Congressman Louie Gohmert (TX-01) released the following statement today regarding President Trump’s newly announced immigration plan:

“My home state of Texas has a first-hand view of the crisis on our southern border and the dangers we all face as the onslaught continues unabated. I am so deeply grateful that President Trump continues to seek solutions to this national security nightmare. It’s a shame that leaders of the opposition party don’t share his zeal for solutions, but rather stand as political zealots doing all they can to create roadblocks to anything that protects our country and improves our way of life.”

# # #

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, has had enough of Democrats targeting Attorney General William Barr, describing what he considers a nonsensical campaign to place the head of the Justice Department in contempt of Congress.

Gohmert told his colleagues that the true scandal is the Obama intelligence apparatus’ “attempted coup” against President Trump.

“We’ve never had the Intelligence Community, the FBI, people at the top of the DOJ abusing their powers to create a case against a president where there was none. Where assets were actually used to try to set up members of the Trump campaign when there was no case. To try to create a case. We ought to be all over that. We ought to be demanding answers,” Gohmert said.

“This was an attempted coup, and history is bringing that into focus more and more clearly,” he added. “And what does this committee do about the abuses, the attempted coup? It comes in and decides, ‘We’re going to go after the attorney general who’s trying to clean up the mess.’”

On Wednesday, Democrats on the committee successfully pushed through a measure to hold AG Barr in contempt of Congress. The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines.

President Trump has invoked executive privilege over select contents of the Mueller report. The move coincided with the Democrat-led committee’s decision to advance the contempt of Congress measure. It will now head to the House for a full floor vote.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders defended the move as a response to the “blatant abuse of power” by House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.

“Neither the White House nor Attorney General Barr will comply with Chairman Nadler’s unlawful and reckless demands,” Sanders added.

In an op-ed for Fox News, California RNC Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon described the Democrat initiative in the Judiciary Committee as “long on partisanship but short on historical memory.”

Dhillon writes:

Two examples demonstrate House Democrats’ true motivation. One, as they hurl vicious personal attacks on Barr, calling him a liar and various other slurs and fixating on his March 24 letter to Congress, House Democrats conveniently ignore that 92 percent of the report has been available to the American public to review for weeks. They hope by repeating their invective to create a new political “fire” because the report itself did not provide them the fuel to keep their Russian collusion and obstruction of justice narrative of the past two and a half years going through the 2020 election.

The House vote to hold AG Barr in contempt of Congress will most likely occur Wednesday afternoon.

Congressman Louie Gohmert (TX-01) released the following statement on the National Day of Prayer:

“Today we celebrate the National Day of Prayer. This significant day was designated by the United States Congress in 1952 by a joint resolution. Today Christians all over the country are urged to turn to God in prayer and fervent meditation.

Throughout the history of this nation, prayer has played a meaningful role. In fact, the first call to prayer was in 1775 when the Continental Congress asked the colonies to pray for wisdom in forming a nation. This country’s founding fathers sought after the wisdom of God when faced with serious decisions, and today this practice should also be very important. It is God’s guidance and provision that safely steers our vessels to their safe harbor. There will always be an abiding need for unified public prayer by Americans for our guidance, for wisdom, and for his loving, protective, unseen hand of protection.

The scripture tells us,

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” – 1 Timothy 2:1-4

It is both my hope and my prayer that today we will look past our differences, and truly come together as citizens from all backgrounds to humbly and earnestly pray for our beloved nation. For all who sense that there is a God, may we set aside time, not just today but routinely, to prayerfully beseech our Heavenly Father for his direction. 

We should pray as did George Washington, that God would “dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.”

Every addition illegal alien gangster allowed into the U.S. ensures that more Americans will be raped and robbed, Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert said Wednesday.

By diverting border personnel from border protection to care for illegal alien children and families, the U.S. is allowing dangerous illegal aliens into the country, Rep. Gohmert told Fox & Friends First:

“It is just outrageous. And, every gangster coming across means somebody is going to be raped in this country, somebody is going to be robbed. And, we need those people back on the border. It is just incalculable the damage the Democrats are doing by not helping our president.”

“Every single inch” of the Southwest U.S. border is being controlled by the drug cartels, Gohmert added:

“We know the drug cartels control every single inch of the border, and the president’s doing all he can. And, the threat to close the border should be taken as very real, because we’ve got to do something to stop these folks.”

It is crucial to use “non-lethal” force to keep illegal aliens from setting even one foot in the U.S – because, once they do, they get into the system and claim asylum to prevent deportation, Gohmert said:

“And, I think a very critical thing would be to say: use non-lethal methods to prevent people from setting one foot in our country – because, once they get a foot here, it’s a matter of then processing them. And, I think the president would be well justified to say ‘No more asylum until we get this under control.’”

No matter how loudly Democrats deny it, the national security crisis on our southern border isn’t going away. In fact, it’s getting worse.

Just recently, several dozen Central American migrants tried to rush an international port of entry near Laredo, Texas — a move that forced U.S. authorities to shut down an entire bridge tp vehicle traffic for several hours.

The migrants occupied the vehicle lane and attempted to breach the border, apparently in hopes of claiming asylum, but were stopped by U.S. Border Patrol agents who erected a temporary barrier across the bridge, highlighting the exact reason President Trump found it necessary to take executive action in order to fund the border wall.

The president’s most important duty is to protect and defend American citizens, but obstructionist Democrats in Congress have refused to provide the resources he needs to do so, leaving President Trump with no other option than to use his statutory authority to reallocate various funding necessary to construct a barrier on our border.

Though some of us have objected for years to bills that do not have enough specificity, the trouble is that Congresses have passed and recent presidents have signed into law various spending bills with a significant amount of discretion on how those dollars are spent. Presidents really have had a great deal of leeway in how dollars are spent. Another bill Congress passed back in the 1970’s with far too much discretion for the president was the National Emergency Act.

President Clinton used the National Emergency Act in aid of U.S. involvement in Bosnia. Now the Democrats get upset because the National Emergency Act is used to protect our OWN borders instead of those of foreign countries. Is that political hypocrisy, or just very poor judgment? Sometimes it is difficult to tell.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, 22,000 minor children crossed our southern border illegally in December alone, with 25 percent of them unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. In February, the number of illegal crossings at the southern border hit an 11-year high, as Border Patrol agents interdicted more than 76,000 illegal immigrants.

While Congress played games and allowed the partial government shutdown to drag on for over a month, they ignored the fact that in 2017, more Americans died from illegal drugs — most of which are smuggled in through the southern border — than were killed during all the years of the entire Vietnam War.

More than 48,000 Americans died of opioid-related overdoses alone in 2017, the same year that U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized over 900 pounds of heroin from smugglers trying to cross the border.

Meanwhile, thousands of the illegal immigrants currently incarcerated by ICE have been convicted of violent crimes, including sexual assault, kidnapping, and murder.

Despite these very real threats to our country, though, the U.S. House of Representatives has now passed legislation to overturn the President’s emergency declaration, and now the Senate seems poised to force him into issuing his first-ever veto.

The concerns expressed by some conservatives about expanding executive power sound genuine, but they’re also misplaced. The problem is not how President Trump is using his power to protect our sovereignty, but that Congress ever gave that much power to Presidents to begin with. President Obama vastly exceeded the powers he was given, as he himself even noted before creating the DACA program without ever passing a law. That was unlike President Trump’s emergency declaration because the Obama actions had absolutely no grounding in laws previously passed by Congress.

Meanwhile, open-borders Democrats are doing everything they can to prevent President Trump from protecting our country’s border as he attempts to seize control back from the drug cartels. The most discerning Americans are beginning to recoil from the radical obstructionist efforts by Democrats who seem to care less about their own constituents than they do about the border crisis.

Even suburban women, who are widely credited with helping Democrats secure their House majority in the 2018 midterm elections, are becoming increasingly supportive of the President’s actions. It is ironic that the most compassionate, caring action the U.S. could take to help those in Mexico and Central America would be to completely secure our southern border cutting off the tens of billions of dollars that flow across to the drug cartels every year. Securing our southern borders means ending the reign of terror by the cartels against our southern neighbors, which would allow them to develop thoroughly vibrant economies.

According to a new Zogby Analytics poll, the president’s recent executive actions to fund construction of the border wall are even more popular among suburban women than they are among likely voters in the broader population. A plurality of suburban women — 45 percent — support President Trump’s executive actions, and 50 percent back his decision to declare a state of emergency.

Keeping America safe shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but the Democrat Party has embraced a radical, open-borders agenda that is anathema to most Americans.

The threats and harm that are created by our porous southern border should be precisely the type of issue that brings all Americans together. After all, most Democrats in Congress have previously supported much of what our president is trying to do to secure our border. Unfortunately, too many Democrats are letting their President Trump Derangement Syndrome keep them from doing what is best for our nation’s people.

Louie Gohmert has represented Texas as a Republican in the House of Representatives since 2005.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/22/gohmert-border-crisis/

On Wednesday, a former U.S soldier was granted parole after serving eight years of a life sentence for premeditated murder after shooting an Afghan civilian who attempted to take his firearm.

According to an online petition started two years ago, Sergeant Derrick Miller was in Afghanistan for his third deployment in four years when the incident took place.

“On September 24, Sgt. Miller’s attention was drawn to an Afghan national who had penetrated the defense perimeter set up by the US Army,” the petition with more than 10,000 signatures reads. “The Afghan man was positively identified by another soldier under Sgt. Miller’s command who recognized him from a detainment the previous day. Sgt. Miller was sent to question the Afghan national after observing the suspicious behavior of the man as he reconnoitered their defense perimeter. During the harsh questioning, the Afghan insurgent attempted to grab Sgt. Miller’s weapon, and was shot and killed in the struggle.”

The petition adds that 45 minutes later, Miller’s unit was attacked on three sides from insurgents.

“Because of Sgt. Miller’s actions, his unit immediately went to 100% security, and no American lives were lost that day,” the petition states.

During his trial, Miller’s attorneys argued that he acted in self-defense while in the Taliban-held area of Afghanistan.

In a statement, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said it was his “honor” to advocate for Miller who he believes “appeared to have the deck stacked against him during the Obama Administration while Sgt. Miller worked passionately to defend his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan.”

“After first backing Sgt. Miller’s story, an Afghan interpreter was coaxed into changing his story to testify at trial against Sgt. Miller with promises of U.S. citizenship for himself and his family,” Gohmert said. “Since prior efforts to get U.S. visas had been denied, he was more than willing to have a U.S. soldier convicted if it meant safety and legalization for them in the U.S. It was evident that same deck was stacked against Sgt. Miller when witnesses he needed in Afghanistan were not allowed to come testify at his trial in the U.S.”

“It has been my honor to advocate for Sergeant Miller, who appeared to have the deck stacked against him during the Obama administration for working passionately to defend his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan ..." https://t.co/BG5jW7rJz7

— Louie Gohmert (@replouiegohmert) March 21, 2019

Gohmert testified at a hearing to modify the conviction to allow Miller to be eligible for parole.

“The faith in God of Derrick and his mother never wavered during the nine-year ordeal,” Gohmert said. “They are very special people. Derrick’s actions actually saved American military lives for which not only got no credit; he was sent to prison. But this good news has brought joy for Derrick and those of us who were trying to help him.”

Miller’s mother, Renee Miller, thanked Gohmert for “his valiant effort to fight for this American son.”

“One meeting with Congressman Gohmert is all it took for this good and caring Congressman from Texas to engage on Derrick's behalf,” Renee said. “Congressman Gohmert went that extra mile, he attended two of Derrick's hearings and he fought for his release! I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you live in Texas, you are lucky to have such a devoted and caring Congressman who fights for our brave Sons who fight for us.”

Miller will be released from the military prison at Fort Leavenworth on May 20, 2019.

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Louie Gohmert (R.-Texas), a former Texas state judge who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a question-and-answer exchange with CNSNews.com that “there is a brazen invasion occurring at our border.”

“This is a serious humanitarian and national security crisis, and as immigration enforcement professionals have repeatedly affirmed, there is no effective solution to that crisis that doesn’t include a physical barrier along at least part of our southern border,” Gohmert told CNSNews.com.

“America and her citizens deserve to have a homeland that is secure, and all of us in Congress have a duty to provide that security,” he said.

“Those who are blocking the president’s efforts and our efforts to secure it,” he said, “ought to have the courage to take credit for all the damage, suffering and death their actions are allowing.”

__________

Here is the CNSNews.com Q&A with Rep. Gohmert:

CNSNews.com: What do you consider the single most pressing issue facing Congress today, and why?

Gohmert: Securing the border is the most pressing issue facing Congress. If you don’t have secure borders, you don’t have a country. Right now, there is a brazen invasion occurring at our border. Though overall numbers may have been down overall for last year, the last six months have seen record setting numbers of adults bringing in children. They have gotten word that with Democrats controlling the House, if they just bring a child, no matter whose child it is, they will get to stay. Sadly, cartels, drug traffickers and dangerous gangs have taken advantage of our porous borders for their own profit.

My friends in the Border Patrol tell me this week that because of the overwhelming numbers coming over the border there is no place to hold them. After catching them illegally entering, agents are ordered to release them once they get their information. This failure to secure this country places American lives at risk, with drug cartels in control of our border bringing in deadly drugs, ongoing violence and heinous sex trafficking.

This is a serious humanitarian and national security crisis, and as immigration enforcement professionals have repeatedly affirmed, there is no effective solution to that crisis that doesn’t include a physical barrier along at least part of our southern border. America and her citizens deserve to have a homeland that is secure, and all of us in Congress have a duty to provide that security. Those who are blocking the president’s efforts and our efforts to secure it ought to have the courage to take credit for all the damage, suffering and death their actions are allowing.

CNSNews.com: President Donald Trump is moving to fund the border wall by invoking the National Emergencies Act of 1976. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D.-Minn.) has tweeted that the next president should declare a national emergency “on day 1” to address “Climate Change.” Does a president have the unilateral power to take actions to address “Climate Change” under the National Emergencies Act?

Gohmert: The president and Congress have a constitutional duty to protect and defend this country—they do not have a duty to take away our constitutional rights based on climate models that have been repeatedly wrong. A good example is Al Gore giving dire warnings of studies showing the North Polar ice cap melting by 2013 or 2014. Though “Climate Change” is definitely real since we have it four times a year where I live in Texas, the Constitution does not permit moving us toward a totalitarian socialism in the name of anything including “Climate Change.”

For Republicans to say President Trump should not have declared a National Emergency because it may result in a Democrat violating the Constitution is nonsensical. As we saw during the Obama administration, they had no fear of blazing new unconstitutional trails without Republican precedent.

<image002.jpg>

Rep. Louie Gohmert and Rep. Mark Meadows in front of the Capitol, Dec. 6, 2017. (Getty Images/Alex Wong)

CNSNews.com: How will it affect your state of Texas over the next five years if additional border wall is not funded and built?

Gohmert: The Texas Department of Public Safety reports that according to DHS status indicators, “over 282,000 criminal aliens have been booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011 and February 28, 2019, of which over 191,000 were classified as illegal aliens by DHS.”

Additionally, “Between June 1, 2011 and February 28, 2019, these 191,000 illegal aliens were charged with more than 299,000 criminal offenses which included arrests for 545 homicide charges; 33,082 assault charges; 5,779 burglary charges; 37,689 drug charges; 411 kidnapping charges; 16,119 theft charges; 23,914 obstructing police charges; 1,679 robbery charges; 3,516 sexual assault charges; 4,722 sexual offense charges; and 3,007 weapon charges. DPS criminal history records reflect those criminal charges have thus far resulted in over 122,000 convictions including 245 homicide convictions; 13,801 assault convictions; 3,176 burglary convictions; 18,105 drug convictions; 175 kidnapping convictions; 7,160 theft convictions; 11,421 obstructing police convictions; 1,021 robbery convictions; 1,731 sexual assault convictions; 2,376 sexual offense convictions; and 1,297 weapon convictions.”

These are devastating numbers and will surely increase exponentially as the numbers surge to all-time highs at the Texas-Mexico border. Sadly, having more criminal offenders in Texas means more crime and unnecessary heartbreak for countless people. However, the numbers of crimes by illegal aliens reported above will be reduced to ZERO if our border is completely secure. That is a tremendous amount of anguish and suffering by victims that does not have to happen, and we have the power to prevent it.

<image003.jpg>

Rep. Louie Gohmert in the basement of the Capitol, Oct 28, 2015. (Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla)

CNSNews.com: Other than President Trump's proposed border wall, what are the most effective actions the government can take to stem the flow of illegal aliens into the United States?

Gohmert: Preventing anyone crossing the border illegally and setting foot in the U.S. would be a good first step. Changing the law to require that all asylum claims must be made at a U.S. embassy in the foreigner’s country would be immensely helpful. Until then, having immigration judges stationed right at the border to insure immediate hearings for anyone claiming asylum would make a difference.

Mandating interior enforcement such as E-Verify would be another critical step, which would also ultimately safeguard American workers who are losing jobs and wages to illegal immigrants. Enforcing and expanding this type of system to every workplace will decelerate illegal immigration, certifying jobs are filled only by workers who are legally here. This is essential to removing the incentives which “pull” illegal immigrants into the U.S., which includes finding employment.

CNSNews.com: Do you believe the majority of the members in the House of Representatives want to secure the southern border of the United States against illegal crossers?

Gohmert: Unfortunately, too many of our Members of Congress have heard from the loudest advocates who want open borders, but not the majority who want secured borders. It appears all of the Democrats are standing united against securing our borders, while some may play lip service to their constituents and claim they support some form of border security. On top of those are a handful of Republicans who did not want President Trump elected and want to prevent his success at any cost, even though it means Americans will suffer.

It is ludicrous that the Democrats have clearly placed their political agenda before the protection of American lives. At every turn, they have obstructed our Commander-in-Chief from securing this nation’s borders and that is frankly appalling. The situation at the southern border is a true national emergency. There is nothing more important than our nation’s security.