Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) insisted on Sunday that there is no evidence that Donald Trump attempted to obstruct justice in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, despite the fact that the special counsel listed at least ten incidences that he felt rose to a level of obstruction.
"Well, [Attorney General William Barr] gave a four-page summary, does the report indicate there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians?" Graham asked. "I think the idea that this president obstructed justice is absurd. He turned over a million documents to the special counsel, almost everybody around him testified. I can’t think of one thing the President Trump did to stop Mueller from doing his job. He never claimed executive privilege. My point of view, I have heard all I need to really know and I want to look and find out all of this happened."
"But on that point of attempting to obstruct justice or not," CBS host Margaret Brennan told Graham. "The president seems to want to continue to litigate this, because he came out this week and said and denied he had ever thought or told anyone to fire Don McGahn, the White House counsel, but that directly contradicts sworn testimony that was in the Mueller report, where Don McGahn said he almost quit he was so pressured to fire the special counsel."
"I think it is all just theatrics," Graham replied, dismissing prima facie obstruction concerns. "It doesn’t matter what he said to Don McGahn, it is what he did. The president never obstructed."
"It doesn’t matter that he is changing a version or someone is lying?" the CBS host wondered.
"If you're going to look at every president who pops off at a staff and, you know, asks him to do something that is maybe crazy then we won’t have any presidents," Graham snapped.
"But in terms of the firing this was Don McGahn White House counsel being pressured to fire the special counsel," Brennan pressed.
"I don’t care, I don’t care what they talked about!" Graham fired back. "He didn’t do anything. The point is, the president did not impede Mueller from doing his investigation." Mueller, in fact, put in his report that he felt that the constant lies and other actions by the Trump administration and campaign staff impeded his ability to ascertain definitive motives for the obstruction allegations.
"And it doesn’t trouble you that president is changing his version of events?" the CBS host asked.
"Name one thing that they did to stop Mueller from doing his job. If you can’t, then there is no obstruction," Graham opined.
"I am not going relitigate it," Graham added. "I don’t know how clear I can be, it is over for me. He didn’t collude with the Russians. Obstruction of justice in this situation is absurd. I fought hard as hell to make sure that Mueller could do his job and introduced legislation to make sure he couldn’t be fired. It is over."
