Gaetz inquiry warrants the Full Grassley
Iowa senator should live up to his reputation
(Editor’s note: Matt Gaetz announced late Thursday morning that he was withdrawing from consideration as Donald Trump’s pick to be attorney general.)
Last week, I questioned whether Chuck Grassley would go along with Donald Trump’s apparent scheme to ditch Senate confirmation of his Cabinet appointees.
Trump is mulling an unconstitutional plot to force the Senate into an extended recess, which he believes will give him the space to unilaterally appoint whomever he wants to his Cabinet. This plan, according to conservative legal scholars, would violate the Constitution’s requirement that nominees be approved with the “advice and consent” of the Senate.
Grassley, the incoming chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke passionately against Barack Obama’s unconstitutional recess appointments in 2012. But he’s had little to say about the Trump plot so far. Likewise, I have seen conflicting reports about his interest in Matt Gaetz’s relationship with Joel Greenberg, the prolific criminal who was a close friend of the former Florida congressman, now Trump’s pick to be attorney general.
Democrats have been arguing the House Ethics Committee should release the results of an investigation into Gaetz. Greenberg cooperated with the panel’s investigation.
The inquiry included allegations that Gaetz, who hastily resigned from Congress to try to stop release of the report, had sex with a 17-year-old woman. (Republicans on the committee Wednesday stopped release of the report. As of this writing, I hadn’t seen any comment from Grassley.)
The Iowa senator, who is famous for launching tenacious inquiries into Democratic nominees, declined to say earlier this week whether the findings should be released when asked about it ahead of the Ethics Committee meeting.
“I'm not going to make a decision on what information [we] need, but I'm saying to the people that want any Cabinet person to get through— not just Gaetz — but it's going to be a lot faster if you give us all the information that we want,” Grassley said.
The Washington Post reports that Grassley’s said he wants access to the report.
When he wants to, Grassley can be quite aggressive in pursuing information concerning Cabinet nominations.
When Barack Obama picked Jack Lew to be Treasury secretary back in 2013, the Iowa senator and other Republicans grilled Lew strenuously about his job at Citigroup, loans from New York University, where he once worked, and his investments.
“After his hearing, Lew then answered 444 questions in writing in responses that spanned 221 pages. By comparison, (George W. Bush’s) Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson received 81 written questions following his confirmation hearing,” an article in the Hill said.
This followed three rounds of questions before the hearing, the release of six years of tax returns and the participation in one-on-one meetings with 41 senators over a two-week period, the White House said at the time.
I have no problem with aggressive questioning. These are important positions. But with Gaetz, it’s not clear how aggressive Grassley will be.
If you’ve read the news, most of the focus in Washington, D.C., has been on allegations that Gaetz had sex with a minor and that he paid for sex.
These charges are tied to his relationship with Greenberg, a former Florida elected official who pleaded guilty to so many criminal offenses a judge said he had never seen anybody who “committed so many different types of crimes in such a relatively short period.”
Gaetz denies the allegations against him, and the Justice Department, which began investigating at the end of Trump’s first term, decided last year not to charge Gaetz.
It obviously would be best if these claims against Gaetz are false. But that is a pretty low bar to clear to win confirmation. Don’t we want more from our attorney general than proof he is not a sex offender?
I suspect if Gaetz were the nominee of a Democrat, Grassley wouldn’t just accept the Justice Department’s decision not to file charges. He would conduct his own thorough investigation. And he surely would question—as anybody would—why Gaetz even had a close friendship with a man who, according to CNN, “plead guilty to underage sex trafficking, wire fraud, stalking, identity theft, producing a fake ID card and conspiring to defraud the US government.”
How deeply will Grassley probe Gaetz about the illegal activities of his friend?
Will he pepper him with hundreds of questions and request thousands of documents to verify that he is telling the truth, that he wasn’t aware of or involved in these multiple crimes conducted by a man who, according to Politico, Gaetz once called his “wingman?”
Will he scrupulously examine Gaetz’s other questionable acts, as described by Republican colleagues in Congress?
In Iowa, Grassley is well known for visiting all 99 counties each year. The “Full Grassley,” as it has come to be known, is supposed to be a sign of Grassley’s commitment to thoroughness in representing his constituents.
Well, the Gaetz nomination surely warrants a Full Grassley in Washington, D.C., a thorough, complete investigation that leaves no stone unturned.
During a Senate Finance Committee meeting on Jack Lew’s nomination back in 2013, Grassley said that he would vote against him because he had not adequately answered all the questions the Iowa senator had for him.
“Transparency and sunlight are essential for Congress and for the American people.,” Grassley said in 2013.
They’re just as essential in 2024.
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I'm hopeful that a full inquisition is completed. To say the least, the results should be interesting.
Who's manning the popcorn machine?
MORE essential in 2024, if we're being honest. Nice work on this one, Ed.