Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Wednesday evening said that the fact that Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the Russia probe, cleared former FBI Director James Comey to speak publicly about his conversations with President Donald Trump shows that Mueller does not think he has an obstruction of justice case against Trump.
Graham told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum that Comey’s prepared statement released Wednesday “means in the minds [sic] of special counsel Mueller there is no obstruction of justice case to be made because if he felt like he had a case, he wouldn’t let Comey, his chief and only witness, go out in public and get beat up.”
“What prosecutor in their right mind would allow their star witness to go out before the Senate panel of 20 senators and get beat up if he really believed he had a case?” Graham continued. “So this is the best evidence yet that in the mind of the special counsel, there is no obstruction of justice case to be made against President Trump because he allowed Comey to testify in public and issue a statement. No prosecutor would ever do that if there was a good case here.”
In his prepared remarks for the Thursday morning hearing with the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey revealed that Trump pressured him to end an investigation into Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to Trump.
Graham also said that Comey revealed in his statement that he told Trump that he was not under investigation by the FBI, echoing a main GOP talking point about the statement.
“All in all, it’s a pretty good day for President Trump,” Graham said.
The Republican senator also told Trump to stop obsessing over Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the Russia probe, arguing that Sessions had no choice but to step aside.
“The American people would not tolerate someone who was not part of the campaign investigating the campaign,” Graham said.
Watch the interview via Fox News:
