[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12366-12369]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   A STEP BACKWARDS IN RACE RELATIONS AT CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Knight). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is always an honor to appear here on the 
House floor, especially following colleagues giving an important 
address.
  I was saddened to see what seemed, in fact, to be a huge step 
backwards in racial relations.
  ``California State University Debuts Segregated Housing for Black 
Students.''
  ``California State University Los Angeles recently debuted segregated 
housing for Black students, a move intended to protect them from 
`microaggressions,' according to the College Fix.
  ``Last year, Cal State L.A.'s Black Student Union wrote a letter to 
the university's president outlining a series of demands, including the 
`creation and financial support of a CSLA housing space delegated for 
Black students and a full time Resident Director who can cater to the 
needs of Black students.'
  ```Many Black CSLA students cannot afford to live in Alhambra or the 
surrounding area with the high prices of rent. A CSLA housing space 
delegated for Black students would provide a cheaper alternative 
housing solution for Black students. This space would also serve as a 
safe space for Black CSLA students to congregate, connect and learn 
from each other,' the letter stated.
  Anyway, ``Robert Lopez, a spokesman for the university, confirmed to 
The College Fix that students' demand for housing specifically for 
Black students had been met, saying that the school's new Halisi 
Scholars Black Living-Learning Community `focuses on academic 
excellence and learning experiences that are inclusive and 
nondiscriminatory.'
  That seems to be a bit of anathema.

[[Page 12367]]

  But anyway, ``Lopez said the Black student housing is within the 
existing residential complex on campus.
  ``The College Fix noted that other universities, including the 
University of California, Davis; the University of California, 
Berkeley; and University of Connecticut offer similar housing 
arrangements.''
  It just seems like we are going backwards with that kind of thing.
  I heard my colleagues mention the great dream--part of the great 
dream of Martin Luther King, Jr., a Christian, ordained Christian 
minister. As I have heard a Black minister explain recently, he was, 
first and foremost, above all a Christian minister. His belief in the 
Bible and his belief in Jesus Christ as a Savior was his guiding force, 
which brought him to the place that Jesus brought his disciples to, and 
that the Apostle Paul was brought to rather abruptly, and that is, 
Jesus did not discriminate against anyone and that we, who believe, as 
Christians, should follow those teachings and treat people equally, 
regardless of skin color. And that would help fulfill that part of Dr. 
King's dream, that people would be judged by the content of their 
character and not the color of their skin.
  However, California has digressed, regressed to the point where no 
longer are they making progress toward racial harmony. They are going 
the other direction, saying that what we need is to segregate, like 
that great Democrat, George Wallace believed.
  So it is unbelievable. We have supposed liberals in California not 
pursuing the dream of Dr. King, where people would be judged by the 
content of their character rather than the color of their skin; but we 
have these California universities that are now fulfilling the dream of 
the Democratic Party candidate, George Wallace, who felt like 
segregation in all things was the far better way to go.
  So congratulations to the University of California System for helping 
fulfill the dream of George Wallace. What a wonderful combination we 
have. Not a progressive, as they might claim the name, but of 
regressives who are going back and claiming the dream, not of Dr. King, 
but of Democrat Party activist, George Wallace. Congratulations. You 
make a great pair, California University System, and George Wallace's 
dream. Wow.


                        Criminal Justice Reform

  Mr. GOHMERT. We also have had mention tonight of efforts toward what 
some call sentencing reform. I was honored back in 2007 to get a call 
from a man that I think the world of, former Attorney General Ed Meese. 
Apparently he had heard of my concerns about some of the Federal 
criminal laws that needed to be changed; that we had too many people in 
America who were being harassed and their lives or their families 
destroyed by Federal criminal law that allowed people to be prosecuted 
for violating, not a law that Congress had passed, but some regulation 
that some cubicle-holder had decided would be a good thing to do.
  Unelected bureaucrats in Washington decided we will make this a 
regulation, and since Congress passed a law saying you have to follow 
all the laws and rules regarding this issue, we fall under the rules 
and regulations; therefore, they can go to prison for failing to do 
what we, as unelected bureaucrats in Washington, decided that someone 
somewhere we have never been must do.
  So I was greatly in favor and encouraged to hear of the interest from 
the Heritage Foundation, former Attorney General Ed Meese, to pursue 
criminal justice reform.
  We have had difficulty moving that forward, and I greatly appreciate 
the leadership of Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte. We have 
been able to get through some criminal justice reforms that I have been 
hoping to see passed since 2007.
  At times we made strange bedfellows, politically speaking, I guess, 
when we had Ed Meese and others from the Heritage Foundation, along 
with leaders from the ACLU, who had similar concerns that we did, and 
we were coming together to try to correct great injustices within the 
criminal justice laws.
  Unfortunately, the President, probably inspired by mentors like 
George Soros, they see that before criminal justice reform could be 
passed, at least contemporaneously, you have to pass sentencing reform.
  The Obama administration wants that to be a major part of the Obama 
legacy. And when you see how many people are being completely failed 
and harmed by ObamaCare, I can certainly understand why President Obama 
would rather have his legacy be that of something in the criminal 
justice area rather than ObamaCare.
  Without--and I have to say, this has certainly damaged in a 
bipartisan fashion people across America. There are people who have 
been helped by having government pay a good part of their health care.
  You look at the bottom line, especially, from the people I have heard 
from all over east Texas, we have vast numbers complaining they have 
lost their insurance they liked. They lost the doctor that was keeping 
them healthy or had gotten them cured, and now they were back in 
trouble. They lost the doctor or the insurance company, they lost the 
hospital they wanted to go to, all because of that around-2500-page 
monstrosity that is normally referred to as ObamaCare. It is easier to 
call it ObamaCare than the Affordable Care Act because it is not 
affordable. It has cost some people everything.
  So we have heard from people. They are clamoring for a change.
  Isn't there some way to let us get back the insurance we had before 
2010, when the President and every Democrat, without a single 
Republican vote, rammed through, against the majority will of the 
American public, this monstrosity where the government took over their 
healthcare insurance, dictated requirements that would put many out of 
business, dictated requirements of doctors that have caused many to 
retire, as they have advised me?
  And I continue to hear, and we continue to lose hospitals especially 
in rural areas.

                              {time}  2130

  But when you hear uncaring, big city folks say, ``We don't really 
care. Just tell them to move to the city,'' really? What? Like Chicago, 
where their chances of being murdered go up astronomically from where 
they are living now, where their standard of living can't possibly be 
where it is now? Do you despise these people so much and what many 
consider flyover territory that you would want to sentence them to such 
brutality? How about if we just let America be free again and we follow 
what so many have talked about?
  It is why I had the bill drafted back in 2009. CBO Director 
Elmendorf, no matter what he asked, I complied, and they still refused 
to ever score my bill. Newt Gingrich had said back in early 2009: If 
you can just get this in bill form and get it scored, they won't have a 
chance of passing ObamaCare; this will be too good.
  Because it appeared that the best numbers we could get back from 
2008, it may well be cheaper to offer seniors: Okay, you want Medicare? 
You can have it. On the other hand, if you would like the very best 
health insurance policy that money can buy, we will buy it for you, but 
we will go ahead and set a high deductible.
  Back then, we were talking $5,000 or so. Maybe today it would be 
$7,500 or $10,000. We will have a high deductible, but above that 
deductible. You will have the best insurance money can buy, Mr. or Ms. 
Senior. To cover the deductible, we will give you a health savings 
account. We will put the cash in there.
  I made this proposal to a couple of folks that I had invited to come 
out and listen to the proposal from AARP. Since they cared about 
retired folks, I figured they will love this because this is going to 
be so good for retired people. They will never have to buy another 
wraparound or supplemental policy again. This is going to be 
unbelievable. So for Medicare and Medicaid, this will be fantastic, and 
we will give each one of them a health savings account debit card, and 
it will be coded only.
  Newt Gingrich was very helpful. He sent out some folks to meet with 
me

[[Page 12368]]

that knew all about the different issues and encouraged some different 
things to be in the bill we got in there. Anyway, this was going to be 
great for seniors. I was shocked when AARP folks said: We will have to 
get back with you because we are not sure. I said: How could you not be 
sure? You care about retired people.
  My mother-in-law and father-in-law at the time were struggling to pay 
for a supplemental policy. This will be fantastic.
  I was so naive. I didn't know that AARP was making hundreds of 
millions of dollars clear profit for a nonprofit off selling the sale 
of supplemental health insurance.
  So, naturally, they couldn't sign on to that bill. It was going to be 
so good for seniors that AARP would never be making those hundreds of 
millions and billions of dollars that they would be able to make under 
ObamaCare. Of course, they signed on to ObamaCare. It was in their 
monetary best interest, just like it has been in the Clintons' best 
interests to have Secretary Clinton have a husband out there raking in 
the money while providing access to those who may have wanted a favor 
in the administration. Access was the favor.
  So we have had people across America so shocked. Money, as we were 
told, is not the root of all evil, but the love of money is a root of 
all evil--not necessarily ``the,'' but ``a'' root of evil.
  When we see what has happened to people's health care all over money 
and power and we see what has happened to the greed of entities that 
were just supposed to help the seniors, just supposed to help those 
less fortunate, well, they are making a fortune. When we look at what 
has happened to health care, the hospitals out of business, the doctors 
retired, people that can't get the help they used to have, it is 
heartbreaking to those who are actually paying attention.
  In the meantime, we have an investigation by the FBI into all this 
money, tens of millions--hundreds of millions--of dollars flowing into 
the Clinton Foundation. When people heard FBI Director James Comey 
stand up and basically spell out a lay-down case against Hillary 
Clinton for violating the law that ultimately came to the conclusion 
that there is nothing behind this curtain, so no good prosecutor would 
consider prosecuting this case, he failed to talk to good prosecutors 
who were prosecuting cases in which they had much less to go on than 
what had already been admitted.
  I was shocked when we heard that Hillary Clinton was going to be 
interviewed for 3 hours. Some people expected the FBI to give a 
statement opinion about the case the next week. I said that that won't 
happen because traditionally the FBI would get that statement, they 
would review sentence by sentence to see if there was anything that was 
false that was provided to them, and if she had a 3-hour interview, it 
will take time to go sentence by sentence through what she said. There 
is no way they are coming back that next week.
  Little did I know that--you know, you are left with the impression, 
what happened out there on the tarmac when this clandestine meeting 
between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill 
Clinton met, it was before the statement was made. And as I pointed 
out, basically even to the Attorney General, it makes it look like that 
when President Clinton and Attorney General Lynch got together it was: 
Look, just tell your wife all we have got to do is check the box. We 
had a lengthy period of questioning. We won't even put her under oath. 
We won't even record it, so there is no way we can really effectively 
prosecute her because we won't have an accurate statement of what she 
said. Just tell her to come in. We will check the box. We can come out 
a few days later and announce there is nothing here, look the other 
way.
  It sounded like a wink and nod: Oh, by the way, Hillary says she 
would like to keep you on as Attorney General.
  Great. Let's get her in and get the statement so we can drop the 
case.
  That is basically what sounds like happened because of the way it 
unfolded. That is not the way the FBI normally works. There are so many 
incredible criminal investigators in our FBI despite all the good ones 
that Director Mueller ran off because he wanted new investigators--not 
any of the people that had been around and had wisdom and experience, 
but the new ones. They are there for proper reasons. They want to see 
justice done. And so people were shocked when the announcement came, 
hey, they laid out the elements of the case. Obviously, it sounded like 
they were proven. And then it says, so no good prosecutor, in effect, 
would pursue this.
  There was no evidence of intent when somebody has a software program 
that is actually purchased with the sole purpose of destroying any way 
to get back to the emails that, now, it appears, were destroyed after 
they were requested, after they were subpoenaed, and after they were 
being sought. So, obviously, that is a lay-down case for intent right 
there.
  Then we find out that phones were bashed perhaps with a hammer. Maybe 
if you were in some area of the country trying to prosecute where 
people are just going to acquit no matter what happens, okay, maybe, 
yeah, a prosecutor there might not pursue, but in most of this God-
blessed country, if you show somebody that there was actual destruction 
with a hammer of cellphones to prevent anybody from ever finding out 
what was on there, you show them that software was actually purchased 
that would completely bleach and destroy any ability to go back and get 
those emails, most normal people would have no problem whatsoever 
finding an intent to deceive there and have no problem finding lies 
that were made.
  But we heard over and over, gee, FBI Director Comey would never do 
anything but absolutely perfectly aboveboard.
  But then this article by Patrick Howley, 10 September, came out. I 
was shocked. It said: ``A review of FBI Director James Comey's 
professional history and relationships shows that the Obama cabinet 
leader--now under fire for his handling of the investigation of Hillary 
Clinton--is deeply entrenched in the big-money cronyism culture of 
Washington, D.C. His personal and professional relationships--all 
undisclosed as he announced the Bureau would not prosecute Clinton--
reinforce bipartisan concerns that he may have politicized the criminal 
probe.
  ``These concerns focus on millions of dollars that Comey accepted 
from a Clinton Foundation defense contractor, Comey's former membership 
on a Clinton Foundation corporate partner's board''--I had no idea--
``and his surprising financial relationship with his brother Peter 
Comey, who works at the law firm that does the Clinton Foundation 
taxes.''
  Who knew? Wow. Direct ties here with FBI Director James Comey's 
family and the Clinton Foundation. It is just amazing. I don't hold 
anybody's former employer against them. Fine, you are employed 
hopefully by somebody, so I wouldn't hold that against them. Certainly, 
Hank--I don't even want to say his name, but he used to be the 
Secretary of the Treasury, and--well, yeah, he deserves to be in the 
Congressional Record yet again. Hank Paulson, the former chairman of 
Goldman Sachs, he certainly did every favor he possibly could to 
Goldman Sachs, and they are still going on.
  But here are some holdings, HSBC Holdings the article mentioned. ``In 
2013, Comey became a board member, a director, and a Financial System 
Vulnerabilities Committee member of the London bank HSBC Holdings. `Mr. 
Comey's appointment will be for an initial three-year term which, 
subject to re-election by shareholders, will expire at the conclusion 
of the 2016 Annual General Meeting,' according to HSBC company records.
  ``HSBC Holdings and its various philanthropic branches routinely 
partner with the Clinton Foundation. For instance, HSBC Holdings has 
partnered with Deutsche Bank through the Clinton Foundation to 
`retrofit 1,500 to 2,500 housing units, primarily in the low- to 
moderate-income sector' in `New York City.'''
  Anyway, it goes on to talk about Peter Comey.

[[Page 12369]]

  ``When our source called the Chinatown offices of D.C. law firm DLA 
Piper and asked for `Peter Comey,' a receptionist immediately put him 
through to Comey's direct line. But Peter Comey is not featured on the 
DLA Piper website.
  ``Peter Comey serves as `Senior Director of Real Estate Operations 
for the Americas' for DLA Piper.

                              {time}  2145

  ``James Comey was not questioned about his relationship with Peter 
Comey in his confirmation hearing. DLA Piper is the firm that performed 
the independent audit of the Clinton Foundation in November during 
Clinton-World's first big push to put the email scandal behind them. 
DLA Piper's employees taken as a whole represent a major Hillary 
Clinton 2016 campaign donation bloc and Clinton Foundation donation 
base.
  ``DLA Piper ranks number 5 on Hillary Clinton's all-time career Top 
Contributors list, just ahead of Goldman Sachs. And here is another 
thing: Peter Comey has a mortgage on his house that is owned by his 
brother'' James Comey, the FBI director. Peter Comey's financial 
records obtained by Breitbart News showed that he ``bought a $950,000 
house in Vienna, Virginia, in June 2008. He needed a $712,500 mortgage 
from First Savings Mortgage Corporation.
  ``But on January 31, 2011, James Comey and his wife stepped in to 
become Private Party lenders. They granted a mortgage on the house for 
$711,000.''
  Anyway, it is just rather interesting: Who had any idea that the 
Comey family had such ties to the Clinton Foundation?
  ``Peter Comey redesigned the FBI building.''
  Well, that is interesting.
  ``FBI Director James Comey grew up in the New Jersey suburbs with his 
brother Peter.''
  Anyway, interesting. How about that. Peter Comey redesigned the FBI 
building, according to the article.
  ``Procon Consulting's client list includes `FBI Headquarters, 
Washington, D.C.'
  ``So what did Procon Consulting do for FBI headquarters? Quite a bit, 
apparently. According to the firm's records: Procon provided strategic 
project management for the consolidation of over 11,000 FBI personnel 
into one, high security, facility.''
  Then it goes on. As the article ends, it says:
  ``This is not going to end well.''
  Well, fortunately, for Hillary Clinton, the investigation with the 
Clinton Foundation ties to the FBI director has ended well for her.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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