Prepared Floor Remarks by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
“Systemic Government Weaponization: A Tale of Two Days”
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Today, I come to the floor to discuss two dates of significant importance:
January 6, 2021, and January 6, 2017.
Regarding the former – it was a dark day in American history.
The violence against our Capitol and law enforcement was a disgrace.
First Amendment activity turned into something else.
The latter date – January 6, 2017 – is a date many in this country may not remember.
But it’s a day that signifies a much larger, systemic attack on our Republic.
On that day, as the Obama administration planned its exit, it put into motion its final traps against the incoming Trump administration.
To fully understand January 2017, we must revisit March and July 2016. But one could argue it all started June 16, 2015, when Trump declared his candidacy.
Around March and July 2016, the FBI received particular intelligence information.
Notably, July 2016 is the same month that Comey’s FBI opened the discredited Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
That intelligence information consisted of reports that the Clinton campaign, with Hillary Clinton’s approval, created a plan to falsely tie Trump to Russia.
That information was made public this year when I released the Durham Annex and the Clinton Annex.
The Clinton Annex showed the FBI had evidence necessary to do a complete investigation into Hillary Clinton and failed to look at it – perhaps intentionally so.
The FBI swept the evidence against Clinton under the rug as they planned to advance Crossfire Hurricane against Trump.
Regarding the intelligence about the Clinton campaign’s plan to falsely tie Trump to Russia, the Durham annex notes that “FBI was fully alerted to the possibility that at least some of the information it was receiving about the Trump campaign might have its origin either with the Clinton campaign or its supporters, or alternatively, was the product of Russian disinformation.”
The Durham annex concludes, in part, that “despite this awareness, the FBI appears to have dismissed the [intelligence information] as not credible without any investigative steps actually having been taken to either corroborate or disprove the allegations.”
So, just as with the Clinton Annex where Comey’s FBI didn’t investigate evidence that might’ve been bad for Clinton, the Durham Annex shows Comey’s FBI didn’t investigate intelligence that the Clinton team wanted to falsely tie Trump to Russia to destroy his candidacy in favor of hers.
Folks, that’s a cover-up.
But, the main purpose of the cover-up? Weaponize the federal government to destroy Trump’s candidacy and presidency, to favor Clinton, who didn’t threaten the status quo.
In August 2016, President Obama and Vice President Biden met with CIA Director Brennan, Director of National Intelligence Clapper, FBI Director Comey and others.
They discussed the intelligence relating to the Clinton plan. They were aware of the possibility that the Clinton campaign had dirty tricks up their sleeve designed to impact the election.
So, did that stop the Obama administration’s efforts against Trump? Of course not.
Then, on December 9, 2016, President Obama’s national security team gathered.
That meeting included Director of National Intelligence Clapper, CIA Director Brennan, FBI Deputy Director McCabe, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Secretary of State Kerry, Attorney General Lynch and other personnel.
After that meeting Clapper’s office transmitted an email to Intelligence Community leaders titled, “POTUS (as in President of the United States) Tasking on Russia Election Meddling.”
Clapper asked his personnel to create an “assessment per the President’s request.” The new assessment was an Intelligence Community Assessment.
Per the good investigative work of the House Intelligence Committee’s report, “unlike routine Intelligence Community analysis, the Intelligence Community Assessment was a high-profile product ordered by the President, directed by senior Intelligence Community heads, and created by just five analysts, using one principal drafter. Production of the Intelligence Community Assessment was subject to unusual directives from the President and senior political appointees, and particularly the Director of the CIA.”
Why go through all this effort to create new product?
Well, according to the good work of Tulsi Gabbard and the House Intelligence Committee, CIA officials didn’t have credible and verified information showing Putin wanted to get Trump elected.
And intelligence at the time showed that Putin withheld information that would’ve been damaging to Clinton and therefore would’ve helped Trump.
The Obama administration needed their fixers.
On December 22, 2016, the National Security Agency Director emailed Brennan, Clapper and Comey.
That email noted that the National Security Agency didn’t have enough time to review the intelligence for purposes of the new Intelligence Community Assessment Obama ordered.
Clapper responded in part, “We may have to compromise on our normal modalities,” that “more time is not negotiable” and “this is one project that has to be a team sport.”
You see, the Deep State wanted a new intelligence product created from the top down, not the bottom up as it’s usually done. And they wanted it done so badly they were willing to cut corners and throw the country into chaos.
That new product? It was the December 30, 2016, Intelligence Community Assessment tying Trump to Putin.
It stated, in part, “We assess Putin and the Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.”
In their partisan rush, that intelligence product was published on January 6, 2017.
That same day, then-Director of the FBI Comey briefed President-elect Trump on the discredited Clinton campaign funded Steele Dossier.
The new intelligence assessment said Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton, even though earlier intelligence had shown Russia simply wanted to cause political chaos in the United States no matter who was president.
The new intelligence assessment is exactly what the Durham Annex said the Clinton Campaign wanted to accomplish. The Durham Annex also noted existing intelligence product said the Clinton Campaign believed elements of the Obama administration would help them achieve their political ends against Trump.
Based on the available evidence, there’s no doubt the new intelligence assessment was a political hit that had been ordered by President Obama.
And, let me remind folks that Senator Johnson and I got “Annex A” to the new intelligence assessment declassified in 2020.
“Annex A” was a summary of the discredited Steele Dossier. Comey and Brennan worked hard to make sure it was included even though it was unverified and didn’t meet the standard for inclusion.
How convenient.
Now, this next part is important.
In 2020, Senator Johnson and I publicly released additional information that we’d been able to get declassified.
That declassified information showed that the Russians knew of the Steele Dossier at least in July 2016 and before the FBI began Crossfire Hurricane. The declassified information also stated that the FBI received information that an individual “central in connecting Trump to Russia” was very likely a Russian intelligence officer.
The declassified information also showed that the FBI received an intelligence report on January 12, 2017 warning of false information in the Dossier and that the material was “part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.”
On that very same day, January 12, 2017, the FISA warrant on Carter Page – which used the discredited Dossier – was renewed for the first time.
The Steele Dossier served as a gift to the Russians – a vehicle to pack false information in the hopes the Obama administration and Comey would fall for it, hook, line and sinker.
Or, Obama and his minions saw the obvious and proceeded anyway, believing nobody would ever get all this information declassified for the public to see.
In any event, with all these red lights flashing STOP, the Obama administration went full speed ahead.
And even with Trump as president, Comey gleefully ran every stop sign.
The Comey FBI still used the discredited Steele Dossier to get a FISA warrant and multiple renewals on Carter Page.
And the political hit job continued with the Mueller Special Counsel investigation.
Now, with the public having seen all this declassified information kept in the dark for almost a decade, there’s no doubt Mueller was totally unnecessary.
The Mueller fiasco was just the Deep State trying to get another political hit on Trump.
Then, the Biden administration entered office to continue their partisan political work.
For example, Senator Johnson and I’ve released records relating to Arctic Frost.
That’s the FBI case that anti-Trump Special Agent Thibault created with the help of partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors.
Based on emails I’ve obtained from whistleblowers, we know Thibault opened and approved the case in violation of FBI rules.
According to Deputy Attorney General Blanche, as defense counsel for Trump, Jack Smith and his team withheld these emails from Trump’s defense team.
Arctic Frost conveniently became one of Jack Smith’s cases against Trump and it was politically infected from the very start.
Based on more emails whistleblowers have given me, we also know Thibault, Supervisory Special Agent Blaire Toleman, Special Agent Walter Giardina and partisan DOJ prosecutors focused their efforts and resources on Peter Navarro.
When DOJ prosecutors under Merrick Garland’s authority decided to prosecute Navarro, Thibault said, “Wow. Great.”
From the time then-candidate Trump came down the escalator in 2015 to this very day, it’s been a decade of weaponized law enforcement and intelligence community activity.
The examples I’ve given today are just that – examples.
I could speak for days on end about the facts and evidence of political bias my investigative work has uncovered over the years.
And the fact that political bias had so deeply infected this country’s law enforcement and intelligence community agencies ought to shake everyone in this country to their core.
If the government, including DOJ’s so-called Public Integrity Unit and an elite FBI public corruption squad, can do that to the President of the United States, imagine what the government can do to you if it decides to give you its full and undivided attention.
January 6, 2021, was a single day – a day that we shouldn’t forget.
January 6, 2017, was a day that almost toppled a presidency.
And it should certainly outweigh January 6, 2021, where a rag tag mob stormed the Capitol with zero chance of succeeding.
To be intellectually honest, and fair, we can’t ignore the decade of weaponization by taxpayer funded law enforcement and intelligence community agencies against Republicans, not just the president.
What’s so disgusting about the Obama and Biden administration’s partisan conduct is that its personnel didn’t care about the long-lasting damage to the country, including the eroded trust in American institutions. And the partisan media went right along – no questions asked.
This behavior is an existential threat to our Republic because it creates a systemic, insidious infection that grows in the dark, behind classified walls and bureaucratic red tape, far away from the eyes of the American public and Congress.
And all of this behavior occurred on the taxpayers’ dime.
I’m thankful to Attorney General Bondi, Director Patel, Director Gabbard and Director Ratcliffe for their aggressive transparency efforts.
For my part, and for We the People, my investigative work will continue to shine a light on those very dark corners of the government.
I yield the floor.
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