[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 127 (Tuesday, July 20, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4959-S4960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Congressional Oversight

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today I come to the floor to discuss an 
issue that I have raised during the course of multiple Republican and 
Democrat administrations. This is a problem that crosses political 
boundaries, whether you have a Republican or Democrat President. That 
issue is responding to legitimate and valid congressional oversight 
requests.
  In my time as a public servant, I have seen my fair share of 
unresponsive government, sometimes downright obstructive government. I 
have seen it rear its ugly head from decade to decade. There is nothing 
more eroding to public faith than an unresponsive executive branch that 
believes that it only answers to the President and not to the U.S 
Congress and perhaps, most importantly, we the people.
  Based on my interactions with the Biden administration's Justice 
Department and its component Agencies--specifically, the FBI--the 
current officials in charge of those Agencies are, at best, 
unresponsive public servants. That goes all the way to the top, to the 
President, because the buck stops there.
  As I say to many nominees, either you are going to run your 
Department or the Department runs you. Right now, it looks like the 
Justice Department is running the Attorney General's office, and that 
is a great big shame.
  I voted to confirm the Attorney General. I had high hopes he would 
follow through on his public statements of ridding the Department of 
political infection. Instead, I fear he has taken the Justice 
Department to new politically charged heights.
  To date, I haven't received a full or complete response to a single 
oversight request from the Justice Department. As one example, on 
February 3 of this year and March 9 of this year, Senator Johnson and I 
asked the Department about Nicholas McQuaid. Mr. McQuaid is the Acting 
Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, of which Mr. 
Polite will be taking his place upon confirmation.
  McQuaid was employed by a law firm until January 20 of this year and 
worked with Christopher Clark, whom Hunter Biden reportedly hired to 
work on his Federal criminal case.

[[Page S4960]]

  This arrangement poses a clear potential conflict.
  A core function of congressional oversight is to ensure that 
governmental Departments and Agencies are free of conflicts of 
interest. That is especially so with the Justice Department and the 
FBI. If conflict infects them, those investigations and prosecutions, 
the very purpose of the Department's existence, could be undermined.
  So I have requested a recusal memo for McQuaid. I have also requested 
to know, as a threshold issue, whether one even exists. Attorney 
General Garland won't answer.
  Now, can you believe that? Here we have a Federal criminal case that 
implicates the President's son, and the Attorney General won't even 
answer Congress as to whether or not an employee of his Department who 
has an apparent conflict is recused from that matter?
  It certainly looks like the Garland Justice Department is doing all 
that it can to protect the President's son.
  Let me remind the Attorney General that I was the one who led a 
transcribed interview with President Trump's son. For all of the grief 
that Trump and his family got from the Democrats, at least that family 
showed up and answered the questions of legitimate congressional 
oversight.
  Early on in the Attorney General's tenure, I instructed my oversight 
staff to work diligently and, of course, in good faith with their 
counterparts at the Justice Department. My staff have done the phone 
calls. They have had the meetings. They have sent emails, many of which 
go unanswered. My staff has done this all in good faith.
  At my level, I have made every effort to get the Attorney General on 
the phone to discuss my oversight requests. It took him 2 months to get 
on the phone with me for a one-on-one call. I found out just the other 
week that Attorney General Garland's staff never told him of my request 
to speak with him. This omission is a dereliction of duty by the 
Department staff, to keep something like that from the Attorney 
General. Like I said, either you run the Department, or the Department 
runs you.

  This type of unresponsive conduct has consequences. These 
consequences might not be immediate, but eventually, as I have seen 
over the years, ultimately the consequences arrive. The more their 
government tries to hide from them, the more the American people lose 
faith in government institutions. With such bad government conduct, I 
don't blame the people for losing faith. The fault is with the 
government, not the American people. After all, we work for the 
American people; they don't work for us. It is sad to say, but many in 
Washington, DC, don't understand that very fundamental precept of our 
constitutional Republic.
  My fellow Senators, this type of conduct from the Biden 
administration and the Justice Department is unacceptable. But it isn't 
just this administration or this Justice Department; it is something I 
have seen too long under both Republican and Democratic Presidents, and 
it will have long-term consequences for the integrity of our 
governmental institutions.
  In light of the Department's consistent failure to respond to my 
oversight requests, I will object to any unanimous consent request that 
Kenneth Polite be confirmed as Assistant Attorney General for the 
Criminal Division. I do not do so on the basis of his credentials, 
which I don't question; I do it as a message to the Attorney General 
that he needs to improve DOJ's interaction with the Congress.