John Ratcliffe: “I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding this evening. Mr. Speaker, the most fundamental principle of our…”

“I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding this evening. Mr. Speaker, the most fundamental principle of our criminal justice system is that we are innocent until proven guilty. Operation Choke Point turns that most sacred tenet on its head. When President Obama and his administration uses agencies like the Department of Justice and the FDIC to target legal businesses without due process, without any public debate, and when he bases his attacks not on the rule of law but on his own political beliefs, well, that is a tragic breakdown of the system of checks and balances and separation of powers that our Founding Fathers deliberately designed. Mr. Speaker, Operation Choke Point is just flat wrong. Folks all across the Fourth Congressional District of Texas in cities and towns like Bonham, Denison, Sulphur Springs, Texarkana, and Sherman, they all just want to run their businesses and enjoy their freedoms without fear of persecution from a President that has overstepped his authority time and time again. Many of the Texans that I represent are deeply troubled and concerned about Operation Choke Point, an initiative which is pressuring banks and others in the financial industry to deny access to financial services to businesses like gun sellers and coal producers.…”