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If Republicans take back the Senate in November, Sen. Grassley said he will examine the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago if he is chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
During an appearance on Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Saturday, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said there is a “double standard” at work when it comes to the FBI concerning President Trump contrasted with other political figures like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden Jr.’s father.
The Iowa senator said that the committee would investigate the raid if it receives a majority in the chamber during the midterm elections. Grassley added that he would also like to see Attorney General Merrick Garland recuse himself from the investigation.
“It’s a pretty clear-cut case that he should,” Grassley said of Garland. “If he doesn’t, then that tells you something about his mentality going into this job.”
Grassley also discussed the potential for criminal charges to be brought against those responsible for the raid.
“I think there are laws that were probably violated in terms of going after a president after he’s out of office,” Grassley said. “There could be some violation of civil rights here.”
The Iowa senator concluded by calling on the FBI to provide answers to questions about the raid.
“The American people deserve to know what’s going on here,” Grassley said. “This is a pretty serious thing.”
Grassley: “I look at it in a larger context… and that is the fact that the FBI over a long period of time has kind of a double standard. You know, you can go back to the Steele Dossier. You can go back to the Carter Page, FISA… warrant, and you can go back to Clinton’s emails.
“And it just seems to me like they there’s political bias in the FBI. And then I have recently – you’ve heard me give evidence of political bias of starting a Trump investigation and then quitting a Hunter Biden investigation. So it’s legitimate to raise the question about the extent to which there’s still political bias and what we’re doing now.
“And then you go to… Attorney General Garland making a statement that he wants to be totally transparent. If he wants to be totally transparent, then he should make sure that the affidavits follow up on the warrant, and then you’d have total transparency.”
The Iowa senator said that he would be sending a list of questions to FBI Director Christopher Wray regarding the raid, including if he personally approved it. Many questions followed the same contrast he just laid out concerning equal application of the law.
Specifically, Grassley asked for answers over a distinction he draws out concerning the FBI’s handling of investigations into Clinton and Trump.
“Of note, federal authorities never raided Clinton’s home,” Grassley said in his letter to Wray.
This is not the first time that Grassley has raised questions about the Mar-a-Lago raid. In July, he sent a letter to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz asking for an investigation into the raid.
“The American people need to know that federal law enforcement is applying the law equally, without regard to politics,” Grassley wrote in his letter to Horowitz. “The decision to raid the President’s residence raises serious questions about whether the Department is treating the President differently than it would other individuals under investigation.”
The Mar-a-Lago raid is just one of many investigations that Grassley has pledged to investigate if the Republicans maintain control of the Senate. He has also said that he would probe into the origins of the Russia investigation and whether or not the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign.
