Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I, too, miss my friend Walter Jones. I just greatly treasured the hour each week we spent together visiting. It was a fitting tribute today at his funeral. I do want to address this bill we just passed. I had hoped to vote for it after I was hearing, well, it is not much money; it is less than $2 billion. But the trouble is there are provisions in here that are going to make it difficult to remove anybody who is here if they have got a child in there. And, yes, I know, there is language that says if it is based on information shared by HHS, so that means they are going to be covered up with discovery requests, FOIA requests, probably people will find Obama judges who let people out. This was not a good bill in the end. That is why I had to vote ``no.''

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I appreciate my dear friend and, actually, college friend for these many years, since we were in school together at Texas A&M, and the great tribute. There was another superb tribute today paid to a giant of a man in more recent days. John Dingell had been reduced to a wheelchair, but having visited with him when his health was great and when he was in his wheelchair, Madam Speaker, I can confirm either way he was a giant of a man. Now, make no mistake, we had some significant political differences of opinion, but I never, ever had to wonder about the integrity, the honesty, just the greatness of John Dingell. He shot straight. Sometimes they were things you didn't want to hear. I loved his mischievous sense of humor, his way of making his point. I had no problem with the way he sometimes went after witnesses that he felt were being less than candid. He was a great man. He was a great Member of Congress. One of the things that has brought prior comments of his back to mind, prior activity here, was the proposed Green New Deal. I disagreed with John Dingell's effort for some type of government-run or universal-type health insurance, but we both--and I know the man's heart. He wanted what he believed was best for the American people. He was a man that staunch conservatives like me could talk to and could trust. He, as was pointed out by the majority leader earlier today and others, loved the Energy and Commerce Committee; and it was humorous, earlier, when it was mentioned the times when he thought that was the only committee here. But after decades and decades of service and wanting to do something about the problem with healthcare--it certainly has problems. He was so looking forward, as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the committee of jurisdiction over such a healthcare bill as the ACA, ObamaCare, whatever you want to call it, he was looking forward to shepherding that through as the great chairman, as the great Member of Congress that he was. At the time--this was between 2007 and January of 2011 when Republicans took back over the majority here in the House--he had appropriately become chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. He couldn't wait to shepherd through what he believed would fix so many of the ills with the healthcare system, health insurance system. And I would certainly agree that the health insurance companies are not really in the insurance business; they are more in health management. I would love to see them back in the insurance business instead of the management, where we either have the government or the insurance companies telling us what healthcare we can have and not have. But John Dingell wanted what was best for the American people. And Speaker Pelosi made it very clear, there were two important bills that she wanted coming out of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and one of them was a healthcare bill. If you are a Democrat, you should have wanted John Dingell to be chairman of the committee that would bring that out of committee and to the floor. But the other bill was given the name cap and trade, and the cap-and- trade bill included a carbon tax. It was an early form of a Green New Deal. It was going to get us off of any carbon-based energy--or make it very expensive to be on it. That appears to be a big purpose of the Green New Deal. But earlier this week in our Natural Resources Committee, we had testimony regarding this Green New Deal issue, and there was a very sharp African American witness who made the point of something I understood he called energy poverty. It was something that John Dingell had made the point about that got him fired by Speaker Pelosi as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Because John Dingell knew, when you run up the cost of energy, of electricity, of gasoline, of the things that people need to get to and from work or to and from healthcare or to and from important meetings, you run up the cost of that. As one lower middle-class single mom told me back some years ago when the Obama administration had helped to run the price of gasoline through the roof, run up energy costs--in fairness, candidate Obama had promised, like with coal-based energy, he wasn't going to just necessarily make it illegal, but he would skyrocket the cost of that energy. So, in fairness, he was keeping a promise. He was skyrocketing the cost of energy. And this single mom was desperate. She said: I can't afford the gasoline to get to work, and I am maxed out on my credit card. I can't get another one. And I have to pay just enough on my credit card so I can get gas on it so I can keep going to work. But the prices keep going up. I don't have room on the only credit card I have got to get gas so I can keep my job, and now I may be in danger of losing the job that allows me to pay a little bit on my credit card so I can get gas the next month and keep my job. I mean, it was tragic to listen to somebody struggling, for all they were worth, to take care of themselves, their kids, and the government was intentionally running up the cost of fuel and electricity. I mentioned before, one 80-year-old lady in east Texas had commented: I am afraid that, with the way the cost of energy is going up, I am not going to be able to afford anything, not even propane, electricity. She said: I was born in a home that only had a wood-burning stove, and I am afraid I may leave this world in a home that only has a wood- burning stove for energy. And I said: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this administration, the Obama administration, is trying to make it so you can't have a wood-burning stove in your room because that will violate emission laws they want. So you can end up actually worse off than the home in which you were born. Well, thankfully, that administration is no longer in office to continue driving up the cost of energy. But let's face it, when the cost of gasoline goes up, jet fuel goes up. When the cost of electricity goes up, it doesn't hurt the rich. It hurts the middle class tremendously, and it hurts the lower middle class and the poor even more. And my understanding of what was considered the final straw that caused the Speaker to fire John Dingell as chairman of the committee that he loved dearly and fire him from the chance to shepherd through a healthcare bill was when he said--and as I recall, these are his exact words--talking about cap and trade: That bill is not only a tax, it is a great big one. And he made clear he knew that, if cap and trade passed, electricity would skyrocket, the cost of gasoline would skyrocket, every cost of energy would skyrocket. The rich would be fine. All of those rich Democrats, some rich Republicans, fly around in their private jet, have two or three Suburbans. Al Gore would have more than one, with the engines running while he went and gave a speech or made an appearance. Those kinds of folks, they wouldn't be hurt. They get to keep having their big, energy-guzzling Suburbans running even though they weren't in them. They would be able to keep flying their private planes. But the Nation's poor would be devastated if cap and trade had become the law. But because John Dingell could see the damage that was going to do to the Nation's poor, he said: I can't, in good conscience, bring that bill, get it voted out of my committee. So he got fired. He got fired from the chance to do what he had dreamed about doing for decades, and that was having a big healthcare bill that he believed would fix so many of the problems that especially the Nation's poor were facing. Now, the irony was apparently not lost on John Dingell when we were having the last hour of debate on the healthcare bill that he had been prevented from shepherding through. He was put in the chair as Speaker pro tempore to preside over the last hour of debate on the healthcare bill before we voted on it. He had long since been replaced as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee by Henry Waxman, who famously said to Republicans: We not only don't want your input, we don't need your votes. That was the new chairman's approach, and it was the way he pushed the unaffordable ACA through. It was the way he pushed through cap and trade out of committee that would have been such a horrible blow to our Nation's core. But he had been fired from the chance to get a better bill as chairman of the committee, and yet he got put in the chair as Speaker pro tempore to preside over the last hour of debate before the vote. I found that rather ironic. Mr. Speaker, I talked to the former Republican chairman of Energy and Commerce, Joe Barton, who said, long after ObamaCare had passed and we were finding out that the architect of ObamaCare knew it wouldn't work, knew that when the President said: If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance, the architect of that for the Obama administration said he knew all of that was not true, but they had to say those things to sell it. But Joe Barton pointed out that John Dingell was such an amazing chairman of Energy and Commerce and was so adept at forging together bills, Joe told me that if John Dingell had been left as chairman of Energy and Commerce, he would have called us Republicans in and he would have said: Look, we are going to pass a healthcare bill, and I would like your support. I want it to be bipartisan. So give me a few things that you have got to have in a healthcare bill so that I can find some way we can make this a bipartisan healthcare bill and we can get at least a bunch of your party's votes so this truly will be a bipartisan bill, and that will make the bill a better bill. As Joe pointed out to me, the thing is, if they had left John Dingell in as chairman of Energy and Commerce, he would have forged together a bill. As Joe said, it would have been a bill that some of us Republicans, if not all, we would have had to vote for it because some of the things he put in there that we just agreed to strongly with, we would have had to vote for it. If John Dingell had been left chairman of Energy and Commerce, it would not have been a bill that would have cost the Democrats the majority in November of 2010. It would not have been a bill that Republicans could run on in 2010 and 2012 and say, we have got to completely repeal ObamaCare, the ACA, whatever you want to call it. We wouldn't have been able to do that, because the master at bringing together parties and forging together a good bill, he would have been the one that brought it together and it would have lasted. We wouldn't have all been running to repeal it because too many of us voted for it. So as we pause to honor a truly great man today, John Dingell, I can't imagine somebody breaking his record of 59 years in the House--I am sure not going to--but what an amazing man. I recall that day--John Dingell was at that point relying heavily on a cane, that political congressional giant had to rely on that cane very heavily to get up to the Speaker's chair. He had to rely on it to come down out of the Speaker's chair that day that we voted on the ACA, and the majority leader appropriately called attention to the great man he was, and that day everybody rose in a standing ovation, and I am forever glad that we did--the majority leader pointed out that this had been a dream of John Dingell's for decades, that he wanted a big healthcare bill that would fix problems, and now we were finally getting to vote on it. So it was only appropriate that that great man, that great legislator, John Dingell, would sit in the Chair and preside over the debate in that last hour. So he asked unanimous consent that we all show our appreciation, and that is when we had the standing ovation. But I was thinking I know this guy. He is not only a righteous and honorable man of integrity, honest, he is really, really smart. He is not stupid. Anybody that ever tried to match wits with him soon learned that they were going to feel like an unarmed man in a war of words. They tried to do combat with words. I just knew there is no way this brilliant man has lost the irony of getting all this great praise and recognition as he presides for an hour over debate with really no control over what goes in the bill during that hour when they fired him from the chance to forge together a much better bill. And it was that overwhelming sense of irony--sometimes I should keep my mouth shut when I don't--but the majority leader had asked for that unanimous consent recognition which was entirely in order, so I came over and grabbed that microphone and when the applause died down, I said: Mr. Speaker--to the Speaker pro tempore that replaced John Dingell in the Chair--and basically I said in that same sense of love and admiration for a great patriot, a great man, a great Congressman, something like that, I would ask unanimous consent that we give him his chairmanship back. Anyway, it took a couple of seconds or so for people on this side of the aisle to realize the irony and just die laughing. And I know so many of the people across the aisle, great people with great senses of humor. We kid around, joke around about things. I was surprised nobody was laughing across the aisle because they knew. They liked Dingell. They knew that Speaker Pelosi fired him because he wouldn't push through the cap-and-trade bill that would have been so detrimental to the Nation's poor. But they weren't laughing. I couldn't believe they were not laughing. But I had one of the Capitol Police tell me afterwards--actually, there were two of them that came up when I was leaving in the Speakers lobby, nobody else out there--they said, I know there weren't people on the other side of the aisle from you laughing at what you said, but you should have been out here in the Speaker's lobby as they left. So many of them were saying: Wasn't that the funniest thing you ever heard? I know, but did you see the Speaker looking around for anybody that was laughing? I couldn't laugh. She was looking toward me. So anyway, it was an amazing moment. I thought it was not just ironic, but humorous. The next day, John Dingell, who it was not easy for him to get around at that time--it became even tougher--but he had sought me out at the back of the Republican side of the floor here, and he said: Louie, I wanted to thank you for what you said yesterday. I said: John, the irony, I just couldn't stay quiet. The irony overwhelmed me. And he said: I know. That is why I just wanted to say thank you. Well, that is a thanks I will treasure for the rest of my life. John Dingell was a great man. He was a great legislator, and one of the best committee chairmen this Chamber has ever had in any committee. I got to serve side by side for 2 years on a subcommittee with his wife, Debbie, now a widow, and I came to find out that so much that I liked about John Dingell existed in Debbie. She was the ranking member of that subcommittee when I was chairman, back when they let me have a chairmanship on our side of the aisle, and I loved working with her. I still do. She is a treasured friend. She is a great American, and she is hurting. So for those who believe in the power of prayer, I hope, Madam Speaker, that they will remember all of John Dingell's family and lift them up in prayer for the peace that surpasses all understanding because we have lost a great man to this world. I rushed over here from a hearing in the Judiciary Committee, a strange hearing. The Acting Attorney General that is going to be acting for another week maybe had a big circus about having him come in and testify in a long hearing, where everybody gets to go after him that wants to. But in that hearing, as well as in media in the past, as well as in other hearings in the past, I kept hearing friends across the aisle talk about these great career officials in the Department of Justice who were giving great advice to Jeff Sessions, like to recuse himself, and Jeff Sessions himself said: I listened to the career officials at the Department of Justice who recommended that I recuse myself on the Russia investigation. Some of us heard--it was understood who he was referring to as giving him this great advice to recuse himself--and you could say they were in career positions. But these were not the career positions or officials of days gone by when a U.S. attorney or even somebody in the Justice Department here in Washington could be trusted to give nonpolitical advice. But as we have seen in the Department of Justice and FBI scandals of the last few years, we have people who were disastrously political that were seeking political victories through the Justice Department and certainly were not the nonpartisan, bipartisan people of the past. I know from working with U.S. attorneys and assistant U.S. attorneys in decades past, we knew how they voted. We knew party allegiance, whether they were Republican or Democrat, but when it came to criminal law, criminal violations, those things, they may have different personal philosophies, but justice was justice. And if somebody violated the law, they were going to pursue it. They were not going to let party affiliation or their regard or lack of regard for the President or anybody else keep them from pursuing justice. But this has been an extraordinary time in American history when we have found a Department of Justice had officials to the very top who were far more political than they were just; where people, even an Attorney General, would say they had a chance meeting on a tarmac, when the facts of the day indicate it really could not have been a chance meeting on a tarmac. And if it hadn't been for a reporter spotting what he thought might be former President Bill Clinton, nobody would have ever known about that meeting while, supposedly, Hillary Clinton was under investigation. We now know there was never going to be any prosecution of Hillary Clinton, no matter how grievous or egregious any criminal violation may have been, even if it meant obstructing justice by destroying emails that had been subpoenaed and destroying with a hammer or with BleachBit cellphones or computers. This is clearly obstruction of justice. Those would have been lay- down cases to get convictions. But it was now clear those were never going to be pursued because the people who were in position, supposedly career, some political appointments, they were not going to let that happen. Now, people like Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok--the guy is the head of FBI counterintelligence, and he has no problem lying over and over and over again. Then he has the gall to come in and basically say, as his deposition testimony ended, oh, he always tells the truth. Any good lawyer knows you don't ever say, ``I always tell the truth,'' because you make mistakes. But he did, and that was a lie. He just couldn't help lying. There were stories after the shock to the Obama administration in having Donald Trump win, the arrogance that existed in the Democratic Party that, gee, there is no way Donald Trump could win, even though it certainly appeared to be funny at the time when President Obama--I think it may have been on Letterman where he read something about a comment that Obama would go down as the worst President, and he said: Yeah, at least I will go down as having been President. Everybody laughed because, gee, how could he ever get elected President? Well, he did. So there were articles written and word spread that in the remaining days of the Obama administration after Donald Trump was elected President, there was a flurry of activity in November, December, and early January to move people from political appointment positions into career positions in all these different government departments and agencies, including the Department of Justice. If you look at the person who answered to Rod Rosenstein, Tashina Gauhar--she was the liaison between the National Security Council and the Attorney General, but she answered directly to Rod Rosenstein. That was a change I understood that occurred in the organizational chart for DOJ some time back. I tried to tell Jeff and persuade him: You need to reorganize. You need to have critical positions answering directly to you. He didn't know why he kept getting such late notices to NSC meetings. Everybody else got them timely. What I heard was Tashina Gauhar was getting them timely like everybody else but delaying Jeff Sessions getting them, so he would either develop a conflict or he would not have time to properly prepare. He would go into the meetings looking bad before the National Security Council, because he wasn't as prepared as others were because he didn't get his notices timely as he should have because a person who was more--or certainly appeared to be much more--devoted to Sally Yates and her obstruction of the Trump administration was the one who was supposed to pass on those notices to Jeff Sessions. As we are seeing, there were people who have been forced to leave the DOJ and leave the FBI in scandal for lying. I understand Andrew McCabe supposedly is currently being investigated for criminal violations. This is a guy right there close to the top, nearly the top, and he had become a political hack and a political operative. Others would look at somebody like him or Peter Strzok and say these are career people, so we can trust them, without realizing, oh, no, they are politically motivated, and they are going to use their job for political purposes to try to keep one party from winning the Presidency and try to help another to win the Presidency. It is shocking what is going on. I believe that if the roles had been reversed and that was a Republican FBI, Republican DOJ--it shouldn't be political at all, but it has been. But if that had been them, and they were the doing to a Democrat President what has been done to this one, I just feel sure I would have objected. This is wrong. I don't care what the party is, you don't abuse a justice system for political purposes. I think I would--I really believe it is one of the things that makes some in my party so mad at me sometimes when they are not doing the right thing, and they are not keeping their word. It is still my hope and prayer, literally, that we will come together to recognize what John Dingell did. We work better when we work together. Apparently, at times, he called Republicans in. He was so skilled at negotiating, but making clear: We are going to get this bill passed, but we want your buy-in. We want you involved. We want you to have things in it that you are proud of. So what do you got? What do you need? What can we work out? That kind of diplomacy is going to be sorely missed here. But one comfort is I see so many of those traits in Debbie Dingell. John Dingell will be missed. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting day, perhaps more than most. We have heard over and over again about Republicans supposedly causing the shutdown, but in my days as a trial lawyer, judge, chief justice, it is always good to look at the evidence. And the evidence is very clear. You had Republicans in the House and Senate and the President actually pass a spending bill in the House before the end of December, and the only thing that was keeping it from getting through the Senate was that Democrats there, led by Senator Schumer, would not negotiate. They arrived at no agreement to get 60 votes so that it could go forward with debate. That wasn't the Republicans. In the position of the White House, President Trump made clear: This is negotiable, but we do need wall, we need barrier. Call it whatever you want. He moved from talking about concrete to talking about the steel barrier. And having spent time with some other Members of Congress, invited by Congressman Biggs and Congressman Gosar down to the Arizona border, we saw a lot of it. And then it would just end. And then you saw a clear path right around the end of it as people kept coming, invading this country illegally. From the border patrolmen, it was clear some were carrying big loads of drugs. Sometimes they are able to catch them, sometimes they are not. And it sounds like, from the times I spent on the border south of McAllen, southeast of McAllen, the Texas quadrant, more often than not, they don't catch the drugs coming in. It is an invasion. It is a huge problem. And I was hearing people, friends across the other side of the aisle, some Senators who are Democrats, acknowledging: Yes, we need to do something. But when it came to negotiating, there was no negotiation. So we had this bill today decrying how horrible shutdowns are. But if you look at the tactics, when the tactics of the leaders--and I say at least some of the leaders--of one party are ``we are not going to negotiate; we are not going to compromise; we are not going to do what is best for the country,'' in effect, as they have stated on prior occasions, as they have voted on prior occasions, some of them, that is what causes a shutdown. You know, we did not need this shutdown. We shouldn't have had to have this shutdown. It should have been agreed back in December by at least some of the Senators so that we could have gotten a spending bill. Of course, we had spending passed on three-fourths of the government. It was about one-fourth of the government that was not funded. So we talk about a shutdown. It wasn't a full shutdown. But, still, it did harm to those who were not getting paid. But as I would go through airports--and TSA agents would know who I was--numerous times I was told: We are hurting not getting paid, but we are all right. We are going to be a whole lot worse off if we don't get a wall or a barrier or something built and start securing the border. We heard from teachers who were saying: We love our kids, we want to teach them, but it is so unfair to the students who are already there to have people brought in and say you have got to educate these, and they don't speak English. And the teachers would say it really did damage, it does damage to those students that we are supposed to also teach. And now, all of a sudden, we have people we have to teach who don't speak English. There are some school districts that have done a great job of trying to work around that and teach English in an immersion-type setting so that we can help people not be relegated to manual labor the rest of their lives, but help them speak good English so that they can get good jobs. But we need a barrier in some places on the border where we don't have it, and that is clear. You can't just have a 20-, 30-foot barrier just proceeding along that is stopping the drugs, stopping the sex trafficking, stopping the human trafficking, and then just stop it. Because, as we saw down the Arizona border, the path goes for miles and miles, and it comes right up to the point where the barrier ends, and it goes right around. In one place, there is a little barbed wire gate that is held to the barrier. This massive barrier is held with a little, probably a quarter-inch, nylon rope. And they leave it in a slip knot so you can open the gate and the drugs can come pouring in that will kill Americans. Something had to be done. And yet what happened was the President was willing to negotiate, Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans were willing to negotiate, Senator McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate were willing to negotiate, and yet the word from our Speaker was: We are not negotiating at all on a barrier, a wall. So we continued to have people in the interim, while the government was shut down, continue to die as a result of us not securing our border. We were told by Border Patrol, every day, there are women who are pulled into sex trafficking. Every day, there are women--often young girls. We are told about one-third of the girls who are brought up to bring them into the United States illegally are raped at least once and, normally, multiple times. As long as we keep our border so unsecured, that is going to continue. I mean, how much lack of compassion do you have to have to say: ``We are fine with the rape trees; we are fine with one-third of the girls coming into the United States illegally having been raped. We are fine. We just leave things like they are. That is fine, but we are not going to negotiate because. Apparently, from what we are hearing, even though many of the people who refuse to negotiate have talked about the need for barriers and talked about the need for securing the border, they were very concerned that the President would get a political win by getting even part of a wall or barrier. So people are just going to have to keep suffering, getting raped and dying. So we didn't secure the border, there is no additional wall, so they can claim the President didn't keep his promise on the wall. That was more important than saving lives, saving rapes from happening. It is all about politics. And that is not across the aisle. I have talked to too many friends across the aisle that, if we had been left to our own resources, we could have worked something out. But apparently, at the top, it was more important to keep a political win from the President than it was to do what was right for the country. I don't know anybody on our side of the aisle who loves shutdowns, but there were some claims made in the bill that went too far, so most of us voted ``no.'' We don't want a shutdown, the same way we don't want anybody in our military dying. But, if we never had any military willing to risk their lives, we wouldn't have the freedoms we have today. If we didn't have a President willing to put a stake in the sand and say: We have got to do something to secure our border. We need some barrier, wall, whatever you want to call it in some places. And I will negotiate. The amount is negotiable--he came down to about a fifth of what he had been saying and what we are told really needs to be spent, $25 billion or so. Yet there was no negotiation on the other side. I know there was one dollar mentioned, apparently in jest: Oh, I would give a dollar for a wall. But it just seems so hypocritical to have a leader, or leaders, that would not negotiate in good faith, which caused a shutdown, with one side willing to negotiate on everything except we have got to have some barriers someplace and no negotiation on the other side. Then we come in here with a bill today to condemn shutdowns that were caused by a refusal of one side to negotiate. Like I said, I know that is not the case. There is an article here from the Washington Examiner, Anna Giaritelli. It says: ``House Republicans say at least 60 Democratic lawmakers have indicated in the past few weeks that they support some type of barrier, wall, or fence at the U.S.-Mexico border, even as Democratic leaders say they won't agree to President Trump's border wall.'' It is just amazing that that ends up being the climactic bill today, condemning shutdowns, after the leadership on one side says: We are not compromising; we are not moving an inch. It causes a shutdown; we will blame that on you. We will even pass a bill. We have got a majority. We can pass a bill, you know, that condemns shutdowns. They took out the language, thankfully, that blames the Republicans. But I would like to recognize my very dear friend from Pennsylvania for his comments and observations. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).

Mr. GOHMERT. The gentleman mentioned the 51,000. That is just, as I understand, those who were apprehended.

Mr. GOHMERT. In 1 month. That is not everybody that was coming in. My friend, being a general in the United States Army, served our country so meritoriously. We had a situation under President Woodrow Wilson where a small part of Pancho Villa's gang came across the border into the United States, killed some families, and then went back into Mexico. Devout Democrat that Woodrow Wilson was, he apparently saw that small incursion as an invasion. He sent--and I have asked the Congressional Research Service for their best numbers, and the estimate, taken from articles and information they had gotten, was probably around 75,000 of a new group called the National Guard--new back in the early 1900s. He sent them down to stand guard on the border--75,000--and sent General John Pershing down into Mexico pursuing Pancho Villa's troops. They didn't ever get him; they got a lot of his lieutenants. But, apparently, when 75,000 people were put on the border, there was no more invasion. If you look at the U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 4--this is our Constitution--says: ``The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion.'' Now, 51,000 in a month is many, many times more than the folks that Pancho Villa had come in and kill Americans. Would the gentleman consider that an invasion, what we have going on on our southern border? Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I do want to hit one point that the gentleman made about the drones. They can help. The television cameras, all of the sophistication, the technology, can help. The gentleman from Pennsylvania was not here when $8 billion, as I recall, was passed in the House and Senate, signed by the President, and given to protect our southern border for, the terminology I recall, a virtual wall. And that was not a wall but cameras, airplanes, drones, whatever they could get, whatever they needed, whether it was microphones, listening--it was whatever the Secretary of Homeland Security thought appropriate. There was a provision that was added in the Senate that became part of the law that said, if the Secretary of Homeland Security decides that money is not going to accomplish the purpose of securing the border, then she can wave that off and spend the money elsewhere. That is what Secretary Napolitano did, as I recall. She waved it off. I have been trying to find out for a number of years now: Where did that $8 billion go that was supposed to be for this technology that we are hearing from some across the aisle: That is all we need is that? Well, not one single Democrat did I ever hear say: Do you know what? Napolitano shouldn't have waved off a virtual wall. They agreed that just wasn't going to do it. Secretary Napolitano said that is not going to do it. That is not going to help secure the border. That is all we hear in response to President Trump saying wall, barrier. Whatever you want to call it, it is what we need there. I yield to my friend, Mr. Perry.

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I appreciate my friend from Pennsylvania so much for sharing his thoughts. It continues to be a problem every day. An article here from The Hill, by Madison Gesiotto, says: ``The Mexican Government is doing more to combat illegal immigration into the United States than the entire Democratic Party put together. While the Democrats continue to pretend the crisis on our southern border is imaginary, Mexico is heavily investing in border security in anticipation of yet another massive caravan of migrants heading for the United States.'' It goes on: ``Hundreds of Honduran migrants began their journey in hopes of seeking asylum at our southern border, a goal that proved elusive to the previous caravan. Instead of dismissing the new caravan as a `manufactured crisis' as the Democrats did after President Trump made his appeal . . . Mexican authorities sprang into action, announcing a list of strengthened requirements to address the problem. ``According to the latest reports, the Mexican Government is reinforcing all the entry points along its own southern border with additional immigration enforcement agents and is stepping up surveillance of known illegal crossing points. It also plans to enforce strict immigration protocols, such as requiring the migrants to undergo biometric scans and acquire immigration documents before they can enter the country.'' So that is Mexico. We have worked on a bill in the past that said, if you think the Mexican law is so much better than ours, why don't we just adopt the policies and the laws of Mexico, with regard to immigration? The bottom line is, if we were to do that, we wouldn't have millions of illegal immigrants in this country. I have to give the President some credit here. When we see this article from Reuters, an unlikely source, it points out: ``The United States sent the first Central American asylum seeker back to Mexico through a crossing at the border city of Tijuana on Tuesday as part of a hardened immigration policy, an official at Mexico's National Migration Institute said.'' Somebody has been doing some amazing negotiating in order to make that happen, where Mexico would agree to take back some folks who are claiming asylum. As I understand it, we may have more people going back to Mexico, pending their hearing. As we heard from Secretary Nielsen back in December before our committee, where there are walls and barriers in place, it cuts illegal immigration by 90 to 95 percent. That is something that works. Nothing is going to work 100 percent, but that is amazing at how well it works. I now yield to my good friend, Congressman Gaetz.

Mr. GOHMERT. I am very grateful to my friend, Congressman Gaetz, for that insightful comment. The gentleman is right. When you are right, you are right. I would like to comment on something else that has been in the news, and that is the longest war in which the United States has ever been engaged. For a little history, it took a few weeks for the United States to find out where the training and preparation for 9/11 came from, and that the Taliban and Osama bin Laden were behind it. They had control of Afghanistan, the Taliban did. It was an amazing bit of negotiation by President Bush, with incredible help from intelligence and special operations. The special ops people from our military were able to negotiate an agreement with tribal leaders that ended up being called the Northern Alliance. It contained some people who have become friends, people who love their country. By October, we were putting in about 300 special ops military. There is a great book called ``Horse Soldiers'' that delves into this issue, and a movie, ``12 Strong,'' although the ending wasn't quite accurate. Our American forces were never to lead an operation. They were to support Dostum in his operations, which is what they did, heroically. By the end of February 2002, apparently, there was no organized Taliban left in Afghanistan. It had done an amazing job. The heroic fighting of those in the Northern Alliance, the Afghans led by General Dostum, did an amazing job. We provided some weapons. We gave them aerial--well, there were B-52s flying, but only our special ops guys could call down bombs. The leaders could tell the Americans: Look, there is a bunker. There is a problem. They would get the coordinates, call down the bomb, take care of it. Dostum and his folks would go in and clean up. That is how, by the end of October, we had not lost a single American, and the Taliban had been defeated. Unfortunately, at that point, we became occupiers. We sent in lots of American military, and in the 7-plus years of Commander in Chief George W. Bush, we lost just over 600 precious American military lives in Afghanistan. During the 8 years of Commander in Chief Obama--I believe, personally, it was because of the tough rules of engagement, and our people not being able to defend themselves until it was sometimes too late--we lost about three times as many people under Commander in Chief Obama as we did under Commander in Chief Bush. Whatever the problem, the buck stops with the Commander in Chief, and we lost three times as many when the war was supposed to be virtually over. What happened, once we became occupiers, was then more Afghans were joining the Taliban. I have talked with an individual who was part of the inner circle that was being made at the State Department about what kind of government we would give the Afghans. That shouldn't have been our job. We defeated the Taliban, or the Northern Alliance did with our help. They should have been the ones deciding what kind of government. The people I have talked to in Afghanistan, friends I have made there, they said: Look, there is not a much better place on Earth fitted for a federalist form of government where the power is in the states or provinces and in the localities. We don't need a big powerful dictator. We need strong states or provinces. Yet, the constitution we hoisted onto the Afghan people, led by a man who is now in the State Department once again leading efforts--as I understand it, he is the guy who said let's give them a centrist government. That is what the constitution gave Afghanistan. The President of Afghanistan appoints the governors. He appoints the mayors. He appoints the police chief. The people in Afghanistan have said: Look, this is horrendous. This is a formula for corruption. For heaven's sake, at least let us elect our governors, elect our mayors. Let us choose our own police chiefs. But that is not the constitution that we gave them. But there has been an amendment movement for some time. The Obama administration would not support it because they had some of the same State Department people that said: No, let's keep this corrupt centrist--they didn't say corrupt, but that is exactly what it gave them. And the Afghan people don't like what America forced on them. The solution is, encourage them. And since we spend billions of dollars there, look, you want another dime? Amend the constitution; allow an election of governors and mayors, local selection of police chiefs. Let's return the power to the provinces. As my friend, former Minister Massoud, there has said: Look, if you will help us get that amendment done, then whenever America leaves, we have got power back in our local areas. So if the Taliban takes over one province, or tries to take over the national government, all the other provinces can rise up and come after them and kick them out like we did last time. But as long as we have got this coerced, very centralized government, all they have got to do is knock off a few people at the top; which is why we have people that shouldn't still be in the State Department who are negotiating with the Taliban, not even our friends. Our friends are going to be dead when we pull out because we are leaving all this power for easy reach of the Taliban. We ought to be negotiating with our former allies, the ones that defeated the Taliban within six months, and get them that amendment, push them to get that, help them have those first elections under the amended constitution, and then get the heck out of Afghanistan. In that regard, we have a man who is not here on the floor this week, hasn't been in January, named Walter Jones. He wanted us out of Afghanistan, and he has for a very long time. He is not going to be around to see that happen is the indication. But, Madam Speaker, I know there are many of us that love that guy, and I was sad to see him in hospice last Friday. Prayers are with his family, because Walter is going to go home and be better off. But we miss him. I was heartened to see our friend, Alcee Hastings here on the floor a while ago. He has been going through a difficult bout of pancreatic cancer; been going through chemo, and I know my friends on both sides of the aisle will continue to pray for and encourage him. We can have strong disagreements. We don't wish anybody to go through what Walter and Alcee have been going through. One other friend that I spoke to in the last week, she has been in my prayers, Anne Graham Lotz. What an incredible gift to America Billy Graham's children have been. And our prayers will continue to be for Anne, Alcee, and my friend, Walter, and his family. 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. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to be here tonight, with so much going on, but it seems, other than some people rushing to judgment to beat up on a smiling high school kid with a sweet disposition, people are still concerned about the border. In talking to some TSA agents, some Border Patrol, some of those who are not getting checks--we are still getting some calls--I am still hearing from people, personally, saying: Look, it is really hurting not to have gotten a check; and if we don't get a check, our next check here in the next week, it is going to hurt. But we also know how many American people are hurting because of an insecure border. How many people have to die, how many people have to have their homes broken into, how many people have to be hit by drivers that should not be driving without insurance, without a driver's license, without fully understanding the laws? It shouldn't have to be said, but because there are so many people who are quite dense in the liberal media, we know that everybody who comes into this country illegally is not out to hurt America. But what they don't understand and what some in this country--thank God, literally, that it is a minority--don't understand is that, if you keep the border as open as it is, then this country will continue to be more and more overwhelmed, and we will lose that great light on the hill that has helped illuminate so much of the world through our being the most generous country in the history of the world, helping others that couldn't help themselves. But when you do enough damage to a country, this country--the greatest, I would continue to submit, in the history of the world, and that is because of all races, creed, color, gender. I mean, we have blessed the world. God has blessed this world through us. But as we weaken ourselves by having more and more people without regard to the law and we give more and more of our cities over to being used by the drug cartels in Mexico, and as we continue to use Homeland Security--thank goodness it is to a much, much lesser extent than during the Obama administration. But during the Obama administration, I have said here before, the Border Patrol says: The drug cartels call us at Homeland Security, and also HHS, their logistics. They get people illegally into the country who still owe more money to the drug cartels, and they provide them with a piece of paper with an address, a name sometimes, sometimes a phone number, but mainly that address. And Homeland Security, sometimes HHS, they ship them where the drug cartels need them to be to help finish out their network through the United States that will continue to poison our young people with drugs, 70,000 or so a year, to their deaths. At some point it has got to stop. I was fortunate to be on a trip to the border. Actually, we all just met there, down in southern Arizona. I have spent a tremendous amount of time, all hours of the day and night, on our Texas-Mexico border, but I had not spent time, like I should have, on the Arizona border. It was quite eye-opening. They have areas where they do have some border fence that is making a world of difference. Like Secretary Nielsen testified, when we add a wall barrier, it cuts down illegal immigration by 90 to 95 percent. They have seen it in San Diego, El Paso, and some places in Arizona where there is a massive fence or barrier. So it was interesting. Here is something we put up down by Douglas, Arizona, and we have got this fence here, and you can see between these big metal poles--and those go deep into the ground. These metal, hollow pipes are filled with concrete. So it is not easy to get through those. And then even if you do, you get over it--and there is some razor wire. But if you get over it, then at least to this point you still have another barrier. When there are heavy rains, there is water in there, but then you have got that to get over, and then you have a road here that the border patrol drives. They can see--and I was there--you can see for a long way. They can come zipping up, just like we watched them do near Nogales, Arizona, yesterday. So it does make a difference. Talking to the border patrolmen that were patrolling this area, they said: Oh, you wouldn't believe what a help this is. It is a huge help. Here is another area. This barrier, it is hard to tell, it looks solid, but you can see through the wall. Border patrolmen say they actually like to see through the wall or the fence so they can see what is on the other side, and, you know, see what is coming, and it is very helpful. And this is a great fence--a great barrier. You can tell a little better here that, you know, it has got razor wire. And they were telling us that that is something that the National Guard, that President Trump had sent down--or not National Guard--our military. The military has been sent down. Just in the last 90 days, they put up a tremendous amount of concertina wire that has made it much more difficult for people to get over. So this has been a terrific barrier until you get up here to the end, and that is the end of the barrier. They say: Well, then we have got this Normandy barrier for vehicles. Well, most of them aren't coming in vehicles into the United States, unless they have real serious drugs. But anyway, this is a major, major problem. So I now recognize my friend, who was down there on the border with me on this trip that Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar helped put together. I yield to Morgan Griffith.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it looks like--no, it is him because that is his--nobody else had binoculars that good. I yield to Congressman Griffith.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, funny he should ask. Yes, we just happen to have the rope. So here is the end of the barrier right here. It is an impressive barrier till you get to the end, and then you have got the rope he was referring to, and then they have got this barbwire fence-- pretty sad barbwire, four-strand, and it is anything but tight. The only thing that keeps somebody from crossing our border, you have got the massive barrier, the concertina wire, and then you have this little quarter-inch cord here and kind of a slipknot that you can undo, and then pull the gate open and come right through. That is one of our brave border patrolmen right there. I won't give Art's full name. But anyway, and the other thing we saw, there is a trail that goes right down there. That trail--and I know Mr. Griffith noticed this--but that trail doesn't come down all the way to the barrier. It leads--and you can follow it all the way through this area for miles. It comes right here to where the cord is instead of where the big barrier is. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it absolutely does.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to hear from the landowners down there that, you know, even up to the 1990s, the people that came were, you know, mainly people looking for jobs, and they would put out food and stuff. The border patrolmen had confirmed this. We were hearing it from the landowners, and we were hearing it from the border patrol. It used to be that when they caught people, it was the first time they had been caught. They probably were just looking for a job in the U.S. But now, most of the people coming, other than family units, most of them have records, criminal records. Not just in Mexico. Like one that we were being told about is wanted for murder in Mexico, but for all kinds of crimes, including murder in the United States. And that this has become a common event. You catch them, you do the fingerprints, and then here comes this big criminal history, and that that is what they are getting so much of. That used to be an anomaly, and now it is regular course of business. I yield to Mr. Griffith.

Mr. GOHMERT. It is amazing.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, he brings up a matter that touched a memory of what was being said by my friend--and sometimes people say that sarcastically--John Garamendi is a friend. He is a good man. But there were people talking before us about the drugs and that 90 percent of the drugs are coming through our legal ports of entry. I have been contending for some time, having spent so much time on the Texas-Mexico border, we cannot know how much drugs is coming where. They are catching more drugs coming through the legal port of entries. But there have been all hours--virtually every night down on that border south of McAllen, southwest there, where the border patrol tell us: We know. They send a group of people across in the middle of the night; they know we have to all come to start processing them, asking the questions, and we know that is when the big drug shipments come across, and they know we are tied up. And how do we know how much drugs? Nobody can say there is a percentage. I now yield to my good friend, Ralph Norman.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this is a different spot where the wall ended from the one that we are talking about a moment ago.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, he pulled that sleeping bag out, and that was in the area where the wall stopped, was it not?

Mr. GOHMERT. If my friend will yield for a question. Did you go in the Sasabe little store there where we stopped?

Mr. GOHMERT. How were those bullets packaged? I had not seen them in a store like that.

Mr. GOHMERT. Have you ever seen bullets for sale in a plastic bag like that before?

Mr. GOHMERT. What was the other big thing you don't normally see, but it took up a whole row there?

Mr. GOHMERT. MREs, Meals, Ready-to-Eat.

Mr. GOHMERT. I hope the gentleman can stick around and we can talk some more. But we have been joined by our friend from northern California, Congressman Doug LaMalfa. I know his friends and families have endured quite a tragedy this past year with the fire, but I yield to the gentleman for such comments as he might have about our border.