Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript Interview with Lindsey Graham

Interview

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Here with reaction, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham.

Senator, let's start with the sub-source, because the sub-source was interviewed, correct me if I'm wrong, three days in January of 2017. Am I correct on that?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: That's right, yes, and actually again in March, two or three separate occasions. Three days in January and again in March of 2017.

HANNITY: OK, so the sub-source. Now, this is a guy that said this was bar talk and didn't --

GRAHAM: Yes.

HANNITY: -- the Mueller report say, weren't we told that this information had Russian connections when, in fact, it did not have any Russian connections whatsoever.

GRAHAM: I don't know about you but I always assume the Russian sub-source was some guy in Russia deep in the bowels of the Kremlin feeding this stuff to Christopher Steele. The sub-source was a senior Russian researcher at the Brookings Institute and an employee of Christopher Steele living in the United States.

He calls up a bunch of people in Russia. Would you think this information came from?

It came from the Russian intelligence service. They played this guy like a fiddle. This was Russian disinformation. Some FBI agents recognized it as such.

He told Steele, here's what I found but it's not really reliable because Steele turned it into a Tom Clancy novel. The FBI bought it hook, line, and sinker and got warrants with it. The most successful political operation the history of Democratic Party, because Steele was on the payroll of the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton's campaign.

HANNITY: So, so, they were warned -- now we were learned on the unclassified document from last week from you, what did we learn?

GRAHAM: Right.

HANNITY: We learned that when they went to first brief the president and the national security advisor elect if it would be if they got elected, General Flynn, that was all the ruse for Operation Crossfire Hurricane. And we know that they knew from before the first dirty dossier that -- that it was a dirty dossier, it was unverified.

Steele had an agenda and Clinton paid for it, they'd said it was verified. It's unverifiable. It's now been debunked. They still sign those two, and then even after the sub-source, in other words, Christopher Steele's sources, then they went on to sign two more warrants.

GRAHAM: Right.

HANNITY: Now, how is that not premeditated fraud on a FISA court and what has taken John Durham so long to get that fundamental conclusion? Because what we now know is overwhelming, incontrovertible, slam-dunk. That needs to be brought before a grand jury, Lindsey Graham.

When is that going to happen?

GRAHAM: Yes, I don't know, yellow (ph). We'll find out soon I suppose.

But I'm going to interview the intel analyst who interviewed the Russian sub-source and produce the 40 page memo. If nobody else will talk to him, I'm going to talk to him and the case agent and asked him as a simple question.

When he found out that the Russian sub-source was a Steele employee not based in Russia but based in the United States, and everything in the document was bar talk, hearsay and garbage, did you tell anybody?

And I guarantee you they did. But here's what else you're going to find this week I hope. The Congress got suspicious about the sub-source, wanted to know how reliable the person was. In 2018, 2018, ask for a briefing from the FBI about the Russian sub-source because the intel committees were getting suspicious and I found the briefing notes and they lied to Congress, the FBI did, like they lied to the FISA court. What we have over three year period, 16, 17, and 18 is a complete breakdown of the rule of law, manipulations of the system at every turn and is just not a few bad actors unfortunately, it's a system failure.

HANNITY: And so, you'll have Sally Yates tomorrow. You're planning on bringing in Comey and McCabe.

GRAHAM: Next week.

HANNITY: At some point --

GRAHAM: Yes.

HANNITY: -- do we ever get to the July 5th meeting in the Oval Office where Biden talked about the Logan Act and Obama talked about getting his people on this, his people, the right people, and when Sally Yates admitted she was shocked that Obama knew all about the Kislyak call and Comey was there, and Comey even saying we have nothing and now we know Peter Strzok said we have nothing with any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, and then they knew it all they kept going forward with the lies to the FISA court?

GRAHAM: Right.

HANNITY: And then they went forward with the impeachment investigation.

I want to know what they knew and when they knew it. Are they all going to be held accountable, Lindsey Graham?

GRAHAM: All I can tell you is that we're going to have an election in 2020 and I hope people consider the Obama Justice Department to be sewer that it was. Sally Yates will testify before the Judiciary Committee August 5th. And we'll have a talk after she --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Oh, she signed one of the warrants, didn't she, Senator?

GRAHAM: Yes.

HANNITY: One of the applications?

GRAHAM: Maybe the best question I ask here, if you knew then what you know now, would you have signed it?

HANNITY: Well, Rod Rosenstein answered that question before your committee recently --

GRAHAM: Yes.

HANNITY: -- and he said he would not.

Let's see what Sally Yates says tomorrow.

GRAHAM: Stay tuned. It's next week.

HANNITY: Keep up the good work. We will hold them accountable.

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