Chuck Grassley Just Told You The FBI Is Out of Control

Then Grassley said something even more incredible: the FBI had declined to meet with him at all. Month after month. Year after year. At any time. For any reason. This is incredible because Grassley has been a ranking member on the Judiciary Committee for a long time — so he provides oversight of the FBI. Well, he supposedly provides oversight. In actuality, the FBI avoids oversight. As Grassley told everyone: “I’ve asked Director Wray several times to meet with me relating to a very troubling briefing that I received in August 2020 from the FBI and which was later weaponized against my and Senator Johnson’s oversight. Director Wray and his staff have ignored my request to meet.”

Think about what Grassley is saying: he can’t get the FBI to meet with him about a briefing the FBI gave him! Do you still believe that Congress has real oversight on the FBI? Because Grassley just told you: it’s a lie. He also had his letter entered into the official record. Grassley’s letter is an extraordinary document because of how much insight it gives the average American citizen into how our government really works:

On August 6, 2020, we received a briefing from the FBI which, according to the FBI, was done in conjunction with the Intelligence Community (IC). This briefing was done because of political pressure from Democratic Leadership, not because of any real threat. We have asked to meet with FBI Director Christopher Wray to discuss our concerns and have requested records relating to the briefing; however, he and his Chief of Staff, Corey Ellis, have refused to answer our communications and have failed to provide any answers or information. FBI leadership’s failure to respond to congressional inquiries not only undermines the FBI as an institution, it also undermines the work of its dedicated agents and staff.

Why did the FBI do a phony briefing for Grassley and Johnson?

Nancy Pelosi, and Representative Adam Schiff sent a letter, with a classified attachment, to the FBI to express a purported belief that Congress was the subject of a foreign disinformation campaign. In that letter, which was publicly released on July 20, 2020, they requested a briefing on foreign efforts to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The classified attachment included unclassified elements that, among other things, attempted — and failed — to tie our joint investigation into the Biden family’s foreign financial deals to foreign disinformation.

So Schumer, Warner, Pelosi and Schiff were trying to slow down Grassley and Johnson’s “joint investigations into the Biden family’s foreign financial deals.” Got that? How did the Democrats do it? By leaking to their allies in the corporate media of course.

Then, on May 1, 2021, the Washington Post reported on “an extensive effort by the [FBI] to alert members of Congress…that they faced a risk of being used to further Russia’s attempt to influence the election’s outcome[.]” This statement was attributed to “several current and former U.S. officials” who remained anonymous “because the matter remains highly sensitive.” The article then inaccurately proceeded to link Russian disinformation attempts to our investigation, which was based on Obama administration government records and records that showed extensive financial connections between the Biden family and questionable foreign nationals, including individuals connected to the communist Chinese government’s military and intelligence services.

The Washington Post reporting purported to be based, in part, on an August 6, 2020, briefing that we received from the FBI, which, as the timeline above illustrates, happened in response to pressure from Democratic Leadership. The briefing was not specific. Moreover, it consisted primarily of information that we already knew and information unconnected to our investigation. We made clear to the FBI briefers on August 6, 2020, that the briefing was not relevant to the substance of our work. We also made clear our concern that the briefing would
be subject to a leak that would shed a false light on the focus of our investigation. Indeed, the Washington Post article did exactly that and so did the other inaccurate media articles.

During your review of Crossfire Hurricane, you identified that counterintelligence
briefings for Trump campaign officials were used by the FBI as intelligence gathering operations, concerns that we raised with the Justice Department on April 25, 2019, after we discovered text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Specifically, Peter Strzok was primarily responsible for assisting the FBI agent that would be at those briefings. In response to your findings, Director Wray established new protocols for these transition briefings to keep potential political considerations out of the decision-making process. Specifically, Director Wray noted that these briefings “should be for national security purposes and not for
investigative purposes.” Director Wray further noted that the new FBI protocols “will complement procedures already implemented by the FBI earlier this year to govern the separate category of defensive briefings.” Based on the FBI’s conduct leading up to and including the August 6, 2020, briefing it appears that the FBI’s new briefing protocols are insufficient.

So Grassley, and Senator Ron Johnson, discovered text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and also found out that disgraced agent Peter Strzok was the one behind the briefings that they got from the FBI in 2019. FBI Director Wray promised to stop these kind of phony briefings leaked to the media, and yet it happened again to Grassley and Johnson in August 2020 when they were investigating “the Biden family’s foreign financial deals.” Wray didn’t want to meet with Grassley and Johnson to discuss this second incident — so the pair wrote to the DOJ’s IG Michael Horowitz instead.

When senators start telling you at public hearings in Congress that the FBI is setting them up with fake briefings and then stonewalling them when caught: that’s when I start to doubt that Congress is really in charge anymore. If the FBI can play these games with ranking members of the Judiciary Committee, then what do you think they do with average citizens of our republic? That’s not a theoretical question either, not after the January 6th insurrection turned out to be an FBI operation. (Just like the Governor Whitmer kidnapping plot in which the FBI had 12 informants in a group of 14 “kidnappers.”) We are now living in a country where our elected representatives are telling you openly that the intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement agencies have gone rogue and answer to no one but themselves. Is that a country that you want to live in?