The Fusion GPS transcript that Grassley wants to hide can be released by a HERO.
That's the gist of what Rachel explained tonight. In 2014 Mike Gravel explained how he personally got the Pentagon Papers released to the public. We need someone to be as brave as Mike Gravel.
After a mistake prevented him from reading the Papers into the record of a full Senate session, he read it aloud at a subcommittee meeting -- that he chaired.
(In this interview he was referring to a torture report that he thought should be released. But his ideas could apply just as easily to the Fusion GPS report that Grassley/Graham are hiding.)
https://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/16/former_senator_mike_gravel_on_putting
But the attorneys that were advising me said that plan B, since I was the chairman of the Subcommittee on Buildings and Grounds, I could convene that subcommittee based upon the precedence of the House Un-American Activities Committee calling meetings on the fly as they went around the country to entrap people to testify. And so, we called a meeting, put the notice underneath the door. By this time, it was 11:00-ish. And we were able to get a congressman from New York, Dow, who came forward and testified. And so, I convened a hearing, and the congressman said he wanted a federal building in his district. And I said that, “Well, I can appreciate that, and I’d be happy to give—authorize building a federal building in your district, but we don’t have the money. And the reason why we don’t have the money is because we’re squandering it in Southeast Asia, and let me read something about how we got into that mess.” And so I proceeded to read the Pentagon Papers.
I had not slept, essentially, for three days. I really was scared stiff, because I didn’t know the consequences on myself as to what I was doing. And so, I broke out emotionally and was sobbing, got control of myself and then did the obvious thing, which was to ask unanimous consent to put it into the record. And, of course, since there was no one there to object, I said, “It’s done.” And that put the documents into the record of the subcommittee, which is a record of the Senate.
Now, what we have with the torture report, this is something that is already in the record of the Senate, because it’s in the record of the Intelligence Committee. And they did redactions, and they did research. And so, it’s there. It doesn’t have to be re-entered into the record—it’s there. What it needs to do is to now be put out publicly so that the people in the media and the people can do the research that’s necessary in these 6,000-plus documents. And the simplest way to do that is for a member of the Senate or the House to take their hands—take this document, put a press release explaining what they’re doing and how important it is for a democracy for the people to know what their government is doing in their name, and then take this document to the press room of the Capitol and start handing it out to various members of the press.
But that’s exactly what we did. After I turned around and put it in the committee record, we went back to our offices. We copied the Pentagon Papers and handed it to reporters, who created a pool and then distributed it. So the key was to be able to distribute it to the public, and so—and not just my release of putting the papers in the committee record, it was the physical act of releasing it to the public that counts. And so, now what applies with today is the simple act of taking this record that’s there, explaining why you’re doing this—to save our democracy—and hand it out to the public.
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