Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa appeared on Fox News with Neil Cavuto on Saturday. During the interview, Cavuto asked the ranking GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for his thoughts regarding the release of the search warrant and the affidavit of probable cause that led to the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.
The warrant was released with Trump’s agreement on Friday, but the affidavit has not been released.
Cavuto asked his guest if the affidavit should be released.
“Absolutely. [Attorney General Merrick] Garland goes on television because he wants to be transparent. Full transparency is going to be when they release the affidavit. And this is such a high profile and very strange way of going about getting documents from a former president that the affidavit is going to be absolutely necessary if we’re going to have full transparency. And this demands full transparency because without transparency government is not accountable. The public’s business must always be public,” Grassley told Cavuto.
Cavuto noted several past instances and investigations, particularly against Trump, where judges were provided false information to justify a search, and asked Grassley if this was another reason the American people should see the FBI’s affidavit.
“Carter Page’s FISA, the Steele dossier, how they handled the Clinton investigation and how they — there was no prosecution there and there was mishandling of classified information just like the same charge against President Trump,” Grassley intoned.
He went on to draw clear the clear disparities between how investigations targeting Trump versus those targeting Hillary Clinton and other Democrat figures and actions have been conducted, describing the evident contrast.
Do you think Merrick Garland will release the affidavit?
“So just figure: the double standard that we have within the FBI over a long period of time. Not just under Christopher Wray. And I have had enough investigation that has been recently reported by you folks, that there is political bias within the FBI, and I think it’s legitimate to raise the question about possible political bias between the way they handled the Clinton investigation, Carter Page, Steele dossier and the way President Trump has been treated. Particularly, when he has said continuously ‘If you want any more just come get it,” Grassley said.
The Fox News host, went on to play a statement from Attorney General Merrick Garland pointing out his description of the steps leading up to the raid and his personal authorization of it. Cavuto then asked Grassley about Garland’s glaring omission: the investigation’s probable cause.
Grassley responded: “Well, you’ve got President Trump saying that, ‘Just come and get it.’ I think he said that back in June when they previously had taken some boxes from the home there. But I think more importantly is the double standard.”
He continued, “He says ‘less intrusive’ they surely used the less intrusive when they were investigating Hillary Clinton. And look at the raid on the president’s home, it’s entirely a different thing. And it doesn’t look to me like they went very far in using quote, unquote the ‘less intrusive method.’”
Noting carefully the unprecedented nature of an administration prosecuting a former, present and future political rival and the terrible optics the DOJ has created, Cavuto asked Grassley’s thoughts on those optics.
“It looks very political. And I think I’ve talked already in this program over the last two months about political bias. We have evidence coming from whistleblowers within the Department of Justice about political bias, about Hunter Biden’s investigation being stopped and Trump’s investigation getting the go-ahead from a guy, a special agent that had political bias. We know it from his social media statements.”
Grassley concluded with Cavuto by questioning harshly the credibility of the “nuclear documents” narrative and pointing out that if the FBI were convinced Trump possessed such sensitive materials they likely would not have waited three days to conduct the search after the warrant was issued on Friday.
HAPPENING NOW: Trump supporters line street to Mar-A-Lago following FBI raid which took place at the property on Monday.
Supporters have been here all week since. pic.twitter.com/A0Y71do9ox
— Jayne Zirkle (@JayneZirkle) August 13, 2022
Trump supporters and left-leaning users alike have been tweeting #ReleaseTheAffidavit for several days since the Monday raid. The former president’s supporters have also been demonstrating outside of Mar-a-Lago since news of the raid broke.
