Peter Roskam: “I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you a story. I want to take you back to 1996. A friend of…”

“I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you a story. I want to take you back to 1996. A friend of mine in Illinois, my former law partner, Al Salvi, was running for the United States Senate. He loaned himself some money to his campaign. The Federal Election Commission--a different agency than we are talking about, but stick with me. This is like a 'Seinfeld' episode. It is all going to come together at the end. The Federal Election Commission said: You did that the wrong way. You violated Federal election law. They placed him under investigation. World War II headlines in the Chicago papers. He goes on, and he loses the election for the United States Senate. Now, political scientists can debate whether he would have won or whether he would have lost, but let's face it, being under investigation by the Federal Election Commission generally does not help you win a political campaign. At the end of that campaign, the Federal Election Commission came and they made a very large settlement demand. I don't remember off the top of my head how many hundreds of thousands of dollars they were demanding from him, but he said: I didn't do anything wrong, and I am not going to pay you any money. The Federal Election Commission said: That is fine. We are going to sue you--which they did. They filed a lawsuit against him in Federal court. A Federal judge reads the pleadings, dismisses the case--against the Federal Election Commission--and finds in favor of Al Salvi.…”