Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham

Interview

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Let's take a look what she's saying about Lindsey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to understand Benghazi to understand Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right because Lindsey Graham isn't just a piece of (EXPLETIVE DELETED) now.

SUSAN RICE, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: He's been a piece of (EXPLETIVE DELETED). I said it. I said it, damnit, finally. He's a piece of (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's lying, lying, lying, and raising money off of the death of four Americans. So, anyway, that's my little speech.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Here with reaction although I'm sure you don't want to waste much time on it, Senator Lindsey Graham of the great state of South Carolina.

(CROSSTALK)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: Last time we played golf. It was worse. But, hey, judge me by my enemies. Judge me by my enemies. I will take that all day long.

HANNITY: I want to go back. This is an interesting point. Adam the cowardly corrupt Schiff is now, we believe, a fact witness, is he not?

GRAHAM: Yes.

HANNITY: You know, he's doing his top-secret, you know, Venezuela style of impeachment coup attempt and Republicans can even read what's going on.

GRAHAM: Right, right.

HANNITY: Would you be able to call them before your committee?

GRAHAM: I doubt it. The whole inquiry has been referred to the Intel Committee. I will get Horowitz here pretty soon.

But here's what I'm going to do tomorrow and I need your help quite frankly. I've got a resolution condemning the House process as being un- American, basically unfair. The president can't defend himself.

I'm tired of the president basically being trashed based on behind the scenes testimony that's one-sided. So, I'm asking the House to open up an inquiry consistent in what we did with Bill Clinton so President Trump can defend himself.

As to Adam Schiff, if he did coast the whistle-blower, that would be very interesting. If somebody doesn't find out who the whistle-blower is here pretty soon, that would be a miscarriage of justice because the whole thing started with an anonymous source.

HANNITY: Senator, let me go through the last. We'll put them on the screen for you. But we know that Newt Gingrich allowed -- this was Kevin McCarthy's letter.

GRAHAM: Yes.

HANNITY: Allowed the full -- had the full House authorize the impeachment inquiry. They allow the full house every critical step in the inquiry to involve themselves and to develop a scope. Establish rules and procedures.

Newt Gingrich allowed for the Democrats, the right -- the coequal right to subpoena the chair and the ranking member. And, by the way, all subpoenas are subject to the vote of the full committee at the request of the chair and ranking member.

And, by the way, the president's counsel, Lindsey, he had the right to attend all hearings, all depositions. He had the right to present evidence. The right to cross-examine. The president's counsel had the right to object to evidence that was admitted.

And also, the president's counsel had the right to recommend a witness list.

Now, Newt Gingrich did that for Bill Clinton, every one of those things. None of them happened for Donald Trump.

GRAHAM: None of it. As a matter of fact what's happened here is that they are interviewing the witnesses behind closed doors and they give the media part of the testimony, detrimental to the president. Like Bill Taylor's opening statement, how did John Ratcliffe do when it came to cross- examining Bill Taylor? You'll never know that.

What they're trying to do is drive the president's poll numbers down, impeachment poll numbers up, by using basically Star Chamber tactics. This is a political move by Democrats that will destroy the presidency in the future. It's illegitimate. I'm going to condemn it.

I hope every Republican will join my resolution urging the House to do for President Trump what Newt Gingrich did for President Clinton. Give him a chance to defend himself.

HANNITY: You said last night, if they are going to do -- and not allow due process, not allow what Republicans allowed Bill Clinton and the Democrats to have just not long ago, 1998.

GRAHAM: Right, I was there.

HANNITY: There were 11 felonies if I remember the independent counsel statute, OK.

So, if they're not going to allow that to happen, that would be -- that whole inquiry would be lacking in any validity to me. It would also mean it's unconstitutional. It would also mean there is no due process and I don't think that's any respectable Republican senator should allow to happen without dismissing it out of hand.

GRAHAM: Well, we are just not jurors in the Senate. We can actually make motions to dismiss articles of impeachment.

Here's what I promise your audience I'll do. If they continue to treat President Trump this way, if they continue to try to behind closed doors, deny him the ability to confront his accuser and they -- this results in the impeachment article, this process results in an impeachment article, I will move to dismiss it and the Senate because I think it's illegitimate and unconstitutional and I will do it not only to help President Trump who deserves to be helped, but to protect future presidents from kangaroo court proceedings in the House.

All I'm asking Democrats to do was have a transparent process like we did with Clinton so the American people can make a decision as to what happened and not rely upon a bunch of Democrats to tell us what happened.

HANNITY: Changing gears. We're waiting, we're waiting. The report on the FISA abuse, and waiting.

John Solomon is saying -- well, we know, the facts have been established, Lindsey, that it was an unverifiable dossier. Your memo along with Charles Grassley said the bulk of information in that application came from Hillary Clinton's dirty dossier. None of it verified. The top of the FISA warrant says verified.

GRAHAM: Yes.

HANNITY: That would mean premeditated fraud on the court. If I did that, you're a great lawyer, you couldn't get me out of jail without spending five years at least.

GRAHAM: I don't know if I could get you out of jail in this world at all. The bottom line is, --

HANNITY: By the way, you may not want me out.

GRAHAM: I do want you out. You need to be right where you're at, talking about what you're talking about.

Horowitz has finished his report. The only thing left to do is to make sure there is no classified information that would hurt our national security and notify people that are mentioned at the report to give their input.

So, it's done. We'll be getting it pretty soon.

Can I add on the Susan Rice then? The bottom line, everything she touched turned to a piece of crap national security wise. It does bother me that the person who lied about Benghazi is still relevant.

Here's her greatest hits -- the Iran nuclear deal, withdrawal from Iraq, the rise of ISIS. At the end of the day, the Rwanda genocide, the Syrian redline.

The bottom line is, I hope the American people will remember that it's Susan Rice and Barack Obama who brought you ISIS, who gave the ayatollah $150 billion. And at the end of the day, if she doesn't like me, I must be doing something right.

HANNITY: Amen, I agree with that. Sure she doesn't like me either, at least I hope so.

Senator, good to see you.

GRAHAM: We must be doing something right.

HANNITY: Keep up the good work. This is a very critical time in our country's history. Your work is critical. Thank you for being with us.

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