Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter), a former district judge. Swearing in of the Honorable Richard Hudson into the Texas Navy

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hudson).

Mr. GOHMERT. It is wonderful to have a new admiral in the Texas Navy, and we welcome Congressman Hudson to that role, that honorary role, in the Texas Navy. And we are grateful to Judge Carter for his role in making that happen and to our great Governor Greg Abbott. I thank both the gentlemen. It is nice to be able to do something that brings a smile. But I think, for Texans to ask that people remember the Alamo harkens back to feelings within us that freedom and liberty are something worth dying for. That is what all of those Texans did. And with due deference to my friend from Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn--yes, I know--we are grateful to Tennessee for their contribution at the Alamo and to Texas as well. But those people had a choice: Were they going to run or were they going to stand for freedom, stand against despotism. And they chose to stand. And here it is 163 years later, and we still remember, and we are still inspired. Liberty comes at great cost, and we are forever grateful to our God and to our predecessors who took such a stand against tyranny. There is a lot of tyranny going on in the Middle East, and there will be until the end of time. But each of us has a responsibility to do what we can to help accommodate and protect those who can't help themselves. That is why some of us are pro-life. But when it comes to life in the Middle East, it has been shocking now for years, under the previous administration, the people that were supported, the weapons that were provided to people that were called the ``vetted moderate rebels'' against the leader of Syria. Yet we saw over and over again those so-called ``vetted moderate rebels'' were constantly allowing their weapons to be seized--there is some question whether they were actually turned over--to radical Islamists who hate Americans, who made clear, yeah, they are not crazy about some fellow Muslims, but they like them a whole lot better than they do the United States and Christians. So it was tragic, in years prior, when our current U.N. general secretary was in charge of the refugee program at the U.N. and people were noticing, under the then head of the refugee program at the U.N., now general secretary--they were noticing that, gee, you are helping all these Muslims, which is wonderful, but there is a significant percentage in those areas, some areas there, that are being overrun by ISIS, where there are Christians and the Christians appear to be the target of genocide. And it has been a long time since I read his quote, but in essence it was basically, well, those Christians are very important to those areas historically where they are, and so we think it is important to just let them stay in those areas. Well, what Christians had found was, if they tried to go to the refugee camps where they were unwelcome and brutalized, they were lucky if they got out with their lives. But they weren't welcome. And the head of the refugee program did nothing that we can find to accommodate Christians to the extent that he was accommodating Muslims. I don't know if it was an innate bias, prejudice, bigotry that he had-- maybe still has--or whether it was just sheer ignorance on his part, deciding to save some people and not save a big bulk of the Christians. So they were being wiped out. There was a genocide going on. I saw this story today by Edwin Mora. The title of the article is, ``Hope Is Back: Trump Helps Save Christians, Yazidis in Iraq From Extinction.'' It goes on to say, ``U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is helping bring Christians and Yazidis in Iraq back from the brink of extinction fomented by a genocidal campaign at the hands of the Islamic State, religious minority representatives declared this week at the second Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom convened by the Department of State. ``The U.S. Government has officially determined that ISIS committed genocide against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities during its reign of terror in the Middle East that began in 2014 . . . `' Of course, that was when the Obama administration was in its heyday. Of course, we didn't realize how much the DOJ, FBI, and some of the Intel community had been weaponized and actually corrupted. The article goes on, ``Echoing Yazidis activists and a U.S.-based Syriac Catholic Iraqi priest who spoke to Breitbart News, a Chaldean Catholic priest from a parish in a Christian Iraqi town indicated that hope for the future along with security improvements have returned to religious minority communities devastated by ISIS, courtesy of the Trump administration efforts. ``Their comments came during the 3-day ministerial summit. . . . ``While delivering a speech during the event on Wednesday, Father Thabet Habib Youssef, a Chaldean Catholic priest from the town of Karamles in Iraq's Nineveh Province, thanked the Trump administration for its assistance.'' And this is what Father Youssef had to say: ``I wish to give thanks to the government of the United States for including us in this important conference and a special thanks to the administration of President Trump for his concern and commitment to the persecuted minority communities in Iraq. ``I can say this conference gives us hope. Our greatest fear in the early years was that the world would forget us. This conference tells us we are not forgotten.' ``Nearly half of the Christian families who fled Karamles, liberated by U.S. and local forces in November 2016, have returned, and Father Thabet expects many more to come back in the coming year. ``Although ISIS burned down the homes and churches in the Christian town, `We are determined to return and rebuild.' ``Today we have 45 percent of our families returned, and we hope in this next year we will see many more.' ``He went on to say that the Iraqi government needs to do more to bring about `real change and support for the protection, safety, and equal rights for the minority communities in Iraq.' ``The U.S.-funded nation-building efforts, coupled with''--and let me make myself clear on that, I'm talking about helping others build their nations--for those who claim that America is trying to build some hegemony, has imperialistic notions, as it always has--it just tells us they had terrible history teachers. They are not intentionally spreading untruths. They are just ignorant. They don't know what the real truth is because the real truth is, we have never been an imperialistic nation. If we were, if we had been then English would be all that was spoken in France, and Germany, and Japan, and many other nations. That is not who we are. That is not who we have been. We have given our most precious commodity, American lives, for another people's freedom. Back to this article. It says: ``The U.S.-funded nation-building efforts, coupled with assistance from the Catholic group Knights of Columbus and the government of Hungary, have rendered the town of Karamles a `story of success and we are optimistic it will survive' '', Father Thabet also said. ``Northern Iraq's Nineveh province is the historical homeland of Iraqi Christians and home to the largest concentration of religious minorities in the country.'' So it goes on and also talks about the help this has been to Yazidis. And I note this week we had resolutions or amendments to condemn and express the majority of the House's sentiment that we shouldn't do anything to help in the effort against those who are killing, persecuting, and trying to commit a genocide against the Yazidis in Yemen. But, thankfully, that is only from the majority in the House. That is really unfortunate. But there has also been news this week that we may have a very strong anti-Israeli resolution filed. Why not? The majority doesn't ever condemn specific anti-Semitism by Members here in the House; so why not file a resolution? We will see if it gets filed. That is the news. That resolution supports the boycott against Israel; even though the people it supports, that resolution would support, would be the very people that have said they want Israel wiped off the map. They want no Israel from the river to the sea. They want it gone. They want a genocide. They want the Jews wiped out, and that is a goal. It was a goal of Arafat. It is why, when Ehud Barak, as prime minister of Israel, when President Clinton was twisting his arm so strongly, basically offered Arafat virtually everything he wanted. I, personally, knowing biblical history, I think you had a case where, just as God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, initially, when Moses was asking to let his people go, I think Arafat's heart was hardened. He got basically everything he wanted, but he turned it all down. If he had accepted it, it would have been basically impossible for Israel to defend itself under anything but nuclear means; no conventional way to defend Israel if Arafat had accepted that, what I would consider, outrageous proposal. But fortunately, he didn't accept it, and so Israel has been able to defend itself since then. But the attacks are daily. They are ongoing. There is an ongoing effort by enemies of Israel that are being promoted by some Democrats, some in Congress, some outside of Congress. That is who they are supporting, people that are, every single day, smuggling rockets into Gaza, smuggling weapons, trying to smuggle weapons into Israel, and continuing to teach hatred, blind bigotry against the Jewish people, against Israel. So I would be thrilled if that resolution did not get filed; but that is up to individuals in Congress. Everybody has a right to file whatever bill they think will be most helpful. But I have looked for Scripture in the Bible that says, those who curse or seek to harm Israel will be blessed. And I just--it is just not there. So it causes me grave concern to think that we may have people in leadership positions in the United States, again, who really want to harm Israel. They want to divide it. I know we have a growing group that don't believe anything in the Bible. But for those of us who do, when we are told that any nation that divides or attempts to divide Israel will bring down judgment on itself, that causes me great concern for the country for which I have taken an oath to defend repeatedly; as a member of the United States Army, as an Assistant District Attorney, as a District Judge, as a Chief Justice, and as a Member of Congress. That oath means so much to me that I think it would be a good idea to be supportive of the Nation of Israel, and I am thrilled we have a President that is doing that. Even though, reports I have heard from people that were there, he had Cabinet officials telling him he was going to start World War III if he recognized Jerusalem as the capital. A bit like some of the stories of Lincoln being told by every member of the Cabinet it would be a disaster if he finalized the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln knew it was right in his heart, and with every Cabinet member reportedly against him and arguing against it, he, in essence, said the ayes have it. He was the only one. Here you had not all, but most of the Cabinet really hammering President Trump not to recognize Jerusalem as the capital. He knew in his heart it was the right thing to do. He had said he would do it; he did it. I know some can't find anything at all admirable about President Trump; they are so blinded by their hatred. But I think that is a pretty amazing thing that President Trump has done. And now, to hear from Christians in the Middle East who were the objects of genocide, being wiped out, being killed, destroyed, taken off of the map completely, without much of anything helpful from the so-called United Nations, it is amazing what President Trump has done in that regard. So when I hear friends across the aisle saying we have lost respect around the world, they are not seeing and hearing what I am. The last polls I saw were that, around the world, there is more respect for our President than the prior administration. And the truth is, in respect, there is a little element of fear. You can not like somebody, but still respect them, and fear can be involved. We have a reputation that is growing again, that we have a President that will do what he said. Sometimes he is talked out of taking steps, like bombing and killing 100 or more in Iran. But what we are seeing in Iran is amazing, because their economy is suffering dramatically, so much so you see them lashing out and trying to, whether it is by attacking ships, trying to use whatever power they can. The pressure is intensifying. And I would humbly submit, this will not be a President who, in response to the biggest supporter of terrorism in world history, sends them pallets full of billions and billions of dollars in cash to help the biggest supporter of terrorism, who has killed and been responsible for the deaths of more American military than anybody else in recent decades. So they can say what they want about our President. He is doing amazing work. And it is interesting, I keep hearing this term ``racist'' and the President keeps talking about American citizens. Well, until recent days, it has never been racist to talk about American citizens. In fact, going back again to the comment of Benjamin Franklin after the Constitutional Convention: ``It's a republic, if you can keep it.'' He knew that republics, the very few that have been established, that just means they elect representatives. It is not the totally democratic governing that was, for example, in Athens, as a city state. They had a democracy. And what historians have seen, clearly, is that when it is a true democracy, where everybody participates--they had jurors, they would have 501 jurors in just a court case. And what that would often lead to what would be mob action. I mean, people get stirred up, and they end up coming out with a sentence like they did for Socrates, that was far beyond anything appropriate whatsoever. You take an innocent man like that and have him put to death simply because you had too many jurors that got each other worked up. So that is where Rome made a great stride forward. They said, you know what? There were problems. It was a good idea, but there were problems with a complete democracy, where everybody participates in all governing decisions, except jurors, and that is 501. But Rome figured out, we need a representative form of government; so it has parts of it that are democracies, and in part it is a representative government, so it is a republic. And until Caesar crossed the Rubicon and made it into a virtual dictatorship--of course, that didn't last long because as, Mark Antony said: Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honorable man. So are they all, all honorable men. There was trouble in the Roman empire. But they began to have a flood of people that were not Roman citizens. They lost their power. They had begun bread and circuses; gave away way too much in what was considered welfare of that day, bread and circuses. And, as I recall, it was even Caesar that decided maybe we are corrupting people by providing this form of welfare and entertainment. But by that point, it was too late to rein it in and, for all of these factors, and others coming into play, people crossing the borders and taking a toll, the Roman Empire was eventually lost. No country is going to last forever. I love this country. I have offered to die for this country. That is what you do when you sign up and take an oath in the U.S. military. But when people begin not to appreciate the good things that their nation does and is doing, has done, and they build up hatred toward their own nation, you really are on the downhill slide and you are moving ever closer to the dustbin of history. Eventually every country is going to get there. But our goal in this body should be to perpetuate this little experiment in self-government, the best ever contrived. Keep it going as long as possible. Don't let it die on our watch. But it is in trouble. And as we have bills, I don't know anybody on this entire House floor, either party, who is against standing behind and helping those incredible American heroes of 9/11 and the days following. We are all for that. But then we have people in the majority who see an opportunity. Instead of doing what we normally do and have an authorization for 5 years and 5 years extend 10 years, we had a bill that was extended to 2092. There will not be a firefighter or policeman who is alive anywhere close to 2092, first responder that was there during 9/11 and doing these heroic works. So why would they choose 2092? Well, the saying in Washington is no matter how cynical you get, it is never enough to catch up. But you go by what we have seen. People in this body often, and it has happened on both sides of the aisle, like to get a bill, especially with money, get it extended out as far as possible, way beyond the existence of people for whom it is dedicated, and then when those people eventually pass away, you will see an effort to come in here and say, wow, we had all this money that we have passed overwhelmingly, and now the people aren't there that it was originally meant for, so let's start giving this money to other people, people that we want to curry favor with. That is not the way it is supposed to go. I voted for it out of respect for our heroes, but for goodness' sake, 2092, seriously? How could anybody with a straight face say: Oh, if you are not for paying out billions and billions of dollars in 2091 to 2092, then you must hate the first responders of 9/11? That is ridiculous. They have inspired me from that time, and in my hometown in east Texas and other towns all over east Texas, all the same thing. People lined up to give blood. The first time I went, they said: There is hours and hours of wait to give blood for people in New York so we would ask that you come back tomorrow. You couldn't even get in. That was true all over east Texas and all over the country. People cared deeply about what they had seen happen. We were under attack from outside. There were no hyphenated Americans. We were all just Americans wanting to help each other and help those who had been harmed. So I hope that the Senate will take a look at that and be able to be more responsible so that the 9/11 fund will truly be for the people who the 9/11 fund says it is supposed to be for. We are loading up future generations with so much debt. That alone could be enough to bring down our country. It is time to become responsible. And I know across the aisle we have had these hearings on the bills, the Equality Act, for example, and I understand the sentiment behind it is to try to avoid any type of discomfort, uncomfortable feelings by anybody because of their chosen gender. But as we brought out at our hearings before the Equality Act was passed in committee and here on the floor, there is a danger, and it is not about making people a little uncomfortable because they are biologically male but they want to go to a women's restroom. As a former felony judge, I have heard the testimony about the trauma. I have seen the effects of sexual assault on women. I have read and understand that women who are victims of sexual assault have three to four times more occurrence of PTSD. There are different explanations as to why they have so much higher rate of PTSD than even our soldiers in combat, but also that a trigger for reliving the horrors, the awful crime against them and their person is to be in a small, confined area and have someone of the opposite sex come in. We were laughed at and belittled when we brought up that concern. The story was contained in another story. It was about a British leader who was pushing for transgender bathrooms. It is now under criminal investigation or charges. But this was a story I missed back in February: ``A trans `woman' ''--meaning biological man but considered himself, herself, whatever you want to say, to be a woman--``was allowed to walk free from Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court in Scotland after being convicted of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl in a supermarket restroom. ``The attacker, whose name is given as Katie Dolatowski, waited for the young victim to come out of a toilet cubicle at Morrisons supermarket . . . then grabbed her by the face and forced her back inside. ``Dolatowski told the girl to remove her trousers and warned that a man outside would kill her mother . . . but she fought back, striking the pedophile in the face, belly, and crotch and tearing away to her father and siblings outside. ``Dolatowski had attempted to photograph a 12-year-old as she urinated at another supermarket a month prior . . . but Judge James Williamson decided not to send the sex offender to prison, instead handing down a tagging order and community service order. . . . The girl's mother was horrified, saying she felt `very, very let down' and that she did not have any confidence whatsoever that Dolatowski will not go out and do something equally as bad or worse.'' It is important to still discuss this because the Senate hasn't taken it up, and I hope they won't take it up because of the problems of the so-called, misnamed Equality Act. It is not equality for female sexual assault victims, that is for sure. But then it contained another reference: ``Girl Guides''--it is like Girl Scouts--``Expels Leaders Who Opposed Trans Shower-Sharing Policies. And this insert says: Two Girl Guides leaders were expelled after they opposed ``new rules which compel units to let transgender- identifying males share showers and other facilities with girls as young as 5.'' There are other references like: Allegedly transgender prisoner gets life after raping two women, sexually assaulting inmates in female jail. Another: Mother arrested in front of her children for calling a trans activist a man; said Kate Scottow was arrested for calling a trans activist a man online and a judge has banned her from referencing their former male identity. So there was a time when people could say hurtful things in America, but as we see with any declining society--not declining in goods and services, but declining in morality and as a society. We see it in L.A. The most so-called liberated and liberal leaders of cities in America seem to have more homelessness, more defecation on the streets, more pollution. Where are all the green activists, by the way? I mean, these people are polluting like crazy, and they are out there with signs picketing everywhere else, but for some reason they don't seem to be bothered by the destruction of an orderly society. You go back to some of the great city-states, one of their big problems was sewage. And if you have too much homelessness, you encourage it, bless it, then it can cause problems for any society. But that also brings us to our southern border, the continued expressions from this body about wanting to get rid of any enforcement of our border and refusing, in the $4.6 billion that was passed out of this House, not one dime for detention beds, not one dime to help the Border Patrol do their job to secure the border, not one dime to help build a wall barrier where we need it, when we basically, because of liberals who may mean well, but they basically turned over our southern border to drug cartels. Some of the most evil people in the world, these drug cartels, and we are not going to enforce our border. That message from the majority has gone out over and over again, and what it does, as the Border Patrol will tell you if you go down there as often as I have: Every time one of you guys in Congress talk about amnesty, legalization, not enforcing the border, any of those things, we get surges. And they will also tell you, and I have seen it for myself, the drug cartels control everybody, when and where they cross the border, and they will send groups. The Border Patrol know when they send a group in the middle of the night, they have to stand there and go through in- processing all these people, asking them their questions. And despite what some of our colleagues across the aisle have said, these are sympathetic border patrolmen. I have seen it over and over again. I have seen hundreds of very sympathetic border patrolmen, but they are at their wits end. An article here from Michaela Ross today talking about ``Sick, Exhausted Border Agents Stoke Exodus Fear in Migrant Surge,'' the migrants, the illegal aliens coming in. I have been castigated for referring to them as ``aliens,'' like they are from some other planet; and I had to remind my colleagues the very bill that they were supporting referred to them as aliens, and they were a little embarrassed because they didn't realize they referred to them as aliens. They thought it was just mean-spirited Republicans. It is kind of interesting when you see that kind of thing, but it is a tragedy, and it is a humanitarian crisis on our southern border. And it is no longer just a humanitarian crisis for those who are pouring over our border illegally. They are taking their toll on the border patrolmen. Some have suspected that: Gee, maybe that is a strategy of the Democratic Party. You keep talking about amnesty, about getting rid of border enforcement, which will encourage more and more people to come in. You keep claiming that people, no matter whether they came in illegally or legally, should be allowed to vote and keep encouraging people in. You refuse to give a dime for border enforcement. You refuse to give a dime for beds to house people who are pouring in illegally for what they need to be able to detain people that commit criminal acts in coming into the country. You continue to talk about doing away with any criminality to violating the law and more people come in. You devastate those officers who have taken an oath to defend our border and our Constitution, and they are already having recruiting problems. Why would somebody want to come work where you have got a major party of the two in the country that castigates you at every turn, says you can't or won't protect babies, children, you do not care, you are mean, you are evil, when you are out there doing everything you can, and you are being harassed, not being given what you need? And then we had this bill this week in Judiciary talking about it was going to add millions and millions and millions of dollars of requirements for the Border Patrol to have to follow, lest they be pursued with some kind of charge or allegation, and yet not give them a dime to do those jobs, knowing that the result will be more and more people flooding in, more and more humanitarian crisis. Then you blame the humanitarian crisis on those who are trying to secure our Nation. Then you get an allowance for all of those people who have poured in illegally, and many of them don't speak English. They don't know what is going on. They have never been educated on how you sustain a self- governing country. All I can figure, the assessment has to have been made, yes, it will have our country in chaos for a little while, and we will have to take away some freedoms because of all the chaos, but, as Democrats have said, that will end the Republican Party nationally, as the Democrats were able to do in California with 2 or 3 million pouring in and voting that had come in illegally after the amnesty in 1986. Actually, after 1986, when they were given amnesty, now it is legal for them to vote, and that changed California into a very Democratic State. And there is an assessment: We can do that for the Nation and eliminate the Republican Party as having any kind of viability. And then once we do that, even though it has taken quite a toll on the country, we will get control back again. We will rein in the chaos, and the Republicans will be gone and we will be a one-party country. Somebody must have made that kind of assessment to be pushing the kind of bills that they are. We cannot allow that chaos to occur and to build, because it wasn't just Ronald Reagan, but historians throughout time have noted, once you have a country that has had great freedom and it loses that freedom, it doesn't come back. Reagan said not in that generation, but I have trouble finding where it ever came back once a nation of freedom lost it. That is a real potential if we don't get things under control. I think God has blessed this country more than any country. I know Solomon's Israel was just an absolutely amazing place, but there is no place that has ever had our opportunities, our individual freedoms, our individual assets, never in the history of the world. There is nothing wrong with recognizing the greatness that America has been. It is only in recognizing America's greatness that you can determine we want to perpetuate that for future generations to have those opportunities, those freedoms, those assets. But we are in trouble, and there has got to be a change or our time as the greatest country in history will become a self-fulfilling prophesy of those who say: ``Ah, it was never that great.'' ``Nah, it is not a great country.'' ``No, I have always been embarrassed of America.'' That will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We will lose our greatness. We will lose our freedom. I said to three individuals from Australia who were here on Capitol Hill a couple years ago: Hey, I have had people up here say when we lose our freedom, I guess we can all come to Australia. Neither of them even laughed. One of them said: Do you not understand, if you lose your freedom in America, China will take over Australia before you could ever get there? America is a shining light on a hill. We give people hope. I have heard it and seen it from Africans with tears in their eyes--and, yes, they were Christians. Maybe you would be prejudiced against them. But they said: We need America strong if we are going to have any chance of security and freedom in our own country. Let's keep America strong. Let's support Israel. Let's support enforcing the law as it is, as it has been, and as we need it to prolong and perpetuate this incredible country. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this is such a disturbing time for those of us who have spent our adult lives trying to see that justice is done, laws are followed, and yet here we again come after Attorney General Bob Barr and another Cabinet official, Ross. The truth is, I didn't really know Bob Barr when he got nominated. I knew that he was friends with Bob Mueller. That caused me concern. But it appears we have an attorney general who is concerned about justice and he is concerned about stopping injustices. And yet, we still have people who are wanting to cause as much trouble for the President and stop his administration from getting as much accomplished for the American people as possible. It has got to stop at some point. It is like a game, we come here and we are going to hold him in contempt again. This is a double secret probation against Bob Barr. How many double, triple, quadruple secret probations are we going to do? This isn't going to amount to anything. If you take this to any Federal judge to try to enforce it, he or she will look at the procedure and go: This is ridiculous. You are not going to have me hold the attorney general in contempt for trying to follow the law, and you are wanting to interrupt his efforts to follow the law. That is not happening. So this is all about a show, when there is true injustice going on. Thank God that we have a President who wanted to see justice done. He knew he didn't collude. And now we have an attorney general who is trying to do the same thing. Madam Speaker, let's say no to this contempt. Let's get back to doing the job that the American people want us to do.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida, and I appreciate him yielding. This is something we ought to be talking about every day because it is a crisis. It makes a difference. It is helping destroy our country. And it is really tragic, though, and I would not superimpose any type of attack on personalities, however, I think what we really have is not evil intentions. I think it is just massive ignorance. Because we have heard over and over: Oh, if you want to secure the border, you want just U.S. citizens, then you are a racist. So that just reflects an ignorance.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, there is no question about that.

Mr. GOHMERT. No, it is. But American citizens are comprised of every race, of every nationality, all walks of life. It is one of our strengths, people coming from so many different walks of life, countries, races. Yet when we have applied the standard ``from out of many, one,'' then we have been our strongest, all different races, nationalities. But now, in order to tear down this country and the greatness in the way of opportunities and help around the world for other countries, not seeking some hegemony, not seeking imperialist motives, we want everyone to be better off. We want peace. We want good for everyone. But if you destroy our borders and people flood in who are not educated on what it takes to keep a self-governing country, you won't keep it. Eric Metaxas has a book out on this, but it goes back to what Benjamin Franklin said when he was asked at the end of the convention, ``What did you give us?'' And they wondered if it was another monarchy. ``A Republic, Madam, if you can keep it.'' The one thing we know: No country has lasted, either as a complete democracy like the Athenian city-state or whether it is a parliamentarian country--they don't last 200 years. We are 230 now. We are moving on. So, we are in a very desperate situation to try to keep this shining light on a hill that shines light for the world. So, it is important that we have borders. If we don't have borders, if we don't secure our borders, then we will come--as many have wanted. They wanted to see America fall from within. As Lincoln said, if death be our light, then we will die by suicide is basically what he was saying. We have got to secure our borders so that we can welcome people continuing at the rate faster--more people coming in than any other country in the history of the world. But I have had people in my district say, ``We went to the border. We went through these facilities. We have all this information. People are being kept in cages. It is horrible.'' Well, I go down a lot, have been down many times. And I started going down during the Obama administration. That is when the cages were built. They were built by the Obama administration. That is when overcrowding was started, during the Obama administration. But it is like there is an intent, as my friend from Florida was pointing out, for political purposes, that we want to try to make the Trump administration look bad, so we will take all the wrongdoing that occurred during the Obama years, the mistreatment of people that have come in illegally, and project that onto the Trump administration, and we will push to have even less enforcement on our borders. We will make these promises of, gee, we are working on all these kinds of things. Here is an article from The Hill: ``Democrats calling for decriminalization of illegal entry abandoning national sovereignty.'' They want to decriminalize--it is against the law, it is a crime to come into the country illegally. They are sending every message they possibly can. It is not a dog whistle. It is a big neon sign saying ``Come.'' Whether you are coming from Asia, Africa, South America, Central America, we don't care. Just come illegally, as many as you can. We will overwhelm these folks. We are going to be able to probably get a lot of people that are here illegally voting, and then will be the end of the Republican Party. And what they don't say--maybe they don't realize--is that it will also be the end of a self-governing nation as we knew it. Because the way this normally works out--and we are well beyond the maximum, basically, 200 years. When we lose our freedom, it won't come back. We are done. And there will be no place for people being mistreated around the world to come after that. It is interesting, though, when I have been down to the border, especially during the Obama years, the Obama administration personnel kept me out of some of those facilities. We had to really raise Cain and get in there. So, we have got people who are not part of the government, and they go waltzing into these facilities. That is ridiculous. Then we know that there were two pictures that were initially--they had to be withdrawn, but they were from 2014, about people in cages. I had seen that my friend, Mr. Yoho, had the pictures. Those are from the Obama administration. Mr. Speaker, let me just finish by pointing out, this truly is a threat to the existence of a self-governing country as we have known it. This is serious stuff. For those who have big hearts, those of us that want to help as many people as we can, destroying the fabric of a self-governing country will not allow better fabric to take its place. You will have another Venezuela. It always works out. People try to self-govern for so long, and then, eventually, untoward efforts bring about chaos. And, normally, the way chaos is dealt with is push for a monarchy, a totalitarian government, a Putin, a Chavez, a Hitler. There is some effort to get somebody in that can get all of this under control, and it is the end of a democratic republic. So, I am really pleased that my friend, Dr. Yoho--I tell friends, he is a guy, having been a veterinarian, that was best equipped to work in Congress because he has had so much experience dealing with the south end of a northbound horse. So I thank him for bringing about this Special Order, and I am looking forward to many more. We need to talk about this, this is a threat.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, our Border Patrol agents are exhausted. They have worked so many hours. We had a hearing today in Judiciary on a bill adding requirement after requirement, millions and millions of dollars. They didn't give them any money in the 4.6 to do the job of enforcing the border. Our Border Patrol agents need help. They are in big trouble.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it has been an interesting day. It is amazing we voted on a National Defense Authorization Act. That is normally a bipartisan action here in the House. It is normally quite a compromise. But this NDAA didn't end up being that way because it had so many different leftist dreams inserted into it that had nothing to do with the national defense. It is rather a shame. It is something that has to be worked on. We have got to be able to defend ourselves and properly pay those who are doing so, or trying to do so. It was a sad day that we did not pass that with the same bipartisanship that we have had in the past. I hope that changes for the future. There are only a few areas like that where we have had bipartisanship in the past, and I hope we can get back to it. One area where there hasn't been a lot of bipartisanship at all has occurred in the area of the great tragedy, crisis, emergency now, that is occurring on our southern border. It is amazing because we have heard for months that there was a manufactured crisis, it wasn't really a crisis on our southern border, that President Trump was just making it up, that Republicans were just making it up. There was no crisis there. Nothing to see. We can just keep moving along because there is no problem on the southern border. Well, there was a crisis. There wasn't a disaster occurring there. And by virtue of the fact that people in other countries saw that the majority of the House of Representatives was sending them messages about what they were doing and saying here, that there was not going to be any wall, there was not going to be the kind of border security that we should have, and, in fact, more and more people seem to be advocating that we have no border at all. The fact is that if a nation has no borders, it is no longer a nation. And yet, I know there are those here who think America is horrible, that it is this horrendous, imperialistic hegemony, always trying to take advantage of others. They refuse to face the fact there has never been a more generous nation than the United States. If we were imperialistic, they would not be speaking German in Germany, or French in France, or Japanese in Japan. This is not an imperialist nation. We are not out to colonize the world. And it is amazing how some who would accuse us of that, they are doing what has become so common here in Washington, and that is projecting. If somebody does something inappropriate, harmful, or hateful, then they accuse their opponents of doing exactly what they did. We will be getting into some of that type of projecting as we continue in our Judiciary Committee in the next couple of weeks, continuing to take up the Mueller report. They know now, there is no question, the Clinton campaign paid a foreign agent to gather information, from what he has since admitted, who probably worked for Putin--could have very well worked for Putin, that is--and gave false information that was used and was called a dossier--of course, giving dossiers a bad name--that was used to try to stop a Presidential candidate. And, at the same time, it was used by a newly weaponized Department of Justice, FBI, and intelligence community, in at least part of it, some at the very top, to try to win an election. We hadn't had that before. Now, we have known for some time now that J. Edgar Hoover was at the FBI so long that he began to use the FBI, not as a political weapon to win for one party or another, but just as his weapon to be able to get what he wanted from presidents, regardless of their party. I recall seeing the FBI interview, retired, talking about Hoover sending them to watch the apartment of a woman with whom President Kennedy was supposedly having an affair, and they watched it be burglarized. They didn't report it or didn't file charges. In fact, they wanted to find out what exactly was stolen during the burglary. They never reported it because their job was to gather information for the head of the FBI. The head of the FBI could then use it to prevent a president from doing anything the FBI director didn't want him to do, which, as I understand it, gave rise to the term limits for an FBI director. I think that was a very good thing. I thought it was a bad thing when President Obama extended Robert Mueller's 10-year term by 2 years. He was a fiasco. He was a disaster. He ran off thousands and thousands of years of experience. And I can't help but think that if Mueller had not instituted a policy, personnel policy, that ran off thousands and thousands of years of experience, some of his best people around the country and the world, that there would not have been the atmosphere that existed with McCabe as acting FBI director. People like Strzok in charge of counterintelligence, Lisa Page, people who used the FBI as just a political tool, a weaponized political tool, and people in the DOJ who we are finding out more about all the time, whether it is Loretta Lynch and, before that, Eric Holder. But if Mueller had not run off so many of our best long-serving FBI agents, I still continue to believe there would have been people around when Strzok, McCabe, and others were trying to use the FBI as a political weapon. There would have been longer-serving people who would have said: You can't do this. This is not what the FBI is about. But Mueller wanted nothing but yes people around him: people who would salute him, figuratively speaking, and the flag and do exactly what he said without reservations. So he got much younger agents in charge all around the country and the world, people that would not be able to say: Sir, I know that seems like a good idea, but I was here 20 years ago when we tried that, and it was a disaster. I would recommend looking back at the failure before, before you push us into this new type of activity. And, of course, he wouldn't listen to anybody when he wasted millions of dollars on computer and software programs. But that, to me, was not near the biggest problem as the damage he had done with the FBI. He came out with a report that is just abysmal. I mean, when I was an assistant district attorney, fresh out of law school, and I was asked to put something together about this case or that case, what I put together was a lot better than anything Mueller put together. That was a political document. And I know I have some Republican friends, media friends, who think the new Horowitz IG report is going to be just breathtaking. But the trouble is, he already had one report. As I told him in our hearing, he spent about 500 pages documenting the most outrageous and unbelievable bias and prejudice against a candidate, Donald Trump, and in favor of a candidate, Hillary Clinton. He documents just outrageous, blatant bigotry against a party, a candidate. And, as I told him at the hearing: I think you realize, as you gathered all of that devastating evidence of outrageous prejudice in the FBI and the DOJ, and you realize, whoops, Democrats got me here. This is not going the way my friends would want it to go, so perhaps I better throw them a bone, which he didn't just throw them a bone, he threw them the whole rib-eye and said: Even though we got 500 pages documented of the most ridiculous, outrageous prejudice and bias, and even though every investigation ended up with a conclusion that was totally consistent with all the bigotry and bias and prejudice, I find that there was no relationship between the outrageous prejudice and the conclusion to the cases coming out exactly consistent with the bias. It was ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. So he showed us that he was not capable of giving us a proper conclusion in the first Horowitz inspector general report. So I would just encourage people, don't get your hopes up that he is going to man up and do the right thing, or woman up, whichever you prefer, in the next Horowitz IG report. I hope he does. I pray he does do the right thing. But that remains to be seen. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I met Ross Perot while I was a student at Texas A&M. He was very much involved in activities at the Memorial Student Center, and he came more than once. I owed the Army 4 years for the scholarship I was using at the time, and I got to meet this guy that had gone to the Naval Academy, served his country, and loved this country. Nobody could rival the love he had for the United States of America. He was willing to lay down his life, if called upon to do it, for his country. But then, again, Ross Perot was willing to give everything he had for anything that he felt should be done. Having grown up in the town of Mount Pleasant just down the road from Texarkana and New Boston, I heard about him for years before I met him in college. He was a legend even then, even though EDS had not grown to nearly the heights that it would under his leadership. But everything that he was involved in, whether it was charitable, whether it was business, he demanded truth. He demanded the best that anyone could give, and hearing from so many people who worked for him, he rewarded truth, he rewarded hard work, and he has a lot to show for it. They say, we are told in scripture that where your heart is, there your treasure will be. It is really uplifting to see a man who has been able to store up treasure without a dollar value, and, yet, has done so well in business. His son, Ross Jr., has been a friend, has been helpful, and I know we all grieve for the family. But as a family of believers, I know that we will all get to see him some day. The question to me is: In heaven, will we all have the same accent? It would be a shame to lose his. I hope we still get to hear that same sound. But some were--and I was one of them in 1992--wondering about him running for President. But you ultimately realize, this man has never changed. Truth means everything to him. Not harming the country that he loved, and he served was uppermost in his mind. It never went away. That is why he did so much for soldiers, sailors, marines, and the Coast Guard. He would do anything for those serving our country, including invest massive amounts to try to free POWs. He was an extraordinary man, and if he saw somebod was not being as truthful as he thought they should be, then he was going to get involved. He was a man that will be sorely missed, but what a legacy, what a history, and what a love for God and this country that we miss already.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, I know my friend from Maryland to be a very smart person. But I also know, I was around when--and I had a 4-year Army commitment--when we went from draft to having all-volunteer. And I said back at the time, well, this means we are going to have to spend a lot of money recruiting, encouraging people, advertising to get people to join the military. In recent years, there has been so much anti-American sentiment, and polls are showing that it has been rising, that that does have an effect on recruiting. I was out there, it was a fantastic--it rained. That brought the temperature down, but it was fantastic. And I have already heard about two young people who said, I saw that on television. I was thinking about the military. I am now not thinking about it; I am joining. Now, just so you know--let's see, we spend, between the Army Active Duty and the Army Reserve, Army National Guard, Air Force Active Duty, Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, Navy Active Duty, Navy Reserve, Marine Corps Active Duty and Marine Corps Reserve, actually $662 million in 2015, but only $574 million in 2017. So it had been down from where it was in 2015. But this costs the military, it is projected around $1.2 million. I cannot imagine a more effective use of that money for showing people what they can be a part of if they join in the defense of this country. And, heck, when I was in the Army for 4 years, we had displays, Congressmen, Senators, they would show up, and we would have a parade for them. It seems kind of ridiculous to say we hate this President so badly, any Member of Congress, any Senator, you can go have a parade for you, but not the President. The President can't call up and say I am coming down; how about a parade; because under the language the gentleman has read, he can't ask for anything like that. He is the Commander in Chief of all of the military; and even in Washington's day, it was a good thing for the President to have a parade, to encourage people to build up American, pro-American sentiment. So it is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. This was money well- spent. I can't imagine a better use of military funding. And the Park Services Director said, it was a boon for them. So it was a good use, and I would encourage a ``no'' vote on the amendment.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, so we just took up the humanitarian crisis that is going on at our border and passed the Senate bill, so there will be a tremendous amount of money that will be going to provide more beds, shelter, food, transportation, whatever is needed. The one thing that the Senate bill is especially void of is money to secure our border. It is something to say that, with all of the problems in the Senate bill, the things that were not addressed in the Senate bill, the fact that it was so much better than the House bill says an awful lot about the House bill and its shortcomings. We have, still, and will after this bill is signed into law and money is put into use, a crisis on our southern border. As was pointed out to me after some of us visited Normandy with the Speaker on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, on D-Day, we had 150,000 or so Allied troops that invaded Normandy, over 150,000, a tremendous number, landing craft, parachuting. Yet just in the month of May, that is about how many invaded our southern border--that we caught. We don't know how many didn't get caught. Some think that for every one we actually catch and in-process, there is one that gets away. We don't know. We know that there are a great number of people who are not caught because they are picked up on cameras and with other information that is gleaned on the border. But it will continue to be a problem after this money is spent, and there is some concern--it is legitimate--that when you have what the civil litigation would indicate is an attractive nuisance--that is the terminology in a lawsuit--and you don't put up a fence, a wall, something to impede people from coming into property illegally, then, if they hurt themselves--and the example most people think of is a swimming pool or a pool or a pond. If you have that water on your property, and you don't bother to put up a fence or a wall, and someone comes onto your property and drowns, you are going to end up paying a tremendous amount of money, normally, to the family of whoever drowned coming onto your property when it was not properly secured with a fence or a wall. That is not to say it has to be electrified or some kind of really intense structure. But you need to have something that would impede somebody from coming in and drowning in your water. Now, the moment of silence earlier, most of us were deeply moved by the picture, horrendously tragic, of a child, who seemed to be so close, even sharing the father's shirt, with her little arm around his neck. Having had girls growing up, that is an emotional picture for some of us especially. But we have what most would say is the highest-evolved justice system, judicial system, litigation system in history. It has come through thousands of years of different types of laws, be them looking up at the bust of Hammurabi, the Code of Hammurabi, the Justinian Code. We have a Napoleonic Code. We have had thousands of years of laws, and the civil litigation in this country is perhaps at the most perfected--a long way from being perfect, but as perfected as it has ever been anywhere. That is where this concept of attractive nuisance has evolved and arisen from. There is a responsibility when you know there is something so attractive that people will be tempted to break the law and enter that property illegally, potentially, to their own detriment. What are you supposed to do if you are a caring individual in charge of property? You put up a fence or wall, just like our former President Obama did. I understand he built a 10-foot wall around his home. That is a good, responsible thing to do. It was good enough for the President when he was in the White House to raise the height of the fence and wall around the White House, and it is good enough for the former President as he built a wall around his private residence. It is a good, responsible thing to do by a responsible person in charge of property, not only to provide privacy, but also to keep people from being lured to their own detriment. It is high time we address that on our southern border. There are very few people in this body, on either side of the aisle, who have not at some point said that we need to secure our border, that we can't keep having people pour into this country illegally. But something strange has happened as our friends have taken over the majority and Republicans have moved into the minority. Some people have realized: Wait a minute. If these people keep flooding into our country from other countries illegally, and they see us as the party that keeps the border porous and open for them to keep pouring in, they will surely reward us with their votes, so we will be able to develop a permanent majority. The only trouble with that is that when that happens, we are destroying the goose that had been laying golden eggs of opportunity, freedom, incredible liberty like the world had never seen before, the United States of America and our Constitution, followed with the Bill of Rights. Yes, it has taken a while to get them continuing to evolve toward greater perfection. But we have to do something, because if we don't, if we continue to have people pouring into the United States--when you look at the example of Normandy with 150,000 or so, we had that many illegally invading America in 1 month. We have to do something because the people pouring in have not been educated on the responsibilities of maintaining self-government. They will end up forcing this country--not intentionally but because they do not understand the responsibility involved in continuing this little experiment in self-government that has lasted 230 years. They will unintentionally give way to either communism or progressivism, if you prefer that these days, or a pure dictatorship. It is very disconcerting that, in this country, there is more and more rising emotion between different political thought. Look at the difference between the American Revolution, the 8 years that it took to win our independence, 1775 to 1783, and toward the end of the year when the Treaty of Paris was signed. It started, ``In the Name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity.'' The British signed that. They thought that would be an oath that they would have to take so seriously in England that they would not breach that oath taken in the name of the ``Most Holy and Undivided Trinity.'' Historians know, normally, a government doesn't last more than 200 years, and they are lucky if they last 200 years. We have gone 230. People look at the 10 years of the French Revolution, from about 1789, when our Constitution was ratified and when the Bastille was stormed, to 1799. What was the result of the French Revolution? It was an Emperor named Napoleon. Some historians say that they think the big difference between the U.S. Revolution resulting in liberty and the French Revolution resulting in hundreds of thousands of heads being cut off was our Revolution was about liberty. The Founding Fathers were not out there to cut off heads. They were out there to grab and preserve liberty, whereas in the French Revolution, there was so much sentiment of getting revenge that it ended up culminating in an Emperor named Napoleon. We now seem to have so much animus and so much anger. There is some, from time to time, in this body. But some of the most vocal people pushing for impeachment, like my friend Al Green, he, literally, is a friend. He is a Christian brother. I disagree with him strongly on the need for impeachment, but I like the guy. He is my brother. I know he would not be saying what he does unless he really believes it. I would never wish harm on somebody that I cared about like that. We can disagree without being mean. Yet, too often now, that is being lost. We have to preserve this place. We are about to recognize our anniversary, the Fourth of July, when the Declaration of Independence was made public. This needs to be a time of serious reflection. It ought to include John Adams' encouragement to celebrate, have parades, enjoy families, enjoy the country. Of course, he says the firing of guns. We try not to do that. Instead, they use fireworks. He knew there ought to be a celebration to remind us of the sacrifice, what was gained through that great sacrifice, and the responsibility that ensued, along with the liberty. We should also remember the way they got to the Constitution was when Randolph, from Virginia, proposed that, after 5 weeks of yelling and fussing, that even though they didn't have money to hire a chaplain, why don't they take a few days off and gather together, on our Nation's Independence Day, at a local church there in Philadelphia. They ended up settling on the Reformed Calvinist Church, with the Right Reverend William Rogers presiding, and they worshipped God together. They were led in prayer by Reverend Rogers. They came back after that and gave us the most extraordinary founding document in the history of the world that we still use 232 years later. It was a time of reflection. Unless we secure our border though, we will not be a shining light on a hill. We will be a transit station for people around the world to pass through, hoping for something great but, instead, only seeing a once-great country whose experiment in self-government was destroyed by too many people coming in too quickly, who did not know, as they hadn't been educated, how to go about preserving self-government. My hope and prayer for this Independence Day is that we will return to an appreciation for the God from whom all blessings, all good things, flow. If we do that, we can preserve this place for generations to come. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I have comments about my giving remarks at the end of the week, so it might be worth setting a little history of these Special Order remarks. In 2005 and 2006, my first term, I was not prone to give any remarks in Special Orders, but I observed during those 2 years that one of my classmates that came in January 2005, like I did, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and some other Democrats arranged each night, often taking both hours of Special Orders that their party was afforded. I was told by Republicans who had been here for a long time, ``You know, nobody is paying any attention to what they are saying. They are making themselves look bad. They make us look good by what they say.'' There were times I would say, ``But are you paying attention to what they are saying?'' You could see on C-SPAN sometimes when the sound was off, it would be scrolling, and I would say, ``Look what they are saying. They are blaming us for all kinds of things. We need to respond. This isn't accurate.'' And I was told, ``Look, you know, don't worry about it. It doesn't make any difference.'' And over the course of 2 years, I saw that a group that called themselves the 30 Somethings--everyone that was probably in their sixties or seventies, but otherwise in their thirties--that they did affect national opinion. I mean, you could see over that many nights, they made a difference. After that, I endeavored to try to address some of the critical issues when I had the chance, if other Members of my party were not taking those opportunities. So on fly-out days, when so many are rushing and have to get to the airport by a certain time, they don't have time to come down here and address some of our critical issues, then I volunteer. I will stay an extra hour or two before catching a plane back to Texas in order to address some of these important things. And it is a great opportunity. I used to do more than one Special Order a week many times, but my Democrat friend, and I mean that sincerely, John Garamendi, had referred to a new Democrat rule that was put in place this year that no one could take more than one Special Order during the week, my friend, John, referred to that as the Louie Gohmert rule. The good thing about that was that it enabled me not to just continue as I had been year after year encouraging other Republicans to take a Special Order and address some of these important national issues, then I was able this year to tell them, ``Look, I can only do one a week, so you guys have got to start signing up for Special Orders and taking the time, addressing areas that you know well that we need to communicate about.'' So I have been very pleased with how many of my colleagues have signed up for Special Orders and addressed critical issues, helped educate on the matters before us, because you don't always get straight and accurate news even by some of the so-called fact-checkers. Often fact-checkers, as they call themselves, need fact-checking, because many times they are not accurate either. So this is a great opportunity that we have in a legislative body to address issues so that information does get out to the public, unless they are reading the remarks in some article that has had the facts and statements twisted and edited to change the meaning. Otherwise, they can judge for themselves exactly what has been said and what is accurate and what isn't. I heard our Majority Leader Hoyer and our Minority Whip Scalise and their dialogue back and forth bringing up the critical issue of our border and the humanitarian crisis going on there. In their discussion, they did not get into what is causing--well, I guess they referred to it. People are trying to get away from terrible circumstances. Well, those circumstances in different places in the world have gone on for centuries. We have never had the kind of mass effort at entrance that we have seen in recent months. So, things haven't gotten worse in the world. Why the huge surge at our border this year? And the border patrolmen with whom I communicate, the people who are dealing with those coming in illegally, coming through places that are not legal ports of entry, the border patrolmen get information from immigrants exactly why they are coming. Sometimes immigrants are given pieces of paper--the immigrants coming in illegally--with addresses, names, and these are either approved or given by the drug cartels. Nobody comes into the United States across our southern border without permission of the drug cartels. The drug cartels are not interested in preventing humanitarian crises. Drug cartels are interested in helping create humanitarian crises. And since I have been there all hours of the night, which used to be the prime time for people coming across illegally--now they are just coming all the time--I got to see this so many times firsthand. I have even seen, numerous times, people that had their little piece of paper. It was supposed to be the address that they gave the Border Patrol and, later, ICE: Yes, this is the address where I have somebody waiting for me, somebody who knows me, a family member. Often that information was provided by the drug cartels: This is where you will go. This actually fit together to help answer mysteries of who is telling them where to go. But the immigrants would be asked by Border Patrol, and it wasn't on the list of questions they are required to ask: How much did you pay the gang or the drug cartels that are responsible for bringing you in? Because sometimes the drug cartels have gang members who will act as coyotes and bring people in illegally. And the answer is, normally, $6,000, $7,000, $8,000. And the question follow-up: Where did you get that kind of money? You don't have that kind of money. Well, we have got $1,000 or $1,500 here, and then people in the U.S. send us some money. Well, what about the rest of it? And the disturbing comment was, normally: They are going to let me work that off when I get where I am going. Well, these are drug cartels, and obviously the work they were going to be doing would be either drug trafficking or sex trafficking, both doing severe damage to our country. Yet we have not been able to reach passage of a bill, bipartisan or otherwise, that would actually help totally secure our border so we can control who comes in and ensure that they are not people who are wanting to do damage to the country. Now, some just want to come in the country, and they don't realize, by coming in, they will do damage, that they have not been educated on how you keep, how you retain a representative form of government and how with the liberties and freedoms come great responsibilities. The responsibilities portion has also been neglected in so many schools. It is all about rights without getting into responsibilities. But I will continue to bring up Ben Franklin's answer to the woman after the Constitutional Convention: Sir, what have you given us? A republic, madam, if you can keep it. Eric Metaxas has a book on this that I read recently. It is very difficult to keep a self-governing system going. Historically, any attempt at some type of self-government has not lasted normally more than 200 years. We are beyond that. The Constitution was ratified and first elected a Congress, President, and Vice President under the Constitution of 1787 that finished being ratified in 1789. So we are 230 years beyond that founding document being ratified. So we are beyond the number of years that a self-government has been able to last in the past, normally. The fact is there haven't been normal self-governments, and that is why, in Ben Franklin's speech at the Constitutional Convention, although kids are taught today in school that he was a deist, if Franklin is even mentioned at all--a deist believing there is maybe some force, some thing, some whatever out there that created things, and if such force or person or being or deity existed and still exists, it never interferes with nature or the things that were set in motion originally. That is, in essence, a shorthand rendition of a deist. But Franklin himself, we know what he said, because he wrote it down when people asked for a copy. He said: I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth. God governs in the affairs of man. This means he wasn't a deist. But he says: If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it possible an empire could rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writing, that unless the Lord builds this House, they labor in vain to build it. He said: I firmly believe this. I also firmly believe without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in our political building no better than the builders of Babel. We will be confounded by our partial local interests, and we, ourselves, shall become a bower down through the ages. Because Franklin knew. He studied history along with science and other things, but he knew from history this is not something that had been effectively done the way they were wanting to do it. Sure, the Romans had had a Senate. The Greeks had made an effort at democracy that worked for a short time--not well, but worked for a short time. The British, from whom we separated, they had a Parliament, but they also had a king. This was going to be a new thing. And the ``Novus ordo seclorum'' that is under the pyramid on the two-sided Great Seal that was adopted over 200 years ago, ``Novus ordo seclorum,'' Latin, meaning, ``new order of things,'' ``new order of the ages.'' Some have tried to say: A-ha, new world order. But if you look at the Founders' own remarks, they make it clear that they knew nobody had really gotten this self-government thing right. But if they could do it right--and as Franklin said, it wasn't going to happen right without the Lord's concurring aid. But if they could get it right, this would be a new order of things. This would be what people around the world, for the rest of history, would probably try to emulate, if not outright imitate. But if they didn't get it right, since they had the opportunity and failed, as Franklin said, they would become a bower down through the ages. They would be ridiculed. They had the chance to do self- government right, and they blew it. But even though they got this thing incredibly right, the founding document and the agreed upon 10 Amendments, the Bill of Rights, obviously it has taken a couple hundred years to get the Constitution to apply and mean what it says. It took a Civil War. It took a civil rights movement. But here we are today, and we have not continued to educate people on what Franklin knew would require education in order to keep the Republic. Oh, sure, we have got more schools now than ever, but because of the heavy-handedness of the Federal Government Department of Education, even though that education is something that is not an enumerated power in the Constitution and, therefore, under the Tenth Amendment was reserved for rights only of the States and the local government, the Federal Government got involved and, as a result, not many students are being taught the complete history that they should know and they need to know in order to sustain this little experiment in self-government. So when people come in and they have not been educated at all on what it takes to keep a self-governing system, they are just told in their own language about all of the free things they can get, they are not told about the important responsibilities that come with those free things and opportunities, that keeps up for so long, and there is no bright light on a hill that draws people from around the world. Then, as some West Africans told me, when America gets weak, we suffer. And we are seeing that around the world. Iranians are suffering tremendously under a heavy-handed, even criminal, terrorist regime in Iran that came into place because we had a President who didn't understand radical Islam, did not understand that when he turned his back on the Shah, who was not a great guy--he apparently did not treat his people as well as they should have been-- nonetheless, things certainly got worse. When the Ayatollah was welcomed into power by President Carter as a man of peace, well, the world soon found that Iran, now that radical Islamists who wanted a new caliphate for the world to subjugate Christians and every other religious group under their mean-spirited, actually, dictatorship as a religious dictatorship, the people of Iran suffered. The world has suffered from the failure during the Carter administration to understand the dangers that were lurking there. Well, those dangers are no longer lurking there. They are being spread around the world. I was amazed to hear people on television say, well, they couldn't really say if Iran had caused the death of any Americans. Certainly they have. Not long after the Ayatollah Khomeini took over in Iran, our Embassy was attacked and over 50 individuals were taken hostage. But they have continued to support terrorism, unabated, over all these years since 1979. They are responsible for the deaths and the explosions at the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. And the message that was sent by the Democratic majority in the House and Senate was to force the complete withdrawal of troops in the area. So that was a great encouragement to the Ayatollah and to the radical Islamists that want to destroy self-government. They think that they need a dictator who is really a religious bigot in control of things to dictate to people what they can or can't do, and that is such a foreign concept after 230 years here under our Constitution. But anybody who studies history, who is up on his history, knows there is a lot better chance that a dictatorship will eventually prevail, whether it is a religious extremist like you have ruling in Iran or it is just a dictator like you have had in the Soviet Union. So having been in the Soviet Union for a summer as an exchange student between my sophomore and junior year of college, I saw the way people suffered. I saw the way the government spied on its people; I saw the mean-spirited things the government did to people that weren't being manipulated the way they wanted them to be; I saw suppression of free thought and free exchange of ideas; and I came home literally thanking God that we didn't have that kind of suppressive government. But in the intervening years, we have seen a government get so powerful that it can spy on its own people, and we saw with what was released by WikiLeaks, the FISA application, the underlying affidavit, and the order that--holy cow, the FISA judge just basically ignored the Fourth Amendment, the protections against unwarranted searches and seizures. The application, my interpretation, was basically it said: We just need all of the information Verizon has on every customer they have and an underlying affidavit saying, basically, yeah, we just need every bit of information Verizon has on every customer. And then the judge--even though a Federal, Senate-confirmed judge, it is a secret court--he just signs off on it: Oh, you want every bit of information Verizon has on every single customer? Sure, yeah. Why don't you provide that? Here, here is an order to provide it. That scared me because it actually confirmed what some of us had feared back when the Patriot Act was being reauthorized in my first term: Wait a minute. This is giving the Federal Government power that could go too far. There is language that is too loosely written that could allow the government to spy on people without proper authority. We have got to revisit those issues. And that has been further brought to a head with what we are learning about the abuses of the FISA court when one administration wanted to spy on a campaign and then spy on--and, hopefully, eliminate--the selection of a majority of the electoral college. The electoral college itself underwent some evolution back in the early days, because, originally, it was a brilliant idea. It was a way of ensuring that both heavily populated States and lesser-populated States would all be relevant in a national election for our President and Vice President. Unfortunately, in the beginning, the second highest vote getter became the Vice President, and that became apparent as a failure and a bad idea under the Presidency of John Adams, when Jefferson, his dear friend, became Vice President with the second highest number of votes. By the end of the fourth year, as McCullough points out in his book on John Adams, Jefferson even hired a notorious newspaperman to make up some lies about Adams to help him defeat him, which he did, which probably explains why Adams is the only President who didn't stick around for the inauguration of his successor. But that got changed to a constitutional amendment, and so we have the electoral process. If you do away with the electoral college, then it would mean most every State that is not a heavily populated State will never see a candidate running for President, because it would be a waste. They will want to spend their time in the heavy population centers and mainly disregard what some people refer to as flyover States, which many of us feel are the real guts and the heart of the country. So it is an important thing to have, but people are not getting education on these things these days, and why things were created the way in which they were, what succeeded, what failed. When I do tours around the Capitol, sometimes they go a lot longer than I think they should, but I am ready to stop any time the people are, but they still have questions. We find so many people haven't gotten the education. I hear so often: I never really liked history in school. Well, that doesn't tell me anything about them. It tells me a lot about their history teachers, that they had history teachers who didn't understand the importance of history, so they had true/false, multiple choice, or fill-in-the-bank questions rather than emphasizing that the real importance in history is the stories, what went right, what went wrong. Yes, it helps to have them in chronological order, but the more important aspect is what worked and what didn't. And that is not what so many American students are getting anymore. And certainly those who are rushing into America illegally, they certainly haven't gotten that. They know America is supposed to be a better place, but they don't know why. They don't know that they are jeopardizing that country's ability to continue as an attractive place for people to want to go, the most attractive place for immigrants to want to come in the entire world. So we have got more education to do. And I am hoping that our colleagues here in this body will begin to understand that, when we take up legislation that will ultimately legalize illegal activity-- like coming into the country illegally or giving benefits for coming in illegally--it becomes a lure for more and more people to come illegally, which means it is going to make more money for the drug cartels. It is going to have more young women raped. We are told that is occurring. About one in four girls coming to the United States through Mexico will end up being sexually assaulted, little boys at a lesser rate. I think I read 17 percent, something like that--just human tragedy. It happens when well-meaning individuals in Congress think: Let's help those less fortunate by luring them to our country, not understanding that there is a tremendous amount of human suffering that goes on, in addition to undermining the very foundation of what was the freest country in the world. So everybody is now indicating that America is not the freest country in the world. We continue to add laws that keep taking more and more of our freedoms away. But I heard the majority leader ruing that we haven't had comprehensive immigration reform. Well, in my time in Congress, what I have come to understand is, when you hear the term ``comprehensive immigration reform,'' it normally means we want a bill that is so big and so massive that people who will vote on it won't have a chance to read it all and will be able to stick things in there that a majority would never agree to if they knew they were there. That is what I have come to see ``comprehensive'' meaning when it comes to legislation. We are better off if we take subjects up individually, let people have a chance to read and know what is there, let them have a chance to analyze the language. Is this something likely to be struck down? If we don't have that opportunity, we pass legislation that is not what we want as a majority. And as a majority--obviously, I am a Republican. We are in the minority. But I am talking about a majority of this body. So we have these ongoing offers, which is what it is every time we pass a piece of legislation, even if it doesn't become law. That word is used by the drug cartels to encourage more people to pay them, to bring them in. That means they are going to have more employees-- really, more like indentured servants--in the drug trade, in the human trafficking, sex trafficking trade, and people suffer as a result of well-intentioned but poorly thought-out legislation. We have got to do a better job on that. Unfortunately, in the last term of Congress when Republicans had a majority in the House and the Senate, had a Republican President, we had leadership in both Houses that was not interested in securing our border or we could have passed a bill to do that. We could have passed a bill and gotten it into law. But there are monied interests out there that contribute heavily and encourage people not to secure the border. Of course, I said before from this lectern, if you hear somebody who is elected in Mexico say, ``We don't want the border secure; we don't want a wall anywhere on our border with the United States: Then you know that is someone who is getting money from the drug cartels. You can take that to the bank. But you also heard well-intentioned but uneducated or miseducated individuals talk about what is happening on our border and even refer to the efforts to care for those who have come in illegally as concentration camps. If that were so, it would be the first time in human history that people have flocked by the hundreds of thousands to voluntarily go into concentration camps, because that has never happened in the history of the world. The Jews, during the 1930s and 1940s did not go flocking by their own choice into concentration camps that resulted in over 6 million deaths. They were forced into those. The people who are coming voluntarily and illegally across our border, they are putting themselves at risk of sexual exploitation but also even for their very lives, because we constantly get reports about people dying trying to get in or getting in illegally and then being left by coyotes out somewhere to die. We constantly, if you pay attention, get reports of our Border Patrol saving the lives--ICE agents--saving the lives of people who have come in illegally but have been abandoned by the drug cartels' coyotes. So it is also interesting when you think about the facilities on our borders. The concentration camps of World War II did not have Germany appropriating billions of dollars or their equivalent for them to have a more comfortable existence. That didn't happen. That is why, clearly, they are not concentration camps, as people continue to flock there by the hundreds of thousands knowing what they are going into. But as they continue to hear that we are passing laws that will eventually allow them to be legalized if they come illegally, we are going to have the numbers that we are seeing there at this time. In the past, we have been told that they feel like they are catching most of the people coming across. But if my colleagues spend a lot of time on the border as I have, the Border Patrol will say that what scares them is that they don't know what they don't know about the people coming in. They do know that every time a big group comes across our border illegally and makes themselves available to be picked up and detained, that the drug cartels know. We have to put all of our people on duty trying to in-process these folks, and that is when the drug cartels know they can bring in big shipments of drugs, bring in people who otherwise may be a threat to our country. We continue to hear from Federal officials about people coming. We just had a report in the last couple of weeks about the ISIS member who admitted that they are continuing to get radical Islamists who want to destroy our country into our country through our southern border by paying the drug cartels to bring them in with other people. That is all going on. Then comes this article yesterday from The Washington Times, Stephen Dinan, that says, ``The Border Patrol has documented more than 100,000 immigrants who they know managed to illegally sneak past them and get into the interior of the country, the agency's Chief told Congress on Thursday, saying it's the most in 5 years.'' Just for reference here, we do have balloons that can be floated up that have infrared or thermal technology, night vision. We have people on the border with night vision, thermal technology, so they can see the outline of individuals who get in, even when they are not caught. But going back to the article: ``Known as `got aways,' the migrants are ones who agents detect but know they didn't manage to stop from crossing the border.'' I need to insert here that our Border Patrol for a number of administrations has not been allowed to prevent people from coming into our country. We need to fix the law so they can prevent people from coming into the country using reasonable means. I know when the Texas Department of Public Safety has their boats out on the Rio Grande where people are crossing, they don't cross because Texas DPS doesn't allow people to cross into Texas illegally if they can stop them. The Border Patrol, on the other hand, has their hands tied. They have to allow them to come in illegally and then try to in-process them. This article goes on. It says: `` `This high level of ``got aways'' is a direct result of agents being reassigned away from the front line to provide humanitarian support to the unprecedented numbers of individuals and families in custody,' Chief Carla Provost told the House Homeland Security Committee. ``The panel was meeting to hear how President Trump's orders to send National Guard and Active Duty troops to the border is playing out. Chief Provost said they've been a major boost, suggesting the got-away numbers might have been worse without the troops there to fill gaps left when her agents get pulled away to do babysitting duties for the families and unaccompanied children.'' I have gotten pictures from our border of our actual Border Patrol pushing baby carriages, literally babysitting because these folks have been lured in by what we are doing here, what we are talking about here. Chief Provost goes on to say, `` `That support as my agents are being pulled away to deal with the humanitarian crisis is key to us having situational awareness on the border,' she said.'' The article says, further down: ``In one example last month, National Guard troops in Texas spotted a group of migrants rafting across the Rio Grande and reported it to Border Patrol agents. Agents, with the help of local police, corralled the group, whose members had paid up to $10,000 to be smuggled into the U.S.'' It says they corralled them, but what I didn't get until I started spending a lot of time on the border is that that doesn't mean they stopped them. It means they in-processed them into the United States. Anyway, this article makes clear it is not even just the people who are coming in at a record pace this year. But just in 1 month, they think there may have been 100,000 people who came in that were not in- processed. They just came into the United States. Who knows if they want to do evil or good, but they certainly wanted to engage in illegal activity. Another article here from Adam Shaw, ``Illegal Immigrants from 52 Countries Crossed the U.S.-Mexico Border this Year.'' That is just so far. We are in June. ``The U.S. Border Patrol Chief testified Thursday that migrants from 52 countries have illegally crossed the border this year as she described an agency `overwhelmed on a daily basis' by the escalating crisis.'' She said, `` `While smugglers primarily target the Northern Triangle, family units from 52 countries have illegally crossed the southern border so far this year.' '' Further down, it says: ``A Senate panel on Wednesday approved a $4.6 billion request for funding to tackle the humanitarian crisis at the border, but only after including a condition that none of the money be used for a border wall.'' As I understand our majority leader's discussion today, they are talking about emergency funding to deal with the humanitarian crisis, but actually, the way it is being talked about, it will contribute to the crisis because it will encourage more people who we are spending a new $4.5 or $4.6 billion on, to provide food and comfortable shelter for people who come in illegally. That language is being drafted to ensure not only that it not be spent on the wall, but that it is not going to be spent at all on preventing people from coming in illegally. It is just going to be spent on the more and more volumes that are coming in illegally, which will, in this cyclical, worthless effort, encourage more to come in. We will have to appropriate billions and billions more for a bigger humanitarian crisis, and that will encourage more. At some point, we have to take seriously, and I know there are a lot of people who don't like Biblical references--not very many, but some-- but the fact is that it is the most quoted book in the history of our country. It was the most quoted book during the Constitutional Convention, and it continues to be the most quoted book in Congress. If my colleagues look back in the Old Testament references, in Psalms, Proverbs, and other places, the best that we can hope and pray for is justice where the rich are treated like everybody else. They don't get any special consideration. And the poor are treated like everybody else and not given any special consideration. Everyone is treated fairly and equally under the law. Yet, what we are seeing in this effort is that we are going to treat people who are trying to come into this country legally, we are going to penalize them. We are going to make them take 7 to 10 years, as some have, that we have tried to help family members with before. But if they will just come illegally, we are going to treat them specially. We are going to ship them to a place the drug cartels want them to be to work as their employees or indentured servants. We are going to treat them specially. We are going to give them all kinds of things that people who are still waiting in foreign countries to get approval to come legally are not getting and will not get because they are trying to do things the legal way, while others are flooding the zone illegally. That is not a good scenario for a country to continue to keep a self- governing system. Of course, we have billionaires that have donated large amounts of money to try to push us into being a socialist system. Of course, Marx didn't foresee the growth of a middle class the way we have had it here in the United States. I continue to think that is the real strength of our country, the huge middle class. It shrank during the Obama administration when, for the first time in our history, 95 percent of the new income one year went to the top 1 percent income earners. The middle class shrunk. The poorest got poorer; the rich got richer; and the middle class shrunk. That could end up leading to a communist revolution once we get to having that small ruling class and then the much larger poor class. Unfortunately, for the billionaires that contribute to help take us to a socialist system, they haven't been educated in history adequately to understand that if we go to a socialist system, normally, the billionaires' money is taken. They are put in prison or killed, and they don't end up being part of the elite ruling class as they had been so hopeful of. We do have a crisis on our southern border, but it needs to be while we deal in a humane way with people who are here, that we also secure our border because otherwise, we are not a nation. If we don't have a border that is enforceable, we are not a nation. We are just a transient area. And if there is wealth in the area, it will not continue on for many more decades. We had a hearing this week, changing gears, on the issue of reparations. It has been amazing how miseducated people have been on slavery, who supported it, who was against it; on civil rights, who supported it, who was against it. It has really been amazing. There is an article here from Jeffrey Lord in The American Spectator from June 21. It says: ``So amidst the chaos of that congressional hearing on reparations for slavery, former NFL star Burgess Owens got straight to the point, saying this, as reported by BizPac Review: `I used to be a Democrat until I did my history and found out the misery that that party brought to my race,' Owens said. ``He added, `I do believe in restitution. Let's point to the party that was part of slavery, KKK, Jim Crow, that has killed over 40 percent of our Black babies, 20 million of them. State of California, 75 percent of our Black boys can't pass standard reading and writing test, a Democratic State. Let's pay reparation. Let's pay restitution. How about a Democratic Party pay for all the misery brought to my race.' '' The article by Mr. Lord says: ``Bingo. Yet somehow, some mysterious way, the hard facts of history are blithely ignored by members and sycophants of the Democrats, the latter without doubt the party of race. ``Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas had the audacity to quote from a 2008 article of mine that originally appeared in this space and was reprinted in The Wall Street Journal. Among other things in that article I noted these hard facts about what was missing from the website of the Democratic National Committee as it tried to portray itself as the champion of civil rights by leaving out the hard facts of the party's horrendous actual history on race.'' Madam Speaker, these are the things he correctly notes that I read into the Record at our hearing. This is from the Democrats' ``Our History'' section of their website. He said: ``There is no reference to the number of Democratic Party platforms supporting slavery. ``There were six from 1840 to 1860. ``There is no reference to the number of Democratic Presidents who owned slaves. ``There were seven from 1800 to 1861. ``There is no reference to the number of Democratic Party platforms that either supported segregation outright or were silent on the subject. ``There were 20, from 1868 through 1948. ``There is no reference to `Jim Crow' as in `Jim Crow laws,' nor is there reference to the role Democrats played in creating them. These were the post-Civil War laws passed enthusiastically by Democrats in that pesky 52-year part of the DNC's missing years. These laws segregated public schools, public transportation, restaurants, restrooms, and public places in general, everything from water coolers to beaches. The reason Rosa Parks became famous is that she sat in the `whites only' front section of a bus, the `whites only' designation the direct result of Democrats. ``There is no reference to the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, which, according to Columbia University historian Eric Foner, became `a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party.' Nor is there reference to University of North Carolina historian Allen Trelease's description of the Klan as the `terrorist arm of the Democratic Party.' ``There is no reference to the fact Democrats opposed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The 13th banned slavery.'' Madam Speaker, on further down: ``There is no reference to the fact that Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It was passed by the Republican Congress over the veto of President Andrew Johnson, who had been a Democrat before joining Lincoln's ticket in 1864. ``There is no reference to the Democrat's opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1875.'' Anyway, Madam Speaker, it goes on and on here. But it was amazing to me and this article points out: ``Tellingly, when Congressman Gohmert was finished reciting these hard, cold, and quite accurate facts of history, someone in the audience yelled out, `You lie.' An unwitting admission of absolute historical ignorance or maybe just plain denial. And over at the website Splinter writer Samantha Grasso assailed Gohmert as the `dumbest Republican in the room' for daring to cite the Democrats' appalling historical record.'' So anyway, Madam Speaker, it is an interesting time. Education is important, but it has got to be accurate education. One other thing I would like to quickly reference is the need for criminal justice reform within our military. There are some aspects of military justice that are very good. In the grand jury process in the civilian sector, constitutionally the defendant, potential defendant, is not allowed to be there, nor to have his attorney there or her attorney. Attorneys are not allowed to be there for a potential defendant when that potential defendant is actually testifying before the grand jury. Whereas, in the military system of justice, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, there is what is called an Article 32 investigation which is sort of the equivalent, except a potential accused, as we call them in the military, is allowed to be there and have an attorney there to see what is being said against him and to give a chance to present evidence to the Article 32 investigating officer. But one of the problems--and it is a very, very serious problem--is that the charges are sent to a court-martial by the commander, normally a commanding general or admiral. He is called the convening authority. He puts his signature on there saying: I want this individual charged and tried in a court-martial for this offense. That is after reviewing the results of the Article 32 investigation. But where it becomes rather unfair is that to get a jury--I saw this during my 4 years at Fort Benning--the commanding general has each unit--we have platoons that make up companies. Platoons would offer suggestions of hard-nosed guys that would convict anybody who was sent if they were on the jury, and they were referred up to the company commander. The company commander would choose those that he thought were the very best out of those nominated, and he would refer them up to the battalion commander. The battalion commander would winnow that group down to the very toughest who would follow what the commander would want them to do and send those up to brigade. The brigade would take them and review them and decide to get it down to a number that they would send up, and eventually it would get to the commanding general of installation, and he would pick maybe up to 15 people who would sit, sometimes for 6 months, on every court-martial during that time. They knew why they were there. They knew why the commanding general put them on the jury. They were sent there to convict the guys that the general sent to be tried. There were a number of acquittals, but I can tell you every time there was an acquittal in a court-martial, you never saw that jury panel again. They may have been new, but if they acquitted somebody, found them not guilty, the general immediately disbanded them as a jury panel. It is not like you have jury selection where you can challenge somebody and have them taken off the jury. I remember one court-martial where virtually all of the jury said that if a defendant did not testify, they would hold it against him and find him guilty just because he didn't testify. The judge said: Hey, we are all part of this man's Army, and if I instruct you--and I will instruct you--that you will not hold it against the defendant that he doesn't testify, will you follow my direct order not to consider it against? Oh, oh, okay. Sure. We didn't know you were going to instruct us not to. But they had already made clear that, yeah, they are going to hold it against him. So a defendant's constitutional rights in a military court-martial can sometimes be illusory. I think we are seeing that with Eddie Gallagher out in California. Even after a witness came forward and said that he is the one who asphyxiated the deceased who was wounded, he was an ISIS member, that Eddie Gallagher didn't kill him, they still continue on with the court-martial. From what I saw at Fort Benning, if you had somebody come in and say: ``I am actually the one who did it,'' I have seen a good military judge say then: Mr. Prosecutor, do you have a motion to dismiss at this time? And they would make a motion to dismiss. But, really, I have a great deal of concern. I saw in a brief that someone had prepared for a parole matter that there was out of World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam, it said there were seven American military members convicted of war crimes, but since then, the Iraq war, Desert Storm, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, we had over 200. This is something that needs to be looked at. We should not have our military members risking conviction simply by trying to defend themselves and those around them. So I am hoping that we can come together in a bipartisan way and make some changes, some corrections, and some improvements to military justice so that our heroes don't get killed trying to avoid being seen as criminals by people who don't understand what they are going through. So, in any event, I am hopeful that we will do something next week to help fund border security, but it sounds like from what we have heard on the floor all we are going to do is help attract more people to come in illegally because we are going to send $4 billion or so down to the border. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this past week, we were privileged to have been invited by our Speaker, those of us who have been in the military, served our country in the military, to go with her to the 75th anniversary of Normandy. It was deeply moving. And to be on those beaches and to see and know the sacrifices that occurred there, we talked in terms of it being an invasion over and over. Now I get back to Texas and I found out, last month, about the same number, about 144,000 invaded France, is what we had last month here in America--just right here, even, in Texas. We are being invaded by people who do not know how to preserve a self-government. Ben Franklin said: It is a Republic, madam, if you can keep it. If we don't stop the invasion, we will not keep it.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 962, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I urge the immediate scheduling of that bill for a vote here.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting process we have for appropriating money. Some people are wondering why there were so many requests for a recorded vote, because normally most will go by a voice vote. We don't have to gather everybody together to vote. I think it is important. I know Members are not supposed to mention this when they are asking for a recorded vote, but we have a crisis on our southern border. Last month, there were over 144,000 individuals that came into the United States across our southern border illegally. That would seem to be a crisis. As I mentioned early this morning, around 9 o'clock, in my 1-minute speech, some of us had just returned from being at Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-day. What an incredible thing that is to contemplate. And, of course, for those who know history thoroughly, World War II, be aware that there was even a dress rehearsal for D-day. There were no live rounds that were utilized, and yet, the Allied forces lost hundreds of military members during that fiasco of a practice for D-Day, which some attributed as being partly the reason that General Eisenhower, as the Supreme Allied Commander, had written out a resignation letter and given it to his subordinate that tendered his resignation with instructions that if D-Day went poorly, to please submit his resignation to his superiors. He didn't know how it was going to come out. They tried to prepare, but there are different estimates: 150,000, some up to 170,000, some 158,000 were involved in the D-Day landing at Normandy in France. Those courageous individuals that came ashore--some tried to come ashore and didn't make it that were dropped off too far out. Some had landing crafts that were sunk, but they were trying to come ashore, and did come ashore, and there were thousands of casualties as a result. Some of the stories bring tears to your eyes as a person contemplates what they went through. I had not been to Normandy before this weekend, and I am very grateful to Speaker Pelosi for inviting former members of the military to accompany her to Normandy. It was amazing. I have never been to Pointe du Hoc, but having attended Texas A&M University, I knew all about, at that time, Colonel Earl Rudder's heroic actions as he took the first group of what were then called Rangers--and have been called Rangers since--who trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, for most of that training, where I spent 4 years. He took them up the cliffs. Their goal, their job, their order was to take out the big cannons that were doing so much damage to the Allied forces. They fought their way up the cliffs, got to the top, and found out those big guns had been pulled back down the hill, so then they had to fight their way down the hill. But they did eventually take out those guns. There were a lot of mistakes made, as there are in any conflict, but the determination was to try to soften the German forces before our troops came ashore there at Normandy. So planes were loaded with thousands of tons of munitions that were to be dropped on those outposts, those bunkers all along the beaches. As they taught us in military science, you want to have good crossing fields of fire so that you can, unfortunately, kill more people with different lines of fire from different directions, and Rudder had directed those placements very carefully and did an extraordinary job. That was one of the things the planes were going to soften up with their tons of munitions, but there was significant cloud cover that day, so they were to delay dropping the bombs, and at a given point, start counting up to three, four, five, and then drop their payload of bombs. Unfortunately, so many of those bombs ended up 3 miles past the bunkers they needed to take out. So around 150,000 or so Allied forces, a big part of those being American troops, came ashore. They invaded a Nazis-controlled France. They fought valiantly, and as a result, France was able to go back to being France. As a result of the ongoing actions, the rest of Europe, at least Western Europe, was able to go about being the countries they had been--even better once they built back up--largely, or at least with great help from the Marshall Plan. It was amazing. I was not aware that so many of the French people still held what the Americans and the Allies did in such high regard. So as our bus got near to--and this was actually on Sunday--there were going to be thousands of paratroopers reenacting their parachuting. Fortunately, nobody landed with their chute on a church spire and got killed as they hung there. That didn't happen. But the chutes were actually more modernized chutes, so they could control their descent more easily than those poor guys did back on June 6 and the succeeding days in 1944. But we got off the bus, the Members of Congress, and were proceeding to where we were going to be watching from in this little valley area. And there were thousands and thousands and thousands of people who were walking in the same direction, and most of them had something to indicate United States, whether it was a little American flag or scarves that indicated something to do with the Stars and Stripes. At first, I thought: Wow, all of these thousands of Americans made it over here for the D-Day 75th anniversary? This is incredible. But then I quickly realized the huge majority of those people were not Americans; they were French. Though many of them were children, young adults, adults with young families, they knew what America had done to help save their freedom and their country. So it was a very moving experience, especially when you go down, like, to Omaha Beach and you think about those poor guys, Mr. Speaker, so dedicated to liberty and to ending the evil that the Nazis posed. And to think about them having friends on either side being killed, they were at risk, some were being shot, but still moving forward and making their way up through concertina wire. In some places they would blow holes through the wire, so they could start getting through and not be sitting ducks out on the beach. It is very moving to be there where so many, as Lincoln said, ``gave the last full measure of devotion.'' But we get back home, and we see the report from May that across our southern border we had at least a minimum of 144,000 individuals come across our southern border illegally. I don't know how you don't call that an invasion, Mr. Speaker. The huge majority didn't carry weapons, most did not at all. They just wanted to get into the country. But as we have seen repeatedly, there are gang members who come in. In fact, an article came out June 7 by Samantha Lock, titled ``ISIS plotted to smuggle terrorists into the US over the Mexico border to launch terror attacks, captured jihadi reveals.'' This article tells us: ``A captured ISIS fighter has made a chilling confession detailing how the terrorist group planned on exploiting vulnerabilities in the U.S. border with Mexico to take advantage of smuggling routes and to target financial institutions. ``Abu Henricki, a Canadian with dual Trinidadian citizenship, said that he was sought out to attack the U.S. from a route starting in Central America. ``ISIS allegedly had plans to exploit vulnerabilities in the U.S. border with Mexico. ``The ISIS fighter was interviewed last month--together with over 160 ISIS defectors and returnees--by research group the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism. ``The study, published in Homeland Security Today, concluded: `We have learned . . . about multiple individuals who knew of, or were themselves offered, or pressured by the ISIS emni--intelligence--to return to Europe to mount attacks at home. `` `We learned that, indeed, there was at least one ISIS plot for their cadres to travel from Syria to penetrate the U.S. southern border by infiltrating migration routes.' ``Henricki was detained by the SDF in Rojava, Syria, and spoke with researchers for more than an hour on May 12, giving his firsthand account of being attracted to, traveling, joining and serving in the Islamic State caliphate, first as a fighter and then later unable to fight due to chronic illness. ``In video footage of Henricki's confession, he opens up about a plot in which he says he and other Trinidadians were invited in late 2016 to attempt to penetrate the U.S. borders to mount financial attacks. ``He explains: `The emni--ISIS intelligence arm--was inviting us. `` `They, what they will have, what they wanted to do, basically, is they wanted to do financial attacks. Financial attacks to cripple the U.S. economy. `` `Apparently, they have the contacts or whatever papers they can get to a false ID, false passports to send me out for this kind of attack. `` `They have their system of doing it. So that's maybe the way that I could have gone out with other individuals.' ``He adds: `It wasn't me alone. They were sending you to Puerto Rico and from Puerto Rico to Mexico. `` `They were going to move me to the Mexican side of the U.S. southern border via Puerto Rico. `` `This was masterminded by a guy in America. Where he is, I do not know. `` `That information, the plan, came from someone from the New Jersey State from America. `` `I was going to take a boat from Puerto Rico into Mexico. He was going to smuggle me in. I don't know where I'd end up.' ``Henricki detailed how he and his Canadian wife were imprisoned by ISIS. ``He recounts: `I was asked to leave ISIS to go to America because I'm from that area. `Cause they wanted and planned to do something, and I refused. I refused to do it. That is why also I'm put into ISIS prison and been tortured. `` `They beat me a lot. I was suspended from the back, standing on my toes, given no food for a few days, waterboarded--while blindfolded, and they put a bag over your head. `` `I knew I went to prison because I said no to their offer of an external attack mission.' ``Anne Speckhard, director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, told FOX News: `ISIS has organized plots in Europe with returnees, so it seems entirely plausible that they wanted to send guys out to attack. `` `The issue that makes a North American attack harder is the travel is more difficult from Syria. ```So the idea that they would instead use people who were not known to their own governments as having joined ISIS might make it possible for them to board airplanes.' ``However, Ms. Speckhard reasoned: `This plot is likely dead as those who were pressured to join it are, according to Abu Henricki, now all dead and ISIS is in retreat as we know. `` `That doesn't mean we should disregard that it was a plot.' '' Mr. Speaker, I would also state, when we have indications of ISIS plots to invade our country, have attacks on financial institutions to kill Americans, we should take them seriously. If they have made one plot, as we have seen around the country, there are bound to be many plots. There is now a discredited FBI Director named Comey who at one time testified--it used to mean something when an FBI Director testified before Congress. Comey has hurt that a great deal because of so many falsehoods that have been spoken while under oath here on Capitol Hill. But he had indicated that we have ISIS investigations and ISIS cells in every State in the Union, at one time, basically to that affect. That would tell us that this plot recently discovered is not inconsistent with what a former FBI Director was concerned about some years back. So it is important to control our borders and to know who is coming in because we know people want to take down the United States of America. People who have evil intentions know if you take down the United States of America as a power, then evil can prevail throughout the world. I had mentioned to a few Australians here a year or so ago, one of the other Members of Congress said that it seems like we keep losing liberties here, free speech, they wanted to take away our Second Amendment rights. Well, if we lose our liberties, then we may just all need to go to Australia. None of the three smiled or laughed at all. I thought they would find it amusing. One of them said, Do you not understand? If the United States loses its liberty, China will take over Australia before anybody could get there from the United States. We simply need the United States to stay strong. I heard that in Africa, from some Christians there--and they know a lot about being under assault as Boko Haram had got so powerful there. When I was there in Nigeria trying to help some folks there, I was told that the Obama administration had given them word, Look, we will help you and give you more help with Boko Haram, but first you have got to legalize abortion and same-sex marriage. Until you do that, we are not going to be able to be as much help as we could. As one Catholic Bishop in Nigeria notably proclaimed: The President of the United States should know our religious beliefs are not for sale to anyone, including the United States. Other expressions from other African leaders who were Christians were similar. So this information about ISIS having plots that include crossing our border and attacks on our country is not really new. I became the brunt of Democratic scoffers. One comedian was making fun, and none of them bothered to mention that I was quoting the FBI Director in testimony from here on Capitol Hill. Like I say, back then, an FBI Director testifying under oath had more credibility than what an FBI Director under oath has now. But it was the FBI Director who indicated that we know that there are people from the Middle East who have changed their names to sound Hispanic. They have come to Mexico and tried to blend in with Hispanics coming across our border. I was belittled and made fun of, but it didn't change the facts of what had been testified to under oath by somebody who the Democrats used to love. It is a threat, and we have been told year after year how the threat increases and all the different plots. There are very few people I am aware of on the other side of the aisle who haven't at some point in the last 10, 12 years talked about the need to secure our border. Many of my Democratic friends have talked about the need for a wall or something to stop the flood of illegal immigration. Having done so much contemplation about the 150,000 or so who invaded Nazi-occupied France in 1944, heck, we had virtually that in 1 month. They didn't all come to shore with weapons, but it is an invasion when that many people are trying successfully to come into your country. As we heard, again, through testimony this week, 90 to 95 percent of the people claiming asylum are not allowed if they are not legitimate claims, but, unfortunately, the big bulk of those who claim asylum are given hearing dates. Some during the Obama administration would be 4 years or so away, and 90 percent or so do not show up for those hearings. That tells the world we are a broken country and that the rule of law that has meant so much in this country and that has given other countries hope that there is at least one place in the world where people are not above the law--nobody is--and where the law really matters. Sure, there are exceptions and there are mistakes, but they really do try to enforce the law across the board. I mean, the world has seen, with the huge invasion coming across our border--and, for this year, the estimates now are that certainly over a million people will flood in, invade the United States illegally. And how tragic that any little children would ever be sent unaccompanied to our border, risking snakes, risking the elements, risking all kinds of things. To a lesser extent, little boys, apparently, are being raped; but girls, we are told about 25 percent, will be raped on the way through Mexico into the United States. How tragic that we lured them to America with hopes that we are going to continue to allow violation of our own laws unimpeded, that we are going to allow this country to be overwhelmed with people who have never been educated to what it means to keep and nourish a self- governing country. It is not natural in the world to have a people who effectively self- govern. That is why we see the U.N. composed of so many countries that are ruled by dictators. Even now, 230 years after our Constitution was ratified, we still have dictators all over the world. The Founders were hoping that, if we got this little experiment right, then it would become a new order of things. Novus ordo seclorum. That is why that is part of our great seal, the two-sided great seal. If we get this right, countries around the world will want to emulate what we have done so they can self- govern. But, as Ben Franklin said there in the Constitutional Convention: ``If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable an empire could rise without His concurring aid?'' We have been assured in the Sacred Scripture that, unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. He said: I firmly believe this. I also believe without His--God's--concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. We will be confounded by our local partial interests, and we, ourselves, shall become a byword down through the ages. The reason he knew that was because this was a chance to go beyond anything the Greeks, the Athenians had done in the way of trying to self-govern. This was beyond anything anybody had ever done. Sure, there was a senate in Rome. Sure, there was a parliament in England. But this was going to be true self-government through representation, chosen by the people. And he knew, if we get it right, everybody is going to want to follow this example. But, if we get it wrong, people, for the rest of history, will look back and point and say: They had the best chance of ever making self-government work, and they blew it. So, when the Convention was over and the lady there in Philadelphia asked Franklin, ``What have you given us?'' as most people hopefully know, ``A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.'' Because he knew, this is not something that is eternal. No government, no country, no form of government ever lasts forever. They are only temporary. And thank God, literally, we have been allowed to self-govern for 230 years under our Constitution, 230 years this year. But we are in real danger. In order to preserve this form of government under our Constitution--as John Adams said, this Constitution is intended for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. So, for too long, too many schools have been teaching there is no real right or wrong, so much is relative. The most important thing is that we are tolerant of everybody and everything. But the fact is, if you are tolerant of everybody and everything, then there really are no criminal laws, and you quickly descend into anarchy. You have to be intolerant of those who break the law. You have to be intolerant of those who hurt others. But most of us were taught, growing up: ``Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.'' Well, the truth is words do hurt. The Bible talks about the damage that a tongue can do. But only in recent years have we degenerated from the time of the Revolution's great proclamation, usually quoting Voltaire, though there is some indication he may not have been the origination of the phrase: I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Now, that has degenerated, basically, in today's society to: I disagree with what you say. I am going to get you fired. I want to make your family so miserable that they all want to die. I am going to try to keep your family from ever being employed. I am going to make you miserable living in your house. I am going to just create chaos. You are going to regret the day you ever disagreed with me. Wow. What a degeneration from what spurred a revolution: I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Now we have come to a place in America where the only people who are allowed to be intolerant are those who say they are tolerant. But they are allowed to be intolerant toward Christians who truly follow the teachings of Moses, whose bust is up above the middle door in the gallery. He had some absolute laws that he set down. And the reason that he is the most prominent lawgiver, according to the time that this House floor was built, was because it was thought his Ten Commandments were the greatest law gift ever in history. Now, Hammurabi, his profile is up there. Even though the federally mandated test does not have significant history required anymore, those who have had some history may have learned about the Code of Hammurabi and the Justinian Code. His profile is next to Hammurabi. And you come clear around to Napoleon. Yes, there is a Napoleonic Code, and it is still the basis for laws in Louisiana. But laws used to mean something, and we could disagree and not be disagreeable. And, even to this day, there are Democrats I care very deeply about as individual human beings, and we can disagree and still like each other and we can find some common things to work on. But, for heaven's sake, we have got to get beyond this business of destroying people who just disagree with us, not letting them eat in a public restaurant, not letting them go out in public to games or to shows without trying to make their lives miserable. The most intolerant people in the country these days are the ones who say, ``We are the tolerant ones,'' when they have become anti-Semitic, many have become anti-Christian. Oh, they will say, ``We are Christian,'' but, as Jesus said: You will know them by their fruits, and their fruits are not particularly sweet. But this is a crucial time, and there is an invasion going on, and we need to do something about it. The President is doing all he can to try to secure our southern border. But, as we saw last week, we passed another bill through the House--at least the majority did--that was basically a flashing neon sign to those who want to come into the United States illegally: You better come on now because we just passed a bill in the House that will legalize people. So the thought of some around the world who just want to come here and have a better way of life is: Gee, if I can get there, maybe I can claim that I was there before whatever the cutoff date is. We have seen that happen before. And others like ISIS are thinking: Gee, thank goodness there are people in Congress who don't want the borders secure. They don't want President Trump to have a victory, so they are leaving it open so we can keep pouring in. Let's take advantage. Let's get over there and come through. And then, as if it is not enough of a crisis with an invasion coming in every month through our southern border, coming illegally, we keep getting more and more information about the illegality, even criminality, within the Department of Justice, the FBI, and even, potentially, the intel community. More to follow in days ahead on the intel community. But there is a release here from the Office of the Inspector General, the Department of Justice. This was dated May 29, 2019. It says: The Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, initiated this investigation upon receipt of information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation alleging that a then-FBI Deputy Assistant Director had numerous contacts with members of the media in violation of FBI policy. Now, that is a violation of policy, not necessarily a violation of the law. But the report goes on: Additionally, it was alleged that the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI may have disclosed law enforcement or other sensitive information to the media without authorization. This matter is among the Office of Inspector General investigations referenced on page 430 of the OIG's ``Review of Allegations Regarding Various Actions by the Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Advance of the 2016 Election.'' The OIG investigation concluded that the Deputy Assistant Director engaged in misconduct when he: 1--and it could be she--disclosed to the media the existence of information that had been filed under seal in Federal court, in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 401, Contempt of Court; 2, provided without authorization FBI law enforcement sensitive information to reporters on multiple occasions; and, 3, had dozens of official contacts with the media without authorization, in violation of FBI policy. The OIG also found that the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI engaged in misconduct when the DAD accepted a ticket, valued at approximately $225, to attend a media-sponsored dinner, as a gift from a member of the media, in violation of Federal regulations and FBI policy. Then, here is a single line, from a single paragraph: Prosecution of the Deputy Assistant Director was declined. The OIG has completed this investigation and is providing support to the FBI for appropriate action. Having questioned Inspector General Horowitz, I know that as inspector general of the DOJ, Michael Horowitz did a lot of work in compiling the report that he provided to Congress, to our Judiciary Committee. He had about 500 pages, most of which included evidence of outrageous bias, prejudice, hatred against candidate Donald Trump and then against elected President Donald Trump. The bias and prejudice that were documented were astounding, especially for some of us who have had very good friends, Republican, Democrat, many of them I don't even know what party affiliation they are because they are about enforcing the law, right and wrong, and they do a great job. That includes people in the FBI, ATF, and the Department of Justice, specifically. Because they are humans, there are always going to be some problems here and there, some people who are problems. It is always going to happen. But to have top people in the FBI, the DOJ, who are so flagrantly using their power to go after and try to destroy a candidate's election, and then try to use their power as an insurance policy to take him out if he were to get elected, is absolutely astounding. Ever since the first report came out, and we had 500 pages of horrific bias and prejudice, meanness, hatred toward Donald Trump and those who worked with him, the Democrat-appointed inspector general, Michael Horowitz, after accumulating all of that overwhelming evidence, comes to the mind-boggling conclusion that there is no indication it affected any investigation. As I told him, you gathered the evidence, apparently did a good job, and you, as a Democrat appointee, with lots of Democrat friends, you realized that: Gee, this really looks bad for my friends, and I have thrown them no bone in this whole investigation. I will do that so they don't get too mad at me in my conclusion. So, ergo, I conclude there is no indication that bias affected any investigation. Are you kidding me? With all the evidence he gathered, and you see how the investigation into Hillary Clinton's alleged violations--and now we know, actual violations of the law--how they were swept under the rug and disregarded, and you have the nerve to say the bias didn't affect that? Having a conference between the Attorney General herself and the husband of the person being investigated on a tarmac that they thought nobody would ever find out about, but some reporter sees Clinton and realizes: Whoa, what have we got going on here? He wasn't going to play golf in 100-plus degree weather in Arizona. They didn't meet out on the tarmac to talk about grandchildren. That is ridiculous. Immediately after that is when Hillary Clinton made herself available. And what did the FBI do? Unlike anything they do in a regular investigation, they didn't have notes. They didn't record the statements. They were basically spying on Flynn and had transcripts of his information before they asked him questions. That is what you call a perjury trap. They don't tell you they have transcripts of your prior conversations, and they ask you what was said. When you don't remember exactly word for word specifically, or you don't remember something that may or may not have come up, then they have you. You just lied to the FBI. They can prosecute you, which they did with Michael Flynn, even though the two investigating officers or agents of the FBI said: We do not believe that he intended any deception. He thought he was being honest. Well, they prosecuted him anyway. That was their effort to get at Donald Trump. It didn't work. They have done everything they possibly can. After 2 years of investigation, after basically trying to extort friends, family, anybody who had contact with Donald Trump, they got nothing. It appeared pretty obvious. Cohen wanted to give them something if he could, but he didn't have anything legitimate. And he has lied too much under oath to be a significant witness. We have seen what has happened with a weaponized FBI and Department of Justice. I didn't know Christopher Wray when he took over as FBI Director, and I had hopes that he would clean up the FBI and help restore it back to being an agency that was known worldwide for its honesty and integrity. Unfortunately, whatever personal reasons he has, personally, I think he is just trying to sweep as much under the rug as he can, hoping that the FBI will get beyond all the lies and criminality involved at the top of the FBI, and then maybe it will get better, instead of just facing up to the facts. One of the clear indications that he is not willing to do that is the fact that he continued, even in August of last year, to have reports come out from the FBI saying they have seen no evidence that Hillary Clinton's private server was ever hacked. Well, that is true. They have not. The reason they have not is because they did not want to see the evidence that the intel community's inspector general found showing beyond any reasonable doubt, 100 percent certainty, that Hillary Clinton's private server was hacked. I didn't want to use the country at the time I asked Peter Strzok about it, and he lied about that. But Frank Rucker, as the investigator for the intel community IG, went hurriedly to the FBI. He talked to the director of their counterintelligence, a guy named Peter Strzok, and their liaison at the FBI, Dean Chappell. Frank Rucker had an attorney from the IG intel, Jeanette Mitchell, I believe. He said: Hey, I know you guys said you found no evidence that her private server was hacked, but we now know there is no question her private server was hacked. It was hacked by China. There were embedded instructions in that private server from the Chinese intelligence. It directed every email coming in and out of her private server to go to this Chinese intelligence agency in the United States. There was a glitch with four emails. But over 30,000 others, going in and out, they went straight to Chinese intelligence. We know that. Frank Rucker was surprised that Peter Strzok and Dean Chappell didn't look surprised. They just said, basically: Okay, thank you. He thought they would be blown away: Wow, really? Are you serious? Do you really have this evidence? Maybe we should see it. No, they didn't ask to see the evidence. They didn't ask to review it. They didn't ask for a report. They shook his hand and sent him on his way. Well, he wasn't sure if they shook hands or not, but they sent him on his way. For Christopher Wray to continue to come out and have statements come from the FBI saying they have never seen any evidence that Hillary Clinton's personal server was ever hacked continues a fraud being put out at the top of the FBI. I don't know, I haven't talked to the President about Christopher Wray. But I believe we need a different FBI Director who is not going to continue frauds that were perpetrated by people like Peter Strzok. I know there are a lot of Republicans that keep saying: Oh, yeah, but when Michael Horowitz comes out with his next report, it is going to be devastating. Oh, yeah, well, we have already seen in the last couple of weeks that he gets information that somebody has committed crimes, and the FBI, the DOJ, haven't learned anything. They still have too many Obama administration and Sally Yates subordinates working over there with their own agenda. They are deciding: Let's don't prosecute people. If history is any indication, and Horowitz does what did he before, he will come out with a report that has devastating information about crimes committed by FBI agents and people in the Department of Justice. Most of us will think it is horrific, and the conclusion will be: But it really didn't infect anything that the FBI or the DOJ was doing, so there is no reason to prosecute anybody. If history is an indication of the future, that is what we can expect from Horowitz's next IG report: Sure, there was a lot of criminality, but nothing worth prosecuting. Nothing to see here, move along. We have real trouble. But John Solomon wrote about this matter on June 13. ``Feds Gone Wild: DOJ's Stunning Inability to Prosecute Its Own Bad Actors.'' ``One was caught red-handed engaged in nepotism. Another, a lawyer no less, admitted to shoplifting at a Marine barracks store. A third leaked sealed court information to the news media. And a fourth engaged in fraud by turning a government garage into a personal repair shop. Four cases, all solved in the last month, with suspects who cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and significant breaches of public trust. ``But these weren't your everyday perps. All were U.S. Department of Justice employees who are supposed to catch other criminals while working for the FBI, the DEA, and U.S. attorneys' offices. Instead, they broke the law or violated the rules. And all managed to escape prosecution, despite their proven transgressions. ``Recent Justice Department disciplinary files tell an undeniable story.'' On down, it said: ``DOJ is doing a poor job of punishing its own. In cases closed in the past month, more than a half dozen FBI, DEA, U.S. attorney and U.S. marshal officials were allowed to retire, do volunteer work, or keep their jobs as they escaped criminal charges that everyday Americans probably would not. ``In most instances, the decisions were made by Federal prosecutors who work with the very figures impacted by or committing the bad conduct. In local law enforcement, that go-easy phenomenon is known as the `thin blue line.' '' I would differ with that. I don't believe that is what most of us think of as the thin blue line. Nonetheless, it concludes: ``Even before the recent spate of closed IG investigations, questions surfaced about DOJ's willingness to punish its own. That is because fired FBI Director Andrew McCabe was recommended for prosecution more than 15 months ago for lying about news leaks and, so far, has faced no criminal charges.'' The article also points out that there was the FBI lawyer who got caught in an embarrassing criminal act at the Marine Corps barracks commissary at Quantico. ``The FBI attorney admitted to placing numerous cosmetic items, valued at $257.99 and belonging to the MCB Quantico Exchange, in her purse without the intention to pay for them and did not pay for them before leaving the store. The FBI attorney further admitted that between February 2016 and her arrest in February 2018, she had shoplifted at the MCB Quantico Exchange one to two additional times and at other private retailers in the area on two to three occasions.'' ``The investigation concluded her conduct violated Federal criminal law and FBI policy regarding unprofessional conduct. But here was the outcome: `Criminal prosecution was deferred pending the FBI attorney's completion of 125 hours of community service, after which all charges were dismissed.' '' A few weeks community service, she was still at her job at the time the IG issued the report. I mean, this is serious stuff. The article also goes on: ``One of the internal affairs that stunned Members of Congress this month directly grew out of the interwoven Hillary Clinton email and Russia collusion investigations in 2016, during then-FBI Director James Comey's tenure. ``The IG concluded that an FBI Deputy Assistant Director engaged in multiple improper news media leaks while those investigations were ongoing, including one that violated a sealed court order, and accepted an improper gratuity from the news media. But prosecution was declined, yet again. FBI officials say they are considering discipline against the supervisor.'' The author, John Solomon, says: ``Records I reviewed indicate that more misconduct eerily similar to that already uncovered is being investigated. For example, the IG fraud unit opened a case in March and began interviewing whistleblowers about a new contract fraud matter inside the DEA, emails show. ``It used to be that those who were entrusted to enforce the law were held to the highest standards. ``Today, however, there is a troubling pattern of officers being held to a lower standard inside a Department where critics fear there is a dual system of justice.'' So this is a dangerous time in our history. We know that no country lasts forever, no form of government lasts forever. We have had 230 years since 1789, when George Washington was sworn in as President, John Adams as Vice President, and the Congress was sworn in there at Federal Hall in New York City, after which, a couple minutes of speeches, they walked down Wall Street to St. Peters Chapel and they had a prayer service to pray for this new country. When was the last time every elected Member of Congress, the President of the United States, and the Vice President of the United States, regardless of political beliefs, came together in one accord and prayed in consecrating our country to God Almighty? We do have a Presidential Prayer Breakfast every year, but wouldn't it be nice if we could do something like get us started off on a foot that eventually led to the end of slavery, eventually led to true civil rights? But now it has led to the kind of arrogance that leads to the end of the Republic that we may not keep much longer if we don't come back to the basics. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this is about harassing the President, and it is about delaying the inevitable. I would have hoped that my friends across the aisle, especially in the Judiciary Committee that had concerns in 2005 and 2006 about the overreach that was possible through the FISA procedures, would have seen that there was no collusion, that the Russians did try, but nobody with the Trump campaign bought. So we are left with the fact that the real collusion here was between the Clinton campaign, with Fusion GPS hiring a foreign agent, Christopher Steele, who talked to people he now admits could well have been agents of Vladimir Putin, who gave false information about Trump, the candidate, that was used in a dossier that was used to manipulate the FISA court into giving a warrant to start spying on the Trump campaign. That is what this was about. And what people are calling obstruction of justice is exactly what you have when you have somebody falsely accused of colluding, conspiring with the Russians, and he knows he didn't do that, and he sees his family being harassed, and everybody that worked with the campaign that can be pushed and shoved and blackmailed, as happened, and bankrupted, you want to bring it to an end. You want to see justice done. But instead of my friends in Judiciary coming together with us who have been concerned about the abuses of the FISA system so that it doesn't happen to other Americans, instead, they come with this resolution to push the matter down the road a little further to the 2020 election. It has got to stop. Let's stop now.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, we heard earlier some comments from the other side about, gee, what could have been done, and the desire for a bipartisan agreement on things. And yet, I know since President Trump came into office, he offered a deal to work out legalization for folks that had been granted DACA, and that offer was slapped down. So it is interesting to hear now, after the opportunity did present itself in the last Congress, with Republicans in control in the House and Senate, and the President, wanting to work something out in a bipartisan manner, now, we hear, oh, we wanted it bipartisan all along. Well, a problem with a self-governing nation is that when people abandon the rule of law in that self-governing nation, it is not going to remain self-governing that much longer. What has made America strong was that--one of the things--that nobody was above the law. That included Presidents, it included most everybody. There were exceptions. But as I have continued to say for a number of years, we should seal--not seal, but we should control the border, get it secured, continue to give over a million visas a year. Fine. Most generous country in the world when it comes to allowing access, ingress and egress. Continue that, but control the border. And once the border is controlled, we can work out about what to do about the people that came in illegally. We can work that out. Some try to slam Republicans and say, oh, you must hate Hispanics. They don't know our hearts. They don't know my heart. The huge majority of Hispanics I know, they love God, they are devoted to their family, and they have an incredibly hard work ethic. I think those are three things, three components that help, really, make America a great country, the greatest I believe in the world. We need more of that. That is a great thing. But the immigration has to be legal. Now, this bill, though, we had a rule shoved through, no amendments were going to be allowed. Not only is this not going to be a bipartisan effort to work out an agreement from both sides, we are slamming this through. We are not letting any amendments. And there were clearly problems with the bill. For example, my amendment would have helped stop gang members from being given legalization. No. No. That got voted down. And not only was the amendment voted down, under the bill, the Secretary cannot consider the fact that we have information in our database that clearly shows that someone is a gang member. Oh, no. Not only that, the Secretary, under this bill, is prohibited from getting help to go through and review evidence of who is a gang member and who isn't. That would mean hundreds of thousands of people would have to be considered by the Secretary individually. That is no mistake. They knew the Secretary could not do that. So they were going to get as many gang members in as can possibly come in. And there will be disputes over who came in when. That is an ongoing issue. But if a gang member is denied under this program, then all the other applicants, will have to pay a fee that will pay for the gang member's lawyer to sue in Federal court. Look, it is clear what is going on. One party thinks their future as the only party, as the majority party, will be to get as many felons voting as possible and get as many people in here beholden to the Democratic Party, legally, illegally, whatever. But the tragedy continues to go on at the border. Every time we mention legalization, amnesty, DACA, Dreamers, all of those things, the Border Patrol made clear, people flood in illegally. Let's do the right thing. Let's vote ``no'' on this and work something out when the border is secure.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is wonderful to hear the great tributes to those who have served this country well, as we just heard. In fact, we have so many people to whom we should be eternally grateful. As Abraham Lincoln said, they gave their last full measure of devotion for the freedom of this country, not for some wishy-washy government in Washington, D.C., that can't figure out what it should do or not do, but for the idea of freedom. I heard more discussion again recently about the Revolution. I have read a few new books I hadn't read this year about the Revolution, the victory at Yorktown, and other aspects of the Revolution. And, still, there are so many historians who wonder why there was such a dramatic difference between the outcome of the United States Revolution, 1775 to 1783, and the French Revolution which followed. I think the historians have it right who have said that the key difference, the reason the U.S. Revolution lasted and was unlike the French, which resulted in so many heads being cut off and eventually resulted in a monarchy again, the key difference was that the U.S. Revolution was about liberty and freedom. It wasn't about vengeance. They weren't out to cut off as many of the British heads as possible. It was about liberty. Unfortunately, too many in the French Revolution, not all, but too many in the French Revolution were about revenge and not about liberty. So the great efforts of great heroes in France got hijacked. Many people lost their lives, and then they lost their effort to have a republican form of government, as we have had. A lot of people don't understand the difference between democracy and a republic. I think it is fair to say, as most historians do, we have a democratic republic. Democracy would mean the majority always rules, and our Founders realized that sometimes you can have too much passion and not enough time for clear reflection. You are better off, especially among a majority that really doesn't understand the total aspects and factors involved in a decision, selecting and electing representatives with majority votes, except for President. We set up the electoral college so all States would have a say in who was President, not just the few that had the most people. But all the other elections were about a majority--so a democracy-- electing representatives to their governmental entities locally, State, and Federal. So, really, we have a democratic republic. It is interesting, as we saw this week, the Speaker of the House getting ready to go meet with a President of the United States from the other party, and he really wanted to talk about infrastructure and making this country stronger. I think probably most everybody on both sides of the aisle has seen the surveys regarding the permanent structures, the infrastructure of this country that helps tie us together as a nation, and most of the scores are D-minus, D, D-plus at best. And that is about all you see. We are better in some areas than we are in others, but whether it is dams, bridges, or highways, we have a lot of infrastructure needs. And that is something that I would hope that we could come together on and work out, as those who went before us were able to do. We are told in Proverbs that, where there is no vision, the people perish. And it is interesting, when you see towns that had community leaders with visions who could see certain things needed to be done to have a vibrant community 10, 50, 100 years later, you saw how blessed that community was to have leaders with vision. You go to some communities, and you find, gee, they haven't progressed very well. They seem to be eternally declining and holding on to what they have. Normally, you will find leaders in a community like that who have been spiteful, who didn't want somebody else to get credit for what was being done. And they prevented a community from flourishing for years into the future just because they were small- minded and had petty differences and didn't want somebody else to get the credit. One of my heroes, Ronald Reagan, is often credited with the line that actually had been around for a great deal longer than President Reagan, but he used the line: It is amazing what you can get accomplished if you don't care who gets the credit. And that has been true since the beginning here in Washington and, even before Washington became the capital, in Philadelphia and New York. But the Speaker announced at a press event, before going over to the White House to talk about infrastructure, that the President of the United States had been engaged in a coverup. We weren't told a coverup of what. We were not told what was done to cover up. ``Coverup'' is a very ingenious term to be using, almost as brilliant as the term ``collusion,'' because neither the term ``collusion'' nor ``coverup'' are crimes. There is no law that says it is a crime to cover up. There is no crime that says it is a violation of the law to collude. So words like that have been chosen and used and repeated over and over and over so that the public thinks, ``Oh, my goodness, crimes have been committed. There was collusion. There was a coverup.'' Well, of what? We now know that, after 2\1/2\ years of hearing about collusion with the Russian Government--and I am certainly no fan of Robert Mueller. He did more damage to the FBI than any FBI Director ever, including the worst of J. Edgar Hoover, when he was spying on Americans. We had Mueller's FBI that took innocent people, destroyed their lives. In the case of the longest serving Senator, Republican Senator, at the time, he even saw to it that he was convicted immediately before his election, and then that cost him the election. And then he was killed in a plane accident that he would never have been involved in if Mueller's FBI hadn't framed him for a crime he didn't commit and gotten him voted out of office right before or at his election. That was, of course, Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska. And Dr. Hatfill, who Mueller accused of committing the crimes of murder using anthrax right after the 9/11 attacks. There was no evidence to support that Dr. Hatfill committed the crimes. We are told that, at one point--though Mueller kept pursuing Hatfill and questioning his neighbors, telling the neighbors, through Mueller's minions, that Hatfill had committed murder with anthrax and they needed to be careful and report anything. They basically ruined the Hatfill family's lives. But, at one point, President Bush is reported to have called him in and said: There is no evidence that Dr. Hatfill is the guy who did this. Are you sure? I mean, there is just no evidence. And Mueller stated: I am 100 percent certain. So, when it turned out he was not the guy that had been involved with anthrax and should have been cleared--by anybody but Mueller--Mueller was asked if he had any regrets about destroying the life of an innocent man. He said, ``Absolutely not,'' and never apologized. Unfortunately, U.S. taxpayers paid millions of dollars in settlement for Mueller's vindictiveness with no evidence. Curt Weldon stood right here at this podium making speech after speech in my freshman term. This was obviously well after 9/11. I didn't get here until 2005. But in 2005, 2006, he was talking about a program through which information had gotten to the FBI, and, according to Curt Weldon--Able Danger, I think, was the name of the program that had identified some radical Islamist terrorists, wannabes, and that they were planning an attack in the United States. And according to Curt Weldon's speeches right here at this podium where I am standing, the FBI, if they acted, they probably could have prevented 9/11, but they didn't act. And I kept thinking: I don't know if what he is saying is true. I was not familiar with the Able Danger program at that time. But what I kept thinking was: Gosh, these are really serious allegations about the leadership of the FBI. Surely Mueller is going to have to come out and address these allegations from Congressman Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania. And the FBI never publicly addressed those issues, not that I have been able to find. But they did address them. Mueller's FBI, in fact, raided Weldon's adult daughter, a lawyer, her office, early in the morning. And, gee, somebody in the FBI committed a crime, apparently, and leaked it to the media so they could be there when the warrant was run early in the morning. And somebody alerted Democratic operatives. They had signs that morning around the office talking about, you know, Curt Weldon is caught red-handed, he is a thief, alleging all kinds of crimes. It turns out he hadn't committed any crimes. It turns out, some months later, they notified the Weldon family they could come get all the stuff that Mueller's FBI had collected during the raid. They were told: It has never been presented to a grand jury. We just did the raid. No prosecution, no grand jury, no indictment. But since they did that 2 weeks before his election, he narrowly lost that election. So it appeared to me pretty clear that Mueller's way of responding to allegations that his FBI--and, in fairness to him, he hadn't been there that long before 9/11, so he had plausible deniability: ``Gee, I just got there. I didn't know about Able Danger at the time.'' But, instead, what he chose to do was have his FBI affect an election adversely, causing a critic to lose. So these are all part of Robert Mueller's background. But even as much as he wanted to ruin Donald J. Trump, later President Trump, the guy that he begged for a second appointment as Director of the FBI, just shortly after he was begging Trump for appointment to Director of the FBI again and President Trump turned him down, he jumped at the chance to investigate and try to destroy the life of the sitting President who refused to hire him. And he spent 2 years, virtually 2 years, on it. I have seen $25 million, $35 million that Mueller spent. Mueller took the unusual step of hiring people to assist him in the Special Counsel's Office who hated Donald Trump. Normally, when there has been a special counsel of integrity, they know they are going to be vilified, so they are careful to hire people that appear will be even- handed. I can't imagine any person of integrity actually hiring people who contributed to the opponent of the person to be investigated, who would go to what they hoped would be her victory party, who despised the man who got elected. It is surprising he would go out of his way to make sure that he hired people that hated President Trump, whom they were supposed to investigate. But here again, the one good thing that I can say about Robert Mueller is--and he apparently served honorably and well in Vietnam, so I thank him for that service--the guy is consistent. When he decides he wants to destroy an innocent man, he gets after it. Weissmann hated President Trump. These other folks that hated Trump, some of them still work at the FBI. Many of them have been fired and run out of the FBI or DOJ in shame. They should have had more than that happen, and hopefully they will. But there was no crime committed. His report indicates that there were efforts by Russians to reach out and try to pull the Trump campaign into some type of conspiracy, but nobody in the Trump campaign took the opportunity that was presented by Russia, and there was no crime of conspiracy with Russians. And then, as we go along, the more we find out, we find out that, actually, it is a whole lot worse than Mueller indicated. Mueller indicated no collusion, no conspiracy, no crime that anybody in the Trump campaign committed with Russian agents. But if Mueller had been the man of integrity that I would have hoped, he would have investigated those who did conspire with Russian agents. Because, now, the information is coming out that the Clinton campaign had hired Fusion GPS. Perkins Coie law firm was helping them negotiate and work through some of these things, using their firm's name in the conspiracy--it sure seems like a conspiracy to me--as they hired a now- disgraced foreign agent who had worked for MI6, Christopher Steele, to do digging to try to find some tie between the Trump campaign and Russia, any kind of dirt they could get. They tried to lure Don Trump, Jr., into some kind of deal. They said, gee, there is a Russian person who has all kinds of negative information about Hillary Clinton. He agreed to meet and found right away that this is not what it was represented to be and got out of the meeting as quickly as he could. Here again, Christopher Steele was hired, apparently through Fusion GPS, to dig up dirt, true or not true, about Donald Trump. Fusion GPS hired this foreign, disgraced intelligence agent to do digging, using Russian agents. Fusion GPS also hired the spouse of one of the top FBI people, Bruce Ohr. That was his wife, Nellie. She was hired to dig up dirt, anything she could in Russia about Trump. I didn't realize until more recently that Christopher Steele was not even traveling to Russia to dig up this dirt. He was simply contacting people in Russia, trying to find somebody who had some dirt on Donald Trump. Apparently, he has now recently indicated: You know what? I guess there is a good chance that the people I was talking to in Russia who gave the false information about Donald Trump, yeah, they may have been working for Vladimir Putin. It appears the evidence is now starting to come out, no thanks to Robert Mueller and the tens of millions of dollars he wasted, the years that he wasted. The truth is starting to come out, and it is making people who are in positions of power very uncomfortable. We have heard Clapper and Brennan making really inappropriate statements for somebody who had been involved in our intelligence- gathering agencies. But it is appearing that it was probably Brennan-- we will be finding out in the days ahead--who may have asked England's intelligence agencies to spy on American citizens involved with the Trump campaign because our intelligence community is not authorized to spy on American citizens. So there may be a wink and a nod. We need to get to the bottom of whether our intelligence community winks and nods, and says: Hey, we want to spy on our own citizens, but we are not allowed to legally. So how about you spy on these citizens, and we will spy on some for you in our country? We need to know if that kind of thing has really gone on. If it has gone on, if there is a quid pro quo, we need to know. We need to know if some of our top intelligence officials have committed crimes. This is serious stuff. It turns out there was no collusion, no conspiracy between anybody in the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin or Russia. But it is appearing more and more that there was a conspiracy between people associated with the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie, Christopher Steele, potential agents of Vladimir Putin, to try to destroy Donald Trump before the election and after the election. We expect to see more coming out as some of the information that was classified is declassified. It appears now we are hearing, and we heard previously, that an Australian Ambassador had spoken to a member of the Trump campaign, just tangentially part of the campaign. But what we have found out now is, apparently, the Australian Ambassador was manipulated through the Democratic effort to defeat Donald Trump, recruited to tell a tangential member of the Trump campaign that the Russians had Hillary Clinton's emails. Then they set that same Trump marginal official up by asking him questions: Have you heard anything about Russia having information on Hillary? He said: Well, yes. I heard that Russians had Hillary Clinton's emails. Then they used that information to help them get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. It was a total setup by potentially our intelligence community, potentially British MI6. We have to get to the bottom of this. People who have committed crimes need to go to prison. In the meantime, there is all this animosity that has been stirred up against Donald Trump. Now we find out there was nothing to the collusion. He knew that he had not committed any kind of conspiracy with Russia. He knew that this was all bogus. He was hearing rumors that if there was a conspiracy, it involved the other campaign. What do you do? How do you act? I would submit, you act exactly as President Trump has acted, frustrated. He can't believe that his own United States Government is trying to set him up and say that he committed some crime that he never committed. He can't obstruct justice when he is doing everything he possibly can to ensure that justice gets done. That is where we have been. We heard the roadblocks, the things that, oh gee, there was collusion. When that didn't materialize, then: Well, there is a coverup. No allegations other than just the general term ``coverup.'' Clearly, efforts are being made in this city to prevent President Trump from being successful in getting legislation through this House and through the Senate that could become law and help the country. Even on issues of securing our border, President Obama talked about the need to secure the border and stop illegal immigration. Senator Clinton had talked about the need to stop illegal immigration and secure the border. Most of the leaders on both sides of the aisle have talked about that at some point. Why don't we do it? Well, he would get credit for keeping a campaign promise, and apparently, it is more important to stop the President from keeping campaign promises than it is important to some to help the country. What it reminded me of, as I thought back--and I have been here 14 years. Never expected to be here this long. I feel like I am kind of going to a scary movie. Get into it and I am sorry I went, but I can't leave until I see how it turns out. I want to make sure that we get on a proper footing here. I know in the 14 years that I have been here, I have not seen either party work so hard to prevent the other party's President from being successful. As I majored in history, I have never stopped studying history. American history is my favorite. I have tried to think back, okay, when was the last time, if there ever was a time before, when one party worked so hard to prevent another party's President from being successful and helping the country? I think it probably goes back to John Quincy Adams' days. John Quincy Adams, he was the first son of a former President to be elected President, and he did not get a majority of the vote. It ended up that he didn't get a majority of the electoral college. It was thrown here to the House of Representatives to decide, under the Constitution. Henry Clay, so beloved and respected here in the House of Representatives, he decided to throw his support to John Quincy Adams. I have studied John Quincy Adams, read a very thorough biography. I liked it. I chose it because it incorporated more of John Quincy Adams' own journal, where they kept calling him JQA. John Quincy Adams, apparently, kept more of a journal than any President we have ever had. He started very young, and he went until the last few weeks of his life when he could no longer see to write. I didn't know until I read that, for example, that his last night at home before he came to the House floor to give a speech against the war with Mexico, because he was concerned that that would perpetuate slavery longer, that the reason he had run for the House of Representatives after being President was to try to do what William Wilberforce had done in England, and that is to use his elected position to fight to end slavery. Wilberforce got it totally outlawed 3 days before he died in 1833. In 1830, that is what Adams thought he was supposed to do. That is why he ran for Congress. The night before, he had a massive stroke. The next day, when he tried to stand up and speak against war with Mexico, he couldn't see. He couldn't sleep, and he asked his precious wife if she would mind reading him any of William Wilberforce's sermons. She chose one. She read it for him, and he finally dozed, listening to William Wilberforce's sermon the last night he slept at home, before he had his massive stroke on the House floor here in the Capitol. In 1824, John Quincy Adams was still a man of integrity. He was always a man of integrity. Some feel like it is possible that he was the smartest President we have ever had. Certainly, he was one of the top-educated Presidents we have ever had. He spoke a number of languages. One thing he had in common with our current President, he is the only other President to have had a wife who was not born in America. Much like President Trump's wife, John Quincy Adams' wife spoke multiple languages, very fluent. She herself was brilliant. So we share that with the current First Lady. John Quincy Adams even wrote some history books in German. His favorite foreign language was French. He was an amazing guy. He knew he was a man of integrity, and when studying his life, you figure out that he was a man of integrity. He asked Henry Clay for his support. Henry Clay threw his support behind John Quincy Adams for President. That got him the votes in the House to win the Presidency. When it came time to pick Cabinet members, President-elect Adams said that he believed the person who would make the best Secretary of State would be Henry Clay. Those people who were close to him, who loved him, said, yes, he was right, that Henry Clay would make a fabulous Secretary of State, but that if he appoints Henry Clay to be Secretary of State, it will look like he cut a deal with Clay in return for his support for him for President, which gave him the election. If he agreed to make him Secretary of State, people would think he made an illegal deal. He said: He is the best person for the job. I didn't make any kind of deal with him. He threw his support behind me. I never mentioned Secretary of State to him. I never mentioned making him a Cabinet official, but I think the world of the man. I think he would be the best Secretary of State. People know I am a man of integrity. I wouldn't do an illegal deal to be elected President, so they just need to get over it. He is the best man. I am going to appoint the best man to be Secretary of State. People who know me will know that I never made a deal, promised him Secretary of State in return for throwing his House support behind me. That is just a lie, and I am not going to be prevented from appointing the best man for Secretary of State by my fear about what somebody might think. So he appointed Henry Clay to be Secretary of State, and people got really upset: There must have been a deal. He must have cut a deal with Henry Clay. In return for Henry Clay's support that won him the Presidency, Henry Clay gets to be Secretary of State. Apparently, there was no deal, but people thought there was. People felt like: This looks terrible. It looks like he made a deal. He must have made a deal. We know Adams is an honest guy, and so if he made a deal with Clay, he surely would have kept his end of the deal. There was no deal, but there were so many in the opposition party who were mad about it, they just decided they were not going to let John Quincy Adams accomplish anything as President. He was elected in 1824, sworn in, in 1825. His term was 1825 to 1829. He was defeated by Andrew Jackson and defeated fairly easily because people thought he had cheated to win by making a deal he didn't make with Henry Clay. During those 4 years--anyone can do the research--he couldn't get much of anything done. There were even cases of Members of this House who were of the opposition party, the Democratic Party, there were Democrats who had actually written and sponsored bills they desperately wanted to get passed. When John Quincy Adams threw his support behind the bills because he thought they were a good idea, the person who wrote the bill, sponsored the bill, withdrew his support. He did not want John Quincy Adams to get credit for passing some important bill. He had some great ideas. He wanted a national observatory. He felt like it would be good to have a uniform system of weights and measurements. That had not happened. He wanted to create a naval academy for the country. He wanted to have a code, a systemized national bankruptcy law. Bankruptcy is mentioned in the Constitution. There were finally some laws passed before he was President, but it wasn't a uniform national bankruptcy law as it needed to be. He had some great ideas, but they weren't passed because people did not want him to get credit. They were willing to hurt the country to prevent John Quincy Adams from having a great victory. That is what went through my mind. Somebody may be able to find a case in which one party did everything it could to prevent a President from having any big successes. It is a little late. President Trump got a great tax bill. It wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be, but it was helpful to the country overall. He got that passed, signed into law. Hopefully, we are going to vote on the Mexico-Canada trade agreement. It is better than NAFTA was. Hopefully, we will get that done, and we won't keep harming the country by failing to bring that for a vote. For Adams, there was a tariff that was passed. That was about the biggest piece of legislation passed during his 4 years, but it didn't even get enacted until Andrew Jackson took over as President. So Adams, a man of integrity, was accused of making an illegal deal with Henry Clay to get himself elected President. The country suffered for 4 years. Those who despised John Quincy Adams, they were able to hurt the country for 4 years just to keep John Quincy Adams from having a major victory. It is important to learn from history. As we know from the old adage, those who refuse to learn from history are destined to repeat it. Of course, I also grew up learning there is a corollary to that, that those who do learn from history will find new ways to screw up. We have seen both of those play out in this country. I am hoping it will come together, and we will be able to pass some of the critical legislation to secure our border and to get some infrastructure built so we don't give a country to our children and grandchildren that has infrastructure crumbling and with so much debt that they can't afford to rebuild the infrastructure. We already know that we are the first generation in American history that didn't have as our driving goal to give a country to our children better than we had it. The debts continue to skyrocket, over $23 trillion now. We really need to come together on these important issues. With regard to the President's effort to try to secure the border, I continue to believe with all my heart, the most compassionate, caring thing we could do for the people of Mexico--and I was talking to the Ambassador from Guatemala yesterday. I sure like him. Guatemala, of course, was the only country to immediately recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as it was 3,000 years ago, and should be and is today, and will be for the future. Guatemala had the courage to back us up on that. Apparently, MS-13ers come mainly from El Salvador, but Guatemala wants to help. We ought to help Guatemala to help us. I hope that will be occurring. If we really want to be compassionate for the people of Mexico and Central America, the best thing we could do is secure the border, cut off the tens of billions of dollars every year, maybe into the hundred- plus billion, that go to the drug cartels. It funds corruption in Mexico. It is the one thing that keeps Mexico from being one of the very top economies in the world. They have fantastic natural resources. They have a better location geographically than the United States does. They are between North America and South America. They are between two oceans. They have a great location. They have some of the most hardworking people in the world. I also am thrilled that the huge majority have faith in God. I think we could stand another boost of people who have faith in God, a devotion to family, a hard work ethic like we generally find among the huge majority of Hispanic people from Mexico and Central America. We could afford more of that here, but we have to enforce the law. If we secure the border, Mexico ought to be able to put down the drug cartel corruption and become a top economy. Then you won't have people doing everything they can, risking their lives, having their daughters raped repeatedly coming up here from Mexico or through Mexico to the United States. We can go back to having the kind of vibrant tourism that we once had in support of Mexico. But there are efforts that are being undertaken here in the House by friends across the aisle who do not want Donald Trump to have success in helping the United States, and, really, it would greatly help Mexico. What is the result? Well, here is a story from May 21, Washington Times, Steven Dinan: ICE says Prince George's County released illegal murder suspects. The story says: ``Two teens arrested last week on charges stemming from a horrific killing in Maryland were supposed to be deported last year, but local authorities didn't turn them over to ICE, the immigration agency said Tuesday. ``Prosecutors say the teens, Josue Rafael Fuentes-Ponce, 16, and Joel Ernesto Escobar, 17--suspected of being MS-13 gang members--feared they would be ratted out for an April robbery, so they and an accomplice snuffed out a 14-year-old suspected snitch. They made her strip before beating her with a baseball bat and chopping her with a machete. The girl's body was found in a creek this month.'' This is in Prince George's County. ``U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in a pointed statement Tuesday, said the crime could have been averted''--could have been completely prevented--``but for Prince George's County's sanctuary city policy.'' That is what stopped it, or it is what kept our ICE agents from preventing the baseball bat and machete mutilation of this 14-year-old girl. ``Mr. Fuentes-Ponce and Mr. Escobar were in county custody last year on attempted murder charges for another crime. ICE placed a detainer on them, asking to be notified when they would be released so agents could deport them. ICE said the Prince George's County Department of Corrections defied the request. `` `These individuals had demonstrated violent criminal behavior before, and because they were released in spite of the lawful detainer, they were afforded an opportunity to take a life.' '' And not just take a life. They beat her, stripped her, beat her with a baseball bat and then chopped her up with a machete. Thank you very much, Prince George's County, for your sanctuary city. No telling how many people will have to lose their lives while you defy Federal law. This article says: ``ICE has placed new detainers for both teens after the murder charges. Prince George's corrections spokesman Andrew Cephas said the agency didn't release the teens into the community. He said the Corrections Department did have custody last year but remanded the teens to Cheltenham Youth Detention Center, a State facility, after a judge's ruling. `` `Neither of these individuals were released to the public from Prince George's County Department of Corrections. They remained detained in the juvenile facility until the disposition of their cases earlier this year.' '' Yeah, right. The cases were disposed of, a little slap on the wrist for their attempted murders. But this says the county department does inform ICE--or the Prince George's County spokesman said they inform ICE about upcoming releases but did not provide notification in this case. ``ICE says the county should have given notification of any transfer out of custody so the agency could lodge a detainer with the new prison or jail.'' ``Under a 2014 Department of Corrections policy, county jails say they will notify ICE of impending releases but won't hold the migrants for pickup unless ICE has a signed warrant from a judge. ``Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter immigration controls, said the teens are at the center of several raging immigration debates. ``Mr. Fuentes-Ponce came to the U.S. in late 2015 as part of the surge of families from Central America who have overwhelmed the border in recent years. ``Under the Obama administration, the family was paroled into the U.S. to await its immigration case. Like many other families, Mr. Fuentes-Ponce didn't appear for his hearing and was ordered deported in absentia, ICE said. ``Mr. Escobar, meanwhile, entered the U.S. in 2016 as an unaccompanied alien child, the other major demographic in the border surge.'' That is one of the things we debated for hours and hours yesterday in our Judiciary Committee. The committee's majority wants to have even more widespread amnesty than DACA, which President Obama had said 20- something times it would be unconstitutional for him to do what he ultimately did creating the DACA program. He didn't even sign executive orders, I understand. He had the Secretary of Homeland Security do a couple of memos. So he changed Federal law without the bill being passed by the House and Senate, without signing it into law. He didn't even sign an executive order. He just had a couple of memos that changed the policy. ``Mr. Krikorian wondered whether the killing of the 14-year-old girl would receive as much attention as the death of an illegal immigrant teen in Border Patrol custody this week.'' There was a teen who died from an apparent flu. ``That case prompted reporters to question Mr. Trump about what steps he would take. `` `The antiborder activists are quick to blame the Border Patrol for deaths that are out of their control, but rationalizes the crimes committed by people who would be removed if the law were enforced. There really is a double standard here.' ``The D.C. area has long had a large Central American population, making it one of the top destinations for families and unaccompanied alien children involved in the surge. Prince George's, Fairfax, and Montgomery Counties are among the top 10 locations. ``More than 5,660 unaccompanied alien children have been placed with sponsors in Prince George's County over the past 5 years, topping Fairfax at about 5,200 and Montgomery at about 4,300. ``The unaccompanied alien children have strained schools and, security experts say, created a breeding ground for gang recruitment. `` `Most of the Central Americans coming across the border are not criminals, but gangs have used this flow of people across the border to bring their members into the U.S., and others who weren't gang members in Central America have become gang members here,' Mr. Krikorian said.'' So it would really help if we could come together, if the President wouldn't have to be building the wall without any help from a Democrat- controlled House. It is a shame they want to do all they can to try to prevent the President from protecting the country, but we ought to learn a lesson from the damage that was done between 1825 and 1829 during the Presidency of John Quincy Adams, and we ought to come together, get the border secure. Let's not have any amnesties until the border is secure, then we can talk about them, debate them. But every time we talk about amnesty--I got a picture this week from a friend on the border, a 6-year-old and an 8-year-old, unaccompanied children, yet we are told: Oh, no. We are doing this DACA amnesty because the children were brought into the United States by their parents, and so these children were drug into the United States without their choice, and so we need to give them legal status. And yet you have got a 6-year-old and an 8-year-old that are coming in, as my friend across the aisle said yesterday: Well, they don't come in without help. She is right. The parents weren't with them. The parents weren't with them, forcing them. We also have been hearing that, since there is so much fuss made about allowing people to stay that had children with them, the children have now become a negotiable commodity. I have been there when children were passed back and forth between different adults--you know, who is going to claim these kids--and they are waiting for the border patrolmen to get down to them so they can answer the questions. But the drug cartels have figured out, the gangs have figured out-- gangs are often paid to bring people in illegally, and the gangs get paid by the drug cartels because, as we know, every inch of the border of the United States is controlled by some drug cartel. So the gangs make money, the drug cartels make money by bringing people in. And since they have learned they have a better chance of staying in if they bring somebody's kid with them, then more kids are coming in now. But it is interesting. I am wondering how the debates will go when we say, well, here is a person we want to give amnesty to because their parents dragged them into America, even though there were no parents with them. Well, so the gangs brought them in. Anybody in the drug cartel brings in a child, that means we are supposed to give them amnesty? At some point, we have got to secure the border. It is the most compassionate thing we can do. Mexico will become a great economy in the world, one of the top, and the wonderful people of Mexico, Central America will have a better standard of living. Heck, you might have United States citizens thinking maybe they would like to go work in a vibrant economy in Mexico if and when we can help stop the drug cartels with all the money that they have got coming in. Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time I have left.