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Grassley Admits He Doesn’t Care if GOP’s Accusations Against ‘Vice President Biden’ Are True or Not – He Vows to Pursue Them

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Promising to continue his demands on FBI Director Chris Wray, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) admitted on Thursday he does not care whether or not conservatives’ accusations against President Joe Biden are true or not.

Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer have teamed up to pursue what they claim is a document held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that allegedly accuses President Biden of a corrupt act.

The two Republicans have been ratcheting up their attacks on FBI Director Chris Wray, threatening him with contempt of Congress if he does not hand over the alleged document, which Grassley calls an “unclassified, FBI-generated record alleging a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national.”

On Wednesday, Director Wray, according to Grassley and Comer, discussed the document with them, and has offered to allow them to view it in person. He is, they say, still refusing to release it to the House Oversight Committee. It’s unclear why Grassley is even involved; he is not a ranking member on any Senate Committee that has oversight responsibilities for the FBI, except the Budget Committee.

READ MORE: ‘Absolutely Blockbuster Evidence’: Experts Stunned Over Trump ‘Espionage Act’ Bombshell That Pressures ‘DOJ to Indict’

House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) requested to join Grassley and Comer on the call Wednesday, but Comer reportedly refused to allow him access, Punchbowl News’ Max Cohen reported. NBC News also reported Comer refused to allow Raskin to join the call with Director Wray.

Ranking Member Raskin in a statement characterized the lone document as containing “unsubstantiated, second-hand claims,” and called it a “tip.”

Noting Director Wray’s “extraordinary accommodations” to Comer and Grassley, “and the fact that Republicans have claimed to have access to the very information subpoenaed,” Raskin points out in his statement, “Chairman Comer has continued to insist he will hold the FBI Director in contempt.”

“It is increasingly clear that Committee Republicans have always planned to hold Director Wray in contempt of Congress to distract from the obvious fact that they do not have evidence to support their unfounded accusations against President Biden. This latest political maneuver underscores Chairman Comer’s determination to use the Committee to help former President Trump’s reelection efforts and pander to extreme MAGA Republicans.”

Cohen also reports Raskin said, “Chairman Comer has crafted a hyper-partisan narrative that depicts the FBI as obstructionist. This is a radical distortion of the situation.”

CNN reports that even then-Attorney General Bill Barr questioned the validity of the alleged document, which “has origins in a tranche of documents that Rudy Giuliani provided to the Justice Department in 2020, people briefed on the matter said.”

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“We can’t take anything we received from Ukraine at face value,” Barr said at the time.

“While the 1023 form documents the claims from the informant, it doesn’t provide proof that they are true, people briefed on the matter said. The FBI and prosecutors who reviewed the information couldn’t corroborate the claims,” CNN adds.

“The allegations of wrongdoing by the then-vice president, many originating from sources in Ukraine, were dubious enough that Attorney General William Barr in early 2020 directed that they be reviewed by a US attorney in Pittsburgh, in part because Barr was concerned that Giuliani’s document tranche could taint the ongoing Hunter Biden investigation overseen by the Delaware US attorney.”

Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson, told CNN Chairman Comer “has already admitted this isn’t about uncovering facts but about trying to hurt the President’s poll numbers, so the only question left is how long he will waste time, energy, and taxpayer dollars to support a fact-free politically-motivated goose chase simply to get media attention and the Fox News spotlight.”

Indeed, late last month Comer appeared to tell Fox News that his investigations into Hunter Biden are actually designed to help Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election.

Asked by Fox News if his investigations are “what’s moved this needle with the media?” – meaning Biden’s poll numbers, Comer replied: “Absolutely. There’s no question.”

“You look at the polling, and right now Donald Trump is 7 points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward, Joe Biden’s trending downward,” he said, referring to one poll. “And I believe that the media is looking around, scratching their head, and they’re realizing that the American people are keeping up with our investigation.”

Meanwhile, Senator Grassley also appeared on Thursday to make clear he was not interested in the validity or accuracy of the claim against “Vice President Biden.”

“We aren’t interested in whether or not the accusation against Vice President Biden are accurate or not,” Grassley told Fox News, claiming his pursuit of the single document is merely to ensure “the FBI does its job.”

READ MORE: ‘Will Make a Great Trial Witness’: Experts Thrilled Jack Smith Is Investigating Trump’s Firing of Election Security Expert

Even the Fox News host sounded surprised.

“Senator, let me stop you right here. You just said you read the document, is that right?”

“Yes,” Grassley replied.

When asked what it said, Grassley refused to discuss it.

“I’m not going to characterize it,” he declared.

Watch below or at this link.

 

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‘Antisemitic’: Trump Blasted for Attack on Jewish Democrats

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Donald Trump is attacking Jews who vote Democratic, barely days after the criminally-indicted ex-president threatened there would be a “bloodbath” if voters do not put him back in the Oval Office. His remarks, which include claiming Jews Democrats “hate” Israel and their own religion, were quickly labeled antisemitic.

“I actually think they hate Israel,” Trump on Monday told far right wing radio host Sebastian Gorka, who alleged the Biden administration and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer “hate” Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

“I think they hate Israel. And the Democrat Party hates Israel,” Trump, upping the ante, responded. Gorka is his former White House aide who served briefly in the Trump administration before reportedly being “ousted.”

“I really believe they hate Israel,” Trump also said, and accused Majority Leader Schumer, a Democrat who has represented New York for the past quarter-century, of appearing to hate Israel, for “votes.”

READ MORE: ‘Easy Mark’: Why Trump’s $464M Bond Failure Makes Him a ‘Massive National Security Risk’

“I think it’s votes more than anything else, because he was always pro-Israel. He’s very anti-Israel now,” Trump continued, before declaring: “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”

Haaretz reports, “Trump’s comments follow similar comments made during a Fox News interview, where he accused Israel of ‘being loyal to a fault’ for hoping to maintain bipartisan support within the United States.”

Trump, under tremendous fire for his “bloodbath” remarks, was immediately denounced for his comments.

“Another day, another depraved antisemitic screed from Donald Trump, who has repeatedly vilified the overwhelmingly majority of American Jews,” observed Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “He first called us ‘uninformed or disloyal’ in 2019 and essentially repeated it today. The feeling is mutual. 79% of Jewish voters have an unfavorable view of Trump according to @pewresearch.”

The Times of Israel’s Sam Sokol writes, “Trump said that ‘any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion.’ That’s a majority of US Jews. Gentiles don’t get to decide who is a good Jew. That kind of rhetoric is in itself antisemitic.”

The Biden campaign was quick to post a clip of trump’s remarks. Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘How Fascism Came to Germany’: Historian Warns Trump ‘Knew Exactly What He Was Saying’

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‘How Fascism Came to Germany’: Historian Warns Trump ‘Knew Exactly What He Was Saying’

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Award-winning presidential historian Michael Beschloss sounded the alarm after Donald Trump’s “bloodbath” threat over the weekend, warning that his remarks echo those that led to the rise and installation of fascism in pre-World War II Germany and Italy.

“That’s how fascism and totalitarianism and in Germany’s case the Holocaust came to Germany, which had been a country where there were big institutions of democracy until, as you well know, the early 1930s,” Beschloss said on MSNBC Monday to “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski (video below). “In a way of Donald Trump has done us all a favor, because if you and I had been talking, Mika, let’s say 20 years ago, and they’ve been talking about what would have seemed like a very abstract and distant subject of how fascism and dictatorship might come to America, you probably would have been more wiser.”

“I would have said, you would have had some smiling person pretending to be a normal candidate like all the candidates for president who had gone before all the way back to 1789. And suddenly, after getting elected, that person would use the enormous powers of the presidency, that are given to that person, by their constitution,” Beschloss continued.

READ MORE: ‘Next Up – Property Seizures’: Experts Analyze ‘Unbankable’ Trump’s $464 Million Bond Crisis

“In a way Donald Trump has made it easier because when he tells you he’ll be a dictator for a day, we all know that dictators don’t resign after a day. When he uses the word bloodbath. Yes, it was in the context of an automobile industry speech, but he knew exactly what he was saying, When he talks about suspending the Constitution, or migrants as animals, this is him. He’s telling you what this choice is,” He continued, adding there is no “precedent for this.”

“I hate it when people treat this race as if it’s just one more presidential campaign. And there was lots of jokes, you know, both sides, you know, flaws and both candidates. Yes, these are two old candidates. One of those that is mentally stable, Joe Biden, whom I saw give a great speech at the Gridiron Dinner on Saturday night. Donald Trump, if you look at one of his speeches of these rallies, this is not someone who seems to have all his marbles.”

Beschloss says, “it’s important to know as we talk about this campaign, as it unfolds, we have never seen anything remotely like this in American history: a major party candidate is saying, you elect me, there’s going to be dictatorship, bloodbath, violence, retribution against my political enemies, that equals what we saw in Italy, in Germany and other places. If Americans do not get that if they choose that voluntarily, then this country has changed in a way that I do not understand.”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Bloodbath’: Psaki Slams Trump Over ‘Embrace of Political Violence’

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‘Next Up – Property Seizures’: Experts Analyze ‘Unbankable’ Trump’s $464 Million Bond Crisis

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Donald Trump’s attorneys in court documents say the ex-president has been unable to secure a bond for the full $464 million judgment against him in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil business fraud case against the ex-president, reportedly a billionaire who last year said he has $400 million in cash.

“In an April 2023 deposition for the fraud case, Trump said, ‘We have a lot of cash. I believe we have substantially in excess of $400 million in cash, which is a lot for a developer. Developers usually don’t have cash. They have assets, not cash. We have, I believe, $400-plus and going up very substantially every month,'” The Atlantic reported earlier this month.

But Trump’s attorneys now say securing a bond in the full amount is a “practical impossibility,” as Just Security’s Adam Klasfeld reports:

Trump’s attorneys tell the court they have spent “countless hours negotiating with one of the largest insurance companies in the world,” NBC News reports, and, “obtaining an appeal bond in the full amount” …. ‘is not possible under the circumstances presented.” They also note they approached 30 “surety” companies through four brokers and were unsuccessful.

READ MORE: ‘Bloodbath’: Psaki Slams Trump Over ‘Embrace of Political Violence’

Attorney General Letitia James says if Trump does not meet the March 25 deadline, she will begin the process of seizing his assets.

“We are prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid to New Yorkers, and, yes, I look at 40 Wall St. each and every day,” James said, MSNBC reported last month.

Meanwhile, legal experts say if Trump cannot secure a bond, and the appeals court does not grant him a stay, he may lose real estate assets.

“The financial demise of Donald Trump,” declared former longtime federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, pointing to the NBC News report. “He has no one to blame but himself. Next up – property seizures.”

MSNBC legal contributor Andrew Weissmann, a former FBI General Counsel, served up a blunt assessment: “I thought he was a billionaire? So is he lying to the public or the Court?”

Katie Phang, MSNBC host and legal contributor, offers additional insight: “Seems also like no one wants to lend Trump the money so he can then get the bond. He isn’t borrowing against his real properties to raise the money likely b/c they’re already leveraged. Trump is unbankable. Period.”

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti adds, “I’ve represented and prosecuted large real estate developers, and it’s not uncommon for them to be highly illiquid. That said, Trump had to know that this judgment was coming, and his inability to obtain a bond suggests he is much less wealthy than he portrays himself to be.”

READ MORE: FBI Agent Furious Over MAL Search Thought Trump Would Return Classified Docs if Just Asked

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