On the Senate floor, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) responded to former President Trump's guilty verdict in his NYC hush money trial.
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NewsTranscript
00:00A presidential campaign and a political party misreported payments to lawyers as legal expenses
00:11and thus violated the law.
00:16Am I referring to Donald Trump and his trial?
00:19No.
00:20I'm referring to the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
00:30In the 26th presidential election cycle, they improperly reported money used to fund the
00:38Steele dossier as legal expense and in doing so, they hid its true purpose, which was opposition
00:48research against Trump.
00:52Now, the Federal Election Commission held six years later that it found probable cause
01:01that the Democrat National Committee and the Clinton campaign violated federal law.
01:09They were fined over $100,000.
01:13Were they criminally prosecuted?
01:16Of course not.
01:18The now debunked Steele dossier threw our country into crisis and did it for years.
01:31In 2020, Senator Johnson of Wisconsin and I were able to get once classified information
01:41declassified.
01:44That declassified information showed that Christopher Steele's sources were one, connected
01:53to the Russian government, two, supported Hillary Clinton, and three, that the Russian
02:00intelligence was aware of Steele's anti-Trump work even before the FBI started their investigation.
02:11This is information that the Justice Department failed to tell the FISA court.
02:21The Justice Department failed to even apprise the FISA court that the FBI had a counter
02:30intelligence case on one of Steele's key sources.
02:35The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee colluded with the Russians.
02:43They used a former British spy, Fusion GPS, and a law firm to create a fake dossier and
02:55then tried to cover it up by misreporting it under the federal election rules.
03:04This case is referred to as Crossfire Hurricane.
03:08It's a textbook example of government weaponization.
03:16It was to get Trump at all costs as they could.
03:24And now that weaponization has moved to the judicial system.
03:32Our last line of defense against partisan political cancer.
03:40District Attorney Bragg manufactured a crime by reviving a time-barred state-based misdemeanor
03:54for allegedly falsifying business records.
03:58To revive the alleged crime and elevate it to a felony, he alleged it was done in furtherance
04:08of another crime.
04:11And he also alleged interference in the 2016 election by Donald Trump.
04:23So what were these extra crimes?
04:27Violation of federal election law, tax law, and other business records.
04:35The judge allowed District Attorney Bragg to essentially prosecute alleged federal violations
04:43in state court, but because it was a state court, Bragg couldn't actually charge Trump
04:53for those further crimes which were federal in nature.
05:00So what an absolute mess and scary precedent this partisan process has created that's going
05:10to be a sore on public policy, statutory law, and a precedent to be carried on by other
05:23prosecutors in the future.
05:27This was the case that Bragg initially declined to prosecute, but just as his predecessor
05:36declined to prosecute, and that was a case that federal prosecutors in the Southern District
05:43of New York declined, so too and as well did the Federal Election Commission.
05:52Now that prosecutor in Manhattan that failed to prosecute the same things that Bragg prosecuted
06:05was a well-respected Syra Vance, Jr.
06:13Now we have Bragg taking up what an outstanding prosecutor by the name of Vance would not do.
06:24Even liberal legal analysts have noted that this case wouldn't have been brought against
06:32anyone other than Donald Trump.
06:37A state prosecutor has no jurisdiction over a federal crime, whereas the Justice Department does.
06:45And here the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission have exclusive jurisdiction
06:53over these kinds of matters.
06:58The Biden Justice Department didn't do anything to assert its jurisdictional hook as it routinely
07:07does when, for example, states file lawsuits involving federal immigration law.
07:17Biden's number three official at the Justice Department, Matthew Colangelo, left that purchase
07:31to work as a line prosecutor in the Bragg office for this specific prosecution.
07:42Eventually, the zombie case against Trump, as it's been described by legal scholars,
07:51was revived just in time for the 2024 presidential election cycle.
07:59In fact, the grand jury came out with a verdict less than two months after Trump announced
08:09for the election.
08:19Now then, the judge allowed the jury to pick from not one, but three different secondary crimes
08:27that I mentioned earlier that Trump allegedly committed to impact the 2016 election.
08:35This means that jurors could disagree on the crime, yet the judge would still consider
08:42the verdict unanimous to convict.
08:48As Andrew McCarthy said in his June 1st, 2024 article, quote,
08:57the jurors were told that they needn't agree on what unlawful conduct Trump had engaged in
09:06to conspire to corrupt the election, which, remember, was not charged in the indictment, end of quote.
09:15This is a judge who repeatedly contributed to a group, quote,
09:21dedicated to resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump's radical right-wing legacy, end of quote.
09:32And McCarthy wrote in his article, quote,
09:36how can there be guilt beyond a reasonable doubt if the jury doesn't agree
09:42on whether prosecutors have proved a key element of the case, end of quote.
09:50I could go on and on about the defects in this political persecution.
09:58What concerns me most is the damage it's done to our American institutions,
10:06federal law enforcement, the intelligence community,
10:10and now the judicial branch have contorted themselves in ways unimaginable just to try,
10:22and at the same time, destroy Trump.
10:27In the process, they've broken faith with the laws, with the rules, with ethics,
10:35with the truth, and with the American people.
10:41The steel and concrete foundations of our law enforcement
10:50and the judicial institutions are breaking apart piece by piece, bit by bit.
11:00It's not the American people who are doing it.
11:03It's those charged with running those institutions who are responsible
11:11for their shockingly quick decline.
11:16That decline won't stop anytime soon, so long as the left and their allies
11:22in the media continue to use the judicial system
11:27to destroy their enemies based upon make-believe cases.
11:34The left wing's lawfare crusade has given them what they've wanted for a decade now,
11:43Donald Trump's conviction on something, anything, just a conviction.
11:54What the left wing has failed to foresee is the aftermath
12:01of their injecting partisan political cancer into our once storied institutions.
12:09That is, they run the catastrophic risk of the American people not caring anymore.
12:19Did the Justice Department indict someone on major criminal charges?
12:26Well, many people may react with doubt about the merits and the integrity of that indictment
12:34because of the Justice Department's past political decisions.
12:40Did the FBI arrest a major criminal?
12:43Well, many people may begin to question whether the person arrested is now part
12:49of a political persecution based on made-up information like what happened
12:54with the FISA court and crossfire hurricane
12:58and everything involving Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
13:04A Democratic judge and prosecution team tried and convicted a Republican
13:12in a district that's almost 90% Democratic voters.
13:17They asked for going to someplace else where they might get a more fair trial
13:24and it got a quick no.
13:27So, I hope you get the picture.
13:31That's why millions of Americans refuse to take this sham conviction very seriously.
13:38Trust is easy to lose and trust is hard to gain.
13:44Andrew McCarthy stated in his excellent analysis and I quote,
13:52what happened in Manhattan was monstrous.
13:59The fallout is antithesis of a constitutional republic
14:04that presumes innocence, imposes the burden of proof on the state,
14:10venerates its new process rules and guarantees equal protection of the law.
14:18The antithesis is now the norm.
14:21Regardless of what happens to Donald Trump, all of us will live to regret it, end of quote.
14:29Ultimately, only we the people can solve the constitutional crisis
14:35that politicians, law enforcement and judicial officers have disgracefully created.
14:45I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.