Grassley Statement at Executive Business Meeting
Prepared Statement by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee
Executive
Business Meeting
Thursday,
July 28, 2022
I understand we’ve agreed to have a voice
vote on Ms. Desai this morning. I have serious reservations about her
nomination and will be reviewing her record more before voting on the floor.
I’d also like to discuss the two oversight letters that I made public this week. The letters relate to
Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault. He’s at the FBI’s
Washington Field Office.
This FBI official engaged in active public partisanship in his public social media content. He also posted
partisan anti-Trump and anti-Attorney General Barr material to his Linked-In
account.
The matters he posted about included
matters under his purview at the FBI. He’s now under investigation for
potential Hatch Act violations.
According to allegations, Thibault was
deeply involved in opening the investigation into the Trump campaign.
The Washington Post reported on that
investigation this Tuesday. However, the Post didn’t report that Thibault was a
prime mover in opening it.
They missed that important data point.
According to allegations, that
investigation was substantially based on liberal news articles and information
derived from a left-wing nonprofit. And it was a full investigation, not
preliminary.
Contrast that investigation with the
allegation that the FBI received negative information on Hunter Biden from
multiple sources over a period of years. That information involved potential
criminal conduct.
What did Thibault do with that
information and those sources? According to whistleblowers, he shut it down. And
an FBI Headquarters team worked to falsely label the information as
disinformation.
What these allegations show is this: The
Justice Department and FBI greenlit an investigation into the Trump campaign –
yet shut down investigative activity with respect to Hunter Biden.
Political bias has infected the Justice
Department and FBI. Attorney General Garland and Director Wray must explain
themselves to Congress and the American people.
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