Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, make no doubt about it, the number one terrorist in the world is the Ayatollah in charge of the butchery against his own people in Iran. He is the number one guy--the most wanted man in the world, as far as I am concerned, for terrorism lies at his feet.

He, along with the mullahs of Iran, continues to crack down violently on the people of Iran who are exercising a human right to protest the government that is in charge. The regime's brutality against its people knows no limit. To silence the crimes of the Ayatollah in Iran, they have blocked much of the internet and social media, including the telegram and Instagram. We must make sure that this important line of communication stays open for the Iranian people.

In 2009, there were about 1 million folks in Iran who had access to social media. Now there are about 20 million people, I understand, who have access to social media. Our administration must make sure that the American businesses and technology are still available to allow the Iranian people to document the regime's crimes against the people.

The Iranian people can bring about change on their own, but we must help by providing the necessary tools to empower democratic movements that the mullahs stand in fear of.

Mr. Speaker, in 2009, the Iranians rose up against the mullahs, but our government merely watched the arena of freedom in the streets of Iran while our government sat in the stands as a spectator. This is not a spectator sport. This is about freedom and human dignity.

The United States must politically, publicly, and economically support the people of Iran and let them know we will not be in the stands as a spectator any longer, and we must penalize the mullahs and the Ayatollah economically for their crimes.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, cracks are beginning to form in the iron grip of the Iranian regime. The oppressed people of Iran have taken to the streets to demand an end to the corrupt and brutal dictatorship.

The mullahs in Tehran have stolen the wealth of the country and the people, lining their own pockets and funding terror throughout the Middle East.

Like in 2009, when the Iranian people rose up to confront the corruption of the regime, these Iranians have been met with harsh violence and been murdered in the streets. Thousands of others have been imprisoned. In 2009, however, the United States sat in the stands as a spectator and watched the Ayatollah crush freedom.

I applaud this President's show of support for freedom in Iran. The United States must show political and public support for our friends for liberty in Iran.

As President Kennedy once said: ``Let every Nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.''

Like our friends in Iran.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, the deviants of the slave trade operate all around us. Human trafficking occurs in our country, our States, and in our cities.

January, Human Trafficking Awareness Month, seeks to bring light to this scourge against humanity: nothing more than modern-day slavery.

We must not only remain vigilant but must go after the buyers and sellers in the sex trafficking trade. This is one of them right here.

That is why I have introduced, along with Carolyn Maloney, the Shame Act, to expose the identity of convicted traffickers and buyers of human beings.

The Shame Act allows judges to publish the names and photographs of convicted traffickers and buyers in public places, such as on billboards.

Mr. Speaker, as a judge in Texas, I successfully used shame punishment. It worked. Dubbed ``poetic justice'' by the media, I learned that the last thing criminals want are their faces exposed to the public.

Traffickers and buyers must know they cannot hide behind their dastardly crimes. It is time to send a message loud and clear about human trafficking: not in our cities, not in our States, not in our Nation, not anymore.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, twenty-three years ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement revolutionized trade and investment between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. We share thousands of miles of border with Canada and Mexico. They are our neighbors and our natural partners in trade and security. This partnership has been shaped by

Mr. Speaker, it is time to hold the Saudis accountable for playing the role of both arsonists and firefighters when it comes to terror. Saudi Arabia is a crucial ally in counterterrorism. Yet at the same time, their educational curriculum promotes hatred and violence towards other religions. This is the very rhetoric that breeds terrorism.

For nearly 15 years, Saudi Arabia has pledged to remove all extremist content from their school textbooks. Yet to this day textbooks include material that, for example, encourages ``fighting'' any infidel who refuses to submit to the supremacy of Islam. Another example comes from a textbook on Islamic culture that teaches that ``Christianity in its current state is an invalid, perverted religion.'' A high school textbook on monotheism further calls all ``infidels,'' as ``enemies of Islam and its adherents.''

And this is just a taste of the extremist content in Saudi textbooks. A tenth-grade textbook claims that Zionism spreads ``drugs and sexually transmitted diseases . . . in many Islamic countries.'' Even more, a middle school textbook glorifies jihad, instructing students that those fighting jihad ``should be given transportation, weapons, food and anything else they may need to continue their jihad.'' Content in Saudi textbooks is so extreme that ISIS used official Saudi textbooks for its schools in 2015 until they could publish their own materials.

The problem is compounded when we realize that these textbooks are not just used in the Kingdom. Saudi educational materials are exported throughout the world. This kind of indoctrination at home and abroad runs counter to Saudi Arabia's efforts in counterterrorism and our crucial cooperation with Saudi Arabia in the fight against terrorism. Saudi Arabia cannot be allowed to continue promoting textbooks that include language that is intolerant, furthers conspiracy theories, and encourages violence towards others.

That's why Representative Keating and I, as Ranking Member and Chair of the Terrorism Subcommittee, have introduced H.R. 4549, the Saudi Educational Transparency and Reform Act. This bill will require the State Department to conduct an annual review of Saudi Arabia's textbooks. This review will show if Riyadh is fully implementing its repeated commitments to removing extremist content. It will also help the U.S. decide if we should continue issuing a waiver for Saudi Arabia as a country of particular concern for its religious freedom pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act. Terrorism has

long threatened both our own country and Saudi Arabia. The fight to combat this threat demands that we work to eliminate all sources of radicalization and incitement. A complete revision of Saudi Arabia's textbooks is a critical piece of this mission.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, one of the worst things that can happen to any of us is to lose their voice, and I have lost mine. I know some of the Democrats are glad about that.

But I want to say this on behalf of the SAFER Act. There are, in our country, on shelves, in warehouses, and in law enforcement office buildings rape kits that have never been examined. That is shameful. And everybody is to blame, from the Federal Government to local government.

It is shameful because victims--and I knew a lot of them at the courthouse as a judge--don't know who committed this crime against them, and we have the ability to tell them, but we don't because of bureaucratic incompetence. These haven't been examined. They have the right to know who sexually assaulted them.

Also, there are criminals running loose, who have never been prosecuted, because these rape kits have never been analyzed. And, yes, there are people incarcerated who are innocent, and the rape kit can prove their innocence. It is important that we pass the SAFER Act. Get those sexual assault kits analyzed. There are no more excuses.

Mr. Speaker, in 1984, Michelle was raped at knifepoint by two men who broke into her home.

They blindfolded her, tied her up with a phone cord, and gagged tit her before sexually assaulting her.

During the assault, they laughed and bragged that they had been getting away with committing this crime for seven years.

Much to Michelle's surprise, they left without ending her life. But hers would now be a life filled with suffering and fear. Michelle called the police and had a rape kit taken.

She hoped that by achieving justice against her attackers she would find some measure of peace and closure.

Michelle waited for the results, but she waited in vain.

The backlog of untested kits was too large, so her kit was never tested.

Over the next years, while her rape kit sat collecting dust on a shelf, break-ins and rapes continued to happen in her neighborhood.

She was in constant fear that her attackers were still on the loose.

Not only does the inability to test rape kits deny victims justice, it also puts the safety of other innocent people in jeopardy by keeping criminals on the streets.

To address this issue, Congresswoman Maloney and I introduced the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Reporting Act or SAFER Act, which was signed into law in 2013.

This bill provides funds to states and localities to increase rape kit testing and expand forensic lab capacities.

In the years since SAFER's enactment there has been progress, but there are still hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits across the nation.

SAFER was slated to expire at the end of this year, but thankfully, with bipartisan support, Congress has secured its re-authorization and continued existence.

This legislation will continue to reduce the national rape kit backlog and help victims achieve justice.

I want to thank Senator Cornyn who has worked with me on SAFER for many years.

And I want to thank the Chairman for bringing this bill to the floor. I applaud its passage here today.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, the sounds of rifles firing and shells exploding faded into silence along the Western Front. It was December 25, 1914, five months into the first World War.

As dawn approached, German soldiers slipped from their trenches and made their way to no-mans-land, calling out Merry Christmas in the Allies language. The allies raised their weapons, fearing it was a trick.

But upon seeing the enemy unarmed, the soldiers climbed out of their trenches, and began shaking hands with their foe. The men exchanged small gifts: cigarettes, beer and plum pudding, and sang carols and songs. Others used the break in war to collect their war dead, heroes of the war.

The war would eventually claim 15 million lives. Mr. Speaker, this is one of the last examples of chivalry between enemies in warfare. For those few fleeting moments, there was ``Peace on Earth and goodwill to men''.

Not even a World War can destroy the Christmas Spirit.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, a recent report reveals that the Obama White House, in a desperate attempt to appease the Ayatollahs in Iran, let Hezbollah off the hook. The report outlines how the DEA was on to Hezbollah's illicit network of drug and arms trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities, yet the Obama administration stalled or blocked any prosecutions that would have disrupted the terror group's nefarious activities so that Iran would agree to the nuclear deal. This stunning revelation adds more evidence to why the JCPOA was a bad deal.

For years Hezbollah built an extensive network in Latin America to raise money for its terrorist activities. Addressing Hezbollah's illicit activities across the globe, but in particular the Western Hemisphere, has been a top priority for Congress for many years.

Through hearings and legislation we have exposed the direct ties between Hezbollah and criminal groups in the region that allowed Hezbollah to amass nearly $1 billion annually. Yet the U.S. failed to take sufficient action to disrupt this massive flow of money, drugs, and arms that have made Hezbollah the most powerful terrorist group in the world.

In 2014, a GAO review noted that only two of 12 requirements that were mandated by the Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act were being addressed. Meanwhile, Hezbollah's activity in our hemisphere increased. In June 2017, an individual with alleged ties to the terrorist group was arrested in Paraguay and extradited to the U.S. That same month, another individual was arrested for attempting to provide support to Hezbollah in targeting the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Panama. These events followed the 2014 arrest of a Hezbollah operative in Peru, an Iranian-linked assassination attempt on the Saudi Ambassador in Washington in 2011, and the deadly terrorist attacks against two Jewish targets in Argentina in the 1990s. Moreover, the special prosecutor who uncovered Iran and Hezbollah's role in the Argentina attacks was murdered in 2015.

Together with my colleagues, Chairman Cook of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee and Chairman Ros-Lehtinen of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, I have sent a letter to President Trump urging him to address the shortfalls that occurred under the Obama administration in terms of dismantling Hezbollah's illicit activities. We, in the House, have provided the tools necessary to pursue Hezbollah, passing H.R. 3329, the Hezbellah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act, which includes Section 105 mandating a U.S. strategy to address Iran and Hezbollah's networks in the Western Hemisphere and requiring the alignment of U.S. actions with our regional partners. We are prepared to do more to make up for years of negligence under the Obama White House that allowed these killers to go unbothered. And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, Hezbollah is not only a terrorist group, it is a criminal organization that funds its terror through drug trafficking, arms dealing, and money laundering.

Hezbollah is believed to raise $4 billion to $5 billion, annually, through these criminal activities. Tons of Hezbollah cocaine makes its way into the United States every year, but the past administration refused to designate Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, as a criminal organization making it possible to prosecute Hezbollah in the United States.

They repeatedly delayed and denied DEA requests to investigate and prosecute Hezbollah drug dealing and arms dealing networks. Why? So Iran would not back out of the nuclear deal.

In 2016, the White House even let a Hezbollah arms dealer with connections to Putin go free. That is why Representatives Cook, Ros- Lehtinen, and I sent a letter to the President yesterday urging him to designate Hezbollah as a transnational criminal organization and a kingpin entity.

No more backroom deals for Iran. We must change course quickly. Every day more illegal money flows into Hezbollah's coffers. Hezbollah terrorists and criminals ought to be prosecuted.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, nearly 700 million people across the globe lack access to water. This is a disturbing world crisis. In many countries, women and children walk for miles and face countless risks just to find some water.

Mr. Speaker, water is not just about drinking; it is about sanitation; it is about hygiene. It prevents diseases and drastically improves the quality of life. That is why I worked with my friend, Representative Earl Blumenauer, for the Water for the World Act.

This bill has made it U.S. policy to improve international access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene. I applaud the administration on issuing the Global Water Strategy required by that law, and I look forward to seeing its implementation.

The road ahead is long. Eighty percent of the countries receiving U.S. aid still suffer from water issues. With our God-given resources, we have an obligation to make sure people receive the basic element of life--clean water--because water is life.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, wildlife trafficking is a much larger problem than many realize. This illegal activity is connected to two major concerns: one, extinction of species; and, two, the funding of terrorist organizations.

Rhinos are killed for their horns, and elephants are killed for their tusks. The handful of rhinos in Africa are almost extinct, and 100 African elephants are killed by ivory poachers a day.

Illegal wildlife trade serves as a source of cash flow for thugs like terrorists and international criminal organizations. They fund many of their deadly activities by poaching animals and then selling the parts internationally.

Adding to the problem is the fact that some foreign authorities are corrupt and complicit in trafficking.

All nations must take an aggressive stand to prevent this trafficking. This starts with the stopping of the illegal transport of ivory and rhino horns.

The nations of the world must tighten the screws against those who participate in this destruction of wildlife; otherwise, the only place our kids will see rhinos and elephants is on the Disney Channel.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed.

Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Schneider for bringing this amendment. I am glad to be a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. Chair, the Iranians are a serious threat to the world, to international security. Iran's foreign policy is very clear. The Ayatollah has said it numerous times and continues to say that the foreign policy of Iran is: First, destroy Israel; second, destroy the United States. They have never wavered on this goal, and they are doing everything they can militarily to eventually try to reach those two goals.

But the greatest victims of the mullah's regime in Tehran are the people of Iran. They have been held hostage by the Supreme Leader who obviously cares more about ballistic missiles and international terrorism than taking care of the livelihood of the people who live under this regime.

The regime has become a notorious international leader in suppression, execution, torture, and inhumanity. The world knows about what is taking place in Iran, and the good people of Iran have no political space for expression or dissent. If they decide to dissent from the actions of the Ayatollah, well, it is off to jail or they are hung in the public square. We saw what the regime did to the protesters of the Green Movement in 2009.

Despite what some people still try to say, the current government is not seeking any sort of moderation. Over 3,000 executions have taken place under the regime's so-called President Rouhani. Scores of human rights defenders and political activists are still in prison or under House arrest, and they haven't been charged with anything and, of course, they haven't been tried.

The United States needs to prioritize elevating the voices of the Iranian people who are persecuted under oppression by this regime. These Iranians really represent the best of the Iranian civilization, and they are going to be the future of Iran.

We should take note of what is happening to them. It should be the U.S. foreign policy to focus significant attention on the serious human rights violations taking place in Iran.

I am happy to support and join Mr. Schneider in this amendment which will require the Treasury Department to issue recommendations as to how we can better prevent the mullahs from continuing the violent assault on human rights of the Iranian people. The United States must be at the forefront of this battle for human rights and decency for the Iranian people.

We must call out the Ayatollah and the mullahs for what they are doing. They are persecuting, violating human rights of the Iranian people. The Iranian regime is the number one state sponsor of world terror, and it also rains down terror on its own people. We need to put the squeeze on them even if it hurts their little feelings.

I urge support of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman once again for bringing this amendment to the floor. I gladly support it.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the Holy City of Jerusalem is recognized as one of the oldest cities in the world. It is also the eternal capital of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Founded during the dawn of civilization, the city has been destroyed twice, captured and recaptured 44 times, and controlled by numerous great empires including the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Ottomans throughout its 6,000 year history. Throughout the centuries, Jerusalem has always been the spiritual capital of the Jewish people.

The Jewish people's connection to Jerusalem is clearly recorded in the Bible, with the city being mentioned by name 811 times. King David, the Biblical and historic King of Israel, made Jerusalem his capital in 1,000 BC. His son, Solomon, built the Holy Temple that was the center of the Jewish faith on Mount Moriah in the Old City of Jerusalem. After its destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BC, it was rebuilt years later only to again be destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE. Remnants of the ancient temple still remain with the Temple Mount and its outer wall, known as the Western Wall, serving as the holiest site in Judaism today.

When the Romans destroyed the Temple and Jerusalem, it expelled its Jewish inhabitants, forbidding them from settling in the rebuilt city. Meanwhile, Muslim and Christian armies battled for the city, erecting their own shrines over top of the Jewish ones. We cannot ignore the importance the Temple Mount also holds to Christians and Muslims, being the location where Jesus prayed. Nevertheless, Jerusalem has for far longer been the center of the Jewish world. The city remained in political turmoil for centuries until the rebirth of the State of Israel and its unification under the Jewish State.

In 1949, the Jewish people declared Jerusalem the capital of their new nation. As David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, stated: ``there has always been and always will be one capital only--Jerusalem the eternal. Thus it was 3,000 years ago--and thus it will be, we believe, until the end of time.'' The city has since flourished as the capital of Israel, being a place where all faiths can peacefully worship. While the future of the full city has yet to be decided, it cannot be denied that Jerusalem is the political, cultural, and spiritual center of Israel.

I applaud President Trump's courageous decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to relocate the U.S. embassy to the city. It is the obvious decision reflecting our strong commitment to the State of Israel and the Jewish people's historical ties to the land. The status quo of Jerusalem's holy sites should be maintain until a lasting peace agreement is decided on by the two sides.

Mr. Speaker, it reads like a page out of George Orwell's ``1984:'' spies, secret courts, and searches of Americans without a warrant. It is clear: Big Brother is watching us.

Most Americans may not be fully aware of what is taking place behind closed doors of government spy agencies, but the reality is our government is spying on ordinary, everyday Americans.

How?

Through an old piece of legislation, originally signed into law by President Carter in 1978, called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.

FISA allows our government to spy on foreign agents, including terrorists, primarily overseas. The government collects all of this information and puts it into a database. If they want to use or search the database, they go to a secret court, and that court issues a secret warrant to search the database.

This court operates behind closed doors and issues those secret warrants to go after--remember--bad guys overseas.

As the subcommittee chairman of terrorism, I have no problem with our government going after terrorists who seek to harm Americans.

What I do have a problem with, Mr. Speaker, is the government uses these databases that they seize and then looks in those databases about Americans and their activities, violating their Fourth Amendment rights because they don't have a warrant to go into these databases to look for Americans. Remember, they are searching for terrorists.

Here is what happens: While seizing the communications of a suspected foreign agent--maybe an al-Qaida terrorist talking to another al-Qaida terrorist--the government, incidentally, picks up communications of American citizens. These communications may not have anything to do with terrorism.

This data is kept. The government puts it in their database, and they say it is legal. This information on Americans was seized based on this secret warrant of foreigners issued by a FISA judge.

Occasionally, the government then decides to go into this database that was inadvertently seized--as they call it--without a Fourth Amendment warrant on Americans, and checks to see how many times an American name, or other identifying information, comes up. If they find something, they use this data on the American citizen.

Now, Mr. Speaker, they still don't have a warrant to search Americans' information, even if it was incidentally collected.

They search this database to see, for example, if Bobby Oglethorpe is committing a crime in the United States, maybe having nothing to do with terrorism. Maybe it is a robbery, maybe it is an IRS fraud, maybe it violates other laws of the United States. But, remember, they are looking for that without a warrant.

They seize the information, and, quite frankly, we don't know how many times they seize this information on Americans.

Our Judiciary Committee has continually asked the intelligence community: How many times have you searched? They refuse to tell us how many searches and seizures there are on Americans in that database.

Very suspicious, isn't it, Mr. Speaker?

According to The Washington Post, 90 percent of the account holders, whose communications were collected, were not targets. The bad guys overseas, they were Americans: 90 percent of them.

Nearly half of the surveillance files contained names, email addresses, and other details that the NSA marked as belonging to American citizens or residents.

So, what information are they getting?

They get communications, texts, and emails.

Without a warrant, remember, secret courts issuing secret warrants, and they don't tell anybody about it.

Under section 702 of the FISA legislation, this warrantless search of Americans is legal. But this, in my opinion, violates the U.S. Constitution.

As a former judge, I am very concerned about the loss of our Fourth Amendment right of privacy in the United States, based on this unconstitutional law. The Fourth Amendment is sacred to this country and to the Founders who drafted it. It is up to Congress to uphold Americans' Fourth Amendment rights.

Despite intense debate in the House Judiciary Committee, I am still concerned the House leadership is planning to reintroduce and reauthorize the FISA legislation and not have these reforms to protect Americans' privacy. A reauthorization of FISA with weak language only seeks to put Americans' privacy at stake and violates the U.S. Constitution.

Any 702 reauthorization should simply require that if you want to look at the data that was incidentally seized on Americans, get a search warrant or stay out of that data; otherwise, it violates the Constitution.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, as ISIS loses ground in Syria and Iraq, we must remain vigilant. There is a growing terrorist threat in Africa. Between January and September of 2016, the African continent suffered at least 1,426 incidents of terrorism-related violence.

Terrorism is a major challenge to peace, security, and development in Africa. Recently, the threat has grown to directly impact U.S. servicemembers serving in Africa.

Last May, a Navy SEAL was killed in an operation against al-Qaida affiliate al Shabaab, the first U.S. servicemember killed in action in Somalia since the 1993 infamous Black Hawk Down incident. Last month, an ambush by Islamist militants in Niger left four U.S. Green Berets killed. Recently, the U.S. conducted its first airstrikes against ISIS in Somalia.

Mr. Speaker, the writing is on the wall. The terrorist cancer in Africa is metastasizing. It is on its way to becoming a full-blown threat to African and American interests.

Having been displaced by war in Syria and Iraq, ISIS is finding a new home in Africa to carry out its reign of terror, and we must be mindful and vigilant.

And that is just the way it is.