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Lindsey Graham Refuses To Back Down, Torches IG Report for Not Clearing Trump

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Many conservatives aren’t exactly fans of Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, as he has a tendency to more often than not side with the bipartisan establishment over the GOP base on a number of issues. But he has been coming around a bit more lately, becoming more outspoken in his support of President Donald Trump and vociferously calling out misdeeds and wrongdoing where it is patently obvious.

For example, check out his rather pointed line of questioning during Monday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz and FBI Director Christopher Wray to discuss the recently released IG report on the FBI’s mishandling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation in 2016.

That 568-page report was loaded with example after example of blatant partisan bias on the part of FBI agents and attorneys who were involved in the investigation, yet the report stopped short of stating definitively that obvious bias played a decisive role in the investigation’s conclusion to exonerate Clinton of the various crimes she and her cohorts allegedly committed.

According to PJ Media, Sen. Graham was “not buying” the IG’s conclusion that there was no “documentary evidence” to prove that political bias had an impact on the investigation, and said as much in his questions to Horowitz and Wray.

Graham opened up by joking that he was unaware of what “book” the FBI had used for the investigation if it was conducted “by the book,” and lamented to the hearing audience, “There is nothing here that is normal, folks.”

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The senator then focused in on the August 8, 2016 text exchange between lead FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page in which Strzok assuaged Page’s concern that Trump could become president by stating, “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it,” which Graham found to be “pretty unnerving” in its implications.

Graham noted that just one week later came the already much-discussed conversation between those two in fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s office about an “insurance policy” to prevent Trump from becoming president, and again stated that this sort of behavior wasn’t “normal.”

Graham then read a text message from February 2016 between Page and McCabe which discussed the number of people who should be present at Clinton’s interview, with Page suggesting a strict limit of two agents and two prosecutors because “she might be our next president.”

He then asked Horowitz, “How did you feel about that?”

Are you glad to see Graham speak out like this?

Horowitz expressed that he and his team had been concerned, and noted that their concern was laid out in the report. Not satisfied, Graham then referenced a text message on Election Day from an unnamed FBI agent who remarked “I’m with her,” which had been a slogan of the Clinton campaign.

The IG replied that he had been “very concerned” by that particular message, but Graham quickly stated, “Eventually ‘very concerned’ gets to be ‘enough already.'”

Graham read through more text messages that displayed a clear anti-Trump and pro-Clinton bias, and stated, “This investigation was anything but ‘by the book.’ And at the end of the day, what (fired FBI Director James) Comey did just blows me away as much as it does y’all. And I can’t believe that this happened to my FBI!”

“The bottom line is, I’m glad you found what you found, Mr. Horowitz,” the senator continued. “I’m not buying that the Clinton email investigation was on the up and up. And the reason I’m not buying it is because the two people intimately involved — one … the lead investigator — clearly did not want to see Donald Trump become president of the United States.”

“Do you agree with me that finding (Clinton) liable criminally would be inconsistent with stopping Donald Trump? If they found that Hillary Clinton was criminally liable, that paves the way for Donald Trump?” Graham asked Horowitz.

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Horowitz replied that it depended upon the timing, but stated it was “clearly, conceivably” a possibility, to which Graham retorted, “Not only ‘clearly, conceivably.’ That is exactly what is happening here, folks. You cannot hold her criminally liable and stop him.”



Graham was obviously not pleased with the ultimate conclusion reached by the IG report — that there had been clear examples of partisan bias but no clear evidence that bias impacted the Clinton investigation — and he certainly made his point known by listing many of those examples while suggesting both Horowitz and Wray go back and look again more closely to see if they’ll still reach the same FBI face-saving conclusion, and for that we commend him.

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Ben Marquis is a writer who identifies as a constitutional conservative/libertarian. He has written about current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. His focus is on protecting the First and Second Amendments.
Ben Marquis has written on current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. He reads voraciously and writes about the news of the day from a conservative-libertarian perspective. He is an advocate for a more constitutional government and a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, which protects the rest of our natural rights. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with the love of his life as well as four dogs and four cats.
Birthplace
Louisiana
Nationality
American
Education
The School of Life
Location
Little Rock, Arkansas
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics




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