Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) weighed in on the day’s revelations as reported by The New York Times regarding President Donald Trump and allegations of misdeeds that have led to calls for impeachment from congressional Democrats.
Graham mentioned the double standard applied to the Trump administration and added that the Times was engaging in an effort to thwart the Trump administration’s investigation led by U.S. Attorney General William Barr into what led to a counterintelligence investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign.
“I can imagine if Mike Pence did that you might be hearing all about it, but the whistleblower investigation has been sent to the intelligence community,” Graham said. “We will look at all things Biden. I hope somebody outside of politics would do to the Biden team what they did to Trump. Look at it really hard and see if a crime was committed. But here’s what bothers me tonight. This “New York Times” article about Barr talking to Australia is the beginning of an effort to shut down Barr’s investigation to find out how this whole thing started and let me tell you why. I want to say on national television, Barr should be talking to Australia. He should be talking to Italy. He should be talking to the U.K. to find out if their intelligence services with our intelligence services properly to open up a counterintelligence investigation of Trump’s campaign. If he’s not doing that, he’s not doing his job.”
“So I’m going to write a letter to all three countries and asking them to cooperate with Barr,” he continued. “This is a letter sent by my Democratic colleagues in May of 2018 to the Ukrainians saying that if you don’t cooperate with the Mueller investigation, we are going to stop our aid. So here’s what I want American people to know. It’s okay to cooperate with Mueller to get Trump, but it’s not okay to cooperate with Barr to find out that Trump was a victim of an out of control intelligence operation. We’re not going to have the country like that.”
The South Carolina Republican U.S. Senator noted Democrats pressured Ukraine to cooperate with former Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe all while trying to discourage other nations from working with Barr.
“It’s very clear – a couple of things are clear. Democrats wanted the Ukraine to work with Mueller, and if they didn’t, they would cut off their aid. It’s clear to me that liberals are starting an attack against Barr to shut him down from going to Italy, Australia, and the U.K.to find out if there was something wrong regarding opening up the investigation into the Trump campaign, to begin with,” Graham added. “If that’s not a double standard, I don’t know what would be. So to Attorney General Barr, you are doing the country a great service by trying to find out what happened in 2016 regarding a counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign? These countries should be cooperating with Barr. There’s nothing wrong with him looking into it. And as a matter of fact, there would be something wrong if you didn’t. So I’m a Republican Senator is going to write to these three countries urging them to cooperate with Barr.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor