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- [00:02]
A
Welcome back to the Pod Force One podcast. I'm Miranda Devine, and today I'm at the Senate Judiciary Committee with Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the longest serving Republican senator in history. Senator Chuck Grassley, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Force One.
- [00:18]
B
Well, of course. Thank you for having me.
- [00:21]
A
We're in this beautiful room, wood paneled room. Very famous, memorable moments have happened in this Judiciary Committee hearing room. Are there any favorite moments that stand out for you?
- [00:35]
B
Yeah. When Kavanaugh was up and I was opening a meeting, giving my opening statement, I got two words out of my mouth and one Democrat after the other just suggested we adjourned. I said this, you don't adjourn hearings. You only adjourn exciting committee meetings. But that went on for a couple hours and I just let them harangue about it. I think I made my Republicans mad because I didn't cut them off. But I've come to the conclusion after a lot of years in the United States Senate that it's easier to let people talk. It takes longer to shut them up. So I just let them talk. But it took. Instead of getting done at 2 o' clock in the afternoon, we got down about 5 o' clock in the afternoon. I think we started at 9 or 10 o' clock in the morning. But they ate up a good two or three hours trying to shut the whole Kavanaugh hearing down.
- [01:38]
A
Yeah, that was justice now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And that was a really ugly meeting, wasn't it? Ugly hearing when they brought in all sorts of lies and tried to besmirch his character. So it must have been difficult to keep control of that hearing.
- [01:55]
B
Yeah. You know, even after we had the hearing, I think the Democrats thought they could stop him by his not being able to answer the questions. And so once he was able to show that he could answer their questions, maybe not satisfy him, but he satisfied the public. He was explaining what he was going to do as a member of the Supreme Court. Then they went after his personal character.
- [02:20]
A
Yes.
- [02:20]
B
And for the next 10 to 10 days to two weeks, we had to battle that. And we even had 24 people come in, some of them anonymously. We eventually found out who they were and they made these accusations. And we tracked, I think we had to track down 27 accusations and not a one of them stuck. And four of them were so bad that we had to turn their names over to the Justice Department for lying under oath to the United States Senate because they were under oath. As they were telling why Kavanaugh should not be a member of the United States Supreme Court.
- [03:05]
A
And did anything happen to those people that you referred to the Justice Department for perjury?
- [03:10]
B
Nothing happened to.
- [03:11]
A
And why is that? Why does no one ever get held accountable?
- [03:13]
B
Okay, well, first of all, you might say, then why did I refer him for prosecution? I referred him for prosecution because my staff spent a lot of days and maybe weekends running all these leads down, and they didn't lead anywhere, and they just ate up a lot of time. And I wanted to refer at least the four people who lied to Congress that they ought to be prosecuted to tell the rest of the country, don't come to the United States Senate with a bunch of lies about ruining somebody's character. You want. You want us to do our work in an open way and transparent way, and if you take an oath, you got to abide by the oath. And I wanted to discourage that to people in the future.
- [03:59]
A
And has that deterrent worked if the DOJ never actually charges anyone with perjury?
- [04:06]
B
Well, if, you know, in this town of heads don't roll, yes, nothing changes. So in this particular instance, the lack of prosecution hasn't stopped people from maybe doing the same thing again. But I don't think I've had it happen under my chairmanship or my being a member of the Judiciary Committee since I sent those in for referral.
- [04:31]
A
So heads rolling has is not something that's been happening in Washington. And you've been really at the center of a lot of the declassification and exposing of the Russia hoax and various FBI atrocities, both to do with covering up for Hillary Clinton, covering up for Joe Biden, but also weaponizing the national security and the Justice Department against Donald Trump. Do you see now today, with Donald Trump's second presidency and new people in the, you know, Pam Bondi, as Attorney General Kash Patel leading the FBI, do you see a change? Do you think there will be accountability?
- [05:18]
B
Now, we have had the most cooperation in the second Trump administration that I've had under any Republican or Democrat administration in the past, getting information. And it hasn't been as easy as it should have been, considering the fact that we all know how everybody for the last 10 years has either been trying to impeach Trump out of office, keep him from getting in office, or putting him in prison. You know, you think that with all that happening over the last 10 years, we shouldn't have any trouble from anybody in the Trump administration. It's just like pulling teeth. But I'm telling you, I'm astounded with what we have been able to get out of this administration. The sole purpose of it. In some cases, it might lead to somebody being prosecuted, but that's not my motive. My motive is to make sure that we have transparency of everything that was covered up in previous administrations, make it public. Government being more transparent brings accountability, and then, in turn, discourage it from happening in the future. But one of the things I want to do is Trump has been so mistreated ever since he went down that famous escalator. He's been mistreated with so many things. I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine who had talked to a Democratic senator in February of 2017, told that friend of mine who was a Republican. And maybe this senator didn't know that, that this person was a Republican when they were talking together, but he made this famous statement that I remember that maybe only she and I shared. But he said that Trump will not be around past September of 2017. Now, that's how blatant this attempt was to get Trump out of office. And then he's defeated, and then they impeach him after he's defeated, and. And then they go after him with all sorts of things that Jack Smith can draw up or some local prosecutor in New York can bring to trial, and all those things just never give up. So I'm chairman of this Judiciary Committee, doing my oversight work. I want to make sure that the public knows how Trump was mistreated. And I don't care whether anybody ever goes to jail over it or not. I hope if they, if they're prosecuted and they're guilty, they go to jail. But right now, I just want to make sure that the world knows how Trump's been treated since he every. The very minute he came down the elevator. Now, I don't know what being. Announcing your candidacy for the presidency, United States, a year ahead of time would scare people to death that you need to start attacking him from day one and having a. A whole process, even before he gets sworn in, to get rid of him. What there is about that.
- [08:43]
A
Why. Why did they see him as such a threat?
- [08:47]
B
I'm asking you that question.
- [08:50]
A
I mean, is it his foreign policy that he wasn't on board with the blob in the foreign policy arena? Was it because he had different ideas on the economy, or was it just that he's not. He's uncontrollable?
- [09:06]
B
I think it's because he's a threat to the status quo, and people like the way things just gradually Go along in Washington, go along to get along, don't kick a sleeping dog, all those sort of things. And he came to town to stir things up, and I don't think he knew how to do it in his first term, but he did stir things up an awful lot. But then he's out of office four years and he knows how this game is played in this town. He knows where the skeletons are buried in which closet. He knows whose forces to deal with. Most importantly, he knows what he didn't do right the first term, and he's not going to make that same mistake again.
- [10:05]
A
So you perceive a different Donald Trump this time, a more effective president.
- [10:10]
B
Oh, if he had served from 20 to 24, his presidency probably wouldn't have gone down in history as anything very great. But I think now his presidency look pretty darn good compared to the other 45 people that served in that office.
- [10:27]
A
You have been instrumental in, as I said, declassifying and exposing a lot of the, particularly FBI corruption both in. Recently, you exposed some emails which showed that the FBI had really covered up Hillary Clinton, or didn't investigate the atrocities, I guess, of Hillary Clinton with her servers using those servers having classified documents on it. They had some thumb drives that they didn't investigate. And tell us a little about that and how it contrasts to the way the FBI treated Trump.
- [11:08]
B
Well, everything was thrown against Trump. It was all made public at the time they were doing it. What we are learning now is the scheming that went on to make the cases that Jack Smith brought against Trump. And those things are just the weaponization of the powers of government, particularly FBI and the Department of Justice. It's just the opposite. In the case of the Clinton emails, it was using the power of government to cover up with a. With the idea that we got to get Clinton elected. We can't let Trump get elected. And it was. They knew about things that should have been investigated, how she misused the email process on her own private server and things of that nature. And they knew about it and they didn't do anything to follow through on any of it. So what we have recently released is the information that proves that the FBI was not doing its job. And by not doing its job, it was covering up all the misdeeds of the Clinton emails.
- [12:24]
A
And that was the FBI director, Jim Comey, who was fired eventually by Donald Trump. Yeah, you had Jim Comey before you in oversight hearings. He was ostensibly a Republican. What do you think happened to him? Was he weak? Was he got at or did he just Hate Trump?
- [12:47]
B
It's hard for me to answer that.
- [12:51]
A
What sort of a man was he?
- [12:53]
B
I think he was easy to mislead people. And I think a couple interactions I had with him, it was just to try to curry my favor. And I think I saw through it at the time, but I don't think he knew I saw through it at the time. I think he's going to take this dumb farmer from Iowa and show him who runs the FBI and everything about the FBI and try to curry his favor, maybe keep him off my back.
- [13:25]
A
Right. Did it work?
- [13:27]
B
Well, of course not.
- [13:30]
A
Is, is that the what you like? I mean, do people underestimate you and think of you? Just you said, you know, this poor dumb farmer from Iowa, I mean, you're anything but that.
- [13:42]
B
I like to just do my work and let the chips fall where they may and I don't care what people think about me.
- [13:50]
A
Right. Very unlike other people in Washington and many of your colleagues around the table.
- [13:56]
B
Well, I'm not going to compare myself to anybody else. I'm just Chuck Grassley, farmer from Iowa, a person who loves serving in the United States, serving the American people. Try to make our government work the way the constitutional writers intended it to, work checks and balances and all of that stuff, and pass on to the next generation a better country than I inherited.
- [14:24]
A
And where do those values come from? You were born in 1933 on a farm in Iowa, just in the shadow of the Great Depression. And before World War II. What impact did those momentous world events have on you and your childhood?
- [14:45]
B
Well, first of all, I was lucky enough to be in a family that was small farmers, a mother that was a one room school teacher for maybe four or five years of her life, a woman that ended upholstering furniture in her home to make a little bit of money that the little farm didn't produce. And they were good citizens and they voted. They were never involved in politics, but they were always talking history and government. I don't mean Democrat, Republican politics, just kind of public policy generally. So I grew up on a farm. You may wonder how I became a farmer. But when I tell you that the only thing I had in my mind, I was either going to be a professor of political science or be in politics itself, really. And then dad died in 1960 and mom wanted to stay on the farm, and that's how I got into farming.
- [15:43]
A
And what sort of, sort of wisdom did you gain from that? That experience?
- [15:48]
B
Appreciation of laboring men and women of America and what they do and Then I think I have that same attribute as a person who didn't want to be a farmer, ended up being a farmer. But you know, have today in 2025, 2% of the people in America feed the other 98% and send a third of their production overseas in exports. And I think since I became a farmer when dad died, I think I have a better way of expressing with some real experience what it is to be a farmer in the United States and speak on farm policy to a greater extent with some authority.
- [16:35]
A
It's difficult, isn't it? Increasingly difficult farming in America. There's a lot of regulations, a lot of burden on farmers. Do you think there's a future for the family farm?
- [16:48]
B
Absolutely. If you looked at corporation farms, if you looked at state run farms like the Soviet system have those, the family farm operation with private ownership of land is the most productive you can have.
- [17:07]
A
And what about RFK Juniors come in with a whole lot of ideas for the FDA to change farming practices. How do you feel about that?
- [17:16]
B
Well, he raises some things that are very questioning by farmers and yet he says he knows how important farmers is and he wants farmers to be productive. He uses the term regenerative agriculture. I'm trying to find out exactly what regenerative agriculture is. But if he realizes that 2% of the people can't produce the food for the rest of the country, if you're going to have high more labor intensive as opposed machinery intensity, then he's, he's not living in the real world. But I think, I think he can be educated. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law.
- [18:28]
A
Not available in all states.
- [18:36]
B
From around the world, Trey Youngst joining us from Tel Aviv, Israel to Washington. I'm Mike Emanuel. To your own backyard. If a story impacts you or your wallet, we're on it. It's the FOX News rundown. We give every story the deeper look it deserves with must listen interviews and smart analysis from the voices you can trust. Start your day with a FOX News rundown. Listen and follow now@foxnewsrundown.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
- [19:06]
A
Your childhood, you had a house with no running water, no electricity. How different, I mean how, how was that? Did you even notice that or did you enjoy life?
- [19:17]
B
Well, you, you, you Were brought up that way.
- [19:20]
A
Right.
- [19:20]
B
The moral of the story is about the time I got married. My mother decided to have running water in the house and. And have a toilet stool and have a shower. I didn't benefit too much from it, but we got along. You know, it's just one of those things, the evolution of life, the improvement, the productivity of the American people. Productivity goes up, you have more money. In Iowa, you don't learn to spend every penny you make. You save some on the side. I imagine my mother saved a long time to be able to do that to our house.
- [19:56]
A
Tell us about your wife. You met and married quite young.
- [20:00]
B
We did. Well, not young when we got married in 1954. We've been married 70 years now.
- [20:09]
A
Congratulations.
- [20:10]
B
Thank you. But it was kind of a case of a blind date, and she was working in Waterloo, Iowa, and I was a student at the University of Northern Iowa, and we met on a blind date. A cousin of mine says, we got to take you along for Barbara. So. So that's how I got acquainted with her. And eight months later, we were married.
- [20:33]
A
Wow. That was quick.
- [20:34]
B
Yeah.
- [20:35]
A
Was it love at first?
- [20:36]
B
Yeah. Well, yes, it had to be. Yeah. Anyway, she then started the college at the same time I did, and then we had two or three children at that point. And she left college and didn't finish until 50 years later. No, four years later, 1983, she got her degree.
- [20:59]
A
That's perseverance.
- [21:01]
B
Yeah. Five children later, but she was mother and father to the kids. We have five children, and I was in politics or farming and then moonlighting in the factory and things of that nature. So she was mother and father to the kids. I just have to say I wouldn't be in the Senate today if I didn't have a wife like Barbara Grassley.
- [21:23]
A
Isn't that wonderful? And she obviously shares your politics, your common sense politics.
- [21:29]
B
She'd probably say she's more common sense than I am.
- [21:32]
A
So, I mean, you have a reputation of being quite bipartisan, and everyone likes you. You get on with everyone. But is that a bit of an anachronism today when there's such hostility between the two parties and when we've also seen how the Democrats have weaponized every institution against their opponents. How do you. I mean, there has to be accountability. How can you have bipartisanship in that environment?
- [22:05]
B
Well, first of all, you said I was bipartisan. I say I'm bipartisan, but I never say it as if people ought to take my word for it. So I always say, go to the Georgia Georgetown University and click on the, the Senator Lugar Center. And they do a survey every year of bipartisanship. And I've always come out in the top 12. Now how does it work? There is too much partisanship in today's government, particularly in, in the Congress of the United States.
- [22:41]
A
But isn't that the way it's set up? Isn't it meant, they're meant to be that you argue issues.
- [22:46]
B
Yeah, I wish, I wish they teach that high school government class. Just what you said. People would have a little more. Be less cynical about the federal government. But anyway, I like to explain to people that in the United States Senate, the Senate, because of the 60 vote requirement to stop debate before you get to finality on a bill, you got to have some bipartisanship or nothing ever going to get done. So I, I think that, that the partisanship is overblown by journalists that always like to talk about disagreement. Yes, disagreement. So you never know that Senator Durbin and Grassley would work together on a piece of legislation that we call the no Step act to have criminal justice reform for the first time. The first step act in a generation. But we'd never get any credit for working together on that. But we're all, when we're disagreeing on immigration, that gets, that hits the headlines. So don't you see how people get a distorted view of how much partisanship there is now? I'm telling you for a second time, there's too much partisanship, but not as much as the people of this country think there is.
- [24:06]
A
Right. And has that partisanship and hostility between the parties, has that ebbed and flowed or is it worse now as it seems to us than ever? But in your, you've had nine presidents in your congressional career.
- [24:23]
B
It's been worse about the same since 2009, I think. Is it a little bit worse now? Maybe so.
- [24:32]
A
Since Barack Obama.
- [24:33]
B
Yeah. But why is that Congress is supposed to represent the gra. The people of America. All you got to do to answer your question is look at presidential voting map. The middle of the country is all red.
- [24:48]
A
Yeah.
- [24:49]
B
And the rest of the country is blue along the shores.
- [24:53]
A
Tiny little bits.
- [24:54]
B
Yeah.
- [24:54]
A
Yeah.
- [24:55]
B
And so if the, if the country, if the people this country vote in a partisan way.
- [25:02]
A
Yeah.
- [25:02]
B
Wouldn't you expect, if you believe in representative government, wouldn't that be reflected in the Congress of the United States? And it is reflected in the Congress of the United States that way.
- [25:14]
A
So in fact, the partisanship is a symptom of a healthy republic.
- [25:20]
B
I sure hope so. But I'd be hard to convince the people of Iowa that. So I wouldn't say it quite as dogmatically as you did, but I actually believe that the more public discussion you have of public policy where Republicans and Democrats can talk to each other, respect each other, it's just like with all this stuff going on at our universities now, you know, I mean it's 90% of the professors at universities are Democrats. But the whole definition of a university ought to be where a controversy runs rampant.
- [25:59]
A
Yes.
- [26:00]
B
Where I can sit down with you, you can be a Democrat and I'm a Republican, you can be a communist, I can be a libertarian, will discuss things and appreciate each other's views, but we're going to learn from each other.
- [26:14]
A
And at the end you don't hate each other, you shake hands.
- [26:17]
B
That's right, absolutely. What's wrong with that?
- [26:19]
A
Yeah, that's great.
- [26:20]
B
And, but, but if that can't be done at universities, then you're wondering why it can't be done in the Congress of the United States.
- [26:26]
A
Yes.
- [26:27]
B
We need a whole reform of a university ought to be where you respect each other's point of view and learn from each other.
- [26:36]
A
How do you fix that?
- [26:39]
B
You could ask me an easier question. It's got to be fixed from within. Now I know Trump is trying to fix it, he can make a dent in it, but I don't think how he's going to revolutionize it and ought to be revolutionized. When, when I was studying at University of Northern Iowa, it probably wasn't quite this case because it wasn't a big college. But when I went to the University of Iowa to work on a PhD which I never finished because I was elected to the legislature, it was where you could have all this discussion and it was really a learning process and nobody got mad at anybody else. But that was in 1957, 1958 and.
- [27:33]
A
It was Iowa too, which is a more even tempered place. Yeah. Is what is Iowa like? I mean, it's very important politically.
- [27:41]
B
Well, you know, your question me right now in an island that's surrounded by reality.
- [27:47]
A
Right.
- [27:48]
B
See, the real America is what you call flyover country.
- [27:53]
A
Yeah.
- [27:53]
B
And I was the best of flyover country.
- [27:56]
A
Why is that?
- [27:57]
B
Well, because I live there, was born there. Yeah. And because we have so many firsts in our history. You know, the first woman to become a lawyer, the first black person to become a lawyer, things of that nature. That's something to be proud of. And that goes back 180 years, you know, so.
- [28:19]
A
And it's A common sense that I guess the American people have, that. You don't see a lot in Washington, do you, apart from Donald Trump's.
- [28:30]
B
How would you expect to see that In Washington when 90% of the people here, 93% of the people here vote Democrats?
- [28:38]
A
Very good question. I mean, you have seen in your long and storied career here so much turmoil, and particularly I think, about Watergate. You know, that was seen as the scandal of all scandals. And yet looking back, compared to the Russia collusion hoax, the Hunter Biden, etcetera, It seems like small beer. Am I right?
- [29:05]
B
You'll probably hear me in the next, maybe not till September now, but I'll probably speak in a long speech on that in the floor of the United States Senate. This stuff that you're asking me about, the stuff that I'm exposing, the stuff that Tulsi Gabbard exposed, all that stuff makes Watergate. See, Watergate was kind of a cover up from the outside. You and I have been talking during this podcast about a cover up within government. There's a big difference.
- [29:44]
A
So how did the Democrats get such a stranglehold on media and politics and the national capital?
- [29:51]
B
Maybe that's ending now. I hope it is.
- [29:54]
A
But because of Trump?
- [29:57]
B
Yeah, I think so. It looks like they're having trouble within their own political party, finding their way along. I think it happens when you have three major networks control the news for 70 or 80 years. Now you got this opportunity to have more people are thinking for themselves. They're telling other people how they're thinking through social media. I think that's how you end it. But it isn't going to end easy.
- [30:39]
A
No. And that brings us to your oversight responsibilities. And your have achieved enormous amount of transparency. You've had FBI directors before, you powerful people. We talked previously about Comey. Christopher Wray was a Republican appointed by Donald Trump, and yet he seemed to be one of the more troublesome ones. Tell me about that moment when he told you he had to leave the hearing early, this oversight hearing early, when he still had questions to answer. And you asked him a question, you said, do you have business to attend to? And what did he say?
- [31:26]
B
I think he just simply said, I got a goal. But the background of it is that we have maybe once a year we have the director of the FBI in for what we call a formal oversight hearing. It doesn't mean you can't do oversight with the FBI the other 364 days out of the year. But we have an official one. He comes in all the members ask questions. And then we, we had some members that wanted a second round, including, I have some questions. And I said, we're going to have a second round. He says, I've got to go. And I said, you got to go for business. I don't know what his answer was.
- [32:07]
A
But he said yes. But it was on. It was on tape. Okay. Yes.
- [32:12]
B
But then we know where he ended up. At the Adirondack Mountains. On vacation.
- [32:18]
A
Yes. For the, he went for a. It took off early for the weekend to his holiday house on the FBI private jet.
- [32:25]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [32:26]
A
So you seemed angry about that.
- [32:29]
B
Well, why wouldn't you? Once a year you got to come before our committee to answer questions, and not all the questions have been answered. And still fairly early in the afternoon. And you want to get out of here. What's the reason you want to get out of here? We got business someplace. That's okay. And you said, he said he had business, but it wasn't really, really a business. No, no.
- [32:54]
A
And, and then your other. You had several letters that you sent him oversight letters, and they never were responded to.
- [33:03]
B
We. When Pan Bondi came in for confirmation to my office, I wanted to talk to her. I gave her a file of 158 letters that the previous DOJ had not answered.
- [33:15]
A
Merrick Garland.
- [33:16]
B
Yeah. And probably half of those were FBI, never got answered. And here's, here's the thing that bothers me about that. Every time a person comes before a committee, they're always asked by the chairman of the committee, will you come to a committee hearing if we ask you? We answer our letters, we answer our phone call. Everybody says yes. And listen to that for 40 years. I advise people now to come to my office when they're answered question by the chairman of the committee, say maybe. Maybe because you say yes, you end up being a liar. So, yes, he didn't respond to him and probably intended never to respond to him. Now, I wouldn't want to say I got a letter here and there on something, but it was never answering our questions or giving us the documents we wanted. My oversight is based on the proposition that Congress not only passes bills and appropriates money and then we forget about it. No, under checks and balances that you learn in 8th grade civics, we have a responsibility to make the President United States. And it doesn't matter to me whether you're Republican or Democrat, faithfully executes those laws and faithfully expends that money the way it is. So that's where I come from in the Beginning of it now, I get most of my information from whistleblower patriotic people that want nothing more than to make sure the government does what the law says the government should do. They probably go on to somebody higher in their department to get some correction made. They don't get it. So then they come to Chuck Grassley.
- [34:59]
A
Because you are known as the patron saint of whistleblowers. You're the only one who looks after them.
- [35:04]
B
Well, if everybody looked after them, things would be different in the federal government if more people were asking questions like I do. But also I tell people that are heads of these departments, like, I'll bet I told three or four of them that there come before committees that I'm on that I vote for their confirmation. I said, you got to listen to whistleblowers. You're head of an agency that's got 10,000 people. Or you might be head of the VA that's got 400,000 people. You don't know what's going on down below. The whistleblowers are just patriotic people. You ought to listen to them. And if you listen to them, these corrections will be made and they won't have to come to me.
- [35:48]
A
Speaking of the whistleblowers, I come to know very well Steve Friend, who is an FBI whistleblower. He blew the whistle on the abuse of J6 suspects. They had SWAT teams. They were cooperative. These were misdemeanors. He. He said it was overkill and it was unconstitutional and other aspects. And Garrett o' Boyle is another whistleblower. Now, they are still languishing. I mean, we're six months into the Trump administration. They had hoped that after being retaliated against under the Biden administration that things would change. They still can't get jobs. And I know you've been. You've taken up their cause and the cause of many other FBI whistleblowers. Why is nothing happening? Why are they not being reinstated and made whole?
- [36:44]
B
Some of them just want their national security right back clearance.
- [36:49]
A
Yeah.
- [36:50]
B
Some of them want back pay.
- [36:52]
A
Yep.
- [36:53]
B
Not all of them want their job back.
- [36:55]
A
Not.
- [36:56]
B
But we're going to fight for whatever they want. And I think we're making some progress. Maybe you, as a journalist, don't see it yet, but I'd be glad to have my staff sit down with you and say how I think we've made some progress. Not enough. But we got a couple FBI people that helped us with the 1023. They've been moved from a district office into headquarters where they can help the heads of The Justice Department find where the skeletons are buried, where maybe even the people in the Justice Department wouldn't know about it.
- [37:34]
A
You mentioned the FD 1023. That was an FBI form. It was a record. Of what? A confidential human source. An FBI informant. Very well paid, highly paid, very well trusted informant. His. His identity was secret when you released this, but he was bound up with the Hunter Biden scandal. And he had given to his FBI handler some evidence or some hearsay about bribe money being paid to Hunter Biden or to two Bidens, which everyone assumed was Joe Biden. And Hunter Biden may have been someone else, may have been Hunter Biden and his business partner. But anyway, we later found out this man's name was Alexander Smirnoff. Now, you. You really battled hard against Christopher Wray and had to threaten him with contempt of Congress because he refused to release this form which had this bombshell information about Joe Biden corruption and. Tell us about that.
- [38:48]
B
Well, we wouldn't have got it without the whistleblowers telling us about it. They had read the document. They.
- [38:55]
A
And it was buried.
- [38:56]
B
Yeah, it was buried. And when my staff was able to read it before it was released, we knew it was hot stuff that needed to be put out there. But it took a long time because the whistleblowers, as you know, have jobs. They didn't want to get fired. They wanted to be very careful how they did it. So it was probably their own lawyers that took us so long to get it, but we got it. And.
- [39:24]
A
But only after threatening Christopher Wray.
- [39:26]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [39:28]
A
And then you decided, because you'd been stonewalled by Christopher Wray so much, and he kept on saying, oh, no, we can't release it because it'll hurt the whistleblower, you know.
- [39:38]
B
Well, they've been paying informant. They've been paying the informant for. For a decade, maybe longer than a decade. And. And they were. And they were. He. He was giving them misinformation as well. But they're saying, well, they allege he's giving misinformation.
- [39:57]
A
Maybe he wasn't.
- [39:58]
B
Yeah, he.
- [40:00]
A
Well, he. He alleged that the Ukrainian company Burisma had paid the Biden family $5 million each to two Bidens, and that was buried and was never allowed to go to the IRS agents who were investigating Hunter Biden. So you. You released that. That must have been a difficult decision to make. It was redacted. It wasn't difficult.
- [40:27]
B
It was difficult for the whistleblowers because you can see they could be fired for doing that.
- [40:33]
A
Right.
- [40:33]
B
Even though we have whistleblower protection laws. I wasn't. Once I got it, I was willing to release. It wasn't any problem for me to do that. The public audit all.
- [40:45]
A
You were one of the first UN Senator Ron Johnson, one of the first people to investigate the Hunter Biden corruption starting in 2019.
- [40:55]
B
And you even. Even before the laptop from hell, even. Well, yeah, but even before Biden announced his presidency. Because everybody is saying we're doing it because Dad's running for president. He wasn't running for president at the time we opened this investigation.
- [41:14]
A
And what made you open the investigation?
- [41:16]
B
We had whistleblowers that came to us and told us how bad the situation was. We needed information. And eventually we issued a preliminary report, 2020 and very prescient. Then a fuller report later on.
- [41:32]
A
And you had all the payments that were coming in from Ukraine and China and so on to the Biden, to Hunter Biden.
- [41:40]
B
Yeah. In. I don't. Was 21 or 22. I gave a speech and I put pictures of all these financial transactions, the. The checks that were written to them. I put it up on the same floor so the whole world could see it.
- [41:55]
A
Yeah. So you were prescient on that, but you got a lot of obstruction from the FBI. Tell us about. You had a bogus briefing. You were ambushed.
- [42:07]
B
Yeah. Can you believe that? We were told that we should be briefed on it to kind of protect ourselves if. So we. We go to this briefing and we didn't learn anything new at the briefing, but the briefing was set up at the be. At the behest of Democrat leaders in the House and Senate.
- [42:30]
A
Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer.
- [42:31]
B
Yeah. To put us in line so that out of this meeting they could leak a press release that would say that we were. Didn't know what we were doing.
- [42:43]
A
And Russian disinformation.
- [42:45]
B
Yes. Yeah. All that sort of stuff.
- [42:47]
A
Yeah.
- [42:48]
B
So. But I. Now that we know three or four years later, everything we said was accurate and. And even more information's coming out on it almost all the time.
- [43:00]
A
Yes. That report really stands the test of time. You had an outline of everything, all the Hunter Biden grift and the money going to his. His family. Do you think you served with Joe Biden in the Senate? Side by side in this room. He was a chairman of the Judiciary Committee before you, and you were a member sitting up at the podium with him. Did you get on with him? Did you think he was corrupt? Did you think he was incompetent?
- [43:30]
B
I got along with Him, I didn't think he was corrupt, I didn't think he was incompetent. I had a pretty good relationship with him for 28 years that we served together.
- [43:41]
A
Were you close to him?
- [43:42]
B
No, I wouldn't say I was close, but we worked together on legislation. We got along personally pretty well.
- [43:50]
A
And was there anything about him that would sort of indicate what kind of a terrible president he would end up being?
- [43:58]
B
Not at all.
- [43:59]
A
Really. Were you surprised?
- [44:02]
B
Yeah, I think it's. If you feel like you know somebody. Well, it's hard to believe some of the things that you originally heard. Now you kind of know. A little naive about how I looked at the President Biden compared to Senator Biden.
- [44:24]
A
And what changed? Or was he always like that?
- [44:27]
B
Well, what changed? What changed was since he been president, I've only had one face to face meeting with him, so I don't have anything to judge it. But what I've learned by what everybody else has said going on and what you observed on tv, you know, that lot changed since he left the United States Senate.
- [44:50]
A
In what way?
- [44:52]
B
Well, I just think physically and manly.
- [44:55]
A
Right. So when he was president, how do you assess his presidency and he was one of nine presidents that you've served with?
- [45:05]
B
Well, considering the fact that he doesn't look like he was running it, at least in recent two or three years, I, I think he'll never get out in history as, as a very effective senator or a very effective president.
- [45:22]
A
But do you suspect that Joe Biden was being controlled by his staff?
- [45:27]
B
Yes. When you do a thousand commute commutations and pardons and you don't pay any attention to what you are doing, your.
- [45:38]
A
Job, what did you think about his pardoning Hunter Biden?
- [45:44]
B
I'm not surprised, but it shouldn't have been done and it proves the guilt of Hunter Biden.
- [45:50]
A
What about Anthony Fauci and Mark Milley? I mean, why were they pardoned?
- [45:55]
B
I don't, I don't know. But I assume that it's based on the proposition that with the Trump administration coming in, they could have been in trouble.
- [46:04]
A
Why? Because they're guilty.
- [46:08]
B
I don't know whether they did anything criminal, but I think they misled the American people the extent to which they knew about Chinese disseminating the virus and wasn't transparent enough in regard to it.
- [46:29]
A
Do you think there will be accountability in the end? Do you think that anyone will go to jail? John Brennan and Jim Comey now have.
- [46:37]
B
Been too early to tell, but I'll tell you what they did to keep Trump from being, getting elected president. And then particularly after he was elected early on, before he's even sworn in, did everything they could to get him out of, with the hope of getting him out of office or if they didn't get him out of office, ruining his first term. And I think they, they accomplished that through that Russia, Russia, Russia stuff.
- [47:10]
A
So maybe they'll go to jail.
- [47:14]
B
I'm going to let the process plays out. I'm not a judge and I'm not a jury.
- [47:20]
A
Two last questions. I ask everybody this. You've, you've, you're successful yourself. You've been around a lot of successful people. What are the secrets of success? What makes a successful person always tell.
- [47:34]
B
The truth so you don't realize what you said to somebody else. Know your stuff before you talk about it. And for United States Senator, hiring very dependable, smart staff.
- [47:57]
A
Actually, I'm going to ask you a little extra sub question about that because you are renowned for having the best staff on Congress, in Congress. I know some of your alumni. They're brilliant. They're the best investigators, champions of whistleblowers. How do you do that? What, why your staff so good?
- [48:18]
B
I don't really come to me that way, but I have a policy in my office that I want general parameters for people to work in, but I want each staff person to see themselves as a mini Senator.
- [48:39]
A
Grassley, the secrets of longevity. You're 91. You're spry. You were jogging until just a few years ago. I mean, do you have a good diet? What is it about your health?
- [48:53]
B
In the 90s, I was chairman of the aging committee, visited every nursing home, not every nursing home. I visited a lot of nursing homes in Iowa. And I found out that the recreation director had the toughest time getting people to do the littlest of exercise. And I thought to myself, I don't want that to happen. So at age 65, I started running and I, you know, I ran a few of these competitive races, never doing very well. I remember the first time I ran, I did three miles in 27 minutes. And I never made 27 minutes ever again. And it gradually got worse. When I finally got up to 39 minutes, I decided I'm never going to run competitively again. But I did continue to run until about three years ago. Now, it'd be intellectually dishonest for me to say I run. I used to run three miles four times a week and now I do two miles walking six times a week.
- [50:04]
A
Do you think there should be term limits?
- [50:06]
B
I voted for it two or three times. But I think that people that want term limits forget that. Every two years for congressmen, every four years for governors, and every six years for senators. You can term limit anybody you want to.
- [50:25]
A
And just the very last question. The nine presidents from Gerald Ford, Carter, Reagan, right through the two Trumps and Biden. Have you got a favorite?
- [50:36]
B
Yeah. George W. Bush. Because he was so much like we Iowa. Oh.
- [50:41]
A
Even though he's a Texan.
- [50:44]
B
Well, friendly, easy to get along with. Sit down and talk.
- [50:48]
A
Yeah.
- [50:49]
B
Casual conversation. You know, Reagan was the best president I ever served under. Maybe someday I'll say Trump's the best president I ever served under. But right now I can say Reagan. But the friendliest and the one I liked the most was George W. Bush.
- [51:05]
A
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Senator Grassley.
- [51:07]
B
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
- [51:11]
A
Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm Miranda Devine and this is podforce One. Please hit the like and subscribe button so you don't miss future interviews with the most powerful people in Washington.