Tipsheet

Is It Illegal To Accept Oppo Research From Foreigners? Graham Chimes In.

Beth Baumann
Beth Baumann  |  June 16, 2019 12:30 PM

Sen. Lindsey Graham joined Judge Jeanine Pirro on Saturday night to discuss whether or not he agreed with President Donald Trump's assertion that it's okay to hear out a foreign entity if he or she has opposition research. 

In her opening statement, Pirro played a previous clip of her, back in 2017, saying she would do exactly what President Trump said he would do in the hypothetical scenario: hear the person out.

"Now, as someone who has run for office five times, if the devil called me and said they wanted to set up a meeting to give me opposition research on my opponent, I would be on the first trolley to hell to get it Any politician who tells you otherwise is a bald-faced liar," Pirro previously said. 

Pirro asked Graham if she was wrong about what she said.

“No. Here’s the deal: we do know that the Democratic Party hired a British agent to get dirt on Trump and this British agent, I think, used foreign intelligence services to come up with a bunch of garbage. I think the Russians were out to hurt everybody including Trump," Graham explained. "Who do you think this dossier came from? Do you think Steele made it up? I think he got it from the Russians. I think it was all a bunch of BS. It was used to get a warrant, and I would like for one Democrat to be outraged about that.”

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Pirro asked Graham if there was a country he wouldn't receive information from. 

“I get talked to all the time. People encourage me, ‘we hope you win,’ foreign people. We'd like to help your campaign. You can't take money from a non-citizen," Graham explained. "The only thing that's wrong is when a foreign government, if they tried to give a campaign money, you can't take. If they try to give you something of value, you can't take it. We don't want foreign people interfering in our elections, but sitting down and talking with someone is okay. People contact me all the time. President Trump's right. Talking to people is not a crime." 

Later in the interview, Graham explained that meeting with foreign officials is part of being a political leader. 

“I’m a politician. I meet with foreign people all the time. So does the president. It’s common sense," Graham said. "Sitting down and talking with somebody is fine. But the president said earlier this week, that no, he wouldn’t accept something from a foreign government he thought was wrong. But you don’t call up the FBI every time somebody talks to you. You only call you are up the FBI when somebody is trying to do something wrong.”