South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham wondered out loud Wednesday whether his conversations are being spied on by the U.S. intelligence community.
He made the comments during a CNN segment focused on the fallout surrounding House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes’ revelation that he shared information with President Trump that was withheld from his committee about Trump and several members of his team transition having their identities “unmasked” after their communications were intercepted by U.S. intelligence officials.
Graham dismissed concerns that the intelligence community was actively surveilling the Trump team.
“Does this fall into the category of the Trump campaign was surveilled? I don’t think so. Does it fall into the category of being unlawful? I don’t believe so,” he said.
The Republican did concede that the claim is a “disturbing” revelation, and pondered the prospect of himself being spied on.
“I meet with foreign leaders all the time as a senator, I wonder if my meetings are being surveilled by our intelligence community,” Graham said. “If so, I think when I’m involved that may be inappropriate because I may be talking of things of policy that I don’t want the executive branch to know about.”
Graham went on to say that he’s “glad” the intelligence community is surveilling potential threats around the world, but noted there is a legal process that needs to be abided by.
“So from what I understand is that Trump members were talking to people that were under legal surveillance,” Graham said. “Here is the question I think for the country: Should the executive branch, the intelligence community be surveilling conversations between transition team members, members of Congress about policy, not intelligence gathering?”
He said that is a “good question” that he doesn’t know the answer to, and again floated the question of whether he is being monitored.
“I would like to think that when I spoke to the prime minister of Iraq, that I wasn’t being surveilled,” Graham said.
