11 Questions for Senator Chuck Grassley
First Up: Has MAGA toadyism become the new defining characteristic of Iowa's 91 year old US Senator who once bragged about his "independence?"
At 91, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) isn’t what he used to be. I think we can all agree on that.
But what he is becoming these days in the Senate is more than simply what the inevitable effects of age on a 91 year old man in a very demanding job can explain. What we - Iowa and the nation - are getting from Chuck Grassley these days is alarming, disappointing, and embarrassing.
Today, he is the oldest currently serving US Senator, the longest serving Republican in congressional history, and the sixth longest serving US Senator in history. He is, by tradition, the likely next President Pro Tempore of the Senate, a position which is usually filled by the senior Senator of the majority party - which starting in January will be Grassley’s Republican Party.
No Republican in the Senate has been there longer than Grassley, which means, unless Senate Republicans decide to junk tradition and dump Grassley, the job - which is #3 in the line of succession to the US presidency - is his.
Grassley’s seniority also means he is expected to become the chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in January when Republicans take over. That’s the committee that holds confirmation hearings and votes “yea” or “nay” on whether to send some very important presidential nominations to the full Senate for consideration - like Supreme Court nominees, the US Attorney General and the Director of the FBI.
Is Grassley up to all that?
For those who haven’t checked in on Iowa’s literal “senior” senator for quite a while and remember only the fearless, independent seeker of truth and enemy of wasteful spending he once claimed to be - and even appeared to be, at times - the answer might be “Heck, yes!”
But that Chuck Grassley hasn’t shown up in the Senate for years.
According to numerous press reports, whispers have already started - from fellow Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, all anonymous of course - about whether Republicans really want to leave Grassley in charge.
In public, he has his defenders, of course.
In private, not all are convinced, even within the Judicary Committee, not even among his own Republican Party members.
That discussion will resolve itself next month when the new Congress convenes, but whatever you think about that, what Chuck Grassley has been saying in public lately about some of Donald Trump’s top nominations that will come before the Judiciary Committee is troubling enough.
For example: when Trump nominated Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to be the next Attorney General, Grassley’s response was strange given Grassley’s history in the Senate.
Gaetz was probably the most corrupt and unqualified nominee ever put forward for the post by a president-elect. If ever there was a time for a fire-breathing response from a senior Republican and prospective Judiciary Committee chairman this was that time.
Grassley was oddly quiet.
The Ethics Committee in the US House of Representatives had a virtually completed investigation of allegations of rampant corruption and sexual misconduct against Gaetz that was just days away from release before he resigned from the House.
It looked like a gambit to keep the committee from releasing its report, its conclusions, and its evidence from ever being released, though there was ample precedent to allow such release.
Grassley was asked if the Senate Judiciary Committee ought to request it and at least look at it.
Grassley didn’t think so. Oh, you know, the Senate Judiciary Committee staff could handle that on its own, he said.
Excuse anybody who watched that committee’s investigation under Grassley of allegations against now Justice Brett Kavanaugh for not being reassured by Grassley’s response.
The fact that there was a completed investigation and report by a bipartisan group of congressional colleagues available to review as part of its inquiry apparently wasn’t of much interest to Senator Grassley. Keep in mind there was nothing to stop the Senate Judiciary Committee from doing its own investigation if it wanted to do so, even if it did ask to see the report by the House Ethics Committee.
Senators were also free to draw their own conclusions about what the report told them about Gaetz.
But, you know. I mean, it wasn’t like the Pentagon paid too much money for a hammer or anything. This didn’t rise to that level, seemed to be Grassley’s view.
Strange. Maybe he was just having a bad day.
But then along comes Trump’s nominee to be a new FBI Director. While one would think Trump had scraped the bottom of the barrel in nominating Matt Gaetz, the nomination of Kash Patel for the FBI post is arguably even worse, and called for strong response from a Judiciary Committee chairman, given what is already on the public record.
But again, that’s not what we got from Grassley.
Patel has been a strong Trump ally - to the point of embracing absurd conspiracy theories to excuse Trump and MAGA misconduct. While Grassley hasn’t said how he’ll vote on confirmation, he’s been doing a lot of gushing about Patel, a MAGA favorite.
Patel is a proponent of the “Big Lie” that Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election.
He claims the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol was actually the work of undercover FBI agents trying to smear Trump supporters.
He claims those accused of crimes at the Capitol on January 6 - even those who have been tried and convicted, or who pled guilty - have been defamed, and were wrongly prosecuted. They did nothing wrong. Those who prosecuted them, Patel says, must now be prosecuted in retribution.
Patel pledges to criminally investigate the work of the January 6 committee in the US House - something the US Constitution would appear to bar, and something one would reasonably assume a prospective FBI Director would know.
He claims the “deep state” - the right wing’s list of fantasy enemies whose “great sin” has been to do their jobs as the law requires - must be destroyed.
The man the next president says he wants to be his FBI Director has published an “enemies list” of “deep state” political targets he says must now be removed and criminally prosecuted for their work.
Among those on Patel’s enemies list: the former top aide to Trump’s White House Chief of Staff. Twenty eight year old Cassidy Hutchinson committed no crime, but she did - when asked - testify before the US House January 6 committee about what she saw and heard in the White House on January 6, 2021, the day Trump and his MAGA goons tried to overthrow the government.
In other words, she did her patriotic duty. That alone was enough to land her on Patel’s “enemies list.” That alone made her a member of the “deep state.”
Patel’s list is full of similar dangerous nonsense.
Those are some pretty nutty and dangerous ideas for an FBI Director to bring to the table, but Grassley doesn’t seem to notice.
On the contrary, Grassley praises Patel as someone who has been, and presumably will be, “very, very helpful to us on uncovering wrong doing in government.”
Given Chuck Grassley’s increasing toadyism on behalf of the MAGA Republicans - of which there seems to be no limit - and the apparent lack of red flags raised for Grassley by what Patel has said publicly already, here are 11 questions I think the senator needs to answer:
Senator Grassley, have you or Mr. Patel explained to the families of the dead US Capitol Police officers who died as a result of the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol that nothing illegal happened at the Capitol on that day, and if it it did, it was undercover FBI agents who did it? If so, what was the evidence you presented to them. How was that claim and your evidence received by the families?
How about the nearly 150 Capitol police officers who were seriously injured that day? Have either of you explained to them that it was actually undercover FBI agents who were trying to kill them? What evidence did you show them, to back up that assertion? What was their reaction to you claim and your evidence, if any.
How does Mr. Patel’s blaming undercover FBI agents for the January 6 violence - without evidence - square with the Republican Party’s claim to support law enforcement?
Since you don’t seem to find Mr. Patel’s false claims about who won the 2020 election disqualifying, what do you and Mr. Patel know that 60 federal courts didn’t know when they rejected Trump lawsuits that claimed Trump actually won the the 2020 election?
Senator, Grassley, do you think it is appropriate for an FBI Director to come to office with a political hit list of individuals who he says he will prosecute? Even though their only “crime” was to oppose or testify against the president who appointed him to office? Or to do their actual jobs as defined by law?
Was the FBI acting as an instrument of political weaponization against Republicans when it prosecuted the president’s son, Hunter Biden?
How about when it prosecuted and convicted Democratic Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) for bribery and corruption?
Was the FBI blocking transparency when it turned over to you its raw investigative files of Hunter Biden?
Exactly what anti-Republican political agenda was the FBI following when it pursued and completed both the prosecutions of the Democratic president’s son and a sitting Democratic US Senator?
You recently told reporters you want to hold Judiciary Committee hearings on Donald Trump’s new nominee for Attorney General - Pam Bondi - even before Donald Trump is inaugurated. Given that he wouldn’t be president yet, and therefore would not have officially submitted a nomination to the Senate for anybody for anything, how do you square that with your refusal to hold any hearings at all for President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, when Obama had a full year remaining in office?
Do you agree with Mr. Patel that Donald Trump, in reality, won the 2020 election? If you do not, do you intend to ask him why he believes Trump actually won - and what that might tell us about his ability to review and evaluate evidence and make just, fair and accurate decisions based on that evidence?
Senator Grassley hasn’t said yet how he will vote on the Kash Patel nomination. He doesn’t have to; it’s pretty clear where this is going.
Iowa’s once mighty, fearless, independent investigator has become a mere party hack in his old age. If he had only known when to leave the stage.
I say that with sadness.
Thanks for this, Barry, and I agree with your horror at the change in our senior senator. The only caveat for me is, I don’t blame his age. I give him full responsibility. I think holding on to power has removed any vestige of moral clarity.
I hope I'm wrong, but it appears to me that Senator Grassley has something in his background that he would rather not be divulged. His gratitude of having President Trump's endorsement several years ago and his reluctance to question how more tariffs will likely have a negative impact on our Country's prosperity are also cause for concern. The original Trump Tariffs destroyed sales of Soybeans to China and China now buys from Brazil, where labor costs are much lower and they no longer need us as a supplier. Mr. Trump promised 'big oil' that if they helped him win election, he'd do away with mandates. One large mandate is Ethanol in gasoline. Half of Iowa's corn production goes for Ethanol, with several companies processing it. C'mon Senator, use your wisdom to be a Statesman rather than a 'yes' man.