Tipsheet

Lindsey Graham Goes After the Media, Explains What the Real Headlines of the FISA IG Report Should Be

Katie Pavlich
Katie Pavlich  |  December 11, 2019 11:40 AM

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham did not hold back during his opening remarks at Wednesday's hearing with Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz. 

"Crossfire Hurricane was probably the best name ever given to an investigation in the history of investigations 'cause I think that's what we wound up with - a crossfire and a hurricane," Graham said.

Straight out of the gate, Graham chided the media for headlines that do not reflect the contents of conclusion of IG report on FISA abuse issued earlier this week. 

"There's been a lot of media reports about your report before it was issued. And I remember reading all these headlines, 'Lawful investigation with a few irregularities.' 'Everything okay, low level people kind of got off track. If that's what you get out of this report, you clearly didn't read it. If that's your take that this thing was lawfully predicated and that's the main point, you missed the entire report. How do you get a headline like that? That's what you want it to be. You want it to be that and nothing more. And I can assure you if this had been a Democratic president, going through what President Trump had gone through that would not have been the headline. The headline would be 'FBI takes the law into its own hands,' 'Biased agents cut corners, lie to court, ignore exoneration," Graham said. 

"So the first thing I want you to know is how the cake is baked here. My goal is to make sure that people when this is over, whether you like Trump, hate Trump, don't care about Trump, you look at this as more than a few irregularities. Because if this becomes more than a few irregularities in America, then God help us all," he continued. 

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In addition to laying out "how the cake was baked," Graham reminded everyone about the anti-Trump text messages sent between FBI agents who were investigating him. These texts included conversations about stopping him from becoming President and enacting an insurance policy if he somehow won the 2016 presidential election. 

Graham finished his remarks by warning if the FBI can do this to Trump campaign officials, they can do it to anyone. He also called the FBI's reliance on British Spy Christopher Steele and his Clinton funded dossier to obtain a FISA warrant "a bunch of crap." 

"It's Trump today, but it could be you or me tomorrow, and imagine, ladies and gentlemen, if they could do this to the candidate for the president of the United States, what could they do to you?" he said.