ICYMI: Grassley Talks District Judges, Reconciliation and Whistleblowers on The Bottom Line

ICYMI: Grassley Talks District Judges, Reconciliation and Whistleblowers on The Bottom Line

WASHINGTON - Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and former chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, joined The Bottom Line on Fox Business to discuss nationwide injunctions, reconciliation and his work to secure the promotion of IRS whistleblowers.

Audio and excerpts of Grassley's remarks follow.

VIDEO

On Nationwide Injunctions:

"It ought to be a bipartisan issue, because within the last few years, Democrats have talked about reform, and we have Justice Kagan saying that the national approach is obviously being abused.

"I would say that the very least we want to do is… limit [district court decisions] to the district court where the district judge sits and listen to the injunction as it applies to the people that are in the court. That eliminates one judge making a decision that affects 93 district court systems that we have in the United States.

"I can't wait to see if the Supreme Court does something when I'm Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and we see this process is being vastly abused. For the first 150 years [of the United States], there was never one of these national injunctions. Then, for the next 70 years, [nationwide injunctions were] not used very often. But, within the last 20 years, this has been used [against] both Republican and Democrat administrations."

On Reconciliation:

"Some people are talking about getting [reconciliation] done by August. That's too late. We had a November 5 election, where this was a big issue, and the President has a mandate… we have a responsibility to carry out the results of the November 5 election.

"This debt ceiling limit should not be anything that stands in the way of getting the reconciliation bill passed, because [we must] get reconciliation passed to make sure we don't have the biggest tax cut in the history of the country.

"I think [President Trump] is going to get a good share of [his tax priorities], but I would doubt if he's going to get all of them, because of the total cost of all five of them… I think the President needs to pick and choose and tell Congress what's most important to him."

On IRS Whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler:

"I've been protecting these whistleblowers for months, or maybe more than a year and a half, and I'm glad that they are getting their job back, getting a promotion and being able to help this new Trump administration know where the bodies are buried.

"Most whistleblowers that I know are very patriotic people. I think that these two that you bring up showed how patriotic they were. They stuck to it. They were willing to go public with it, and we ought to be honoring people that know where the bodies are buried.

"There's a lot of other whistleblowers throughout previous administrations that have been ill treated, and I'm going to fight to get their jobs back as well."

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