Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said there will be riots on the streets if former President Donald Trump faces charges over his handling of documents.
He made the explosive prediction during an appearance on Fox News’s Sunday Night in America in an interview with host and former congressman Trey Gowdy, arguing there is “no law” and a “double standard” when it comes to Trump and compared the situation to the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server while serving as secretary of state.
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“If there is a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling the classified information after the Clinton debacle, which you presided over and did hell of a good job, there will be riots in the streets,” Graham said to Gowdy, who was a leading GOP investigator of Clinton when he was in Congress.
The senator repeated the same line at the end of the interview, after being asked about the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, seeking his testimony in a Trump-focused investigation over the 2020 election, adding, “I worry about our country.” Graham and Gowdy also discussed the treatment of stories about Hunter Biden in the run-up to the 2020 election and whistleblower allegations, including those claiming the FBI slow-walked its investigation into his laptop.
Clinton was criticized in the heat of the 2016 presidential election by then-FBI Director James Comey, who called her handling of classified information “extremely careless,” but she was not prosecuted for her use of the private email server.
Allies of Trump have made comparisons to the Clinton matter particularly after the FBI conducted a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago private club in Florida earlier this month, escalating what has been revealed to be a monthslong back-and-forth in which the federal government has sought to recover documents, including some that have been deemed classified.
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An unsealed warrant showed the former president is being investigated for possible violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice. An underlying affidavit, which featured many redactions, noted the “government is conducting a criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records” and said there is “probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found.”
Trump claims he declassified all the documents stored at Mar-a-Lago after he left office and has denied any wrongdoing. “The DOJ and FBI are practicing Election Interference at the highest and most dishonest level our Country has ever seen before, both in the Midterms, and the 2024 Presidential Election,” he said on Truth Social on Sunday.
Trump did declare that he declassified documents from the Crossfire Hurricane investigation just before he left office, but it’s unclear whether those records are part of the eclectic array of items found at Mar-a-Lago. His legal team seeks a special master to review the documents seized from his residence. A federal judge in Florida announced the court’s “preliminary intent to appoint a special master” to review the documents, per a filing on Saturday.
