Tag: chuck grassley
Chuck Grassley

Grassley Warns Against 'Strong' Democratic Minority In Senate

Even though President Donald Trump was elected to a second term with Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress and is fulfilling his campaign promises, one high-ranking Senate Republican isn't so sure that Democratic opposition has been quelled.

Politico's Eugene Daniels recently interviewed Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), one of Trump's biggest supporters and the longest-serving sitting U.S. senator. The 91 year-old Republican also chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be ground zero for many of Trump's wish-list items like immigration crackdowns and Supreme Court appointments.

Daniels asked Grassley how confident he felt about his ability to shepherd Trump's legislative agenda through his committee, given his party's recent victory in November. Grassley pushed back, saying that the GOP "ought to be cautious about what appears to be disarray in the Democratic Party." He opined that his own party was more fractured and prone to infighting than the Democratic caucus.

"I think they have the ability to reunify and get back. They’re going to be a strong minority. They don’t look like it today on January 22, but I’ll bet January 22 of 2026, it’ll be a whole different show," Grassley said. "It’ll take them a while to get there, but we can’t take anything for granted that we’re going to have a weak Democratic Party."

While Republicans enjoy a 53-47 majority in the Senate, they're still short of the 60 votes needed to bypass filibusters. This limits Republicans to having to rely on the budget reconciliation process, in which legislation can pass with 51 votes provided it deals with strictly budgetary matters. But even that isn't a sure thing, given that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth needed a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance to get confirmed after three Republicans — including former Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — voted against him. Just four Republican defections could sink a judicial appointment, a Cabinet confirmation, or a reconciliation bill.

"They have the ability to sing off the same song sheet," Grassley said of Democrats. "That’s something Republicans are very bad about. I mean, it may not appear to you today that it’s that bad of a situation for Republicans. But I’m telling you, Democrats are more unified and on the same message. It may not appear today, but they’ll get back there and get back fast."

In the 2026 midterm election, Democrats are defending 13 seats, while Republicans will attempt to keep 20 of their own. Outside of Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Gary Peters (D-MI), the Democrats vying for another six-year term are from relatively safe blue states. However, four Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) — may face competitive opponents in both the Republican primary and the general election. Democrats could reclaim control of the Senate by flipping three of those four seats.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Chuck Grassley

'Flip-Flop Fest': Republicans Whine After Garland Names Hunter Biden Special Counsel

Republicans expressing outrage after Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday elevated the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney investigating Hunter Biden to special counsel status are now being mocked and chastised after it was revealed they have been demanding the Attorney General appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden for over a year.

“Half of the House Republican conference wrote to Merrick Garland last year asking him to appoint a special counsel in the Hunter Biden case. Now that he’s done it they are acting mad,” wrote Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA).

Fritschner pointed to this letter to Garland from April, 2022, signed by nearly 100 House Republicans, demanding he appoint a special counsel.

“We believe that in the case of Hunter Biden a Special Counsel must be appointed to preserve the integrity of this investigation and any subsequent prosecution. A Special Counsel would also ensure there is no bias in the investigation or undue influence from the White House,” the Republicans wrote.

Doing so, they insisted, would “help restore” some “trust for the American people…in government institutions.”

For example, among the House Republicans who signed the April 2022 letter demanding a special counsel, is Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV), who on Friday, responding to a report about the elevation of David Weiss to special counsel status, wrote: “The Biden Justice Department is trying to stonewall congressional oversight. All this while the House Oversight Committee has put fourth mounting evidence of President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s schemes.”

The ridicule of Republicans came quickly.

Fritschner blasted U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Ron Johnson (R-WI):

Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall, pointing to Fritschner’s comments, responded: “Friends don’t let friend[s] try to appease Republicans.”

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), known for his sarcastic and scathing remarks ridiculing Republicans during House committee hearings, ridiculed the entire House GOP Friday afternoon. After pointing to a post from February they made demanding a special counsel, he suggested they might need treatment for amnesia.


Fritschner blasted Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Ron Johnson (R-WI):



That social media post from the House GOP included a letter from Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan blasting Garland for not appointing a special counsel.


National security attorney Brad Moss slammed Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) for demanding a special counsel be appointed, only to complain when one was.

Norman Ornstein, the political scientist and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, responded, adding: “Chuck Grassley has long been an embarrassment to the Senate and clearly seems to have been privy to the attempt to steal the election. He needs to resign.”

Indeed, Sen. Grassley was one of 33 GOP Senators who, in September, not only demanded Garland appoint a special counsel, but demanded David Weiss be granted special counsel status.

“Under Department of Justice regulations and federal law, you have the power to provide special counsel authorities and protections to U.S. Attorney Weiss. Given that the investigation involves the President’s son, we believe it is important to provide U.S. Attorney Weiss with special counsel authorities and protections to allow him to investigate an appropriate scope of potentially criminal conduct, avoid the appearance of impropriety, and provide additional assurances to the American people that the Hunter Biden investigation is free from political influence,” the GOP Senators wrote.

Read the tweets above or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Fox Business Hosts Hype Biden 'Bribe' Tapes With No Proof They Exist

Fox Business Hosts Hype Biden 'Bribe' Tapes With No Proof They Exist

Fox Business hosts Stuart Varney and Jackie DeAngelis engaged in uncritical speculation this morning about rumored audio recordings implicating President Joe Biden in a bribery scandal, with Varney suggesting that they could be located in Ukraine and DeAngelis declaring, “We better see them, and they better hold people accountable.”

The fundamental problem is that even the leading Republicans seeking to dig up dirt on Biden have admitted that the tapes may not exist at all. In an interview with CNN last month, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) gave the meandering response: “I don’t even know where they are. I just know they exist, because of what the report says. Now, maybe they don’t exist. But how will I know until the FBI tells us, are they showing us their work?”

On Thursday, Grassley released an FBI document known as an FD-1023, which contains unverified allegations from a confidential human source. The source provided secondhand information that Ukrainian energy executive Mykola Zlochevsky had claimed years earlier to have recordings that would confirm he had bribed then-Vice President Biden. NBC News previously reported that a senior law enforcement official said the FBI and a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney had reviewed the bribery claim in 2020 and determined that it was not substantiated.

There should be a number of reasons to be skeptical about the allegations in the document, most notably that the source only spoke up in June 2020 about conversations that supposedly occurred in the years 2015-2017. And even this June 2020 contact occurred months after then-President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, when he had attempted to pressure the Ukrainian government into announcing an investigation of Biden in exchange for receiving badly needed military aid to defend itself from Russia.

Presumably, this information could have provided a more dramatic development during the heat of the impeachment, in order to show even some validity to the ongoing right-wing smear campaign against the Biden family. (Instead, the source waited until the general election campaign between Biden and Trump.) The document further notes that the source “explained it is very common for business men in post-Soviet countries to brag or show-off” about their political connections, and that they were “not able to provide any further opinion as to the veracity of Zlochevsky's aforementioned statements.”

DeAngelis appears to have further exaggerated the allegation even on its own secondhand terms. Whereas the confidential source in the report described Zlochevsky as claiming that “two of the recordings included Joe Biden, and the remaining 15 recordings only included Hunter Biden,” DeAngelis described these as “17 recordings that include Joe Biden in them.”

STUART VARNEY (HOST): Congressman James Comer says there is more to come in the Hunter investigation. Jackie, he wants criminal referrals?

JACKIE DEANGELIS (FOX BUSINESS HOST): He does, and he says by the time this is all said and done, there could possibly be six to 10 charges recommended to the Justice Department. Now, that would be really significant. I mean, obviously, we've got this latest bombshell in the FBI file, talking about the inform

ant's comments that specifically refer to Joe Biden. “It cost five [million] to pay one Biden and five [million] to pay the other Biden.” He calls Hunter Biden stupid. He says the head of Burisma has 17 recordings that include Joe Biden in them. So, we really need to piece this apart and get to the bottom of it. The House is working on that now — but six to 10 criminal referrals.

VARNEY: I believe the 17 tapes that you're talking about —

DEANGELIS: Yes.

VARNEY: I think they're in Ukraine.

DEANGELIS: Yes, so this is the Ukrainian head of Burisma conducting these conversations that supposedly include the president.

VARNEY: Do you think we'll ever see those tapes?

DEANGELIS: We better see them, and they better hold people accountable for what’s happened here. This has been, I mean, really mind-boggling.

VARNEY: It is absolutely exploding.

DEANGELIS: Yeah.

VARNEY: And that's a fact.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

As Biden Scandals Fizzle, Trump Family Grifting Still Sizzles

As Biden Scandals Fizzle, Trump Family Grifting Still Sizzles

Back when Rep. James Comer previewed his committee's blockbuster probe of President Biden, the Biden family, and their allegedly corrupt connections with foreign investors, someone asked whether he also intended to investigate the Trumps.

"With respect to investigating President Trump, there have been so many investigations of President Trump," retorted Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, during that interview last January. "I don't feel like we need to spend a whole lot of time investigating President Trump because the Democrats have done that for the past six years."

Yet perhaps now that the Kentucky Republican has dug around the First Family for several months and produced nothing but innuendo, he may wish to reconsider that free pass for the Trump family — whose money-grubbing on foreign shores is bigger than anything attributed to the Bidens by an order of magnitude.

Consider the humiliating spectacle of Comer's press conference on Wednesday, May 10, when the Indiana Republican excitedly presented what he has discovered about the Bidens, and specifically the president, whom he has accused repeatedly of "involvement" in tainted overseas business deals. Described in Politico as "highly anticipated," the big event was undeniably a bust. (Even Republicans said so.)

Despite a panting recitation of bank accounts held by the president's brother James Biden and his son Hunter Biden — as well as other family members who appear to have benefited from foreign partnerships and consultancies — Comer failed to produce any tiny scrap of evidence implicating Joe Biden. He could not show that any of the Bidens whose names he dragged had committed a single illegal act. He could not prove that the president knew or approved of any of his relatives' business or legal activities.

And Comer came up empty when asked what, if anything, those arrangements had to do with Joe Biden's official responsibilities as president or vice president — since all those deals appear to have occurred while he was no longer serving in the Obama administration, and before he ran for president in 2020.

Comer's performance provoked mocking reviews from Democrats and "the liberal media," as might be expected, but the response from the right was almost equally dismissive. Steve Doocy, the Fox & Friends anchor, complained that "you don't actually have any facts" to prove influence peddling by the president... of all those names, the one person who didn't profit is — there is no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegally," as a visibly flustered Comer fumed.

Both Comer and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, his ally in the Senate, have promised revelations from a "highly reliable source" who, according to them, has disclosed bad acts perpetrated by the Bidens to the FBI. Unable to obtain any such incriminating information, however, Comer had little to offer when queried by Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo, except that he and Grassley are determined to pursue "Plan B."

"What is Plan B?" she asked, then shot Comer an irritated glance when he replied, "Well, stay tuned, Maria. You'll be the first to know, I can assure you," and then descended into stuttering and muttering about "the deep state."

The plain fact is that these Republicans, like generations of their hackish ilk on Capitol Hill, spend enormous amounts of time and treasure fabricating conspiracy theories of corruption supposedly perpetrated by their political enemies, as they did with both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Remember Whitewater? Benghazi? Her emails? Actual corrupt conduct by powerful figures abusing public office for private gain seems to trouble them not at all.

We know that because as soon as Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his gang took control of the House, they put the boobish Comer in charge of government oversight. And Comer's first action as chair was to terminate the committee's ongoing probe of Trump's efforts to enrich himself as president and to release his accountants from their court-ordered obligation to produce the former president's tax records.

Even as the Biden "scandal" seems to fizzle, the Trump scandals may still sizzle. You will recall that the former president and his son-in-law Jared Kushner both have reaped juicy profits in their recent dealings with the Saudi regime, raising obvious implications for their conduct in the White House. Those questions may yet be examined in a broader probe to discover exactly how Trump violated the Constitution's emoluments clause during his presidential term.

Stay tuned, Maria.

To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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