Chuck Grassley

Giffords Shooting Survivors Slam Grassley's 'Disregard' For Gun Violence Victims

Ryan J. Reilly | November 16, 2011, 5:13PM

Tucson, Arizona Shooting Witness Patricia Maisch And Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley

Eleven survivors and family members of victims of the January 2011 shooting in Arizona that nearly killed Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) are criticizing Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) for what they say was a "dismissive and political response" to Tucson shooting survivor Patricia Maisch's testimony in support of legislation which would close holes in the gun background check system.

In a letter sent to Grassley on Wednesday and obtained by TPM, Retired Colonel Bill Badger, Nancy Bowman, Carol Dorushka, Kenneth Dorushka, Randy Gardner, John Maisch, Patricia Maisch, Angela Robbinson, Faith Salzgeber, Foger Salzgeber and Mavy Stoddard write of their "profound disappointment" with Grassley's "obvious disregard for the gun violence survivors in the room" as well as his "apparent ignorance of the deadly serious issue we came to discuss with you."

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Chuck Grassley

Awkward: Grassley Blows Lid On Internal DOJ Probe Into Fast And Furious Leaks

Ryan J. Reilly | November 8, 2011, 11:30AM

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA)

Updated: Nov. 8, 1:12PM

Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed on Tuesday that the Justice Department's internal investigators were looking into "a couple of leaks" related to ATF's flawed Operation Fast and Furious.

But he was pretty upset that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) made the probe public in the first place.

In a hearing on Tuesday, Grassley related a private conversation that he had with Holder about a document that was supposed to be private that the Justice Department provided to the press. The name of the ATF agent was not deleted from the document, which Grassley said was a violation of the Privacy Act.

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FOIA

Justice Department Pulls Proposal Allowing Government To Lie About FOIA Requests

Ryan J. Reilly | November 3, 2011, 3:50PM

Updated: Nov. 3, 4:05PM

The Justice Department is withdrawing a proposed rule to the Freedom of Information Act which would have allowed federal agencies to say that certain law-enforcement and national security documents didn't exist, even when they do.

"If the proposed regulations can be improved [in terms of transparency], we will work to improve them," the Justice Department explained in a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). "We believe that Section 16.6(f)(2) of the proposed regulations fall short by those measures, and we will not include that provision when the Department issues final regulations."

The regulation in question would have instructed agencies to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist." Agencies will still continue using the phrase "there exist no records responsive to your FOIA request" when records in question are exempt from FOIA, as spelled out in a 1987 memo issued by Attorney General Ed Meese.

"When a citizen makes a request pursuant to the FOIA, either implicit or explicit in the request is that it seeks records that are subject to the FOIA; where the only records that exist are not subject to the FOIA, the statement that 'there exist no records responsive to your FOIA request' is wholly accurate," the letter said.

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Fast And Furious

DOJ's Breuer: I Shouldn't Have Just Trusted ATF To Stop 'Gun Walking' (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | November 1, 2011, 11:55AM

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) questioned Justice Department official Lanny Breuer at a hearing on Tuesday about Attorney General Eric Holder's knowledge of ATF's flawed Operation Fast and Furious, the day after Breuer apologized for not connecting the "gun walking" tactics that took place during a Bush-era ATF operation to the more recent anti-gun trafficking operation.

Breuer said during his testimony that he trusted officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to make sure that agents weren't allowing guns to "walk" across the Mexican border, as they learned happened back in 2006 and 2007 during Operation Wide Receiver.

"At the time, I thought that dealing with the leadership of ATF was sufficient and reasonable, and frankly given the amount of work I do, at the time I thought that was the appropriate way of dealing with it," Breuer said. "I thought we had dealt with it by talking to the ATF leadership."

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