Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C) said he was just stating the obvious when he predicted that there will be riots in the streets if Trump is prosecuted for mishandling classified information.
Several Democrats, including President Joe Biden condemned Graham’s remarks. The president said, “the idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying if such and such happens, there’ll be blood in the street. Where the hell are we?”
But, in an interview with CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy on Saturday, Graham doubled down.
“What I tried to do was state the obvious,” he said.
“Here’s what I said, The raid on [former] President Trump’s home, the likely nominee for 2024, better bear some fruit here,” he added. “If it’s just about mishandling classified information, we’ve had a standard set when it came to Hillary Clinton.”
In the Clinton case, the FBI found there was “evidence of potential” criminal violations concerning the handling of classified information but that there wasn’t sufficient reason to bring charges.
“Our country, the people on our side, believe that when it comes to the justice system, there are no rules regarding Trump, [it’s a case of] ‘get him, it doesn’t matter how you get him,’ so I said that if it’s similar to what happened to Clinton and he gets prosecuted, it’ll be one of the most disruptive events in America,” Graham said on Saturday.
The FBI retrieved more than 100 classified documents during the search at Mar-a-Lago last month. The property receipt noted that the government seized 11 sets of classified documents with “confidential,” “secret” and “top secret” classification markings. The DOJ is investigating possible crimes related to the removal of those highly classified documents from the White House when Trump left office.
During an appearance on Fox News after the search, Graham said there will be riots in the streets if Trump is ever prosecuted because there’s “a double standard” when it comes Trump.
“If there is a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle … there will be riots in the street,” Graham told Fox News “Sunday Night in America” host Trey Gowdy last week.
