Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham promised that he will launch his own “deep dive” inquiry into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation after the conclusion of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation into alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“I promise your listeners, after Horowitz issues his report about the flawed FISA warrant, I’m going to deep-dive into how this stuff started,” the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said while appearing on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News this morning. “How could it go so far if there was no collusion?”
Special counsel Robert Mueller concluded that although the Russians did interfere in the 2016 presidential election, he could not establish any criminal collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. He will be testifying in front of Congress on July 24.
Graham, speaking with Maria Bartiromo, said that the probe by the Justice Department and FBI into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia that began under President Obama was a “politicized investigation.” Citing what he said is a clear double standard, Graham contrasted the Justice Department’s “kid-gloves” investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of an illicit private server with their all-out investigation of Trump-Russia collusion.
Graham said that he wanted to “explain to the public how the system works,” as he compared the Clinton investigation to the Trump investigation.
“When Hilary Clinton was investigated, people for her literally took material and beat it up with a hammer. They destroyed evidence and no one was prosecuted. No one was flipped. Nobody was prosecuted for minor offenses to get them to talk against Clinton,” Graham said. “Everything they did to break the Trump world, they treated Clinton with kid gloves. They hated Trump. They wanted Clinton to win. This was a politicized investigation. It should scare every American.”
And Graham pointed specifically to the FISA warrants obtained against Trump campaign associate Carter Page beginning in October 2016, which relied heavily upon “a dossier prepared by a foreign agent that’s a bunch of garbage.” Christopher Steele, the British ex-spy who compiled the salacious and unverified dossier while working for Fusion GPS which had been hired by the Clinton campaign through the Perkins Coie law firm, has spoken with the Justice Department inspector general in recent weeks.
“I’m going to get to the bottom of it and explain how one campaign was treated differently than the other to make sure it never happens again,” Graham promised.
In addition to Horowitz’s investigation, President Trump provided Attorney General William Barr with broad declassification authority to get answers on the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, and Barr in turn selected U.S. Attorney John Durham to serve as his point man in that effort.
Bartiromo asked whether Graham believed that “any of these people who actually put their finger on the scale in their powerful positions and tried to stop Donald Trump” might face criminal charges, pointing specifically to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, and former CIA Director John Brennan.
Graham said that he trusted Durham and Horowitz to look at these issues closely, and said that his job is “to make sure we fix the system that no other president has to go through what Donald Trump went through.”
“But yes, I think there are plenty of people involved in the 2016 election, the way they investigated the Trump campaign, the FISA warrant application, where they have criminal liability, but we will leave that up to Mr. Durham,” Graham said. “But I promise you, we’re going to look at the other side. Mueller was the final word for me on all things Trump and Russia. The other side — now it’s their turn to be looked at.”
Graham also said that the ongoing efforts by Democratic House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and others were not about getting to the truth, but rather that “they are trying to set up a case for impeachment against President Trump.
“If they bring impeachment charges based on the Mueller report, it would be unfair, it would blow up in their face politically, President Trump would get reelected, and we would take back the House and the Senate, because Mueller said there was no collusion,” Graham opined. “The facts in the law did not justify bringing an obstruction case. There was no underlying crime. This is all politically motivated. Does anybody really think Jerry Nadler’s trying to get to the truth or that he will do a better job than Mueller?”
