Lindsey Graham Warns ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’ After Donald Trump Called For Barack Obama To Testify
On Thursday, President Donald Trump tweeted that he wanted Sen. Lindsey Graham to force former President Barack Obama to testify regarding the so-called Obamagate, but the South Carolina Republican poured cold water on the idea, according to Politico.
“If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama,” Trump wrote.
The message was one of over 100 messages by Trump on social media about a claim that the Russian investigation against him was politically motivated and ordered by the former president. While Trump hasn’t presented any evidence for his claim, he has called for an investigation into the situation, something he feels that Graham, who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, should initiate.
Graham replied to the tweet, shooting down the idea.
“I don’t think now’s the time for me to do that. I don’t know if that’s even possible,” he said. “I understand President Trump’s frustration, but be careful what you wish for.”
Graham expressed concern that to compel Obama to testify could set a dangerous precedent and it could mean that Trump himself could be made to testify after he is no longer in the Oval Office.
“We do have oversight of it as Congress — appropriate oversight,” Graham said. “But hauling a former president before an oversight committee, I don’t think that’s been done before. And presidentially, I’d be careful what I wish for,” he added.
Trump’s Justice Department has argued that a former president can’t be compelled to testify before Congress. Graham has said, however, that he plans to have several people who worked in the Obama administration testify before the committee.
Other GOP leaders have refrained from commenting on whether or not the Justice Department or Congress should investigate Obama and members of his administration for what role, if any, it had in the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s alleged contact with Russia during the 2016 campaign.
As The Inquisitr previously reported, Trump has called the situation the “biggest political crime” in history, though he hasn’t mentioned any specific crimes that he believes the former president may have committed. A few days ago, he told reporters that the so-called crime is obvious.
.@PhilipRucker: You appeared to accuse Obama of a crime yesterday. What did he do?
TRUMP: "Obamagate."
RUCKER: What is the crime?
TRUMP: "You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody." pic.twitter.com/EUueidNwGp
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 11, 2020
Some have speculated that the issue Trump is referring to is an old claim he made that Obama had ordered his phones wiretapped at his Trump Tower office, though former FBI Director James Comey has denied that this took place.
