[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9058-9061]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues' tribute to the 
victims of that terrible tragic murder spree by a radical Islamist who 
said he was doing it for the Islamic State. The attorney general 
herself indicated that we have a tape of him saying he is doing it for 
the Islamic State.
  There is nothing that justifies such an outrageous murder of even one 
innocent victim, much less the dozens that

[[Page 9059]]

were mowed down by what could normally, in the old days, be said to 
have been a crazed killer. But he wasn't so much crazed as he was 
driven by a radical Islamic agenda, the same radical Islamic agenda 
that caused 30 million, mostly Muslim, Egyptians to rise up. Coming 
near the anniversary of that event in Egypt, the greatest peaceful 
uprising in the history of the world, the Egyptians said: We don't want 
a Muslim brother, we don't want a radical Islamist controlling our 
country.
  It was rather tragic that the shooter--and I don't want to give him 
any more notoriety than necessary, so I won't mention his name--was not 
a lone wolf, as is so often supposed and we were led to believe 
repeatedly during the Obama administration. But as Reporter Patrick 
Poole indicates, he was yet another known wolf. The FBI knew he was and 
the local law enforcement knew who he was, which brings me to a point I 
wanted to discuss tonight.
  Robert Mueller is the special prosecutor who now needs to resign. He 
was the FBI Director that had the FBI training materials purged so FBI 
agents could not know what they were looking for in a radical Islamist. 
He changed the training. He purged it to please the Council on 
American-Islamic Relations.
  As one intelligence officer said: We blinded ourselves of the ability 
to see our enemy.
  That is what FBI Director Robert Mueller did.
  When challenged in a hearing where I was questioning him over the 
pitiful investigation of the Tsarnaev older brother after Russia had 
notified us twice in the United States of his radicalization, after the 
second time, finally, ho-hum, Mueller's FBI not being adequately 
trained to recognize what a radical Islamist believes, how they act, 
what they do, what they are studying, what they are memorizing, what 
they wear, what their personal appearance is, they are not trained to 
recognize, they didn't know what they were looking for.

                              {time}  2100

  They didn't know what they were looking for. They go out. The best we 
can find out, they talked to Tsarnaev, and he said, ``No, I'm not a 
terrorist,'' basically.
  So, not knowing what else to do, since Mueller had destroyed the 
proper training to recognize radical Islamists, they went and talked to 
his mother who assured them, ``No, he's a good boy; he's not a 
terrorist,'' and the result was people murdered and maimed at the 
Boston Marathon.
  The result of the FBI going after those who would try to teach others 
what real radical Islam was, the results of dumbing down the FBI and 
their ability to spot people who wanted to kill others in the name of 
Allah: people killed at Boston, people killed in Orlando. And it wasn't 
any more the fault of guns in Orlando than it was the fault of a white 
truck in London.
  It is the people who use those weapons to kill; otherwise, it is a 
matter of defense, the great equalizer. The truck is a great means of 
conveyance.
  But Robert Mueller has created problems for this country, and there 
are a lot of people that are buried now. Perhaps they would, perhaps 
they would not be deceased if Robert Mueller had done his job and had 
been as concerned about finding radical Islamists in America as he 
was--as he told me, they didn't go to the Boston mosque where Tsarnaev 
surely gave evidence of being radicalized. That is not his words. I 
said: You didn't even go to the mosque to find out, to talk, to 
investigate.
  The best he could do is come back and say: We did go to that mosque 
as part of our outreach program, part of the lovely sit down, chat, 
have some tea, whatever--I don't know what they had, water, whatever it 
was--make merry, chat. While Tsarnaev was plotting to murder many 
people, as many as he could at the Boston Marathon, Bob Mueller and his 
FBI are making merry at the Boston mosque that he did not even know who 
started it. I asked him that. He didn't know.
  I said: Did you even know that al-Hamoudi started that mosque? No, he 
didn't know that. Al-Hamoudi is doing 23 years--23 years--in Federal 
prison for supporting terrorism. And as I understand, I had heard that 
that was more to the credit not of Mueller's folks, but of help from 
England. How ironic is that?
  But I see that I have a friend here. I yield to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Arrington).


                 Honoring the Life of Coach Spike Dykes

  Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I love everything about west Texas. I 
love the beautiful sunsets and the starry nights. I love that our 
farmers and ranchers feed and clothe the American people. I love that 
we produce more fossil and renewable energy than any other region in 
the United States.
  People from all over the country rely on west Texas to make America 
great, but the greatest contribution from our region is our people. The 
people of west Texas have a distinct friendliness, a can-do spirit, a 
humble demeanor, a unique sense of humor; and on April 10, 2017, we 
lost one of our very own who embodied these attributes like no one 
else.
  Former head football coach at Texas Tech and favorite son of west 
Texas, Spike Dykes carved his legacy into the bedrock of our region and 
into the hearts of hundreds of student athletes and thousands of fans 
across this country.
  A small town kid from Ballinger, Texas, who achieved his wildest 
dreams of becoming a Division I head football coach, Coach Dykes went 
on to lead the Red Raiders to seven straight bowl seasons and was later 
inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.
  I had the honor of calling Spike Dykes ``Coach'' for a short time 
when I walked on the Texas Tech football team, and later I had the 
honor of calling him my friend.
  We are all saddened by his passing, and our prayers are with his 
children and my friends, Rick, BeBe, Sonny, and their families.
  Thank you, Coach, for your colorful wit and country wisdom. Thank you 
for leaving a legacy of love for people and all things west Texas. 
Thank you for teaching us that in life, like the game of football, it 
is not whether you win or lose; it is who you are; it is how you play 
the game.
  God doesn't make them any better than you, Coach. God bless.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Texas, a great, noble tribute.
  I wish that it were I who was standing here to say glowing things 
about people that have been running the FBI; but President Trump as a 
candidate said he wanted to come drain the swamp, and the more we dig, 
the more it appears to be a swirling cesspool up here.
  We had a man who had been running the FBI who came before the Senate, 
a Senate committee and testified that he did a memo after talking to 
President Trump, that he had never felt the need to do a memo after 
talking to President Obama or President Bush or to take notes like he 
did; but he was afraid that Trump might lie sometime in the future, and 
so he felt it important to do a memo, to write some notes. That is what 
he said.
  Rather incredibly, he didn't find a need to do a memo after Attorney 
General Loretta Lynch, according to him, told him what really has to be 
a lie. She knew that Hillary Clinton was being investigated for a 
crime. It was a criminal case, a criminal investigation. She directed 
FBI Director Comey not to use ``investigation,'' use ``matter.'' Well, 
it was an investigation, and to say anything other than that was a lie.
  But how ironic that he was afraid Trump might lie in the future; 
whereas, he had an Attorney General that made him feel a little uneasy, 
but he didn't write any notes. So what about his credibility?
  Well, he said he took those notes as a recollection refreshed. And 
those of us that have tried cases, been judges, you know, we know that 
past recollection recorded can be an exception to the hearsay rule. But 
if he signed an FBI employment agreement, which people are supposed to 
sign, it should have included these words: ``All information acquired 
by me in connection with my official duties with the FBI and all 
official material to which I

[[Page 9060]]

have access remain the property of the United States of America. I will 
surrender upon demand by the FBI, or upon my separation from the FBI, 
all materials containing FBI information in my possession.''
  That means that if an FBI agent, Director, FBI employee makes notes, 
makes a memorandum to refresh his recollection later, it is not a 
personal piece of property any more than what Sandy Berger stuffed in 
his socks was personal property to him. It doesn't matter that he 
prepared it. It was done while being paid by the FBI, on FBI time, 
regarding FBI matters. As FBI Director, he was talking to the 
President.
  How ironic, also, we have no memos after President Obama made the 
basic statement that he didn't think Hillary should be prosecuted. We 
haven't heard any outcry from the great Director Comey about how wrong 
that was. What an obstruction of justice by President Obama. We didn't 
hear any of that.
  I mean, that is about as direct as you can get when the President was 
talking on television and told the world, and the fact that you may say 
it out front to the world doesn't make it any less intimidating or 
directional than if you look somebody in the face one on one and tell 
them. It is not a defense to say it on television, and yet he wasn't 
concerned by that.
  So we start looking a little deeper since it appears he wasn't being 
honest about being his personal property, and you would like to think 
that he had a good legal education, but Alan Dershowitz has made clear 
that the FBI--there is nothing wrong if the President tells him we are 
not prosecuting this individual for this crime. I am pardoning him here 
and now. He has the power.
  All power that Director Comey has is derived from his boss, the 
President. So why would he go back and do a memo and consult or, I 
believe the more proper word is ``collude'' with others at the Justice 
Department about what the President said?
  Because, make no mistake, if any of those individuals at the Justice 
Department who were colluding with James Comey after he met with the 
President, if they thought there was an obstruction of justice and they 
didn't report it as they did not, then they committed a crime. So why 
would they not report it?
  It appears there can only be one answer. Surely they did not intend 
to commit a crime by misprision of a felony if they really believed it 
were obstruction. So it appears, since they clearly did not think that 
there was obstruction of justice in the President's use of the word 
``hope,'' then they must have surely applauded James Comey's writing of 
a memo, writing of notes so that he could pull it out later and use it 
to go after the President. There can be no other reason that he did 
what he did.
  He either committed a crime by not reporting obstruction as soon as 
he possibly could, or he was colluding with his colleagues to bring 
down the President of the United States. So, the more we find as we 
dig, the more of a cesspool it appears to be here in Washington.
  Mollie Hemingway has done an extraordinary job today from The 
Federalist. She goes through, she has an article: ``James Comey Has a 
Long History of Questionable Obstruction Cases.''
  I wish I had remembered these, and I feel a bit guilty that I didn't 
realize at the time these things were going on, the miscarriage of 
justice that was occurring at the hands of James Comey and Bob Mueller.
  She brings up Frank Quattrone, ``a banker who Comey pursued 
relentlessly on banking-related charges without fruition. But while he 
couldn't find any wrongdoing or criminal conduct, he went after him for 
supposed `obstruction of justice' because of a single ambiguous email. 
Sound familiar?
  ``Before he was indicted''--talking about Quattrone, before Quattrone 
was indicted--``Comey made false statements about Quattrone and his 
intent. The first trial ended in a hung jury, but the second one got a 
conviction.
  ``That conviction was overturned in 2006. Quattrone was so scarred by 
the harassment''--by Comey--``he began funding projects designed to 
help innocent people who are victims of prosecutorial overreach or 
other problems.''

                              {time}  2115

  ``He said his motivation for supporting such projects was that at the 
very moment he was found guilty in the second trial, he realized there 
must be innocent people in prisons who lacked the financial resources 
to fight for justice. He also started the Quattrone Center for the Fair 
Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
  ``Quattrone has noted, with interest, the disparities in how he was 
treated by Comey for a single ambiguous email compared to his handling 
of Hillary Clinton's email server scandal,'' with thousands, tens of 
thousands of email.
  How about Martha Stewart? ``You might remember Martha Stewart being 
sent to jail. You might not remember that James Comey was the man who 
put her there, and not because he was able to charge her for anything 
he began investigating her for. The original investigation was into 
whether Stewart had engaged in insider trading. They didn't even try to 
get her on that charge. Gene Healy wrote about it in 2004, warning 
about Federal prosecutorial overreach.''
  By Comey, of course. He said, ``Comey didn't charge Stewart with 
insider trading. Instead, he claimed that Stewart's public 
protestations of innocence were designed to prop up the stock price of 
her own company . . . and thus constituted securities fraud. Stewart 
was also charged with making false statements to Federal officials 
investigating the insider trading charge--a charge they never pursued. 
In essence, Stewart was prosecuted for `having misled people by denying 
having committed a crime with which she was not charged,' as Cato 
Institute Senior Fellow Alan Reynolds put it.
  ``The pursuit was described as `vindictive' in The New York Times and 
`petty and vindictive' in The Daily Beast.
  ``But she still served a 5-month prison sentence.''
  Stephen Hatfill, and this is one that really gets me to my core. I 
did not remember the outcome, and I feel guilty, but I was handling 
felony cases back in Texas at the time.
  ``The FBI absolutely bungled its investigation into the Anthrax 
attacker who struck after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Carl Cannon goes 
through this story well, and it's worth reading for how it involves 
both Comey and his dear `friend' and current special counsel Robert 
Mueller. The FBI tried--in the media--its case against Hatfill. Their 
actual case ended up being thrown out by the courts:
  ``Comey and Mueller badly bungled the biggest case they ever handled. 
They botched the investigation of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks that 
took five lives and infected 17 other people, shut down the U.S. 
Capitol and Washington's mail system, solidified the Bush 
administration's antipathy for Iraq, and eventually, when the facts 
finally came out, made the FBI look feckless, incompetent, and easily 
manipulated by outside political pressure.
  ``More from Cannon, recounting how messed up the attempt to convict 
Steven Hatfill for a crime he didn't commit was:
  ``In truth, Hatfill was an implausible suspect from the outset. He 
was a virologist who never handled anthrax, which is a bacterium. 
Ivins, by contrast, shared ownership of anthrax patents, was diagnosed 
as having paranoid personality disorder, and had a habit of stalking 
and threatening people with anonymous letters--including the woman who 
provided the long-ignored tip to the FBI. So what evidence did the FBI 
have against Hatfill? There was none, so the agency did a Hail Mary, 
importing two bloodhounds from California whose handlers claimed could 
sniff the scent of the killer on the anthrax-tainted letters. These 
dogs were shown to Hatfill, who promptly petted them. When the dogs 
responded favorably, their handlers told the FBI that they had 
`alerted' on Hatfill and that he must be the killer.
  ``When Bush administration officials were worried about the quality 
of the

[[Page 9061]]

case Mueller and Comey had, the two men assured them. `Comey was 
``absolutely certain'' that it was Hatfill,' Deputy Defense Secretary 
Paul Wolfowitz said.
  ``Such certitude seems to be Comey's default position in his 
professional life,'' Cannon wrote. He shouldn't have been certain in 
this case. After the six years the FBI spent destroying his life, they 
settled a $4.6 million lawsuit he filed and officially exonerated 
him.''
  Good work, James Comey and Bob Mueller. You ruined the life of a man 
with no evidence at all, but told the Bush administration, oh, we are 
absolutely certain this is the guy.
  What about Scooter Libby, and Judith Miller? I didn't remember this: 
``After pressuring John Ashcroft--I am reading through the article--
``After pressuring John Ashcroft to recuse himself from the 
responsibility on the grounds of potential conflicts of interest, Comey 
gave Patrick Fitzgerald, his close personal friend and godfather to one 
of his children, the role of special counsel into the investigation of 
the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA employee. Some conflicts 
of interest are more important to Comey than others, apparently.
  ``Fitzgerald immediately discovered that Deputy Secretary of State 
Richard Armitage was the leaker. Of course, the FBI and Department of 
Justice had known that all along, so Comey's push for a special counsel 
is . . . intriguing.''
  There was no reason for a special counsel. The FBI knew it. The 
Department of Justice knew it. They pushed for one anyway. Comey was at 
the middle of it.
  Mueller, you know, his close friend, of course, but Fitzgerald was 
the godfather of one of his children, for heaven's sake.
  ``The 3-year investigation was a cloud over the Bush 
administration''--which didn't seem to bother Comey at all, oh, of 
course not--``and resulted in nothing but the jailing of a 
journalist''--who was protecting a source, even though they didn't need 
it. Wow, how mean-spirited--``. . . and a dubious prosecution of 
Scooter Libby for, wait for it, obstruction of justice. Comey was 
unconcerned about the jailing of journalists and never threatened to 
resign over this infringement on First Amendment freedoms.''
  And it talks about Hillary Clinton in this article, but I am telling 
you, Mr. Speaker, this is a scary time in America.
  You have this article from John Hinderaker, June 10, Power Line, 
quoting Senator Warner:
  ``And so, in all of your experience''--he is talking to Director 
Comey--``this was the only President that you felt like, in every 
meeting, you needed to document, because at some point, using your 
words, he might put out a non-truthful representation of that 
meeting?''
  Comey says: ``That's right, Senator.''
  He goes on: ``. . . I had a one-on-one meeting with President Bush 
about a very important and difficult national security matter.
  ``I didn't write a memo documenting that conversation either--sent a 
quick email to my staff to let them know there was something going on, 
but I didn't feel, with President Bush, the need to document it in that 
way, again, because of--the combination of those factors just wasn't 
present with either President Bush or Obama.''
  This article goes on to point out that is simply not true. That was a 
lie.
  And whoever remembered that a book named ``Angler'' was written by 
Barton Gellman, with Comey as his big chief source, went so far as to 
be able to quote the conversation after working with Comey, and in the 
footnotes from the ``Angler,'' it says: ``Quotations from the Bush-
Comey conversations are taken verbatim from unclassified notes 
describing Comey's report of the meeting shortly afterward.''
  But Comey's email that he says he just let them know that there was 
something going on, here is what he said in his email, because it was 
printed in ``Angler.''
  ``The President just took me into his private office for a 15-minute, 
one-on-one talk. Told him he was being misled and poorly served. We had 
a very full and frank exchange. Don't know that either of us can see a 
way out. He promised he would shut down 5/6 if Congress didn't fix 
FISA. Told him Mueller was about to resign. He just pulled Bob into his 
office.''
  Yeah, he didn't just say something was going on. He told him what 
happened. He memorialized that visit with a note, and then in the book, 
it is word-for-word, according to Mr. Comey, what was said, and it 
makes him to be out all American, clean, honest, upstanding, fine law 
enforcement officer, when it turns out he was anything but that.
  ``The real pattern,'' as it says here at the end of the article is 
that, ``Comey is a snake in the grass who creates tendentious, self-
serving memos that can later be used to cover his own rear end or to 
discredit presidents, but only if they are Republicans.''
  Gellman's phrasing was clumsy in the article, but this is serious 
stuff that it turns out, oh, four members of Mueller's team have 
donated to Democrats. Well, isn't that cozy? Comey closely coordinated 
with Mueller on Trump testimony. We heard from the FBI Director that he 
actually did collude with other members at the Justice Department.
  It is so clear. There are people at the Justice Department out to get 
President Trump, out to get Attorney General Sessions. They are out to 
get every one of them, and just the way they did, the man they said 
there was no question was the culprit in killing people with anthrax, 
that was a lie.
  And they don't care who gets hurt. It is time to dismiss the special 
prosecutor; see if we really need one because now we know that Comey 
manipulated the system exactly the way he manipulated it when he told 
John Ashcroft he should recuse himself so he could appoint Patrick 
Fitzgerald, give him the appointment, that is.
  Enough is enough of Comey, of Mueller. It is time to drain the swamp, 
and they will go down the drain when we do.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________