Sen. Lindsey Graham stated on Sunday that anyone attempting to disrupt or bring down President Donald Trump before, during, or after his first term should “pay a price.” The South Carolina Republican made his remarks two days after Trump urged Justice Department employees to expose corruption and abuse within the department. Recently, the president signed executive orders stripping security clearances from attorneys at three law firms: Covington & Burling, Paul Weiss, and Perkins Coie.
On CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Graham—who is a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee—described the federal criminal case led by Special Counsel Jack Smith as “politically motivated” against Trump. Graham described as “a hoax” the investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign coordinated with Russia, adding that “a lot of people should have gone to jail, and they didn’t.”
“The Steele Dossier was based on lies and falsehoods coming from a source that said he never meant it to be used in the fashion it was used,” he said, according to the Washington Times. “People who engage in trying to destroy President Trump, I don’t mind him going after them in a lawful way.” Asked if it was the right thing to do for the president to target private businesses because of work done by those firms, Graham responded, “Private business aided government power in a fashion to destroy Donald Trump’s life … I believe that if these people involved pay a price, they got nobody but themselves to blame.”
In January just days after Trump was inaugurated, Graham urged his fellow lawmakers to support the president’s primary focus on reforming immigration and securing the southern border. During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Graham emphasized that both the House and Senate, led by the GOP, must provide funding for Trump’s initiatives to strengthen border security and deport migrants.
“Here’s the question for the Republican Party. We talk about doing this, but we don’t have the resources. We haven’t given the Trump team the resources,” Graham told host Kristen Welker. Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, has stated that Congress must allocate at least $86 billion to carry out the promised mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and address the migrant crisis that has worsened under former President Joe Biden.