Grassley Using Judiciary Committee Chairmanship to Enable Epstein Files Cover Up; Bi-Partisan Senate Group Launches “Work Around” Effort
PLUS: Long Over-due Farm Bill Tracker Update
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - US Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), above, seems determined to reduce to rubble whatever legacy and reputation remains from his long-ago glory days as a leading congressional watch dog. He is now more of a chief enabler of the on-going cover up of the Epstein files. PHOTO CREDIT: Screen shot/US Senate Judiciary Committee webpage
(WASHINGTON, DC) - U.S. Senator Chuck Grssley (R-IA) is using his Chairmanship of the US Senate Judiciary Committee to enable the on-going effort by Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) to cover-up the Epstein criminal files in which President Trump is reportedly named thousands of times.
It’s a very odd role for a senator to choose, especially one who was once one of the US Senate’s most active investigators of government corruption. Now he enables it. By doing nothing.
Trump’s Justice Department was required by law to release the full Epstein criminal files by December 19, 2025, a date it missed. Half of the documents remain unreleased yet today. The DOJ says it isn’t releasing any more.
The law also required that redactions to those documents be very limited - only to protect “victims’ privacy and national security. It specifically prohibited redactions based on reputational harm or political sensitivity.
Yet not only did the DOJ ignore the required release date, it went way over-board with out of control redactions, with documents often so heavily redacted as to be useless.
When members of Congress insisted on privately viewing un-redacted copies of the files, they discovered the number and scope of the redactions was only part of the problem. Many reported much of the redactions violated the law, were not limited to protecting victims’ privacy or national security as the law required, and often seemed aimed to shield reputations and political figures from public exposure.
Allegations against Donald Trump were among the improper redactions several said, with some documents that appeared to name Trump held back entirely, also in violation of the law.
Last summer there were reports that 1,000 FBI agents had been ordered to review the files and “flag” Trump mentions.
Oddly enough, Grassley has shown no interest in, and has scheduled no investigative hearings on, how or why any of that happened.
Crickets, in fact, from Grassley.
Grassley’s silence and inaction on the DOJ’s massive violation of the law enables its on going Epstein files cover-up by refusing to do what most other Chairmen of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee would have normally done long ago when confronted with on-going, wholesale, public violations of the law by the Department of Justice:
Conduct investigative hearings to hold accountable the department and individuals responsible for violating the law.
Grassley claims to want the truth to come out about Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes and those who were involved with him in committing them.
Yet, he has done precious little as Chairman of the Senate committee with legislative jurisdiction over the Department of Justice to make that happen. That inaction is particularly hard to explain given Grassley’s background as a very active investigator of corruption in the federal government earlier in his career.
The DOJ’s failure to comply with the law is a daily violation of that law. Many contend it also a slap in the face to every Epstein survivor seeking justice.
That’s a very strange position for the Department of Justice to be in.
It’s an even stranger one for the once dogged investigator of government corruption to be ignoring.
Now, a bi-partisan group of Grassley’s Senate colleagues, apparently also fed up with his enabling of the Epstein files cover-up, have launched an “end run” or “work around” effort to get answers that Grassley apparently doesn’t want asked or to which he does not want to hear the answers.
The bi-partisan Senate group includes Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
On Wednesday (March 11), Durbin and Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Lisa Murkowski, (R-AK) and Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) wrote to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to ask the independent, nonpartisan agency to conduct an audit and report to Congress on the DOJ’s and Executive Branch’s redaction process and decisions.
“As Congress continues to seek justice for the victims of Epstein and his co-conspirators, GAO can offer an independent inquiry into the process undertaken by DOJ in redacting and releasing these files - assessing DOJ’s diligence and whether the release of these files has served to cover up child sexual abuse,” the Senators - from both parties - wrote in their letter.
BTW, I wrote last week about an email response an Iowan received from Senator Grassley to a letter asking that he hold hearings to investigate the DOJ’s wholesale failure to comply with the “Epstein Files Transparency Act.”
Grassley’s reply was a 22 paragraph e-mail which amounted to an electronic filibuster. It never did directly answer the question - will Grassley convene investigative hearings to get to the bottom of the DOJ’s utter failre to comply with the law - much less promise to do so.
The letter was sent to me out of the writer’s frustration with Grassley’s inaction and unresponsiveness to the question Grassley’s constituent put to him.
It appears Grassley’s Senate colleagues are also growing weary of the same enabling behavior from Grassley and are now moving on - on their own - to get answers to the questions Grassley should be asking but won’t.
One of those questions is: Has the DOJ’s handling of the release of the Epstein documents, “served to cover up child sexual abuse?”
It is sickening to know that such a question needs to be asked, especially when the context for such a question includes a President of the United States.
It’s even sadder to know that Iowa’s senior senator - who first entered elective office when John F. Kennedy was a Senator from Massachusetts and Ike Eisenhower was in the White House - is choosing to close out his public career enabling such a cover-up by not being willing ask that question or hear the answer when there seem to be as many red flags as there are cornstalks in Iowa.
LONG OVER-DUE FARM BILL TRACKER: DAY #896
No Iowa Farmer Would Operate This Way. Why Should Congress?
(WASHINGTON, DC) - Imagine harvesting a field of corn 896 days late. There is not a farmer in Iowa who would consider that acceptable.
Yet, that is exactly what Congress has done with a new federal Farm Bill to replace the one that expired 896 days ago (as of Sunday, March 15, 2026).
There is, however, one big difference.
In this imaginary, hypothetical situation, the corn field got harvested on Day #896.
In Congress, on Day #896, there is still no new Farm Bill.
The old Farm Bill, written and enacted in 2018, expired on September 30, 2023. That’s 8 years ago! Two full crop years and heading into a third, the clock is still ticking on a new Farm Bill, way past the deadline for enacting a new one to replace the old one before it expired.
The House Agriculture Committee finally at least woke up from its 886 day nap on March 5, and “marked up” HR 7567, the new Farm Bill. Little has been heard about it since. It has not passed the House or Senate. Cob webs are still gathering on what used to be urgent, “must pass” federal farm legislation.
Iowans have a special role in, and a direct, hands-on responsibility for this spectacular failure of Congress to do right by farmers. Two thirds of Iowa’s congressional delegation serve on either the House or Senate Agriculture Committeess: Reps. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA) in the House; Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) in the Senate. As members of the Agriculture Committees, they have a special responsibility to move this legislation to enactment, a responsibility they have either shirked or failed to deliver on for 896 days so far.
The other two Iowans in Congress - Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-ist IA) and Ashley Hinson (R-2nd IA) - as representatives of one of the nation’s leading farm states also have a special obligation to get Congress to enact a strong Farm Bill, but there is even less evidence that either has been working to do so over the past 896 days.
And counting.
THE CONGRESSIONAL MAIL BAG:
US Rep. Randy Feenstra’s Disingenuousness Exposed
(WASHINGTON, DC) - When it comes to disingenuousness in Congress, it’s hard to beat US Rep. Zach Nunn (R - IA 3rd) but Rep. Randy Feenstra (R- IA 4th) is giving him some good hard competition.
The following comes from Feenstra’s taxpayer financed government web page:
“Farmers don’t have the luxury of waiting on Washiington, D.C. gridlock and endless policy debates. In Iowa, agricluture is not just an industry, it is the backbone of our economy. That’s why, as a member of the House Agriculture Committee, I was proud to pass the Farm Bill out of committee, to deliver a strong five=year commitment to put farmers, ranchers, and rural communities first.”
Unmentioned by Feenstra, of course:
Feenstra has “delivered” nothing, since no bill has been enacted. It still has a long, and very uncertain road ahead of it.
The new Farm Bill Feenstra is so proud of it passing out of the House Agriculture Committee, of which - yes - he is very much a member, is 896 days over due as of Sunday, March 15.
As a member of the committee which has failed to enact it all that time, he very much bears a big and direct responsibility for that failure.
The bill has not been delayed by “endless policy debates,” over it. It’s barely been mentioned by anybody - Feenstra or any other Republican on the Ag Committee or off - over the past 896 days.
The reason it is so late is because Republicans - who control the committee and the Congress - have intentionally neglected and ignored it. They have been content to let it ”twist slowly, slowly in the wind” while they chase other priorities: slashing taxes for America’s biggest billionaires, destroying access to affordable health care and health insurance for millions of Americans, making it harder for American citizens - and for millions of Americans, impossible - to vote on Election Day, and allowing Trump to pour gasoline on the fires of inflation without protest.
And of course, hiding the Epstein files and dismantling American democracy.
Republican majorities which run Washington, DC have other priorities. Farmers, ranchers and rural communities - and the Farm Bill - aren’t on any of their priority lists.
But now Mr. Feenstra wants us to think he’s been in a hurry to pass the Farm Bill all along and that its all these non-existent, Feenstra-imagined “endless policy debates” over the bill that have been the problem rather than his own negligence, inaction, silence and ineffectiveness as a member of the committee.
If Randy Feenstra has been busy putting farmers, ranchers, and rural communities first - why are we 896 days down the road from the expiration of the old Farm Bill and still don’t have a new one?
Feenstra’s disingenuousness is on a scale that Rep. Zack Nunn must truly envy.
SOUNDBITES & RUMBLINGS:
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Donald Trump has turned governing into a demolition derby. By the time he gets done wrecking everything, we’re going to need a “Marshall Plan” to rebuild American democracy.
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Thanks for bearing witness, Barry! It's shameful.
Received the same pablum from him by email, and was so astonished by the cut and paste job that I felt like it was assembled by the DOJ.