Lindsey Graham Scolds Trump For Saying He’s Open to Foreign Dirt: ‘The Right Answer is No’
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) broke with President Donald Trump on Thursday, scolding him over comments he would be open to accepting dirt on political opponents provided by foreign governments.
During a brief press gaggle, Graham was barraged with questions over Trump saying he would accept foreign dirt and rejecting the idea of informing the FBI about it. When asked for comment, Graham turned the conversation towards Democrats funding Fusion GPS, the firm that produced Christopher Steele’s dossier, before noting, “Foreign influence in our elections is growing, not lessening, and we don’t want to send a signal to encourage it.”
“Giving you anything of value whether it be money or information on your opponent, the right answer is no,” Graham said. “I think it’s a mistake [by Trump]. I think it’s a mistake of law. I don’t want to send a signal to encourage this.”
Graham was also asked about Trump’s suggestion that lawmakers would accept foreign information in the same way.
“I can only speak for myself. I’ve never had a government come up to me and say ‘hey, I’d like to help you in your campaign.’ The answer is no. It’s got to be no,” Graham said. “We need to really be clear here that we don’t want parties to be hiring foreign agents and we don’t want to have meetings with representatives of foreign governments trying to help one campaign over the other.”
Shortly afterward, Graham expanded on his thoughts with a series of tweets:
First, I believe that it should be practice for all public officials who are contacted by a foreign government with an offer of assistance to their campaign – either directly or indirectly – to inform the FBI and reject the offer.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 13, 2019
I made this point to FBI Director Wray during his confirmation hearings. https://t.co/9ZosfuIzaa
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 13, 2019
But this has not been recent practice and we saw that come to a head during the 2016 presidential campaign.
During that race, we had a major American political party hire a foreign national, Christopher Steele, to dig up dirt on an American presidential candidate.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 13, 2019
One of the corrective actions that I am pursuing is to ensure that foreign political operatives cannot be allowed to manipulate the American political system.
Changes of this nature will serve our democracy well.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 13, 2019
Finally, the outrage some of my Democratic colleagues are raising about President Trump’s comments will hopefully be met with equal outrage that their own party hired a foreign national to do opposition research on President Trump’s campaign………….
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 13, 2019
………..and that information, unverified, was apparently used by the FBI to obtain a warrant against an American citizen.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 13, 2019
Watch above, via CNN.
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