Fox’s Chris Wallace challenges Graham over past comments on ignoring subpoenas

Fox News Host Chris Wallace on Sunday challenged Sen. Lindsey Graham over the South Carolina Republican’s past comments on ignoring subpoenas being grounds for impeachment.

“You call all of what’s going on in Washington a political circus, but you took a different view back when you were leading the impeachment effort against [former President] Clinton back in the late ’90s,” Wallace said on “Fox News Sunday.”

{mosads}”At that time, you said that any president, and you talked specifically about Clinton and [former President] Nixon, who defied Congress when it came to subpoenas was in danger of impeachment,” he added.

Wallace then played a video of Graham in 1998 saying, “You’re becoming the judge and jury. It is not your job to tell us what we need. It is your job to comply with things that we need to provide oversight over you.”

“Question: Why is it an impeachable offense for Clinton or Nixon back then to ignore congressional subpoenas, but it’s OK for President Trump to do now?” the host asked.

“Well, there’s two things here,” Graham said. “The Mueller investigation was a special counsel appointed to find out if the president committed a crime, if he colluded with the Russians, if he obstructed justice. The president gave 1.4 million documents to [special counsel Robert] Muller. Everybody around the president was allowed to testify. He never claimed executive privilege. He complied, no cover-up, worked with Mueller. Mueller’s the final word on this for me.”

“So if Clinton had stiffed Ken Starr, that’s different,” Graham continued. “What [House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold] Nadler [D-N.Y.] is doing is trying to destroy the president and his family. If I were the president, I would fight back against this political revenge coming out of the House.”

Graham’s defense of his previous comments comes amid a battle between Trump’s White House and congressional Democrats.

Trump has refused a wave of subpoenas from Congress on a variety issues, including many tied to Russia’s election interference.

Mueller’s report did not find evidence proving collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Kremlin but did not make a determination on whether the president obstructed justice.