A Step Backwards in Race Relations At California State University

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is always an honor to appear here on the House floor, especially following colleagues giving an important address.

I was saddened to see what seemed, in fact, to be a huge step backwards in racial relations.

``California State University Debuts Segregated Housing for Black Students.''

``California State University Los Angeles recently debuted segregated housing for Black students, a move intended to protect them from `microaggressions,' according to the College Fix.

``Last year, Cal State L.A.'s Black Student Union wrote a letter to the university's president outlining a series of demands, including the `creation and financial support of a CSLA housing space delegated for Black students and a full time Resident Director who can cater to the needs of Black students.'

`` `Many Black CSLA students cannot afford to live in Alhambra or the surrounding area with the high prices of rent. A CSLA housing space delegated for Black students would provide a cheaper alternative housing solution for Black students. This space would also serve as a safe space for Black CSLA students to congregate, connect and learn from each other,' the letter stated.

Anyway, ``Robert Lopez, a spokesman for the university, confirmed to The College Fix that students' demand for housing specifically for Black students had been met, saying that the school's new Halisi Scholars Black Living-Learning Community `focuses on academic excellence and learning experiences that are inclusive and nondiscriminatory.'

That seems to be a bit of anathema.

But anyway, ``Lopez said the Black student housing is within the existing residential complex on campus.

``The College Fix noted that other universities, including the University of California, Davis; the University of California, Berkeley; and University of Connecticut offer similar housing arrangements.''

It just seems like we are going backwards with that kind of thing.

I heard my colleagues mention the great dream--part of the great dream of Martin Luther King, Jr., a Christian, ordained Christian minister. As I have heard a Black minister explain recently, he was, first and foremost, above all a Christian minister. His belief in the Bible and his belief in Jesus Christ as a Savior was his guiding force, which brought him to the place that Jesus brought his disciples to, and that the Apostle Paul was brought to rather abruptly, and that is, Jesus did not discriminate against anyone and that we, who believe, as Christians, should follow those teachings and treat people equally, regardless of skin color. And that would help fulfill that part of Dr. King's dream, that people would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

However, California has digressed, regressed to the point where no longer are they making progress toward racial harmony. They are going the other direction, saying that what we need is to segregate, like that great Democrat, George Wallace believed.

So it is unbelievable. We have supposed liberals in California not pursuing the dream of Dr. King, where people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin; but we have these California universities that are now fulfilling the dream of the Democratic Party candidate, George Wallace, who felt like segregation in all things was the far better way to go.

So congratulations to the University of California System for helping fulfill the dream of George Wallace. What a wonderful combination we have. Not a progressive, as they might claim the name, but of regressives who are going back and claiming the dream, not of Dr. King, but of Democrat Party activist, George Wallace. Congratulations. You make a great pair, California University System, and George Wallace's dream. Wow. Criminal Justice Reform

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Mr. GOHMERT. We also have had mention tonight of efforts toward what some call sentencing reform. I was honored back in 2007 to get a call from a man that I think the world of, former Attorney General Ed Meese. Apparently he had heard of my concerns about some of the Federal criminal laws that needed to be changed; that we had too many people in America who were being harassed and their lives or their families destroyed by Federal criminal law that allowed people to be prosecuted for violating, not a law that Congress had passed, but some regulation that some cubicle-holder had decided would be a good thing to do.

Unelected bureaucrats in Washington decided we will make this a regulation, and since Congress passed a law saying you have to follow all the laws and rules regarding this issue, we fall under the rules and regulations; therefore, they can go to prison for failing to do what we, as unelected bureaucrats in Washington, decided that someone somewhere we have never been must do.

So I was greatly in favor and encouraged to hear of the interest from the Heritage Foundation, former Attorney General Ed Meese, to pursue criminal justice reform.

We have had difficulty moving that forward, and I greatly appreciate the leadership of Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte. We have been able to get through some criminal justice reforms that I have been hoping to see passed since 2007.

At times we made strange bedfellows, politically speaking, I guess, when we had Ed Meese and others from the Heritage Foundation, along with leaders from the ACLU, who had similar concerns that we did, and we were coming together to try to correct great injustices within the criminal justice laws.

Unfortunately, the President, probably inspired by mentors like George Soros, they see that before criminal justice reform could be passed, at least contemporaneously, you have to pass sentencing reform.

The Obama administration wants that to be a major part of the Obama legacy. And when you see how many people are being completely failed and harmed by ObamaCare, I can certainly understand why President Obama would rather have his legacy be that of something in the criminal justice area rather than ObamaCare.

Without--and I have to say, this has certainly damaged in a bipartisan fashion people across America. There are people who have been helped by having government pay a good part of their health care.

You look at the bottom line, especially, from the people I have heard from all over east Texas, we have vast numbers complaining they have lost their insurance they liked. They lost the doctor that was keeping them healthy or had gotten them cured, and now they were back in trouble. They lost the doctor or the insurance company, they lost the hospital they wanted to go to, all because of that around-2500-page monstrosity that is normally referred to as ObamaCare. It is easier to call it ObamaCare than the Affordable Care Act because it is not affordable. It has cost some people everything.

So we have heard from people. They are clamoring for a change.

Isn't there some way to let us get back the insurance we had before 2010, when the President and every Democrat, without a single Republican vote, rammed through, against the majority will of the American public, this monstrosity where the government took over their healthcare insurance, dictated requirements that would put many out of business, dictated requirements of doctors that have caused many to retire, as they have advised me?

And I continue to hear, and we continue to lose hospitals especially in rural areas.

But when you hear uncaring, big city folks say, ``We don't really care. Just tell them to move to the city,'' really? What? Like Chicago, where their chances of being murdered go up astronomically from where they are living now, where their standard of living can't possibly be where it is now? Do you despise these people so much and what many consider flyover territory that you would want to sentence them to such brutality? How about if we just let America be free again and we follow what so many have talked about?

It is why I had the bill drafted back in 2009. CBO Director Elmendorf, no matter what he asked, I complied, and they still refused to ever score my bill. Newt Gingrich had said back in early 2009: If you can just get this in bill form and get it scored, they won't have a chance of passing ObamaCare; this will be too good.

Because it appeared that the best numbers we could get back from 2008, it may well be cheaper to offer seniors: Okay, you want Medicare? You can have it. On the other hand, if you would like the very best health insurance policy that money can buy, we will buy it for you, but we will go ahead and set a high deductible.

Back then, we were talking $5,000 or so. Maybe today it would be $7,500 or $10,000. We will have a high deductible, but above that deductible. You will have the best insurance money can buy, Mr. or Ms. Senior. To cover the deductible, we will give you a health savings account. We will put the cash in there.

I made this proposal to a couple of folks that I had invited to come out and listen to the proposal from AARP. Since they cared about retired folks, I figured they will love this because this is going to be so good for retired people. They will never have to buy another wraparound or supplemental policy again. This is going to be unbelievable. So for Medicare and Medicaid, this will be fantastic, and we will give each one of them a health savings account debit card, and it will be coded only.

Newt Gingrich was very helpful. He sent out some folks to meet with me that knew all about the different issues and encouraged some different things to be in the bill we got in there. Anyway, this was going to be great for seniors. I was shocked when AARP folks said: We will have to get back with you because we are not sure. I said: How could you not be sure? You care about retired people.

My mother-in-law and father-in-law at the time were struggling to pay for a supplemental policy. This will be fantastic.

I was so naive. I didn't know that AARP was making hundreds of millions of dollars clear profit for a nonprofit off selling the sale of supplemental health insurance.

So, naturally, they couldn't sign on to that bill. It was going to be so good for seniors that AARP would never be making those hundreds of millions and billions of dollars that they would be able to make under ObamaCare. Of course, they signed on to ObamaCare. It was in their monetary best interest, just like it has been in the Clintons' best interests to have Secretary Clinton have a husband out there raking in the money while providing access to those who may have wanted a favor in the administration. Access was the favor.

So we have had people across America so shocked. Money, as we were told, is not the root of all evil, but the love of money is a root of all evil--not necessarily ``the,'' but ``a'' root of evil.

When we see what has happened to people's health care all over money and power and we see what has happened to the greed of entities that were just supposed to help the seniors, just supposed to help those less fortunate, well, they are making a fortune. When we look at what has happened to health care, the hospitals out of business, the doctors retired, people that can't get the help they used to have, it is heartbreaking to those who are actually paying attention.

In the meantime, we have an investigation by the FBI into all this money, tens of millions--hundreds of millions--of dollars flowing into the Clinton Foundation. When people heard FBI Director James Comey stand up and basically spell out a lay-down case against Hillary Clinton for violating the law that ultimately came to the conclusion that there is nothing behind this curtain, so no good prosecutor would consider prosecuting this case, he failed to talk to good prosecutors who were prosecuting cases in which they had much less to go on than what had already been admitted.

I was shocked when we heard that Hillary Clinton was going to be interviewed for 3 hours. Some people expected the FBI to give a statement opinion about the case the next week. I said that that won't happen because traditionally the FBI would get that statement, they would review sentence by sentence to see if there was anything that was false that was provided to them, and if she had a 3-hour interview, it will take time to go sentence by sentence through what she said. There is no way they are coming back that next week.

Little did I know that--you know, you are left with the impression, what happened out there on the tarmac when this clandestine meeting between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton met, it was before the statement was made. And as I pointed out, basically even to the Attorney General, it makes it look like that when President Clinton and Attorney General Lynch got together it was: Look, just tell your wife all we have got to do is check the box. We had a lengthy period of questioning. We won't even put her under oath. We won't even record it, so there is no way we can really effectively prosecute her because we won't have an accurate statement of what she said. Just tell her to come in. We will check the box. We can come out a few days later and announce there is nothing here, look the other way.

It sounded like a wink and nod: Oh, by the way, Hillary says she would like to keep you on as Attorney General.

Great. Let's get her in and get the statement so we can drop the case.

That is basically what sounds like happened because of the way it unfolded. That is not the way the FBI normally works. There are so many incredible criminal investigators in our FBI despite all the good ones that Director Mueller ran off because he wanted new investigators--not any of the people that had been around and had wisdom and experience, but the new ones. They are there for proper reasons. They want to see justice done. And so people were shocked when the announcement came, hey, they laid out the elements of the case. Obviously, it sounded like they were proven. And then it says, so no good prosecutor, in effect, would pursue this.

There was no evidence of intent when somebody has a software program that is actually purchased with the sole purpose of destroying any way to get back to the emails that, now, it appears, were destroyed after they were requested, after they were subpoenaed, and after they were being sought. So, obviously, that is a lay-down case for intent right there.

Then we find out that phones were bashed perhaps with a hammer. Maybe if you were in some area of the country trying to prosecute where people are just going to acquit no matter what happens, okay, maybe, yeah, a prosecutor there might not pursue, but in most of this God- blessed country, if you show somebody that there was actual destruction with a hammer of cellphones to prevent anybody from ever finding out what was on there, you show them that software was actually purchased that would completely bleach and destroy any ability to go back and get those emails, most normal people would have no problem whatsoever finding an intent to deceive there and have no problem finding lies that were made.

But we heard over and over, gee, FBI Director Comey would never do anything but absolutely perfectly aboveboard.

But then this article by Patrick Howley, 10 September, came out. I was shocked. It said: ``A review of FBI Director James Comey's professional history and relationships shows that the Obama cabinet leader--now under fire for his handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton--is deeply entrenched in the big-money cronyism culture of Washington, D.C. His personal and professional relationships--all undisclosed as he announced the Bureau would not prosecute Clinton-- reinforce bipartisan concerns that he may have politicized the criminal probe.

``These concerns focus on millions of dollars that Comey accepted from a Clinton Foundation defense contractor, Comey's former membership on a Clinton Foundation corporate partner's board''--I had no idea-- ``and his surprising financial relationship with his brother Peter Comey, who works at the law firm that does the Clinton Foundation taxes.''

Who knew? Wow. Direct ties here with FBI Director James Comey's family and the Clinton Foundation. It is just amazing. I don't hold anybody's former employer against them. Fine, you are employed hopefully by somebody, so I wouldn't hold that against them. Certainly, Hank--I don't even want to say his name, but he used to be the Secretary of the Treasury, and--well, yeah, he deserves to be in the Congressional Record yet again. Hank Paulson, the former chairman of Goldman Sachs, he certainly did every favor he possibly could to Goldman Sachs, and they are still going on.

But here are some holdings, HSBC Holdings the article mentioned. ``In 2013, Comey became a board member, a director, and a Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee member of the London bank HSBC Holdings. `Mr. Comey's appointment will be for an initial three-year term which, subject to re-election by shareholders, will expire at the conclusion of the 2016 Annual General Meeting,' according to HSBC company records.

``HSBC Holdings and its various philanthropic branches routinely partner with the Clinton Foundation. For instance, HSBC Holdings has partnered with Deutsche Bank through the Clinton Foundation to `retrofit 1,500 to 2,500 housing units, primarily in the low- to moderate-income sector' in `New York City.' ''

Anyway, it goes on to talk about Peter Comey.

``When our source called the Chinatown offices of D.C. law firm DLA Piper and asked for `Peter Comey,' a receptionist immediately put him through to Comey's direct line. But Peter Comey is not featured on the DLA Piper website.

``Peter Comey serves as `Senior Director of Real Estate Operations for the Americas' for DLA Piper.

``James Comey was not questioned about his relationship with Peter Comey in his confirmation hearing. DLA Piper is the firm that performed the independent audit of the Clinton Foundation in November during Clinton-World's first big push to put the email scandal behind them. DLA Piper's employees taken as a whole represent a major Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign donation bloc and Clinton Foundation donation base.

``DLA Piper ranks number 5 on Hillary Clinton's all-time career Top Contributors list, just ahead of Goldman Sachs. And here is another thing: Peter Comey has a mortgage on his house that is owned by his brother'' James Comey, the FBI director. Peter Comey's financial records obtained by Breitbart News showed that he ``bought a $950,000 house in Vienna, Virginia, in June 2008. He needed a $712,500 mortgage from First Savings Mortgage Corporation.

``But on January 31, 2011, James Comey and his wife stepped in to become Private Party lenders. They granted a mortgage on the house for $711,000.''

Anyway, it is just rather interesting: Who had any idea that the Comey family had such ties to the Clinton Foundation?

``Peter Comey redesigned the FBI building.''

Well, that is interesting.

``FBI Director James Comey grew up in the New Jersey suburbs with his brother Peter.''

Anyway, interesting. How about that. Peter Comey redesigned the FBI building, according to the article.

``Procon Consulting's client list includes `FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C.'

``So what did Procon Consulting do for FBI headquarters? Quite a bit, apparently. According to the firm's records: Procon provided strategic project management for the consolidation of over 11,000 FBI personnel into one, high security, facility.''

Then it goes on. As the article ends, it says:

``This is not going to end well.''

Well, fortunately, for Hillary Clinton, the investigation with the Clinton Foundation ties to the FBI director has ended well for her.

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