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Floor Speech
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today, I want to address the ill-advised and really unacceptable conduct at the November 30 Judiciary Committee executive meeting. The majority there didn't allow a single Republican amendment to the adoption of the subpoena authorization, and that was breaking with precedent. Contrary to what Democrats allege, when I was chairman, I followed the rules and let everyone speak who wanted to so speak. I even allowed them to offer resolutions during a confirmation process, which I could have ruled out of order. Simply put, this subpoena authorization isn't based on oversight; it is based on overreach. It is a political hit.
Over the past 6 months, the left's web of dark money interest groups has tried to impugn the character and reputation of certain conservative members of the Supreme Court. This Democratic investigation into the Supreme Court totally ignores ethical questions and dark money networks surrounding liberal Justices. This is all part of a whirlwind effort to cast doubt on our country's highest Court and call into question the legitimacy of its rulings. Conservative Justices have been specifically targeted, harassed, and even threatened. The left's influence-peddling scheme views these conservative Justices as the greatest obstacle to jamming their radical agenda through our courts because Congress won't do the same liberal bidding.
The left has outlined new rules for conservative Justices: Justices' spouses must give up their independent law practices; Justices shouldn't vacation with close personal friends; Justices shouldn't have wealthy friends; and Justices shouldn't make any new friends after donning the robe.
How unfair and how unrealistic. No such conflicts of interest ever were raised during the Court's liberal years. These rules were not invoked against the Court's liberal Justices. This persistent political battering of the Judiciary is coming at a tremendous cost. The conservative Justices have endured real threats to their safety and the safety of their loved ones.
As I have said before, judicial decision-making must be based on law and sound jurisprudence. It shouldn't be subject to the whims of public opinion or clamor. It cannot be the result of threats and intimidation of Supreme Court Justices. This political hit by the Democratic majority of the committee will do lasting damage not only to the Court but to the committee. Again, this effort isn't really oversight as I like to do, and we do a good job of it; instead, it is about political theater.
Let me give some examples of how an investigation should be conducted.
During my time as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, starting in 2017, the committee investigated, in a bipartisan fashion, alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Bipartisan committee staff--I want to emphasize that--bipartisan committee staff interviewed five individuals who participated in that meeting, including President Trump's son, and collected documents from several others involved. At the Democrats' request, the committee interviewed an additional six individuals. I subpoenaed even Paul Manafort, with then-Ranking Member Feinstein's agreement for him to appear at a hearing and to provide testimony. With the exception of Democrats refusing to subpoena Fusion GPS and related parties, then-Chairman Graham's 2020 Crossfire Hurricane subpoena authorization was based on years of bipartisan work.
As I have thought more about my Democratic colleagues' apparent laser focus on government ethics, it is clear that they have totally ignored the biggest, most obvious ethical fact pattern that requires investigation, and that is of the Biden family.
Since August 2019, Senator Johnson and I have investigated the Biden family's connections to foreign governments and questionable foreign nationals. We issued two reports and gave three floor speeches that made public hundreds of bank records. Our findings showed criminal activity, to include potential money laundering, with respect to members of the Biden family and their business associates and the use of public office for private gain.
Well, with respect to the Hunter Biden-related accounts, some have also been flagged for potential human trafficking. As Senator Johnson and I noted in our September 23, 2020, Biden family report, Treasury records show thousands of dollars in financial transactions involving Hunter Biden and Ukrainian and Russian women. These Treasury records link those women to Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking rings.
At this Judiciary Committee executive meeting that I have been speaking about, Democrats failed to consider my amendment to gather more facts on this abuse against women. Senator Johnson and I made public a bank record that showed Hunter Biden received $1 million from a Chinese company that was an arm of the communist regime for representing Patrick Ho. Patrick Ho was charged and convicted for bribery and related Federal offenses. Now, guess what. Hunter Biden called Patrick Ho the spy chief for China. Based on the known facts, it appears that Hunter Biden was effectively a foreign agent of the communist regime.
The Judiciary Committee maintained jurisdiction and still maintains jurisdiction over the Foreign Agents Registration Act and the Justice Department's enforcement of it. Yet, the Democrat-led committee has ignored the law and the Biden family.
In July of this year, I obtained and publicly released what is now called the Biden family 1023. This FBI-generated document is based on information provided to a long-serving FBI confidential human source. The FBI document shows a criminal bribery scheme. The criminal scheme included Joe Biden and Hunter Biden each being paid $5 million for Joe Biden to take a policy position in favor of a foreign national. That policy position was ultimately taken. Joe Biden even bragged about it, and you can see, fairly regularly, his voice and his face talking about this--what he did to the Ukrainian Government to get somebody fired. The 1023 used the phrase ``Big Guy'' to describe Joe Biden before the ``Big Guy'' description was publicly known months later. Different people at different times in different parts of the world independently used the same code name to describe Joe Biden.
Do my Democratic colleagues believe that it is just a coincidence? The 1023 includes references to audio recordings with Joe Biden, text messages, and records allegedly proving bribery criminal activity, and that it was real.
What have my Democratic colleagues done to investigate that evidence? What has the Biden Justice Department done?
The Tony Bobulinski interview noted that the Biden family would receive a multimillion-dollar unsecured loan, intended to be forgivable, from the energy company in China called CEFC. That would serve as payments for actions Joe Biden took during his Vice Presidency.
This financial strategy to illegally treat income as a loan is consistent with the IRS whistleblower testimony that indicated Hunter Biden attempted the same with respect to other income. These facts and allegations indicate criminal activity, money laundering, bribery, tax evasion, and significant ethical violations.
And, by the way, the Hunter Biden tax indictment mentioned financial transactions that my and Senator Johnson's work exposed years ago.
Look at indictment paragraphs 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 100. Compare them with the other two reports from 2020 and three floor speeches last year.
My Democratic colleagues have shown zero interest in knowing, understanding, joining forces, or advancing this 4-year-old investigation. Instead, they have shown willful blindness to protect the President and family.
One of my Democratic colleagues said the right thing when we considered then-Chairman Graham's subpoena authorization. Senator Whitehouse brought up an amendment to ``reinforce his point made at the last meeting about the selective enthusiasm of [the Judiciary] Committee for getting to the bottom of things and what appears to be a policy at the Department of Justice of refusing to answer Committee members' letters and Committee members' questions for the record.''
The U.S. Congress has a constitutional mandate to conduct oversight of Republican and Democratic administrations without any political bias for either. We have a duty to ensure the Justice Department and the FBI consistently enforce the law without regard to politics.
Judiciary Committee Democrats were eager to engage in the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation before it was totally debunked. However, they were very eager to falsely attack my and Senator Johnson's Biden family investigation as Russian disinformation. Sadly, I haven't seen the same enthusiasm from the other side now that a Democratic political family is under the microscope.
If it is criminal and ethical questions my Democratic colleagues are interested in, then the Judiciary Committee should, in a bipartisan fashion, bring the family members for interviews and obtain records from them. No, the Democrat majority wants to investigate Supreme Court Justices and, of all nine of the Justices, only the conservative ones. So I can only conclude the Democrats' brand of oversight is more about politics than fact finding.
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