[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 20442-20446]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     ROBERT MUELLER SMEAR CAMPAIGN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be organizing this special 
hour on behalf of the minority.
  We are going to be talking tonight about the growing smear campaign 
against Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating contacts 
between Russians interfering in our Presidential election in 2016 and 
Americans. What we have seen over the last several weeks is a rising 
tide of criticism of Mr. Mueller in attempts to undermine and sabotage 
the special counsel investigation.
  We are going to be talking about all the different components of this 
attack, and we are going to be asking the question: Why?
  Why suddenly is Mr. Mueller, who was once a hero to our friends 
across the aisle, a decorated Vietnam war veteran, former Director of 
the FBI, former U.S. Attorney for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and 
the State of California, a celebrated law enforcement figure, and a 
registered Republican--why suddenly has he come under withering attack 
by everyone from our colleagues across the aisle in the House, to 
Republicans in the Senate, to people in the White House, to FOX News? 
Why has the whole rightwing propaganda machine turned on Mr. Mueller in 
the special counsel investigation suddenly? And what is it that we can 
do to try to prevent an assault on the special counsel in an effort to 
dismantle the special counsel investigation?
  To begin tonight, I am going to call on a colleague from Florida 
(Mrs. Demings), who is an extraordinary freshman class Member in the 
House of Representatives representing the people of Florida. She was 
the chief of police in Orlando, Florida, before she came to Congress; 
so she has exceptional law enforcement experience and a whole career in 
law enforcement.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Demings.)
  Mrs. DEMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Maryland. I 
thank him for his leadership on this issue and shining a light on this 
very important issue tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak about the promise of America: 
that every person living in this country, a country that we say is the 
greatest country in the world, where every person can have an 
opportunity, where every person can have a right to life, liberty, the 
pursuit of happiness, and the pursuit of justice.
  The promise of America, though, relies on the police officer who 
walks his beat, come rain or shine. Mr. Speaker, either we enforce our 
laws, or, if we do not, they are just words on a piece of paper. The 
promise of America is fulfilled every time a person receives a fair 
trial. For you see, without a fair-minded search for the truth, we have 
no society. Or, Mr. Speaker, put it another way, the truth will, 
indeed, set us free.
  The special counsel is a decorated veteran. You have heard my 
colleague say it, a registered Republican appointed by a Republican 
President, President Bush. I have personally met Mr. Mueller. After 
serving 27 years in law enforcement, working very closely with the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation, I know him to be a person of honor and 
integrity.
  Mr. Mueller has been praised for his integrity by every Republican 
leader. You see, he is, Mr. Speaker, a man searching for the truth, and 
the truth does matter. Without truth, life becomes death, liberty 
becomes slavery, and the pursuit of happiness becomes impossible.
  If a President can shut down an investigation into his activities and 
deny our right to the truth, then the promise of the America that we 
love to celebrate is broken. Over the past year, our institutions--law 
enforcement, the judiciary--have come under daily assault, so 
persistent, so relentless, that we, on occasion, have tuned it out or 
brushed it aside. But these assaults, Mr. Speaker, undermine what is 
essential to our country and our society.
  If President Trump chooses to fire the special counsel or otherwise 
interfere with the legal and appropriate investigation into himself and 
his staff, it would be a deliberate act to dismantle the fundamental 
institutions that preserve American democracy and liberty.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot allow that, and I hope that my Republican 
colleagues will remember why they came to Congress in the first place. 
You see, Mr. Speaker, as Members of Congress, we are truth seekers, and 
we know that the special counsel will go only where the evidence leads 
him. That is the man President Bush appointed, and that is the same 
person leading this investigation at this very time.
  Mr. Speaker, we must let the special counsel finish his work. Failure 
to do so leaves us with only one question: What is the administration 
afraid of?
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. Demings for her passion and her 
leadership. I am delighted to learn today that she will be joining the 
House Judiciary Committee as a new colleague next week, and I am 
thrilled about that.
  Mrs. DEMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the congressman.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Demings focused our attention on the 
rule of law and the startling disdain for the rule of law that is being 
shown in Washington right now, and the President's basic confusion 
about the proper role for the Department of Justice.
  One of my revered colleagues on the House Committee on the Judiciary 
from California (Mr. Ted Lieu), who also serves on the Committee on 
Foreign Affairs, has had a front row seat to everything that has 
happened over the course of this year. He saw the Speaker of the House 
praise Mr. Mueller's appointment; he saw Senator McConnell praise Mr. 
Mueller's appointment as special counsel; he saw Mr. Mueller's 
nonpartisanship and professionalism being widely heralded by our 
colleagues on the Republican side; and now he is watching every day as 
they do everything in their power to destroy the reputation and the 
credibility of Mr. Mueller and his excellent team at the special 
counsel's office.
  I have invited Mr. Ted Lieu to come up and speak and tell us what he

[[Page 20443]]

thinks is going on and what is behind this smear campaign.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Raskin 
for organizing this terrific forum tonight.
  I am here to, first of all, commend Senator Warner for going on the 
Senate floor earlier today and drawing very bright lines for the 
President of the United States. If Donald Trump were to either get 
Robert Mueller fired or parting key witnesses, he will be violating 
those red lines.
  Now, everyone is entitled to their opinions, but not to your own 
facts. So I am going to run through three facts about the special 
counsel's investigation.
  The first is that it is being led by three people: Deputy Attorney 
General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the entire investigation; 
Special Counsel Robert Mueller; and FBI Director Christopher Wray. All 
three of them are Republicans. They were also appointed by a Republican 
President.
  FBI Director Christopher Wray also happened to have given over 
$39,000 in political contributions exclusively to Republicans. So the 
notion that this investigation is somehow a Democratic investigation is 
false. It is a Republican investigation investigating a Republican 
President.
  The second fact you should know is Donald Trump cannot actually fire 
Robert Mueller directly. He would have to fire Deputy Attorney General 
Rod Rosenstein first because Mr. Rosenstein came to the Judiciary 
Committee and testified under oath that there is no cause to fire 
Special Counsel Mueller.
  So for this to happen, Donald Trump would have to get Rod Rosenstein 
fired. He would have to fire him. Then he would have to find another 
person to put in that position who would fire Robert Mueller. So the 
next person to take Rod Rosenstein's place would be Associate Attorney 
General Rachel Brand. And while she is conservative and while she also 
made over $37,000 of political contributions exclusively to 
Republicans, she is also known as a person of integrity. I believe she 
will not fire Robert Mueller. So Donald Trump would have to then fire 
her. He would then have to stick a third person in, find anyone to fire 
Robert Mueller.
  Well, that is exactly what Richard Nixon did in the Saturday Night 
Massacre when he fired three Department of Justice officials because 
the first two would not fire their investigator against Richard Nixon. 
So if Donald Trump wants to follow in the footsteps of Richard Nixon, 
he is certainly welcome to try, but it will not end well for him.
  And then the third fact that you should know is that no one has been 
able to attack the actual legal actions of Robert Mueller. There has 
been two guilty pleas: one of George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign 
official on the foreign policy team; and the second is Michael Flynn, 
the former National Security Advisor to Donald Trump.
  No one disputes that those guilty pleas have a solid legal and 
factual basis. Two other people have also been indicted: Paul Manafort 
and Mr. Gates. As people know, Mr. Manafort was the campaign manager 
for Donald Trump for a period of time. No one disputes that those two 
indictments have a solid factual and legal basis.
  So nothing Robert Mueller has done can be attacked, and that is why 
they are now doing a smear campaign on his team because they are 
getting desperate. And when I say ``they,'' I am talking about the 
White House as well as some of my colleagues in the House on the 
Republican side.
  I sat through a Judiciary Committee hearing that I thought was 
disgraceful, with Members on the other side of the aisle trying to 
smear not only FBI Director Christopher Wray, but also Rod Rosenstein 
and Director Mueller. These are good people. They have integrity. And 
if they think that the Women's March was large, wait till they see what 
happens if the President actually tries to take these unconstitutional 
and, what would really amount to, criminal actions because he would be 
obstructing justice.
  So, at the end of the day, it is very important for the American 
people to understand that no one is above the law. That was the central 
lesson of Watergate, it is the central lesson of American history, and 
I urge the President to understand what happened in Watergate and to 
refrain from taking criminal and unconstitutional actions.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Ted Lieu for his excellent 
presentation. I would ask one question, and I hope that the law 
professor in me isn't showing too much, but I wanted to ask Mr. Ted 
Lieu about one thing he said at the beginning.
  Mr. Ted Lieu made the point very well that Mr. Mueller is a 
distinguished law enforcement officer, who is also Republican, and he 
was appointed by a Republican. Mr. Rosenstein is another distinguished 
and well-respected law enforcement official, who himself had been 
appointed by Attorney General Sessions, who is a Republican.

                              {time}  2015

  All of that is true. But then Mr. Lieu said this is not a Democratic 
investigation, which certainly it is not. It is a Republican 
investigation.
  But wouldn't it be more appropriate to say it is a law enforcement 
investigation?
  And if you want to be searching for some kind of partisan tilt, you 
are going to find that these are Republicans, not Democrats.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
letting me clarify that statement.
  It is a law enforcement investigation led by Republicans.
  Mr. RASKIN. It is a critical point because, up until all of this 
started, basically the President respected the independence of the 
Department of Justice and we didn't go around searching in people's 
garbage cans trying to find out whether their wife was a registered 
Democrat or whether they voted Republican. Rather, we assumed that 
prosecutors and FBI agents and police officers can have a partisan 
registration and they can vote and participate as long as they do their 
jobs.
  Mr. Lieu's point here is they are doing their job. Nobody is making 
any complaint about any of the guilty pleas or any of the prosecutions. 
They are complaining about a bunch of irrelevant stuff.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely right. I 
trust FBI Director Christopher Wray and Associate Attorney General 
Rachel Brand to do the right thing, even though they have made 
contributions to Republicans, because it is demeaning and offensive to 
the FBI and Department of Justice prosecutors to say that somehow they 
can't be fair just because they have a political opinion in exercising 
their rights under the First Amendment.
  Keep in mind that under our democracy, fundamental to it is the rule 
of law. To attack law enforcement and smear their credibility just 
because you don't like where an investigation is heading is 
disgraceful.
  Mr. Speaker, let me conclude by quoting my favorite Press Secretary. 
Sarah Sanders previously said: When you are attacking FBI agents 
because you are under investigation, you are losing.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Lieu for all of his excellent 
work and leadership both in the Judiciary Committee and the Foreign 
Affairs Committee.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schneider), 
another distinguished colleague on the House Judiciary Committee, who 
is also a member of my class, of sorts. He has been in Congress several 
different times and he makes a great contribution for his people 
whenever he is here.
  Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Maryland for 
organizing this special hour this evening and for leading the 
conversation.
  Mr. Speaker, I share my colleagues' concern about the unfounded 
attacks on the special counsel and the need to make sure that the 
investigation is allowed to proceed to its conclusion.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues tonight in also raising grave 
concerns about the unwillingness of

[[Page 20444]]

our present administration, including not only the President, but the 
Justice Department as well, to take seriously the threat of foreign 
interference in our elections.
  It is the unanimous assessment of our intelligence community that the 
Russian Government launched a focused campaign, at the direction of 
Vladimir Putin, to interfere in our elections last year.
  Irrespective of President Trump's refusal to accept this objective 
reality or his ongoing efforts to obfuscate the truth, the ongoing 
threat to the integrity of our elections is real and only likely to 
increase in 2018. As the Russians sought to disrupt our elections last 
year, and as they have done so in elections around the world, we can be 
certain that they will be back next year.
  That is why we, as Congress and as a country, need to be urgently 
focused on how to prevent in future elections the kinds of foreign 
interference we saw in 2016.
  Mr. Speaker, the first primary elections are barely 3 months away and 
Americans will collectively head to the polls in less than 11 months. 
The clock is, quite literally, ticking. Without a serious effort to 
address these varied and increasing threats, we as a nation remain 
vulnerable.
  Over the past month, I have had the opportunity to ask both the 
number one and number two official at the Department of Justice, as 
well as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, about our 
efforts to secure our elections. Their answers have been far from 
satisfactory.
  In November, Attorney General Jeff Sessions came before the House 
Judiciary Committee. Three weeks prior to that, in testimony before the 
Senate Judiciary Committee, he admitted to Senator Sasse that his 
Department had fallen short in addressing election security.
  I was, therefore, surprised when I asked Attorney General Sessions 
about the actions he had taken to secure our elections subsequent to 
his Senate hearing. He could not name any single specific step taken by 
the Justice Department.
  He admitted: ``I have not followed through to see where we are on 
that.''
  And then he committed: ``I will personally take action to do so.''
  Nevertheless, when Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appeared 
before the committee a month later, he could not demonstrate that the 
Department had even formally reviewed the matter.
  It is clear to me that the administration is not handling this threat 
with the seriousness it deserves.
  Last month I led a letter with 15 of my Judiciary colleagues to the 
Attorney General, calling on him to make good on his commitment to 
urgently brief Members of Congress on the Department's efforts to 
secure our elections from foreign meddling. The deadline for this 
request has come and gone, and there is still not one--no commitment 
from the Department of Justice to work cooperatively with Congress on 
this critically important issue.
  This inaction is unacceptable. The clock is ticking until our next 
election, and we need to act and we need to act now. Our Nation needs--
and the American people are right to expect--this administration to 
urgently and aggressively take measures to protect our elections.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not a partisan issue. The very foundation of our 
democracy depends on the integrity of our elections.
  I urge my colleagues to join us in our efforts to defend against 
foreign interference and hold this administration accountable for doing 
all it can to prevent any interference in the future.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that excellent and 
indispensable discussion about what is really at stake here, which is 
democracy itself. If we can't rely on the integrity of our elections 
and the authenticity of the results, then democracy is in danger, in 
deep peril. I thank the gentleman for his leadership and for his 
outspokenness.
  Mr. Speaker, to recap, we are here in this Special Order hour to 
defend Robert Mueller, because, in America, we live and die by the rule 
of law under democracy. The rule of law is the revolutionary idea, the 
one that our forebears fought for in the 18th century, that the most 
powerful officials in the land will be governed just like everybody 
else: by constitutional and statutory boundaries fixed in writing in 
the law in order to protect democracy and the rights of the people.
  Ever since he whipped up chants of ``Lock her up'' in the 2016 
campaign, Donald Trump has displayed complete ignorance of the 
difference between a constitutional democracy and a banana republic, a 
complete ignorance of the role of judges and the Justice Department.
  The men and women who work at the Department of Justice for us, they 
inhabit a world of law, facts, and evidence. They cannot be forced to 
execute the President's personal vendettas or prosecute his enemies, 
real or imagined, or provide support for his propaganda and delusional 
alternative facts.
  President Trump has been on a collision course with the rule of law 
for a long time. Remember during the campaign, Mr. Speaker, when he 
attacked Judge Curiel for being Mexican American, implying that his 
ethnic identity somehow disqualified him from being a competent judge 
with integrity.
  In February, he trashed Federal judges hearing arguments about his 
Muslim ban order. He has questioned the separation of powers, which he 
says is somehow obsolete. He has railed continuously against the free 
press and the media, which he describes as the enemy of the people.
  He has continued, in direct violation of the Foreign Emoluments 
Clause in Article I, section 9, clause 8, to collect money from foreign 
governments at the Trump Hotel, at the Trump Tower, at the Trump golf 
courses without obtaining congressional consent first, which is what 
the Constitution requires.
  The critical flash point for President Trump's hostility to the rule 
of law recently has been his stubborn and baffling refusal to accept 
the reality of the Russian campaign to interfere in our election last 
year, and then his seemingly determination to undermine the 
investigation into what actually happened.
  Most Americans have regarded this campaign of cyber espionage and 
cyber sabotage of our election as a frightful danger to democratic 
sovereignty in our country and a reason to dramatically improve 
election security across the land, as Congressman Schneider just 
argued; but Donald Trump keeps denying that the autocrat Vladimir 
Putin, the former director of the KGB, did anything wrong in our 
election.
  He tried to convince then-FBI Director James Comey to drop his 
investigation into Trump's National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and 
to swear a personal loyalty oath to the President. When Comey refused 
these orders, when he refused this entreaty to change the course of the 
criminal investigation, when he refused to override his oath to the 
Constitution of the United States by swearing a personal oath to the 
President, something that we had never heard of before, Trump fired 
him. This was about as naked a case of obstruction of justice as you 
can imagine.
  Now we hear from President Trump's personal lawyer that the President 
cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice. They say, by definition, 
the President cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice because the 
President is the chief law enforcement officer in the land.
  This is analogous to the old monarchical dogma that the king can do 
no wrong, the king cannot commit a crime, the king is above the law; if 
the king does it, it can't be illegal.
  Well, our friends seem to have forgotten this is the United States of 
America. We have got a Constitution here. We have got a Bill of Rights 
here. We have no kings here. We have no queens here. We have no 
royalty. We have just we the people, a government of laws, not of men. 
We have got a Bill of Rights and popular government.
  Our friends across the aisle once understood that nobody was above 
the

[[Page 20445]]

law. They brought impeachment charges against President Bill Clinton--
two charges. One of the charges was obstruction of justice. They moved 
to impeach President Clinton for obstructing justice, which is now an 
offense that our friends say a President can't even be guilty of. They 
brought a case against President Clinton, Clinton v. Jones, which 
established that a President can even be sued while he is in office and 
can be deposed and so on.
  They understood that at one point. They understand, when a Democrat 
is President, that nobody's above the law. But now, suddenly, Mr. 
Speaker, this President is above the law and he gets to determine the 
course of criminal investigations in the United States of America.
  That is not constitutional democracy. That is a banana republic, when 
the President dictates to law enforcement, dictates to prosecutors what 
they are going to do, who they are going to investigate, and who will 
be prosecuted.
  So now the race is on, Mr. Speaker, to smear the FBI. The race is on 
to smear Mr. Mueller, the very man who was praised by Senator 
McConnell, who was praised by Speaker Ryan, who was described by all of 
our colleagues as beyond reproach, unimpeachable, the former Director 
of the FBI, former U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts and California, a 
decorated veteran of the Vietnam war.
  Now, suddenly, they cry havoc. They set loose the dogs of war on Mr. 
Mueller.
  Why?
  Because he is doing his job. Because we have two guilty pleas: one by 
the President's former National Security Advisor, Mr. Flynn; and one by 
Mr. Papadopoulos for lying to government agents.
  We have got 12-count indictments that have been handed down against 
Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates, and they are afraid that investigation 
might be closing in on the very highest levels of government.
  So what do they do?
  They attack the prosecution.
  That is what we have been seeing in Washington over the last couple 
of weeks, a truly extraordinary display of contempt for the rule of 
law, for the Justice Department, and honest prosecution and law 
enforcement in the United States of America.
  Now, the first effort revolved around an FBI agent who Robert Mueller 
removed from the investigation in the summertime. He removed him 
because there were text messages revealed in which he was trashing a 
lot of political figures, not just President Trump. He was trashing 
Bernie Sanders, who he called an idiot. He also called President Trump 
an idiot.

                              {time}  2030

  He had unkind words for Eric Holder, and he had very harsh words for 
my friend and the former Governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley. He was 
an equal opportunity insulter.
  But our friends, seeing the progress of the Trump-Russia 
investigation of this special counsel's work, now suddenly decided: We 
found a villain. We have got our villain. His name is Peter Strzok, and 
he wrote all these texts, so let's go back to a guy who was removed 
from the investigation in the summertime. Let's leak all these texts 
out in the most mysterious and suspicious way, because this was the 
middle of an inspector general investigation, and they leaked out 
thousands of texts.
  When I asked Mr. Rosenstein about it, he said it had been approved by 
the inspector general. But the inspector general released a statement 
the next day which professed that they had not been contacted about it, 
so there is a whole mystery there.
  But, clearly, somebody wanted to get these texts out there. They 
wanted to create a thick fog of propaganda and confusion. And all that 
we heard from our colleagues was: Did you see what he said in this text 
to his friend? Did you see what he said in this text to his friend?
  Nobody claimed that the guilty pleas by Flynn or Papadopoulos were 
legally flawed in any way. They didn't say there were any legal 
problems with anything that the special counsel had done--no illegal 
searches, no illegal seizures. They didn't say anything was wrong with 
the indictment.
  But they find some text messages by a guy who was removed from the 
investigation, and then this becomes the big propaganda smoke screen, 
this guy who insulted, to my count, a lot more Democrats than he 
insulted Republicans. Regardless, he showed unprofessionalism.
  He was removed quickly by Mr. Mueller--unlike, for example, what 
President Trump did when he learned that General Flynn, his National 
Security Advisor, was a serial liar, was lying to Federal agents, was 
lying to Federal officers, was lying to the Cabinet about his dealings 
with Russia and foreign governments.
  It took President Trump 18 days before he removed him from office in 
the most begrudging way, and then, even then, after learning that he 
had been lying about his contacts with foreign agents, he tried to get 
Mr. Comey, the then-FBI Director, to cancel out the investigation of 
Michael Flynn, asserting that he is a good guy. Let it go. Let the 
whole thing go, he said.
  But, no, that is not what Mr. Mueller did, the special counsel. When 
he learned that there were these text messages going out attacking 
various public figures, he said: We don't need that kind of stuff on 
this investigative team. And he got rid of them, end of story.
  Except this: It is an opportunity to create an irrelevant distraction 
from what is going on, to put up a big propaganda smoke screen.
  And that wouldn't even be such a big deal in itself. Their arguments 
are transparently silly. We have colleagues who are saying this is a 
fruit of the poisonous tree, they intoned. It is all fruit of the 
poisonous tree.
  Except it has nothing to do with fruit of the poisonous tree. That is 
a Fourth Amendment document which says that, if there is an illegal 
search or seizure by the government, the government may not use that 
unlawfully obtained evidence against someone in court. At that point, 
the exclusionary rule operates; the exclusionary rule is activated.
  We asked our colleagues, and I asked Mr. Rosenstein: Was there an 
illegal search?
  No.
  Was there an illegal seizure?
  No.
  There was no illegality. You had an agent who sent some text messages 
trashing a bunch of politicians in the middle of a Presidential 
campaign, which is what millions of people were doing. It was 
irresponsible. He got removed, end of story.
  That didn't work so well. That was the first time that they were 
throwing spaghetti with tomato sauce on it all over the walls. They 
threw it up and it slipped off. Nobody bought it.
  So the next day, or a day later, they came back with another claim 
about asserting that the GSA had improperly released emails of the 
Trump Presidential transition team.
  Well, there are a few problems with that. One is everybody was told 
from the beginning that all of those are government property. They were 
turned over by Trump's GSA, voluntarily. And Mr. Mueller released a 
one-sentence statement saying that all of the information that we have 
received was either voluntarily given or was lawfully obtained, end of 
story.
  That didn't work so well either. Threw some more spaghetti against 
the wall in this smear campaign, and it slides off. It leaves a tomato 
sauce stain all over the wall, but it doesn't really stick.
  Now they are going after Mr. McCabe, the number two person at the 
FBI. And I haven't been told exactly what their complaint is, but we 
are going to have a closed-door hearing about it tomorrow in the House 
Judiciary Committee. From published reports, all I understand is that 
he has committed the great sin and crime of being married to a woman 
who is active in Democratic Party politics.
  Look, let's get something straight here. This is the United States of 
America, and law enforcement officers have a right to be registered as 
a Democrat, as an Independent, as a Republican, as a Green Party 
member, as a Libertarian. They can register however they want. And 
consistent with the

[[Page 20446]]

Hatch Act, they can be involved in politics and members of their family 
can be involved in politics. There is nothing wrong that.
  There is nothing wrong with the fact that Mr. Mueller, who is now the 
target of all of their venom, is a registered Republican or that he got 
appointed by another Republican, Mr. Rosenstein, or that he got 
appointed by a Republican, Attorney General Sessions, or that he got 
appointed by a Republican, President Trump; right? All those people are 
Republicans. They have a right to be Republicans, but they have got to 
do their public duty.
  The irony, of course, is that the Republicans are attacking 
Republicans in office for being partisan against Republicans. It is 
completely incoherent; it is fantastical; and it shows the desperation 
of this smear campaign. It just doesn't make sense to anyone.
  So we will see if they are able to smear another good, qualified, 
competent law enforcement official, which is what they want to do with 
the number two person at the FBI.
  And what is interesting is that the people who are attacking their 
fellow Republicans for somehow being partisan just for doing their jobs 
never have anything to say about what we know was the real political 
corruption and contamination of the FBI back in the days of J. Edgar 
Hoover, when he used the resources of the FBI to go after Martin Luther 
King, Jr., and the civil rights movement, or the days of COINTELPRO, 
where the FBI actively tried to disrupt the civil rights movement and 
the antiwar movement and so on. They don't say anything about that.
  It would strengthen their argument, of course, that their fellow 
Republican partisans somehow might be capable of political bias, but 
they don't even have the historical context to do that, and they don't 
believe in it.
  The fact is that the FBI used to have a real problem with being a 
tool of political prosecution, and it has gotten over that. It has 
gotten beyond it today, in 2017.
  Now, suddenly, all of their fire is trained on Mr. Mueller. It is 
trained on the special counsel: discredit and undermine him. And it 
wouldn't be such a big deal if they were just exercising their First 
Amendment rights, which they have every right to do. If they were just 
exercising their rights under the Speech and Debate Clause, which they 
have every right to do, to use their place in this body in order to 
denounce the FBI, to attack Mr. Mueller, to try to discredit law 
enforcement, they have got the right to do it. But what everyone is 
afraid of now is that they are trying to set the stage for the removal 
of Robert Mueller.
  Now, that is no simple thing. The President can't simply fire Mr. 
Mueller. He would have to get Mr. Rosenstein to do it. And he can't be 
fired for any reason at all. He can only be fired for misconduct, for 
conflict of interest, or for some other good cause or incapacity. So 
there has got to be a reason why.
  And when we asked Mr. Rosenstein whether he saw any reason to remove 
Mr. Mueller now, he said, no, that he is totally satisfied with the 
conduct of the investigation.
  So what trumped-up alibi could they produce? What trumped-up 
justification could they find for the removal of Mr. Mueller?
  It would create a serious constitutional emergency and crisis in 
America. And, of course, when we say a constitutional crisis, it is not 
the Constitution that is in crisis; it is us. They would be creating a 
political crisis that would require a resort to extraordinary 
constitutional mechanisms.
  This would be a clearly impeachable offense for the President to use 
his power in order to thwart a criminal investigation that implicates 
the President. That is the very definition of obstruction of justice. 
It would just be an expansion and a refinement of what the President 
was doing when he fired Mr. Comey way back in the beginning of the 
administration for refusing to lay off Michael Flynn and for refusing 
to swear a personal loyalty oath to the President of the United States 
instead of to the Constitution and the people of the country.
  So that is where we are. The people need to know. The people need to 
know what is going on, that there is an organized campaign being 
orchestrated at the highest levels of government to discredit Mr. 
Mueller and the special counsel investigation--not for not doing their 
job, but for doing their job. That is why they are being attacked 
today.
  Mr. Speaker, I close with a thought just about the rule of law.
  The rule of law is the idea that even the people who occupy the 
highest office in the land are subject to the Constitution, are subject 
to the laws of the people, because here the people govern. We have no 
kings here. That is what we rebelled against.
  Our Founders believed, with Madison, that the very definition of 
tyranny is the collapse of all powers into one, where someone says: I 
have got all the power; I am the boss. Our Founders said: No, we are 
going to divide powers up:
  Article I, we will vest the lawmaking power in the representatives of 
the people in the House and the Senate;
  Article II, we will create a President who will take care that the 
laws be faithfully executed;
  And then Article III, we will vest the judicial power in the Supreme 
Court and the Federal judiciary to sort out actual cases or 
controversies about what the law means.
  But notice what comes first there, Article I. The people's 
representatives come first. The President works for us. The President 
works for a Congress, which works for the people. The President 
implements the laws that we pass here.
  The President is not above the law. The President is subject to the 
law, and the President has the honor of enforcing the laws that we 
adopt.
  So let's get that straight. No one is above the law. Anybody can be 
found guilty of obstructing justice if one thing can be shown: if they 
obstruct justice.
  And it looks like they are setting the stage for a further 
obstruction of justice with this outrageous smear campaign being 
leveled this week against Robert Mueller, against Mr. Rosenstein, 
against Mr. McCabe, and against the men and women of the FBI. That is 
what is taking place in Washington today.
  Mr. Speaker, the people need to know, and we in Congress have got to 
do our constitutional duty, too.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Lewis of Minnesota). Remarks in debate 
in the House may not engage in personalities toward the President or 
Members of the Senate, whether originating as the Member's own words or 
being reiterated from another source.

                          ____________________