Speaking on Fox News Thursday night, when asked whether he would like to see former President Barack Obama take the witness stand to be questioned about what he knew about the counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) stated bluntly, “Absolutely.”
Graham stated:
… the counterintelligence investigation, there is no real credible evidence I’ve seen to suggest that Papadopoulos actually was working with the Russians, that came from our own people that told him about the Clinton emails. The bottom line is who briefed President Obama if anybody about the counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign. And finally, why did they not tell the Trump campaign that they had concerns about people working for him tied to Russia. That’s what you’re supposed to do in a counterintelligence investigation.
Host Sean Hannity asked, “Would you agree with Andy McCarthy that any counterintelligence investigation has to have a President behind it and Strzok and Page referred to the White House wanting to know every detail. Does that mean that Barack Obama, the president at the time should be asked what he knew and when he knew it about all this?”
Graham answered, “I can’t imagine an investigation of the Republican nominee for president. Counterintelligence investigation of his campaign was not approved at the highest level. I cannot imagine it happening without somebody in the White House knowing about it. And the question for me is who told Obama. And when you find out who that person is you begin to put the puzzle together.”
Hannity pressed, “Do you think he needs to be asked those questions, sir. Under oath?”
Graham responded, “Absolutely. If there is — I’m going to call, talk to McCabe, Comey, all of them, Brennan Clapper. Did you ever inform President Obama about the counterintelligence investigation? What did you tell him? When did you tell him? Yes, and I’d like to know what President Obama thought about the investigation. Why did not somebody tell Trump? The whole point of a counterintelligence investigation is to protect people.”
Former U.S. attorney Andy McCarthy stated in mid-August, “The Obama administration put the law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of our government in the service of the Clinton campaign … It was the use of these counterintelligence powers and law enforcement processes in our political process which is never supposed to happen.”
He continued by noting that he had been mistaken in assuming that the DOJ and FBI would not take an uncorroborated piece of political opposition and take it to a federal court to secure a surveillance warrant, noting, “In every investigation, the investigators always think that their bad guys are the worst bad guys in the history of bad guys. And what you always need is the adult supervision of leadership, headquarters, whether it’s at the Justice Department or the FBI to police the inevitable tendency people have to push the envelope.”
He added, “I think what happened here is that supervision became the investigator. And when they pushed the envelope, there was nobody there to tell them no.”
Asked how high in the administration the issue went, McCarthy answered, “These were counterintelligence investigations. They’re different from criminal — criminal investigation is the vindication of the rule of law in judicial proceedings. Counterintelligence investigations belong to the president. They are only done for one reason to believe and that is to gather intelligence so that the president can carry out his national security responsibilities under the Constitution. So any counterintelligence investigation is the president’s investigation.”
Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy asked, “This goes to the West Wing?”
McCarthy “It goes to the president. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. If it’s not working that way, then it shouldn’t be a counterintelligence investigation in the first but here we don’t have to speculate because there is plenty of indication that President Obama was informed and knew what exactly what they were doing.”
Video of Graham below: