Sen. Graham says he was stating the obvious with Trump riots claim

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham on Saturday defended suggesting there would be “riots in the streets” if former President Donald Trump was prosecuted for mishandling classified information, saying he condemned the violence seen during the Capitol riot last year.

“What I tried to do was state the obvious,” Graham, a South Carolina Republican and close ally of Trump, told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy.

“Here’s what I said, The raid on [former] President Trump’s home, the likely nominee for 2024, better bear some fruit here,” he added. “If it’s just about mishandling classified information, we’ve had a standard set when it came to Hillary Clinton.”

“Our country, the people on our side, believe that when it comes to the justice system, there are no rules regarding Trump, [it’s a case of] ‘get him, it doesn’t matter how you get him,’ so I said that if it’s similar to what happened to Clinton and he gets prosecuted, it’ll be one of the most disruptive events in America,” Graham said.

Trump and his allies have argued that the FBI, which is investigating Trump for potential violations of laws related to espionage and obstruction of justice, is treating him differently than it treated Hillary Clinton, who was the subject of an FBI investigation into her use of a private email server while secretary of state, but wasn’t prosecuted. Trump’s critics argue that the two cases aren’t comparable.

Graham said he rejected the violence seen on the Jan.6 Capitol riot and said “all those people who defiled the Capitol should go to jail” but said that any perceived unfairness toward Trump would have consequences.

“I don’t want to pardon the January 6th people because that seems to reinforce the narrative that this is OK. I said something I really believe — if he does what she did with classified information and he gets prosecuted and she didn’t it would create a problem.”

Graham said last week that there would be “riots in the streets” if Trump was prosecuted for mishandling classified information.

“I’ll say this, if there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, after the Clinton debacle … there’ll be riots in the streets,” Graham told Fox News’ Trey Gowdy, a former Republican congressman.