[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15886-15890]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1645
                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting number of days 
here this week. We continue to have hearings and fight for good 
legislation, and we continue to hear from people back home that we 
simply must at least work on our promises to repeal ObamaCare and bring 
their health insurance into a realm that is affordable.
  They realize they were lied to. They will never get the insurance 
they liked back. They would like to try to get their doctors back.
  One of the interesting things about the design of the devious 
architect of ObamaCare is the guy who bragged later: Yeah, we knew you 
couldn't keep your insurance, you couldn't keep your doctor, but we had 
to say that to sell it.
  They actually incentivized the handful of remaining insurance 
companies not to put the best cancer healthcare providers in their 
network. ObamaCare actually incentivizes insurance companies not 
putting the best heart healthcare providers or, in fact, any chronic, 
expensive disease that the insurance companies, because of the design 
of ObamaCare--and I think it was intentional--basically were penalized 
if they put the very best cancer treaters, heart treaters in their 
network. So there actually are indications that insurance companies, 
they could see what the administration was encouraging them to do.
  For example, I had read that MD Anderson was not in those networks as 
a cancer provider. Some would argue it is the best cancer treatment 
facility. That certainly can be debated. I think it still comes down to 
the effort to get to the point where government is completely in charge 
of every American's healthcare.
  ObamaCare was a good start, but obviously if you design a system so 
that the insurance companies, they just get down to a handful of 
monopolies and they are having record years, and that same bill even 
allows those insurance companies to get what are called bailouts after 
they have had record profits, well, most people are going to end up 
hating the insurance companies. And we have seen that.
  What would happen, of course, is eventually people get so outraged 
with premiums going up, whether it is 10 percent or 70 percent--I have 
heard of it being doubled, being tripled since the last 7 years. I have 
heard all kinds of horror stories from people in east Texas. Around 
other places I have visited, it is the same thing happening. They can't 
afford their policy, yet they can't afford to pay an extra tax for not 
having a policy that the government says they have to have; and yet if 
they pay for their policy, the deductible is so high, they are still 
not going to get any benefit out of it.
  So it is easy to see, when you start looking at the way in which 
ObamaCare was created, the rules in place for it, the day would come 
when people got so outraged at how expensive their health insurance was 
that they would scream: Look, I just can't stand it anymore. I never 
wanted the

[[Page 15887]]

government to be in charge of my personal life, but anything's got to 
be better than the current system. Just let the government take it 
over.
  Then, there you are, government controlling everybody's body, 
everybody's personal life.
  Of course, we have got this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau out 
there created during the Obama years by the Democrats. We were not 
helpful in that. We thought, sure, we want to help people who are being 
taken advantage of by unscrupulous lenders, but we don't need a Bureau 
to monitor everybody's debit and credit card transactions. There were 
those who argued: Yeah, but this way, they can monitor and they can 
tell if somebody's being taken advantage of.
  There was a time, as a felony judge in Texas, that, if someone wanted 
your bank records, under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, we 
are supposed to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures, 
and that includes anyone's bank records. So people would come to me as 
a judge, they would have affidavits, and they hoped that would prove 
under oath probable cause that a crime had been committed and that this 
person committed it, and if so, I could sign the warrant that allowed 
them to go get bank records.
  We used to care about the Fourth Amendment. I know my friends across 
the aisle, our Democratic friends, they cared greatly, because I have 
heard over and over in Judiciary Committee arguments about the 
protections against unreasonable searches, and yet they set up a Bureau 
that violates that, says: Just give us all your information.
  Well, sure, if somebody is being taken advantage of by an 
unscrupulous lender, then the remedy is they go complain to the 
appropriate government law enforcement or the SEC, whoever it is, and 
then they come to a judge like I was, get the warrant, get the records, 
and then make the determination if there is probable cause. We just 
lost so much of our privacy.
  Several years ago, we said, well, since ObamaCare is going to allow 
the mass gathering of people's medical records and our Democratic 
friends set up this consumer protection racket here in Washington, we 
could conceivably have a day--and if we don't do something about 
ObamaCare and the CFPB, then it is closer than I imagined--when you get 
your mail, Madam Speaker, and you see: Oh, I have got a letter from the 
government here. And you open it, and it says: We noticed, when you 
were at Brookshire's grocery store the other day, that you bought a 
pound of bacon; and we also noticed, from your healthcare records, that 
your cholesterol rate is at this certain level, and so, therefore, 
since we control your healthcare now and we monitor your debit and 
credit purchases, here is the deal: you are either going to join a 
health club and start working out once a week and stop buying bacon, or 
we are going to have to raise the amount you pay in each month.
  I mean, this is where it goes when you have the Orwellian Big Brother 
that was advanced more through ObamaCare than anything that has ever 
occurred in U.S. history. It has got to be repealed.
  I want to applaud and thank President Trump for taking steps today 
through executive order. He shouldn't have had to do that. I am very, 
very grateful he did. God bless him for doing it. But we should have 
already taken care of that stuff. That is our job.
  What do we do here in the House? It was contentious. The first bill 
was a disaster, but we got it to where it actually was going to bring 
premiums down for the middle class in America. It was going to make 
their premiums cheaper. It was going to make their deductibles lower. 
Then we had people in the Senate who got elected on the promise of 
repealing ObamaCare that voted ``no.'' We still have to do something.
  I loved seeing the President's interview with our good friend, Sean 
Hannity, last night. I love this about President Trump. I think it is 
why he got elected. When Sean asked him about, basically, is this over, 
he gets this smile and says: No. We are not giving up, not giving up.
  The truth is we cannot give up. People are counting on us. They don't 
know what to do.
  There are small-business employers like the one in Tyler who told me 
that a few years ago he was paying $50,000 for his employees' health 
insurance. He has the same number of employees, and this year it is 
$153,000, and he is going to have to start letting people go or drop 
their insurance. It just cannot continue. People are already taking 
losses. It can't continue.
  Well, with the proper President in place, and here in Congress we 
have taken some steps to ameliorate some of the damage to jobs in 
America, things seem to be turning around some. But we actually have to 
keep our promise, and I think we do that by putting a lot more heat on 
the Senate as the House body, House Republicans. We have got to put 
pressure on the Senate. Like the President said, this fight cannot be 
over.
  Normally, I have been told since my freshman term, you can't do big 
things in an election year. But I am beginning to wonder, if America 
makes it clear to the Republicans in the Senate that you either will 
keep your promise on ObamaCare, you will keep your promise on tax 
reform or you will not be back in the Senate, then I think we could 
buck tradition in this place.
  The idea was that we were told back in 2006, in January: Okay. Well, 
we didn't keep any of our promises last year as the Republican 
majority, but now, you veterans know we are into an even-numbered year. 
That means it is an election year, so we can't do any of those big 
things, because everybody knows you just can't do big things in an 
election year or you might lose.
  Well, it would have been a lot better if we had already done those 
things, if we had repealed ObamaCare and put a system in place that was 
affordable, that gave people the healthcare they needed and with actual 
insurance and encouraged, instead of spending $700, $800, $900, sending 
it to the insurance company, how about putting $700, $800 in your own 
medical health savings account you control, debit-card coded where it 
can only be spent on healthcare, whether it is crutches, medicine, 
doctor visits, hospital stays, whatever, and you could have a high 
deductible. We could have a day where $700 goes to your account, $200 
goes for catastrophic coverage. That is the kind of thing that we 
should have been pushing for and gone to, but, instead, we are pouring 
that money into health insurance companies.
  Just in case, Madam Speaker, there are those who are already 
wondering, ``Maybe we should just let the government take over 
everything; that has got to be better,'' I heard on the news again 
today another horror story. Just when you thought the VA was being 
cleaned up, here comes another horror story.
  Some doctor at the VA was allowed to do 80-some-odd surgeries that 
were unnecessary, inappropriate, or terribly done, even surgeries not 
even needed at all, on the wrong person, but it had been covered up for 
some time. Well, when the government is in charge of your healthcare, 
you can't expect any more than the lowest common denominator in the 
government.
  I am very, very grateful we do have some good doctors, some good 
nurses in the VA, but I have also talked to good doctors and nurses in 
the VA who are so frustrated with such an albatross of a system.

                              {time}  1700

  Why not just let people--if you want to go to the VA clinic, here is 
your card, you go.
  We thought we were doing a good thing, and I think it was a step in 
the right direction when we were going to allow veterans to go to a 
civilian clinic, hospital, healthcare provider if there was not one 
within a minimum number of miles. I believe it was 40, but I have heard 
horror stories about how people have been jerked around and not been 
allowed to utilize the program as it was designed. Here, again, we come 
back to what you get when the government is in charge. We have got to 
do that.
  Stuart Varney was asking today again about tax reform. We promised

[[Page 15888]]

it. We have got to deliver on that. These rumors I hear emanating from 
people at the Senate side of this building that: Yeah, well, the House 
can do the reform. They did their ObamaCare repeal and we didn't pass 
that, so maybe we won't do their tax reform package like we are working 
on.
  It takes a lot of work to pass a major reform like we did on 
ObamaCare. It takes even more work, perhaps, to do a significant tax 
reform package where it becomes simplified, people pay less tax, the 
economy explodes. You would think it would be a no-brainer, but 
apparently there are too many people up here with no brains and it is 
not getting done. We do have to do that. We promised we would. We have 
got to do it for the sake of the economy that will make people's lives 
so much better.
  But in the meantime, if we are going to be an effective Congress, we 
have got to make sure that we maintain proper systems in place that we 
can do our business without inappropriate outside influence, whether it 
is coming from Russia or Pakistan. Wherever it is coming from, we need 
to know and we need to protect ourselves.
  That is why this Taxed Enough Already Caucus meeting we had, we 
invited people in the tradition of my friend Tim Huelskamp, the former 
chair of that caucus from Kansas. Just a great guy, a great American. 
It was great to talk to him recently. Tim started with this caucus 
having representatives of outside groups with important information we 
should share coming in and having Members of Congress come in and share 
information, figure out how we can help get the Nation's business done.
  We have been concerned about articles we continue to read, especially 
by Luke Rosiak of The Daily Caller. No one has done more investigation 
on the issue of the Awan family cohorts that were working here on 
Capitol Hill for House Members. They happened to be Democratic House 
Members. I think the same thing could happen where one Republican could 
say, ``Oh, these folks are great,'' and before you know it, you have 
dozens of people having the same IT computer workers working part time. 
People are allowed to do that, hire somebody part time so it doesn't 
overwhelm your budget. Others can hire them part time, but under no 
circumstances can anybody working on the Hill make more than around 
$160,000.
  We found out this week from the lead investigator, oh, not law 
enforcement, oh, no. FBI, apparently they are not getting anything 
done, and I will explain why in a moment. But as he has gone around and 
investigated and asked witnesses questions that have direct information 
about what is going on, Luke Rosiak would also ask: Has anyone from the 
FBI talked to you, or has any law enforcement talked to you?
  He said 80 percent of the time the answer is no. No one from the FBI 
has talked to me. No one from any law enforcement has talked to me. 
Staggering.
  I hear rumors that there are people from the FBI telling the 
Department of Justice: Yeah, we have looked into it. There is nothing 
there.
  Yeah, just the way the FBI looked into the notice from Russia that 
the Tsarnaev older brother had been radicalized.
  What do they do?
  I know because I have asked Director Mueller after he had run off 
thousands of years of our best experienced FBI agents, done more damage 
to the FBI than anybody since Hoover. He has got plenty of young 
aggressive people without enough experience to call him out when he was 
making mistakes, as he made many.
  They send out an FBI agent to talk to the older Tsarnaev after the 
second notice from Russian agents that this guy has been radicalized. 
He is going to be a threat. But because Director Mueller--now Special 
Counsel Mueller, who is hiring lawyers and investigators right and 
left--built up a beautiful, comfortable nest for himself, that same 
Mueller, as Director of the FBI, had the FBI training materials on 
radical Islamists purged of anything that might offend radical 
Islamists.
  Yes, he was more concerned about the little lunches and dinners he 
had with CAIR--or the Council of American-Islamic Relations--than he 
was about people being killed in Boston, because if he had, he would 
have made sure that the Tsarnaev brothers were properly investigated 
after they got two heads-up.
  If they had bothered to look, they would have seen where the older 
Tsarnaev went and would have known he went to a hotbed of radicalism. 
They would have known to investigate: What has he been reading? What 
scriptures from the Koran has he been reading? What has he talked 
about? Is he doing more memorization? What is his appearance looking 
like now? Who is he hanging out with?
  But no. Because he was too concerned about what he called the 
outreach program to Islamic Americans, he didn't want to offend 
anybody. He was more worried about offending somebody than saving the 
lives and limbs of Bostonians.
  He created a massive problem at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
and now we are turning special counsel over to this man?
  We heard from Mr. Comey himself that he talked to Mueller even before 
his testimony before Congress. We heard from he himself that he leaked 
information that was clearly FBI information that should not have been 
leaked.
  So there is a question of did he commit a crime, or did he just 
commit a breach of FBI ethics? What action should be taken?
  Oh, no. We have got FBI Director Mueller on the case, and if you go 
back and look at the Washingtonian back in 2013, they did a big expose 
on how wonderful Mr. Comey was; and they point out in there that, gee, 
basically if the whole world were on fire, Comey knew there would be 
one person that would still be standing with him there to protect him, 
Mr. Mueller; the same guy that is protecting him instead of 
investigating the leaks that have come from the FBI that appear to have 
gone through the exact same person through whom he leaked what he 
admitted. But, no, we have got Mueller, the same man who is going to be 
there through thick and thin to protect Comey; he is the one 
investigating.
  If Jeff Sessions as Attorney General cannot investigate Mr. Comey and 
his violations, potential breaches of the law, then we need another 
special counsel, and it sure ain't going to come from Mr. Rosenstein, 
that is for sure.
  We need a special counsel. I think the Attorney General could do it, 
but I am not sure the extent to which he has recused himself. But this 
has to be investigated. Unfortunately, because of the damage done to 
the FBI, I still have questions arise on things they investigate 
because I know the damage that Mueller did to their training materials, 
to their ability. As one of our intelligence agents explained, we have 
blinded ourselves of the ability to see our enemies.
  But don't worry, the guy that was the biggest blinder is now the 
special counsel growing his little bureaucracy. And I am sure, knowing 
how vengeful he is, when he hears what I have had to say, then he 
probably will open an investigation on me. That is just how vengeful 
this man has been.
  But the truth is the truth. He damaged the FBI, running off thousands 
of years of experienced people. He purged the training materials that 
would have--and Michele Bachmann and I went through these, and another 
Congressman from Georgia went through some, and there were some things, 
sure; cartoon stuff, sure; take them out, fine. But there were some 
things in there very clearly that every FBI agent needs to know to help 
them spot a radical Islamist, and Mueller blinded them of the 
opportunity to do that.
  I will never forget, at one of our hearings, after it was so clear 
that he was more concerned about offending CAIR than he was of 
protecting Boston, and he was so defensive, I said: You didn't even go 
to the mosque where Tsarnaev went to see if he had been radicalized.
  After fumbling around, I finally got him to tell me how he thought 
that was wrong, and he said: We did go to the mosque.

[[Page 15889]]

  And I didn't hear it at first. Unfortunately, I didn't hear it until 
I had it played on the video.
  He said: We did go to that mosque in our outreach program.
  Oh, the outreach program. Yeah, you didn't go to investigate Tsarnaev 
to find out if he had been radicalized by asking questions in the 
mosque where he worshipped to find out if he was now acting like a 
radical. And there are clear indications. That is why we don't have to 
worry about most Muslims, but you sure need to know what you are 
looking for.
  For those that want to call people like me an Islamophobe, well, it 
is another lie. But there are plenty of lies around Washington. I have 
got enough Muslim friends in the Middle East and Afghanistan and other 
countries. They know they don't want radicals. I am so proud of the 
President of Egypt, el-Sisi, a man who would stand before imams and 
tell them: We have got to get our religion back from the radicals.
  That is a courageous great man. We owe him a lot of help.
  So what do we have here on Capitol Hill?
  We had guys that apparently never had a background search. And as we 
found out from the investigator for The Daily Caller, there were 
actually three or more months of the year when Imran Awan would be in 
Pakistan doing his job, supposedly making sure Capitol Hill computers 
were secured. We find out that there was suspicion when they saw this 
Imran Awan clan. His wife got involved. As we heard, when they would 
get up to the maximum amount one person could make on Capitol Hill, 
they would add another family member, and then they would get up to 
$160,000; add another family member, get them up; add another family 
member. And apparently all of these people didn't work.

                              {time}  1715

  The people that had a lot of experience working at McDonalds probably 
didn't have that much experience on computers, but he was still making 
$160,000 or so a year and, we find out--I had no idea, just this week 
found out--they were able to gain $6 million to $7 million from the 
House of Representatives' budget.
  And we find out, gee, one of them, had gotten $100,000 from an 
individual with known ties to Hezbollah, and we don't know for what 
reason, but clearly never came to Capitol Hill. He was put on the 
payroll of the U.S. House of Representatives, the guy that was owed 
$100,000 with ties to Hezbollah, and made over $200,000 or so before he 
was taken off the payroll.
  That is a good way to pay back a loan, isn't it?
  So we had Imran Awan; Hina Alvi, his wife; Abid Awan; Jamal Awan; Rao 
Abbas; and possibly a couple of others we found out--just incredible 
that this kind of thing could happen.
  But the suspicion grew when he was supposed to be working on the 
computer system of Congressman, now attorney general in California, 
Becerra. No indication Becerra knew anything was wrong, but people here 
on the Hill watching this saw there have been 5,700 accesses to his 
computer system and 5,400, at least, were not from people who should 
have been getting into his computer system.
  Then we find out, actually, he downloaded other Members of Congress' 
servers completely onto Becerra's server, and, actually, he had 2 
terabytes of information that he said was for their child's homework--a 
little child's homework taking 2 terabytes.
  But we also know, apparently, from what came out this week, he was 
downloading dozens of Members' computers onto one server so that 
anybody he wanted to could access any of that information.
  Now, there is no indication that classified information was revealed 
through the access to all these computer systems by people who were not 
hired by that Member of Congress. But we also know--I mean, General 
Petraeus, I read somewhere that it was actually a calendar that he gave 
to the lady who was to do a book, that he was having an affair with, 
that had some stuff that was considered classified.
  Well, on every Member's computer system, you get their calendar, you 
get all their email, you get all their appointments, things that are 
going on in the office, you get reactions to people who come in over 
different bills, you get reaction to different things that have been 
learned in the intelligence community. There are all kinds of things 
that people would pay a lot of money for.
  Then we find out, you had a bankruptcy in the Awan history, you had 
domestic violence in the history, and now we find out this week, newly 
reported, that his wife is now upset. We can maybe get some answers now 
that she is upset because, now, she has found out that not only was he 
being corrupt to the banks here in the United States and on Capitol 
Hill, but he also, without his wife's knowledge, married another lady. 
So that may help bring his first wife around to giving us more 
information about just how bad things got.
  But the report was, this week, investigators with the IG's office 
here on Capitol Hill have been quietly tracking the five IT workers--
that is, the Awan group--their digital footprints for months. They were 
alarmed by what they saw.
  The employees, the Awans, appeared to be accessing congressional 
servers without authorization, an indication that they ``could be 
reading and/or removing information,'' according to the documents 
distributed at the previously unreported private briefings.
  So I know that there are people who have reported here on Capitol 
Hill, well, it is being looked into, but there is no evidence of crime. 
Really?
  Because we have also learned that there may have been hundreds of 
vouchers filed falsely for, say, an $800 iPad. But if you say that it 
is under $500, then it doesn't go in the inventory, and it is easier to 
steal and sell, for example, hypothetically, in Pakistan, where there 
are reports that he sent technological systems and sold them to make 
extra money.
  We know that he was not truthful and honest in his financial 
disclosures. That can be a crime. But just one voucher where you claim 
something only cost $490 and the server system cost $310 when you know 
that item actually cost $800 and should go into the inventory, that 
could be a crime. It appears that happened countless times, but we need 
to be trying to count anyway.
  We know that there were many pieces of computer equipment found at 
his home after FBI agents said his wife appeared to be fleeing, to not 
come back, even though she had a trip back. We don't know what 
representations have been made to get her to come back, but we know 
that the tenants who leased the house where they fled from had been 
threatened by Imran Awan's lawyer for allowing law enforcement to have 
access to that computer equipment that was there at his house. Hard 
drives appeared to be destroyed so they could not be properly 
investigated.
  We got a report that one of the group appeared to be home most of the 
time and was not here in Washington, D.C. But what a great gig, when 
you can make $160,000 a year for servicing computer equipment. And it 
appears all of these five, six, seven people in this group didn't have 
competence to do computer or IT work, yet they were sure making a good 
living doing it.
  But for those who continue to say ``we just don't think there is much 
there,'' all that should tell you is the report by Luke Rosiak, of all 
the witnesses to this whole sordid matter, only about 20 percent of 
them have ever been interviewed by FBI or law enforcement. It tells you 
somebody around here in this town, this Hill, somebody does not want to 
get to the bottom of this. If law enforcement wants to get to the 
bottom of this, they will get to the bottom of it.
  Kind of like Benghazi, if we really wanted to get to the bottom of 
it, we would do like Judicial Watch and be relentless till we got to 
the bottom of it. We haven't gotten there yet
  So, Mr. Speaker, there is a lot that needs to be investigated, a lot 
that needs to be done. We need--somebody,

[[Page 15890]]

sounds like, needs to be investigating Mr. Mueller, but certainly needs 
to be investigating the various leaks that appear to have come from Mr. 
Comey through the same sources as the one he admitted. That has got to 
be investigated. And Mueller can't do it and, apparently, the current 
Attorney General can't. We have got to have somebody appointed to get 
to the bottom of what was happening at the DOJ during last year when an 
election was going on.
  We need to have an investigation to thoroughly get into this matter 
of having a U.N.--our representative to the U.N. is unmasking American 
information. We were assured that kind of thing would not happen if we 
would just reauthorize that program: Oh, no, no. If there are Americans 
who happen to be incidentally picked up by the monitors, the wiretap, 
by listening in on conversations, look, if there is an American, we 
mask the name. You can't just get that. You are protected. It is 
minimized.
  Well, we find out that wasn't true, that anybody that wants to go 
skipping and looking into any political opponents can do that if you 
are corrupt enough. And if you are corrupt enough and you have 
corrupted other people, then it won't be investigated.
  Maybe there are things other people around here don't want found out, 
but it is time we cleaned up the mess that has been left here, we clean 
up the wiretapping capability. It is coming up for reauthorization 
here. It has got to be done before the end of December, and I still 
need a lot of answers before I could even consider doing that.
  In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, we have got to help the American people 
by keeping our promises.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________