Grassley built a reputation for government oversight. Has he abandoned it under Trump?
WASHINGTON AP As President Donald Trump s top law enforcement administrators were firing and forcing out waves of Justice Department veterans Sen Chuck Grassley denounced a political infection that had poisoned FBI leadership The Iowa Republican was not criticizing FBI Director Kash Patel or Attorney General Pam Bondi In a July report he directed his ire at the FBI s extreme lack of effort in inspecting Democrat Hillary Clinton s use of a private email server as secretary of state a decade ago Trump loyalists have roiled the Justice Department shattering norms and leading to a mass exodus of veteran functionaries but the -year-old chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has remained focused on the past Critics say Grassley s reluctance to challenge the Trump administration has even extended to a defining issue His assistance for whistleblowers making alleges of fraud waste and abuse In an interview Grassley insisted he has not abandoned his oversight role He noted he has felt compelled to investigate issues under earlier presidents to avoid a repeat of what he described as politically motivated prosecutions carried out against Trump and his allies Political weaponization is being brought to the surface and being made more transparent because this administration is the greater part cooperative of any administration Republican or Democrat Grassley mentioned Grassley has acknowledged that Congress has ceded a great deal of power to the current administration a concession he says makes his own oversight more crucial It s going to enhance the necessity for it he noted Grassley is known for his focus on oversight Grassley upon entering Congress in swiftly developed a reputation for exposing corruption and waste He once drove to the Pentagon in his orange Chevy Chevette to demand answers from authorities about their purchase of hammers and coffee pots He was among the chief proponents in Congress of laws to shield employees who revealed such waste and sponsored the landmark Whistleblower Protection Act He also has played a key role in empowering inspectors general internal watchdogs tasked with rooting out misconduct He has been the conscience of the Senate on whistleblower protection rights for decades disclosed Tom Devine legal director for the Administration Accountability Project In the current Congress he has co-sponsored statute boosting protections for whistleblowers in the FBI and CIA No one is close to having his impact Devine explained That hardly means that we perpetually agree with his judgment calls about initiative Criticized for not taking on Trump administration Trump and Grassley are not perpetually in alignment This past week for example they tussled over the pace of confirmation of administration nominees Even so Democrats and good cabinet advocates say Grassley has been conspicuously silent as the administration has investigated Trump s perceived enemies fired agents who worked on politically sensitive cases and upended the Justice Department s longstanding post-Watergate independence Particular whistleblowers have been loath to trust him with revelations that might harm the administration according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former U S representatives or their attorneys several of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation There are a lot of people concerned he s not the same old Chuck Grassley revealed Eric Woolson author of a biography of Grassley who once served as a Grassley campaign spokesman Grassley rejected that criticism saying whistleblowers call him regardless of who is in the White House His office s online portal has received more than complaints in about the same level as past years staffers announced His entire career he s the guy people will trust noted Jason Foster a former chief investigative counsel to Grassley who founded Empower Oversight a group that has advocated on behalf of FBI agents disciplined under the Biden administration Staunch Trump ally Multiple of Grassley s latest actions however suggest he has evolved from being a fiercely independent moderate eager to sniff out fraud to being a stalwart Trump ally according to Democrats and whistleblower advocates Various were particularly alarmed at Grassley s dismissal of viewers who raised concerns about the June nomination of Emil Bove a high-ranking Justice Department official and former Trump lawyer to a lifetime federal appeals court seat Among several authorities who came forward was Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni who noted he was fired for refusing to go along with Bove s plans to defy court orders and withhold information from judges to advance the administration s aggressive deportation goals Grassley explained his staff tried to investigate particular of the insists but that lawyers for one whistleblower would not give his staff all the materials they requested in time Instead of delaying the hearing to dig further Grassley circled the wagons behind Trump s nominee The vicious rhetoric unfair accusations and abuse directed at Mr Bove Grassley disclosed in a speech have crossed the line Stacey Young a former Justice Department lawyer who founded Justice Connection a configuration of department alumni mobilized to uphold the department s traditionally apolitical workforce disclosed she was disappointed Grassley has not used his influence to condemn firings at the department How is the congressional majority not screaming bloody murder We are watching the near decimation of DOJ in real-time and Congress is sitting by doing nothing she commented Does Sen Grassley think it s OK that people get fired for doing their jobs At a September oversight hearing Grassley passed up a chance to grill Patel on a series of terminations of line agents and high-level supervisors including five whose abrupt and still-unexplained dismissals had generated headlines weeks earlier When Democrats pressed Patel about his use of the bureau s plane for personal reasons Grassley chided Senate colleagues for their disinterest in the journey practices of previous directors Grassley has also been an eager conduit for an FBI leadership seeking to expose what it insists was misconduct and overreach in an probe during the Biden administration into Trump s efforts to overturn the voting He has distributed batches of sensitive documents from that research known as Arctic Frost that he says have been furnished by FBI whistleblowers or that have been labeled as Produced by FBI Director Kash Patel The records are not the type of documents federal law enforcement would typically make community on its own Advocates dismayed over Grassley response to IG firings Whistleblower advocates explained they were dismayed when Grassley failed to take a robust stance when Trump within days of taking office fired without cause specific inspectors general Even selected Republican-appointed inspectors general accused Trump of violating a law requiring the White House to provide -day notice and rationale to Congress If any Republican were going to stand up for them chosen of the fired inspectors general revealed they expected it to be Grassley He has been uncharacteristically silent declared Mark Greenblatt a Trump appointee at the Interior Department who was among those fired It is unimaginable that the Grassley of a scarce years ago the man who held nominees and fired off blistering threats at the smallest provocation to protect inspectors general would be so silent in the face of these assaults Grassley responded to the purge by sending Trump a letter requesting leaders right away spell out their case-by-case specific reasons for the dismissals It took the White House eight months to respond In a two-page letter it reasserted presidential authority to fire inspectors general at will and made no attempt to explain its rationale other than to cite changed priorities Associated Press writer Ryan J Foley in Iowa City Iowa contributed to this 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