Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told FNC’s “Fox & Friends” he had not gotten a satisfactory answer from FBI Director Christopher Wray about the perceived double standard within the Department of Justice.
Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, referred expressly to how the DOJ handled Hillary Clinton’s email server versus the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, FL.
Partial transcript as follows:
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Meanwhile, let’s go out to — let’s go out to Iowa, where Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee is joining us now. Senator up for re-election.
Senator, first off, when you look at this raid, the one thing I didn’t think was going to happen so early was, it seems like every Republican is on the same page — even Mitch McConnell, saying, we need answers to why this raid took place, not sources or ideas about what they were looking for — the FBI was looking for.
What questions do you have?
SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA): The people of Iowa are outraged at what’s happening here, particularly the double standard between negotiating with Hillary Clinton on her servers and e-mails, and we know they were compromised for national security, but they negotiated with her, and they raid the president.
And I talked to, two days ago, to the FBI director about it, and I didn’t get any satisfactory answers. And we need to have some trust in the FBI. You know how I pointed out political bias, starting a Trump investigation and stopping a Hunter Biden investigation by the — special agent in charge that had political bias against Republicans. And this is just another example of that.
And so, the question I have is, when are they going to tell the American people exactly why they did it and what they — and why they did it, raiding it, as opposed to what they did, negotiating with Hillary Clinton.
KILMEADE: Well, did Chris Wray know about it? Did Chris Wray tell you he knew about the raid?
(CROSSTALK)
AINSLEY EARHARDT, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Yes, what did he say to you?
GRASSLEY: I did not get that answer from him. I said — I basically said this, when are we going to know why it’s going to be — why it was done and how it was done? And what — and you get the usual answer under both Republican and Democrat administrations, we don’t take about an ongoing investigation.
STEVE DOOCY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Sure.
GRASSLEY: Well, in this case, where it’s so historically wrong to raid an ex-president’s office that’s never been done before, I think we deserve answers at the highest level of government, and that’s at least at Garland’s level.
EARHARDT: Well, did you — did you get the sense that they actually have something? Because it is, like you said, so rare and unprecedented —
DOOCY: Something big.
EARHARDT: — to be this extreme.
GRASSLEY: I didn’t get much of an answer at all.
EARHARDT: OK.
GRASSLEY: And that’s what’s wrong. This is a Department of Justice, supposed to be, but it’s a department of trust us. And that isn’t the way the American government works.
Transparency brings accountability and this extraordinary action on this administration, whether it’s Biden, whether it’s Garland, or whether it’s Wray, or whether it’s somebody under them that Wray didn’t even know about it, I didn’t even get an answer on that.
But we need to have trust in the department of FBI, and this just destroys that confidence. And particularly the political bias that I’ve already proven through my investigations into Thibault and these other investigations that I just stated.
DOOCY: Yes. Well, Senator, it sounds like — it sounds like there are a number of stories where according to sources who have spoken to — I read this morning in “Rolling Stone,” which I had a subscription to in the 1970s, anyway, they got a good journalism op-ed, but apparently, they had somebody — they had an information on the inside, and they say since May the president has wondered, do you think our phones are tapped. And since May, there have been a number of times where the president has wondered whether any Republicans visiting the clubs could be wearing a wire.
So, it sounds like somebody inside said, hey, in this room, you’ll find this, and in that room, you’ll find that. So, it sounds like there’s some high level — some high degree that going in they knew where the stuff was, whatever the stuff is.
GRASSLEY: Well, those are answers that I can’t speak to. The FBI director, when I had my conversation with him two days ago, he didn’t talk about that. And we need answers to those questions. And there’s nothing illegitimate, particularly the extraordinary aspect of a former president for the first time in the history of our country —
KILMEADE: Yes.
GRASSLEY: — having a house raided for information.
KILMEADE: You’re not supposed to use the word raid.
GRASSLEY: And particularly when it’s so different from the way they handled Hillary Clinton.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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