After Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) recently insisted “riots” would follow any decision to prosecute former President Donald Trump in the context of the ongoing criminal investigation into the handling of key records from his administration, current White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spoke up.
“And then Senator Lindsey Graham said, last night, “there would be riots in the streets” if former President Trump is prosecuted for taking classified government documents to Mar-a-Lago,” Jean-Pierre was asked Monday. “What is the White House response to that?”
“We have seen MAGA Republicans attack our democracy,” the press secretary replied. “We have seen MAGA Republicans take away our rights, make threats of violence, including this weekend, and that is what the President was referring to when you all asked me last week about the semi-fascism comment. And he was clear: not all Republicans — there are some mainstream Republicans — he mentioned the Governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan and talked about him and what he’s been doing… But we have seen these MAGA, extreme Republicans making these kinds of comments, which is dangerous… Look, this is a President that believes when you are President of the United States, it is your duty, it is your responsibility to have the strongest voice of — when it comes to democracy, when speaking about democracy. And that’s what you’re going to continue to hear from this President.”
Graham’s comments, no matter any potential claims of original intentions on his part, could be taken as an excuse for violence, since he was basically saying that street violence if Trump is prosecuted for potentially seriously endangering U.S. national security would make sense in his view of things. “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. I worry about our country,” Graham originally stated on Fox. The New York Times notes that a State Department investigation found in 2019 in Clinton’s case there was “no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.” Meanwhile, Trump was harboring documents at Mar-a-Lago for months after U.S. authorities originally sought them. After the National Archives recovered an initial collection of documents from Trump in January, the ex-president still harbored additional highly sensitive materials for months.
Even if he doesn’t morally get behind it, Graham is evidently willing after all of these developments to basically raise the threat of violence. Watch Jean-Pierre address Graham’s comments below:
White House Press Sec. Karine Jean-Pierre calls Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) warning of violence "dangerous":
"We have seen MAGA Republicans take away our rights, make threats of violence … That is what the president was referring to … [with] the 'semi-fascism' comment." pic.twitter.com/ZsyBoYs9tb
— The Recount (@therecount) August 29, 2022
