Lindsey Graham

Things are not going great in Trumpworld. Since the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago three weeks ago on suspicion that Donald Trump may have illegally absconded with ...

[improvised explanations](https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/18/politics/trump-claim-standing-order-declassify-nonsense-patently-false-former-officials/index.html) and a [chaotic legal strategy](https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/08/17/trump-evolving-legal-strategy-honig-newday-vpx.cnn). Republicans recoiled at Biden’s warning, [demanding an apology](https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/28/politics/chris-sununu-biden-semi-fascism-cnntv/index.html) for suggesting that Trumpism was driven by “semi-fascism.” But the kind of heated rhetoric the MAGA base has engaged in, [as exemplified by Graham on Sunday](https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/1564208217743400960), proves Biden’s point. [engage in violence](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/07/january-6-committee-hearing-oath-keepers-civil-war) — and even die, as in the case of the Ohio man who [attempted to attack the FBI](https://apnews.com/article/fbi-office-shooting-suspect-killed-eb85e9faa93612fc54fb15639075d0fe) after the Mar-a-Lago search — on Trump's behalf. [wrote](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/08/fbi-affidavit-trump-mar-a-lago-evidence-of-obstruction) last week, the Justice Department obtained its search warrant after arguing it had “probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found” at the former president’s Florida club. He is flooding the zone with shit, as his former adviser, Steve Bannon [might say](https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/16/media/steve-bannon-reliable-sources/index.html). Date [reported](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-mobster-threats_n_63080d75e4b063d5e619d144#) in HuffPost over the weekend. “They embrace…political violence,” as President Joe Biden [said](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/08/biden-condemns-gop-semi-fascism) of Trump and his followers last week. Part of that turn has put a target on the back of the National Archives, the agency at the center of Trump’s legal drama, which according to “We will continue to do our work, without favor or fear, in the service of our democracy,” Steidel Wall wrote in her email to staff last week. With the cards increasingly stacked against Trump, it's perhaps unsurprising that the former president and his key allies now seem to be settling on a more radical approach to avoid accountability: by making vague threats of possible widespread violence in the event that Trump gets prosecuted. [shared the clip](https://twitter.com/ztpetrizzo/status/1564071781765464064) on his Truth Social website, where he seems to be priming his base for aggressive public unrest, as S.V. Since the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago three weeks ago on suspicion that Donald Trump may have illegally absconded with boxes of classified government documents, every new piece of reporting on the subject has been seemingly more damning than the last.

There's a strong undercurrent of menace in the right's reaction to Trump's well-deserved travails—but it won't deter justice.

I will now put Graham in that “semi-fascist” category, since he is trying to achieve his agenda with a threat of force. (Hence the reference to the “Clinton debacle.”) Every time Trump whines about his persecution, I fantasize about his enduring 13 hours of mostly hostile questioning in front of a House committee, the way Clinton did. This kind of rhetoric will get louder the closer the Justice Department comes to Trump. So it’s time to promise mayhem if the investigation into Trump’s absconding with hundreds of classified documents—which apparently revealed human intelligence agents, US sources, methods of intelligence gathering, and who knows what else—results in his prosecution. But TheNew York Times insists Garland was merely “befuddled” by the message. Gowdy, of course, chaired the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which tried to pin the 2012 Libyan terror attacks, which killed four Americans, on then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In Lindsey Graham's vision, if Donald Trump is indicted and there's violence, Americans should blame law enforcement, not the suspected criminal.

There is a degree of irony to the circumstances: It’s against this backdrop that Graham appeared on Fox News and warned of street violence in response to the rule of law. Toward the end of the interview, the senator returned to the subject, adding, “If they try to prosecute President Trump for mishandling classified information after Hillary Clinton set up a server in her basement, there literally will be riots in the street. A responsible public official would take this opportunity to defend the integrity of the system, denounce Trump’s misconduct, and urge his party’s base to deal with developments responsibly. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) forecast “riots in the street” if former President Donald Trump were to be criminally charged over the cache of classified documents hauled out of his Mar-a-Lago estate by federal agents earlier this month. “If there is a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle ... In 2014, for example, after a State of the Union address from then-President Barack Obama, the South Carolinian

WASHINGTON – Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., cautioned Sunday that if former President Donald Trump is prosecuted, there will be riots.

Looks like @LindseyGrahamSC will be his mouthpiece and deliver the message," Guttenberg said on Twitter. Graham argued there is a "double standard" when it comes to Trump. "If they tried to prosecute President Trump for mishandling classified information after Hillary Clinton set up a server in her basement, there literally will be riots in the street," Graham warned on Fox News' "Sunday Night in America." Graham referenced Clinton's email handling while serving as secretary of state. Lindsey Graham scores win in Georgia election case as appeals court blocks subpoena](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/08/21/lindsey-graham-georgia-subpoena-blocked-appeal/7859963001/) [The Justice Department on Friday ](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/08/26/trump-search-affidavit-powells-speech-5-things-know-friday/7873707001/)released a redacted version of the affidavit from the search of Trump's home.

Sen. Lindsey Graham stated over the weekend on Fox News that Trump's supporters would "riot in the streets" in the event that the former president were ...

[who pretended to be offended](https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/28/politics/chris-sununu-biden-semi-fascism-cnntv/index.html) recently by the president’s use of “semi-fascist” needs to send the White House a nice fruit basket to apologize. If the people at whom Graham aimed his threat fold under this pressure, or if a certain judge in Florida indulges Trump's legal sand trap, then the threat to the republic becomes real, and everyone [to bring on armageddon](https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/19/politics/maxine-waters-derek-chauvin-trial/index.html) if Derek Chauvin walked for the murder of George Floyd? senator cosplaying [the lost Piranha Brother](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHIQzFuLAcU) from his perch at the height of power. [New York FBI office](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/fbi-leaks-hillary-clinton-james-comey-donald-trump). There’s a double standard when it comes to Trump.” Alleging a failure by the FBI to investigate Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, Graham added: “I’ll say this, if there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, after the Clinton debacle …

Republican South Carolina senator cites 'the 'Clinton debacle' and claims the FBI failed to investigate Hunter Biden.

… If they try to prosecute President Trump for mishandling classified information after Hillary Clinton set up a server in her basement, there will literally will be riots in the streets. “But threats of violence should NEVER stop the pursuit of justice. He continued: “How can you tell a conservative Republican that the system works when it comes to Trump? “I see and hear those threats all the time,” he wrote. In his interview with Gowdy he slammed Biden’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, then returned to his theme. [Republicans](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/republicans), including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is no law. Public officials are [obliged] to call for the rule of law.” I’ve never been more worried about the law and politics as I am right now.” I love the law. there’ll be riots in the streets.” He is reportedly close to announcing another White House run. There’s a double standard when it comes to Trump.”

MSNBC host Chris Hayes slammed Senator Lindsey Graham for warning that anger at the FBI for the Mar-a-Lago raid may cause civil unrest.

[Republican Party.](https://www.foxnews.com/category/politics/elections/republicans) This is a party of corruption, and chaos, and QAnon, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and insurrection, and the big lie," he cautioned. I think when we do that we will prevail," he said. [DISGRACED EX-FBI AGENT PETER STRZOK REJECTS ‘NONSENSE’ IDEA THAT AGENCY IS ‘ONE-SIDED’](https://www.foxnews.com/media/disgraced-ex-fbi-agent-peter-strzok-rejects-nonsense-idea-agency-one-sided) They just resort to force, to menace, to the threat of violence. Hayes observed that some of Trump's defenders "have gotten a little quiet" during his MSNBC broadcast. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Monday night for his "threatening," "fascist" rhetoric.

Trump boosted Graham's sly warning against the Justice Department investigation over documents stored at Mar-a-Lago.

But once again we see that much of the GOP doesn’t actually see a problem in Trump. [double standard for Trump relative to Clinton are unpersuasive](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-search-warrant-draws-hillary-clinton-comparisons-big-difference-rcna42921), since, among other things, Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 presidential candidate, cooperated with the investigation of her personal server, thereby eliminating the need for a search. And while it's not the Justice Department's job to factor considerations about stoking the rise of a more powerful proto-fascist movement into its decisions, it's inconceivable that it isn't factoring that in. If the right-wing narrative takes hold — that the Justice Department is just a deep-state monster out to kill freedom — the higher those costs become. If right-wing media and politicos didn’t treat the FBI’s actions as Stalinist overreach but as a possibly reasonable case against a man with a history of absurd abuse of power, this could possibly help clear the 2024 field for Florida Gov. Perhaps the saddest part of this is how so much the Republican Party is, once again, declining to use an opportunity to rid itself of Trump. In the process, figures on the right like Graham will have sown the seeds for even fiercer authoritarianism and lawlessness in Trump’s potential third presidential campaign. Graham isn’t a disinterested social scientist forecasting the future of the Trump movement. Trump picked up what Graham was putting down: the need to spread the message that the Justice Department should be afraid of the backlash that could follow from charging him with violating federal criminal statutes. [Donald Trump ends up being charged for his Mar-a-Lago cache of classified documents](https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/will-trump-be-arrested-holding-top-secret-documents-n1298391), there’ll be mayhem in America. [swiftly shared](https://twitter.com/UrbanAchievr/status/1564068983522951169) Graham’s remarks on his [failing social media platform](https://www.axios.com/2022/08/29/truth-social-problems-trump), Truth Social. And his comments about the incitement of riots cast blame on the Justice Department, instead of on the man with a history of grotesque abuse of power who absconded to Mar-a-Lago with sensitive documents.

Following the FBI's retrieval of at least 184 classified documents from former President Donald Trump's Florida residence, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) ...

Ed Espinoza, president of Progress Texas, and Matt McCorvey, chair of the Travis County Republican Party, joined FOX 7 Austin's Mike Warren to discuss the ...

And now there's a case of getting a full and case investigation of Donald Trump, and they're against it. Obviously, if this really is as serious as the feds claim for it to be, that is something for all of us to consider. Well, there's going to be much more to come. He asked Republicans asked for the affidavit, the warrant to be released. and was allowed to play that down to a misdemeanor. ED ESPINOZA: I think it's a better case of Republicans wanted a full investigation of Hillary Clinton, and they got it. So we don't know at this point, based on what's publicly known, that former President Trump in any way was leaving open to foreign intelligence services to access signals intelligence, to access other highly, highly classified types of material. We need to understand what those are. And whether people will still be seated behind him at that point, I guess we'll have to see. We know that foreign intelligence services were able to penetrate that. But I agree with Matt and that I do think there should be an equal system of justice applied to all entities here. And so that that is a scary thing.

New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy is calling the South Carolina senator's words as he sees them. Plus, Rep. David Cicilline addresses the Alvin Bragg-size ...

You should do this to the president. “Oh, you absolutely can do this to the president. “This is saying, ‘If you do this, we are going to burn the place down.’ The only response to that is ‘If you try to burn the place down, we will take you down.’” That’s the only way this country works. That’s the only way any country works. “Like, ‘Oh, you can’t do this to the president!’” mimics Andy.