Grassley Opens Executive Business Meeting on Circuit, District and U.S. Attorney Nominees, Calls Out Democrats’ Double Standard of Justice

Prepared Opening Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
Executive Business Meeting
Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Before we begin, I'll note that the government is now shut down. This is unfortunate and unnecessary.

Republicans in the House and Senate have tried to pass a simple, nonpartisan resolution to keep the government open while we continue to work through the bipartisan appropriations process.

We do this routinely, and Republicans agreed to a similar resolution 13 times during the Biden Administration.

Democrats have refused to do the right thing and have forced a government shutdown unless they obtain partisan policy concessions.

Shutdowns cost money. They hurt the American people. The Democrats could end this today, if they'd simply put aside partisanship and vote to reopen the government.

I can't control the Democrats, but I can control this Committee. We'll keep operating during the shutdown, including by holding our regular business meetings.

On today's agenda, we have twenty nominations listed. We'll vote on five of them. We will vote on Jennifer Mascott to be a circuit judge. We'll also vote on Edmund LaCour, Bill Lewis and Harold Mooty to be district judges, and on David Courcelle to be a U.S. Attorney. I look forward to supporting these qualified nominees.

We'll hold over the remaining nominations listed on our agenda for later consideration.

Before turning to today's business, I'd like to discuss the recent flurry of outrage from my Democratic colleagues in the wake of the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.

The indictment returned by the Grand Jury contains serious charges. At the time of Comey's alleged conduct, my colleagues and I had active investigations. If the facts and evidence show that Comey lied to us and obstructed our work, he ought to be held accountable.

The rule of law requires truthfulness before Congress, and this body's constitutional oversight role demands it.

Instead of acknowledging this fact and allowing the legal process to play out, my Democratic colleagues are warning us about the danger of politicized justice.

Where have they been for the last decade?

I've long warned against political investigations and prosecutions and dual standards of justice.

As one example, in 2023, I said "Attorney General Garland signed off on prosecuting Trump for conduct similar to what Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton engaged in. Two standards of justice in this country will turn our constitutional Republic upside down."

During the FBI's Clinton email investigation, the FBI agreed to destroy records and laptops of Clinton's associates after reviewing them. The FBI limited the scope of review and provided immunity agreements.

Comey drafted an exoneration statement for Clinton before the FBI even interviewed her and 16 other witnesses.

And then-President Obama publicly undermined the investigation before it was completed by saying "this isn't a situation in which America's national security was endangered."

The Clinton Annex showed that the Comey FBI had information necessary to conduct a "thorough and complete investigation." They didn't review it.

That's the opposite of how the FBI treated Trump.

The Obama Administration and Comey's FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane on candidate Trump and falsely accused him of Russian collusion. The FBI lied to the FISA court. The now-declassified Durham Annex said the Clinton Campaign planned to falsely tie Trump to Russia. The FBI helped them try to do it.

And where was the Democratic outcry when the Biden Administration weaponized the Justice Department to investigate the 92 Republican political groups during Arctic Frost?

For all these examples, there's been no outcry - no matter how outlandish and obvious the political infection.

That's true even with state-level cases brought against Trump.

In one of the partisan lawsuits launched against President Trump, a justice of the New York Supreme Court described the goal as "the derailment of President Trump's political career and the destruction of his real estate business." That's not the commentary of a media personality - that's what a sitting justice wrote in his concurrence!

Democrats cheered the political arrests and prosecutions of President Trump, his advisors, his friends, his lawyers and even his valet. House Democrats impeached President Trump not once, but twice. Democrats, their allies and a politicized justice system raided President Trump's house … publicly released his tax returns … fined his companies … stripped his business licenses.

Democrats even tried to remove President Trump from the ballot in 2024. Imagine that. They tried to deprive the American people from electing the candidate of their choice. A candidate ultimately elected by an overwhelming margin.

They've engaged in inflammatory rhetoric about President Trump and his supporters, calling them fascists, authoritarians, racists and worse. That's even after assassination attempts.

I'm sure that in the coming days, my Democratic colleagues will wax poetic about political prosecutions and Trump's so-called revenge. But for all their complaining, the Democrats should remember where this started. They should remember the pleas and warnings from my side of the aisle. And they should remember that hypocrisy is not a way to regain the moral high ground.

Before turning to the nominations, I'd also like to briefly comment on yesterday's hearing before this Committee. Despite the criticisms of partisanship, we heard from victims about the devastating impact of soft-on-crime policies. And for those who saw the hearing as partisan, they didn't read the extremely partisan letter Democrats sent to me attacking the president's successful anti-crime policies.

Ms. Cook was one of those victims. Her grandson was murdered in D.C., and Ms. Cook read a victim impact statement at the sentencing hearing for her grandson's killer. Afterward, the judge looked at her grandson's killer and commented on how he'd been tortured all day listening to the heartache his actions caused. That's appalling. That sort of behavior has no place in the judiciary.

I have high hopes that the nominees under consideration today will never dismiss a victim's pain in their courtrooms. I'm grateful to Ms. Cook for her testimony and to President Trump for taking stories like Ms. Cook's seriously, after her local leaders failed her. Violent crime must be met with a strong response, and - if anything - yesterday's hearing showed that.

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