During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) spoke claimed the FBI's Foreign Influence Taskforce, which was shutdown by President Trump, was 'weaponized' during the Biden Administration.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm going to ask my colleagues as a reminder that there are some tricks of
00:09the trade to get to your political enemies or for other reasons like
00:17covering up embarrassing situations or just to cover up wrongdoing. I'm going to
00:27use and compliment this administration as one of its first acts taking office
00:36the Trump administration and Attorney General Bondi shut down the FBI's Foreign
00:46Influence Task Force. Despite criticism this is a positive step given what the
00:55task force had been twisted into by the Biden administration. This task force was
01:04created in 2017 by then Director Wray for very good reasons. We were told it
01:16was designed to counteract maligned foreign influence operations. However this
01:24task force became infested infected with politics. In other words this task force
01:34became to be used as a political weapon. So let me explain how this became
01:47weaponized. An example in 2020 during my and Senator Johnson's Biden family
01:58investigation that FBI task force was used in unnecessarily briefing us two
02:08senators but that only happened after pressure from Democratic colleagues for
02:16it to happen. So pure and simple this was a setup. The FBI wrongly did the
02:25bidding of the Democrats. The results of the setup was this. The contents of that
02:35briefing were later leaked to the media even though the FBI promised Senator
02:42Johnson and this senator confidentiality. Those leaks were used to falsely link
02:51our Biden family investigation to somehow advancing Russian disinformation.
03:00The FBI's conduct undermined and frustrated our congressional
03:08investigation. My and Senator Johnson's investigation made public Obama Biden
03:20administration records. That included Treasury information of financial
03:27transactions between and among Biden family members. We also made public
03:36authentic bank records showing deep financial connection between and among
03:44the Biden family in China. Authentic records like these as we all know now
03:55has nothing to do with Russian disinformation. So I compliment President
04:03Trump and Attorney General Biden or Attorney General Bondi for getting rid
04:12of this foreign influence task force and its obstructive conduct. That's how it
04:20ended up. If the task force did any good I only know what it did bad and that was
04:29setting Senator Johnson and I up because there was some embarrassing
04:34information that they obviously did not want out. I yield the floor, suggest the
04:41absence of a quorum.