WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today joined Fox News’ “America Reports” to discuss eliminating political weaponization at the FBI, expectations for Pam Bondi in her role as U.S. Attorney General and Kash Patel’s road to confirmation as FBI Director.
Audio and excerpts of Grassley’s remarks follow.
On the Justice Department’s recent memo to FBI employees:
"People that are at [a] lower level, not at the supervisory level, have to take orders from their bosses, and if they were told to work on a case, even if they disagreed with the case, they [had] to work on it. And I think that there ought to be some consideration to that.
"...I'm not going to write to the White House now to get information, I'm going to wait until we get [Kash] Patel in place as head of the FBI and ask him the very same questions that we're talking about here, because those that use the FBI for political weaponization...that's not the role of the FBI.
“...I’ve made very clear that the FBI shouldn't be used for political weaponization. Their job is law enforcement, and anything beyond that has to be cleaned up. And I think Kash Patel is a person that can do that.”
On the Grassley-Johnson release of FBI “Arctic Frost” emails:
“My emails show – and also the regulations of the FBI show – that [FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge] Thibault was not in a position to [open the investigation into Trump]...
“But see...the culture on the seventh floor of the FBI building is that it's okay for FBI agents to promote challenges and positions against a former President of the United States because he's a political threat. Well, the voters of Iowa [and] the voters of the United States on November the fifth did away with that and proved that [Trump] was wrongly condemned. The voters didn't buy it.”
On Attorney General Pam Bondi:
“[Bondi] is totally a prosecutor by profession and she’s going to be the chief prosecutor of our government. She made very clear that she’s going to follow the Constitution and follow the laws and follow the evidence...
“...[O]n the second day of [her] hearing...we had people in who knew her and worked for her, and we even had somebody that has never voted for Trump testify in favor of her, that she was a person who left politics out of the prosecution."
On Kash Patel’s road to confirmation:
“I’ve got the votes to get him out of Committee, and I think that there’s going to be the votes to get him approved in the United States Senate, but I’m going to take it a step at a time.
“A week from tomorrow, [the Judiciary Committee] will have that vote, and he’ll be on the floor of the United States Senate.”
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