Posts tagged with "Senator Chuck Grassley (r-Iowa)"

Above, FBI Director Christopher Wray. (Photo source: Pool photo)

House Oversight chair prepares to hold FBI director in contempt over document in Biden probe

June 1, 2023

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Kentucky) said on Tuesday, May 30, that the committee is moving forward with a vote to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to hand over a document in the panel’ in the panel’s investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings, reports NBC News.

Comer subpoenaed the FBI this month for an FD-1023 form containing allegations someone made about then-Vice President Joe Biden. Wray recently failed to comply with a congressional subpoena requesting all FD-1023 forms containing the name “Biden.”

Former FBI agent Tracy Walder told NewsNation host Dan Abrams this week that it’s “highly unusual” for someone to demand the release of an FD-1023 and that the House Oversight Committee’s request seems like a “very broad fishing expedition.”

Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) claim that the form “describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions,” without providing further details.

The FBI declined to provide the document—saying that it is bound by Justice Department policy, which “strictly limits when and how confidential human source information can be provided outside of the FBI.”

Comer last week threatened to hold Wray in contempt if the FBI didn’t provide the information by Tuesday. However, in a statement on Tuesday, the House Oversight chair said the FBI informed the committee that “it will not provide the unclassified documents subpoenaed” by the panel.

“The FBI’s decision to stiff-arm Congress and hide this information from the American people is obstructionist and unacceptable,” he said.

Comer said he was scheduled to speak with Wray on Wednesday about the agency’s refusal to hand over the information, but the committee is preparing to take the punitive step ahead of their conversation.

“While I have a call scheduled with FBI Director Wray tomorrow to discuss his response further, the Committee has been clear in its intent to protect Congressional oversight authorities and will now be taking steps to hold the FBI Director in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a lawful subpoena,” he said. “Americans deserve the truth, and the Oversight Committee will continue to demand transparency from this nation’s chief law enforcement agency.”

On Tuesday, Acting Assistant Director of the FBI Christopher Dunham sent a letter to Comer, prior to his contempt threat. In the letter, obtained by NBC News, Dunham explains why the bureau can’t comply with the committee’s subpoena due to the need to protect human sources.

“As we also have said previously, information provided by confidential human sources also implicates other longstanding Department confidentiality interest,” Dunham wrote. “The Department’s law enforcement and intelligence authorities enable us to collect significant amounts of information, but only subject to strict constitutional, statutory, and policy limits essential to the rule of law.”

The letter also outlines how the FBI explained to Comer and his staff the way FD-1023 forms were used and how they are vetted by agents to ensure their accuracy.

Research contact: @NBCNews

Above, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Photo source: Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore)

Ted Cruz proposes constitutional amendment to stop Supreme Court-packing

March 24, 2023

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced a constitutional amendment on Wednesday, March 22, which would cap the Supreme Court at nine justices, in a bid to quash the desire among some Democrats to expand the bench and dilute the current conservative majority, reports The Hill.

Expanding the Supreme Court became a popular policy idea for some liberals after former President Donald Trump was able to appoint three justices during his term and give the court a 6-3 conservative majority. Talk of expanding the court intensified after it overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

“The Democrats’ answer to a Supreme Court that is dedicated to upholding the rule of law and the Constitution is to pack it with liberals who will rule the way they want,” Cruz said in a statement announcing the move. “The Supreme Court should be independent, not inflated by every new administration. That’s why I’ve introduced a constitutional amendment to permanently keep the number of justices at nine.”

But even as Democrats reel from the court’s stripping of federal abortion protections, President Joe Biden and others in Democratic leadership have not joined in calls for expanding the high court. Biden came out firmly against the idea of court expansion last year.

Proponents of expansion argue that the status quo allows for effective minority rule, with an activist conservative court overruling policies and laws passed by elected Democratic lawmakers—and potentially even changing the electoral landscape to benefit Republicans for years to come.

Other critics of the conservative court have suggested limited terms for justices, who are currently appointed for life, as a way to make the court’s power less entrenched.

The Cruz bill picked up support from ten other Senate Republicans, including Senators Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), John Kennedy (R-Louisiana), Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

“For years the left has been desperate to pack the court to promote their radical agenda,” Hawley said in a statement. “We must ensure that we stay true to the court’s founding principles, maintain the precedent of nine justices, and keep the Democrats from their brazen attempts to rig our democracy.”

Research contact: @thehill

Above, Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas). (Photo source: investing.com)

Trump’s DHS purge rattles Republicans

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April 10, 2019

Now you see them; now you don’t. With DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen ousted on April 7 and Secret Service Director Randolf Alles axed on April 8, even President Donald Trump’s closest Congressional allies are aghast at the purge taking place at the Department of Homeland Security this week, Politico reports.

And the plethora of pink slips may just keep coming. Several more senior officials are said to be in the president’s sights—among them, L. Francis Cissna, the head of U.S. citizenship and Immigration Services and John Mitnik, the DHS general counsel.

“It’s a mess,” Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) told the news outlet, summing up the dynamic on the southern border and in Washington, D.C.

The president’s frantic four days of hatchet-wielding at DHS and other agencies has blindsided senior Republicans, who are urging him to stop the bleeding. Republicans note that the president has the right to fire whomever he wants, Politico said, but few offered an explicit defense of his decisions to force out DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen; or remove the Secret Service director and threaten more terminations.

Some are worried about the increasing  influence of top White House aide Stephen Miller—an immigration hardliner whose star seems to be rising in the administration.

Cornyn said he has no idea what Miller’s “agenda” is in determining immigration policy because he isn’t Senate-confirmed and doesn’t correspond with the Hill.

Others believe the president is “losing it,” after backtracking on his threats to close the border, failing to get legal funding for the wall, and losing the court case on separation of families.

“Strikes me as just a frustration of not being able to solve a problem. Honestly, it wasn’t Secretary Nielsen’s fault. It wasn’t for lack of effort on her part. I don’t know if there’s anybody who’s going to be able to do more,” said Cornyn, who spoke to Nielsen on April 8 and planned to speak to her interim replacement, Kevin McAleenan, later in the day.

“I thought that Nielsen was doing a fantastic job,” added Joni Ernst of Iowa, the No. 5 Senate GOP leader. “I would love to see some continuity. I think that’s important.”

Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the most senior GOP senator, is trying to head off even more dismissals as Trump tries to reshape DHS into a “tougher” mold.

In an interview with Politico, Grassley expressed concern that Trump may soon boot U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Lee Francis Cissna and Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, who heads the office of policy and strategy at USCIS.

“I heard that they are on the list to be fired,” Grassley said. “They are doing in an intellectual-like way what the president wants to accomplish. So no, they should not go.”

On immigration, the G.O.P. has not been in lockstep with Trump. So even as the president pursues more aggressive strategies on the border, the party might not stick with him ahead of an election cycle that has the Senate up for grabs and with Republicans eager to take back the House.

“He thinks it’s a winning issue,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the Republican whip. “It works for him. It may not work for everybody else.”

Research contact: @burgessev