WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) apparently forgot that he’s supposed to be helping President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees avoid saying that Trump lost in 2020, when a hot mic picked him up asking his staff why they won’t just say Joe Biden won.

“What would be wrong if they said Biden won?” Grassley, the 92-year-old chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was heard loudly asking his aides in a Wednesday hearing.

It’s hard to make it out, but you can hear Grassley’s question right around the 1:17:20 mark of the hearing. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) turns his head as Grassley speaks, and in the background, some staffers look surprised by what they heard. Two people who were in the hearing room later confirmed to HuffPost they heard Grassley ask his full question.

The GOP senator’s question came as Blumenthal was in the middle of asking four of Trump’s judicial nominees who won in 2020. All refused to say Biden won.

Trump’s court picks have been routinely dodging this question, apparently afraid of angering Trump by saying he lost and potentially having their nominations pulled. Instead, they’ve been giving strangely worded responses about how Biden was “certified” as president, or just that he “served” as president. Both of those responses allow them to skip over the part about Biden actually winning, and instead get to the part about him becoming president.

Grassley’s remark caught on the mic undermines his public criticisms of Democrats for asking Trump’s nominees this question at all. He opened a hearing earlier this month by lambasting Democrats for having “relentlessly attacked” the president’s nominees with this question, and suggested their questions are “political theater” with no meaningful purpose behind them.

He’s also been giving cover to Trump’s nominees’ evasive answers by arguing it’s accurate when they say Biden was “certified” as president — which is true, except he knows this is how they’ve avoided answering the basic question of who won in 2020.

Most importantly, Grassley’s question gets at the heart of why Democrats have been asking Trump’s nominees about 2020 at all: because it’s alarming they won’t say he lost and arguably disqualifying, as it raises red flags about their ability to be impartial judges versus loyalists to this president.

Asked for comment, Grassley spokeswoman Clare Slattery just reiterated that it’s accurate for judicial nominees to say Biden was certified as president.

“Let me spell out for you what Sen. Grassley and countless nominees this Congress have made clear: Whoever is certified as receiving the majority vote from the electoral college is the winner of the election,” Slattery said in a statement. “There’s no other way to ‘win the election.’ As we all know, Biden received the majority of electoral college votes in 2020 and those results were certified by Congress.”

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