‘He’s not a spy’ Lindsey Graham slams espionage charges against Trump as ‘ridiculous’

Lindsey Graham is the latest surrogate to Donald Trump who has lashed out against the Justice Department’s “double standard” after suing the former president – but admits he “did things wrong” in handling classified material.

The South Carolina senator said that if the federal justice system acted fairly, former secretary of state and failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would also have been charged.

The DOJ on Friday unsealed a 49-page indictment listing 37 charges against Trump, including 31 charges of willful withholding of national defense information under the Espionage Act. Photos of the storage of classified material in boxes around Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate were also released.

Trump will appear before a court in Miami on Tuesday afternoon and has already said he will “of course” plead not guilty.

Graham deplored the accusations and said Trump is “overcharged.”

Trump made remarks at both the GOP conventions in Georgia and North Carolina on Saturday, deploring the allegations and criticizing the DOJ for a “double standard”

“Most Republicans believe we live in a country where Hillary Clinton did similar things and nothing happened to her,” Senator Graham told ABC’s This Week during a Sunday morning interview.

“President Trump will have his day in court,” he assured. “But espionage allegations are just ridiculous.”

Whether you like Trump or not, he did not commit espionage. He has not distributed, leaked or provided any information to any foreign power or to any news organization to harm this country. He’s not a spy,” said Graham, who seemed irritated by the explanation.

“He paid too much,” he continued. ‘Did he do things wrong? Yes, he can have that. He will be tried for that. But Hillary Clinton wasn’t.’

He then told ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, “Your old boss committed perjury in a civil suit, lost his license, obstructed justice in dozens of ways, and was not prosecuted.”

Graham was the first senator to support Trump in his 2024 re-election bid, appearing alongside him in South Carolina during one of the ex-president’s first campaign swings in January.

The FBI raided Trump’s Florida residence last year to recover large quantities of documents and materials he took from the White House when he left office in violation of the National Records Retention Act. Archive.

While material containing classified documents was also found inappropriately in President Joe Biden’s home and the DC-based think tank, he has not been charged.

The 49-page indictment unsealed Friday reveals 37 charges against Trump, including under the Espionage Act. Footage also shows documents in question being stored around Mar-a-Lago, such as in bathrooms and on a podium

Trump noted during his remarks at the GOP conventions in Georgia and North Carolina on Saturday that the indictment was good for one thing: improving his polling results.

“The only good thing about it is that it drove up my polls, can you believe it?” Trump was half joking in Columbus, Georgia.

He also said that “the ridiculous and baseless charge… will go down in history as one of the worst abuses of power ever.”

“This vicious prosecution is a travesty of justice,” Trump insisted. “You’re looking at Joe Biden [try] to put his leading political opponent – ​​an opponent who beats him by far in the polls – in prison, just as they do in Stalinist Russia or Communist China. No difference.’

Our country is in very bad shape. Think about it – three years from now.”