Posts

This Is How Chuck Grassley Will Proceed With Kavanaugh’s Accuser

/0 Comments/in , /by

By Townhall. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley detailed how he will handle the situation and accusations made by professor Christine Blasey Ford in a statement Monday afternoon.

“Anyone who comes forward as Dr. Ford has deserves to be heard, so I will continue working on a way to hear her out in an appropriate, precedented and respectful manner.

“The standard procedure for updates to any nominee’s background investigation file is to conduct separate follow-up calls with relevant parties. In this case, that would entail phone calls with at least Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford. Consistent with that practice, I asked Senator Feinstein’s office yesterday to join me in scheduling these follow-ups. Thus far, they have refused. But as a necessary step in evaluating these claims, I’ll continue working to set them up.

“Unfortunately, committee Republicans have only known this person’s identity from news reports for less than 24 hours and known about her allegations for less than a week. Senator Feinstein, on the other hand, has had this information for many weeks and deprived her colleagues of the information necessary to do our jobs. The Minority withheld even the anonymous allegations for six weeks, only to later decide that they were serious enough to investigate on the eve of the committee vote, after the vetting process had been completed.

(Read more from “This Is How Chuck Grassley Will Proceed With Kavanaugh’s Accuser” HERE)

___________________________________________

Grassley: Feinstein Refusing to Cooperate on Kavanaugh Accuser

By The Daily Caller. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley blasted ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein for her handling of high-school-era sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The allegations against Kavanaugh surfaced Sunday after his accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, granted an interview to The Washington Post. Ford detailed how she sent an anonymous letter to Feinsten regarding the alleged encounter months earlier. Feinstein said she forwarded Ford’s letter to the FBI for review but never made the allegations public until stories began to surface around the letter itself after Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings ended. . .

The chairman explained that “the standard procedure for updates to any nominee’s background investigation file is to conduct separate follow-up calls with relevant parties. In this case, that would entail phone calls with at least Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford,” adding, “I asked Senator Feinstein’s office yesterday to join me in scheduling these follow-ups. Thus far, they have refused. But as a necessary step in evaluating these claims, I’ll continue working to set them up.” (Read more from “Grassley: Feinstein Refusing to Cooperate on Kavanaugh Accuser” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Chuck Grassley Demands Legal Arguments Behind Obama’s ‘Pen and Phone’ Strategy

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: APA top Senate Republican wants access to the legal opinions that justify President Obama’s plans to step up his use of executive orders.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter Monday to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, asking for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to disclose to the public its opinions and analyses of the president’s executive orders.

Grassley’s request comes a week after Obama promised “a year of action,” which he would undertake even if Congress does not vote in favor of his proposals.

“In his State of the Union address earlier this week, the President made plain his intention to implement his agenda through aggressive use of these orders, whether or not the Congress and the American people agree,” Grassley wrote to Holder. “I am gravely concerned that the system of checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution is threatened by the President’s determination to take unilateral action if he cannot persuade Congress and the American people of the merits of his ideas.”

Read more from this story HERE.

The Missing Koch Report

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

In late September 2010, Iowa senator Chuck Grassley and six of his colleagues grew suspicious that a senior Obama administration official had improperly accessed the tax information of industrial behemoth Koch Industries. After Austan Goolsbee, then-chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, made an erroneous statement that implied direct knowledge of the company’s confidential tax status, the senators demanded that the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) investigate. Now, more than two years since the completion of that investigation, and despite repeated requests from Koch Industries and Senator Grassley himself, the results have yet to see the light of day.

Ironically, federal law is designed to keep that information from public view. Asked how taxpayers might discover whether their information has been accessed improperly, a spokeswoman for the House Ways and Means Committee tells National Review Online that, in most cases, “They won’t.”

In order for Koch Industries or the general public to see the TIGTA report, the IG’s office must refer the case to the Department of Justice for prosecution. If Justice declines to prosecute, all the relevant information remains under lock and key. Critics worry that a highly politicized Justice Department is unlikely to take up cases that have the potential to damage the Obama administration.

Koch Industries’ tax returns became the subject of controversy when, in an August 2010 briefing with reporters on a newly released tax-reform report, Goolsbee claimed that the company paid no corporate-income taxes. “We have a series of entities that do not pay corporate income tax,” he said, “some of which are really giant firms — you know, Koch Industries, I think, is one, is a multibillion-dollar business…”

Goolsbee’s assertion raised the eyebrows of a half-dozen GOP lawmakers, who subsequently called on Treasury Department inspector general J. Russell George to investigate whether Goolsbee had accessed the company’s tax returns in violation of federal law. In a letter to George, Grassley and his colleagues said they were “very concerned” by Goolsbee’s remarks. “The statement that Koch is a pass-through entity implies direct knowledge of Koch’s legal and tax status, which would appear to be a violation of section 6103,” they wrote, referring to the section of the Internal Revenue Code that protects the confidentiality of tax returns and all related information. George agreed to investigate.

Read more from this story HERE.

Lawless Aristocracy for a Dominated People

/3 Comments/in , /by

A few weeks ago, as the Senate Judiciary Committee was debating immigration reform, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) told everyone the story of Candida Gutierrez, a Houston schoolteacher whose identity was stolen by an illegal alien named Bentia Cardona-Gonzalez. This was a big-time identity heist, as Cardona-Gonzalez opened bank accounts and secured credit cards, a drivers’ license, employment, a mortgage, and health care with her stolen identity over the course of 12 years. Gutierrez’ stolen name even wound up on the birth certificates of the illegal alien’s U.S.-born children. The authorities didn’t catch her; Gutierrez’ husband (the one thing Cardona-Gonzalez didn’t steal!) tracked down the thief and turned her over to the feds.

With this story in mind, Grassley proposed an amendment to immigration reform that would require amnesty-seeking illegals to hand over every name and Social Security number they had used to gain employment in the United States. Grassley’s amendment didn’t explicitly bar identity thieves from receiving amnesty, or mandate their arrest, but would have authorized federal agencies to notify the rightful owners of stolen identities. He called it “the first step to helping clean up the mess that’s been created for the victim of identity theft.”

That was too much for Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who took immigration reform from the youthful hands of Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and turned it into the usual Democrat nightmare of vote-buying giveaways. As chronicled by CNS News, Schumer explained that identity theft is perfectly normal and understandable behavior for those who cross the border illegally. It would be unfair to expect them to comply with any other American laws they find inconvenient, in addition to the one about not violating our border…

Read more from this story HERE.

IRS Told Pro-Life Group to Swear It Would Not Protest Planned Parenthood (+video)

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APSen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said Tuesday that a pro-life group in Iowa was told by an IRS agent that its application would not be approved until the group’s board of directors swore it would not protest Planned Parenthood.

“This comes directly from Iowa, one of my constituents attempted to establish 501(c)(3) charity called Coalition for Life of Iowa. She told my staff that an IRS agent told her ‘Your application’s ready to go. However, it will not be approved until you send a letter signed by your entire board under penalty of perjury saying that you will not protest at Planned Parenthood,’” Grassley said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Civil Liberties Nominee: ‘Inappropriate’ to Profile Foreigners from High-Risk Countries

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Breitbart Next week, the Senate will vote on Obama’s nominee to Chair the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, David Medine. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, followed up the confirmation hearing with a list of questions for the nominee. (The complete questionnaire is posted below.)

In his answers to Grassley’s question about profiling for terrorism among foreign nationals, Medine wrote, “In general, profiling of foreign nationals based solely on their point of departure to the United States is inappropriate.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on February 28 of this year, approving the nomination of Medine. A vote will be held in the Senate next week. The other four nominees to the board have already been confirmed. They were asked to respond to the same questionnaire.

Read more from this story HERE.

Grassley accuses FDA of acting like communist secret police for spying on employees

/0 Comments/in , /by

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) accused the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of acting like the East German secret police for closely monitoring the computer activities of some of its employees.

The GOP senator said internal documents on the surveillance program make the FDA “sound more like the East German Stasi than a consumer protection agency in a free country.”

He said the documents refer to employees who leaked information as “collaborators,” congressional staff as “ancillary actors,” and newspaper reporters as “media outlet actors.”

The FDA began using surveillance software in 2010 to monitor the computer activities of five of its scientists that it suspected of leaking damaging confidential information. The software captured screen images, intercepted personal emails, copied documents and even tracked their keystrokes.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that the agency gathered 80,000 pages of documents as part of the program and created a list of 21 employees, congressional officials, academics and journalists it suspected of putting out negative information about the FDA. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who has examined the agency’s procedures for reviewing medical devices, was listed as No. 14 on the list.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore