-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on November 3 of this year, Special Counsel Durham indicted Christopher Steele's primary subsource, Igor Danchenko. He indicted him on five counts of lying to the FBI. He lied about his contacts and the identity of his sources.

One of the more serious lies was about Sergei Millian. The indictment shows that Danchenko alleged a phone call occurred between him and Millian about a Trump-Russia conspiracy. That call was part of the basis that the FBI used to get a FISA warrant on Carter Page.

Now, according to Durham, Steele's source lied about the call because that call never happened. This is yet another stunning, fatal defect against the Obama-Biden administration's fake predicate to investigate Trump--specifically, yet another illustration of Justice Department and FBI failure.

Now, as a result of these failures, this country has been dragged through the mud for years. That statement is well understood at this point, but I have more to explain about it.

The indictment also shows that one of Steele's sources was a ``longtime participant in Democratic Party politics'' and that he ``fabricated'' at least some of the information that he gave to Danchenko.

This source, identified as Charles Dolan, ``actively campaigned and participated in calls and events as a volunteer on behalf of Hillary Clinton'' during the 2016 election.

Another one of Danchenko's sources was also a Hillary Clinton supporter. Charles Dolan gifted to this particular Russian subsource an autobiography of Hillary Clinton signed with these words: ``To my good friend, a great Democrat.''

Now--get this--while the Democrats were smearing Trump with false Russia allegations, they were the ones rubbing elbows with Russians and spreading false information in the media, and, of course, the media, as we know, gladly ran with that information. For example, President Biden's current National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, promoted the false story about the Russian bank called Alfa Bank communicating with the Trump organization, when he worked for the Clinton campaign.

Notably, during congressional testimony, several years ago, Sullivan said that he wasn't sure who Marc Elias represented when he presented Trump opposition research to the campaign. Now, for crying out loud, Elias was the Clinton campaign's general counsel.

My oversight work dating back to December 2016 has focused on the Democratic Party's and Clinton campaign's links to the Steele dossier. Last Congress, Senator Johnson and I obtained many records relating to Crossfire Hurricane. We were able to get many of them declassified for the public.

I point you to our April 15, 2020; December 3, 2020; and December 18, 2020, press releases on this information. Some of the declassified records show that the FBI had reports in its hand that showed the Steele dossier was most likely tainted with Russian disinformation.

One document indicates that the FBI received a U.S. intelligence report on January 12, 2017, warning of an inaccuracy in the dossier in relation to Michael Cohen. The report assessed that the material was ``part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.''

That same day, the FISA warrant against Page was renewed for the first time by Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. This is when the Obama-Biden administration and the Justice Department were still in charge.

A similar U.S. intelligence report arrived on February 27, 2017, undercutting a key allegation against then-President Trump. The report noted claims about Trump's travel to Moscow in 2013 ``were false, and they were the product of Russian intelligence services infiltrat[ing] a source into the network'' of sources that contributed to the dossier. Just over a month later, the FISA warrant against Page was then renewed for a second time.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the FBI also opened a counterintelligence case on Danchenko and failed to tell the FISA Court about it. If this fact pattern was a movie script, nobody would believe it.

With Durham's recent indictments, we now have even more proof that the Trump-Russia collusion investigation had the wrong name. It should have been the Clinton-DNC-Russia collusion investigation.

The media and many members of the Democratic Party ought to be ashamed of the falsehoods that they were spreading throughout these years. Our political discourse has been damaged for decades to come because of that scheme.

Recently, the Washington Post had to correct over a dozen articles relating to its previous Russia reporting in light of the extensive errors made by that newspaper--years of errors, I might add. I think it is somewhat unprecedented, and I am sure the Washington Post hated to retract and correct the record.

As Durham proceeds, I would say this: Don't take your eyes off of government misconduct. The Justice Department and the FBI hid critical information from the FISA Court that would have cut against their case. They failed to correct the record when they should have corrected the record. Simply put, the Justice Department and the FBI misrepresented information to the court. That conduct can't be allowed to pass. Remembering Tom Riter

Mr. President, on another matter, just a short point I want to make about a very important voice in agriculture journalism that has gone silent.

Every Tuesday morning--probably for 52 weeks out of the year--I hold a conference call with agriculture reporters and farm broadcasters to discuss news and issues impacting the 2 percent of the Americans who feed and fuel the world. I am talking about our family farmers.

For the past several decades, the first question each week came from a very familiar voice in the agriculture community: Tom Riter of WNAX out of Yankton, SD.

Sadly, Tom passed away on November 21, just a few days before Thanksgiving.

Tom rarely--and I mean very rarely--ever missed my weekly call. In fact, he always kicked off the discussion that was carried on by probably another dozen people--kicked off the discussion with a smart question about farm policy. Undoubtedly, his reports kept his listeners informed on issues that make a big difference to their lives, their farms, their ranches, and businesses in the American heartland.

He happened to be a native of Rock Rapids, IA, not far from Yankton. He was a fellow University of Northern Iowa Panther. Tom joined WNAX in 1999, so he was around that station for 22 years, I think it adds up to. Ever since, I have looked forward to our weekly discussions.

I am grateful for Tom's dedication to his craft, specifically his work to expand the public's understanding and appreciation of the ag community's contribution to our society--most importantly, that 2 percent of the people in this country who produce the food for the other 98 percent.

My wife Barbara and I extend our sympathies to Tom's family and friends, the WNAX family, and his colleagues in the ag press community. We lost a very big voice for American agriculture. He will be greatly missed.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source