into additional radical Jihadists, who 
are going to go off like bombs, figuratively and literally, at some 
point down the road.
  We also have to look at our immigration policy when it comes to 
continuing to allow people like al-Amoudi--who hates America, who 
considers himself to be a person who could help bring about the global 
caliphate, a person who is financing terrorism--have his wife come and 
have a child in America.
  Before he started trying to radicalize that country and take power 
unto himself as if he were a dictator, Morsi's wife--Morsi, the former 
President of Egypt--had a child here.
  Do you think that child was being brought up to love America? Do you 
think al-Amoudi's child was being raised to love America while his 
parents were scheming to terrorize it?
  Anwar al-Awlaki is one about whom my friends on both sides of the 
aisle have discussed the proprieties or improprieties of having a 
President just issue an order to kill an American citizen, Anwar al-
Awlaki, a man who led staffers in Muslim prayers right here on Capitol 
Hill.
  Capitol Hill staffers were led in prayer by a man who, ultimately, 
the Obama administration--the President himself--considered to be so 
dangerous he had to take him out with a drone strike in Yemen. He was 
so dangerous to the United States that we couldn't even risk arresting 
him later. He had to take him out with a bomb strike.
  How was he an American citizen? His parents, who raised him to hate 
America, came to America on student visas. They studied here and had 
Anwar al-Awlaki. They took him back to Yemen and taught him to hate 
America. He became so dangerous that even President Obama felt he had 
to order a

[[Page 244]]

strike on an American citizen, without his having had a trial, without 
due process. He felt he had to take him out with a drone because that 
American citizen--an American citizen only because his parents came 
here on visas--was too dangerous for them to do anything else. It is 
time we started protecting our homeland, and we need an administration 
that will do it.
  In closing, Mr. Speaker, let me just add that the reports have been 
that the Obama administration used the NSA to spy on Members of 
Congress to help it keep the Iran treaty in play. Mr. Speaker, we have 
got to get to the bottom of that.
  If it turns out that our President was unconstitutionally spying on 
Members of Congress, I do not care if they were all Democrats or 
Republicans. I do not care. They may have been Democrats. It doesn't 
matter.
  If he were spying on Members of Congress--using the NSA or any other 
government agency to spy on Members of Congress--we need to find out if 
it happened. If he were, he needs to be removed from office, period. 
Otherwise, we can't save the Nation.
  I hope and pray those allegations are not true. I hope and pray that 
the President of the United States did not have the NSA spying on 
Members of Congress to help him with the Iran deal, to help him as he 
was supporting the biggest supporters of terrorism in the world. I hope 
and pray that is not true. I hope and pray it is not, but we need to 
find out.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded not to engage in 
personalities relating to the President.

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