On September 27, 2018 at the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, during his opening remarks, Senator Grassley claimed that FBI investigations can add nothing to Senate confirmation hearings and that this was asserted some time ago by Senator Joe Biden:
As you can see, the Judiciary Committee was able to conduct thorough investigations into allegation — thorough investigations into allegations.
Some of my colleagues, consistent with their stated desires to obstruct Kavanaugh’s nomination by any means precisely — by any means necessary, pushed for FBI investigations into the allegations. But I have no authority to force the executive branch agency to conduct an investigation into a matter it considers to be closed. Moreover, once the allegations become — became public, it was easy to identify all the alleged witnesses and conduct our own investigations.
Contrary to what the public has been led to believe, the FBI doesn’t perform any credibility assessments or verify the truth of any events in these background investigations.
I’ll quote then-Chairman Joe Biden during Justice Thomas’ confirmation hearing. This is what Senator Biden said, quote, “The next person who refers to an FBI report as being worth anything obviously doesn’t understand anything. The FBI explicitly does not, in this or any other case, reach a conclusion, period. They say he — he said, she said, they said, period. So when people wave an FBI report before you, understand, they do not — they do not — they do not reach conclusions. They do not make recommendations,” end of Senator Biden’s quote.
The FBI provided us with the allegations. Now it’s up to the Senate to assess their credibility. Which brings us to this very time.
–"Kavanaugh hearing: Transcript", The Washington Post (2018-09-27)
Is this really a direct quote by Democratic Senator and former Vice President Joe Biden? When did he say this?