▶ 0:19:21Chair Grassley: We still do not have a quorum, but I got the ok from the ranking member to move ahead with the opening statements. So I say, good morning to all my colleagues in the audience and our hard-working staff. We have on the agenda ask nominations, five are listed for the first time. And they will be held over.
▶ 0:19:50Chair Grassley: The only vote today will be on david waterman to be U.S. attorney for the southern district of iowa. Senator curtis -- ernst and I have recommended Mr. waterman for this position. Senator ernst and I have recommended Mr.
▶ 0:20:11Chair Grassley: Waterman for this position for two congress is in a row and he was previously voted out of this committee with a overwhelming bipartisan vote. I am pleased that we are voting on him today and I urge all my colleagues to support him. We also have s.
▶ 0:20:27Chair Grassley: 1829 that goes by the name of stop scam -- csam act listed on the agenda for the first time and it increases protections for kids online and it will be held over until the next week. I want to take a moment to address recently raised concerns about the justice department grant terminations.
▶ 0:20:59Chair Grassley: I have started looking into some of these redirected funds and releasing a short report today compiling publicly available information and -- on just two of the grant recipients. And there are many more and we will continue to focus on more. But I just want to use one example for today hearing called the vera institute of justice.
▶ 0:21:32Chair Grassley: It is a george soros backed -- institution and has received $10 billion worth of donations from george soros. Everyone here knows that his plan to elect progressive prosecutors to district attorney positions, folks might be less familiar with the role in that plan. Although, they have made no secret about how they try to help soros' goals.
▶ 0:22:03Chair Grassley: Many of them gave vera space in their office and nearly unfettered access to their case files. They allowed vera to redesign their prosecutor's office around soros' progressive vision. Guided by vera, these prosecutors failed their communities.
▶ 0:22:32Chair Grassley: The sad stories of their failures played out in the courtroom where rape victims and families who lost loved ones to violence never saw an ounce of justice. Vera policies are not criminal justice reform. It is a revolving door of no consequences does not make anyone safer or rehabilitated. We need to continue looking at these grants.
▶ 0:23:03Chair Grassley: The justice department should reinstate worthy grants. And several have been reinstated. But, awards to grantees like vera for broken progressive policies should give us all great pause. The american people voted these policies out of office.
▶ 0:23:28Chair Grassley: I also want to take a moment to discuss some of my other recent oversight work. People on this committee know that I try to listen to legitimate whistleblowers and most of them are very legitimate.
▶ 0:23:47Chair Grassley: So, thanks to whistleblowers, I made public last week an fbi document that showed that a firm was paid for by the democratic national committee that Ms. orr lied to congress. She lied about her role in creating the steele dossier and pushing the russian hoax.
▶ 0:24:16Chair Grassley: She got away scott free while trump and his associates were politically targeted for years. That document also expose the fbi's use of access restrictions on some of muller's crossfire hurricane material.
▶ 0:24:42Chair Grassley: Incredibly, those access restrictions prevented the fbi agents from assessing fbi records. And, if that happened it means that congressional oversight requests and court case is were subject -- court cases were subject to the same obstructing conduct. New fbi leadership ought to immediately perform a comprehensive review of these access restrictions.
▶ 0:25:14Chair Grassley: My oversight has just begun on this matter. Now, you will remember the famous fbi richmond memo. That memo used shoddy research of the radical southern poverty law center to accuse traditional catholics of being violent extremists. That in and of itself is an outrage.
▶ 0:25:43Chair Grassley: Well, the recently released some biden era document showing that the problem was much worse than director wray led us to believe.
▶ 0:26:01Chair Grassley: There was not just one fbi document, the famous one that supposedly only richmond virginia had, so there was not just one fbi document that used biased, anti-catholic sources, but over a dozen.
▶ 0:26:18Chair Grassley: The anti-catholic memo was distributed fall -- far more broadly than the fbi through director wray told congress and more fbi field offices were involved than we had been led to believe. Based on those fbi records, it appears that director wray lied to congress when he testified to this committee.
▶ 0:26:49Chair Grassley: My oversight on these matters will this -- will continue. And now to senator durbin, ranking member.
▶ 0:26:58Sen. Durbin: Thank you Mr. chairman. Under the trump administration the department of justice is systematically removing the structure charged with fighting corruption in our government. As the trump administration openly descends into the throes of corruption, the watchdog is off of the leash and out of sight.
▶ 0:27:24Sen. Durbin: In one of the first official acts, attorney general bondi disbanded the foreign influence task force and restricted influence -- and restricted the foreign agent act despite the growing influence -- the growing threat of foreign influence campaigns. Unfortunately this was no surprise, since the attorney general herself was formally a paid for an agent government of qatar.
▶ 0:27:50Sen. Durbin: As a former head of counterintelligence fbi put it, this has created a free-for-all for foreign intelligence services seeking influence on our government. In another shocking move, president trump alder -- ordered a halt to the enforcement of the foreign corrupt practices act. This had prohibited companies from bribing foreign officials.
▶ 0:28:16Sen. Durbin: The trump administration has also gutted the -- the department of justice's public integrity section, which oversees political corruption cases and election crimes. It had 30 career prosecutors. It now has fewer than five. Attorney general bondi is considering removing the long-standing requirement that investigations of public officials be reviewed by pin.
▶ 0:28:47Sen. Durbin: This was essential to ensure that these investigations are not politically motivated. Last month, maga loyalist and interim U.S. attorney from new jersey brought criminal charges against the city -- the sitting congresswoman. These reportedly were not reviewed by the public -- public integrity section. She has made her political goals as a prosecutor as can be.
▶ 0:29:12Sen. Durbin: She said that on the day she was appointed, now we can turn new jersey red. Of course the dot official of infamous lay ordered the dismissal of corruption charges against the mayor of new york, eric adams, in exchange for his promise to cooperate with the president. He has now been rewarded with a nomination for a lifetime seat on the federal bench.
▶ 0:29:40Sen. Durbin: After endless and baseless accusations that the biden administration weaponize the doj, it is the trump administration that is making it easier to stifle dissent and seek retribution. The trump administration also removed the senior career ethics officials who advised on conflicts of interest and other ethical issues.
▶ 0:30:02Sen. Durbin: They put the duties in the hands of two inexperienced political appointees who are personally beholden to the attorney general. And the career director and chief counselor of the doj office for professional responsibility was forced to retire. This office is charged with conducting internal investigations of missed out -- misconduct by doj attorneys at the lights are literally off their office.
▶ 0:30:28Sen. Durbin: In the absence of these internal guardrails it is not surprising that we are witnessing outrageous conduct. Attorney general bondi refused to recuse herself from president trump's solicitation of a free jet from the royal family of qatar, despite the fact that attorney general bondi was formally a registered foreign agent for that government.
▶ 0:30:51Sen. Durbin: Even though this unprecedented gift clearly violates the constitution and the laws we have passed in congress, the attorney general concluded that it was "legally permissible" for president trump to accept it. We are still after weeks of asking for it, looking for a copy of that memo. Attorney general bondi appears to be reaping financial rewards for loyalty to the president.
▶ 0:31:17Sen. Durbin: She has been deeply financially entangled with president trump for years. Most notably the attorney general of the united states has earned at least $3 million on the merger that formed trump media and hells millions of dollars in trump media stock. She sold that under suspicious circumstances on a historic day, april 2, 2025.
▶ 0:31:42Sen. Durbin: That was the same day president trump announced his harebrained tariff scream -- team that destroyed $10 trillion of wealth in three days. Attorney general bondi got out of the market just in time. The share price of trump media plummeted 15% and she has appeared to avoided any substantial financial loss. What I can when students.
▶ 0:32:07Sen. Durbin: Being it leave the doj and fbi offices that would advise or investigate her have been systematically dismantled under her administration leaving her unaccountable. This committee has the authority and the responsibility to investigate. The justice department is also involved in other activities that bear notice today.
▶ 0:32:31Sen. Durbin: During his controversial and disc racial -- and disgraceful 10 years, ed martin fired numerous career prosecutors simply because they were assigned to work on january 6 cases. Mr. martin was awarded with a plum position at the justice department as a very first political appointee to serve as part an attorney. During his short time in this role, he has overseen the pardons of numerous trump donors and supporters. Let me give you an example.
▶ 0:33:03Sen. Durbin: Last month president trump pardoned the nursing home executive paul walczak for tax fraud three weeks after his mother paid $1 million to attend a trump fundraiser. Coincidence?
▶ 0:33:18Sen. Durbin: In the aftermath of the scandalous pardons, martin tweeted "no maga left behind." paul rosen said "the law is only for trump's enemies now." in light of these concerns, we have a responsibility to call attorney general bondi under oath soon to ask again and I hope that we have that oversight hearing in the future. Do you want me to address Mr. waterman at this point?
▶ 0:33:49Sen. Durbin: I am going to support Mr. waterman's nomination to be the U.S. attorney for the southern district of iowa. Before we vote I want to note that he should be ready to be U.S. attorney for the southern district of iowa. He was nominated by president last february. This committee reported his nomination last april.
▶ 0:34:10Sen. Durbin: At that point he became a victim of senator vance's effort to " grind the justice department to a halt." I went to the floor eight times seeking unanimous consent to confirm him as U.S. attorney and I was blocked by senator vance seven of those times and by republican colleagues the eighth time. That included senator vance's own U.S. attorney nominee to the northern district of ohio, who I was prepared to support.
▶ 0:34:39Sen. Durbin: But he was stopped by the same strategy. Senator vance argued that it was no problem stating "staking our thumbs in the air or down on the ground is not much to ask from people who ask for this job expecting us to vote these nominees on the record is not too much to ask." I said time and time again, that vance stopped dozens of qualified U.S. attorneys.
▶ 0:35:06Sen. Durbin: And now we are asked to look the other way and ignore what happened. We cannot have one set of rules for republicans and another for democrats. So I hope Mr. chairman that you and I can work forward to resolve this.
▶ 0:35:18Chair Grassley: Of course, I hope we can when we have committed to you and I sitting down and trying to do that. We will now turn to the nomination of david waterman to be united states attorney for the southern district of iowa. We have agreed, and less that I hear objections, to report this nomination by voice vote. So accordingly, I ask on favorably reporting those for all in favor to say aye.
▶ 0:35:51Chair Grassley: Those opposed say no. The ayes have it. And the nomination will be favorably reported. And we will stand adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org]