Resolution, to Remove United States Armed Forces From Hostilities with Presidentially Designated Terrorist Organizations in the Western Hemisphere

Floor Speech

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Mr. MEEKS. Con. Res. 61.

Mr. Speaker, I will get to the chairman's remarks later about his incorrect statements. What I want to point out is, since September 2, the administration has carried out 25 known strikes, killing 95 people. Among these was a so-called double-tap strike where U.S. Forces killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of a destroyed vessel in open sea.

The administration now refuses to release the video of this strike, denying the American people the ability to see for themselves what is being done in their names. In fact, they are denying Members of this House, including me and I believe the chairman himself, from seeing that video. Many believe this strike may constitute a war crime.

Following another strike, on October 16, the Department of Defense repatriated two survivors to their home countries rather than prosecute them in the United States courts, as we would expect if these individuals were, in fact, dangerous drug traffickers bound for the United States.

The fact of the matter is a number of the individuals that he talked about, if they were in the United States, they would have been tried in our courts. That decision raises serious questions about the administration's own assessment of threat, necessity, and purpose.

These strikes have not been authorized by Congress, and the administration has not sought congressional authorization to use lethal military force to address alleged criminal activity that under the United States law--and we are a country of laws--does not carry the death penalty.

That is a profound escalation, and one Congress has neither debated nor proved. They openly covet Venezuelan oil. That is what this is about. The President is coveting Venezuelan oil.

Despite promises to end wars, this President is threatening military invasions not just in Venezuela but across the Western Hemisphere.

Just last night, President Trump declared: ``Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America,'' and that ``the shock . . . will be like nothing they have ever seen. . . .''

This is not a strategy. This is a game, and the President is playing it with the lives of American servicemembers, threatening a regime- change war with no plan for what would happen next.

This President wants to be the judge, the jury, and the executioner. However, this Congress--Congress is not a part of the executive branch. We are a coequal branch of government. The Constitution vests this body with authority over matters of war and peace. That power has too often been ceded to the executive branch.

Earlier this month, on a bipartisan and bicameral basis, we repealed outdated authorizations for use of military force to prevent Presidents of either party from abusing it. We cannot now abandon our constitutional duty over these strikes in the Western Hemisphere.

Even if you happen to disagree with me when I say these strikes--and they are--not about making Americans safer, that these strikes are about oil, that they are about another reckless foreign war or stretching Presidential power toward that of a would-be king--all of those things happen to be true, by the way--this vote is ultimately not about whether you agree with the administration's policy. It is not about whether any President can take these actions. It is about, and what it should be about, is whether this President can take these actions without congressional approval.

Every Member of Congress should want to do their job. Congress must make clear--all of us--that no President can unilaterally draw the United States into a conflict that the American people do not want.

Democrats and Republicans, those of us who were elected by the people, are the closest to the people. We should not shirk our responsibility. We should make sure that, right here, we do what the Constitution tells us to do and have debate and vote on the House floor so that all of America knows where we stand on matters of going to war or not. That is what they elected us to do.

For us to just give away that power to the executive branch is not doing our job. We should have a vote because it is the rule of law. We are the United States of America. We are not part of the Duma or have a Putin who just does what they want with getting around and not dealing with the people's Representatives. We should stand for the power that was vested in us. That is what this is really all about.

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Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, I just say that the President said yesterday that that oil was the United States' oil, not the Venezuelan people.

I thank the gentlewoman for her passion, though. I only wish she had the same passion to speak out against the Trump administration's mass deportation of Venezuelans legally in the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, if this truly was about addressing drugs, then tell me why the administration pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who ran one of the largest online drug marketplaces in history and was serving a double life sentence.

Why did the President pardon the former President of Honduras, whom a U.S. court convicted and sentenced for flooding the U.S. with 400 tons of cocaine and bragged?

He said: `` . . . shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,'' and he was pardoned by the President of the United States into our districts.

I am a former special narcotics prosecutor, and I know this to be a fact. You don't run a serious counternarcotics strategy by carrying out the death penalty for those who are at the bottom of the drug trade while freeing those who are the very top and ordering them to come.

At the same time, the administration asks us to believe that deploying fighter jets, an aircraft carrier, and more than 15,000 troops to the Caribbean is merely a counterdrug mission. This is the largest U.S. military buildup in the region since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

If this were really about drugs, why are the United States forces seizing oil tankers? The stated mission, the scale of buildup, and the actions taken simply do not align.

The administration can't keep its story straight, and it is no longer trying to hide its real motivations. Senior officials, including the President himself, have made it clear that the real objective is provoking a conflict with Venezuela to oust Maduro.

Mr. Speaker, I am still waiting for the chairman to tell me why the President of the United States decided to let convicted drug pushers, convicted in United States courts and in jail, be pardoned if this is about drugs. I am waiting for an answer. I haven't heard that yet.

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Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, I am still waiting to hear why major drug dealers, two major drug dealers, were pardoned by the President of the United States. I will wait.

Nothing?

Kamlager-Dove), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on South and Central Asia.

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Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, maybe the gentleman from the National Security Subcommittee can tell me, since the chairman can't, why the President of the United States pardoned a narcoterrorist and the former President of Honduras. Maybe he can tell me why. I am trying to get an answer.

Nothing? Walking out? Does he have an answer for me? Why would the President of the United States pardon a convicted drug dealer, over 400 million tons, killing Americans? I got nothing.

Jayapal), an esteemed member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Again, I offer the chairman, Mr. Rogers, the opportunity to tell me why the President pardoned these drug dealers.

I am proud of this institution and who we are. I am a Member of the House of Representatives, a former chairman of the committee.

I would also ask the chairman: Why don't we do hearings?

Why can't we bring the administration into the Foreign Affairs Committee and have them answer questions of Members of Congress on what they are doing and why they are doing it?

That is our job. That is our responsibility.

Have we had one hearing on Venezuela on drugs coming in? Not a one. Have we brought anybody in from the administration?

That is our job.

Why don't we do our job?

That is why we were elected. I would hope that the chairman would have some hearings so that we can discuss this as Members of Congress.

Omar), who is an original cosponsor of this important resolution.
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Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman can use my time if he can answer why the President of the United States pardoned major drug dealers who were convicted and doing time. It was the little guys. I will wait.

Also, if this is about drugs, the fact is, the drugs come from China, the fentanyl. The mainstay of fentanyl is from China. I haven't heard China in this debate at all.

In fact, the President runs around and says some of those--we are back selling chips or whatever he wants to do with China, which is a danger to our national security, killing our people. The number one drug that is killing Americans is fentanyl. There are no ships there.

My main focus is, as I said earlier, even if you disagree with me, why don't we do our work as Members of Congress? Why aren't we having hearings, open, public hearings with members of the administration coming to testify before us and the American people so that they can hear for themselves?

In prior Congresses, when I was the chair, even when Mr. McCaul was the chair, and there was a Democrat in the office, they were bringing in the Secretary of State on a consistent basis, subpoenaing them, having them come in to address certain things, and they came in.

I make judgments now to go to hearings when I see someone from the administration is going to be there, and, boy, that is very rare. Generally, it is just somebody on the other side, from the private sector or something of that nature on foreign affairs. The diplomats and representatives from the State Department and people directly from the administration don't come before our committee.

No matter what your position is, this is about the United States House of Representatives doing its duty and responsibility.

Let me tell you, when it comes to drugs, I had a career in fighting drugs as a prosecutor. No one, to this day, fights harder and wants to make sure that we lock up and bring to justice those who bring in and those who sell narcotics in our communities. We still have laws because when we did, we didn't execute them. We tried them in a court of law.

That is who we are. That is not who Vladimir Putin is and who some of these other authoritarian governments are. That is what they do. That is not what we do here.

We have values, and we have a job to do, as Members of the United States House of Representatives, for the people. I am saying to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Let's do our jobs. Let's bring in the administration and members of the administration. Let them testify and talk to us, where we can question them, and talk to the American people because, ultimately, this is about them.

The American people should be able to see what took place in those waters when those two individuals were hanging on the boat. There was no problem showing all the others. What are we hiding from the American people? We, as Members of Congress, should be demanding that the administration be accountable to the American people, and the best way to do that is for them to come to Congress because that is our job.

Ultimately, I am saying we should do our jobs as Members of Congress and not give away our power to someone who would like to just be an authoritarian. We don't have that kind of government.

That is why the United States of America was created in the first place, to make sure that one man or woman couldn't make unilateral decisions around the United States Congress.

Mr. Speaker, this War Powers Resolution would immediately end President Trump's extrajudicial boat strikes in the Western Hemisphere, which have never been approved by Congress and far exceed the President's authority.

We are a country of laws. Individuals in the streets have to abide by our laws. The President of the United States should be abiding by our laws.

In our laws, you convict somebody in court. You can't just go out and kill them. What I had to do was build a case in public, try that case, and convince a jury to unanimously convict someone so that they would go to jail. That was my job.

I think that the President of the United States cannot summarily determine that he is going to go kill someone without coming and getting authorization from this Congress.

The worst criminals have had to go to court. The fact of the matter is, we know of two such people, the worst of the worst. They sold drugs and said they were going to shove it up their noses. He wasn't killed. He shouldn't have been killed. He was tried. He was from another country. In fact, he was the President of another country.

He was tried in a court of law, and he was convicted by a unanimous jury. He is on the streets today. Why? Because the President of the United States said he deserved the pardon. No matter how many people he killed, no matter how many drugs he brought in, the President of the United States said it is okay, we are going to send him back on the streets.

There is another individual who sold drugs over the internet, killing Americans. He was not executed. He was tried and convicted unanimously in a court. He is back on the streets.

As a prosecutor, I would have been--and the family members of the victims, of those two, in particular, and others like them, for them to be convicted and then released by the President of the United States of America, is that justice? Is that protecting us? What kind of message is that sending to just go after the little guy in a boat who was instructed by others?

How many of the big kingpins have been brought to justice? Who is going after and building a case to prosecute them and have them locked up in jail?

This administration wants to say these strikes are about stopping drugs from entering the country. Putting aside the fact that drug smuggling is not a crime punishable by death, or that these boats could have, per the law, been intercepted by the Coast Guard and suspected traffickers questioned and prosecuted in a U.S. court, this is not a counternarcotics operation.

The administration's actions, whether the largest military deployment to the region since the Cuban Missile Crisis, the seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker, ordering a blockade of Venezuela, or the many public statements issued by U.S. officials, including President Trump--

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Mr. MEEKS. Let me just say, I see him putting up a picture.

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Mr. MEEKS. Let me tell you about that picture. That is diplomacy before he was the President of the United States. He was a member--

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Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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