Et tu, Comrade Grassley?
Collapse of conspiracy theory Iowa's Senator pushed takes a more sinister turn
Last week I noted that “information” provided by an FBI “informant” released against the wishes of the FBI last summer by Senator Chuck Grassley - and which became the core of House Republican efforts to impeach President Biden - collapsed spectacularly when the informant, Alexander Smirnov, was arrested by the FBI for lying about everything.
The FBI had warned Republicans - including Grassley - that the information was uncorroborated and its accuracy unknown. Yet Grassley released it any way and described the informant as “heroic.” Other Republicans picked up the “information” and also vouched for it, even making it a central part of their effort in the House to impeach Biden and remove him from office.
This week the story took an even more sinister turn when Smirnov admitted that his lies were developed in coordination with Russian intelligence operatives..
Despite that new twist, Grassley still has had little to say about any of it, except - through an aide, of course - to call on the Biden administration to provide “more information.”
Which is an an absurd response, second only to his continued silence since then. Even the Republican Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, told the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday, “I don’t know. Maybe the guy did lie.”
Still. Nothing from Grassley.
Grassley owes a lot of people much more than silence. He owes the president an apology. He owes the American people and Iowans - in whose name he pushed the lies - a prompt and thorough explanation.
He also probably owes federal law enforcement an explanation, as well. How does a US Senator - once considered a fierce Senate investigator of wasteful spending and corruption in government - wind up pushing, and vouching repeatedly for, a liar peddling disinformation developed by Russian intelligence officials? Especially, disinformation aimed at removing from office a democratically elected President of the United States, elected in a free and fair election?
How does that happen??
Which, by the way, prompts a first ever correction and apology from this column, as follows:
CORRECTION: Last week this column suggested that Senator Chuck Grassley had apparently decided to “take a sledge hammer” to whatever positive legacy he had built up over his 65 years in public office.
In light of developments this past week, this column now recognizes that the use of the words “sledge hammer” was a poor and inappropriate choice of words, which the author now regrets. The column should have read that Senator Grassley had apparently decided to “take a jackhammer” to whatever positive legacy he had built up over his 65 years in public office.
The damage Grassley is doing to his legacy in his final years in the Senate is far more rapid and massively more destructive than a mere sledge hammer could ever achieve. A much more powerful jackhammer metaphor would have clearly been more appropriate.
This columnist regrets the error.
What happened this past week is astounding, stuff straight out of a spy novel that would never be published because the plot is too bizarre. Yet this is real.
Grassley is right in the middle of it all.
The Senator has had plenty of time to come up with an explanation for this ungodly mess in which he now finds himself, if there is an actual, acceptable explanation. Apparently there is not. Because Grassley has offered nothing.
At this poiont, Grassley’s only explanation options appear limited to just two:
Explain how he was so easily duped by Smirnov and the Kremlin on such an important matter;
Reveal whether he was he in on the deception from the beginning to further the bitter partisan attacks Republicans throw at President Biden daily.
Grassley owes every American, but especially Iowans, an explanation. His continued silence - even his now tiresome method of hiding behind written statements (and then taking no direct follow up questions) or hiding behind comments by staff aides - are simply no longer acceptable.
We have a US Senator from Iowa who is in the middle of a scandal involving disinformation that originated from Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, pushed and vouched for by that Iowa Senator, and used by House Republicans to support their partisan attempt to remove an elected President of the United States from office.
This isn’t the first time Grassley, like the arsonist who suspiciously keeps showing up in the front row of spectators who gather to watch buildings burn, has been at or near partisan attacks on democracy.
We have his suspicious comments on January 6 which suggested he was prepared to step in and execute the MAGA over throw of the free and fair election of Joe Biden as President of the United States if then Vice President Mike Pence could be moved out of the way when it was time to begin counting the Electoral College votes; and
We have his central role in the partisan theft of the Supreme Court appointment President Obama had a constitutional duty to make during the final year of the Obama presidency.
People have been giving Senator Grassley the benefit of the doubt for far too long and for too many years. I have always said he was a reasonably good public official in his early years. I have also always said he has been far more partisan behind the curtains than most people see.
As his career enters its twilight years, his partisanship has only grown, as he increasingly simply follows often ill advised and destructive instructions from his party leaders.
If Senator Grassley doesn’t care about what is happening to his legacy, Iowans ought to care. His partisan destruction is all carried out in their name, with the license their seat in the Senate grants him to act on important public matters.
Senator Grassley needs to start answering questions - literally. Not his aides. Not with press releases that preclude follow up questions from reporters.
Which is it?
Was the “once fierce” Senate investigator so easily duped on something so important? If so, how?
Or, was Senator Grassley in on a Russian disinformation campaign from the beginning, one aimed at removing a democratically elected American president from office as part of Putin’s plan to destabilize American democracy?
If Iowa’s senior Senator doesn’t start providing some answers soon, the only question that will remain for Americans and Iowans is a simple one: Et tu, Comrade Grassley?
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The senator has become little more than a pathetic pawn in a dangerous game. Why Iowans voted to send him back to the Senate is beyond me. Chuck has become the very definition of a useful idiot.
Thanks, Barry, for calling out Grassley on this, among other, atrocities. But this is a big one. We all deserve answers to those questions you posed, but we know we will not receive them. He is not only not accountable to Iowans and the the rest of the country, he cannot even be accountable to himself. Keep after 'em. We all appreciate your hard work