Graham predicts ‘riots in streets’ if Trump is
prosecuted over classified records
Republican South Carolina senator cites 'the ‘Clinton
debacle’ and claims the FBI failed to investigate Hunter Biden
Martin Pengelly
in New York
@MartinPengelly
Mon 29 Aug
2022 16.29 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/29/lindsey-graham-riots-trump-prosecuted-records
Amid
growing fears about political violence in the US, a senior Republican senator
predicted “riots in the streets” if Donald Trump is prosecuted for mishandling
classified information.
Any case against
Trump is likely to be built around his call to Georgia’s secretary of state to
demand he ‘find’ enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory.
Lindsey
Graham, of South Carolina, made his remarks about the ex-president while
speaking to Fox News’s Sunday Night in America, hosted by Trey Gowdy, a former
Republican congressman from the same state.
Graham
said: “Most Republicans, including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is
no law. It’s all about getting him. There’s a double standard when it comes to
Trump.”
Alleging a
failure by the FBI to investigate Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, Graham added:
“I’ll say this, if there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling
classified information, after the Clinton debacle … there’ll be riots in the
streets.”
As a House
committee chairperson, Gowdy investigated Hillary Clinton’s work as secretary
of state, including her handling of the attack on a US facility in Benghazi in
2012 and her use of a private email server for government business. Clinton was
not charged over the email issue.
Trump is
under investigation and could be indicted over the handling of classified White
House records he took to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home, in contravention of
federal law.
On Friday,
an affidavit released with redactions showed how concerns about illegal
activity and obstruction of justice merited an FBI search at Trump’s resort
earlier this month.
Trump seized
on the search to claim unfair treatment and whip up supporters. He is
reportedly close to announcing another White House run. He is eligible to do so
because he escaped conviction in his second impeachment trial for inciting the
Capitol attack.
Graham’s
remarks were widely condemned.
Law
professor and former White House ethics chief Richard Painter referred to Trump
supporters’ deadly attack on the Capitol when he said: “A senator who calls for
‘riots in the streets’ if Trump is indicted should be expelled from the Senate.
He’s inciting January 6 all over again.”
The
president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, said the
“prediction that violence may follow any prosecution of the former [president]
may not qualify legally as incitement but it is irresponsible all the same as
it will be seen by some as a call for violence. Public officials are [obliged]
to call for the rule of law.”
Graham was
on friendly terms with Biden when they were senators together but his dogged
support for Trump has reportedly prompted the president to ice Graham out. In
his interview with Gowdy he slammed Biden’s handling of the withdrawal from
Afghanistan, then returned to his theme.
Saying that
as “a simple-minded guy” he thought “people want to be treated the same without
regard to political ideology”, Gowdy asked about his guest’s own legal
problems.
Graham is
resisting attempts to force him to testify about his involvement in Trump’s
attempt to overturn his electoral defeat in 2020 by Biden in Georgia, a swing
state.
Graham said:
“If we let county prosecutors start calling senators and members of Congress as
witnesses when they’re doing their job, we’re out of … constitutional balance
here.
“I’ve got a
good legal case. I’m going to pursue it … I love the law. I’ve never been more
worried about the law and politics as I am right now.”
Attendees
hold Ruger revolver pistols during the NRA annual meeting in Houston, Texas, in
May.
He continued:
“How can you tell a conservative Republican that the system works when it comes
to Trump? … If they try to prosecute President Trump for mishandling classified
information after Hillary Clinton set up a server in her basement, there will
literally will be riots in the streets. I worry about our country.”
Trump
indicated his approval, posting video of Graham’s remarks to Truth Social, the
platform Trump set up after being suspended from Twitter over the Capitol
attack.
Former
Republican congressman Joe Walsh, who has emerged as a Trump critic, predicted
that there will indeed be violence if Trump is indicted.
“I see and
hear those threats all the time,” he wrote. “But threats of violence should
NEVER stop the pursuit of justice. NEVER. And you KNOW that Lindsey. But you’re
too much of a coward to say that. Shameful.”
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