Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is defending President Donald Trump’s attacks on law firms and attorneys which he’s deemed his enemies.
The senator from South Carolina said he was more than fine with Trump’s decision to pull security clearances and slap other restrictions on legal adversaries while speaking to CBS moderator Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Calling investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia and the Jan. 6 assault on the capital “politically motivated,” he said, “People who engaged in trying to destroy President Trump, I don’t mind him going after them in a lawful way.”
Brennan immediately pushed back at Graham’s use of the word “lawful,” telling the senator, “The president is trying to use government power to punish private business because he didn’t like some of the work they had been doing.”
Graham doubled down, telling the journalist how “private business aided government power in a fashion to destroy Donald Trump’s life.”
Painting the president as the victim, Graham said, “You know, on our side, nobody in your world gets it, but our people believe that the Justice Department was used as a weapon to destroy Trump’s campaign and his business interests and to ruin his family.”
“That they made up bogus charges and they proceeded in a fashion that was designed to destroy him politically and personally,” he went on. “I believe that and if these people involved pay a price, they got nobody but themselves to blame.”
Graham then chuckled as Brennan reminded him these firms were simply doing the jobs they were hired for.
“These are lawyers working on cases,” she said. “You’re making it sound like the work that they take on is somehow part of a conspiracy and they should be punished for it.”
Trying to muddy the waters, the senator accused Trump’s targets of “pushing legal theories that to me were designed for political outcomes more than legal outcomes.”
“We can have a debate about holding a lawyer accountable for his client’s actions,” he added. “I truly don’t like that.”
“That’s what this sounds like,” Brennan interjected.
Graham stood his ground, saying that attorneys involved in investigations against Trump were “trying to disrupt and take down the Republican nominee for president.”
“This was an orchestrated effort and Biden only regretted he didn’t do it sooner,” he maintained. “So it was politically motivated and everybody with their fingerprints on it, I hope they pay a price.”
Trump started pulling government security access as payback toward a list of perceived political and legal adversaries not long after reassuming office in January.
Hours after his inauguration, he revoked security clearance from 49 former senior intelligence officials for signing a letter suggesting Russia had meddled in the 2020 presidential campaign.
Go Ad-Free — And Protect The Free Press
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.
In early February, he revoked former President Joe Biden’s top-secret security clearances and halted his daily intelligence briefings, a highly classified report which has traditionally been available to former presidents.
After that, he yanked security privileges for a firm personally defending former special counsel Jack Smith pro bono, as well as another that represented Democrat Hillary Clinton during her 2016 campaign for president.