Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he has no issue with the Trump administration firing FBI agents and Department of Justice personnel who were key in prosecuting those who were involved in the January 6th U.S. Capitol riots.
“The purpose of law enforcement isn’t political weaponization, it is law enforcement,” Grassley says, “but the people that did what the higher level people said, I would have to review their involvement and whether or not there’s any decision making before I’d say they should be fired.”
Those in leadership positions at the FBI and DOJ can be transferred or fired, Grassley says, but those who were just following orders from their supervisors perhaps should be spared. “But let’s say some people were fired that shouldn’t be fired, they ought to be reinstated,” Grassley says, “and I would make that same point about whistleblowers that have been fired illegitimately.”
Shortly after taking office last month, President Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who were charged in the Capitol attack, including ten Iowans.
Also, the U.S. Agency for International Development is seeing widespread firings, and Monday, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst said it was the right move to shut down USAID, so every dollar can be scrutinized. Ernst chairs the Senate’s DOGE Caucus, working with billionaire Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency.
Grassley was asked if Musk, who was appointed to spearhead DOGE by Trump, has the power to close down USAID.
“I don’t know about the authority to shut down an agency,” Grassley says, “but I do know that President Trump has a responsibility, and he has a mandate from the last election to drain the swamp.”
During a live broadcast Monday on X, Ernst says Musk closed USAID with Trump’s blessing, and Musk says he had multiple conversations with the president before taking action. Grassley says the agency clearly had problems.
“When you see how some of this money is spent, if the president of the United States, particularly a president that had such a mandate to drain the swamp,” Grassley says, “if he wasn’t looking out for how that money was spent, whether it’s millions or a few tens of thousands, he wouldn’t be doing his job.”
Grassley echoes Ernst, who says her staff found USAID was spending millions — up to 60-percent of its budget — on overhead and other expenditures not related to humanitarian aid.