Hawkeye Reporter

Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appeared on "Just the News, No Noise" with John Solomon and Amanda Head to discuss his decision to release a Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (DOJ OIG) report. The report details what Grassley describes as negligence by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as Secretary of State.

Grassley commented on the level of cooperation he has received from different presidential administrations in his oversight work. He said, “First of all, I think I need to compliment the Trump administration, because I sought information under both Republican and Democrat presidents over decades on a lot of my oversight work. And I'm getting more cooperation from the Trump administration [than I’ve] ever got before.”

Discussing the FBI’s handling of evidence related to Clinton’s emails, Grassley stated, “We’re talking about [former] Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, [who was] also at the same time candidate for president of the United States, and a person that ought to know better than to keep emails and official correspondence on a server that's not protected in their own home... [W]hat [I’m] making public...is this fact that the FBI knew about it. They got some thumb drives that dealt with all these issues, [and] they didn't even bother to go through [them].”

He continued by criticizing what he sees as a lack of accountability: “It was a complete cover up, completely ignoring [the FBI’s] responsibilities. [Just] another way of saving the politicalization and weaponization of the FBI and the Department of Justice [by] turning a blind eye to key evidence while investigating Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information on this private email server."

“These findings prove that the Clinton investigation wasn't thorough and complete... And I've been requesting this report to be declassified for years, and finally, now, after seven years, we got it declassified so the American people can have all the facts at their disposal," Grassley said.

He emphasized transparency as essential for accountability: “Transparency is the first step to accountability. I would expect that now that this stuff's out and the public knows about it, DOJ is going to find some pressure to closely review what has been exposed.”

Grassley also addressed ongoing legal efforts involving former President Donald Trump: “Whether it's Jack Smith, what he was doing to put [President Trump] in prison, or what the prosecutor in New York was doing to break him financially or what was done through the Russia hoax and what we call Crossfire Hurricane – all those things lumped together are all conspiracies to get Trump either in jail or out of office or keep him from being re-elected..."

“[T]he bottom line is that we ought to be thankful President Trump is back in office so truth can come out to light. And we ought to just thank God that that's the situation, but if these people had their way, he wouldn't [have] even serve[d] those first four years,” Grassley concluded.