Congressman Gosar chats with Havasu, Mohave County leaders while receiving chamber award

Speaking to a group of about 20 city and county officials at the Lake Havasu Area Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, Congressman Paul Gosar issued some dire warnings and predictions of the current situation of national politics.

Gosar was in town to accept the Spirit of Enterprise Award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The award is given to congressmen who vote with the Chamber of Commerce at least 70 percent of the time.

“Once again in 2018 Congressman Gosar earned the award for his pro-business voting record,” said Executive Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Western Regional Office Jennings Imel, who presented the award. “I believe that he has earned the award every single year he has been in Congress. He has been a friend to the business community and we certainly appreciate that.”

Imel said 2018 was an important year with water infrastructure, ADA reform, medical device tax repeal and Dodd-Frank reform among the most important issues to the business community that were addressed last year.

“A lot of important stuff really did take place last year, and the Congressman played a pivotal role in getting that done,” he said.

Following a short presentation, Gosar spoke for about 20 minutes to the audience of officials that were on hand. Throughout his speech he painted a bleak picture of what is happening politically on a national level.

Thoughts on impeachment

Gosar characterized the current Impeachment Inquiry, centered around a phone conversation that President Donald Trump had with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, which kicked off last week as a fishing expedition by Democrats.

“If they were serious about it they would put the articles on the floor and actually get after it,” Gosar said. “We think that they’ve got around 220 votes when they want. The problem is the rest of them, the representatives that represent districts that Trump carried. What they are using this for is to find something. They have nothing on this president – nothing.”

Of greater concern to Gosar is the origins of the Russia investigation.

“This uses a foreign source,” Gosar said. “This is what our intelligence and Department of Justice actually did: they conspired to work with countries like Great Britain, Italy, Australia, Ukraine, New Zealand, to investigate the president.”

The Congressman laid out how he expects the investigation into the origins of the Mueller Report to unfold in the coming months. He believes the Inspector General’s report will come first, followed by a report by Attorney General William Barr and another report by U.S. Attorney John Durham.

“Wait for all the smoke to clear. What you saw here was inappropriate by every definition,” Gosar said. “This was not right. This was a coup-d’etat. We need justice. The one thing I will tell you is that someone has to pay for what they did against our Constitution and the rule of law.”

The economy

Gosar lauded Trump’s efforts to help the business community through issues such as tax reform and regulation, but said business has become, “a dirty word” for Democrats.

“They want equilibrium of everybody’s wealth,” Gosar said. “You see that on the other side in regards to the wealth tax – that is not the American way.”

Political obstruction

The Congressman also blamed his Democratic counterparts for obstructing Trump’s agenda, and warned not to expect much action on several important issues.

“You heard Jennings talk about immigration (reform) – not going to happen,” Gosar said. “I’ll tell you, I will eat my hat if it happens. The other side doesn’t want to give Trump a single victory, so that is off the table. It won’t happen.”

Gosar also said infrastructure improvements are also unlikely to happen because of what he sees as political obstruction by Democrats. “The only thing that you will probably get out of it are some selected projects. … The other side does not want to give Donald Trump a victory, point blank.

He was also not optimistic about striking a budget deal when the time comes in November, predicting continuing resolutions will kick the can down the road, likely to December, then March, then sometime after the election.

Gosar also took aim at Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl Grijalva, a fellow Arizona Congressman who he claimed is pushing every opportunity to close public lands to oil and mineral withdrawals.

“It is making us more dependent on foreign sources like China, for our rare earths and technology… Now they are trying to empower Russia with our uranium and our nuclear capacity while we are depending upon them,” Gosar said. “Folks, time is up. This can’t move forward. He has definitely put his sights along those lines.

“Our worry is that as these bills go through that they will hang some of these on to a must-pass piece of legislation that is detrimental. The problem that we have is 24 Republicans in the Senate are running for re-election, including the majority leader, and if you look back at history they get pretty damn squishy. So we are all on the clock in that regard.”

Other issues Gosar spoke about included healthcare, Health Savings Account reform, and breaking up social media companies both vertically and horizontally. He also answered questions from those gathered for roughly 40 minutes. Topics included the shortage of doctors, getting rid of establishment politicians working against Trump, gun control, rumors about Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being an actor, and the current state of the Republican Party.