DHS whistleblower Philip Haney honored in House speech

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, honors DHS whistleblower Philip Haney on the House floor Feb. 26, 2020 (screenshot)

In an emotional speech on the House floor, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, praised his friend Philip Haney, the Department of Homeland Security whistleblower whose death is under investigation by the FBI and local authorities in Northern California.

"He was one of the finest, most patriotic, competent people I've ever known in my life," Gohmert said Wednesday. "A man of absolute honesty, complete integrity, who cared deeply about the future of this country."

Former Department of Homeland Security officer Philip Haney at Senate hearing June 28, 2016 (Screenshot Senate Judiciary Committee video).

The congressman said Haney -- who saw intelligence he developed on Islamic terrorists erased by Obama officials -- "was a Christian brother, and that certainly affected so much of what he did."

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The Amador County Sheriff's Office, east of Sacramento, said Monday it's in the beginning phase of what it expects to be a lengthy investigation of the cause of Haney's death. The sheriff, Marvin A. Ryan, who is also the coroner, said in a statement Saturday it appeared that Haney died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. But Ryan backtracked in a statement Monday, saying no determination has been made and a thorough investigation is underway with the assistance of the FBI. The sheriff said Haney's body was discovered Friday morning in a park-and-ride area adjacent to State Highway 16 near State Highway 124, less than three miles from where he was living in an RV park in Plymouth, California.

A forensic autopsy will be performed by pathologists from the Sacramento County Coroner's Office. And the county sheriff has asked the FBI to help analyze documents, phone records and a laptop recovered from the scene and from Haney's RV.

Haney's colleagues, friends and family have vowed to make sure everything is done to find out what happened.

Gohmert said he had been concerned about Haney's safety, "with all the information he knew and the people that could have gotten in trouble."

"We had a mutual pact," he said. "If it's said that either one of us end up having committed suicide then the other is going to make sure that truth wins out."

Say nothing

Gohmert recounted Haney's unlikely path to becoming a member of the advanced team at the National Targeting Center near Washington, D.C., which provides actionable intelligence in real time to customs officers at the nation's ports of entry.

The congressman noted the title of Haney's bestselling book, "See Something, Say Nothing," which was published in 2016.

"As he experienced first hand, he saw things that were a threat to this country, he said something, and he was severely punished for it, because apparently the Obama administration had some radical ties that they did not want anybody, including Philip Haney, to expose," Gohmert said.

Haney, in fact, was punished -- and exonerated -- nine times, largely for following the evidence where it led.

His book, the Texas lawmaker said, "documents the Obama administration's effort to obfuscate the role of radical Islam in numerous terrorist attacks."

A sequel was underway, Gohmert noted, that would "name names."

Philip Haney's book "See Something, Say Nothing," co-authored with Art Moore, is available as an ebook at the WND Superstore.

Gohmert recalled that Haney testified to a Senate committee in June 2016 of the "purging" of his intelligence on terrorist networks in the U.S. The Obama administration, he said, "modified" or eliminated more than 800 of his records related to the Muslim Brotherhood network in the U.S. because they were deemed to be an offense to Muslims. In addition, a highly successful case he helped develop at the National Targeting Center was shut down by Hillary Clinton's State Department and the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties out of concern for the "rights" of foreign Muslims.

See Rep. Louie Gohmert's tribute to Philip Haney on the House floor:

And after Haney retired honorably in 2015, he discovered that had his case continued, it might have prevented both the Orlando and the San Bernardino attacks.

Along with the quashing of the case in June 2012, the administration subsequently ordered the deletion of an additional 67 records concerning a related network.

'A real whistleblower'

Gohmert, clearly referencing the anonymous whistleblower who brought the complaint Democrats used to impeach Trump, said "Philip Haney was a real whistleblower," noting his Senate testimony.

"That's what a real whistleblower does," Gohmert said. "A whistleblower does not remain anonymous. They come forward, subject themselves to cross-examination, and supposedly have protection."

But the Obama administration didn't protect whistleblowers like Haney, Gohmert said.

"They went after whistleblowers," he said.

"In fact, the Obama administration prosecuted more people for leaking than every other administration in this country's history added together."