Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has sent a letter to several current and former high ranking Democrats in the party and the Hillary Clinton campaign, requesting documents and information about their relationship to Fusion GPS and author of the Trump dossier Christopher Steele.

Powerline:

While the Democratic Party press tries to pump life into Bob Mueller’s going-nowhere-fast Russia investigation, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley continues to burrow into the real scandal: the corruption of the Department of Justice and the FBI by Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. Yesterday he and Lindsay Graham sent letters to the Democratic National Committee, Hillary for America (HFA), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former DNC Chairman Donna Brazile, HFA Chairman John Podesta, and HFA’s Chief Strategist, Joel Benenson. These letters request documents and information about the individuals’ and organizations’ relationship to the Fusion GPS fake dossier on Donald Trump.

Some of the questions that Grassley wants answers to are potential land mines:

1. Prior to the Washington Post’s article in October of 2017, who at the DNC was aware of Mr. Steele’s efforts on behalf of the DNC to compile and distribute allegations about Mr. Trump and the Russian government? Please list each individual who knew, when he or she first learned of his efforts, and how he or she learned. Please also provide all related documents.

2. Did anyone at the DNC receive copies of any of the memoranda comprising Mr. Steele’s dossier prior to its publication by Buzzfeed in January of 2017? If so, how and when? Please provide all related documents.

3. Regardless of whether they received copies of the actual memoranda, did anyone at the DNC otherwise receive information contained in the dossier prior to Buzzfeed publishing the dossier in January of 2017? If so, how and when? Please provide all related documents.

4. Did anyone at the DNC receive other memoranda written or forwarded by Mr. Steele regarding Mr. Trump and his associates that were not published as part ofthe Buzzfeed dossier? Ifso, how and when? Please provide all related documents.

5. Did anyone at the DNC distribute outside of the organization any of the dossier memoranda, information contained therein, or other information obtained by Mr. Steele? If so, please list who distributed the information, what was distributed, and to whom it was distributed. Please provide all related documents.

But as John Hinderaker points out, we are unlikely to get much useful information from this inquiry:

Grassley and Graham request responses to these questions by February 8. They are, obviously, good questions, but there is no way they will be answered. The DNC and the other parties to whom they were sent will stonewall, evade, obfuscate and lie. Congressional investigations are pretty much useless, not because the investigators are incompetent–they generally aren’t–but because they have no realistic way to compel truthful responses. Serving interrogatories and document requests in litigation, which is essentially what Grassley is doing here, works because the rules of civil procedure compel parties to respond, and a judge presides over every civil lawsuit. If a party refuses to answer, provides evasive and inadequate responses, or lies, the judge can impose a variety of meaningful sanctions.

If there's one thing Democrats have learned since Republicans took over the House and Senate, it's that they can stonewall, lie, and simply refuse to answer questions put to them with no consequences whatsoever. From the ATF, to the IRS, to the State Department, to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary's staff, the byword has been non-cooperation. Think of all the subpoenas that have been ignored or only partially filled. Think of the misleading and even lying testimony given over the years.

Grassley means well and perhaps he is setting up some of those individuals for a perjury rap. But as far as getting useful information from these crooks, it's not likely.