Graham Response on Why Judiciary Committee is Holding Hearings on Crossfire Hurricane

WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) had the following response to Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) today at the committee hearing with former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein titled, “Oversight of the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation: Day 1.”

GRAHAM: “I'm gonna respond if I may about what I'm doing and why. I believe, and all of us believe, that if the Republican Party had paid Mr. [Christopher] Steele through an organization, money to dig up dirt on Hillary Clinton, and he used a Russian to create a bunch of garbage and it was used to get a warrant against a Clinton campaign operative you'd have a little different view of this. That you would be raising holy hell. And all your friends in the media would be front page news everywhere.

“Treason! 

“But it's Trump. It's okay as long as you're out to get somebody you need to get, damn the way you do it. 

“Well, this committee is not going to accept that standard my friend. This committee looked at everything you wanted us to look at in terms of Russian behavior.

"Did Russia interfere? You better believe they did. Will they do it again? Yes, they will. Was this the Ukrainians? No it was the Russians who stole the emails. It was the Russians who have divided the American people, in terms of the 2016 campaign, but it wasn't the Russians my friend who withheld information from the FISA court keeping Carter page's life turned upside down. It wasn't the Russians who refused to tell the court that the underlying dossier that was crucial to the Carter Page's life turned upside down.  It wasn't the Russians who refused to tell the court that the underlying dossier that was crucial to the Carter Page warrant was a bunch of garbage. It wasn't the Russians who manipulated an email to keep getting a warrant against American citizens. It wasn't the Russians who withheld information from the court about General Flynn, that they were setting him up and out to get him. It was the Department of Justice. It was the FBI. It was people who hated Trump and people who had political bias, an agenda to destroy him before he was elected, and after he was elected, and we're going to get to the bottom of it.

"If you want people subpoenaed, I will certainly listen to what you've got to say. But this stinks. This is a sad episode in the history of the FBI. There was no there 'there' in August, 2017.  It may not bother you but it bothers us. And I hope it will bother the American people and we will fix it."

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