[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 38 (Wednesday, February 26, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H1219-H1223]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ISSUES OF THE DAY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, first, I want to address a bill that we
voted on this afternoon, one of the three bills under the suspension of
the rules, H.R. 35, to amend section 249 of title 18, United States
Code, to specify lynching as a hate crime act.
I was in the Judiciary Committee when we took up the hate crimes act.
I know there were people who said because of James Byrd, the African
American who was drug behind a truck by three individuals, that that
was a poster case that demanded hate crime legislation.
Actually, I was quite comfortable if all three of the defendants in
that case had gotten the death penalty. In Texas, we do have the death
penalty for such a crime as that. Two of the three got the death
penalty. One got life in prison. And I felt like the death penalty,
from everything I had read, was appropriate.
I am someone who has looked two defendants in the eye and sentenced
them to death. It is a very somber, serious thing to do, but the crimes
justified it in those cases.
I was talking to my friend, Congressman Bobby Rush, a man who has
been fighting injustice and unfairness, seems like, his whole life. He
is absolutely one of the kindest, most decent people to talk to and
deal with here in Congress. He is just a real gentleman. This was
Congressman Rush's bill. And I mentioned to him after the vote--I did
vote ``no'' on this.
Now, there are some great findings for the first six pages. But at
page 7, we finally get to actually what the act does. It says: Whoever
conspires with another to violate section 245, 247, or 249 of this
title or section 901 of the Civil Rights Act shall be punished in the
same manner as a completed violation of such section, except that if
the maximum term of imprisonment for such completed violation is less
than 10 years, the person may be imprisoned for not more than 10 years.
That is ridiculous. First of all, I have trouble with the Federal
nexus of lynching. I would, like in the James Byrd case, prefer that
those defendants be tried under the Texas capital murder statute rather
than under the Federal hate crimes law. Because under the Texas capital
murder laws, the defendants could get the death penalty. And they
should have been tried under that and should have gotten it.
I have such respect for Congressman Rush. Lynching is more serious
than a 10-year maximum sentence. And I would much rather, if somebody
is lynched in Texas, they be subject, under Texas law, to the death
penalty rather than a 10-year maximum. It sends entirely the wrong
message about how serious this is. I couldn't vote for a 10-year
maximum when we are talking about lynching.
I know there are some States that don't have good criminal laws, that
maybe they would prefer the Federal Government try such cases. But
Congressman Rush said this was the best he could get an agreement on.
But, God bless him, he knows better than most people how serious this
is.
So on the one hand, I applaud his efforts at trying to bring people
to justice who would commit such a heinous act, and I regret needing to
vote ``no.'' But I just felt like this is too serious to be handled at
such a low level.
{time} 1600
So I thank Congressman Rush for his efforts. He is indeed a very fine
man. It is a pleasure to interact with him here in Congress, but I
couldn't vote for that. That is just too serious.
I have had a friend I met here years ago named Philip Haney. He was
one of the finest, most patriotic, competent people I have ever known
in my life, a man of absolute honesty, complete integrity, who cared
deeply about the future of this country. He also was a
[[Page H1220]]
Christian brother, and that certainly affected so much of what he did.
Philip studied Arabic culture and language while he was working as a
scientist in the Middle East before he became a founding member of the
Department of Homeland Security in 2002. He was there at the beginning
when Homeland Security became a Department for the first time. He was a
Customs and Border Protection agriculture officer.
He was a scientist by education and training. It was amazing how
organized and how brilliant he was. I constantly marveled at his
ability to organize facts in his own head and memorize them, remember
things so clearly.
But after he advanced as a CBP officer, where he served several tours
of duty at the National Targeting Center near Washington, D.C., he was
quickly promoted to its Advanced Targeting Team, which was an
unprecedented accomplishment for an agent on temporary duty assignment.
The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Award was something he was
presented in recognition of his exceptional contributions to
interagency national security successes. He won numerous awards and
commendations from his superiors for meticulously compiling information
and reports that led to the identification of hundreds of terrorists.
He specialized in Islamic theology and the strategy and tactics of
the global Islamic movement. He wrote a book after he left and retired
from government service, a takeoff on the Obama administration's
slogan, ``See Something, Say Something.''
But, as he experienced firsthand, he saw things that were a threat to
this country, he said something, and he was severely punished for it,
because apparently the Obama administration had some radical Islamic
ties that they did not want anybody, including Philip Haney, to expose.
So, he had a book that he wrote, ``See Something, Say Nothing,'' and
it documented the Obama administration's effort to obfuscate the role
that radical Islam played in numerous terrorist attacks that took place
in America from 2008 to 2016.
One review of Philip's book described it as an expose of a
politically correct Federal Government that capitulates to a subversive
enemy within and punishes those who reject its narrative.
In 2016, he, as a whistleblower, testified before the Senate
Judiciary Committee, chaired by then-Senator Ted Cruz, to allege that
the Obama administration had acted irresponsibly concerning Islamic
extremism. Philip Haney claimed that the administration had acted in
favor of political correctness rather than take actions that may well
have prevented the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando and
the San Bernardino shooting in December of 2015.
He was investigating groups that helped radicalize normal Muslim
believers, radicalizing them to the point that they would commit acts
of terror, and he found some ties. It was amazing, when he got ahold of
a string, how he could trace that string back to its roots.
He once said that he did, at the Department of Homeland Security,
what he did with bugs: He followed the trail and found the nest. It was
amazing how he could do that, and that is the reason he was cited as he
was.
In fact, this letter from June 8 of 2012 to Officer Philip B. Haney:
On behalf of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, I commend
your outstanding contributions while assigned to the National
Targeting Center-Passenger. Your display of dedication and
effort in the fight against terrorism has been exemplary.
Your talents and professionalism have contributed to the
continued achievements of the NTC-P. You played a key role by
providing support to the CBP mission and the NTC lead role in
defending and protecting our Nation's borders. A key
component of the National Targeting Center-Passenger's
success is the invaluable people, like you, who perform the
work in our important mission. I am confident to know that
CBP can rely upon you to provide expertise to combat threats
against our Nation.
Additionally, your expertise and experience has been
invaluable while assigned to the Advanced Targeting Team.
Your research on the Tablighi Jamaat Initiative has assisted
in the identification of over 300 persons with possible
connections to terrorism. The assistance you have provided in
the development of this initiative has been key to the future
success of the project. The National Targeting Center looks
forward to your continuing support and assistance in the
program.
Once again, thank you for your unfailing commitment to the
success of the National Targeting System mission. Your
professional actions and achievements reflect favorably on
you and all of the Customs and Border Protection.
Thank you for a job well done.
Well, that was June of 2012. It wasn't terribly long after that he
had been entering information on radical Islamic ties with people in
the United States, attempting to come into the United States, with ties
to people in the United States. He was documenting all those things.
We had a Secretary of Homeland Security who bragged about how
Homeland Security could connect the dots, and then he was ordered to
start removing these dots, so to speak. He was ordered to start
deleting thousands of pages of data that he had carefully researched
and identified that would help protect America.
That was during the Obama administration.
He was scared for his country, that the Obama administration would
make him delete, and there was an occasion when he was watching his
computer and somebody started deleting hundreds of pages of documents
as he watched, hundreds of pages of information that would have helped
keep America safe for the future.
There was an opportunity the House of Representatives had--we were in
the majority--where he could have been brought in as a specially
requested agent for the House. Apparently, there were people who were
afraid that he had so much information that the Obama administration
might come after anybody who was attempting to help or protect him and
the valuable information he had.
He wasn't brought in. He was told: Oh, go file an IG complaint with
the Homeland Security inspector general.
I implored him that that would be a mistake because the inspector
general at that time at Homeland Security had already been cited for
falsifying an IG report to protect the Obama administration. We knew
that it was not going to be a fair inspector general investigation.
In fact, he became a whistleblower, filed his IG complaint about the
Obama administration deleting so much data from its database to help
identify terrorists, and, clearly, for anybody who was involved in that
effort to purge our computer data on foreign terrorists, his complaint
could be seen as a threat to expose people within the Obama
administration who were involved in purging or, as one of our intel
people--Homeland Security, like DOJ, began to blind itself of the
ability to see our enemies.
That is why, even though he was investigating Tablighi Jamaat and the
manner in which normal Muslim believers were converted into radicals
who would be capable of murder, there were a number of things that he
noticed that they did to move people in that direction.
He identified that the people at San Bernardino who killed, I think
it was, 14 Americans there, that, if he had been allowed to pursue his
investigation, would have identified those people.
We blinded ourselves of the ability to see our enemy, and we also had
not been training people.
Philip had identified a female in California involved in the
shooting. She took on the name of a famous radical Islamic male
terrorist. If he had been allowed to question her, he would have
immediately known: There is something very wrong here. Why would you
take on the name of a male terrorist, historic terrorist?
But it had been made very clear in the Obama administration that, if
you are too active in pursuit of radical Islamists, it is not going to
go well for you.
{time} 1615
And, in fact, after he filed the IG report, I think it was an effort
for some in the Obama administration to protect themselves. We have now
seen it occur with the Trump campaign.
There was a Grand Jury that was convened to go after and try to
destroy Philip Haney's life. His wife, Francesca, was a college
professor, and the trauma of being raided, constantly harassed, and
questioned, seeing one of the finest, most honest and honorable
protectors of America in our history,
[[Page H1221]]
Philip Haney, she saw him just being savaged. And it ended up resulting
in her going to the hospital. Whether it was a full-blown nervous
breakdown or not, I am not sure, but it sent her to the hospital to
have the United States Government go after a man she knew was a hero
for and to the United States.
Well, Philip was so meticulous, so organized. They couldn't find
anything with which to indict him. They were trying to drag up
something, but he had documented well everything he had ever done. It
was the way he was. It is who he was. They couldn't find anything to
indict him. They had already moved him in basically a closet, kept him
from doing the job he was the best at in protecting America. And
finally they basically said, we can't find anything. So, look, if you
will just agree to retire, then we will let everything go, but you have
got to destroy stuff in your possession.
Well, he retired, and that is when he wrote the book See Something,
Say Nothing. He had been savaged by his own government, his own country
that he was trying to protect.
And I had commented to him about his book. He had given me a draft to
read before it was published. I said, Philip, you don't really name a
whole lot of names in this book about where the problems have been. He
said, ``I know, this is just the first draft. I will do another that
names names.'' And that is what he was working on.
After Francesca died about a year ago, he moved to California and was
near his sister, Diana. I was so thrilled to get a text from Philip
saying basically, I have met someone. She is wonderful. They were soul
mates. And I texted him that I had a minister friend that had said, you
know, it is interesting, when men who have been in long marriages have
their wife pass away, it is not unusual; in fact, it may be average, to
have them remarried in 6 months. Of course, he volunteered, women that
had been in a longstanding marriage when their husband dies, a lot of
them don't ever want to remarry. It is an interesting difference.
I wasn't surprised that Philip had found love again. Philip and
Denise were going to be married on April 4. It appeared he would be
coming back to work for the United States Government and finally be
able to put to full use his incredible knack for rooting out
terrorists.
I was amazed, because when you met Philip, you weren't sure. He was
kind of a quiet guy, and you didn't realize at first just how brilliant
he was. He could ask questions--and I know he did this with people
trying to come into the country--and he got people to volunteer
information. I bet they thought, oh, this guy, what a doofus. What does
he know? He got them to volunteer information that I doubt I could have
ever gotten out of them, no matter how tough a cross-examination I had
done. But Phil in his amazing way, he could get information out of
people. It was amazing what he was able to do and capable of doing.
So he had hoped to be coming back in the next few weeks to work for
the Federal Government. But then he got some news last week that he
needed to have open heart surgery. The chances of success were very
good. Complete success shouldn't be too long of a recuperation time.
And he passed that along to the person that he was going to be coming
to work for in the Federal Government. Sent him a text, I have got to
have open heart surgery next week, but basically hope to be available
for work shortly after that. Short recuperation.
Philip either talked or texted with his sister virtually every day,
and they texted up to the evening last Thursday. And Friday he was
found in his car with a gunshot wound and a gun nearby.
I think the Amador County law officials are doing a decent job. They
seem to be very committed. But his book was going to name names of
people that put this country at risk. He was getting married April 4.
Finally going to be able to come back to the U.S. Government and use
his incredible talents and ability to spot danger for our country and
stop it, and he ends up with a bullet in him.
So the investigation is ongoing. He is severely missed by those of us
who loved him. We had talked back before he filed the IG complaint, I
had been concerned about his safety with all the information he knew
and the people that could have gotten in trouble. And we had a mutual
pact, if it was said either one of us ended up having committed
suicide, then the other is going to make sure that truth wins out.
He was so organized, though. He had made it clear to his sister that
there was something he was going to do and something he was doing, he
said you need to come over because I have got everything laid out. If
something happens during the heart surgery next week, I have everything
laid out. And that is how he was, everything was so organized. I would
love to be as organized as Phil.
Philip had such a positive outlook on things. He had been through a
horrendous time with his wife having been made ill by the raucous Obama
administration coming after him to try to shut him up.
See, that is a real whistleblower. He testified before the Senate.
That is what a real whistleblower does. A real whistleblower does not
remain anonymous. They come forward, subject themselves to cross-
examination, and supposedly have protection.
But that is not what happened in the Obama administration. In fact,
the Obama administration prosecuted more people for leaking than every
other administration in our country's history added together. They went
after whistleblowers. Rather tragic. I can't adequately express it.
February 5, 2016, The Hill had an article about Phil. ``DHS Ordered
Me to Scrub Records of Muslims with Terror Ties.''
Conservative HQ, George Rasley has done a really nice piece; ``In
Memoriam: Philip B. Haney, 21st Century Paul Revere.''
Fox News had an article by Nick Givas, ``Philip Haney, DHS
Whistleblower During Obama Era, Found Dead, Police Say.''
Joe Martin, ``Philip Haney: Whistleblower and Happy Warrior.''
What an amazing man. I miss him. I miss getting his cheery text
messages. And I know his fiance and his sister and even his brother-in-
law misses getting those messages, as well.
So there is big news supposedly that the Trump administration is now
trying to make sure that people that are working for the Trump
administration are actually working for it and not against it.
And the truth is, President Trump got some bad advice from people
that were not concerned about his achieving the goals he promised he
would work toward, but they were interested in stopping him.
We found out after the George W. Bush administration there were
holdovers from the Clinton years that would tell President Bush, yes,
sir, we will take care of it, and then drag their feet and made sure
what he wanted didn't happen, and even would leak information to try to
stop President Bush from achieving what he hoped to achieve. And we
have certainly seen that occur in the Trump administration.
In fact, an article mentions Rich Higgins, he had prepared
information, basically a memo, on how to move forward and how the Trump
administration could protect itself from people that would try to stop
President Trump and to make sure that people working for him were
actually working for him.
But a buddy of Mr. Brennan and Mr. Clapper, named H.R. McMaster,
found out about the memo and instead of rewarding Rich Higgins for his
brilliant work to help the Trump administration, he had him perp walked
out and refused to let him even go back to his office. Because Mr.
McMaster, despite his front and his sucking up to President Trump, he
was all about stopping President Trump.
And for his time there he may have helped on some little things, but
overall he was making sure--it certainly appeared to me he was making
sure--that President Trump didn't achieve the goals he hoped to, and,
in fact, was heard to bad-mouth, say vulgar things about President
Trump. So it was good when he was gone.
And President Trump has continued to work on efforts to get people
that actually want to help him achieve his goals. And naturally deep-
state establishment people in Washington, they don't want to see that
happen, so they
[[Page H1222]]
throw up things like, oh, gee, the Trump administration is on a witch
hunt. It is not on a witch hunt. It just wants people that will work to
help the President achieve his goals.
If, for example, you have an inane person working with the National
Security Council and in his mind he knows everything that anybody needs
to know about Ukraine, and he puts together talking points for the
President to use in talking to the President of Ukraine and the
President doesn't follow his expert talking points because the
President is foreign policy when he gets elected, not what some
lieutenant colonel thinks--but you can tell Vindman got a burr in his
saddle, so to speak, when the President didn't follow his talking
points to a T.
{time} 1630
He needed to go. It appears he likely leaked information to the so-
called whistleblower, not a real whistleblower.
A real whistleblower is a man of courage and integrity, like Phil
Haney. That is a real whistleblower.
A real whistleblower is somebody like Adam Lovinger, who sees that
the Department of Defense is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars,
multiple payments, to some professor in London named Stefan Halper, who
happens to be setting up the Trump campaign so that they can get
warrants against it, and the Department of Defense is paying this guy.
But Adam's job is making sure the Defense Department was getting their
money's worth when they paid, and he couldn't see they were getting any
money's worth from this Stefan Halper guy in London.
If the left really wants to see somebody prosecuted who was in the
U.S. Government who was paying for foreign interference in our
election, maybe they should start with the guys that came after Adam
Lovinger, a real whistleblower, not like this guy that filed a secret
complaint that wasn't firsthand, had no personal knowledge. They just
knew they wanted to stop President Trump and didn't mind putting the
United States Government at risk by doing so, because, after all, they
hated the President.
So it is worth looking back a little bit.
Here is an article from October 19, 2016, titled ``Obama's plan to
make the administrative state permanent,'' by Nathan Mehrens. This is
before the election, a month before the 2016 election. He points out
that: ``President Obama's cronies are being placed into permanent staff
positions in the Federal Government, and the administration is not even
bothering to follow its own personnel rules which govern the process.''
Apparently, there were people in the Obama administration that
realized: You know, there is a chance Trump could win this election.
Even though we are sure the American people will elect Hillary Clinton,
there is a chance.
There are supposedly around 4,000 people or so that an administration
appoints into politically appointed positions, but those people are
subject to being fired on the whim of a new President. So, according to
this article, the Obama administration started taking people who were
political appointees and moving them into career appointments.
We have even seen a case in Arizona where a Federal employee commits
a Federal crime, is found guilty of a Federal crime, and a court comes
back later and said: Eh, that wasn't an adequate basis to fire a
Federal employee.
Well, once you get into a position like she was in, it is hard to
root them out even when they have committed a Federal crime in their
job. That was in the VA. We have changed the law with regard to VA to
make it easier to fire felons that commit felonies when they are in
their job at the VA.
The Office of Personnel Management's Director in November 2009 made a
big show of a new policy requiring prior approval for these
conversions, taking a political appointee and what is called burrowing
them into the Federal Government so they will be part of the deep
state, hard to ever get rid of, when they are nothing but political
hacks.
This statement says:
I believe we must hold ourselves and the government to a
higher standard, one that honors and supports the President's
strong commitment to a government that is transparent and
open. OPM's responsibility to uphold the merit system is not
limited to Presidential election years nor to competitive
service appointments. That is why I am instituting a change
in OPM policy with respect to hiring political appointees for
civil service jobs.
They go on to say that in order to convert somebody from political
appointee to career civil service status, they have to get the
permission of OPM. But as the article says, apparently, some agencies
didn't see the need to bother with that permission, and they processed
conversions without OPM permission.
So we see what is happening.
Here is another article, this one is from November 27, after
President Trump was elected:
Congressional Republicans are warning the departing Obama
administration against moving any more political appointees
into career jobs.
But that is what they had done.
It says: ``Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, has asked Acting
OPM Director Beth Cobert for weekly reports on all conversions or
attempted conversions.''
But I would be willing to bet they didn't get what they were asking
for, certainly not all of it.
This article is from December 8, 2016. This is from the Daily Signal,
Fred Lucas: ``After President Barack Obama exits office, at least 88 of
his political appointees will likely remain working in the Federal
Government under a Donald Trump administration, according to numbers
from the Office of Personnel Management.''
It goes on to talk about ``Federal agencies selected 112 political
appointees for career civil service jobs,'' and that is just in
December. They had about another 6 weeks to be moving people from
political appointee positions into civil service so that when President
Trump came in, he would have people in key positions who would hate
him, be loyal to people like Sally Yates and President Obama, others,
Brennan, Clapper. They could undermine the Trump administration, as
they have been doing for 3 years now.
In Axios, Jonathan Swan comes out with an article this week that
appears to be taking aim at some people who are friends of the
President who are trying to help him figure out who it is that is
undermining and has no interest in helping President Trump achieve his
goals and, in fact, has an interest in destroying them.
Three years in, I would think a President should be entitled to
people working for him who are actually working for him and not against
him, but I am sure there will be more people who I classify as heroes
trying to help President Trump make America even greater by getting the
people out that are trying to stop what he promised to do.
People will come after one of my heroes, Ginni Thomas, the wife of
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Barbara Ledeen, and those
who are coming after people that are trying to help President Trump,
have people who actually like him working for him, not people who can
just suck up to him, but people who will actually like him, support his
agenda, and want to help, and I think we will be seeing a lot more of
that.
It is a shame that they have not been doing articles pointing out
some of these duplicitous people who say they are loyal to the Trump
administration, and they do all they can to undermine it and violate
their oaths.
I still believe if Durham doesn't end up indicting some people who
could go to jail, we won't get the country back.
There is no deterrence in what has gone on so far. People abused the
FISA court system, repeatedly lied to a Federal judge or judges in the
FISA court to get warrants to spy on the Trump administration.
If there are no consequences, if people who have made it an
instrument of politics to use the intelligence community, Department of
Justice, Department of Defense, State Department to try to defeat a
Presidential candidate, and then when he gets elected, try to remove
him from office, if there aren't multiple people who go to jail for
what they have done, the crimes committed, then there is no deterrence.
They will be up to it even bigger, but next time, they will have
figured out where they made mistakes in getting caught and being
unsuccessful, and we will lose the
[[Page H1223]]
freedom we once had to select our own leaders.
But I don't hear of these authors. I don't read any of these authors
actually condemning the DNC, the Clinton campaign, the Department of
Defense, the DOJ in using and getting help from foreigners to try to
combat the Trump campaign and to affect our election.
Anybody who would say on this floor that there were no Ukrainians
involved in trying to affect our election, they are just ignorant. You
know, there is no harm, we are all ignorant of some things, but they
are ignorant of the facts.
We can start with the op-ed that the Ambassador from Ukraine wrote
before the election, trashing President Trump. That is trying to affect
our election by a Ukrainian, and we know it had to go a lot deeper than
that.
I would love to see some of these folks who want to come after
President Trump and come after those of us who would like free and fair
elections, I would like to see them be more fair on both sides of the
aisle, as far as where crimes have really been committed.
If we are going to preserve this little experiment in self-
government, there needs to be multiple people go to jail for the crimes
they have committed. If that doesn't happen, we are in big trouble.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________