Grassley Slams Democrats’ Dark-Money Hypocrisy

Chairman Grassley slammed the hypocrisy of these looney liberal outside groups and went after his Senate Democrat colleagues for using the disingenuous ‘dark money’ line of attack against Judge Gorsuch.

April 3, 2017

Chairman Grassley slammed the hypocrisy of these looney liberal outside groups and went after his Senate Democrat colleagues for using the disingenuous ‘dark money’ line of attack against Judge Gorsuch. Watch Grassley here.

CHAIRMAN GRASSLEY: Now as a Senator who has participated in 14 Supreme Court hearings, I must say these comments strike me as really odd. To hear my friends on the other side tell it, “it is only conservative outside groups who are engaged in the nomination process.” But we all know that isn’t true. It is no secret that there are dozens of advocacy groups on the left who get involved in the nomination process. There is absolutely nothing — nothing whatsoever wrong with that. We call it free speech. A group called the Coalition for Constitutional Values ran ads in support of Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan before their confirmation. The American Constitution Society touted Justice Kagan as “a Justice for every American.” Where did their money come from? I don’t know and I suppose a lot of people think that I shouldn’t say I don’t care, but this is America where people can then their many where they want to spend it and they can use their money for political speech or for any advocacy that they want. 

 

And of course as we see, advocacy groups on the left are engaged on this nomination as well. Liberal billionaires like Tom Steyer, George Soros found their own dark money organizations like NextGen Climate, a group that describes Judge Gorsuch as “an extreme candidate wrong for the supreme court under any circumstances.” 

 

Everyone in this room knows that liberal and progressive groups have been pressuring the minority leader to find a reason – any reason – to filibuster a nominee. NARAL has run ads to pressure members to filibuster. We even had some groups called Progressive Change Campaign committee target a senior, and extremely well-respected Democrat over his quote, unquote “squishy comments,” suggesting he might not filibuster. In short, they have threatened to primary any Democrat who supports the nomination. Now that is very dark.