Steve King

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the October 7, 1998, resolution for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary, acting as a whole or by any subcommittee thereof appointed by the chairman for the purposes hereof and in accordance with the rules of the committee, is authorized and directed to investigate fully and completely whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States of America. The committee shall report to the House of Representatives such resolutions, articles of impeachment, or other recommendations as it deems proper. Sec. 2. (a) For the purpose of making such investigation, the committee is authorized to require-- ( 1) by subpoena or otherwise-- (A) the attendance and testimony of any person (including at a taking of a deposition by counsel for the committee); and (B) the production of such things; and (2) by interrogatory, the furnishing of such information; as it deems necessary to such investigation. (b) Such authority of the committee may be exercised-- (1) by the chairman and the ranking minority member acting jointly, or, if either declines to act, by the other acting alone, except that in the event either so declines, either shall have the right to refer to the committee for decision the question whether such authority shall be so exercised and the committee shall be convened promptly to render that decision; or (2) by the committee acting as a whole or by subcommittee, Subpoenas and interrogatories so authorized may be issued over the signature of the chairman, or ranking minority member, or any member designated by either of them, and may be served by any person designated by the chairman, or ranking minority member, or any member designated by either of them. The chairman, or ranking minority member, or any member designated by either of them ( or, with respect to any deposition, answer to interrogatory, or affidavit, any person authorized by law to administer oaths) may administer oaths to any witness. For the purposes of this section, ``things'' includes, without limitation, books, records, correspondence, logs, journals, memorandums, papers, documents, writings, drawings, graphs, charts, photographs, reproductions, recordings, tapes, transcripts, printouts, data compilations from which information can be obtained (translated if necessary, through detection devices into reasonably usable form), tangible objects, and other things of any kind.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, when you lay them down side-by-side and you read them, they come out and say, ``Authorizing and directing the Committee on the Judiciary to investigate whether sufficient grounds exist for the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States.'' The committee--this says, ``Resolved, that the Committee on the Judiciary''--this is Nixon--``acting as a whole or by any subcommittee thereof appointed by the chairman for the purposes hereof and in accordance with the rules of the committee, is authorized and directed to investigate fully and completely whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States of America. The committee shall report to the House of Representatives such resolutions, Articles of Impeachment, and other recommendations as it deems proper.'' This is substantively the same. The provisions in here, the language varies a little bit in the preambles, but the provisions in here are identical, because they had an understanding that they needed to be in conformance with the constitution, Mr. Speaker, with history, with the sense of fairness and trust and knowing that antiquity would look back on this and see how did they conduct themselves in the House of Representatives when they were faced with this question of whether or not to impeach a President of the United States. Well, I have this other resolution here, Mr. Speaker. This is H. Res--it's before the Rules Committee tonight, it doesn't have a number on it now as I have it, it is not at all like the resolutions, the identical resolutions of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. And it is also curious that in modern times we have gone back to this impeachment over and over again where the only other impeachment up until Richard Nixon was Andrew Johnson shortly after the Civil War. But here is what we have. This is I think the Adam Schiff resolution. It says: ``The chair . . . shall designate an open hearing or hearings pursuant to this section.'' Well great, we went down to the SCIF and shined sunlight on that, and now they have capitulated to the pressure that was brought to bear that day, and they are going to have an open hearing or hearings. Well, I wrote a little note on there that says, yes, they are going to have an open hearing, one. It is a minimum of one. They might have more if they decide to, but not all. They are still determined. This resolution says that they can go back down into the basement room of the Capitol, the secret room and conduct their secret hearings with their secret rules and the public can't see in, the public can't hear the audio, the public can't see the video, the public nor other Members of Congress can watch the facial expressions, listen to the voice inflections, watch the body language and determine the demeanor and veracity of the witnesses. That is not going to happen under this resolution that comes to us tomorrow just as they are going to do one open hearing. And it might be a gavel in and gavel out. That will comply with this resolution. And they can move on. It says also, The chair and ranking minority member of the committee--that is the secret committee, the Permanent Select Committee--``shall be permitted to question witnesses for equal specified periods of longer than 5 minutes, as determined by the chair.'' So Adam Schiff can decide if he wants to question a witness for beyond 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, even 45 minutes because they have a 90-minute cap on this, as determined by the chair. But if Adam Schiff wants to question a witness for 6 minutes only, that means that Devin Nunes can only question that witness for 6 minutes only. Well, that is a pretty tight rule, isn't it? So if they like what the witness is saying, they are going to continue to ask questions. If they don't like what he is saying, he is going to shut that questioning off, and that shuts off Devin Nunes, and he is the only one that can ask questions of that witness. It says but the time, ``shall be equal for the chair and the ranking minority member.'' Sure. But the chair determines how long that time will be. And then it says it, ``shall not exceed 90 minutes,'' which I mentioned ``in the aggregate. Only the chair and ranking member or a Permanent Select Committee employee,'' meaning staff, ``if yielded to by the chair or ranking minority member may question witnesses during such periods of questioning.'' So the rest of the committee that is allowed access into that secret basement room, there in the dark, in the confines of the most secret room in the entire Capitol complex, they are constructing a method to try to impeach the President of the United States. Banana republics do that. Soviet-style justice does that. It is not justice in the Soviet, it is not justice here. Also it says, ``At the conclusion of questioning pursuant to this paragraph, the committee shall proceed with questioning under the 5- minute rule pursuant to clause. . . . '' Does that allow all Members? That is not determined. `` . . . minority witness requests, the ranking minority member may submit to the chair, in writing, any requests for witness testimony . . . '' But ``any such request shall be accompanied by a detailed written justification of the relevance of the testimony of each requested witness to the investigation described in the first section of the resolution.'' Then it says, ``The ranking minority member of the Permanent Select Committee is authorized, with the concurrence of the chair, to require, as deemed necessary to the investigation . . . subpoena. . . . '' Let me boil this down for you, Mr. Speaker. What it really says is, the chair has subpoena power, and the ranking member has subpoena power, if the chair allows the ranking member to have subpoena power, which means the majority runs this whole show. The ranking member, the minority, if he does not like it that he is denied subpoena power, oh, he is free to appeal it to the full committee. The full committee, which is dominated by Democrats and commanded by Adam Schiff and will never--an I will put this point down--will never roll their speaker on a question of a subpoena for a witness that might defend the President of the United States, as called by the ranking member, Devin Nunes. That is what we are dealing with. ``In the case that the chair declines to concur in a proposed action of the ranking minority member . . . the ranking minority member shall have the right to refer to the committee for decision. . . .'' That is just what I said. He can go to the committee, but the votes aren't going to be there in an objective fashion. The votes are only going to be those that follow down the partisan line. That is what it is set up to do. It says, ``The chair is authorized to make publicly available . . . the transcripts of depositions.'' And they may be ``with appropriate redactions for classified and other sensitive information.'' Other sensitive information means whatever Adam Schiff decides the public shouldn't know if it runs contrary to his agenda will be redacted before any report comes out of there. And remember, we are not going to see the video, we are not going to hear the audio, we are not going to read the transcript. We are going to get the edited version that Adam Schiff would deliver to us. It says, ``The Permanent Select Committee is directed to issue a report setting forth its findings and recommendations. . . . The chair shall transmit such report . . . to the Committee on the Judiciary. . . .'' Well, so the report would go to the Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee then would have the responsibility presumably of taking up an impeachment motion and debating it up or down and voting on it in the Judiciary Committee. It takes a lot of authority out of the hands of Jerry Nadler, the chair of the committee. And it says to me that the Speaker and Adam Schiff and others in leadership over on this side of the aisle don't have the confidence that Jerry Nadler will handle this the way they would like to see him handle it. ``The report required by this paragraph shall be prepared in consultation with the chairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Oversight and Reform.'' Prepared with their counsel with the chairs. Seems like they left out the ranking members. There will be no minority input in this. They are just going to sit down with the chairs of some other committees that they claim to be relevant and have them weigh in on this before this report comes out, Mr. Speaker. ``The chair of the Permanent Select Committee . . . in consultation with the ranking minority member, to transfer such records or materials to the Committee on the Judiciary.'' The chair in consultation. What does ``consultation'' mean? That means Adam Schiff can say, hey, Devin Nunes, I am going to introduce this report and send it over to the Judiciary Committee. What do you think? And ranking member Nunes can say, ``I don't like it. I think it is dishonest.'' Well, too bad, we consulted, now I am sending it to judiciary. That is all this language requires. This is a phony resolution, Mr. Speaker. ``Committee on the Judiciary.'' It says, ``The House authorizes the Committee on the Judiciary to conduct proceedings relating to the impeachment inquiry . . . including such procedures as to allow for the participation of the President and his counsel.'' Oh, that is good. I would be happy to have the President's counsel there, but it doesn't say the judiciary, it says, authorizes the committee to conduct those proceedings. It doesn't say shall allow the President's counsel. So that is all missing. `` . . . Judiciary is authorized to promulgate additional procedures as it deems necessary. . . .'' Well, that will be the majority deeming necessary that which they think will best impeach the President, not an impartial hearing. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to see a balanced and a fair process, one that is consistent with the history of the United States of America. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege and an honor to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives. I come here to the floor to address the circumstances that are historic in the way they are shaking the very foundation of this Republic. Our Constitution is under threat, and our Republic is under threat. There are secret meetings taking place down in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the most confidential place in this place, but they are talking about finding a way to impeach the President of the United States. They don't have a charge yet. They are still looking for one. We went through 2 years of the Mueller investigations, and now we are grinding through this under the guidance of Adam Schiff, who has a resolution here that has been presented to this floor to censure him for the misinformation that came out clearly in front of all the public. They are cherry-picking quotes from the people who are testifying. They refused to allow us, just an hour ago, to go in and even read the Volker transcript. They are allowing no exculpatory evidence that is coming in that might defend our President. There is no representation for the President. They have turned this committee into a partisan committee. Mr. Speaker, I will submit that it is going to be awfully hard for this select committee to ever function again if it is going to be a partisan, secret committee attempting to overturn the election of the President of the United States.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. And I come to this floor to talk a little bit today about what is happening to our Nation, our society, our culture, our Constitution. And these are topics that have been debated in this Chamber for a long time, but some things have happened that never happened before. And so I would start first with: It seems to me our leader seems to be a high respecter of the credibility of the New York Times. So I put together a document here that I thought might be interesting to him, and I would go through just a few of them, the articles that have come up in the New York Times, that have had to be retracted. Let's see: There are the articles about Russian meddling in the election that had to be retracted. They had to apologize for ruining Wen Ho Lee's career and life. And the New York Times admits that one of the reporters engaged in frequent acts of journalistic fraud, widespread fabrication and plagiarism, and found problems in at least 36 of the 73 articles written by a single individual since he had started. Further, the Times admits--that is the New York Times--that Judith Miller took journalistic shortcuts, and that New York Times' editors, ``failed to dig into problems before they became a mess.'' They did become a tremendous mess. Remember, that was the allegation that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Well, we got into a war over that one, didn't we, over the New York Times--at least in part. Most of us will remember in 2006, when the New York Times covered an alleged rape by Duke--or multiple rapes, I should say, by the Duke University Lacrosse team. The Times coverage was biased towards the accuser, despite the fact that it ended up being a hoax and there was little evidence supporting the accuser's case. And those young men on the Duke Lacrosse team were run through the wringer. They were excoriated; they were pounded on by the national media, not only the New York Times, but that is one of the things that triggers it. Then, again, there is a New York Times article that questioned John McCain's relationship with a lobbyist. And that faced widespread criticism to the article implying that McCain had a romantic relationship with a lobbyist. They had to issue a correction, that they did not intend for the article to imply a romantic relationship. Well, they did imply that. They just said they didn't ``intend'' that. And so somehow, the Times thinks they should have a pass for their own definition of intent, even though time after time after time, the Times has been found to be less than credible. The President of the United States has poured forth his ire against the New York Times, and called them the ``lying New York Times,'' ``the fake news New York Times,'' ``the failing New York Times,'' and probably a number of descriptions that I haven't uncovered here, Mr. Speaker. But in 2009, the New York Times' appraisal on Walter Cronkite had to have eight different corrections due to just factual inaccuracies. And this is a newspaper, of course, that America used to depend upon. And then in 2015, the New York Times published an article claiming that new figures surrounding China's rate of coal usage could affect U.N. climate talks when, in fact, those figures were so outdated that the U.N. was already aware of that particular uptick. So, again, distorted information. But what is consistent with this? What are the common denominators? And that is, their misinformation in the New York Times almost always fits their narrative. And then in 2017, the New York Times incorrectly stated that China was in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Well, that starts a whole national debate of what is going on. If China is in the TPP, and we are not in the TPP, and then the debate churns along, well, how are we ever going to get back into the TPP? And we have to take China in with us, if they will let us in. China wasn't part of the TPP--just misinformation. And that was an obvious one that it would have failed even the most rudimentary of fact-checks. I would go further, in 2017 the Times, because of a--their words-- ``because of an editing error,'' quoted three tweets from General Michael Flynn's parody account attributing the quotes to General Flynn, further damaging General Flynn's reputation, and probably contributing to the difficulties that the proud patriot has had as he wound up his career serving our country. An editing error caused these three tweets. They weren't editing errors. They were just picking up--because the parody account fit the Times narrative, they accepted the narrative without checking on it. That is my assertion here, and I believe it is true. Again, in 2017, the New York Times claims that Trump visited Israel during the campaign, which actually it was planned, but it was canceled for political reasons, I presume. And to be relatively astute on allowing then-President Barack Obama to be in charge of foreign policy. In fact, I have a personal experience with that, when I thought during the campaign it would be wise for then-candidate Trump to have a meeting or two with some key players around the world. But when I raised that issue, I got the straight answer back, which was, No, we don't want to have any kind of implication that we are conducting foreign policy as a candidate for the President of the United States. That is up to the current Commander-in-Chief, and that transition after the election can take place in due course. They were exactly correct in that and conducted themselves accordingly, but the allegations that were in the paper would indicate the opposite of that. I have a number of other stories in here. In fact, I have only gone to the top of page 2, and there is about seven pages, maybe eight pages in here, Mr. Speaker. But I think it is clear that if anybody is going to hang their hat on something that they see printed in the New York Times, they are going to find themselves--if that narrative happens to fit the narrative that the New York Times pushes and promotes--you ought to be very suspicious of the facts and the allegations around that. I would go through a few cases that come to mind. Also, in America where misinformation came out, it happened to fit the narrative of the left, and so the New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, on and on--Huffington Post--they pick up that narrative, embellish the narrative, and they look for another way to add to that narrative, if it is a narrative that fits their ideology and their preconceived notions of what they think of their political opposition. We think back to the best example we have is now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was put through a confirmation wringer that only had been matched, perhaps, by Justice Clarence Thomas. What do they have in common? They are both constitutionalists. They are both originalists. They are both textualists. And they are both in the process of moving America back to the Constitution, its original intent. And understanding the text of the Constitution has to mean what it was understood to mean at the time of ratification. Mr. Speaker, I would ask you just to think about that. If the Constitution is a living and breathing document, and this definition can change on the fly, then what kind of a deal do we have at all with our Founding Fathers and with our posterity? Can you imagine signing a contract--I have spent my life in the construction business--and can you imagine signing a contract, and during the course of that contract, the words in that contract have to mean a defined, precise, black-and-white meaning. And those words are on paper so that the deal doesn't change. That is what a contract is. You put words on paper, you sign that document, and that says, I am committed to the language in this Constitution--or the contract--and the intent of this language in the contract, or the Constitution, and I will follow through on that, and I will complete my side of this agreement. That is a contract. The Constitution is a written contract that lays down the foundation of our government, and it is the supreme law of the land. And it went on paper, on parchment. It went on parchment and was signed and ratified by the Thirteen Colonies so that they said, We are going to keep our part of this bargain. This is the deal. You would have never ratified that Constitution back in the day if somebody would have said, well, it is a living, breathing document. We can redefine these words in here and ignore others and be able to just work our way around it, and we will get some activist justices that will work with us on this and give us precedent cases that undermine the original intent of the Constitution. That is what has been going on in this modern era, probably longer than I recall, but I would say at least back to the Warren Court. And yet today, we have Justice Clarence Thomas, who is an originalist, a textualist, and he believes the Constitution has to mean what it was understood to mean at the time of ratification. And if we don't like that, that is why we have the amendment process, Mr. Speaker. And that is the nominee Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and that is nominee Justice Neil Gorsuch. And I believe that is the case also for Justice Alito, and most of the time, I think it is also true for Chief Justice John Roberts. But if we don't have a guaranty from our Constitution, we don't have a foundation for America and our government. And then that puts it into the hands of the willy-nilly attitudes of what might be a majority in the Supreme Court or the will of the people here on the floor of the House of Representatives, who sometimes just turn our back on the Constitution. That contract of our Constitution has to mean what it was understood to mean at the time that it was ratified. And so why was the big fight then pushing back against Brett Kavanaugh when he was before the United States Senate to be confirmed? And the reasons for that are the other side--the left, the radical left, that is sometimes supported by the militant left--doesn't want to live under our Constitution. They want to change it. They want to move America. They want to attack the pillars of American exceptionalism. And they have much of the news media as their allies. So as the news media pours forth these erroneous stories and they put misinformation into the eyes and ears of the American people, while they are doing that, they are pitting the American people against the American people. And you saw that during the confirmation process of Justice Kavanaugh. And he faced--this is just my memory, but I believe there were something like six different accusers that they accumulated over time. And these accusers, one of them was Christine Blasey Ford, who sat over there with her hair inside of her glasses and told us how bad this was. But her testimony could not be corroborated, and that was actually the verdict that came down when Justice Kavanaugh was confirmed before the United States Senate. Neither could the testimony or the affidavits or the narratives of the others be corroborated. And so of those five or six accusers then, none of them held up under the scrutiny, under the light of day, even though the New York Times and The Washington Post, and all these publications I have listed, and many more, came at it as if Christine Blasey Ford was the gold standard for a witness with integrity. And it is clear she was not. Well, they beat up so badly on Justice Kavanaugh that, at one point, one of the Democrat Senators asked him the question: You have gone through a lot. You have been faced with all this criticism. Essentially, I will paraphrase and summarize how I understood that, and it is not a quote from the Senator, but it was essentially this: We have beaten you up so badly and mercilessly. We damaged your reputation so badly. We destroyed your character. You have to be personally just crushed. So, how, if you are confirmed as a Justice on the Supreme Court, can you sit in impartial judgment on ruling on the Constitution and the rule of law? Aren't you going to be tempted to retaliate because of what all you have been through? Those are not the exact words, but that was the theme. Now, think of this. If somebody is put forward before the public in a nomination process or some other type of scrutiny and they are so mercilessly pounded by the leftist media--and, in some cases, collaboration from Republican leadership--that their reputation is so badly damaged, the question comes up: Well, can Justice Kavanaugh do his job now that we have eviscerated him through this confirmation process? Oh, I think he can do his job all right, and I think he can do it clearly and with a cool hand and a cool head and an analytical mind. And I think Justice Kavanaugh is doing and will continue to do this: bring America back to the Constitution, bring America back to the original intent, bring America back to the text of the language that is in the Constitution. And, if Americans don't like the results of those decisions, we have a method to amend the Constitution rather than simply distort it by judicial activism. And that is about the best way to get revenge on people who put our Constitution under threat by the tactics that they are using in the confirmation process. Well, that process that they were trying to deny the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh failed, and he is confirmed, and he is serving with dignity and honor. And he should be allowed to do that for life if he chooses. But they mounted another effort at him a week or so ago, and it turned out to be another false story. The New York Times, in particular, didn't bother to write into the story that the woman who allegedly had experienced some type of harassment, and maybe even physical harassment--and I say ``allegedly''; allegedly, in case The New York Times missed it the first time I said it--that she didn't have any recollection of the incident whatsoever. They knew that, and it is reported that the reporters who wrote the story had that line in their story and that it was taken out by the editors. So, think of that. The editors at The New York Times are redacting language, but disappearing language, so that the meaning of the story is different and it can be as pejorative as possible against a seated Justice on the United States Supreme Court. That is appalling. And is it willful? Well, that question hangs out there: Is it willful? I will say this. There is a Supreme Court precedent case out there from about 1964 called The New York Times--excuse me. It is Sullivan v. The New York Times Company. That was a case where, in Alabama, during the civil rights disruptions of the sixties, there was a story that had multiple falsehoods in it that was designed to be pejorative against the law enforcement and the people in Alabama near the Selma area. And I am not actually sure that was Selma, but it was in Alabama. In any case, the story that came out in The New York Times was inaccurate on step after step. They argued that they locked the cafeteria shut so that they could starve the students out. Or they reported that. They reported that students were refusing to register and, essentially, leaving college. Neither one of those things were true. They argued that they circled the building with law enforcement officers essentially arm in arm. That wasn't true. There were about four other falsehoods. They had to be manufactured because what would they be based on, things like that. Yet, when they went before the Supreme Court in the middle of the 1960s, Sullivan v. The New York Times Company, the Supreme Court came down with a decision, which is, well, The Times is protected because they are a print publication, and we have to allow them their First Amendment right--freedom of the press--even if it is false, even if it is blatantly false, even if it is obviously false. It just has to be willfully and maliciously false in order for them to be liable. That case needs to come back before the United States Supreme Court and be reconsidered. And I am told that there are one or more Justices on that bench who would welcome such a case to make it to the Supreme Court, and I think I have named those two most likely to welcome that case here already. So I am frustrated by this. I am glad that this case, this second round, Kavanaugh 2.0 in malicious media meddling, is pretty much now in the rearview mirror now that the truth has been applied to the story a little bit better. But this country is not off of this hook by any means. We have a long, long ways to go before we can get down to what is true. And I think Congress is going to have to act at some point. I don't think it is going to happen in this Congress. There has to be a majority change in this Congress. But we are going to have to act. And the stories that have been served up to the American people--I brought up the Kavanaugh story as the first one. Then you can move along a little bit, and I will take you to--let's see. Let's do Covington Catholic. The Covington Catholics were here during the March for Life. That would be around January 22. A lot of young men, and, also, at least one of them was wearing a MAGA hat, a ``Make America Great'' cap, a red one. They were down by the Lincoln Memorial, and there was a story that there was a Native American who was beating a drum in the face of this young man, and the young man just stood there and maintained his posture, his composure, his expression. And that just seemed to be what all the media would pile on, that they had been disrespecting a Native American who was beating a drum in his face, and that clip of the close-up seemed to be enough just to reinforce a lot of critics that the young man from Covington Catholic somehow carried an attitude that should be punished. So they excoriated him through every media that I can think of, and that young man and the school went through days and days and days of a lot of public criticism, grief that was poured forth upon them. And I can say with experience that, if you don't have experience with public grief being poured on you, it hurts a lot more the 1st time than it does the 2nd, 5th, 10th, 20th, 50th, or 100th time. You do build scar tissue to this, but you can't imagine that a young man from Covington Catholic has scar tissue built up at all. Who could imagine that this would be the case? So, they took that heat and that beating--the whole school, but he in particular--for over a week until there was a video that emerged that panned back and showed what really went on. There was no antagonism from the Covington Catholics. There were bad words being hurled back and forth, but I don't think anybody picked up any bad words coming from those young people from Covington Catholic. Yet they got the blame for all of this when they were standing there innocently and probably stunned at the environment they were in. I can't imagine they came out of their home State and went into the middle of that, I would say, semi-demonstration environment when they were being intimidated by groups shouting back and forth at them and a drum being beaten in their face. You would be amazed. I recall my first experience with these things in this town. It was March 18 of 2003 when there was an antiwar demonstration that took place. I thought: I need to see this. So I went over there near the Washington Monument where they were ginning up, the antiwar demonstrators. They had two great, big speakers up on a stage that were about the size of refrigerators, microphones, and they were ginning up the crowd. As I walked around through that crowd--I went incognito, by the way, too, Mr. Speaker. I put on my old, vintage Washington Redskins sweatshirt and a cap so I could just, hopefully, blend into the crowd. I saw every variety of anti-Americanism that I had ever seen. A lot of it was profane. They ginned them up, and then they marched off over to the west, around the west side of the White House, and then came back down through Pennsylvania Avenue. I sat there, in the middle there, what I call the grassy knoll, and watched them go by for an hour and three-quarters, a human river of discontent and anger and anti-Americanism. I saw a young lady, maybe 16 or 17 years old, run over and spit in the face of an officer who was standing there. I saw two marines standing on the side of the street. They were holding their American flag up, and a young man from the demonstrating crowd ran over there, grabbed a hold of that flag. They held their flag, but he ripped the top half of the flag off, and he danced around the street tearing it up in strips and wearing it around his neck and others' necks as if it were some kind of a trophy to tear up the American flag and then demonstrate. I saw a photographer there who had a camera and who was going to clean the lens on his camera. He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a crumpled American flag, a small, silk flag, and used it to clean that lens. You could tell by the habits of the way he handled it that that is just what he did; he kept the American flag for a rag to clean the lens on his camera while he took pictures of anti- Americanism, hatred of America, and every kind of countercultural thing that you can think of. That is what we are faced with, the kind of people in that demonstration, the kind of people who were down here at the Lincoln Memorial who were trying to intimidate the Covington Catholics. So, you know how that one ended, Mr. Speaker. I will say another one. Now, remember, this one also fit the narrative. Justice Kavanaugh, the stories against him, they picked the ones that fit the narrative and drove them. Their narrative on Covington Catholics was these must be conservative pro-lifers--and they are--so we have got to find a way to actually expose something that is in their heart, which is, by the way, faith and love. They didn't expose that. That was the Covington Catholics. Jussie Smollett alleged that he was the subject of, at least, a lynch threat and that they had, what, poured bleach on him and whatnot. That went on for awhile. That story was all ginned up because these were supposedly racists who were going to lynch Jussie Smollett in Chicago. But I saw the video of the two men who went into the convenience store to buy those items that he had put on top of him, that little bit of a kind of a scrawny rope that didn't look to me that it was a rope you would use for that. But that and the other items that were there, all of it was on video, purchased at the convenience store. It was reported, at least--now I don't know if it is true--that they were paid something like $3,500 to do their part in this. And Jussie managed to wear that rope all the way back to his apartment before he was interviewed by the police. Yet, still, the story went through and through, and now the Federal Government needs to get involved in it. I believe they are doing a full investigation of what looks like, let's say, a less than enthusiastic local prosecutor there in Chicago. But that is another story that fit the narrative. Surely, there are people out there who are racist who would go out and get rope and bleach and whatever and wait in the middle of a 20-below-zero night to waylay Jussie Smollett at a place like that. It happened to be about the only location where there were not surveillance cameras. Carefully thought out? Only partly. But that fit the narrative. That was published. It was The New York Times, too, but it was many others, Mr. Speaker. Who am I forgetting now? There are a number of others. I happen to be one. So, I am waiting for a report to come down that would lay out what is going on in this Congress. But I revere this Constitution. I carry one in my jacket pocket every day. When I say the Pledge, my hand is inside my jacket because my hand is on that Constitution, which is as close to my heart as I can get it. I believe in it, and I believe our job is to restore this Constitution back to its original meaning and intent. The pillars of American exceptionalism are identified, most all of them, in the Bill of Rights itself. The central pillar of American exceptionalism is the rule of law. There are a number of things around that rule of law that we need to remember: innocent until proven guilty, a right to face your accusers, you get to face a jury of your peers. All of that is there. We have other pillars of American exceptionalism. Freedom of speech is a pillar. Freedom of religion. Freedom of the press. Freedom of assembly--peaceable assembly, I might add. All of those are pillars that this shining city that Ronald Reagan described to be on the hill, I say, is supported and held up and built upon those pillars of American exceptionalism. And I mentioned the rule of law, the central pillar, without which the rest of this collapses. Without freedom of the press, the rest of this collapses because corruption has, then, a free rein. But when the media gets corrupt and the government gets corrupt, as we saw in the fall of 2016 and on into the beginnings of the Trump administration, when the major branches, major divisions, departments within our government are weaponized against a candidate for the Presidency, a President-elect Donald Trump and then an inaugurated President Donald Trump, when those branches of government are weaponized against him, that is weaponization against we, the people, against our Constitution, and it undermines our freedom. And when the abuse of those constitutional rights empowers media outlets to turn their targets, unjustly and dishonestly, against a duly-elected President of the United States, or a duly-elected Member of the United States Congress, that--meaning me, in case you are wondering, Mr. Speaker--threatens our republic. And this republic will eventually collapse if we continue down this path. We must preserve those rights that are in our Constitution, including innocent until proven guilty; the right to face your accusers; a jury of your peers; due process. That has to all be there. The President hasn't had due process. I haven't had due process. But I have added up a few things. There are currently four Members of this Congress, Mr. Speaker, that don't have committee assignments; four. One of them resigned from the Republican Party and from his committee assignments; so that takes it down to three. Two of them are indicted for Federal charges. That takes it down to one. Then, the one in this Congress--being me, Mr. Speaker--and we look back through history all the way back to 1900, and we find one other Member of Congress that didn't have committee assignments since 1900. That happened to be James Traficant in about 2001. He happened to be one that was removed from his committee assignments shortly after he voted for Dennis Hastert, a Member of the opposite party, and went against many of the platform positions of the Democratic party. They decided he wasn't a Democrat any longer and removed him from his committees. But in 120 years, there has only been one, other than those that I mentioned; that is James Traficant. And he was, later on, indicted and convicted on nine or ten Federal charges of fraud, corruption, taking bribes and racketeering, and those kinds of things. He was found guilty of all of them and served some time in prison. So these are very serious charges when you are convicted of Federal felonies and removed from your committees. I don't think it is right to remove someone from a committee when they are charged because if they are indicted, they are innocent until proven guilty. So why would you punish somebody if they are innocent until proven guilty? That defies a foundational principle of our government. But, nonetheless, the charges, at least, are serious Federal felony charges for two seated Members today. Charges were certainly serious for James Traficant, who spent time in prison. Why does Steve King not have committees? Because of a misquote in the New York Times for the simple purpose of an allegation of politically incorrect speech. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege of being recognized here to speak on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. I come to the floor this morning, Mr. Speaker, to address a topic, and most of the words that I say will be from an article written by Roger Scruton, who is an author from Great Britain. He is commenting on a new book by Douglas Murray, titled ``The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity.'' Some of this hits home so much, and it has so much to do with America, that I thought it was important I address this here this morning. He says: ``In every period of history, therefore, there have been opinions and customs that are dangerous to question . . . but our situation in Western democracies today is a novel one. . . . The old customs have been torn asunder by a culture of repudiation, which encourages people to shape their lives according to an `identity' of their own.'' Socialization no longer means what it used to mean. It means now becoming who you are without regard to the framework that existed in the civilization and the culture prior. ``The punishments for saying, thinking, or implying the wrong thing . . . are real, serious, and largely impossible to deflect.'' That means that ``the archive of your crimes is stored in cyberspace, and however much you may have confessed to them and sworn to change, they will pursue you for the rest of your life, just as long as someone has an interest in drawing attention to them. And when the mob turns on you, it is with a pitiless intensity that bears no relation to the objective seriousness of your fault. A word out of place, a hasty judgment, a slip of the tongue, whatever the fault might be, it is sufficient, once picked upon, to put you beyond the pale of human sympathy.'' This is reflected in the book ``The Madness of Crowds.'' ``The emerging world of censorship is a world without forgiveness . . . in which the real virtues and vices that govern our conduct are ignored altogether'' or are decided to be irrelevant. ``The crimes for which we are judged are existential crimes. Through speaking in the wrong way, you display one of the phobias or isms,'' or they presume that is the case, ``that show you to be beyond acceptable humanity. You are a homophobe, an Islamophobe, a white supremacist, or a racist, and no argument can refute these accusations once they have been made.'' Even ``your accusers are not interested in your deeds; they are interested in you,'' and what they are interested in is ``whether or not you are `one of us,' '' meaning actually one of them. ``Your faults cannot be overcome by voluntary action, since they adhere to the kind of thing that you are, and you reveal what you are in the words that define you,'' as defined by your critics. ``These words may be taken out of context, even doctored to mean the opposite of what you said''--that is true with the author and certainly true with me--``but this will not affect the verdict, since there is no objective trial, no `case for the defense,' no due process. You are accused by the mob, examined by the mob, and condemned by the mob, and if you have brought this on yourself, then,'' they say, ``you have only yourself to blame. For the mob is by nature innocent. It washes its own conscience in a flow of collective indignation, and by joining it, you make yourself safe,'' which is one of the reasons we see an epidemic of virtue signaling here in this Congress, Mr. Speaker. ``The spirit of the mob has entered not only the language of public debate but also the sources of information and the institutions of decisionmaking. Censorship begins in the media themselves.'' Cyberspace is censored and is controlled by about four major companies. George Orwell predicted this, but I think it has eclipsed even his magnificent imagination and the reality that we are dealing with today. ``Murray gives riveting examples of the way in which''--I will use this example--``whiteness has become a moral fault in the eyes of identity warriors on the American campus.'' They now openly ``condemn people for the color of their skin,'' provided that it is white. The art of taking offense, ``whole sections of the university curriculum are devoted to explaining to students that words, arguments, comparisons, even questions,'' rhetorical or not, ``are `offensive,' regardless of the intention with which they are used,'' or, actually, the language, the precise definition of the language. ``Invariably, the offense is given by the old majority culture and is taken on behalf of some privileged minority.'' Mr. Speaker, this is a shorthand version of what is going on in this country, what is going on in this Congress, what is going on in the media. And I submit this, that we don't any longer have an objective news media. That center that used to be the truth has been completely, almost completely, vacated. Much of it has gone to the left. Some has gone to the right. And that peace of being able to pick up a newspaper and read it and believe that it is true today is no longer true today. And the American civilization must come to grips with this and go to original sources, come to our own conclusions, adjust our civilization and our culture. If we fail to do so, we will be pitted against each other for a long time to come.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho) for yielding to me, and I appreciate very much the work that is done by Dr. Ted Yoho here in this Congress. I would like to have the Members know, Madam Speaker, that Ted Yoho gets up every day and grinds away with an eye towards making America great again and putting us in the right place. And I recall a meeting that he called together here, kind of an off-campus meeting about how we are going to save America from a Congress that doesn't seem to want to look to the horizon, let alone over the horizon. There is a lot of common sense that has been put together in this immigration policy, and I want to carefully evaluate all of the components of it. I know that we are in discussions right now about how it might even be improved a little bit, but I am open to this discussion, and I think he has brought up some very important points. I will add one that I hope can be incorporated into this, to take the E-verify mandatory piece of this and expand it into a bill that I have had before this Congress a number of years. It is called the New IDEA Act, and it would work actually seamlessly with what has been described here tonight in that I incorporate the language in it, which is this: When an employer--we put together a committee, a three-way team, the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and require them to work together for the cause of enforcing immigration law and, in addition to the penalties that have been suggested here, deny the deductibility of wages and benefits paid to illegals. I would give the employer safe harbor if they use E-verify, but if they are then using illegal labor, the IRS, in a normal audit, not an accelerated audit, then would come in, run the Social Security numbers and identifying information of the employees who are listed in the tax forms through the E-verify program. If they can't be verified, the IRS then could deduct the wages and benefits paid to them, remove it as a business expense, which puts those dollars, wages, and benefits paid to illegals into the gross receipts where they show up as net income. That makes it taxable. When we first did this math, it would be, if you would take a $10-an- hour illegal and deny the deductibility of that under the old tax policy, it would take us to a $16-an-hour illegal. We also would have interest and penalty, and there is a 6-year statute of limitations. Madam Speaker, I got to this conclusion by asking the question: What agency, what department is most respected, and maybe even most feared, by the American people? Since I have been drug through audits a few too many times, I will tell you that the business people, the employers in this country, they don't want the IRS looking into their books, and they don't see that they can negotiate much of a compromise with the IRS. So I think giving a 6-year statute of limitations on that, you accumulate that liability, and it makes it far more likely that employers will voluntarily go in and clean up their workforce. That is something that, had that been done years ago, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today. The labor situation that we have, it is a bit more complex down in the southern part of the United States than it is up in the heart of the heartland where I am. And that is that we seem to be able to find the people to climb in the tractor, in the combine, or in the trucks and get our crops in the ground; we get them back out again; and it is a little smoother up that way. The labor situations that we see in places like Florida and California and Arizona, all those States, and many more in particular, that is a different kind of a situation. What I would suggest, though, is that temporary workers be required to be bonded. I introduced legislation to do that, and I hope that is something we can discuss, as well, is incorporating it into this proposal. I pointed that out to the President in a meeting in the Oval Office sometime back. He seemed to respond very favorably to that suggestion. I pointed out that he actually has the authority to go forward with a bonding program now. And so I noticed that, a few weeks later, he issued an order that directed the executive branch to do the research and put the pieces together so that they can activate a bonding program. But think of it this way: Whether you are going to be a guest worker in the United States or a visitor to the United States, you need a visa to come to America to do that. So when you apply for that visa, you post your credit card, just as if you walked into a hotel and they say: Your room is paid for, but we need a credit card so we can hold for any incidentals that might come. You post that credit card on your visa application to temporarily come to America, and if you go back under the terms of the visa, then, fine, the hold is released on that credit card; but if you overstay your visa, then that credit card is charged for that fee, and that fee goes into an enforcement fund in order to enforce the immigration laws we have in this country. We need the rule of law restored in the United States of America. No place, in all of our law, is it less respected than it is in immigration law. And as I listened to some of the rhetoric over here on the floor tonight, it still is breathtaking to hear how intentionally the terms ``legal'' and ``illegal'' immigrant are conflated so that the very meritorious legal immigrant who respects our laws, that meritorious legal immigrant is conflated into the same term with the one who has disrespected our laws. The one who has disrespected our laws gets assigned the same merit that exists for those who respect our laws and want to come to America for an opportunity to succeed and to prosper. But I make another point, Madam Speaker, that I don't hear in this dialogue on immigration, and that is that America has a unique vigor. We have a unique vitality. We have a can-do spirit. And a lot of that vitality, vigor, and can-do spirit comes from the legal immigrants who have had the aspiration to come to America. And I would say that, if there is a family of 10 siblings, boys and girls together, if one of them has the ambition and the eagerness to respect our laws and come to the United States, the one who chooses to self-select to come here is going to be the one in that family who has the most ambition, the most vigor. That is one of the reasons why America is a can-do country, because we have gotten that quality of people who self-selected as legal immigrants to come to America. So I appreciate the gentleman's work on the immigration policy, and I look forward to examining all of the language there and have an open dialogue on this. But I also applaud the very diligent effort that has gone forth on this issue and many others. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho), and I would add that, one of the things that crosses my mind, as I talk and listen here this evening, is that the Social Security numbers, multiple uses of a single number--it might even be all zeroes, and all zeroes might be used a thousand times in America, or more. So I hear these stories, and some of the employers will say: Well, we have followed all of the laws that we are required to follow. But common sense isn't something that we hold them accountable for, apparently, and so the Social Security Administration, under Barack Obama started issuing no-match letters. No-match letters used to go out to say this Social Security number that you are using isn't a match. Then it should go to the employer, too, and I believe it used to. I understand that the Trump administration may be picking that back up again and issuing the no-match letters, but that is not where it should stop. That is where it should begin.

Mr. KING of Iowa. In 1986, when the Amnesty Act was signed by Ronald Reagan, there was a requirement that each employer would have I-9 documents that would be filed. As soon as applicants came in, we took a copy of their information. We took the I-9 documents. We kept them in our files carefully. Any individual who came in and applied, we had the right file, expecting INS--Immigration and Naturalization Services, at that time--personnel to be at our door anytime, poking through all of our records, which records are probably still sitting in my archives somewhere. That was going to work. They believed it was going to work. What happened was, slowly along the way, the ACLU filed lawsuits, and people kind of ducked and dodged. They found a way to rationalize a way around it until they got around to: Well, as an employer, I can't be required to make a judgment call. If I am looking at a picture of someone, I can't be sure that that is the face of the person who is in front of me. They would make the presumption that was best for their business interests rather than best for the law enforcement part of it. Then, if ICE doesn't show up when the no-match letters come through, because they are not cooperating with the Social Security Administration to go through those records when it is very probable that when a Social Security number is being used maybe in 10 places, in 10 different towns, you can't get to 10 jobs simultaneously. It should make sense that nine or at least eight of those are phony. They ought to go in and identify those employers and employees and, if there are law violations, bring charges against them. That hasn't been happening for years in this country. It needs to happen. This component that you proposed looks to me like it is an improvement, to segment off some of this, but I still say we need to go into the Social Security no-match and fix that.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I wanted to add another piece to this. This is an observation that I think applies across this country and a lot of places today. Some of my constituents made a practice of going out through the parking lot at the packing plant and picking up the check stubs on payday that were dropped down on the asphalt. Then, they stack a bunch of them up, put them in a big manila envelope that would kind of spring like an accordion, and mail it off to me. Here it comes in my mailbox. What is this? There is no letter, no message, no return address. Just my address on there and all these check stubs with no names on them. But the withholding, it tells me, is zero, zero, zero. No State withholding. No Federal withholding. What that tells me is that we have a lot of people who are working unlawfully in America, that when they apply, they claim the maximum number of dependents, so there is zero withholding at the wage scale they have for Federal income tax or State income tax. Yet, they still say they are paying taxes. Well, yes, there is sales tax. I suppose, in the rent, you are paying a share of the property tax. Some of those things are taking place. But that is another place the system is gamed by using Social Security numbers. I am hopeful that the gentleman has zeroed in on a way to address that.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to have the opportunity to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives and continue some of this dialogue. I am changing the subject a little bit here this evening, Madam Speaker. I wanted to take up the topic that had this House of Representatives tied up in knots last January, about January 15 or so. I was the direct subject of those things, and it has to do with, to refresh people's memory, a misquote on me that came out of The New York Times that alleged that I had tied three phrases together. Two of them are odious ideologies, and one of them is one of the most meritorious ideologies that the world has ever seen. Those two, it was a misquote by The New York Times. I believe that I have introduced a document that has been publicly available since sometime last March 6, it is dated, that makes it very clear that The New York Times misquoted me and that a lot of the media out there that went into a hyperventilation fit was jumping on an issue that we have seen the pattern of many times over. I came across a little comment about The New York Times that said, ``All the news that fits the narrative.'' Well, that seems to be what happened last January 10, when they wrote a story on me about all the news that fits the narrative, the narrative that they had created, not necessarily the facts. I would point out, Madam Speaker, that there has been a whole series of narratives out here that turned out to be inactionable or, perhaps, false. I would say that the biggest one and the one that tied America up in knots the longest and most intensely were the allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Of all of the folks who had accused him, none of their allegations held up. They were not corroborated in any way. It was clear that he was targeted because they didn't want a conservative constitutionalist sitting on the bench. I am very thankful he is sitting on the bench, and I am also very thankful and grateful of the way he conducted himself throughout those hearings. That is not the first time we have seen this. I felt great sympathy for Justice Clarence Thomas when he endured what he referred to as a high-tech lynching back in the early 1990s. The allegations made against him were hyperventilation of the first order, and it was maybe the worst that we had seen. I go back even further to Judge Bork, who became a verb when he was ``borked'' by the United States Senate. Allegations against him became, at a certain point, untenable and unsurvivable, from his career standpoint. These people that I have mentioned so far were all wronged. Let me put another one in, Madam Speaker: Covington Catholic boys down here by the Lincoln Memorial, standing there, respectfully and patiently, while a musical device was being pounded in front of one young man's face. That turned into better than a week of intense media assaults and attacks, verbally and keyboard-wise, against those Covington Catholic boys because the media's narrative fit their narrative. All the news that fits their narrative, but not the truth, and not stepping back to take an objective look to try to understand what is going on. It is seldom that the world is as bad as the media would like to tell us that it is. The Covington Catholic boys were exonerated when the camera was panned back, and we looked at it as America within the full context of what was going on. They were patiently enduring and experiencing something that I am sure was a unique experience for them. They hadn't spent time to speak of here in Washington, D.C. They hadn't been involved in a demonstration of that kind. Just innocent young men, clean-cut, one of them wearing a Make America Great cap, probably more of them doing that, and patiently there. People would say: Have you ever seen such a punchable face? I would call it a very innocent face of a young man who kept a tight little smile on his face while he waited for that drum to be finished being beat in front of his face. I would add another one about that same period of time, Madam Speaker, Michael Cohen, the President's attorney at that period of time, or former attorney. The news media was all over that Michael Cohen had been directed to lie to Congress by the President of the United States, Donald Trump. That was a story that lived for 4 or 5 or more days until the truth came out that that narrative was false. False narratives on Justice Kavanaugh, false narratives on the Covington Catholic boys, false narratives on Michael Cohen. Then, we had, at about the same time, the story on Jussie Smollett, who said that he had been attacked and, apparently, attempted to be lynched by some folks of the opposite race that he is. It turned out that, when we saw the videos of who was buying this rope and the other material in the store not very far from there, those folks were not there to attack Jussie Smollett because of anything to do with race. It had to do with what surely appears to be a hoax. Now, we have a Federal investigation into the prosecuting attorney in Chicago who found a way to turn Jussie Smollett loose. That is another case where the narrative that was delivered by the media day after day after day was false, but it was the narrative that told the story that they wanted to be told, all the news that fits the narrative. We have another one here that just recently passed behind us just a few days back. Georgia State Representative Erica Thomas made an argument and cried in front of the media that she got into an altercation in a store and was told by a man to ``go back where you came from.'' And after that was scrutinized, and after the video was watched, and after the people that were witnesses there finally came forward and got their narratives out, we found out that that story wasn't true either. It was all the news that fit the narratives of The New York Times and others, but it wasn't true, and she finally admitted it. I have just listed some along here. Madam Speaker, here are some other stories that were put before us where there has been no consequence and no action taken; there is Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia, just across the Potomac, who was either the fellow in blackface or the fellow in the KKK costume. We are not sure which but, apparently, he is one of them, but no action was taken on that. That was a long time ago. I am okay with acknowledging what took place; looking at the man that he is today. But the hyperventilation around that was very intense, and it was also a narrative that the news media wanted to be true. I believe one of those two things seems to have a lot of legs. Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, multiple accusations of sexual assault; no action down there. The Attorney General Mark Herring confessed that he was in blackface. No action down there. So there is a stalemate in Virginia. No consequence for these three allegations in Virginia. No consequence so far for Jussie Smollett. No consequence so far for Erica Thomas. We saw all those things. Madam Speaker, by the way, I will point out that I have not been critical of the statements made by Members of Congress, no matter how much press they have gotten. The Quad Squad has gotten a lot of press for certain statements. They do have a right to freedom of speech. But with regard to AOC, and Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley, some of those statements that are made are on their face pretty stark. I think our job here in America is to recognize that people have a right to freedom of speech. It is a constitutional guarantee. I sat with some people that were, I will say, significantly seasoned in the world and in the business world. These folks were out of Europe. And I said to them: You need constitutional protection for freedom of speech in the same way, along the lines that we have in America, because we are protected. We can say what we want to say; freedom of speech, religion, the press, and to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievance. That is America. The ability to express our thoughts and our ideas and freely exchange them with others generates other ideas. Bad ideas drift by the wayside after they are examined in open public dialogue; and good ideas get legs, as you saw tonight with Congressman Yoho lifting his immigration bill up before everyone for an opportunity to debate. Good ideas sustain themselves. Bad ideas, if you have a rational public that believes in the age of reason--and we need to be sustaining this age of reason--then the world gets to be a better place. If we suppress thoughts and we suppress dialogue, if we tell people they don't have freedom of speech, if we punish them for exercising their constitutional right to freedom of speech, it diminishes all of us because then we don't have competing ideas. We only have the repetition of politically correct utterances; and that is not going to sustain the greatest nation the world has ever seen. It was built on these freedoms. America was built on freedom of speech, religion, and the press, the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, the property rights that are in the Fifth Amendment, no double jeopardy, you face a jury of your peers. And the rights that are not enumerated in the Constitution devolve to the people or the States respectively. We are built on free enterprise, capitalism, and Judeo-Christian values. We are descended from the full flow of Western civilization that comes here to America; and today we are the flagship of Western civilization. Now I have named all of this, but I want to state, again, AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and every other Member of this United States Congress, and everyone in the United States of America has a God-given right to freedom of speech, and thought, and expression, and religion, and assembly, and press. And if we don't protect those rights, America devolves towards the Third World, not ascending onward and upward into the shining city that was so well and eloquently envisioned by Ronald Reagan. So if we disagree with what someone says, we can state our opposition and our reasons why; and we need to have respectful disagreement here in this Congress. The debates that have taken place here over the years have shaped the fabric of America. We often say this is the greatest debate body in the world here. I am not as convinced of that today, or this year, as I was up to this point. When I see that there was a false allegation made against me, a misquote in The New York Times, intentional or not, has turned into something that is supposedly a fact; and then, the things that are clearly not facts are repeated over and over again by a media that wants their narrative to be true. So there was a resolution that came to the floor here in the House that was--I am named in the first paragraph. This is H. Res. 41, on January 15 of 2019, and it starts out this way: ``Whereas, on January 10, 2019, Representative Steve King was quoted as asking, `White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization--how did that language become offensive?' '' That is part of the quote, not all of it. It is not even quoted in the context that the article quoted it in. But that is actually a true statement that is a quote that was published in The New York Times, and that is what it says, Whereas, Steve King was quoted as saying this. And then there are a whole series of whereases here that reject the odious ideology that White supremacy and White nationalism--there are a whole lot of other odious ideologies, and some of them are openly defended here on the floor of this House of Representatives, not either one of those, not by me, and not by anybody. I agreed with those whereases all the way down. In fact, the rejection that I had put into this Congressional Record the previous Friday was more clear and more stark, and it rejected those odious ideologies more distinctly and more effectively than the resolution that was introduced by Mr. Clyburn. All those whereases I agree with. I got down to the resolve of this resolution. It says: ``Resolved, that the House of Representatives once again rejects white nationalism and white supremacy as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of the United States.'' Agreed again. So, Madam Speaker, I am making this point that the world seems to forget that I supported this resolution, because it was true. All it said about me was that The New York--that I had been quoted as saying that. That is true. The New York Times quoted me as saying that. I don't have any reason to disagree with this. I voted for it, and I asked all of the Members to vote for it for a number of reasons; but one of them was, I didn't want to see this Congress split over something like this. Why are we policing something of this nature? Why does Congress think that we should police the speech of Members on the floor here, especially if it doesn't violate the rules, or outside these Chambers? Never in the history of the United States House of Representatives has a Member been removed from committees because of even an accurate quote by the press outside these walls. It didn't take place in this building or on the Capitol grounds in any way whatsoever. Never has even an accurate quote been used to sanction a Member of Congress. So we have, instead, a misquote that was in a 56-minute telephone interview with The New York Times reporter who asserted--and our Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that he talked to him on the phone--he said he could type as fast as anybody can talk and he can punctuate accurately. So I am wondering why he stopped me a couple of times in that 56-minute interview and asked me to repeat a sentence so that he could get it right. In fact, I am going to guess that there isn't anybody that can take a conventional typewriter and type accurately and punctuate accurately at the speed that I talk in a normal conversation. In fact, the wonderful Christy over here, and her magic keyboard, can barely keep up at about 250 words a minute when I am rolling along. And I feel a little sorry for her, but I like her a lot. And so that is my point: There is no reporter that is even capable of doing that. But he has convinced Kevin McCarthy that he is the ``magic finger man'' and he couldn't possibly make a mistake; not with a hyphen; not with comma; not with a voice inflection. Oh, by the way, this is going be a little harder now, Christy, because Zig Ziglar used to use this to describe how things can be misconstrued. And I am saying that this quote was more than misconstrued. It just happened to fit the narrative that The New York Times and a number of other liberal organizations wanted. But Zig Ziglar would put it out this way: There are four different ways, and it is going to be printed all the same way in the Congressional Record, and then I am going to explain what is different. But, Madam Speaker, for those that are, say, watching on C-SPAN, to understand how language works, it works like this: He would say, I never said she stole the money, with the emphasis on the word ``she''. That says one thing: I never said she stole the money. Another way to say the same words are: I never said she stole the money, with the emphasis on the word ``stole''. Another one is, I never said she stole the money, with the emphasis on the word ``I''. And the last one is: I never said she stole the money, with the emphasis on the word ``money''. There are four different meanings that come out of exactly the same words. And Kevin McCarthy, and a handful of others, believe that somehow the punctuation that was in The New York Times, and the hyperventilation that emerged on the punctuation of The New York Times, is justifiable to attempt to disenfranchise 755,000 Iowans. And he doesn't remember or acknowledge that more people voted for me in the last election than they did Kevin McCarthy, or the chair of the Republican Conference. And the legitimacy that was conferred upon me was conferred after any other allegation other than this misquote that happens to be of The New York Times. Now, I would add, handling language in this way is this way; that the dialogue that went on in that 56-minute interview was a dialogue that the reporter refuses to even speculate as to what question it was that he might have asked me. I'm pretty sure that he didn't have that typed out in his notes either, so he doesn't know the question. But I am going to submit that it was about the discussion that had to do with the weaponization of language; the weaponization of language that has been calculated by the left. And I happen to know that there was a meeting in the Mandarin Hotel here in Washington, D.C. that commenced on November 12, 2016; and that was going to be a meeting on how to exploit the Hillary presidency if she was going to be President-elect on that day, when that 3-day conference began. But as it turned out, it was President-elect Donald Trump that they had to react to and figure out how they were going to take the highest levels of the Democratic Party that emerged in the Mandarin Hotel, including George Soros, whose picture was on the front of the article written by Politico on that day. Out of that came a number of weaponization strategies; one of them was the resistance movement. And you saw demonstrations in the streets all over America that commenced shortly after that, all the way through the inauguration, and for a month or two after that, all these demonstrations. The idea was, don't let Donald Trump govern. If you weren't successful in beating him in the election; if--let's just say, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and those who said they weren't going to ever let it happen, and the rest of that cabal, they fell short in the election, but they continued to try to deny Donald Trump the opportunity to rule and to function as the President of the United States. Madam Speaker, that topic has been before us intensively as recently as yesterday. And so, the strategy that came out of the Mandarin Hotel in that conference that began with the Democratic Party at the highest levels there, including George Soros and the DNC, on Sunday, the 12th of November--it happened to be Charles Manson's birthday, I happen to know. I don't know why I know that--but it was about the weaponization of terms. Our discussion in that interview with The New York Times was about the weaponization of terms. And I have spoken of the weaponization of terms before that in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor, and there, it is a clear quote that rolls along that says: It is about weaponizing these terms. Madam Speaker, I use the terms--if I can find it here, The Christian Science Monitor article. It was using the terms Western civilization or Western culture as that--why is it that they are trying to turn that into a pejorative term? And that interview was clearly done in The Christian Science Monitor, and it is clear that that would be the topic I was talking about; not advocacy for odious ideologies, but instead wondering why it would be that the left would be seeking to weaponize the very meritorious term, Western civilization. That is clearly the case. And I have been attacked for defending Western civilization, but I have never defended White nationalism or White supremacy. I would point out on this chart, Madam Speaker, when was it used? I mean, when were these terms used within our dialogue? Here is one. This is a quote from me. We went through LexisNexis and went on back and asked from the year 2000 up until the end of 2018 how many times was I quoted as ever using the term ``white nationals'' or ``white supremacy?'' You can see down here in the red and in the green, it goes clear on out to the end of 2018--never. Not one time was I quoted as using either one of those terms that identify the odious ideologies in all the LexisNexis searches that were there. It makes it implausible that, unless those terms were fed to me by The New York Times, it is very unlikely that they would have ever been uttered in that interview. But I said I am defending Western civilization. I have been consistent and clear on that, Madam Speaker. And so this chart, the blue line shows the utilization of ``Western civilization,'' the times that I have been quoted using the term ``Western civilization.'' Instead of zero times being quoted as using ``white nationalism'' or ``white supremacy,'' ``Western civilization'' totals, that number shows on here, but here is the utilization of it, and it totals 276 times. So to keep it simple, I boiled it down to the text here. I was quoted as saying ``Western civilization'' in The New York Times--number of times quoted as saying ``Western civilization,'' 276 times since the year 2000 the press has quoted me as using that term. I am fine with that. I proudly defend Western civilization, consistently. But when did I ever say ``white nationalism'' or ``white supremacy'' or any derivative thereof? Zero times, zero. So it is pretty clear that when The New York Times plugs that in, I was likely responding to the utilization of those terms in a question if those words were even said at all. And here is another little chart. The leader made a point that, well, you know, that I had defined ``white nationalism,'' and I had defined it in an earlier interview by saying that it is a derogatory term and it implies racism, but it might have meant something different, I said, 1, 2, or 3 years ago. This is an October 20 interview with Dave Price on WHO. So I went back and looked, how often was the term ``white nationalism'' used historically, going back to the year 2000 on LexisNexis? And you can see this line staying down here near zero, all these years from 2000 all the way up to 2015. You would say in today's vernacular, virtually zero times--virtually no times, excuse me--not zero, but virtually no times was the term ``white nationalism'' even used in our dialogue until you get to 2016 where it jumps up. These numbers really are 1 to 200 times a year throughout all the publications, all the writers, all the things that show up on LexisNexis that searches everything in print, including the blogs all the way back. So this is virtually none, 1 to 200 times a year by everybody. And this isn't identified to my utilization. Then, in 2016, it jumps from virtually none up to 10,000 times a year. And then when you go to 2017, it jumps all the way up to 30,000 times. And in 2018, it is still up there at 20,000 times. So 10, 30, 20,000 times used, virtually unused before. And I explained and asserted that they are weaponizing that term, and they are injecting it into the political dialogue and using it as a pejorative term against anybody they can stick this label on. And that is exactly what was going on, and that is exactly what I defined in that interview that was so objected to by the minority leader of the House of Representatives. I was far more right than I thought. It was a general understanding I had. Now when I go back and look at the facts, I just nailed it cold as to what is going on. The left is weaponizing terms. I was explaining that. I explained it accurately, more accurately than I thought I had, and what is my reward for being so precise? And my reward for being so accurate, my reward for defending Western civilization is a pejorative decision that is unprecedented in the history of the United States Congress to stifle my freedom of speech and to limit, to the extent they could, my ability to be reelected going into the future. That is the kind of thing we can't have in this Congress is for someone to be sitting in leadership that thinks that they have the authority to determine who is not going to represent people outside of their own district. That is destructive to our constitutional Republic. The voice of we the people elects the Representatives, and when they do so, they have a right to the full-throated representation, and that has been denied so far this year because of the arbitrary and capricious and false conclusion that has been drawn by Kevin McCarthy. And so that situation needs took rectified. Anyone who has read this 6-page fact-check document, not one person has found a hole in it. Not one rational person has found a hole in it. Those that did read it and considered it said: You make some good points; yes, it makes sense. Well, we maybe have to find a time to fix this, but it is not very convenient right now. My point is, Madam Speaker, that if you find that somebody has been locked up in jail and the DNA tests prove that they are not guilty, you don't wait until they have a good job. You open up the doors and you give them back their freedom. And in this case, you give back to the people of Iowa the full-throated representation of their senior Member, the dean of the Iowa House of Representatives. And one of the things my constituents like about me is they always get the straight, unvarnished truth whether they like it or not. And they will come up and they will say: I don't agree with you on everything, but I know that you are telling me the truth; I know you are working hard; and I know that you are objective in this, and we need somebody that we don't have to wonder what they are saying. I don't ever dance around with words. I tell people what I think and what I know; and I give them the good news when it is there, and I am eager to do so, and I give them the bad news when it is time because they deserve the straightest of answers. We are straight talkers in the Midwest. We are descended from people that came across the prairie to live free or die out there in the plains, and we built a pretty good place. It is the best place in the world to live and raise a family. We have people that are coming back. When they are young, sometimes they will go off and look at the rest of the country or the world, but they come back, especially when it is time for the kids to go to school, and they contribute back to the community, generation on top of generation on top of generation. That is some of the things that I have worked to establish. In the time I have been here in Congress, we have taken Iowa into number one, the Fourth Congressional District into number one in the production of renewable fuels and energy. By the time you add together the ethanol, biodiesel, wind and, now, solar, we produce more BTUS of energy than any other congressional district that is a renewable outside of this. We have gotten transportation routes that have been set up, four-lane Highway 20 is done. We rank in the top first or second or third in corn and soybeans and in pork and in egg production, right at or near the top in all of that. It is a wholesome place. When I look outside from my place, I see no neighbors, but I never had a bad one. And we have got a crop that looks great this year. When I see all those little kids boiling up to the front of our church to put their dollar in the basket, those kids are going to grow up in those communities, too, and we are going to have generation after generation that replicates and improves upon the success that we have had. But we can't do that if we are going to live in a country where there is an arbitrary censorship taking place and no opportunity for me to even defend myself. Innocent until proven guilty? Well, that is true for a whole bunch of these people that I named, but Steve King, instead, is guilty by accusation, guilty by false allegation, even now that I have proven to the House of Representatives that, beyond any reasonable question, this was a misquote. It was something that was ginned up, and it created a political lynch mob. It is time to cut the rope and get me back in full force of where my constituents deserve, to give them the fullest representation that is there. I will face any accuser any time, and I will deliver all the facts; and if anybody can find a hole in this 6-page fact-check document or any other statement that I have made, I would be very happy to look anybody in the eye to answer those questions. Madam Speaker, I appreciate your attention to this matter here this evening, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for taking the initiative to claim this time on the floor of the House of Representatives and bring up this topic. I point out, Mr. Speaker, to the people who are paying attention here at least, whether or not that is you, that this is the most complex issue that the United States of America faces and has ever faced. We might face a tax issue or a national defense issue, and we might face a healthcare issue. They are very complex and very detailed. But almost everything else, you can make your mistakes, fix them, and move on, but it doesn't multiply itself throughout the multiple generations that we have. Immigration is very complex. At the heart of it is something that I heard the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho) reference, and that is the word ``1986.'' I revere Ronald Reagan, and I always have, except for the two times in all of history that he let me down. 1986 was the time he did that, when he granted amnesty to what turned out to be more than 3 million illegal aliens in this country. It wasn't the number of illegal aliens who were granted a reward for breaking our laws. Instead, it was the destruction of the rule of law. Once you reward people for breaking the law, you get more lawbreakers. More lawbreakers destroy the law. In the center of everything that I have done on immigration here in this Congress in 16\1/2\ years has been about the restoration of the respect for the rule of law, in particular with regard to immigration. Yet I see on the other side of the aisle a constant push to erode and degrade the respect for the rule of law and the rule of law itself. We are dealing with sanctuary cities, sanctuary counties, sanctuary States, and sanctuary jurisdictions. In the last Congress, we passed sanctuary legislation that went over to Senator McConnell's desk that would have shut it all off and given a victim standing to go to court to sue the political subdivision for compensation for the damage caused by turning people loose on the streets who should have been interdicted, put back in the condition they were in before they broke the law. I am a little bit extra emotional about this tonight, Mr. Speaker, because I get the news from Des Moines, Iowa. I am going to be delicate about how I say this because I don't want to prejudice an impending prosecution. We have a triple murder that took place in Des Moines, Iowa, that peaceful city, a triple murder. The individual who was arrested for that triple homicide went into the custody of the Des Moines police for maybe a few hours. Shortly, his name came off the roster for being in their custody. When you check, he is in ICE's custody. It has now been announced that the individual who is a suspect for a triple homicide in the peaceful city of Des Moines, Iowa, is an illegal alien, a criminal alien. He also had been interdicted for a hit-and-run just a couple of months ago, turned loose on the streets of Iowa, now potentially becoming guilty of killing three individuals, a mother, an 11-year-old daughter, and a 5-year-old son. ``Illegal alien,'' well, we are not supposed to say that because it hurts their feelings. And one of our Members of this Congress has introduced legislation-- now, by the way, it is Joaquin Castro, whose brother is running for President of the United States. He has introduced legislation to eliminate the use of the term ``illegal alien'' in Federal statute because it hurts people's feelings. Hurts people's feelings, when we have people going to their graves at their hands. I think their feelings are hurt a lot worse. And our compassion needs to be for those who have been killed and those who have been injured and those who have been abused in many ways. But to just change the terminology of the reality is just a political statement. And I would add, on top of that, the policies that have been advocated on the other side of the aisle are the policies that culminate in open borders. Open borders mean, picking a particular number that came out of DHS, in April, 4,117 illegal aliens interdicted in a single day. So I got out my little calculator, and I divided 4,117 into 710,000, which is the average size of a congressional seat. That meant that every 24 weeks another congressional district, an entire congressional district in Iowa, is supplanted by illegal aliens coming into America. And that number could well be as many as 50, 60, or 70 seats over the period of a Census time. So I point this down, in conclusion here, and compress it so that even those folks who are the least likely to understand this will understand what I am about to describe. If you were to clear out a county in the desert of Nevada so that there wasn't a single person living there, and then as we interdict these folks on the border at the rate of 4,117 in a single day, and over 24 weeks you accumulate the equivalent of an entire congressional district, you put them into that county, the Census shows up and counts them--710,000. 710,000 of them then become an entire congressional district. That entire congressional district couldn't elect a single person because there wouldn't be a single citizen there in 24 weeks. So that means anybody can move there and vote for themselves, come to Congress, and represent 710,000 illegals--that is how bad it is--in only 24 weeks. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chair, I am encouraged that my amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year passed the House of Representatives by voice vote on July 11, 2019. This important amendment requires the ``Annual Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China'' to include an assessment of (1) China's expansion of its surveillance state; (2) Any correlation of such expansion with its oppression of its citizens and its threat to United States national security interests around the world; and (3) An overview of the extent to which such surveillance corresponds to the overall respect, or lack thereof, for human rights. This matter is one that I have long been attuned to and concerned about, ultimately leading me to draft and introduce the ``Protect American IPR Act'', which is H.R. 902 this session, and seeks to stop Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property through duties on Chinese merchandise. For this reason, I have been encouraged to see President Trump prioritizing the Chinese stealing of American intellectual property. Mass and unabated government surveillance does not only offend individual liberties; in the hands of an authoritarian government, it poses the Orwellian threat of the government always watching, and ultimately using this ability, made possible to an unprecedented extent by modem technology, to spy on, steal from, intimidate and persecute not only those it views as ``political enemies'' and ``threats'', but anyone it deems as expedient. This Orwellian threat is becoming a reality, perhaps nowhere more so than in China, where the government vigorously pursues a national video surveillance network. The affinity of the Chinese government to control its population in part by mass monitoring is not a new phenomenon, but advancing technology makes its prospects more frightening every day for those within and outside of the Mainland. One internet privacy expert warns, ``What China is doing here is selectively breeding its population to select against the trait of critical, independent thinking''. Since China is a neighbor to many and more importantly an actor on the world stage, that erosion will not simply negatively impact the Chinese, it will spread--it arguably has already. A world with continually less critical, independent thought is a prospect to tremble at. It is my strong belief that U.S. policy, including defense policy, should by no measure assist, intentionally or unintentionally, the growth of China's surveillance. Instead, it should discourage the expansion of the Chinese government into the rest of the world, while at the same time encouraging greater human rights for the Chinese people, including expectant mothers and Christians and other religious minorities. I have heard from many individuals who warn against China's rapid expansion and influence into the rest of the world, including Africa and Central America, our nation's own backyard. Although the government-connected interests bring economic promise (and exploitation) to the developing world, they also bring the Chinese surveillance state with them. To counter this very real and growing threat, we need to first understand its scope, its impact for individuals in China as well as those around world, and the extent to which it threatens the U.S. national security interests.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. I would first like to point out and to show here, to America, Jaci Hermstad. Jaci Hermstad is from Spencer, Iowa. Her identical twin sister, in 2011, passed away from an aggressive form of ALS, which we often know of as Lou Gehrig's disease. The DNA from her sister is part of a treatment for Jaci, who was diagnosed on Valentine's Day of this year with the same disease. And because of the work and the cooperation of the FDA, some wonderful scientists, and a lot of work done by my staff--and I want to stand here and thank Speaker Pelosi for her cooperation--we were able to convince the FDA to grant a waiver so Jaci could receive this treatment. She is in Columbia University, now, receiving treatments. Her third treatment is this morning, just about as I speak, and it will be a triple dose. And if this works--and she is in my prayers every day--we have opened a path to one day put an end to that deadly and debilitating disease of ALS. And by the way, she is a spunky gal with a sassy sense of humor, and if you knew her like I know her, you would love her. This is Jaci. She is definitely in my prayers this day and every day. Census Questions

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about the topic that will be raised by the President this afternoon in the Rose Garden, as I understand, and it is the topic of whether the question of ``Are you a citizen of the United States of America?'' should and could be on the Census. I have introduced a bill, H.R. 1320. This has been introduced last time and this year, and H.R. 1320 is a bill that has asked these questions. It says: What is person number one's legal status? Are you a citizen or a national of the United States? Are you a lawfully admitted permanent resident? Are you none of those things, or do you have an other lawful status? And then it follows up and says: If you have other lawful status, what is that status? Are you here on a green card? Are you here on a student visa? Are you here on a work permit of some kind? So, we need a full inventory of the population of the United States. That was the purpose of the Census, not only for redistricting, but so that we could see how America is growing, in what ways America is growing. And, by the way, we are establishing immigration policy here in the United States Congress by an enumerated power in our Constitution, I might add, and we are doing that with people on that side of the aisle saying: We don't want to know any more than how many homo sapiens we can count within the shores of the United States of America. But they want to know a lot of other minutia if it helps them politically. So I brought this legislation forward, and we know that there was a case before the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court looked at that case. I looked back at the short form Census in 2010 when Barack Obama was President. And here is what it asked. It wants to know: What is your name? What is your phone number? I mean, how detailed do you have to get? We are only asking are you a citizen or are you not a citizen is what the Commerce Department has decided to ask. I think there should be more details. But the Obama Census short form said: What is your name? What is your phone number? What is your birthday? What sex are you? I point out they didn't ask your gender. They ask sex because that is actually definitive. And what is your ethnicity? What is your race? Do you have an unmarried partner? And if you have children, they ask this question: Are they biological or adopted sons or daughters? So they want to know, are they boys or girls and were they born into the family or were they adopted into the family. By what means are they part of your dependents? But you can't ask a question: Are you a citizen of the United States? All of these questions and many more, and we can't ask the question: Are you a citizen of the United States? The Supreme Court found that the executive branch was granted the authority by the United States Congress--and that is the Commerce Secretary himself--to form the questions on the Census. This is a constitutional authority that was specifically granted to the executive branch of government by the United States Congress. But the Court says: You have the authority to ask the question, but we think you have the wrong reason to ask the question. So now we are remanded back to the lower court to come up with a better reason. Here is my reason: We want to know how many citizens are in America. That is all you need to ask. It is simple as it can be. And they are well within the law; they are well within the Constitution. It is just that the Obama-appointed judges don't seem to be reading the Constitution and the law, and they seem to have political motives.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. I rise today to honor Jaci Hermstad. She has given me so much inspiration. I want to start, though, with the early, sad part of this story. This is a sad story with a happy part in the middle of it right now, Mr. Speaker. Jaci's identical twin sister, Alex, was diagnosed with a very severe and aggressive form of ALS. That took place in 2005. Then, by 2010 and 2011, my staff and, especially, Sandy Hanlon in our Sioux City office, were working with the Hermstads to do those things we could do, in a limited fashion, admittedly. On St. Valentine's Day of 2011, sadly, Jaci's identical twin sister, Alex, passed away at age 17. Now, that is 8 years ago. About 2015 or so, Jaci and her mother, Lori, came to my office to talk with me about ALS, this dreaded Lou Gehrig's disease, that always ends up fatal. It always ends up in a sad, tragic ending. They had experienced that with Jaci's identical twin sister. Even more sadly, there was news that symptoms showed up in Jaci late last fall, around the holiday time. By Christmas she couldn't get up the stairs any longer, and again, on St. Valentine's Day of this year, Jaci was diagnosed with the aggressive form of ALS that her identical twin sister had passed away from. Now, they had donated some of her sister's tissue to science, and two significant companies, Columbia University, and Dr. Neil Shneider began doing DNA work on that preparing a treatment for Jaci. This treatment wasn't available for Jaci soon enough in her view, her family's view, or in my view. The FDA had to work through their regulations. As we worked through that, it looked like Jaci couldn't get this potentially miraculous treatment before perhaps September or October. At the rate of the digression of her condition, it didn't look like she was going to be with us long enough to receive the treatment. Some of us went to work to step up and help Jaci. I got involved on April 13 of this year when my wonderful district staff person, Andrea Easter, who had been working with the family all along, brought me up and we did a fundraiser there at the Spencer AG Center on April 13, a Saturday. It was a cold and chilly day when we arrived there. There were pickups parked on either side of the road to the Spencer AG Center. It looked like we were going to a farm sale there were so many vehicles there. They had only expected maybe 100 people, and the Clay County Cattlemen were there to flip maybe 100 burgers and put out a basket for people to put a check in. They thought they could raise $3,000 to $5,000 just as a token, as a way to help. The story about that day is, it turned out that there were over 1,000 people who came. And they raised in the end, the last report I got, was over $200,000. I sat with Jaci that day and talked about her dreams to build a riding arena and train horses for therapy for others and to be able to help people. She is a cowgirl, Mr. Speaker. I committed that I will come up and grade that arena on the house, and I will be on the machine to do it. I look forward to that day. But we had more work to do. So that story that day got us all energized. We kept her in our prayers every day. By May 2 we had a meeting with Dr. Woodcock and the FDA. We moved along even further. By May 20 I introduced a private bill. I tried to convince my Senators to do the same. They thought there would be an objection to a UC in the Senate. I brought this to Speaker Pelosi. She was terrific to work with. We had several meetings all together, with Steny Hoyer and with her staff. Before that bill could come to the floor for a unanimous consent request, the FDA opened the door and Jaci went wheels up January 5 to go to Columbia. She received her first treatment on June 11, and today, starting 5 minutes from now, Mr. Speaker, she will receive her second treatment. There has been no noticeable digression in her condition. I am hopeful and prayerful that it will improve. We have a chance here at a miracle. So many people worked so well together to get this done, including the press people around the Spencer, Iowa, area. I want to especially mention Stella ``With the Good Heart'' Daskalakis. I always call her Stella ``With the Good Heart.'' She has done so much, along with KICD Radio, KTIV, KUOO, and KSFY in Sioux Falls. Mr. Speaker, I am so grateful for everyone who has formed a link in this chain of miracles. We are on our way to an extraordinary miracle. We will keep Jaci in our prayers this day as she receives her second treatment for ALS.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 3, according to the rule.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer my King amendment No. 3, and what it does is it strikes section 126 in the underlying bill. Section 126 is notwithstanding language that prohibits the executive branch from using any of the funds in the Department of the Treasury's forfeiture fund, the Civil Assets Forfeiture Fund, to be used for anything, to build a wall or a road that might support a wall on our southern border. The language is very expansive in the bill. It says none of the funds ``may be obligated, expended, or used to plan, design, construct, or carry out a project to construct a wall, barrier, fence, or road along the southern border of the United States, or a road to provide access to a wall, barrier, or fence constructed along the southern border of the United States.'' Mr. Chairman, my amendment strikes that language, and it does so with the idea in mind that we have a President who was elected with a mandate to secure our border. This has been an ongoing battle for the last 2\1/2\ years, and still the resources are short. I think we should have done a better job in the previous Congress to get that money into this project, but the President is going where he can to find the resources to keep his campaign promises. So I certainly want to support that by striking that language and allowing the President to then have access to what amounts to $601 million that would be generated, be freed up by my amendment. And it recognizes this, that the U.S. Treasury has about $13.6 billion that is allocated to it under this underlying bill; and this small piece of money here is not a lot of money, but it does send a message that it is going to get harder and harder for the President to build a wall if we don't strike this language. And I want to support the President's mission to do that. It is ironic, I think, that we are spending today--and I am the only one in Congress that I know of who tracks this spending, but we are spending at least $6.7 million a mile for every mile of the 2,000 miles of our southern border to secure that border. Just doing the math in my head, quickly, that turns out to be about $13.4 billion. Almost the exact same amount that is freed up to the Treasury, we are spending to secure the border for something probably less than 50 percent efficiency. When you build a wall, it is 99-point- something percent efficiency. We need to let the President be the President. He has declared a national emergency, and we need to strike this language from the bill so the President has the latitude to do that which the people have elected him to do. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Graves).

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chair, just some concluding thoughts on this. This underlying bill is an increase of $793.9 million more than last year, and it is $484.4 million more than requested by the administration. There are plenty of resources in this underlying bill to take care of the obligations that this Congress has to the people of this country, but they also have an obligation to secure our border and restore the respect for the rule of law. The chaos that we have on the border is not just something that is reflecting back on us in the United States. I am hearing many laments about the individual tragedies, though we are counting them on one hand, for the most part. I asked the Secretary of Homeland Security under oath just late last year, Kirstjen Nielsen at the time, whom I respect and appreciate, how many died on the way to our southern border. She said: I don't have the data for that. I will get it to you. I said: It will be too long for that. I want your best estimate. How many died on the way from Central America to the southern border? Her answer finally came: Congressman, it would be thousands and thousands. That is the history of what we are trying to shut off here. They will keep coming until we end up deciding that we are not going to accept them anymore. We must secure our border if we are going to be a sovereign nation. This is a piece of it. I support the President. I urge adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives. I rise today to honor the life of Frank LaMere. Frank LaMere was a leader for the Winnebagos, who had land on both sides of the Missouri River in the Sioux City area, and also for Native Americans, especially in the upper Midwest. Over the years, our lives interacted multiple times. I had the opportunity to work with him and see the gentleness of his nature. I will say that he mellowed out in his later years, but he never let up. He never took his foot off the throttle. He just found a smoother way to get to the goals, which were to help out his Native American people. He was a model of dedication to selflessness, and he also had more than his fair share of tragedy, loss, and demons to fight. Over the course of his life, he demonstrated that no matter the obstacles, he could rise above them, as we could rise above those and do the most good we can with the tools we have to work with. He overcame addiction himself. He had dedicated his life to being a voice for the voiceless, including securing housing, food, and other necessities for the people whom he did such a good job representing in the area. Yet, tragedy still exists in our communities, and Frank LaMere saw the need to address those situations. We collaborated on a couple of important things together. They were the passions of Frank LaMere who passed away on Sunday evening. The imagination and the dream that he had was to build Hope Street, which would be a treatment center and housing center primarily for Native Americans who are drug addicted or alcohol addicted. That project, by the way, has the language that allows it to qualify in this appropriations bill that we have before us this week. Also, the second project that was a very, very important project was when Frank and I had a chance meeting in the airport in Omaha, and we began to discuss these things, too, that were on his mind, that brought about the bill that is now H.R. 184. That is the Winnebago Land Transfer Act. In 1865, the United States Government and the Winnebago Tribe signed a treaty that granted that land on both sides of the Missouri River to the Winnebago Tribe. As the river changed and situations changed-- actually, I shouldn't say both sides of the river. It was the Nebraska side of the river. When the river changed, that meant that a lot of that land actually ended up in Iowa. The Corps of Engineers came in 105 years later and condemned that property for their own project. It was a takings, and I believe it was an unconstitutional takings. In doing so, they never compensated them for that land, and they didn't use that land for the project for which they had intended. So, over time, the Winnebagos were able to put the money together to go to court. The statute of limitations had expired. The court ruled that, if they were going to rule on the issue, they would grant the land back to the Winnebagos, but it was beyond their jurisdiction because of the statute of limitations. The only thing that puts that land back is an act of Congress, and that is the Winnebago Land Transfer Act, H.R. 184. If we can conclude that this week or next week, it will be the time that we have finished the biggest part of the work of Frank LaMere. We should do so to honor his life. One of the things that he was quoted as saying, and this was at the services for him: ``If you haven't been marginalized at least once a week, then you probably haven't done very much.'' I can identify with that, Madam Speaker, and I can identify with the life of selfless work of Frank LaMere. We honor his life. Let's honor his life in this Congress this week or next.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, today, I rise to recognize, June 19th, 2019 as Juneteenth National Freedom Day. Juneteenth, or the ``19th of June'', recognizes the day, in 1865, in Galveston, Texas, when Union Army Major General Gordon Granger announced freedom for all slaves in Texas. Major General Granger's arrival in Galveston occurred more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and enforced by President Lincoln. Upon the issuance of General Order No. 3 by Major General Granger, the former slaves, and now free men and women celebrated ecstatically. Currently, 46 states recognize Juneteenth as an official state holiday. In 2002, I proposed ``An Act relating to the designation of a Juneteenth National Freedom Day'' in the Iowa Senate. That bill was enacted by the Iowa General Assembly and was signed into law by then Governor Thomas J. Vilsack. The proclamation encouraged all state governmental entities, civil organizations, educational institutions to ``observe the day ... (the third Saturday in June) in a manner that emphasizes the meaning and importance of the Emancipation Proclamation that ended slavery and to recognize and celebrate the importance of [Juneteenth] to every person who cherishes liberty and equality for all people.'' This historic legislation was passed unanimously by the Iowa State House and Senate, and the signature by Governor Vilsack designated Iowa as the seventh state to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday. Madam Speaker, I thank you for allowing me to recognize Juneteenth National Freedom Day and I hope we, as a Congress, continue to recognize and to acknowledge this important piece of American history and the advancements we have made since then.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding to me, and I rise to address an issue that is within the underlying bill and express my gratitude and support for the efforts on the part of the subcommittee chair, Congresswoman Betty McCollum, in particular. We have a situation in Sioux City, Iowa, and in that Siouxland area, much of that Native American population there are the Winnebago. Of course, they have their problems, Madam Speaker. One of those problems is drug and alcohol abuse and addiction. And some of the resources that have traditionally been delivered through the Indian Health Services have been suspended over the last years. And, without the note, I am going to say it is 7 or 8 years--something like that--given the meetings that I have been to. We asked that language be included in the report language in the underlying bill that is directed by this rule. Of course, that report language includes $81 million altogether for the Urban Indian Health Program, $29,685,000 above the enacted level. So there is an improvement in that. Then there is money there also, $1,429,000, for current services, et cetera. But the foundational language that I appreciate being in here so much is: ``The committee recognizes nonprofit organizations such as the Siouxland Human Investment Partnership that help American Indians in urban areas outside of the Urban Indian Health Program and encourages the service to offer technical assistance to such organizations whenever possible and within service authority.'' I very much appreciate that language. There is additional language that sets aside and says that: ``The Interior appropriations bill includes $2 million available for 11 grants or contracts with public or private institutions services to provide alcohol or drug treatment services to Indians, including alcohol detoxification services.'' We are in the process of building what we are calling Hope Street, which is going to be a location that allows them to go directly to that facility for that kind of help.