Congressman Louie Gohmert (TX-01) released the following statement today regarding the U.S. House of Representatives votes this week to bar offshore oil and gas leasing on coasts, as well as, halt energy exploration in the vast, untapped Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:

“This week, House Democrats have championed three bills that together would permanently ban energy development on much of the federal waters of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf and also the entirety of the vast untapped oil reserves of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. U.S. energy independence and dominance provides the cleanest and safest form of energy production – it also reduces the need for the U.S., or our allies, to send money to anybody that supports terrorists or harbors and hides terrorists from justice. These bills terminate jobs, raise energy prices, and will harm the economy.”

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Congressman Louie Gohmert (TX-01) released the following statement today on the 18th Anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States of America:

“On this day, eighteen years ago, our country experienced a tragedy that changed the course of U.S. history. We watched in horror as cities, buildings, and families were torn apart by an act of violent, evil hatred. Today, we remember the lives lost; we honor their legacy and pass on the love they shared to those around us.

But even in all the horror, heroism prevailed. The bravery of our first responders followed by our gallant, brave service men and women who fought and defeated our enemies behind the attacks. Those who gave the “last full measure of devotion” spent their last moments defending their fellow Americans. May we never forget the selfless sacrifice they made for love of country and freedom.

It is easy to become jaded by the current political state of affairs, when we see individuals who are still so filled with hate. However, it is my prayer that we recall and relive each day with the same feeling that all Americans felt the day after 9/11 when we all came together as one nation under God — honoring the memory of those we had lost.

May God bless you and America.”

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The Justice Department Office of the Inspector General’s report released Aug. 29 clearly stated that James Comey violated and abused FBI policies in managing memos in which he supposedly documented confidential conversations with the president. This is a revelation that most of us have known for quite some time.

However, Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz has yet again glossed over some major problems.

It appears that the main reason Horowitz concludes former FBI Director James Comey only violated his FBI Employment Agreement and DOJ/FBI “policies” was because the documents he kept, disclosed, and leaked to improper parties were not considered truly classified. That apparently keeps them from being serious enough to prosecute. So, who made the decision that they were not classified? The answer would be outrageous if it were not virtually farcical.

In the early pages of the report, Horowitz repeatedly tells us that “the FBI reviewed,” “the FBI designated,” and “the FBI determined” (four times on page 2 alone) that these memos or documents “did not contain classified information.” Who was making these critical determinations at “the FBI” that helped save Comey? You would have to flip over forty pages further into the report to get to that information.

Horowitz tells us at page 42 and 43 that there were four people involved in that review and decisions, but the two of those four who were most experienced in making those determinations were named Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. If you will recall Horowitz, in his previous report, found basically hundreds of pages to document appalling bias against Trump, as well as monstrous love for and desire to see Hillary Clinton elected president.

There were no more devoted Clinton fans and Trump haters than Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. In that prior report though, Horowitz concluded those hundreds of pages of bias by telling us that the unmitigated love for Hillary Clinton and unbounded hate for Donald Trump fortunately did not affect the outcome of any of their investigations.

In law school, we were taught that some things are so clear and blatant between cause and effect that no direct proof is needed of causation. It is called the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur: “the thing speaks for itself.” It would seem that when there is the unfathomable love for Hillary Clinton and hate for Donald Trump, and every conclusion from the investigations are completely consistent with those biases, there IS powerful evidence that the biases affected the outcomes and speak for themselves. But our paragon of virtue, Horowitz, found the outcomes were not affected by the biases. How convenient.

Horowitz’s convenience in the last report has now devastated the propriety of his newest report. If you are concerned as I was that Page and Strzok’s opinions should be nowhere near the investigation into James Comey’s improprieties and potential crimes, Horowitz attempts to assuage our concerns.

On page 42, Horowitz tells us that “Strzok characterized Baker, the Unit Chief, Page, and himself as ‘a logical subset to sit and go through’ the Memos and review them for classification.”

We’re told that that former FBI General Counsel James Baker had experience working with National Archives which had “sensitized” him to classified documents, and another unit chief whose name appears to be missing there admitted that she did not get involved in classification decisions very often. That is why we are supposed to be warmly comforted that Strzok and Page were assigned that job. They had the experience at it and Horowitz has the nerve to say, they “relied heavily on their experiences in the Clinton email case.” which now helped them to exonerate Comey by saying his information was not classified.

Are those “experiences” supposed to make us ignore the fact that this classification review process “differed from the FBI’s normal process” which usually required sending the documents to the agency “whose equities are at issue”? In this case, the State Department was not allowed to do an evaluation because of the “the urgency” of completing that classification review. In more than two years since this Strzok-Page review, the inspector general could have found a fresh set of eyes to re-evaluate this material. Surely there are plenty of Clinton supporters still at the State Department he could have used.

If you are tempted to point to Horowitz’s statement that former FBI Assistant Director for the Counterintelligence Division E.W. ‘Bill’ Priestap could make the final classification decision to show that normal process was followed, the next sentence tells you otherwise. The unnamed unit chief told Horowitz that “the final classification decision was BROUGHT TO Priestap” (emphasis added).

However, Priestap, who reportedly made several trips to the United Kingdom to gin up the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, didn’t execute the final decision. Instead, we learn on page 46 that he directed the conveniently unnamed unit chief to hand write the classification levels on the memo in her own handwriting, effectively finalizing the decision that should have been solely made by Priestap, who may have been so involved in the effort against President Trump that it does not matter. However, we’re told that Strzok is the one who placed the markings on “all seven memos.”

In this latest report, Horowitz continues a myth that he began in his first report: employees with gargantuan biases did not allow those biases to affect their decision-making at the highest echelons of the FBI.

Sadly, seeing that their own inspector general continues to gloss over malevolent abuses, it is apparent that the Department of Justice and FBI are a long way from reclaiming their reputations for integrity that so many great FBI agents around the country deserve to see.

Americans need to wake up. When no one is prosecuted for the most treasonous effort to throw an election, then oust a sitting president, and it is from within the Justice Department, we are very near the end of our constitutional form of government.

Rep. Louie Gohmert represents Texas a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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

Read over at The Daily Caller, here:

https://dailycaller.com/2019/08/30/gohmert-inspector-general-fbi

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Today, Congressman Louie Gohmert (TX-01) issued the following statement regarding the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz's release of the report on James Comey:

“The new DOJ IG Report is from the same Inspector General whose previous report gave us hundreds of pages of the most outrageous bias within our Justice Department Headquarters. This person claimed that particular biases did not affect any investigation’s outcome; yet, plenty of the actions taken before, during, and after those investigations were consistent with the bias. The DOJ and FBI Headquarters are still not cleaning up their very tarnished reputations. This just appears to be a more diplomatic way of sweeping things under the rug.”  

Read the full report, here.

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Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) isn’t convinced by the conclusions of a Senate inquiry into reports that China gained access to virtually every email Hillary Clinton sent and received using an unauthorized email server during her tenure as secretary of state.

The inspector generals for the Justice Department and the Intelligence Community released documents on Aug. 14 from the Senate Finance Committee. The report said they found no evidence to prove that a Gmail address created by Paul Combetta, a private technician working on the Clinton server, was connected to a Chinese company with a similar name.

Combetta allegedly created “carterheavyindustries@gmail.com” in 2012 and used it in early 2014 to transfer Clinton’s archived emails from a laptop to the Platte River Networks server. He was one of several people who were granted immunity during the FBI’s 2015–2016 Clinton email investigation.

Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) investigator Frank Rucker discovered that the email address “carterheavyindustries@gmail.com” received all but four of the 30,490 Clinton emails he reviewed. Rucker informed the FBI about the anomaly in early 2016. Rucker performed a search for Carter Heavy Industries on Google and found a Chinese company named Shandong Carter Heavy Industry Co. Ltd.

The inspector generals reported in the newly released documents that the FBI hadn’t discovered any evidence to show that Combetta had a link to Shandong Carter.

“Based on the new information from the Senate report, it is still unclear if Combetta is only an immunized scapegoat for former FBI leaders or other Clinton coverup artists, or if China or some other entity got all but four of Hillary Clinton’s 30,000+ emails,” Gohmert told The Epoch Times.

“It is sad that the FBI’s integrity has been so badly compromised in recent years, but the FBI needs to immediately release any documentation that would prove their claims that Combetta created the Gmail address and named it after a Chinese company located in the hacking training center of China.”

The Senate inquiry into the matter, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), was triggered by media reports that claimed that an anomaly in the metadata of Clinton’s emails suggested that China had real-time access to her emails.

The newly released documents confirmed many of the details in these media reports, including the fact that Rucker, the ICIG investigator, had discovered the anomaly and handed the lead to the FBI.

Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Gohmert have previously suggested that the FBI ignored the information.

Staff investigators from the offices of Sens. Grassley and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) interviewed Rucker and ICIG attorney Jeanette McMillian in December last year. Rucker and McMillian told the investigators that “carterheavyindustries@gmail.com” appeared as a recipient on all but four of the emails they reviewed, suggesting that the Gmail account was a “live drop box” for the messages Clinton sent and received.

The documents released by Grassley’s committee revealed for the first time that the Gmail address was the “dummy email” account that Combetta used to transfer an archive of Clinton’s emails to the Platte River Networks server in 2014. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz described Combetta’s use of the “dummy email” account in the final report on the FBI and DOJ’s handling of the Clinton email investigation published in June 2018.

Horowitz’s 568-page report didn’t disclose that the email was a Gmail account or reveal the Carter Heavy Industries name. Neither the report nor the newly-released documents detail any effort by the FBI to determine if anyone else had access to “carterheavyindustries@gmail.com” or what else Combetta did with the account between 2012 and 2016.

According to a footnote in the newly released documents, “Business records show that the account was created by a subscriber whose phone number was registered to Combetta.”

It also says that “account logins in 2015 and 2016 were from an IP address linked to the location where Combetta lived and worked remotely.” It’s unclear why Combetta was accessing the dummy email account after he had used it to transfer the archive.

Notably, the FBI discovered hundreds of emails, some of which were classified, still sitting in the Gmail account in June 2016, weeks before the bureau closed the investigation and exonerated Clinton.

The bureau had obtained a search warrant for the Gmail account, but the inspector general has not clearly stated whether anyone besides Combetta had accessed the account. In addition, Monica Hanley, the Clinton aide who handed Combetta the email archive on a laptop, told the FBI that she didn’t remember where she put a thumb drive with a copy of the archive.

Former Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough has said that some of the emails on Clinton’s server were classified at a level so high that even members of Congress couldn’t be briefed on the content.

“There remain too many unanswered questions, and far too many involved have been ‘less than candid’ or have flat out lied,” Gohmert said.

Epoch Times reporter Petr Svab contributed to this report.

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Congressman Louie Gohmert (TX-01) released the following statement regarding his absence on the House Floor yesterday and his decision to attend the funeral and memorial service of Ross Perot in Texas:

“On Tuesday morning early, I flew back to Texas to attend the funeral of a great American whom I first met while attending Texas A&M. He went through the Naval Academy on a military scholarship and served his country afterward. He became one of the biggest successes to ever grow up in east Texas. He was enormously generous in helping and attempting to help U.S. POW’s, as well as, our military veterans. His family has been kind and helpful to me as well, and his funeral was a wonderful tribute.”

“Originally, there was no planned battle to condemn President Trump, since the Democrats had abandoned any moral authority to condemn anyone’s words after their failing to condemn outrageously anti-Semitic words by a Democrat Member.  Since hypocrisy apparently knows no limits within the current majority, the President was attacked, and I missed being there to point out the blatant injustice. Since our nation has been so blessed with superb citizens from every nationality and race, it is indeed unfortunate to have Congressional leaders who think that questioning someone’s appreciation for the greatest country in history is somehow ‘racist.’”

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Congressman Gohmert's Interview on The Todd Starnes Show

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Congressman Louie Gohmert (TX-01) released the following statement today regarding the undercover video of Google released by Project Veritas:

“This video shows Google’s biases are now a threat to a free and fair election, all while they hide behind the immunity given by Congress years ago when they were supposed to be a simple ‘town square’ where everyone’s voice could be heard without biased results. In fact, Google references a significant role they see themselves fulfilling in the 2020 elections. This discovery should set off alarm bells throughout the country. It is no secret that Google has a political agenda. Multiple brave tech insiders have stepped forward and exposed Google’s censorship of content and specialized algorithms. This media giant’s ‘social justice narrative’ should distress all Americans who value a free and open society. Google should not be deciding whether content is important or trivial and they most assuredly should not be meddling in our election process. They need their immunity stripped and to be properly pursued by class action lawsuits by those they have knowingly harmed.”

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Insider: Google “is bent on never letting somebody like Donald Trump come to power again.”

Google Head of Responsible Innovation Says Elizabeth Warren “misguided” on “breaking up Google”

Google Exec Says Don’t Break Us Up: “smaller companies don’t have the resources” to “prevent next Trump situation”

Insider Says PragerU And Dave Rubin Content Suppressed, Targeted As “Right-Wing”

LEAKED Documents Highlight “Machine Learning Fairness” and Google’s Practices to Make Search Results “fair and equitable”

Documents Appear to Show “Editorial” Policies That Determine How Google Publishes News

Insider: Google Violates “letter of the law” and “spirit of the law” on Section 230

The report includes undercover footage of longtime Google employee and Head of Responsible Innovation, Jen Gennai saying:

“Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google. And like, I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation, it’s like a small company cannot do that.”

Said Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe:

“This is the third tech insider who has bravely stepped forward to expose the secrets of Silicon Valley.  These new documents, supported by undercover video, raise questions of Google’s neutrality and the role they see themselves fulfilling in the 2020 elections.”

Jen Gennai is the head of “Responsible Innovation” for Google, a sector that monitors and evaluates the responsible implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies.  In the video, Gennai says Google has been working diligently to “prevent” the results of the 2016 election from repeating in 2020:

“We all got screwed over in 2016, again it wasn’t just us, it was, the people got screwed over, the news media got screwed over, like, everybody got screwed over so we’re rapidly been like, what happened there and how do we prevent it from happening again.”

“We’re also training our algorithms, like, if 2016 happened again, would we have, would the outcome be different?”

Google: Artificial Intelligence Is For A “fair and equitable” State

According to the insider, Machine Learning Fairness is one of the many tools Google uses to promote a political agenda.  Documents leaked by a Google informant elaborate on Machine Learning Fairness and the “algorithmic unfairness” that AI product intervention aims to solve:

The insider showed Google search examples that show Machine Learning Fairness in action.

“The reason we launched our A.I. principles is because people were not putting that line in the sand, that they were not saying what’s fair and what’s equitable so we’re like, well we are a big company, we’re going to say it.” – Jen Gennai, Head Of Responsible Innovation, Google

The Google insider explained the impact of artificial intelligence and Machine Learning Fairness:

“They’re going to redefine a reality based on what they think is fair and based upon what they want, and what and is part of their agenda.”

Determining credible news and an editorial agenda. . .

Additional leaked documents detail how Google defines and prioritizes content from different news publishers and how its products feature that content.  One document, called the “Fake News-letter” explains Google’s goal to have a “single point of truth” across their products.

Another document received by Project Veritas explains the “News Ecosystem” which mentions “editorial guidelines” that appear to be determined and administered internally by Google.  These guidelines control how content is distributed and displayed on their site.

The leaked documents appear to show that Google makes news decisions about what news they promote and distribute on their site.

Comments made by Gennai raise similar questions.  In a conversation with Veritas journalists, Gennai explains that “conservative sources” and “credible sources” don’t always coincide according to Google’s editorial practices.

“We have gotten accusations of around fairness is that we’re unfair to conservatives because we’re choosing what we find as credible news sources and those sources don’t necessarily overlap with conservative sources …” 

The insider shed additional light on how YouTube demotes content from influencers like Dave Rubin and Tim Pool:

“What YouTube did is they changed the results of the recommendation engine. And so what the recommendation engine is it tries to do, is it tries to say, well, if you like A, then you’re probably going to like B. So content that is similar to Dave Rubin or Tim Pool, instead of listing Dave Rubin or Tim Pool as people that you might like, what they’re doing is that they’re trying to suggest different, different news outlets, for example, like CNN, or MSNBC, or these left leaning political outlets.”

Internal Google Document: “People Like Us Are Programmed” 

An additional document Project Veritas obtained, titled “Fair is Not the Default” says “People (like us) are programmed” after the results of machine learning fairness.  The document describes how “unconscious bias” and algorithms interact.

Veritas is the “Only Way”

Said the insider:

“The reason why I came to Project Veritas is that you’re the only one I trust to be able to be a real investigative journalist.  Investigative journalist is a dead career option, but somehow, you’ve been able to make it work.  And because of that I came to Project Veritas because I knew that this was the only way that this story would be able to get out to the public.”

“I mean, this is a behemoth, this is a Goliath, I am but a David trying to say that the emperor has no clothes. And, um, being a small little ant I can be crushed, and I am aware of that. But, this is something that is bigger than me, this is something that needs to be said to the American public.”

Project Veritas intends to continue investigating abuses in big tech companies and encourages more Silicon Valley insiders to share their stories through their Be Brave campaign.

As of publishing, Google did not respond to Project Veritas’ request for comment.  Additional leaked Google documents can be viewed HERE.

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Senate and the Congressional Western Caucuses are praising the United States Forest Service for its effort to revise the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to allow for increased activity on federal lands to better manage forests and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.

This is an especially important decision in the wake of deadly wildfires that have struck the West, officials said. NEPA requires agencies to analyze the environmental impact of proposed actions before making decisions.

 “Originally intended as a tool for environmental protection, NEPA has been hijacked by serial litigants and wielded as a means of obstruction,” Western Caucus Chairman Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) said in a statement about the proposed new rule. “The current NEPA processes is costly, burdensome and uncertain.”

“There is no good reason that the average time to currently complete this bureaucratic process is 687 days,” Gosar said. “The Forest Service’s proposed action is the first agency rule change to NEPA in more than a decade and is welcome news.”

“I applaud the Forest Service for cutting red tape to protect our communities from catastrophic wildfires, expand recreation, and create jobs,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT). “Modernizing these burdensome regulations to restore active management is a big win for Montana communities.”

“The Trump administration is once again getting government off the backs of Americans by decreasing overreach and regulation,” House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) said of the move. “These NEPA revisions will provide additional tools and flexibility.”

“Fire season is upon us and is a reminder of how much work remains to reduce the threat of fire in our forests,” Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said. “I applaud the Forest Service for building on the tools that passed into law last year and taking steps to further reform broken federal forest policy.” 

“Refreshing the Forest Service’s approach to developing projects will help protect our communities,” Walden said. “Currently, upwards of 70 percent of forest project costs go into planning.” 

“Streamlining that process will extend resources to get more work done in the woods and reduce the threat of wildfire and smoke to our communities,” Walden said. “The Nature Conservancy and U.S. Forest Service found that active forest management can reduce the size and intensity of the wildfires by 70 percent.”

“It is time to follow the science and update policies to speed up forest management, and the Forest Service is taking important steps towards getting that done,” Walden said. 

The summary of the rule, posted in the Federal Register and now available for public comment, states:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (Agency) is proposing revisions to its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations. The Agency proposes these revisions to increase efficiency in its environmental analysis while meeting NEPA’s requirements and fully honoring its environmental stewardship responsibilities. The proposed rule would contribute to increasing the pace and scale of work accomplished on the ground and would help the Agency achieve its mission to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. Public input has informed the development of the proposed rule, including through an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The Agency is now requesting public comment on the revisions in the proposed rule. The Agency will carefully consider all public comments in preparing the final rule.

“The new rule will expedite project implementation and allow the Forests Service to better reach their goals of restoring deteriorating forest health conditions and protecting homes along with saving human and animal lives including endangered species from devastating wildfires,” Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said.

“This is another example of how the Trump administration is making life easier for Americans by streamlining unnecessary and costly regulations,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), chief regulatory reform officer, said. “These proposed rule changes maintain public transparency and better fulfill the needs of western states.”

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Representative Louie Gohmert (R., Texas) argued during a Monday House Judiciary Committee hearing that the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign was similar to the Nixon administration’s crimes during the Watergate scandal, reversing a comparison that many of his Democratic colleagues have used to impugn the conduct of President Trump.

Addressing former Nixon White House counsel John Dean, who was called by House Democrats to serve as the hearing’s first witness, Gohmert agreed with the contention that the current political environment resembles Watergate, but argued that President Trump and his allies resemble the Nixon-era Democrats subjected to illegal surveillance.

“There are similarities, you’re right, with regard to Watergate,” Gohmert said. “In both, an administration was seeking to illegally spy on another candidate. In both, people were hired to attempt to gather evidence that could be used against a candidate. In Watergate, the Committee to Reelect the President hired burglars to break into the DNC headquarters. In Watergate, administration officials tried to find ways to use federal dollars to pay for their criminal spying.”

Gohmert went on to claim that the FBI’s reliance on the unsubstantiated Steele dossier to obtain a warrant to surveil then-Trump campaign national-security adviser Carter Page constituted a “fraud” on the FISA court that granted the warrant, since the judge in the case was unaware that the dossier was initially commissioned by the Clinton campaign.

“In Russiagate, members of the federal government used the intel, DOJ, and FBI communities to attempt to defeat a presidential candidate, then when that failed to have him removed from office,” he continued. “In Russiagate, the Clinton campaign and the FBI paid a foreign agent to collude with Russians to produce opposition research — that turned out completely false, as the Mueller report indicated — that could be used to commit a fraud on the FISA court and get multiple warrants to spy on opposition campaigns.”

Congressional Republicans have long argued that the Obama administration’s FBI improperly targeted the Trump campaign for surveillance for purely partisan reasons. Soon after taking office, Attorney General William Barr opened an investigation into the origins of the FBI counterintelligence probe that gave rise to the Mueller investigation to determine whether it was politically motivated.

Defenders of the intelligence community’s conduct have pushed back on the claim that the Steele dossier served as the pretext for the surveillance, pointing out that the counterintelligence probe officially commenced only after an Australian diplomat told his U.S. counterparts that Trump-campaign adviser George Papadopoulos planned to receive opposition research on Hillary Clinton from the Russians.

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