Louie Gohmert facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Louie Gohmert
Official portrait, 2013
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 1st district
In office January 3, 2005 – January 3, 2023
Preceded by	Max Sandlin
Succeeded by	Nathaniel Moran
Personal details
Born	Louis Buller Gohmert Jr. (1953-08-18) August 18, 1953 (age 70) Pittsburg, Texas, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Kathy Gohmert ​ (m. 1978)​
Children	3
Education	Texas A&M University (BA) Baylor University (JD)
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Army
Years of service	1978–1982
Rank	Captain
Unit	Army Judge Advocate General's Corps
Awards	Meritorious Service Medal

Louis Buller Gohmert Jr. (/ˈɡoʊmərt/; born August 18, 1953) is an American attorney, politician, and former judge who was the U.S. representative from Texas's 1st congressional district from 2005 to 2023. Gohmert is a Republican and was part of the Tea Party movement. In January 2015, he unsuccessfully challenged John Boehner for Speaker of the House of Representatives. In November 2021, he announced his candidacy in the 2022 Texas Attorney General election. He failed to advance to the Republican primary runoff, getting 17% of the vote.

Early life and education

Gohmert was born in Pittsburg, Texas, the son of German Texan architect Louis Buller Gohmert and his first wife Erma Sue (née Brooks). He was raised in Mount Pleasant, Texas, where he graduated from Mount Pleasant High School in 1971.

Gohmert enrolled in Texas A&M University, receiving a U.S. Army scholarship and earning a B.A. in history in 1975. He commanded a cadet brigade in the Corps of Cadets and served as class president. He was also a student leader for the MSC Student Conference on National Affairs alongside future U.S. Representative Chet Edwards, and a member of the Ross Volunteer Company.

Gohmert received a Juris Doctor degree from Baylor Law School in 1977.

Early political career

Gohmert attended The JAG School at the University of Virginia and entered U.S. Army JAG Corps. He served in the JAG Corps at Fort Benning, Georgia, from 1978 to 1982. Most of his legal service in the U.S. Army was as a defense attorney.

Gohmert was elected as a state district judge for Texas's 7th Judicial District, serving Smith County (Tyler, Texas) from 1992 to 2002. He was elected to three terms.

In 2002, Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed Gohmert to fill a vacancy as Chief Justice on Texas's 12th Court of Appeals, where he served a six-month term that ended in 2003.

U.S. House of Representatives

Gohmert with President George W. Bush in 2005

A mid-decade redistricting made the 1st District significantly more conservative than its predecessor. Tyler, which had long anchored the 4th District, was shifted to the 1st District. In the 2004 Republican primary, Gohmert defeated State Representative Wayne Christian of Center, Texas. He defeated Democratic incumbent 1st District Congressman Max Sandlin with 61% of the vote. He has never again faced another contest that close, and been reelected seven times, never with less than 68% of the vote. He only faced an independent in 2008, and a Libertarian in 2010.

On July 29, 2009, Gohmert signed on as a co-sponsor of the defeated H.R. 1503. This bill would have amended "the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of president to include with the committee's statement of organization a copy of the candidate's birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the office of president under the Constitution".

On January 3, 2013, Gohmert broke ranks with the House leadership to nominate Representative Allen West for Speaker of the House, although West narrowly lost his bid for reelection in 2012 and was no longer a member of Congress.

Although Gohmert had previously ruled out the possibility of a bid for the U.S. Senate, in 2013 he was boosted by at least one "tea party" group (Grassroots America We the People) as a primary challenger to Senator John Cornyn.

A vocal critic of Speaker John Boehner, Gohmert challenged his reelection to the speakership for the 114th Congress when Congress convened on January 6, 2015. Boehner was reelected, even though 25 Freedom Caucus Republicans chose not to vote for him. Gohmert received three of those votes.

During his nine terms in office, Gohmert passed one bill that would become a law, a 2017 measure simplifying the 9-1-1 system.

Reputation

Gohmert is considered to be a conservative Tea Party Republican.

During his congressional career, Gohmert's actions and comments garnered much controversy, including when he compared U.S. President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, said Hillary Clinton was "mentally challenged," speculated mask wearing caused his contraction of COVID-19, grieved over the arrest of January 6 rioters, and said cancelling a television show with homophobic comments was comparable to Nazism. Eric Neugeboren of The Texas Tribune described Gohmert as "something of an outlier in Congress for the ease with which he was willing to make unfounded and offensive pronouncements" and that he "was a precursor to former President Donald Trump's brand of populist, establishment-bucking conservatism that delights in offending progressives and makes no apologies for spreading misinformation." According to The Daily Sentinel, while Gohmert was seen nationally as "unhinged," he remained very popular with his constituents.

In May 2021, Gohmert made a rambling speech in which he admitted that many people think he is "the dumbest guy in Congress;" though, he added "I'm comfortable with who and what I am." The speech resulted in mockery of Gohmert by some in the media.

Fiscal policy

Gohmert signed the Americans for Tax Reform's Taxpayer Protection Pledge. He offered an alternative plan to kick-start the economy with his tax holiday bill, which would allow taxpayers to be exempt for two months from having federal income tax taken out of their paychecks.

He was one of a number of Republicans who voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011 on grounds it did not do enough to deal with the government's growing debt.

Gohmert was one of four Republicans who joined 161 Democrats to vote against a balanced budget Constitutional amendment in November 2011.

Gohmert supports and has voted for legislation in favor of school vouchers.

Gohmert strongly supported the Baseline Reform Act of 2013 (H.R. 1871; 113th Congress), a bill that would change the way in which discretionary appropriations for individual accounts are projected in the Congressional Budget Office's baseline. Under H.R. 1871, projections of such spending would still be based on the current year's appropriations, but would not be adjusted for inflation. Gohmert said, "conservatives have advocated for years that there should be no automatic spending increases in any federal department's budget ... that has been a trap so when we simply slow the rate of increase, we are accused of making draconian cuts." He argued the legislation would make clearer "what is an increase and what is a cut", put the government in the same situation as American families, and help with the task of getting the debt under control.

Climate change and the environment

Gohmert rejects the scientific consensus on climate change and has asserted that data supporting it is fraudulent. He opposes cap-and-trade legislation, such as the one that passed the U.S. House when it had a Democratic majority, and supports expanding drilling and exploration in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

In a July 8, 2015, interview on the C-SPAN program Washington Journal, after Pope Francis issued his second encyclical Laudato si', Gohmert said Francis was incorrect to identify climate change as a serious problem. He supported the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

During a June 2021 House Natural Resources Committee hearing, Gohmert asked, "is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM (Bureau of Land Management) can do to change the course of the moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the sun?" to mitigate climate change. Though some assumed he was being ironic, after receiving laughter and scorn for his comments online, Gohmert mistakenly believed that the scorn directed at him was due to the acronym "BLM" (as if people were confusing it with Black Lives Matter), and replied, "Exceedingly devious how you hid the context with an ellipses [sic] in your tweet. The hearing was about the BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT & climate change. BLM stands for the BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT", failing to realize people were laughing at him for asking his question seriously. Scientific American pointed out the practical and theoretical problems involved in Gohmert's proposal.

LGBT rights

Gohmert opposes LGBT rights. In 2010, Gohmert opposed allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the U.S. military. In 2015, Gohmert cosponsored a resolution to amend the US constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Gohmert also cosponsored a resolution disagreeing with the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional. In 2019, he expressed strong opposition to the Equality Act, a bill that would protect LGBT people against discrimination.

Scientific research funding

On March 22, 2016, Gohmert was one of four representatives to vote against H.R. 4742 (383 voted for it), a bill to authorize the National Science Foundation to support entrepreneurial programs for women. He said the following in defense of his position: he acknowledged the bill was "well-intentioned" but said "this program is designed to discriminate against that young, poverty-stricken boy and to encourage the girl. Forget the boy. Encourage the girl."

Foreign policy and national security

On May 15, 2013, Gohmert said in a House Judiciary Hearing that he believed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not act with due diligence concerning alleged bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev. His contention was that the FBI was more interested in Christian groups such as those led by Billy and Franklin Graham than in groups that might be considered less politically correct to target. Attorney General Eric Holder responded to his claims: "The only observation I was going to make is that you state as a matter of fact what the FBI did and did not do. Unless somebody has done something inappropriate, you don't have access to the FBI files ... I know what the FBI did. You cannot know what I know. That's all". Gohmert objected to this on the grounds that Holder had "challenge[d]" his character and made several unsuccessful attempts to inject his viewpoint as a point of personal privilege.

In April 2018, Gohmert testified at a hearing supporting Derrick Miller, a former US Army National Guardsman Sergeant who was sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole for the premeditated murder of an Afghan civilian during a battlefield interrogation.

In September 2021, Gohmert was among 75 House Republicans to vote against the National Defense Authorization Act of 2022, which contains a provision that would require women to be drafted.

Gohmert was among 19 House Republicans to vote against the final passage of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.

In June 2021, Gohmert was one of 49 House Republicans to vote to repeal the AUMF against Iraq.

Muslim Brotherhood

On June 13, 2012, Gohmert was one of five Republican United States representatives (with Michele Bachmann, Trent Franks, Tom Rooney, and Lynn Westmoreland) to send letters to the Inspectors General of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the Department of State outlining their "serious national security concerns" and asking for "answers to questions regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical groups' access to top Obama administration officials." In the letter, the lawmakers wrote about information they claimed "raises serious questions about Department of State policies and activities that appear to be a result of influence operations conducted by individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood."

A letter to Ambassador Harold W. Geisel, the Deputy Inspector General of the United States Department of State, mentioned the Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, as an example of the undue influence. The letter said that Abedin, wife of former U.S. representative Anthony Weiner, who had access to sensitive national security and policy information, "has three family members—her late father, her mother and her brother—connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations", as backed up by a study by the Center for Security Policy.

The letter and the Center for Security Policy's accusation were widely denounced as a smear, and achieved "near-universal condemnation", including from several prominent Republicans such as John McCain, John Boehner, Scott Brown, and Marco Rubio.

Newt Gingrich praised Gohmert and his colleagues as the "National Security Five" in a Politico editorial. Gingrich wrote that he favored investigating the Muslim Brotherhood, and made clear his support for Gohmert and the other four representatives for raising concerns that improve national security. Conservative columnist Cal Thomas replied, to accusations of "McCarthyism", that the real possibility of infiltration by Islamic extremists deserves to be investigated.

Immigration

In November 2007, Gohmert introduced private relief bill, H.R. 4070, which would have stalled the deportation of an Albanian restaurateur from Gohmert's district who had fled to the United States in January 2001 after his brother witnessed the murder of a leading member of the Democratic Party of Albania.

Gohmert voted against the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019 which would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the per-country numerical limitation for employment-based immigrants, to increase the per-country numerical limitation for family-sponsored immigrants, and for other purposes.

Gohmert voted against the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 which authorizes DHS to nearly double the available H-2B visas for the remainder of FY 2020.

Gohmert voted against Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 1158) which effectively prohibits ICE from cooperating with Health and Human Services to detain or remove illegal alien sponsors of unaccompanied alien children (UACs).

In early 2018, Gohmert announced that he had introduced a resolution (H. Res. 791) to change the name of Cesar Chavez Day to Border Control Day, saying, "Chavez spent his life addressing the harmful effects that illegal migration might have on this country and advocating for a legal immigration process." The proposition was criticized by Arizona House Minority Leader Rebecca Rios and members of the Hispanic-American community, who felt it was disrespectful of Chavez's legacy.

Comments on George Soros

In December 2018, Gohmert was a guest on Varney & Co., on Fox Business discussing Google's work in China, when he digressed to say that it reminded him that "George Soros is supposed to be Jewish, but you wouldn't know it from the damage he's inflicted on Israel, and the fact that he turned on fellow Jews and helped take the property that they owned. This same kind of thing—Google coming from a free country and helping oppress." The allegation was criticized by NBC News for allegedly denigrating Soros's surviving the Holocaust.

Within an hour, host Stuart Varney said on air, "In the last hour, one of our guests, Congressman Louie Gohmert, for some reason went out of his way to bring up George Soros, and made unsubstantiated and false allegations against him. I want to make clear those views are not shared by me, this program or anyone at Fox Business." Gohmert later responded that his words had not been anti-Jewish and were actually a "pro-Jewish statement on my part."

Investigations into Donald Trump

Call for Robert Mueller to resign

Gohmert was one of three Republicans who called for the resignation of Robert Mueller, the prosecutor investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, on the grounds that they believed Mueller could not conduct his investigation fairly "because of his relationship with James Comey, his successor at the bureau". As of March 2016, "[s]ix people connected to President Trump have been charged by the special counsel with an array of crimes, including financial fraud and lying to Congress and investigators. Five have been convicted or pleaded guilty. Twenty-eight others, including 26 Russians, also face charges." Mueller did not exonerate Trump on the issue of obstruction, a fact he reiterated during the House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Whistleblower outing

In an open impeachment hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Gohmert spoke the name of a man widely thought to be the whistleblower whose complaint sparked the first impeachment of Donald Trump.

COVID-19

Although there is no evidence of its effectiveness, Gohmert strongly supports the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, as he told Sean Hannity of Fox News in July 2020. He urged the Food and Drug Administration in April 2020 to approve the drug as an official treatment. In April 2020, Gohmert was criticized after falsely claiming that Germany had invented a "mist" that killed the coronavirus.

Gohmert tested positive for COVID-19 on July 29, 2020, a day after he attended a House Judiciary Committee hearing without wearing a mask, a practice he had largely maintained for some time. In an interview, he suggested that he might have contracted the disease from wearing a mask. An anonymous Gohmert aide emailed Politico with complaints, thanking Politico for letting the office know Gohmert tested positive; that "Louie requires full staff to be in the office, including three interns, so that 'we could be an example to America on how to open up safely'"; and that "people were often berated for wearing a mask". Gohmert said he planned to take hydroxychloroquine as part of his treatment. On September 19, he was reported to be "glad to be on the other side" and to have donated his blood plasma (presumably for use in convalescent plasma therapy).

2020 election and capitol attack

In December 2020, Gohmert was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of an election held by another state.

Gohmert v. Pence

On December 27, 2020, Gohmert filed a federal lawsuit against Vice President Mike Pence in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, authored by attorney Lawrence J. Joseph, in an attempt to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election. Gohmert's lawsuit alleged that the Electoral Count Act of 1887 was unconstitutional, seeking to grant the Vice President the power to reject state-certified presidential electors in favor of "competing slates of electors". Gohmert was joined in his lawsuit by 11 Arizona Republicans who would have become presidential electors had Trump actually won Arizona. The United States Department of Justice represented Pence in the case and argued for its dismissal.

On January 1, 2021, Gohmert's lawsuit was dismissed by federal judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, because the plaintiffs lacked standing. Kernodle ruled that Gohmert lacked standing due to precedent set by the Supreme Court in 1997: alleging an "institutional injury to the House of Representatives" does not grant Gohmert standing to sue. Additionally, Kernodle ruled that the injury Gohmert was alleging depended on so many hypothetical and not yet realized events that it was "far too uncertain to support standing". Gohmert failed to make a case for how he was injured "as an individual", Kernodle said. As for the other plaintiffs, Kernodle ruled that they lacked standing because the injury they alleged was "not fairly traceable" to Pence.

Gohmert appealed the district court's ruling that day. He also reacted to the dismissal by declaring that with "no remedy" provided, "in effect the ruling would be that you gotta go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM."

On January 2, a three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit speedily and tersely rejected Gohmert's appeal; they "affirm the judgment" of the district court, "essentially for the reasons stated by the district court". The judges who presided over the appeal were Andrew Oldham (appointed by Trump), Patrick Higginbotham and Jerry Edwin Smith (both appointed by Ronald Reagan).

Gohmert then appealed to the Supreme Court; the Court rejected the petition on January 7.

January 6 Capitol attack

According to a U.S. Capitol Police intelligence assessment, during a Newsmax interview on January 1, 2021, "Gohmert claimed that letting the will of the voters stand would 'mean the end of our republic, the end of the experiment in self-government'" and "then seemed to encourage violence as a means to this end." The assessment quoted Gohmert saying, in part, "you gotta go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM." Gohmert denied he had advocated violence.

Gohmert was one of the 147 members of Congress to vote against certifying the results of the 2020 Electoral College in Congress on January 7, 2021, the day after the Capitol attack.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the Trump administration, testified to the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack that Gohmert, as well as other lawmakers, requested a pardon from President Trump after the Capitol attack; Gohmert denied asking for a pardon for himself and said the January 6 committee hearings were "become nothing more than a Soviet-style propaganda production." In June 2021, Gohmert was one of 21 House Republicans to vote against a resolution to give the Congressional Gold Medal to police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 United States Capitol attack.

In July 2021, Gohmert suggested the Capitol attack was a conspiracy possibly set up by Democrats. In September 2022, upon the release of convicted January 6 participant Simone Gold from federal prison, he gave Gold an American flag that had flown on the Capitol.

In June 2022, Gohmert said, "if you're a Republican, you can't even lie to Congress or lie to an FBI agent or they're coming after you", in response to the indictment of Trump adviser Peter Navarro for non-compliance with the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. In contrast, Gohmert claimed, "If you're a Democrat, then you can lie. You can cheat", referencing the acquittal of lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Support for impeaching Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas

Gohmert was one of 32 Republican congress members to cosponsor Andy Biggs' August 2021 resolution to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. He was also one of six Republican congress members to cosponsor Lauren Boebert's September 2021 resolution to impeach President Biden.

Committee assignments

Committee on the Judiciary

• Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice
• Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations

Committee on Natural Resources (Ranking Member)

• Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
• Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

Caucus memberships

Gohmert with Ben Shapiro in 2018

• Freedom Caucus
• Israel Allies Caucus
• United States Congressional International Conservation Caucus
• Tea Party Caucus
• Republican Study Committee
• Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus
• Congressional Western Caucus

Texas Attorney General candidacy

In November 2021, Gohmert announced his candidacy in the 2022 Texas Attorney General election to challenge incumbent Ken Paxton in a crowded Republican primary. He made the announcement to run after saying he would join the race if he could reach $1 million in political donations in 10 days. He stated he had reached the goal; however, campaign finance report show Gohmert had not met the $1 million goal. Gohmert ended last in the four-candidate primary.

Electoral history

Personal life

A Southern Baptist, Gohmert attends Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, where he has served as a deacon and teaches Sunday school. He and his wife Kathy have three daughters.

See also

• Conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal
• United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack public hearings