Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Sunday defended President Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms that represented the president’s legal adversaries, saying “I hope they pay a price.”
“Private business aided government power in a fashion to destroy Donald Trump’s life…our people believe that the Justice Department was used as a weapon to destroy Trump’s campaign and his business interests and to ruin his family,” Graham said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” “If these people involved pay a price, they got nobody but themselves to blame.”
Mr. Trump on Friday continued his battle against the legal industry, signing an executive order targeting New York law firm Paul, Weiss that suspended security clearances for employees at the firm and restricted their access to federal buildings and officials. CBS News has reached out to Paul, Weiss for comment.
Just a few hours earlier, Mr. Trump delivered a speech at the Department of Justice where he aired his grievances over the federal investigations into him and vowed retribution against his political foes.
“We’re turning the page on four long years of corruption, weaponization and surrender to violent criminals,” Mr. Trump claimed. “And we’re restoring fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law.”
The Friday order marked the third targeted move the president has made against a prominent firm.
In February, Mr. Trump targeted Covington & Burling, a firm representing former special counsel Jack Smith, who led the investigation that ultimately resulted in Mr. Trump being charged in two jurisdictions before the election.
Then earlier this month, Mr. Trump signed an order to suspend the security clearances of attorneys at Perkins Coie, a law firm linked to Democratic-funded opposition research during the 2016 presidential campaign into any ties between Mr. Trump and Russia. A federal judge on Wednesday, however, temporarily blocked that order, ruling that it unlawfully targeted the Perkins Coie law firm and violated its First Amendment rights.
Graham, on “Face the Nation,” said he believes that these law firms were pushing legal theories that “were designed for political outcomes more than legal outcomes.”
“I think Jack Smith was politically motivated. I think the Russian hoax, a lot of people should have gone to jail, and they didn’t. I think the idea that President Trump was an agent of Russia was manufactured. The Steele Dossier was based on lies and falsehoods coming from a source that said he never meant it to be used in the fashion it was used. I think Jack Smith’s effort to prosecute President Trump for January 6 was politically motivated,” Graham said. “And people who engage in trying to destroy President Trump, I don’t mind him going after them in a lawful way.”
Mr. Trump, last week, signaled more actions against firms moving forward.
“We have a lot of law firms that we’re going to be going after because they were very dishonest people,” Mr. Trump said. “So bad for our country.”
