Gilbert Gutknecht: “I rise today with no sense of pride, with actually a sense of trepidation to a certain degree, because I want to talk…”

“I rise today with no sense of pride, with actually a sense of trepidation to a certain degree, because I want to talk about something that has been happening and developing over the last year, actually, which culminated yesterday in a vote in the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight on some of the actions taken by this administration by the committee. I think the American people need to understand what has happened and why. Yesterday the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight voted out a resolution to hold several high ranking members of this White House in contempt of Congress. This is an action which has happened only a handful of times in this century. I do not think anyone who serves on that committee wanted to see events lead to that. But I think that the people need to understand and I think the Members need to understand how patient Chairman Clinger and the committee have been with the administration in terms of getting to the bottom of this matter, and I am referring to the White House Travel Office and the scandal that has surrounded that issue since 6 innocent Federal employees were terminated and ultimately humiliated in public for actions which they were later found to be not guilty of. The story is a seamy story that involves abuse of power. It probably involves the abuse of the FBI, the IRS, and perhaps even the Justice Department.”