A Grassley gaffe? Iowa senator says he’s not interested in the accuracy of Joe Biden document he is hot after.
What We Know: In a Fox News interview Thursday, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) said that “We aren’t interested in whether the accusations against Vice President Biden are accurate or not.”
Joe Biden Document Drama
Remember the story, from early May, that Republicans in Congress were looking into an allegation that President Joe Biden had engaged in “a criminal scheme” involving a foreign national?
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) wrote a letter, dated May 3, demanding the FBI produce the relevant document.
“We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States. What we don’t know is what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these claims or investigate further. The FBI’s recent history of botching politically charged investigations demands close congressional oversight,” Grassley said in a statement.
If the president had indeed participated in a foreign bribery scheme, that would certainly be a pretty big deal. But we don’t know that that is true, nor has evidence emerged that it is true.
Nearly a month later, the FBI has not produced any such document. According to CNN, the latest is that FBI Director Christopher Wray has offered to let Comer view “an internal law enforcement document at FBI headquarters.” CNN added that the document “has origins in a tranche of documents that Rudy Giuliani provided to the Justice Department in 2020.”
Then-Attorney General William Barr, back in 2020, had found the allegations “dubious enough” that Barr had a U.S. Attorney review them, because “Barr was concerned that Giuliani’s document tranche could taint the ongoing Hunter Biden investigation overseen by the Delaware US attorney.”
The House of Representatives had threatened FBI Director Wray with contempt of Congress charges if a subpoena connected to the document and others were not answered earlier this week.
Comer also, in a mid-May interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo, seemed to admit that the committee had lost track of the informant who was alleging wrongdoing by Biden.
However, a committee spokesperson later clarified that.
The CNN report also stated something that was pretty clear from the original reports: “While the 1023 form documents the claims from the informant, it doesn’t provide proof that they are true.” In other words, we know that someone is claiming that Biden participated in a bribery scheme, but we do not know that those claims are actually legitimate.
Grassley, appearing on Fox News Thursday, commented on the matter, stating something that sounded a lot like a gaffe, but may have just been honest.
“We aren’t interested in whether the accusations against Vice President Biden are accurate or not, we’re responsible for making sure the FBI does its job,” Grassley said on television. He added that while he has seen the document, he would not characterize what it said.
When asked by the Fox hosts “how damning” the document is, Grassley answered, “Let’s put it this way, there are accusations in it.”
Grassley had said something similar, back in early May, when he told Newsmax in an interview that “it is a very serious allegation. I wish I could say that I knew it was true or untrue.”
The Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have spent their time so far in the majority overpromising and underdelivering, and often claiming they’re about to introduce bombshell evidence that will prove fatal to Biden’s presidency, but then failing to uncover anything particularly damning.
The Oversight Committee, to date, has not shown any evidence establishing that President Biden himself received any money improperly, or acted in any way improperly to assist the business interests of his family members.
On the other hand, Grassley appears willing to level with the media about what the evidence does and does not show, and why it is and is not significant.
Expertise and Experience
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
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This piece has been updated to fix a coding error.
