Lindsey Graham on Russia Collusion Investigation: ‘For Me, It Is Over’

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) delivered a fiery opening statement Wednesday, charging that the Mueller report concluded there was no Russia collusion and no obstruction of justice.

Chairman Graham opened the hearing featuring Attorney General William Barr’s testimony before the committee after the Justice Department released special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that there was collusion with the Russian government and that Barr said that President Trump did not obstruct justice in firing former FBI Director James Comey.

Graham noted during his opening statement that “you have to have a specific intent to obstruct justice.”

Sen. Graham noted that after the Mueller report concluded that there was no collusion or obstruction, there remain many troubling questions about the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the government’s surveillance of the 2016 Trump campaign.

Graham said that Peter Strzok, the person in charge of investigating the president, “hated Trump’s guts.”

The South Carolina senator cited several of Stzrok’s texts, which said that he and his mistress, Lisa Page, will “stop” Trump and even cited an insurance policy in the event that Trump won the 2016 election.

In one August 2016 text, Strzok said he could “smell” the Trump support in southern Virginia.

“Trump is a fucking idiot,” Graham said, citing another text from Strzok, to which he then apologized to the “kids out there”:

“These are the people that made the decision that Clinton didn’t do anything wrong [with her emails] and that counterintelligence investigation campaign was warranted,” Graham added.

Shifting towards the Clinton email investigation, Graham said there remain concerning questions about the Clinton email server, whereas the Mueller report concluded the collusion question.

“As to cooperation in the Clinton investigation, I told you what the Trump people did. I’ll tell you a little bit about what the Clinton people did,” Graham said. “There was a protective order for the server, issued by the House, and there was a request by the State Department to preserve all of the information on the server.”

Sen. Graham said a Clinton staffer “used BleachBit to wipe this email server clean.”

Graham continued:

Under the protective order and State Department order, “he used a BleachBit program to wipe it clean. What happened to him? Nothing. Eighteen devices possessed by Secretary Clinton, she used to do business as secretary. How many of them were turned over to the FBI? None. Two of them couldn’t be turned over because Judith Kasper took a hammer and destroyed two of ’em. What happened to her? Nothing. So the bottom line is we’re here for Mr. Barr, the results of a two-year investigation into the Trump campaign, all things Russia, the actions the president took before and after the campaign, $25 million, 40 FBI agents.

“I appreciate very much what Mr. Mueller did for the country. I have read most of the report. For me, it is over,” Graham concluded in his opening statement.