Current Events

Floor Speech

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it's always an honor to come to the floor of the House of Representatives, especially when there's so much of great importance occurring in our Nation at this time.

We do need health care reform, and I appreciate my friends across the aisle talking about the importance of good health care.

I've continued to hear people find that they are going to lose their health insurance. I was talking to numerous employers this past week who say, I want to compete and have been notified insurance is going up higher next year. I heard from a small business employer, I'm not going to be able to carry insurance. I love my employees. I provide them good insurance. But come January, too many of my competitors have said they can't afford to keep the insurance for their employees, and so they're going to drop it and pay the $2,000 fine because $2,000 is so much cheaper than the cost of health insurance.

The reason we were told for pushing through the ObamaCare bill in a very partisan way was because there were 30 million or so who did not have insurance; and as some have indicated, there may be that many who lose their insurance as a result of ObamaCare. So I'm very concerned.

I, like my friends across the aisle, want to make sure not that people have insurance necessarily, but that they have affordable health care. And I'm hearing from health care providers that they're hearing from people who are no longer going to carry insurance for their employees, that it's going to be more and more expensive to provide health care since they made money off those who had insurance; and without people having the insurance they had in the past, as the President promised and has been made very clear was not true, there will be more pressure on those who are paying for their health care to pay substantially more, which means there are more people who will not be able to afford it, and it will break the system. Of course, with health insurance companies complaining that because of the things they're forced to cover, their insurance is going to necessarily have to go up.

There will likely be insurance companies that will have to give up the health insurance business, and then the administration can complain that, Well, we thought we were going to be able to work with the greedy health insurance companies; but as it turns out, they've gone out of business and doctors have abandoned their practices and retired early. So it looks like the government is going to have to take over the health care business.

Under ObamaCare, the Federal Government is already going to have everybody's health records. Their most private and personal secrets between them and their health care provider will then be available to the Federal Government and, as I understand it, to General Electric, who this administration, because of their great support of General Electric in this administration and their cozy working relationship, they'll have the contract to take care of everybody's health care records. So that will be just delightful.

The tragic thing, just as the one lady asked during the town hall that the President had at the White House when she asked about her elderly mother getting a pacemaker, though she was of late years--I believe 95--and that she's had the pacemaker for 10 or 11 years, would the panel that decided who would get what treatment, would they consider the quality of life of an individual in determining whether or not they get a pacemaker or such things, and the answer the President ultimately gave is, Well, let's face it. Maybe we're better off telling your mother that instead of a pacemaker you get a pain pill.

So it's very clear that as we approach the day when ObamaCare kicks in fully, there will be more and more seniors, whatever age this panel--it's not really a death panel--but it will decide who gets pacemakers and who is perhaps too old or maybe has lived a good life but now is beyond being worthy of, in this administration's opinion, getting a new knee or a new hip or back surgery, those kinds of things. You'll have bureaucrats that are deciding those issues all in the name of helping people with their health care. Because as anyone who seriously looks deeply into socialized medicine finds out, the only way for socialized medicine to stay afloat is if you have people dying while they're waiting on a list to get their particular procedures.

I mentioned on the floor, I believe last year, about a report from England that they're hoping to reduce the length of time that patients have to wait for their procedures, whether therapeutic or diagnostic, surgery, therapy, whatever it is, reduce that wait from the time it's prescribed until the time it's obtained down to 10 months.

Well, there are a lot of people that we know find out they have cancer, they have some problem, perhaps need a bypass, and if they don't get it immediately, then they don't make it for 10 months. So that's where we are headed and eventually people will see that, and I just hope and pray it's not too late so enough people will put pressure on their Members of Congress, and especially the Senate, to repeal ObamaCare and get us true health care reform so that people can have the health care that they want to have, they deserve to have. And for those who are truly--and only those who are truly--chronically ill or chronically poor and are not able to work or obtain affordable health care, then those people, as a caring society, we would take care of.

But since ObamaCare cut $700 billion from Medicare, it's now appearing to more and more seniors that this administration effectively took money for treatment that they would get and provided that to young, healthier people who probably could, or possibly have their employer provide it if the employers were not being penalized for doing so, but whose employers will likely give up that insurance, and we'll see that as time goes on.

But nonetheless, seniors, although they were told by this administration and told by some people across the aisle that they wouldn't lose their doctor, well, many have already lost their doctor. People were told, if you like your insurance, you can keep it; and we've already found that's not true. So my heart breaks for people who are going to need health care in the next few years and are simply not going to be allowed to have it because the government will stand between them and the health care they need.

I do recall seeing the President on video saying some years back that he wanted single payer health care, the government taking over all health care, but we couldn't get there in one step. As you examine ObamaCare and you see it is ultimately going to bankrupt health insurance companies, it is going to drive doctors out of the profession, it is going to ultimately bring down the standard of care, we see that it has now set up the whole system to fail so that down the road the government will say, just as then Senator Obama said, we will get to government-run health care because, gee, the greedy insurance companies went bankrupt trying to be greedy and doctors got out of the business, and now it looks like the government is going to have to take it over, just like we hoped.

If there was ever any aspect of life that would ensure that the Federal Government could dictate people's lives to them, it would be health care. When the government controls all health care, the government will control all people in this country because they will make the decision basically who gets what treatment, when we get to that point, and I'm hoping and praying we will repeal ObamaCare before that happens. It's going to require a new Senate, obviously.

Well, another area that has had a lot of government intrusion has been in the area of the First Amendment. So many people simply do not understand and do not appreciate that the First Amendment does say, ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.''

So we've had so many areas in which the government has moved forward to establish a nonreligion, has forced, like in the case of the major who shot and killed 13 of our servicemembers at Fort Hood, he and his Islamic faith were forced upon people who needed counseling about having to go, Christians who had to go to the Middle East, to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to serve their country. They had to get counseling from someone who made very clear that his faith was everything, and his faith in Islam so overwhelmed him that not only must it have affected the advice he gave to Christians who were forced to see him, but it also caused him to shoot and kill even those he had not wounded with his words.

But there does seem to be a war on Christianity in this country. Certainly, as the Founders anticipated, there should not be an establishment of religion, but most important was that they not prohibit the free exercise of religion.

When I was in the Army for 4 years, I had so many Christian friends. I had friends that were not. But I had so many Christian friends, and it seemed that especially around east Texas, where I grew up, so many Christians, those that came from Christian backgrounds, also had instilled not only a faith in God but also a love of country because of just how blessed this country has been, and because they understood that since most of the Founders had this Christian faith and over half, about two-thirds were even ordained Christian ministers, the signers of the Declaration of Independence, they wanted freedom of religion. So you could be an atheist. You could be a Muslim. You could be a Buddhist, whatever. You could believe in the power of crystals and nothing else, whatever it was, because it was the Christian faith. If it is truly Christian, then it provides everyone with the freedom of choice, as God has given us.

There are other religions that do not give freedom of choice. And we know, as the Islamic countries, where we're not allowed, even as Members of Congress, to carry in a Bible or to talk about our faith at all, they clearly prohibit the free exercise of religion. Even since this country and so many thousands of Americans laid down their lives to bring freedom to Afghanistan, this country gave Afghanistan a constitution in which shari'a law was the law of the land, and the last report I saw indicated that the last Jewish person had left Afghanistan and the last Christian, public Christian church had closed. So there's no freedom of religion there. There's no freedom of religion even in allied nations like Saudi Arabia or even in Egypt, not complete freedom of worship, even when Egypt was more of an ally than a country that elected a Muslim Brotherhood member who wanted to see the great state of America destroyed.

This has been a country where anyone, any religious beliefs, would have freedom of religion. But when we get away from the Judeo-Christian faith, whose notions founded this country, then there is no protection for all religions.

So it was interesting to see, especially, having been in the Army, having had friends that made careers out of the military--so many that started with me stayed in for a career--to see, last week, that and, as this headline says, ``Pentagon Confirms May Court Martial Soldiers Who Share Christian Faith.''

This May 1st article by Ken Klukowski said:

The Pentagon has released a statement saying that soldiers could be prosecuted for promoting their faith: ``Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense. Court martials and nonjudicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis.''

The statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart News report on Obama administration Pentagon appointees meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein to develop court martial procedures to punish Christians in the military who express or share their faith.

(From our earlier report: Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and says Christians--including chaplains--sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military are guilty of ``treason'' and of committing an act of ``spiritual rape'' as serious a crime as ``sexual assault.'' He also asserted that Christians sharing their faith in the military are ``enemies of the Constitution.'')

Being convicted in a court martial means that a soldier has committed a crime under Federal military law. Punishment for a court martial can include imprisonment and being dishonorably discharged from the military.

So President Barack Obama's civilian appointees who lead the Pentagon are confirming that the military will make it a crime--possibly resulting in imprisonment--for those in uniform to share their faith. This would include chaplains--military officers who are ordained clergymen of their faith (mostly Christian pastors or priests or Jewish rabbis)--whose duty, since the founding of the U.S. military under George Washington, is to teach their faith and minister to the spiritual needs of troops who come to them for counsel, instruction or comfort.

This regulation would severely limit expressions of faith in the military, even on a one-to-one basis between close friends. It could also effectively abolish the position of chaplain in the military, as it would not allow chaplains, or any servicemembers, for that matter, to say anything about their faith that others say led them to think they were being encouraged to make faith part of their life. It's difficult to imagine how a member of the clergy could give spiritual counseling without saying anything that might be perceived in that fashion.

World magazine has an article entitled ``Religious Battle Lines,'' posted May 2, 2013. And in that article by Edward Lee Pitts, it says:

In a provocative piece at The Huffington Post written before his Pentagon visit, Weinstein, who served in the U.S. Air Force said, ``We face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our Nation's Armed Forces.''

After the meeting, a column appeared in The Washington Post, largely sourced by Weinstein, which portrayed him as heroically taking on and lecturing the Pentagon brass. That piece in the newspaper's On Faith section opened by suggesting that, while Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has Pentagon budget concerns, ``there are much more serious issues he must deal with. Religious proselytization and sexual assault are at the top of the list.''

Well, if Secretary Hagel were talking about the type of proselytization that has gone on among our military members that has caused anyone to yell ``Allahu Akbar'' and then go about killing fellow members of the service, then I would certainly understand why Secretary Hagel would be concerned about that kind of proselytizing.

But for anyone to talk about sedition and treason and Christians basically acting in an unconstitutional way by expressing or utilizing their freedom of religion, for him to promote the prohibition of the free exercise of religion, would be actually encouraging treason, and it would be so very unconstitutional.

So it's quite interesting, when you find people who are educated beyond their ability such that they could read the Constitution and not understand the second clause that does not allow prohibition of the free exercise of religion.

We got an explanation from DOD and the Air Force on what they really meant after people started objecting to this. And the Air Force statement said this:

When on duty, or in an official capacity, Air Force members are free to express their personal religious beliefs as long as it does not make others uncomfortable. Proselytizing (inducing someone to convert to one's faith) goes over that line. Leaders must avoid the actual or apparent use of their position to promote their personal religious beliefs to their subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any religion.

As this matter from Fox News says:

Lieutenant Colonel Tingley's last sentence is troubling. An Air Force officer was told he could no longer keep a Bible on his desk because it ``may'' appear that he was condoning a particular religion. Air Force officers must be allowed to live out their faith in a way that is consistent with their faith. If the Bible is important, then an Air Force officer should be able to have one on his desk. Air Force officers should be allowed to attend chapel, lead prayers, even speak in chapel or lead Bible studies if it is consistent with their faith. This statement does not help. What does ``as long as it does not make others uncomfortable'' mean? Who decides? How much of this policy did Mikey Weinstein influence?

These are all good questions, because if the standard is that you may be allowed to express your religious beliefs unless it makes someone uncomfortable, then that is basically a prohibition of anybody's freedom of religion, if they are a Christian.

Mr. Weinstein doesn't seem to be bothered. I haven't seen an expression of concern about anybody yelling ``Allahu Akbar'' and killing 13 other servicemembers as an expression of religion. He doesn't seem to have found that treasonous or problematic. But some of the rest of us do.

So I hope that common sense and reason will win out, especially considering the historic nature of our Constitution. And those who parrot the words ``separation of church and state'' as if they are in the Constitution I find don't often know that those are not in the Constitution and are not aware that Thomas Jefferson coined that phrase in a letter to the Danbury Baptists where he also coined the phrase, ``wall of separation.'' And this is a President who, it has been confirmed by secular and even the Congressional Research folks, that Jefferson most Sundays when he was here in Washington would normally ride a horse down Pennsylvania Avenue and attend a nondenominational Christian worship service here in the Capitol just down the Hall in what we now call Statuary Hall but where they, back then, for most of the 1800s, had a Christian worship service.

The first woman to address a group in the Capitol did so, a female evangelist, a Christian evangelist spoke down the hall. The first Catholic to address a group in the Capitol did so just down the Hall. The first African American to address a group in the Capitol did so down the hall. It is a very historic place just down the hall where Church was held for most of the 1800s, a Christian, nondenominational worship service. So it is rather historic. And it was a Christian chapel to which George Washington went with all the other leaders after he was sworn in in 1789 and went down the road there in New York from the Federal building where he was sworn in to the chapel that was the only building at ground zero that was completely unaffected by the horrible fall of the World Trade Centers after they were attacked by people filled with hatred, an evil people, radical Islamists, who thought that in their religion, radical Islam, that they would find virgins in paradise by killing thousands of innocent people. So, hopefully, the military will take another look at this. I hope and pray they will.

For most of this country's history, Members of Congress, even still we have Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle who quote Scripture from the Bible as a resource or a confirmation for a particular bill or position that they are taking. Going back to our very inception as a country, that was considered a wise thing and not a treasonous thing as Mr. Weinstein, so unfamiliar with our history, would attempt to have people believe.

It was the incredible Martin Luther King, Jr., an ordained Christian minister, that sought to apply the teachings of Jesus and the philosophy of Jesus through nonviolence to force the Constitution to be interpreted to mean exactly what it said, and that is the kind of basis from which there is legitimacy to treat all people equally. As Jefferson made clear, if people do not realize that their liberty comes from God, then they will not long keep that liberty. I think he said he trembled at such a thought.

This Wednesday, we are going to have a hearing in the Oversight Committee regarding what happened at Benghazi on 9/11 of last year. I will be honored, humbled and honored, to escort the widow of Ty Woods, one of the two former Navy SEALs who was killed when help did not come, for whatever reason, whoever ordered help not to come in a timely fashion, and this hearing will hopefully shed a little more light on that.

An article from Breitbart came out 5 May, 2013, by John Sexton. He says:

In an appearance on ``Face the Nation'' this morning, Representative Darrell Issa revealed several new pieces of information about the Obama administration's controversial description of the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, casting doubt that the White House mischaracterized its cause by mere accident.

``The talking points were right and then the talking points were wrong,'' Issa explained in response to a question about reporting at the Weekly Standard. The CIA and Greg Hicks, who took over as Charge d'Affaires in Libya after the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens, both knew immediately that it was an attack, not a protest.

Hicks, who did not appear on the show but whose reactions were featured based on transcripts of interviews with Issa's committee, said he was stunned by what U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice claimed on five different news shows on September 16. When she appeared on ``Face the Nation,'' she followed an interview with the President of Libya who claimed he had ``no doubt'' it was a terror attack. Moments later, Ambassador Rice contradicted him and claimed a spontaneous protest was more likely.

Acting Ambassador Hicks watched the Sunday shows and said he found this contradiction shocking. ``The net impact of what has transpired is the spokesperson of the most powerful country in the world has basically said that the President of Libya is either a liar or doesn't know what he is talking about,'' he accused. Hicks added, ``My jaw hit the floor as I watched this. I have never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career as on that day.''

Hicks believes the stunning failure of diplomacy on the Sunday news shows explains why it took the FBI 3 weeks to gain access to the Benghazi site. The U.S. had effectively humiliated the Libyan President on national TV. That decision, he believed, probably compromised our ability to investigate and track down those responsible.

According to Hicks, no one from the State Department contacted him about what Ambassador Rice would be saying in advance. The next morning he called Beth Jones, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs, and asked her why Ambassador Rice had made the statements she had. Jones responded, ``I don't know.''

A report published Friday by the Weekly Standard suggests that State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland took issue with the initial talking points and, with backing from the White House, removed any evidence of al Qaeda involvement and of prior attacks on Western targets in the region. According to emails reviewed by the Weekly Standard, Nuland said her superiors were concerned about criticism from Congress.

You don't have to be trained in the Diplomatic Corps to understand that if the President of Libya, where our consulate was attacked, said this was not a protest, it was an attack by extremists, that since this administration needed his administration's assistance in investigating the matter, that they may have just alienated the President of Libya and negated efforts to bring the people responsible to justice.

Of course there's no real explanation as to why it would take 8 months just to put up three pictures, as has been done, to try to identify the perpetrators of what happened in Libya. Heck, when that was done regarding the perpetrators in Boston, it wasn't months that it took to identify those individuals; they precipitated bringing things to a head rather quickly. Isn't it interesting that it's only after tremendous congressional pressure to get to the bottom of what actually happened at Benghazi so that we can try to avoid it for the future that all of a sudden there is interest in actually trying to capture the people responsible.

CBS News, May 6, by Sharyl Attkisson, has a headline of an article: Diplomat: U.S. Special Forces told ``you can't go'' to Benghazi during attacks:

The deputy of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens has told congressional investigators that a team of Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the September 11, 2012, attacks was forbidden from doing so by U.S. Special Operations Command South Africa.

This is just shocking to think that we had people armed, equipped, able, as we know now if this is true, they should have been able to save the lives of those two heroes--Ty Woods and Glen Doherty--and also the State Department individual that had most of his right leg blown off up there with them. They could have saved all of them if they had been allowed to go protect the people who were sent there to serve by this administration.

Another article, the Washington Times has a headline: ``U.S. could have halted Benghazi attack with a flyover.'' This is according to a diplomat. This article by Shaun Waterman, dated Monday, May 6, 2013, says:

U.S. air power could have headed off at least part of last year's terror attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, but American officials never asked for overflight permission because there were no airborne tankers available to refuel, according to the House Oversight Committee's investigation.

Gregory N. Hicks, who became the chief of the U.S. mission when Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed in the attack, told House investigators Libya would have given the U.S. permission to do the fly-over.

Democrats have accused the Republicans of running a ``one-sided investigation.''

Mr. Hicks will testify on Capitol Hill this week along with several others who will detail the conflicting stories the Obama administration told in the days after the attack, which left Stevens and three other Americans dead.

Mr. Hicks was deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Tripoli when the U.S. post in Benghazi was attacked by heavily armed extremists on September 11.

In interviews last month, Mr. Hicks told investigators with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that an overflight by a U.S. F15 or F16 might have prevented the second phase of the attack.

After the diplomatic post was over-run and set ablaze that night killing Stevens and Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, the survivors took refuge in a nearby CIA building called the annex. That building was in turn attacked at dawn on September 12, when a mortar barrage killed former SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

``If we had gotten clearance from the Libyan military for an American plane to fly over Libyan air space ..... if we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split,'' Hicks told House investigators.

Another article from Fox News, also dated May 6, 2013, is titled: Clinton Sought End-Run Around Counterterrorism Bureau on Night of Benghazi Attack, Witness Will Say at Hearing.

On the night of September 11, as the Obama administration scrambled to respond to the Benghazi terror attacks, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aid effectively tried to cut the Department's own Counterterrorism Bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making, according to a ``whistle-blower'' witness from that bureau who will soon testify to the charge before Congress, Fox News has learned. That witness is Mark I. Thompson, a former marine and now the deputy coordinator for operations in the agency's Counterterrorism Bureau.

It goes on down, it says:

Fox News has also learned that another official from the Counterterrorism Bureau--independently of Thompson--voiced the same complaint about Clinton and Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy to trusted national security colleagues back in October.

Extremists linked to al Qaeda stormed the U.S. Consulate and a nearby annex on September 11 in a heavily armed and well-coordinated 8-hour assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans.

Thompson considers himself a whistle-blower whose account was suppressed by the official investigative panel that Clinton convened to review the episode, the Accountability Review Board. Thompson's lawyer, Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, has further alleged that his client has been subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed superiors at State, in advance of cooperation with Congress.

Down further it says:

``You should have seen what (Clinton) tried to do to us that night,'' the second official in State's Counterterrorism Bureau told colleagues back in October. Those comments would appear to be corroborated by Thompson's forthcoming testimony.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the counterterrorism officials' allegations ``100 percent false.'' A spokesman for Clinton said tersely that the charge is not true.

It says:

Daniel Benjamin, who ran the Department's Counterterrorism Bureau at the time, also put out a statement Monday morning strongly denying the charges.

``I ran the bureau then, and I can say now with certainty, as the former Coordinator for Counterterrorism, that this charge is simply untrue,'' he said. ``Though I was out of the country on official travel at the time of the attack ..... ''

And it goes on. But that seems to be the way, when this administration wants somebody to say, as he did, a charge is simply untrue and to strongly deny charges, they seem to have to call on somebody who had no firsthand information, which is why so many people were questioning why Ambassador Susan Rice was called upon to make the Sunday morning show round and constantly tell people that apparently it was the result of a protest and was not al Qaeda related, when in fact as people knew that night at the time of the attack, this was a coordinated effort. There was no sign of protest.

So the way the administration appears to have operated is to have people come forward who had no firsthand information, give them their talking points, as Susan Rice was given--an intelligent person. She's told by people apparently she trusts, here's what you need to point out, here's what you need to know. And then those people have plausible deniability of what the real facts are because they've just been handed talking points.

So it is a very serious matter when we're trying to get to the truth because it does matter. It makes the difference between whether or not we learn from mistakes that were made and correct them for the future, or whether we refuse to learn from history, refuse to learn from the mistakes that were made so that we become, as the old saying says, destined to repeat them.

So it does matter, and it matters very much to Ty Woods' widow, who will be here for the hearing. She does have interest because it does matter to her.

What difference does it make? It will matter to the loved ones of those who will die in the future if we don't get down to what actually occurred, what mistakes were made so we can avoid them being made in the future. It makes a lot of difference to those who don't want their loved ones to die in the service of this country.

Now, there are also reports out there that, as I read already, that there was a group of Special Forces who were ordered to stand down and not go forward and help those at Benghazi. As the article from CBS News points out, there may have been a Special Forces team that was ready to go and then they were told you can't go. It is just incredible to think that someone may have given such an order and not allowed the military to go forward.

There are rumors afloat that people in the military, people in the State Department, have been told not to talk to Members of Congress about what happened at Benghazi. If there is anything to those accounts, one thing that is often helpful is to go to the law itself. 18 USC, section 1505 is entitled, ``Obstruction of Proceedings Before Departments, Agencies, and Committees,'' and, in part, says: ``Whoever corruptly''--and I'm just reading what might be applicable if this were ever to arise and someone ever were to instruct members of the military or members of the State Department or any agency of the Federal Government not to communicate with Members of Congress, this bears noting.

Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress.

It goes on to say they'll be punished.

That's a rather serious matter, so hopefully nobody is out there giving such instruction or has not been out there giving such instructions, because when members of the military or the State Department or intelligence departments or Justice Departments have information and they have been asked to provide such information and anyone instructs them in any way that may impede Congress' recovery of such information, then they need to look at 18 USC.

Also, 18 USC, 371:

If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be--

And then it talks about their fine and imprisonment.

And then, of course, this under 18 USC, section 2:

Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces, or procures its commission is punishable as a principal. Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.

So, basically if somebody is encouraged not to be forthcoming or honest with the Congress, you run into some issues there as well.

I hope people will take note of our laws, and hopefully there's no truth to the rumors afloat that such instructions had been given because, just as I was so greatly offended when the national security letter system was abused and we had an inspector general report about that, I didn't care that it was a Republican administration that was abusing people's freedom and I spoke out.

And I hope that friends across the aisle, as this information continues to be forthcoming about misrepresentations that were made publicly by this administration, intentionally and knowingly, that others, friends across the aisle, will stand up, as I did, about the Bush administration, their Justice Department, and demand justice. I demanded a resignation from the FBI Director back then. We have an obligation, and it goes beyond party loyalty.

When people were killed who were sent to Libya to serve this country--and we had two former SEALs who went and gave their lives to try to save, and who did save, American lives--the least people stateside can do, the least those who were reportedly told you can't go help these people, the least they can do since they were not allowed, according to the story, not allowed to go give Ty and Glen backup then, I hope and pray they'll have the courage to give them backup now so there will be no more Tys and Glens that will have to give their lives

in the future because inadequate security was provided and a State Department was stumbling through relations in a tough situation and then sent people forward with statements that those who sent that person forward knew were not true, I hope that we'll have people, not just those that are now coming before the committee on Wednesday, but others, for the sake of Ty and Glen, Mr. Speaker, I hope people who are in the service or former servicemembers that may have personal information will give them the backup now that they're gone that they would have wanted if that was them who gave their lives.

Mr. Speaker, with that I yield back the balance of my time.

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