Late Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) reacted to the Justice Department’s release of a memo from former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that offered a view of the timeline and the scope of former Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 presidential election during an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity.
According to Graham, the memo damaged the legal foundation of Mueller’s probe.
“There are two things really important tonight — the legal foundation for Mueller’s appointment is crumbling,” Graham said. “The memo to Mueller from Rosenstein was given to me today or yesterday fully by Barr virtually unredacted. So now we know that the scope of the investigation was to look at Carter Page, Flynn, Papadopoulos and Manafort as to whether or not they were working with the Russians. Now, this is in August of 2017.”
“In January 2017, the sub-source disavowed the dossier. And without the dossier, there is no warrant. So they knew that the Carter Page thing was a fraud. January 4, 2017, the FBI field office wanted to close the case against Flynn. We’ve got Papadopoulos on record denying working with the Russians, saying to do so would be treason. So the foundation for the Mueller investigation is crumbling.”
Graham went on to offer other discrepancies in the timeline.
“The legal foundation to justify Mueller’s appointment in my view does not exist,” he added. “That’s why this memo is so important. They name four people. Rosenstein tells Mueller to look at four people, August 2, 2017. Carter Page is one of the four. January, eight months before the sub-source disavowed the dossier. There was no legal justification to suspect Carter Page of being a Russian agent because it all depended on the dossier. And that crumbled in January.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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