Grassley: Partisan Media Should Endeavor to Accurately Report on Brave Whistleblowers’ Efforts

Floor Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
"The Partisan Media Can't Escape the Facts Exposed By Whistleblowers"
Thursday, May 21, 2026

VIDEO

In the past several Congresses, my investigative work has resulted in the public release of thousands of pages of information once hidden from the public.

Much of it is evidence of political bias in law enforcement and intelligence community investigations.

And I'll give you ten examples of how this information has been hidden and how out efforts have brought it to light: Crossfire Hurricane, Arctic Frost, Plasmic Echo, Round River, the Clinton Foundation, Rampart Twelve, the Biden family investigation, the Clinton Annex, Durham Annex and the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment.

But those ten aren't the total. There are many others I could mention.

I've made public record after record, and the partisan media continues to turn its very negative sights on my and Senator Johnson's work.

Most recently, The Hill published an article attacking our work on Arctic Frost.

Specifically, the article took offense for daring to make public largely unredacted records that the Biden administration had kept from the public. Records by and large I obtained through protected whistleblower disclosures, and not from government officials.

And in doing so, The Hill also raised questions about the identity of who provided [those] legally protected whistleblower disclosures.

For example, when referring to my and Senator Johnson making public Jack Smith's subpoenas, The Hill said it raises "questions about the identities of the whistleblowers who shared them with Grassley."

Sounds like The Hill is trying to improperly identify whistleblowers who've stuck their neck out for the truth, just like Jack Smith's prosecutors have gone after them.

For example, J.P. Cooney and Molly Gaston reportedly filed a complaint with the Justice Department Inspector General. Cooney and Gaston asked for that office to investigate what they claim is the improper disclosure to Congress of 197 Jack Smith subpoenas.

So, Cooney and Gaston want the inspector general to investigate whistleblowers who've exposed the bad conduct by Jack Smith and his staff.

That is obviously a conflict of interest.

By the way, Cooney and Gaston are the same Jack Smith prosecutors who wanted to prosecute nuns[SC1] present on January the 6th. More precisely, Cooney said, "I'd like to prosecute any nun who still wears [the] head habit."

Instead of attacking patriotic whistleblowers, this partisan media ought to do a deep report on how invasive Jack Smith's operation was. Because Jack Smith sought communications [with] Republican groups and what these Republican groups had to do with the legislative branch, as well as the media.

And all this time, I thought the partisan media held the First Amendment in very high regard; evidently, they do not.

The Hill also failed to report on the emails that we publicly released from Special Agent Thibault. Thibault's own emails show he violated the FBI's No Self-Approval Rule in opening up the Arctic Frost investigation.

Those emails were made public [in] January last year.

Thibault's own words paint the picture. And this is the same agent who violated the Hatch Act for anti-Trump partisan conduct. Not only was that fact not reported by The Hill, the outlet also couldn't be bothered to report on those emails that we released.

And by the way, we didn't get those records from the government either. We got them from patriotic whistleblowers.

The Hill's reporting accuses our record production of playing a significant role in FBI agents being fired. Now, The Hill knows this, but they don't report it - the FBI makes personnel decisions, not we members of Congress.

The Hill's reporting failed to take into account the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigations names that I've made public, which gave them credit for doing good work. For example, last year I issued a Majority Staff Report on then-Secretary of State John Kerry's interfering in the FBI arresting high-level Iranian nationals and the targets that those nationals were.

I also released FBI records that agents attempted to investigate the Clinton Foundation. Credit ought to be given to those government officials who did their job. I've received no complaints about making their names public.

Yet, The Hill focused on Arctic Frost, and in doing so buried the lede:

"The documents released by Grassley include [the] names of nearly 70 FBI agents and employees. That includes some figures already known to the public, as well as other agents whose case history the bureau is well aware of."

Now, I have five points.

First, it's common practice to make public the names of taxpayer-funded government officials whose conduct is within the public interest. That's especially the case when their names are already public. Now I call that - and I hope everyone around here calls that - "accountability."

Second, not all of the named individuals have been fired.

Third, The Hill article fails to explicitly note that three of the FBI agents who sued over their termination had their names public before we released them.

In fact, one name was public as early as 2016!

Fourth, our document productions made those three names public on January the 30th, 2025, during Kash Patel's nomination hearing to be FBI director.

Clearly, he and then-FBI leadership didn't give us those records. Who gave us those records? Well, where we get most of our records? Patriotic whistleblowers did that!

A fifth and last point, Patel fired those three agents approximately ten months after we made their names public on January the 30th. But, again, their names were public years before our release.

Now, the point I'm trying to make is The Hill is not doing its job. They failed to mention all those critical facts.

Next, The Hill takes a shot at the FBI 1023 document that Chairman Comer and I made public in the last Congress.

That's the one about the Biden bribery allegations.

Also, The Hill failed to mention that Senator Johnson and I made public two additional FBI 1023 documents last year.

Both of those documents provided additional information from FBI informants about Biden family criminality.

So, there's at least three different FBI Confidential Human Sources. Each provided information about the Biden family criminality on three separate occasions. And the sources provided that information to three different FBI agents.

Question: Did the DOJ and FBI prosecute those other two FBI sources? No.

So, last year, I asked Director Patel about the initial FBI 1023 document that Director Wray was supposed to investigate. I asked whether an investigation was carried out into the alleged records. And Patel answered this way:

"Not to my knowledge, Mr. Chairman."

I'm not saying the allegations are true, I just want to know if the investigation has been carried out.

The Hill failed to mention any of that very important context.

The Hill also failed to take into account that some of my whistleblowers have faced years of retaliation and faced serious abuse by officials who have since been fired.

Wrongdoing should be punished. It's called accountability.

And I've also said lower-level personnel who appropriately followed directives without violating procedures ought to have that taken into consideration.

Now, The Hill should endeavor to report on the heroic and brave efforts that whistleblowers have undertaken to expose government abuse, instead of...smearing them.

To my patriotic whistleblowers, I want them to know that this senator's work will continue in full force.

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