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[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 117 (Thursday, August 2, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H5700-H5702]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                              {time}  2000
                            TROUBLING TIMES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, these are interesting times we live in, and 
it's nice to follow my friend, Mr. Shimkus, a graduate of the United 
States Military Academy, a servant of this country in the military, and 
still a servant in this country. It's good to call him friend. 
Hopefully he calls me friend, as well.
  These are troubling times. When the name Justice Department depicts 
something other than justice, it's a very troubling time. Some of us 
are extremely familiar with the prosecution of what most would consider 
the most significant, largest prosecution of terrorism support and 
funding in the United States history, which occurred in Federal 
district court in Dallas, Texas. It was begun under the Bush Justice 
Department, all part of the aftermath of 9/11 because, as President 
Bush indicated, we can't just go after the people that actually plotted 
and carried out the events of 9/11, who plotted and carried out other 
terrorist attacks against the United States. It's not enough. We've got 
to go after those who have supported those efforts at terrorism, have 
supported the killing of innocent people around the world. And 
particularly, we have to protect Americans. And for those who have 
supported terrorism and continue to support terrorism, the United 
States must step forward in order to protect itself.
  The Justice Department in November of 2008, I believe, got 
convictions of the individuals they had prosecuted in the Holy Land 
Foundation trial. Not only did they get convictions, they got over 100 
different counts in which they got convictions. Through that, there 
were names of coconspirators who were named and set forward in the 
pleadings, and evidence was introduced, admitted into evidence at trial 
that showed there were groups and individuals in the United States that 
were supporting terrorism, and there was significant evidence to 
support that.
  In fact, two of those groups, CAIR and the Islamic Society of North 
America, ISNA, had moved that their names be stricken from the 
pleadings as named coconspirators in supporting terrorism. At that 
time, the acting U.S. Attorney did a very good job not only in the 
prosecution, but also in the pleading to the Federal district court 
there before Judge Solis, and he established plenty of evidence so that 
Judge Solis found there was plenty of evidence to support the 
coconspirators continuing to have their names in the pleading, and they 
were not satisfied with the ruling of the Federal district court. They 
appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Fifth Circuit Court 
of Appeals ended up ruling that, yes, there was plenty of evidence to 
support the fact that CAIR, ISNA, and others were supporting terrorism, 
so their names would not be stricken from the pleadings, they would be 
kept in the pleadings as named coconspirators of terrorism.
  After that very successful prosecution that was in conformity with 
President Bush's promise that if you're not with us, you're with them, 
and those who support terrorism would be made to account, that began 
the first stage of the prosecution of supporters of terrorism. Those 
were people and individual cases, those were organizations right here 
in America that were supporting terrorism, funding terrorism. Yes, they 
were supporting charities. Yes, they were giving money to good causes. 
That acted as a cover for them also funding terrorism, funding known 
terrorist organizations who had actually killed people and destroyed 
things, committing acts of war.
  Then, the Attorney General became Eric Holder. The President, the 
Commander in Chief, became Barack Hussein Obama. We know it's okay to 
use the President's full name, because he proudly uses it when he goes 
to Muslim nations. In fact, the first nations the President went to and 
apologized for America's arrogance and divisiveness, dismissiveness 
were Muslim nations. In fact, going to Cairo, he snubbed America's 
ally, Israel's ally, Mubarak, who is not a fine, upstanding wonderful 
man but a man who had managed to keep some peace along the Israel 
border, a man who had agreements with this government just as this 
government had agreements with Qadhafi, despite the blood on his hands 
from terrorist involvement himself. In fact, I've read of reports of 
people even from our own Senate who have been over there, one who had 
tweeted that he had met with Colonel Qadhafi: ``He was an interesting 
man. I met with him at his ranch.'' I understand that Senator now says 
that tweet didn't come from him.
  But there were Americans from this government negotiating with 
Qadhafi, working out agreements, and then they turned their backs on 
people with whom they had worked agreements:

[[Page H5701]]

Mubarak, Qadhafi. I don't think we should have worked agreements with 
Qadhafi because of the blood on his hands, American blood on his hands. 
But it had been done, and yet this Nation turned its back on allies. It 
was no surprise to me to read that the King of Jordan--another person 
with whom we have a relatively good relationship--had sought an 
appointment with Ahmadinejad in Iran once he saw the way this 
administration not only turned its back on allies, but also would 
contribute to bombing to get them out of office. It's an amazing thing.
  Then, being part of the Judiciary Committee here in Washington, some 
of us became very troubled that despite all of this substantive 
evidence--I've got a stack of it in my office from that Holy Land 
Foundation trial--substantiating allegations, at least to the 
satisfaction of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the district 
court, that CAIR and ISNA and others should be named coconspirators, 
this Justice Department chose not to prosecute anyone else. Once again, 
using the old tactic, Well, the Bush administration didn't prosecute 
them. They did stage one, they got the initial prosecutions, and if 
those were successful, they intended to continue looking and pursuing 
all those who were implicated and could have cases proved, especially 
where there was substantial evidence, as there was with CAIR and ISNA.
  Instead of prosecuting CAIR and ISNA, this administration--and 
there's no question about this--despite the fussing and nay-saying of 
some once proud journalists of some once proud journalistic television 
networks, once proud newspapers, despite their failure to do their 
homework, despite their taking the easy road and simply asking 
opinions, Well, what do you think about these terrible accusations, and 
getting opinions instead of simply digging and looking at the facts and 
presenting the fact, they sought opinions on things that people had not 
even read. They asked opinions about letters that people had not read. 
They asked opinions about general tenor without actually showing people 
the tenor of the letters.

                              {time}  2010

  And, unfortunately, some are always willing to respond without having 
read or reviewed the matter before them which they are being questioned 
about.
  But the facts are the facts. On the White House's own Web site, last 
time I checked, there were references to ISNA. There are references to 
ISNA's president, Imam Magid, who, as I understand, has now written a 
letter wanting condemnation of me and others who simply set out factual 
recitations to five different departments and then asked the question, 
Would you please investigate to see the extent of Muslim Brotherhood 
influence in this administration in this department.
  We know there's Muslim Brotherhood influence. The question is how 
much influence is there?
  When the White House's own Web site was carrying compliments, such as 
those spoken by Denis McDonough, the number two person in our National 
Security Agency, complimenting Imam Magid for the wonderful prayers he 
had given inside the sanctity of the White House itself, for the White 
House's iftar celebration during Ramadan. Compliments to Imam Magid, 
the president of the main coconspirator, for the wonderful introduction 
he gave the number two person in the National Security Agency.
  And within the FBI itself--it took until 2009 for the FBI to finally 
write a letter saying, Gee, because of all this evidence that came out 
about CAIR supporting terrorism in the Holy Land Foundation trial in 
2008, we have suspended our relationship with them. At one place in the 
letter, they referred to it as a ``partner'' or a ``partnership.''
  So there's no question there is Muslim Brotherhood influence in this 
administration. Anybody that says otherwise will likely find that they 
will end up at the lowest level of Nielsen ratings in their history, or 
at least in 20 years or so, because they simply are not doing their 
homework. It's much easier to bash the messenger than it is to actually 
do homework. And in fairness, I know there have been lots of budget 
cuts. It's tough for some entities, some networks to do the research 
they once did when they were much more popular. But, nonetheless, the 
truth is the truth. Facts are facts.
  The question remains: Just how extensive is the influence of the 
Muslim Brotherhood in this administration? We know that the ACLU and 
CAIR have been demanding documentation of what trainees have been 
taught in our Justice Department, in other departments, making FOIA, 
Freedom of Information Act, requests trying to get information on what 
we are training our undercover agents, if any we have.
  Apparently, this administration has no problem outing people we have 
undercover in dangerous situations. At least somebody who has 
information about the very inner workings of this administration has 
leaked classified information. It remains to be found out who it is, 
but it is somebody that has access to some of the most important 
classified inner workings.
  Yet you've got CAIR and the ACLU demanding information about the 
information that was used to train these people. And the facts are that 
if you ever disclose that--and as I understand, our Justice Department 
was preparing to provide all that information to CAIR and to ACLU--and 
if they provide all of the information on exactly how people who have 
been undercover in radical Islamic situations, it will be easy for 
those individuals to be outed and killed because they'll know what 
their training is and their approach to radical Islam. They'll know the 
methods and means of our undercover, of our intelligence. And yet this 
administration continues to cater to such requests to accommodate 
complaints about CAIR.
  CAIR individuals can call the White House, as apparently was written 
up in material in the media after last August. They were complaining 
about people who were going to give a seminar to hundreds of law 
enforcement individuals. CAIR makes one call, as it was reported at 
least, makes a call to the White House. The seminar gets canceled. 
Hundreds of law enforcement individuals do not end up being taught 
about the inner workings of those who want to kill and destroy our way 
of life. And CAIR is happy.
  Just how far does the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood go? We know 
from the evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial that ISNA is the 
largest Muslim Brotherhood front organization in America. And President 
Obama has had President Imam Magid in the inner sanctum of the State 
Department to listen to the speech that he gave, trying to upstage 
Prime Minister Netanyahu when he was on his way over here in May of 
last year.
  The report was that Imam Magid had actually given him advice on what 
he should say. Who knows, perhaps what Imam Magid said was, Oh, yes, 
Israel has agreed to go back to the 1967 boundary lines, so you can 
include that in your speech. Who knows.
  We wanted an Inspector General investigation to find out in the State 
Department, Defense Department, intelligence department, in these five 
departments just how extensive is the Muslim Brotherhood influence. We 
know it's there. Most Americans know it's there. There are some that 
still drink the Kool-Aid and refuse to acknowledge the facts that have 
been proven in court.
  There are facts that actually the prosecutor of the 1993 World Trade 
Center bombings has pointed out in his article--that's Andrew 
McCarthy--he has pointed out, We proved to New York jurors, wonderful 
New York jurors, beyond a reasonable doubt that there was this radical 
Islamic presence in America; and they did want to take over our 
country, that there is a civilization jihad. Some want to do it 
radically with violence. Some want to take over from inside our own 
governmental and civic organizations, and they're working toward that 
goal.
  There's no question about so many of these things. The question is, 
How far does the influence go? That's what we need to know.
  So we asked the question, and we had Attorney General Holder before 
our committee last year. And he was asked the question, Did you or did 
politics have any consideration in the refusal to prosecute any of the 
other named coconspirators about which the Fifth Circuit said there is 
plenty of evidence to support their involvement? Was there political 
involvement in that decision?

[[Page H5702]]

  Well, we didn't know it at the time; but since then, more recently, 
in the last couple of months, we've had the Attorney General testify 
before our committee that there are political aspects to justice, from 
his standpoint, which fly in the face of everything that any good law 
school, any legitimate law school has ever taught its law students.
  Justice is supposed to be blind. That's why the statue that depicts 
justice, holding the scales of justice, is blinded, is wearing a 
blindfold. Because justice is blind if it's real justice. And if 
justice is not blind, if we're looking to who it is and politically 
what the consequences will be, it's not justice. There are no political 
aspects to justice--or it's not true justice. And I'm afraid that's 
where we've gotten to in this so-called Justice Department.
  So we had the Attorney General say, Oh, no, no, no. There is no 
political involvement. In fact, I said to my friend Trent Franks, Gee, 
in fact, the U.S. Attorney handling that--I believe it was quoted in a 
newspaper--I believe it was the Dallas News--he said there was no 
politics involved in those dismissals because there was just no case 
there. There was no evidence to support it.

                              {time}  2020

  Well, I happened to have read that Dallas Morning News report, and I 
happen to have read the quotes from that acting U.S. Attorney. And yes, 
he did say it was local; politics weren't involved. But that is not 
what he said. He says no, the evidence wasn't there, which is entirely 
different since he was not under penalty of potential jail when he 
spoke to a reporter, but he was under potential penalty of jail. If you 
ever commit a fraud upon a court by not giving all of the information 
or misrepresenting to a judge or tricking a judge by not being 
truthful, you can be looking at jail time. Lawyers before me knew that. 
I didn't care about politics, but I cared about truth.
  I cared about it in the Bush administration. So when we found out 
there were abuses of the National Security Letter, I was furious. And I 
grilled the Bush director of the FBI at that time. I was surprised 
there weren't more Democrats that were nearly as outraged as I was 
because that was so offensive. It was so improper. It was so unjust. I 
don't care who the President is; justice is justice. And for our 
Attorney General to act like oh, no, no, there wasn't anything. And 
then I know. I read the pleadings of that U.S. Attorney where he said 
there's plenty of evidence to support the name of CAIR and others being 
in here. And he convinced the Fifth Circuit of the same thing. So he 
was either lying to the courts or he was lying to the paper about the 
evidence.
  And now, after having had the head of civil rights of this Justice 
Department, Mr. Perez, testify that gee, there was no political aspect 
in the decision not to pursue the New Black Panther Party for what they 
did at a polling place in Pennsylvania, and now we have found out this 
week, Human Events has a great article, ``Federal judge rules political 
appointees interfered with voter intimidation case.'' That's from 
August 2, posted at 2:12 p.m.
  There's one from the American Spectator about the fact that Thomas 
Perez, assistant attorney general, is one of the most destructive 
forces against the rule of law in this Nation, including being the man 
responsible for the DOJ dropping charges again the New Black Panthers 
for voter intimidation in Philadelphia during the last Presidential 
election. It goes on to talk about he appeared before the House of 
Representatives Subcommittee on Constitution, which is a subcommittee 
of the Judiciary Committee, and it goes on to say that he questioned 
Assistant Attorney General Perez over the administration's commitment 
to First Amendment rights. His questions were prompted by a Daily 
Caller article from late last year in which Perez was quoted as warmly 
embracing the proposals of Islamist advocates in a meeting at George 
Washington University, among them a request for a legal declaration 
that U.S. citizens' criticism of Islam constitutes racial 
discrimination.
  Well, we know that one of the 10-year goals of the Muslim Brotherhood 
is to subvert the U.S. Constitution to sharia law. And once they 
convince enough people that it should be a crime to burn a Koran or to 
criticize Islam, then they can check that box.
  I believe in the Bible. My eternity is based on belief of the Bible. 
But I also know under the U.S. Constitution, you can burn a Bible. I 
took a pledge and was willing to lay down my life, my 4 years in the 
Army, for our flag, but I also understand it's constitutional to burn a 
flag. And yet we have people in this injustice department saying they 
want to make it a crime to criticize Islam. No wonder they're purging 
their training materials, eliminating references to Islam.
  As one intelligence officer of this government told me, we are 
blinding our ability to see our enemy, and that can and will have 
dangerous consequences if we don't turn it around.
  Mr. Speaker, wrapping up here before we take this August recess that 
isn't a recess because we will be in pro forma session, we're willing, 
most of us, Republicans are willing to come back. All we have to know 
is that the Senate is finally doing something to pass some of the jobs 
bills we've sent their way. And in fairness, what we need is Republican 
leadership that will say okay, Senate, you want this bill, then you are 
going to have to pass some of the economic and jobs bills that will get 
this economy going, but we haven't used the leverage Republicans in the 
House have. And, unfortunately, with all of the talk about agreeing to 
another CR, it just means that we'll have finished out 2 years without 
cutting anything significant, as we promised 2 years ago after the 
biggest wave election in American history since the 1930s.
  It's time for Americans to make clear you want Congress to do what 
was promised when the Congressmen got elected. And if we do that, it 
doesn't matter how obstructive the Senate is, it will make it even more 
clear if we use our leverage and say: Hey, people, the government is 
shut down on weekends, you seem to live okay. Let's get back to just 
essential needs of the government. Allow a shutdown of other things. 
Pass my bill that will make sure our military gets paid during a 
shutdown, we know Social Security recipients will still get their 
payments in the event of a shutdown, and keep the government shut down 
until everybody understands we're going to start living within our 
means as a Congress, like all Americans have to do, or declare 
bankruptcy. They have to do that. We can't afford to declare 
bankruptcy. We must get this government under control. I hope that 
constituents across the country during this month will make that clear, 
and we'll replace the Senators who are standing in the way of getting 
this economy going, that we'll replace the administration who is 
creating injustice and allowing radical Islamic jihadists to have any 
influence at all.
  The Secretary of Homeland Security sat there and told me that it did 
absolutely not happen, that a member of a terrorist organization had 
been allowed in the White House; 6 days later, she not only admits to 
the Senate that it did happen after she told me absolutely not, but she 
said: Oh, but it's okay; we vetted him three times.
  It's time for a government that is more considerate and concerned 
about providing for the common defense, of getting out of the way and 
letting the economy grow than they are about playing favorites, playing 
to their cronies, and playing against religious freedom.
  And with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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