South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the new Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a close ally of President Donald Trump, announced that he will restart investigations into Hillary Clinton’s email server.
Graham said that the committee will take another look at the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, as well as the handling of surveillance warrants in the Russia probe, which began during the 2016 campaign under President Obama, The Hill reported. Graham has also vowed to use the committee to speed up the approvals of Trump’s judicial picks.
Graham told Fox News last month that the committee needed to do a “deep dive on the FISA issue” and alleged that the FBI “phone in” the Clinton probe because they were “in the tank” for her presidential campaign.
Democrats laugh at Graham:
The Hill reported that Sen. Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, “started laughing” when asked about Graham’s plans, likening them to the “thrilling days of yesteryear.”
“This is going to be like the History Channel it turns out. Instead of taking a look at the current issues, Lindsey Graham wants to go back and answer important questions about the Bermuda Triangle and Hillary Clinton,” Durbin told The Hill.
“You know there is that question about Jimmy Carter which he probably wants to ask,” he quipped.
Sheldon Whitehouse, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, joked that maybe Graham should “investigate Benghazi some more too.”
Dems demand committee focus on Russia:
Democrats on the committee are calling for the panel to focus on Russia and have called on Graham to allow former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to testify before the committee.
“Our committee must conduct a thorough investigation of the President’s involvement in these crimes and whether he obstructed justice to hide them. ... The hour to put country before petty partisan differences has come,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal wrote after BuzzFeed News reported Trump ordered Cohen to lie.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee, called on Republicans to “join in a bipartisan effort to get the facts to the American people, who deserve to know the full story of what happened during and after the 2016 election.”
Instead, Graham has made it clear that he will fight Trump’s battles for him, focusing once again on a years-old email server case and launching the investigations that Trump previously unsuccessfully tried to force ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to launch.
