Iowa's Self-Confessed, Powerless U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley
His Fort Madison town meeting revealed just how useless the nation's longest serving U.S. Senator has become
First, I give Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) credit for this much: he holds town hall meetings. Not a lot of them, but some. That’s more than most of his Republican colleagues are willing to do so far in the Trump 2.0 presidency. They are so afraid of their constituents, and what those voters (and employers, by the way) might ask them, that most of them skip town meetings altogether, preferring to remain silent while President Trump is busy demolishing America’s democracy and selling it for parts, all with their quiet - silent even - acquiescence.
So, at age 91 - yes - I give Chuck Grassley credit for doing what the vast majority of his younger Republican colleagues are not willing to do. Hold a town meeting.
While I give Grassley credit for holding a town meeting, that is not the same as saying he does them well. He does not.
“If there is a constitutional crisis it is not being caused by President Trump,” was one of the gems that came out of Senator Grassley’s mouth at his Fort Madison town hall meeting this past week.
Another classic was his answer to the question from one attendee, “We would like to know what you as the people, the Congress, who are supposed to rein in this dictator, what are you going to do about these people who have been sentenced to life in prison in a foreign country with no due process?”
That question was followed by a shouted demand from another Iowan in the audience: “Bring back the guy from El Salvador!”
Grassley’s response was that he isn’t going to do anything to bring the aforementioned “guy in El Salvador” - Kilmar Abrego Garcia - back and had nothing to say about preventing future abductions and deportations without due process
Garcia committed no crime, much less been convicted of one. He was snatched off the street here in America and flown to El Salvador to spend the rest of his life in hell hole prison, without so much as a single court appearance. There is no evidence he was a member of any gang. Quite the opposite. He fled El Salvador because a gang was trying to kill him because he wouldn’t join the gang there.
Why won’t Grassley do anything?
“That’s not a power of Congress,” Grassley shrugged.
What a pathetic answer.
Grassley claims its is impossible for him, or his congressional colleagues - a majority of whom are fellow Republicans in both chambers - to do anything about this gross miscarriage of justice.
First, contrast Grassley’s professed helplessness with the action taken by his Senate colleage from Maryland, Senator Chis Van Hollen (D). The Maryland senator flew to El Salvador this past week and demanded to see his constituent - Kilmar Abrego Garcia - who even Trump’s Department of Justice admitted in open court was snatched off the street and sent to a hell hole prison in El Salvador for life by mistake.
Once in El Salvador, Van Hollen demanded to see Garcia, and when denied, essentially said he wasn’t leaving El Salvador until he did.
Van Hollen acted. He didn’t make pitiful excuses for not acting.. He didn’t whimper that doing something was “not a power of Congress.”
I can’t believe it is even necessary to do this, but at this point, I would like to remind the Chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee - Chuck Grassley - that the US Constitution, states clearly in its Fifth Amendment, that “No person shall….be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
“No person.”
That’s pretty inclusive.
Nobody within our borders was left out of that guarantee.
Yet the self proclaimed greatest “deal maker” who ever lived, Donald Trump, President of the United States, claims there is nothing he can do to ensure that right to Mr. Garcia.
Trump is, in fact, defying a Supreme Court order to deny Mr. Garcia that right.
The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee - Iowa’s Chuck Grassley - is willing to play along with that authoritarian nonsense as Trump skips down the path to fascist dictatorship. Grassley claims there’s nothing he can do, either.
This is the man who spent years chasing down Hunter Biden’s lap top in pursuit of a scandal that didn’t exist, and that the FBI directly informed him was false, and originated with Russian operatives allied with Vladimir Putin.
That - well - Chuck Grassley was all over that. It promised partisan advantage just by kicking up some dust about it, whether there was any truth in it or not, so of course he was all over that.
That whole mess is a stain on Grassley’s reputation as a credible investigator that will never go away. It was the final straw - certainly not the first - that flipped Grassley’s reputation from an actual honest broker/investigator to that of pure, patently, partisan hack willing to say and do anything to advance the cause of bitter Republican partisanship
There’s nothing Grassley can do?
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee?
Really?
Since neither the senator nor his staff can come up with any ideas on what he might do while the president is shredding the constitution and putting in place a fascist dictatorship, let me offer a few ideas to help “prime the pump.”
How about meeting with the President of the United States, or even sending him a letter, to inform him that he’s in dangerous territory when he ignores both the constitution and a Supreme Court ruling.
For starters, Grassley could tell Trump to back off, and respect the constitution and our democracy.
As the Senate’s senior Republican, you’d think leadership from Grassley on this matter would mean something, to somebody - if not the president, then at least to other Senate Republicans, and certainly to history and the future survival of America’s democracy.
How about convening a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to assess the damage done to our democracy and system of justice when a president thumbs his nose at the constitution, and the Supreme Court?
Or a hearing to examine the constitutional and legal issues and consequences involved in this controversy.
What are the implications of the power Trump is asserting in this case? Specifically, are any of us safe if a president can summarily grab anybody off the street, ship them off to El Salvador without so much as a single court hearing, and leave them there in a hell hole prison for the rest of their life? Seems like somebody in Congress ought to be examining that question. If not the Senate Juidicary Committee, then who?
That’s just for starters. I’m sure the senator and his staff can come up with more, even better ones, if they put their minds to it - which they have clearly failed to do so far.
Surprisingly, Grassley’s pitiful statement that “If there is a constitutional crisis, it’s not being caused by President Trump” - as pitiful as it is - actually has a grain of truth in it.
Yes, of course it is being caused by President Trump. But it is also being caused by fearful, quivering and spineless House and Senate Republicans like Grassley who won’t do their job, won’t speak up and don’t hold Donald Trump accountable when he torches the constitution he swore an oath to uphold - as did Grassley, by the way.
WEEKLY OVERDUE FARM BILL TICKER - 568 DAYS: The number of days that have passed since the 2018 Farm Bill expired on September 30, 2023, without Congress passing a new one. (Total days as of Sunday, 04/20/2025).
Two thirds of Iowa’s congressional delegation serves on the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Committees: Grassley (R-IA) and Ernst (R-IA) in the Senate; Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Feenstra (R-4th IA) in the House.
There is little indication Congress will act any time soon to pass a new Farm Bill, or if it does - given the Trump-Musk wrecking ball and the eagerness of Republicans in Congress to appease them - that it will be helpful to farmers.
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It’s painful to watch videos of Grassley at his town halls - leaning in, pretending to listen to a constituent’s question, feigning that he cares - then casually gives dismissive and impotent answer.
True, he is there in the room - physically at least. But so are the light fixtures, chairs, and walls - all providing equally effective leadership as Grassley does.
Actually the walls are more useful. At least they do not return to Washington DC and complicitly help to destroy democracy.
The YouTube video was a hoot. Grassley looks as ineffectual as he has been for years. He and his party are cowards who will drive us into totalitarianism. The Democrats aren't doing well, either.