Grassley: ‘Double standard’ if Dems don’t back probing Obama-era scandals
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) lashed out Senate Democrats on Monday, accusing them of having a “double standard” when it comes to probes coming out of the 2016 presidential election.
Grassley, speaking from the Senate floor, argued that Democrats’ support for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into the 2016 election and demands to see the report and underlying documentation meant they should support similar requests for the handling of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and other Obama-era scandals.
“I don’t just mean those related to the Mueller investigation. We should see every piece of evidence, including evidence connected to how the Russian investigation started,” Grassley said.
{mosads}Grassley, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee during the previous Congress, requested a slew of information from the Justice Department about its handling of the Clinton email investigation, as well as the opposition research dossier on then-candidate Trump and the FISA warrant application against Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has pledged that he will use the panel to probe the handling of the Clinton investigation, the FISA warrant applications and the origins of the so-called Steele dossier.
“So will Democrats join me in that effort and support my request? Further, to be consistent we shouldn’t stop at the Russia investigation. The Democrats want all the Mueller information but seem to be turning a blind eye to other investigations where Congress and the public have yet to see every bit of information that’s out there,” Grassley added.
Grassley’s speech comes as Democrats are clamoring for Attorney General William Barr to release Mueller’s full report into Russia’s election interference and the Trump campaign.
Barr previously gave the House and Senate Judiciary Committees a four-page letter detailing the principal conclusions of the investigation. He’s expected to release the report to Congress later this month and has offered to testify publicly about the investigation early next month.
Senate Democrats have tried to pass a resolution five times that would back releasing the report publicly but have been blocked each time by Republicans.
And Grassley argued on Monday that unless Democrats were willing to support the same amount of disclosure on the Clinton probe and the Obama-era Uranium One deal it would look like “political gamesmanship and sets a clear double standard.”
“I’ll tell you right now the Democrats’ obsession with bringing Trump down is nothing but a double standard if they’re going to ignore other investigations of national importance. If you want to be taken seriously in this country, you have to be consistent. …Let’s see all of it, Clinton, Uranium One, Russia,” he said.
Democrats have largely brushed off calls from Republicans to revisit the Obama-era scandals, arguing their GOP colleagues want to spend time probing conspiracy theories.
“This is going to be like the History Channel, it turns out. Instead of taking a look at the current issues, Lindsey Graham wants to go back and answer important questions about the Bermuda Triangle and Hillary Clinton,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told The Hill earlier this year.
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