The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Foreign Threat Assessment Report (Executive Calendar)” mentioning Ron Johnson was published in the Senate section on pages S1637-S1638 on March 18.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Foreign Threat Assessment Report
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on March 6 of this year, the intelligence community issued its ``Intelligence Community Assessment on Foreign Threats to the 2020 U.S. Federal Elections.'' Based on that report, some in the liberal media have falsely claimed that my and Senator Johnson's Hunter Biden-related oversight activity last Congress was based on Russian disinformation. Even Peter Strzok felt the need to chime in on Twitter to say that we received Russian disinformation.
I don't know how many times I have to say it, but such claims are false and misleading. To be precise, Senator Johnson and I didn't receive, solicit, or rely upon any information from Andrii Derkach, and we publicly said so many times.
I don't know how many times last fall I was on this floor of the U.S. Senate trying to explain that to the people who were making those accusations. It seems like Strzok pays just about as careful attention to these facts as he did to the Crossfire FISA applications.
Of course, Twitter lets disinformation about the Steele dossier run wild on their platform yet shuts down still unrefuted reporting on Hunter Biden before the 2020 election. In other words, we have a double standard.
Now, regarding Russian disinformation, it wasn't Senator Johnson and this Senator that dealt in it. It happens to be very clear that the other side, the Democrats, were dealing with it. Here's one quick example. If you want more, then I would refer you to section 10 of our September 23, 2020, report.
On July 13, 2020, then-Minority Leader Schumer, Senator Warner, Speaker Pelosi, and Representative Schiff sent a letter with a classified attachment to the FBI to express a purported belief that Congress was the subject of a foreign disinformation campaign.
The classified attachment to that letter included unclassified elements that attempted, but failed, to tie our work to Derkach. Those unclassified elements were leaked to the press to support a false campaign accusing us two Senators of using Russian disinformation.
Then, during the course of our investigation, we ran a transcribed interview of George Kent. Before that interview, the Democrats acquired Derkach's materials. During that interview, they asked the witness about it. He stated: ``What you're asking me to interpret is a master chart of disinformation and malign influence.''
At that interview, the Democrats introduced known disinformation into the investigative record as an exhibit. More precisely, the Democrats relied upon and disseminated known disinformation from a foreign source whom the intelligence community warned was actively seeking to influence U.S. politics. Yet now--can you believe this?--they accuse this Senator and Senator Johnson of doing that very thing. Now let that sink in because there is a case of double standard around here.
It is clear that the Democrats hope that their self-created disinformation campaign would drown out our report and its findings to protect Candidate Biden from the facts. Now that President Biden is in office, the facts aren't going anywhere.
I had an opportunity to serve 28 years in the Senate with Senator Biden. I liked him then; I still like him. But that doesn't mean that I like the double standard the press has toward President Biden and us Republicans.
As President Biden gears up for his first press conference, he ought to answer for the fact that his family was and possibly still is financially connected to Chinese nationals with links to the Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army. Indeed, Hunter Biden reportedly admitted that he was well aware that some of his business associates were connected to the Communist Chinese Government intelligence services. Now, double standard--where is the media in asking serious questions about that?
It has also been reported that emails show Joe Biden and his brother were ``office mates'' with the very same Chinese nationals with links to the Communist regime and the its military. Now, talk about a double standard. Where is the media in asking serious questions about that? Yet they are reporting this very day about things that Johnson and Grassley did about disinformation, which I have told you so many times we never received.
Now there is this interview on television with Tony Bobulinski, publicly stating that Joe Biden was aware of and possibly involved in Hunter Biden's business deals. Talk about a double standard. Where is the media asking serious questions about that?
The Biden family transactions and associations in our September 20 report raised criminal, counterintelligence, and extortion concerns. Yet the media--the liberal media--has ignored all of it and has failed to ask any legitimate questions. Don't you think that we the people have a right to know the answers?
The media certainly seemed to think so in all the doings of the Trump administration. If the story I just laid out here were about Trump, I guarantee you that it would be all over the news.
It is perfectly legitimate and reasonable for Congress and the news media to question the Biden administration about these global financial transactions and associations. It is perfectly legitimate to ask how they could impact the Biden administration's foreign policy. That is especially true as it relates to China, given the extensive links between the Biden family and that country. Let's see if anyone dares to ask questions at the President's first news conference.
Alerts Sign-up