Sen. Chuck Grassley Charles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyOvernight Health Care: Senators grill drug execs over high prices | Progressive Dems unveil Medicare for all bill | House Dems to subpoena Trump officials over family separations Senate confirms Trump court pick despite missing two 'blue slips' GOP lawmaker says panel to investigate drug company gaming of patent system MORE (R-Iowa) on Friday called for the Federal Communications Commission to explain why a reporter was "manhandled" by security guards at the agency's headquarters a day earlier. The Republican Grassley joins Democrats that previously raised concerns about the incident.

“The Federal Communications Commission needs to take a hard look at why this happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again," Grassley said in a statement. "As The Washington Post pointed out, it’s standard operating procedure for reporters to ask questions of public officials after meetings and news conferences. It happens all day, every day."

"There’s no good reason to put hands on a reporter who’s doing his or her job,” he added.

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Earlier on Friday, Sens. Tom Udall Thomas (Tom) Stewart UdallHillicon Valley: House panel takes on election security | DOJ watchdog eyes employee texts | Senate Dems urge regulators to block T-Mobile, Sprint deal | 'Romance scams' cost victims 3M in 2018 Dems urge regulators to reject T-Mobile, Sprint merger Dems wary of killing off filibuster MORE (D-N.M.) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) wrote a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, warning that the incident appeared to be part of a trend of harsh treatment of journalists by the Trump administration.

John Donnelly, a reporter for CQ Roll Call, was pinned against a wall at the FCC on Thursday after reportedly trying to ask FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly a question before a scheduled news conference. He was then ejected from the building.

"We apologized to Mr. Donnelly more than once and let him know that the FCC was on heightened alert today based on several threats,” an FCC spokesman told The Hill in an email Thursday.