Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act
Floor Speech
Mr. Speaker, this bill authorizes Donald Trump to recklessly impose a death penalty on any nonprofit in America that happens to be on his enemies list. With this bill, he can destroy the very life of civil society in this country, one group after another. Even though the group involved that he targets as a ``terrorist-supporting'' group has not violated a single law, even though the group or the public have not been presented with a shred of evidence for doing this, without offering any specific explanation or reason as to why the life is being taken out of this civil society group, and without providing a day in court, a hearing, and without any meaningful right of appeal, no matter how capricious, no matter how unjustified Trump's action may be.
H.R. 9495 is a repackaged version of legislation that was originally filed months ago, with good intentions, including that of some of my Democratic colleagues.
With Trump's election, the conditions have changed. The dangers of granting additional power to him are far outweighed by any benefits from this bill. This is the same Trump who vowed to be ``dictator on day one'' and has declared the greatest danger our country faces today is ``the enemy within.''
This bill is now opposed by a growing number of civil society groups, over 120 groups--the ACLU, the Brennan Center for Justice, the NAACP, Planned Parenthood, the Center for American Progress, the American Federation of Teachers--a list that goes on and on--including the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
This legislation is done in the name of stopping financial support for terrorism. All of us support stopping terrorism. Like everyone here, I have done that, and I have previously voted for this very language not once but twice, though the last time it came before our committee, I voiced the very same concerns about the lack of due process that I voice today.
Since none of the deficiencies of this bill have been corrected and no amendment is offered today, we must reject it.
If he is on a march to make America Fascist, we do not need to supply Donald Trump with any additional weapons to accomplish his ill purpose. Our freedoms will not be destroyed in one great blow. No, it will be a thousand cuts over the term of this administration, undermining our liberties one after another.
To those who say that this bill only applies to groups that are supporting terrorism, consider how very expansive that term can be, both at home and abroad. The foreign tyrants who Donald Trump so much admires have imprisoned journalists, academics, and rights activists by claiming that they are supporters of terrorism.
State and Federal elected officials in this country have called for terrorism investigations or prosecution of major news outlets. Trump himself has criticized and labeled any racist activist as terrorist. Some have mischaracterized environmental groups as ecoterrorists. Under this bill, Trump's list of targets would only be limited by his imagination. There are not any guardrails in the bill.
For example, if Trump claimed that Democrats, myself included, who didn't clap enough for him in this Chamber when he gave his first State of the Union were traitors, that we were treasonous, we could be targeted. He could target organizations that assist refugees for harboring terrorists.
Planned Parenthood or a hospital could be targeted for the alleged terror of abortion. An environmental group could be mislabeled as an ecoterrorist. A private university that permits too many anti-Trump demonstrations could be targeted. A disability rights group that is objecting to Trump's interference with the Affordable Care Act could be targeted.
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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, a shelter offering housing to LGBTQ youth could be targeted. A Vietnam Veterans of America group that previously declared Trump's attacks on Gold Star families disgraceful and un- American could be targeted.
Other possible targets might be think tanks that don't happen to think the way Trump wanted, groups fighting Christian nationalism, or simply any tax-exempt group not viewed as sufficiently pro-MAGA.
Now, let's talk about the two examples that the chairman just referred to. He thinks the IRS Commissioner has not acted swiftly enough, and it sounds like perhaps he is right. Well, who do you think appointed the IRS Commissioner? His name is Donald J. Trump.
The defect is not in the law as it exists today, but on the question of whether or not there is being proper administration of the law that exists today that can deal with terrorism.
If the real purpose of this bill, as well, were simply to postpone tax filing deadlines for the very small number of Americans who have been detained hostage, as wrong as that is, our approving right now the bill that has lingered here, as Republicans shelved it for 6 months, that the Senate approved to do that, to provide them that protection, we could put that bill on the President's desk right now.
The very fact that the Republicans used this claim of helping hostages is a subterfuge because what it is really about is empowering Trump to do more harm. They are, in essence, holding the hostages hostage once again.
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Mr. DOGGETT. I stand corrected concerning the IRS Commissioner. That is the only thing I stand corrected on, and I would be glad to join him in a further appeal to the current Commissioner if the facts are as you say because none of us want to see a dollar, profit or nonprofit, going to terrorism.
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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I have a question for Mr. Beyer.
The bill the gentleman has is the same one that the Senate passed 6 months ago. Has the gentleman been given any reason why the Republicans, if they are so eager to help the hostages, have held that bill instead of bringing it up to us to consider and getting it on the President's desk right now, this week?
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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for responding, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. DOGGETT.
Mr. Speaker, the ability to demand that no dollars flow from America to any terrorist organization has been long recognized in the law as it exists today. In fact, the chairman has conceded that when he says his complaint is that the IRS has not moved fast enough under existing law.
This is not a question of inadequate law. It is against the law today to provide support to a terrorist organization, be it exempt or nonexempt. The question here is whether we should change the law to eliminate the right to know the evidence to that effect.
Is it just the chairman's claim that something is a terrorist organization? If it is a terrorist organization, why not present the evidence? Why not provide an opportunity for a hearing for that evidence to be tested? Why not provide a meaningful right of appeal?
None of these safeguards are there, and they are lacking for a reason. The desire is to be able to weaponize the Treasury with regard to these organizations and to do as has happened under one tyrant after another in another country to claim that the opponents are terrorists, a term that is expansive.
Unchecked authority to revoke the nonprofit status of such groups without cause or due process risks Trump truly weaponizing the Treasury Department and destroying civil society organizations across this country.
As David Thompson with the National Council of Nonprofits has said, by violating basic due process rights, this bill ``bodes ill . . . without input from the charitable sector.''
As civil society groups have stated, over 120 of them: ``The executive branch could use this authority to target its political opponents and use the fear of crippling legal fees, the stigma of designation, and donors fleeing controversy to stifle dissent and chill speech and advocacy.''
It is not just the denial of tax status; it is the threat of denial. It is the use of intimidation, at which our President-elect is an expert, to let this be an intimidation of one group after another--a church, a social organization that has nothing to do with terrorism but can be characterized as such by him.
That is all it takes. Mr. Speaker, if Trump calls you a terrorist, just as he called me a traitor for not clapping long enough for him, that is all it takes under this bill. You have no hearing. You have no evidence. You have no true appeal rights. The supposed administrative provisions, administrative safeguards of this bill, are a total sham.
Mr. Speaker, after you are found guilty and denied your taxpayer status, then you can complain about it. It is based on the principle that you are guilty before proven innocent. The process there provides no protection whatsoever.
With regard to helping the hostages, let's be very clear about that. For 6 months, we have had in this House the opportunity to pass a Senate bill that is word for word a bill that is pending here in the House to help the hostages. Why has that not been done?
The very fact that there is such great interest in the hostages today and such total insensitivity over the last 6 months to do anything about them tells you that there is an ulterior motive here, that the goal is not about helping perhaps a dozen hostage victims' families who have gone through hell. It is not about that. It is about placing one civil society group after another on the line under a new President to use unlimited discretion to attack his political foes.
We have an opportunity tonight to either advance the cause of fascism or to push back against it. We have statements not from Democrats but from those who worked closest with President Trump raising concern, causing my concern about giving him any additional power.
After he called the press the enemy of the people, there is concern about the impact on the press. So many of our journalist organizations now at the local level are nonprofit organizations. To lose their tax- exempt status is to destroy freedom of the press.
We know with regard to President-elect Trump, that his appointee, General Mark Milley, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a decorated hero and patriot, referred to Mr. Trump as fascist to the core, that his former Chief of Staff, the longest serving Chief of Staff, one of those best people in the world that he told us he would bring to Washington, said he is certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators. He has said that.
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the time remaining?
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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, the former Chief of Staff said he is certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators, so he certainly falls into the general definition of fascism.
Kelly also said that our President-elect has said that Hitler did some good things. I don't want those kinds of good things done here in America. I want people that disagree with me, as much as the chairman does tonight, from across this country to have the opportunity to have their say. I think that a vibrant, diverse, civil society and freedom of the press here is vital to the future of American democracy, and I don't want to see it snuffed out by one new figure. Let us not tonight give a wannabe tyrant the tool of tyranny.
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