INDEPENDENCE, Iowa — Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Friday that he hopes Michael Avenatti becomes the Democratic standard-bearer in the 2020 presidential primary the day he served a criminal referral against the lawyer and Julie Swetnick for what he believes were materially false claims against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“I want him to be the Democratic candidate,” Grassley said in an interview Friday. “So It finally shows how ridiculous the base of the Democratic Party is.”

Avenatti is "a good public relations man, opposite of the good that Trump does. But Trump’s just as good,” Grassley said, comparing the lawyer’s ability to garner media attention with the president’s own media savviness.

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman made waves Thursday when he referred Avenatti and Swetnick for investigation by the DOJ, saying that the two were not “well-meaning” by bringing the allegations forth. He said his initial referral was a push to deter individuals from lying to Congress in the future.

“To emphasize to anybody that wants to give a sworn statement to Congress that they better not lie. When you take those sworn statements, you don’t just accept the statement. You have to follow up,” Grassley said. “We ought to have an ethic [that] you don’t lie to Congress. We’ve got a law against it.”

Since Grassley referred the two for a possible probe, Avenatti has proclaimed the investigation to be good news since Swetnick’s allegations will be looked into, calling it “Christmas in October.” In his referral, Grassley pointed to Swetnick’s subsequent backtrack of her sworn affidavit in an interview with NBC News. He also referred the outlet’s report released a day earlier noting that one individual purported to back up Swetnick's claims also backtracked and said that Avenatti was twisting her words. Grassley referred the two for a second investigation on Friday.

He also hit back at claims from Avenatti that Kavanaugh was not investigated prior to his confirmation, arguing that the Judiciary Committee spent ample amount of time looking into Kavanaugh overall.

“It’s got nothing to do with the claims. It’s got something to do with lying to Congress … For instance he said we ought to investigate Kavanaugh. Well, they had 32 hours to investigate Kavanaugh, and they had 4-5 hours with Dr. Ford. No, this is all about lying to Congress.”