ICYMI: Grassley Joins “Washington Watch” to Recap Arctic Frost Oversight

ICYMI: Grassley Joins "Washington Watch" to Recap Arctic Frost Oversight

WASHINGTON - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) joined Tony Perkins on Washington Watch to discuss Jack Smith's sweeping Arctic Frost investigation and the new revelations Grassley exposed during yesterday's oversight hearing.

"There's no justification for what Smith did. Not only was he after Trump, but we found out through all the hundreds, or I should say, thousands of pages of documents that we received... that he was after the Republican Party," Grassley said.

Listen to the full interview HERE. Excerpts follow.

On revelations from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing:

"Well, I think everything [Smith] said was justification for his effort to put Trump in prison, and there's no justification for what Smith did. Not only was he after Trump, but we found out through all the hundreds, or I should say, thousands of pages of documents that we received - which includes text and email and everything you could think of - that he was after the Republican Party.

"There was no reason for [Smith] to get the records of 44 members of Congress, and I was one of those included. And it's a violation of the constitutional right of what we call the "Speech and Debate Clause." And they even sought communications from roughly 50 journalists and their organizations to government sources, and private checks. Can you imagine getting financial contributions from 4,782 Americans, including 42 Iowans? So, their privacy is violated by the FBI having in their files the addresses, the check numbers, everything personal about these 42 Iowans or [4,782] Americans.

"So, you can see, it was a sweep of about 400 Republican organizations [and] 44 members of Congress. And...January 6th - that was just an excuse. It was just a pretext for everything else they wanted to do.

"[Jack Smith's team was] making a case to know all they could about the Republicans, and what [they could] do to destroy the Republicans. And yet, through all this process, there was only one indictment, and that was Trump. And that was their goal: to put him in prison so he couldn't ever run for president again."

On the origins of Arctic Frost at the Biden FBI:

"And one thing that I don't want you to forget - Jack Smith was not really the start of this. This goes way back to people within the FBI that just hated Trump. And they did all sorts of shenanigans to present a platform for Smith to take off from."

On congressional oversight and whistleblower retaliation:

"[Congress has a] constitutional responsibility to not only pass laws and appropriate money, but to make sure that the executive branch faithfully executes those laws, and that's the legislative branch's responsibility. You don't just pass a law and then say, "Forget about it." You've got to make sure the president does his job, and that's true whether you're a Republican or a Democrat.

"And you know...we get a lot of information from whistleblowers. In fact, Smith could not have known that we had these documents, because we got most of this stuff from the whistleblowers. We even got some grand jury information that we would have never otherwise gotten. And Smith [and] his team retaliated against whistleblowers. So, consequently, you can see how far they go.

"We had an instance in which somebody on [Smith's] team went to the Department of Justice Inspector General and said, "You've got to investigate these whistleblowers." Just think what a chilling effect that has on whistleblowing. And if you have a chilling effect on whistleblowing, you aren't going to get the information that Chuck Grassley needs to make sure that the president of the United States, whether he's a Republican or Democrat, faithfully executes the laws."

"[W]hat we need to do is to have congressional oversight that exposes the wrongdoings of people like Smith or the FBI being weaponized against Trump and a few people in the FBI [who] hate Trump. They may not be there now, but they were there enough to create all the basis for Smith to move ahead.

"I've been [exposing] the truth, and...I think it proves that you can't rely on the Democrats running the government in a responsible way."

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