[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1809-1815]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           THE WEEK IN REVIEW

  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. Mr. Speaker, here it is, Friday. It has been a good week 
in Washington. We have gotten some of President Trump's nominees 
approved and through the Senate. Call them like you see them, I think.
  Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has done a great job this week. I 
applaud his efforts. And as a result of what President Trump has been 
doing--and actually part of it is just his getting elected--has done 
for our economy because people know--at least a lot of people know--he 
is going to keep his word. He is already showing he is doing that, and 
he has repealed some of the executive orders that have been doing so 
much damage to our economy.
  And when we say economy, what we mean is, the rank and file people, 
the

[[Page 1810]]

backbone of America who have been struggling, who have made less money 
than they did 8 years ago when adjusted for inflation. Those are the 
people we are talking about; those who have been out of work, the 94 or 
95 million who have become so desperate, they pulled out of even 
applying for work.
  I enjoyed, to an extent, the exchange between my friend, Kevin 
McCarthy and my friend across the aisle Leader Hoyer. And I get amused 
when I hear Democrats quoting Senator McCain and Senator Graham--
wonderful people. Lindsey Graham, it is a real joy to be around talking 
to Lindsey Graham. But if you look at positions they have taken, it 
would make you think twice about quoting them as positions you wanted 
to have supporting yours.
  I mean, nothing stands taller than the 30 million of the 90 million 
or so living in Egypt, when they rose up that June because a Muslim 
brother named Morsi was seizing power. He was on his way to becoming 
the Chavez in North Africa, and the people rose up. It was not only the 
largest peaceful demonstration in the history of the world, it was the 
largest demonstration in the history of the world.
  All over Egypt, moderate Muslims, Christians, Jews, secularists, they 
all rose up, went to the streets and demanded the removal of the man 
who would be king, the Muslim brother named Morsi. The difference in 
this king is, as many of the Egyptians have pointed out when I have 
been in Cairo and other places, he wasn't just going to be king. He was 
going to be the puppet of the spiritual leader of Islam in Egypt.
  Some of my Egyptian friends, when I have been over there, say: yeah, 
we have seen video of him taking his orders from the spiritual imam, 
and he followed his leadership. So if that is true, then he wasn't just 
going to be king. He was going to be a king puppet.
  But the Muslim brother was removed as a result of 30 million people 
rising up peacefully. Morsi only, allegedly, got around 13 million to 
claim the win and made clear his opponent knew--for the original 
Presidential election--that if he raised a stink about any votes being 
fraudulent, they would burn the country down--that was some of his 
supporters. Because the Muslim Brotherhood, if you go back and check, 
when churches are burned, it is normally the Muslim Brotherhood over 
there.
  In Egypt, they had been anathema to representative government, to 
civilized government, to nonsectarian government. They want a new 
caliphate to start with basically the old Ottoman Empire and Erdogan in 
Turkey; he is undoing all of the great reforms made by the great 
Ataturk nearly 100 years ago, and he is undoing them.

                              {time}  1145

  There are those in Turkey who would like to see a caliphate--a new 
Ottoman Empire--and it have its leadership in Turkey. They long for the 
days when they ruled an expansive caliphate.
  I had a reporter say: Why would you say that?
  I said: Go look at a map. I know you weren't ever taught what the 
Ottoman Empire was. Go look at a map and look at the countries where 
our President is supporting an uprising that eventually, if we don't 
stop it, will become anarchy or it will become part of the caliphate.
  The new jobs report that is just out: 227,000 new jobs. And from what 
I'm hearing from constituents, these aren't just the part-time jobs or 
the minimum wage jobs that the previous President bragged about. He had 
to brag about it because he didn't have anything else to talk about. 
People lost their full-time jobs and could only acquire part-time jobs, 
and this administration bragged about those. If they got two part-time 
jobs to make up for losing their full-time job, this Administration 
bragged: We created two jobs.
  I would submit that when you are creating two jobs by causing a 
person to lose all of their benefits and full-time employment, you 
haven't done such a good thing.
  Fortunately, the people of Egypt did not listen to Senator McCain and 
Senator Graham when they flew to Cairo and begged for the people of 
Egypt to return the Muslim ``brother who would be king'' back into his 
royal kingship. I know they weren't intentionally supporting an evil 
ruler; it is just they didn't know. So, hopefully, they will become 
more aware that it is not a good thing to support the Muslim 
Brotherhood.
  With regard to Australia and the alleged news about President Trump 
getting into it with the leader of Australia, well, to whom is the 
leader of Australia accountable? To whom does the leader of Australia 
owe his allegiance?
  It is the people of Australia. So when he calls or talks to President 
Trump and begs or demands Trump to take these refugees that the Prime 
Minister in Australia knows are a threat to the safety of the 
Australian people, when he wants them out of Australia, there is a 
reason--because his allegiance is not to the people of the United 
States--his allegiance is to the people of Australia. So, naturally, 
being allegiant to the people of Australia, he wants the dangerous 
refugees out of Australia.
  President Obama, basically by his actions, in effect, was saying: 
Give us not your tired, your poor, the people yearning to be free, but 
give us your people that yearn to destroy America because we're going 
to bring them in. We're not going to vet them properly because we have 
got no information to properly vet them. That's how we have been able 
to let people in who had their fingerprints on IEDs that killed 
Americans, and maimed Americans because we are not properly vetting 
them.
  Oh, yeah, we compare any information we have against what we've got. 
But don't forget, as Phil Haney, the whistleblower from Homeland 
Security, pointed out, he was personally required to delete massive 
pages of information about terrorist ties of people coming into the 
United States because they did not want those terrorist ties in the 
Homeland Security database. Then he also, of course, was on his 
computer when he saw somebody above his pay grade deleting things that 
he personally put in about terrorist ties. They were deleting them.
  So when Janet Napolitano talks about, We get a ping and we connect 
the dots, she caused massive numbers of dots to be deleted. They are 
not there. We don't know who we are getting. When anyone comes from 
Syria--we know ISIS has taken governmental printing areas before. They 
can produce official Syrian passports not with the support of the 
Syrian Government, but just because they have the equipment to do it. 
So when we get information saying, I am from Syria, maybe they are, and 
maybe they're not. We don't know where they're from.
  The FBI Director created one of the most incredible political stunts 
of any FBI Director in history last summer when he stepped up and 
outlined that a crime had been committed by Presidential candidate 
Hillary Clinton. But then he goes on to say: But no reasonable 
prosecutor would pursue this. It is incredible the extent he went to to 
help Hillary Clinton.
  I know there were some of my Democratic friends that got mad at him 
when a week before the election he said that they were reopening the 
investigation. But if you look at the circumstances, it was information 
that we had FBI agents who were so upset that Comey wouldn't reopen the 
investigation. When they knew some of what was in the computers that 
they had gotten ahold of belonged to Anthony Weiner and Hillary 
Clinton's closest adviser and confidante, Huma Abedin Weiner, the word 
was we had FBI agents saying that: If you don't reopen, we're going to 
have a press conference, we're going to resign, and we're going to out 
you that you're protecting Hillary Clinton. So what could he do to help 
Hillary Clinton but say: ``I am going to reopen the investigation?''
  I commented to somebody in the media back then:

       Well, of course, it may appear to help Hillary. We will 
     know whether that was his intent or not because you can't 
     examine tens of thousands of emails adequately. You can do an 
     algorithm search, but you can't adequately investigate them 
     for a crime, including false statements to the FBI, within a 
     week. So if he comes out before the election and says that 
     there is nothing here, then we

[[Page 1811]]

     know why he came out and said that we are reopening. It was 
     to stop FBI agents from resigning and from outing him for 
     protecting Hillary Clinton.

  So what happens?
  Two days before the election, he said: Yeah, we checked it all out.
  He couldn't possibly have.
  He said: We checked it all out, and there is nothing here to 
prosecute.
  So that same FBI Director, though, didn't help the Obama 
administration. On occasion, he was calling them like he saw them; and 
that is:

       Yeah, we will vet these people, but when they give us 
     information from Syria, we have no information against which 
     to vet that. We have to accept it for what it is because, 
     yeah, we're technically vetting it against what we have, but 
     we have nothing, so we don't know who these people are.

  So, in the meantime, the economy is turning around.
  How sad is it when we have just lived through 8 years under a 
President's policies that were so abysmal for the good of America that 
the economy, when adjusted for inflation, was slower than it was in the 
4 years of Jimmy Carter?
  I know there are some in the media that would grab 1 month and say: 
See, this was a good month.
  Let's look at the 8 years compared to the 4 years of President 
Carter, 4 of the worst years for the American economy in history since 
the Depression. President Obama, over 8 years, had a slower economy 
when adjusted for inflation. That is pretty sad.
  It is also sad this week to read this article from The Daily Caller: 
``Laura Wilkerson, whose teenage son was tortured and murdered by an 
illegal alien in 2010, got into an emotional confrontation with House 
Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at a CNN town hall event 
Tuesday night.
  ``Wilkerson told Pelosi, `In 2010, one of the illegals slaughtered my 
son. He tortured him, he beat him, he tied him up like an animal, and 
he set him on fire. And I am not a one-story mother. This happens every 
day because there are no laws enforced at the border. We have to start 
giving American families first.'
  ``On the issue of Pelosi and Democrats' support for sanctuary cities, 
Wilkerson asked, `How do you reconcile in your head about allowing 
people to disavow the law?'
  ```There's nothing, I'm sure, that can compare to the grief that you 
have, and so I pray for you,' Pelosi said.''
  Pelosi went on: ``But I do want to say to you that in our sanctuary 
cities, our people are not disobeying the law. These are law-abiding 
citizens. It enables them to be there without being reported to ICE in 
case of another crime that they might bear witness to.''
  ``Pelosi then asked if her son was murdered in a sanctuary city. 
Josh, Wilkerson's son, was murdered just outside Houston, Texas, which 
is a sanctuary city.''
  So I believe in the power of prayer. I think it's one of the greatest 
gifts God gave us. C.S. Lewis talked about we are here on Earth behind 
enemy lines, if you would.
  Can you imagine being behind enemy lines and getting messages from 
your home headquarters and you refuse to open them and read them?
  He says that we have a Bible. Those are messages from our home 
headquarters. We ought to be reading them.
  I do believe in the power of prayer, just like our minority leader, 
Ms. Pelosi; but we need to distinguish between things that we should 
pray for and things that we can fix ourselves. Things that are outside 
our control, we ought to be praying about. Those things which are in 
our control--when it is within your control--to return to the rule of 
law, enforce the laws that exist, treat everybody fairly under the law, 
that's something you don't really have to pray about. You just help us 
do it.
  I have not met Tommy Nelson, a pastor in Denton, Texas, but I 
listened to a 12-hour Bible study he did; and one of his comments on 
that study in Ecclesiastes was basically what so many people say: We 
don't have to worry; God is in control.
  Tommy Nelson said: Yeah, God is in control, but just because He is in 
control doesn't mean He wants us to lean on our shovel and pray for a 
hole. When you have got a shovel in your hand, you don't have to pray 
for a hole; you just start digging.
  When you have got the tools to protect the American people and 
enforce the rule of law, you just do it. Now, you can pray for wisdom 
to help you as you go.
  I know it may have been a Freudian slip--may not have been--but when 
Minority Leader Pelosi was asked about illegal aliens, she referred to 
them as ``our people.''
  I don't know; could that be because they know when illegal aliens 
vote, they vote Democrat?
  We know that most dead people vote 100 percent Democrat. I have 
encouraged the Republican Party: Let's don't have any group that we're 
not willing to recruit votes from, and traditionally dead people vote 
100 percent Democrat. Perhaps it's time that some of them started 
voting Republican for a change.
  In any event, the minority whip, Mr. Hoyer, was talking about a 
fellow with tears in his eyes saying: Please don't repeal ObamaCare 
because my son will be unable to get insurance if you repeal ObamaCare.
  Well, that gets to all of us when somebody with tears in their eyes 
comes to us and begs for help. The only reason he had tears in his eyes 
is because of the false information being put out by the Democratic 
Party, because when we repeal ObamaCare, people are not going to lose 
their insurance. Some Americans have a right to be skeptical because 
they were told by President Obama and all of the Democrats: No, no, 
when we pass ObamaCare, nobody loses their insurance.
  Well, we found out that that was a lie to millions of Americans. Some 
of them were able to get insurance. Some of it ended up being Medicaid. 
Most of the new people got Medicaid, which is not really the insurance 
they were hoping for, but that's the insurance most people got.

                              {time}  1200

  I had 17 people come to my office in Lufkin. They were looking to 
make a show and not so much to give information; otherwise, they would 
have called for an appointment.
  My district representative there was at a service honoring her late 
father at a hospice and she forgot, in her emotional state, to put a 
note on the door that she was running to that. Anyway, they made a big 
deal, here is an office not occupied. Hopefully, they will have a 
little sympathy for somebody in her situation.
  But they weren't looking to get information to me. That is why the 
reporter had more information about the meeting when my office had no 
information about the meeting. If they want an appointment, we make 
appointments. I am here most of the time, so I can't be there. I have 
got people to meet with them.
  This article, February 1, Melissa Quinn, Daily Signal:
  ``Pamela Weldin's experiences with ObamaCare can be boiled down to 
just a few numbers.
  Since the health care law's implementation 3 years ago, Weldin, 60, 
has lost her insurance four different times''--under ObamaCare. ``And 
the Nebraska woman is currently enrolled in her fifth new insurance 
policy in four years.''
  She said: ```Yet again, and through no fault of my own'. . . . `I'm 
just sitting here minding my own business, and here we go again.''' She 
gets thrown off another insurance policy.
  Anyway, she goes on to explain she has been denied coverage because 
of a preexisting condition related to her career as a dental hygienist.
  People are not going to lose their insurance. All we are going to do 
is create the opportunity to have far better insurance policies than 
you have got under ObamaCare. You are not going to get a penalty for 
having better insurance than what ObamaCare required. So you don't have 
to pay a penalty, and you can have good insurance and you won't be 
taxed for having better insurance. It is going to be a great day for 
America to do that.
  That brings me to a point I want to get to next about the wall.

[[Page 1812]]

  An article here, February 1, Virginia Hale from Breitbart, says: 
``Smuggling Migrants to Europe Now a Major Funding Source for Islamic 
State.''
  Well, it only makes sense that the Islamic State would figure that 
out, because we had information they consulted with the drug cartels in 
Mexico. As the Border Patrolmen have told me during the middle of the 
night the times I have been down there, there is not an inch of the 
Mexican border that is not controlled by some drug cartel. Nobody 
crosses that border illegally without paying something to the drug 
cartel or promising to work for them when they get to America.
  What a great business model. You are selling drugs, making billions 
of dollars getting it across the border illegally into the United 
States, and, unlike most businesses where you have to pay the employee, 
they get the employee to pay them as part of their debt repayment to 
get them into the United States.
  So, what a business model, making billions from selling drugs 
illegally gotten into the United States, and then the Department of 
Homeland Security, as one told me down on the border: They call us 
their logistics, in the drug cartels, because we ship people all over 
the country to cities where they need drug sales, prostitutes, mules. 
We send them there, and then they have got people selling drugs for 
them.
  If we build a wall--and I know there are areas like where the Rio 
Grande is so wide you don't need a wall, you just have people guard the 
border--it cuts off the massive flow of drugs into the United States. 
It means the billions of dollars going to the drug cartels that they 
can use to corrupt the Mexican Government will dry up to thousands. 
Drug cartels know it.
  So I would submit, Mr. Speaker, the only Mexican leaders that object 
to a wall and total security of our border between Mexico are either 
ignorant--they don't understand that the reason they are 60-something 
in world economies instead of being fourth or fifth or sixth is because 
of the corruption that comes from the drug cartels. You dry up the 
billions of dollars they are making with a wall and border security, 
and Mexico gets in the top 10 economies. But, yes, it means the drug 
cartels dry up. They are either ignorant of what will really happen 
when we secure the border or they are in the pocket of the drug 
cartels. Those are the only two choices.
  If you are a Mexican leader and you oppose the United States 
enforcing our border, you are in the pocket of the drug cartels or you 
are just ignorant of why your economy is not one of the top 10 in the 
world. You have got the best location. You have got two continents 
north and south above you. They would be great markets. You have got 
two great oceans on either side to ship. You have got incredible 
natural resources. You have got some of the hardest working people in 
the world in Mexico.
  So why is it so far down the chain of economies? Well, drug cartels. 
The wall and border security will dry them up and the Mexican people 
will be free with a vibrant economy, and they will take their 
appropriate place in the great economies of the world.
  I have been joined by my friend from Florida, and I mean that truly. 
I think the world of Matt Gaetz.
  I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gaetz).
  Mr. GAETZ. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the danger that is currently 
posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
  Iran and its fundamentalist government pose the gravest threat to 
global peace, stability in the Middle East, and Israel's existence.
  Iran continues to extend its dangerous hegemony through the region in 
places such as Lebanon, by arming and training Hezbollah; in Gaza, by 
arming Hamas; in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
  Iran's taking hostage of U.S. sailors and its continued ballistic 
missile tests and death threats to Israel highlights Iran's evil 
intentions and the need for the United States to play a leading role in 
rolling back Iran's growing influence and its push to destabilize the 
Middle East and the world. These issues have been exacerbated by the 
irresponsible and catastrophic nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1.
  It is obvious to anyone that the $150 billion given to Iran will be 
used to fund more terror and further Iran's destructive ambitions. In 
addition, the nuclear deal legitimizes Iran's ability to enrich uranium 
and functionally ensures Iran's path to a nuclear weapon within 10 
years. The deal is structured to mask Iran's inevitable noncompliance.
  As a member of the Florida Legislature, I had supported Florida's 
Iran divestment. As a Member of Congress, I very much look forward to 
reauthorizing the Iran Sanctions Act.
  I am extremely proud of President Trump and his administration for 
enacting appropriate sanctions against Iranian officials who have been 
engaged in the most recent destructive and destabilizing nuclear tests.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, Americans, Israelis, and all citizens of 
the world who aspire to peace continue to be harmed by the reckless and 
irresponsible foreign policy of the past President's administration. 
Former President Obama believed in a policy of appeasement toward Iran. 
This is not dissimilar to the policies of appeasement that Neville 
Chamberlain used when confronting the threats of Nazi Germany. But if 
President Obama was America's Neville Chamberlain, perhaps his time has 
given rise to Donald Trump and the opportunity to be America's Winston 
Churchill.
  I support President Trump's efforts to send a message to Iran that 
ballistic missile testing will not be tolerated. Iran only understands 
strength. For the last 8 years, they have seen from this country far 
too much weakness and far too much willingness to accept their 
destructive role in the world.
  Mr. Speaker, the way Iran operates is through a series of franchises 
for terror. Whether that is Hamas or Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, 
we see time and time again Iran acting as a neo-Persian, neo-Ottoman 
Empire. That cannot be tolerated in a peaceful world. It cannot be 
tolerated in the most dangerous neighborhood on Earth. It underscores 
the purpose of Americans speaking with resolve and with strength in 
condemning the most recent ballistic missile tests and in standing with 
our greatest ally, Israel.
  It was shameful that, in the waning hours of the Obama 
administration, President Obama was willing to allow the United Nations 
to take action against Israel while continuing its furtherance of 
appeasement toward some of the most dangerous countries on the planet 
Earth who do not share our values or our interests.
  So I am glad to see an American reset, a resurgent America again 
speaking to the great values that have functioned as a beacon of hope 
for the world for generations. That is what we must return to, and that 
is what President Trump is doing today. I applaud his administration. I 
applaud his Secretary of the Treasury for stepping forward and 
advancing these needed sanctions.
  I am hopeful that this Congress will continue to take action to show 
support for President Trump in this endeavor, but we must also 
recognize that this is but a first step. So much damage has been done 
to the cause of peace for the last 8 years under President Obama, and 
we have much work to do in this Congress, whether it is rebuilding and 
restoring our military so that we can be a force for peace, whether it 
is making sure that our allies know that we will stand with them, or 
whether it is making sure that our adversaries know that we are very 
serious and there will be serious consequences for their bad behavior.
  I am proud of this America that we are working toward together. I am 
proud of these policies.
  The gentleman from Texas may now wish to speak to the importance of 
Americans speaking with a voice of clarity for peace, prosperity, and 
strength throughout the Middle East and the world.
  Mr. GOHMERT. If the gentleman might take a question. I appreciate 
that clarity. It is clarity that has been missing for a long time.

[[Page 1813]]

  We have people screaming that President Trump should not have put a 
temporary pause that was half as long as the pause President Obama put 
on. I understand there is so much stress and pressure when you are 
President; he probably just forgot he put a 6-month ban, previously, on 
a Muslim nation sending people in.
  You made so clear the case for concern about Iran, and I am with you. 
I am thrilled that we have a President that is not choosing to give our 
lunch money, figuratively speaking, to the big bully in the schoolyard.
  I don't know if my friend from Florida ever got bullied in elementary 
school. I did. I learned early on that it doesn't help to give bullies 
money. They are not going to leave you alone until you stand up to 
them. Maybe they whip you, but they don't want to go through what you 
put them through again by standing up to them, so they leave you alone.
  In our case, we are strong enough to take on any bully; but instead, 
we paid the big bully, Iran, as you pointed out, massive amounts, 
billions and billions of dollars. We agreed to pay them up to $150 
billion.
  We have got some friends here in Congress in the House and Senate 
that were so upset with the President having this 90-day pause on seven 
countries. They didn't realize--I know we get so busy here that we 
don't notice a lot of other things, but they apparently hadn't realized 
that those seven countries were designated by the Obama administration. 
One of them, Iran, a country you have talked so eloquently about, we 
have people here in this body that don't think we should hold up 
refugees from Iran.
  As the gentleman was talking about, the Government of Iran has not 
shown any good faith at all. Would the gentleman be concerned about 
having people that the Iranian Government allowed to slip out of the 
country and come into the United States? Do you have any problem with 
President Obama's pause on that refugee surge into the United States?
  Mr. GAETZ. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
  Isn't it refreshing to have a President of the United States who is 
willing to do, in office, precisely the things he said he would do on 
the campaign trail, notably, putting the interests of Americans and the 
security of Americans first in a world that even former Secretary of 
State George Shultz said is more dangerous and perilous today than the 
highest tensions of the Cold War?

                              {time}  1215

  So to specifically answer the gentleman's question, I am grateful 
that President Trump is prioritizing the security of Americans. My hope 
is that in the 115th Congress, we will work with the President, with 
his administration to ensure that, as we continue to mature these 
policies and advance them, we do them in a way that is easily 
understandable for those enforcing them and for the American people, 
and that it sends a message to the world that America continues to be 
the most generous country on the planet when it comes to welcoming 
individuals who share our values and who aspire to be productive and 
prosperous and inclusive.
  What we have no tolerance for are those who would want to come to the 
United States of America not to be part of the American experience, but 
to destroy it. Too often that has not just been the fear that we have 
felt from some who have been embedded by Daesh within refugees, but it 
is exactly what is preached by the Government of Iran.
  How silly of the United States to think that we would give hundreds 
of billions of dollars to a nation that calls America the Great Satan, 
that seeks to wipe Israel off of planet Earth, and believe that that 
money will be used for peaceful purposes. It won't. Iran's desires for 
expanded hegemony are not to stabilize the Middle East, they are 
expressly to destabilize the Middle East. This regime in Iran will 
never share America's values, so America should not be funding the very 
destructive behavior that has done so much to harm the lives of so many 
people.
  The gentleman from Texas brings up a great point. If we hadn't 
endured the policies of appeasement for the last 8 years, if America 
hadn't withdrawn from the world stage so suddenly, then perhaps we 
would not have the conditions in the Middle East that have made life so 
difficult for people that they have wanted so badly to be refugees to 
Europe and to the United States. We should want countries to succeed 
that are willing to be stable and inclusive, but those who are our 
sworn enemies, those who do not share our values should receive no 
quarter from the United States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, I have the great honor to serve on the House Committee 
on Armed Services. We received briefings this week, thanks to Chairman 
Thornberry, from General Petraeus and other national security experts. 
They reinforced the fact that the world is dangerous as a consequence 
of American withdrawal. I am grateful that the 115th Congress will 
stand with President Trump in his agenda to rebuild our military, to 
rebuild our standing, and to make very clear to the world that we will 
be with you if you want peace. But if you aspire to spread terror, 
there is no role for you on the global stage, and we will not do the 
things to elevate those terrible regimes to any place of prominence.
  This is a great time for revival and renewal in this country, and as 
Americans do more to rebuild the country internally and grow our 
economy and achieve more prosperity with lower and fairer taxes, with a 
regulatory climate that is more acceptable for a prosperous country, we 
also have to keep an eye on the world and our position on the global 
stage. I think that it is refreshing that that is a time of revival and 
restoration of American prominence, because the world is a safer place 
when America is the strongest country in the world. President Trump's 
actions today to create sanctions against those who have been directly 
involved in ballistic missile tests send a clear message: We will stand 
with our allies, and we will stand against the enemies of peace.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Those are such great points. The counterargument is made 
often to us: ``Other than the San Bernardino shootings, has there been 
a terrorist attack involving a non-U.S.-born attacker since 9/11?''
  There was a great article in The Federalist by Kyle Shideler on 
January 30. He answers: Yes, but first of all, why exclude the San 
Bernardino killers, terrorists?
  Tashfeen Malik was born in Pakistan, and that attack killed 14. As 
Phil Haney, the whistleblower from Homeland Security, pointed out, if 
he had not been removed from the line, he would have been allowed to 
secondarily question someone like Tashfeen Malik. It is worth noting, 
under the Obama administration, under Jeh Johnson, and before him, 
Janet Napolitano, they punished people who pointed out radical 
Islamists rather than giving them positions where they could recognize 
radical Islamists.
  Phil Haney points out that Tashfeen Malik is actually a man's name. 
The woman came, and if she had come through him, he would have asked: 
Well, why do you have a man's name, and it happens to be a man who was 
a terrorist centuries ago?
  Well, to ask a question like that, you have to be well educated into 
the history of radical Islam. Not Islam, but radical Islam.
  We have spent so much money as a country and even as a Congress on 
countering violent extremism. We hear from Homeland Security 
whistleblowers--some of them don't want to go public yet, but we hear 
from them that so much of that money was spent on conferences and 
seminars teaching our Homeland Security agents, our FBI agents, our 
State Department people, our intelligence people to spot Islamophobes. 
They would teach them the phrases to look for when someone reported a 
potential radical Islamist so that they would know that that is an 
Islamophobe. That is exactly why in San Bernardino, when someone 
reported this guy as a potential radical Islamist, that he was crazy, 
that he was going to hurt somebody, they

[[Page 1814]]

wrote him off as just being prejudiced against Islam. It is because of 
the money spent by this government intimidating people into refusing to 
notice radical Islam and getting them punished. If they didn't find 
people who they named Islamophobes, their career was over.
  Mr. GAETZ. Will the gentleman yield for a question?
  Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. GAETZ. I thank the gentleman for yielding. The gentleman is from 
Texas. I am from Florida. Both of our States have seen many of the 
negative economic consequences of illegal immigration, but my question 
relates to the negative national security consequences that result from 
illegal immigration.
  We are receiving more reports that ISIS, Daesh, other Islamic 
fundamentalists are exploiting America's weakness on our southern 
border with Mexico for their own economic gain, as well as to smuggle 
people into the United States who may function as lone wolves or even 
as a part of a coordinated terrorist attack against Americans.
  So I would hope that the gentleman would speak to the 
interconnectivity between the need for strong border security and a 
wall on our southern border with Mexico and the risks posed by Islamic 
fundamentalism.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentleman. I would also note, as this 
Federalist article points out, yeah, of course, when there is a 
terrorist attack, it also affects the economy. That is why Osama bin 
Laden wrote about how they had only spent a tiny amount of money to 
train their people from 9/11 and that it had clearly cost America 
trillions of dollars, that even if they couldn't bring us down any 
other way, if they could do other attacks like that, costing relatively 
low amounts to them but costing us billions and trillions, they could 
bring us down economically.
  So it only makes sense, though, Iran wants to bring us down, so they 
ought to be one of the seven that the Obama administration named as a 
threat, and they were. But even just recently at Ohio State University, 
Abdul Razak Ali Artan ran over several students with a car before 
attacking them with a butcher knife. That was a refugee born in 
Somalia, one of the seven countries that the Obama administration named 
as a threat, and so President Trump took the Obama administration 
seriously and named them as one of seven, that we would have not a 
permanent ban but a temporary ban for 90 days. The guy ran over 
numerous students at Ohio State, but our friends on the other side of 
the aisle and their friends in the mass media, they refuse to notice 
what is going on.
  Look at Tsarnaev, the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston. As we know, Russia 
notified the United States not once but twice that the older Tsarnaev 
had been radicalized, and he had been to a country, and the people he 
hung around with were radicals, and it seemed like they probably 
radicalized him.
  So what happens? Well, they get information to our intelligence 
community, and, since, they have been trained for the last 8 years to 
only notice Islamophobes. You can tell someone is an Islamophobe if 
they complain about a radical Islamist, then you know you have got an 
Islamophobe. So of course if they want to stay in the intelligence 
community, they are not going to be looking. They are going to follow 
their training, look for Islamophobes instead of looking for radical 
Islamists. I am sure they looked into it, but, based on their training, 
they have no basis to work with.
  So what happens? Russia notified us again. As I understand, they 
notified the FBI. And as the FBI Director commented, look, we sent an 
FBI agent to interview him, and he said, basically, he wasn't a 
terrorist, he was a good guy. Wow. Imagine that. Somebody who wants to 
kill Americans might also lie. Who would have ever thought? Except 
American juries. I have seen it as a judge. I have seen juries find 
that if you will lie to them, you may do a lot worse things as well. 
Well, the reverse is also true. Often, if you are willing to take 
someone's life, you might just be willing to lie about it as well.
  So the FBI didn't even stop there, taking the word. They didn't take 
the word of Tsarnaev. They went to his mother, and apparently his 
mother said: No, my son is not a terrorist. He is a good boy. He is a 
good boy.
  There you go, full FBI investigation. Not under the old FBI. Not the 
way most FBI agents have ever been trained. But, of course, under the 
last 8 years of training of the FBI, they were afraid to ask the tough 
questions.
  The truth is, they don't know the questions to ask. They don't know 
that you should ask about whether there has been a tremendous increase 
in the amount of study of the Koran and a massive increase in the 
memorization of the Koran, and a change in the appearance, and knowing 
what to look for, and asking questions like: What do you think about 
Qutb, the Egyptian martyr, the Muslim brother who wrote the little book 
``Milestones'' that Osama bin Laden said, along with Mr. Nasif, for 
whom Huma Abedin worked at one time according to the masthead of the 
publication, he credited Nasif and also Qutb's book ``Milestones'' to 
radicalizing him.
  If you haven't been trained with Kim Jensen's 700 pages, which were 
outlawed by the FBI for a while, because he clearly explained what FBI 
agents should be looking for. Mr. Jensen told me that they banned his 
information, they struck it, and wouldn't allow anybody to be trained. 
Under incident information, they train people what to look for in a 
radical Islamist. But then they brought it back, but only for some of 
the leaders. The rank and file for so long under this administration 
did not get the benefit of his 700 pages that would help train. Why? 
Because CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, who had 
implications in the Holy Land Foundation trial, the biggest supporter 
of terrorism ever prosecuted in the United States, convictions all 
around in November of 2008, and they should have gone on to prosecute 
the named co-conspirators. The only reason they didn't is because a new 
administration came in.
  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed--the mastermind of 
9/11, of the brutal killing of about 3,000 Americans and other 
foreigners, innocent victims--has bragged about his planning. In a 
guilty plea where the judge went through, as I used to, to make sure 
they understood their rights, he bragged about that and some terrorist 
attacks they didn't even know he had involvement in. He was bragging.

                              {time}  1230

  And he says, if we have terrorized you, then praise be to Allah. And 
he says such things as we deserve attack, we deserve to be killed in 
America, anyone who is a low-life Jew or says that God has a Son.
  So those of us who believe God had a Son, and He loved the world so 
much He sent His only begotten Son and whosoever believes in Him shall 
not perish but have eternal life, anybody who believes that is worthy 
of death under the Koran, according to the brilliant teacher and 
mastermind of the 
9/11 attack. And then he quotes from the Koran that anyone who tries to 
combine someone with Allah is worthy of death, and that means any 
Christian. They have explained these things.
  But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed went through an expansive hearing with a 
judge explaining what all he was involved in and why he was guilty of 
9/11 and praise be to Allah for all of the people that were killed on 
9/11 at the Pentagon, at the World Trade Centers.
  Why was he not sentenced? Because we had an election in 2008, and 
before the plea was made final, we had a new Attorney General named 
Eric Holder. At that point, all bets were off. They didn't follow up 
the plea was withdrawn, and he still hasn't been sentenced for the 
things he admitted to over 8 years ago.
  Had they simply moved forward with the guilty plea, if we had had a 
President for the last 8 years that made clear ``you might as well 
plead guilty because nobody else is going to let you out,'' then we 
would have finished the guilty plea, and he would have been 
appropriately sentenced. But instead,

[[Page 1815]]

this administration chose to send hope to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed he 
might end up being one of the people they release; because, if they 
close Guantanamo Bay, he either gets moved to the United States or we 
let him go, maybe like we have for some who went to Yemen and are back 
in the fight, or other people like Saudi Arabia and are back in the 
fight.
  He had real hope once President Obama came in and Eric Holder became 
Attorney General, and Loretta Lynch after him, that he might get 
released even after he admitted to the most important role in the 
killing of 3,000 people on American soil on 9/11. He still has not been 
prosecuted. They didn't follow up on his guilty plea. The plea was 
withdrawn.
  That man should not be allowed out of prison. He is a threat to the 
world, and he is a valuable tool in the hands of radical Islam.
  Well, thank God, as President Obama said, elections have 
consequences. We have a President who didn't take an oath of office to 
protect all of the people of Australia. He made clear that our friends 
will know they are our friends, and I can see him working very closely 
with the Prime Minister of Australia in the future. But leaders around 
the world are now taking notice: Wait a minute. America has a President 
that is not coming to us and apologizing for America's goodness and 
their pursuit of freedom for as many people as they can--not 
apologizing.
  He is making clear, if you are our friend, you are going to feel it. 
If you are our enemy, you are going to feel it. So I think Iran may 
have finally met their match. We don't have an apologist to come in and 
apologize for America's efforts, the blood, the treasure that has been 
spent on behalf of people around the world.
  And now even our Australian Prime Minister understands: Look, I want 
to work with you--President Trump feels that way; he wants to work with 
them, and he will work with them--but my oath is to the United States 
of America and I know your oath is to Australia. I know because of your 
oath to help and protect the people of Australia you want to get rid of 
those refugees, some of whom may be dangerous.
  I know President Obama said: Yeah, we will take the dangerous people 
that may hurt Australians. Never mind we have got Americans being hurt. 
We will take them.
  Well, there is a different sheriff in town here in Washington, and 
leaders around the world need to know that starting on January 20, the 
United States is no longer going to take actions that are detrimental 
to our own well-being, to the well-being of Americans, and to the 
security of the United States under our Constitution. So thank God, 
thank Trump, thank those that are seeing with clarity what is going on.
  We will look forward to working with the Mexican leaders that realize 
the only way Mexico ever achieves its rightful economic place in the 
world is if a wall is built where it can be so that our border is 
enforced and the drug cartels are impoverished. Then Mexico can be one 
of the top economies in all the world because of the best workers, some 
of the best workers in the world, and massive natural resources with 
which they have been blessed. They just, so far, have not had America 
be the kind of good neighbor that would help them stop the drug 
cartels. Instead, we would have Presidents, administrations like the 
past one, that would send 2,000 weapons to the drug cartels instead of 
stopping them.
  It is a new day. Thank God it is.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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