Sen. Lindsey Graham just warned House Democrats that arguing over Trump’s impeachment trial “opened Pandora’s box” after voting to acquit the former president during his second impeachment trial. He also suggested that Republicans could move to impeach Vice President Kamala Harris if they used the same model that was used against Trump.
“We’ve opened Pandora’s box to future presidents. If you use this model, I don’t know how Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached if the Republicans take over the House because she actually bailed out rioters and one of the rioters went back to the streets and broke somebody’s head open. We’ve opened Pandora’s box here and I’m sad for the country,” Sen. Graham said on Fox News.
He went on to make connections between Harris’s support of the Minnesota Freedom Fund and the rioting that occurred in Minneapolis last summer. Harris had asked her Twitter followers to help “post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.” He said her support of the organization helped bail out one of the rioters who went back on the streets and broke somebody’s head open.
Minnesota Freedom Fund has been used to secure the relief of several convicted violent criminals, as well as those rallying against law enforcement officials all last summer. Some of the people bailed out by the organization included a suspect who shot at police, a twice-convicted sex offender, and a woman accused of killing her friend.
Sen. Graham said he found the impeachment trial against Trump to be unconstitutional and said that the process they used to try and impeach him was an affront to rule of law. “He is the first president to ever be impeached without a lawyer, without a witness, without an ability to confront those against him and the trial record was a complete joke, hearsay upon hearsay,” he said.
He also talked about trying to discourage Democrats from calling in witnesses, noting that it would prolong the proceedings and implicate Harris. He said it would only be hair to have Kamala Harris’ tape play where she bailed people out of jail too. “
What more could you do to incite future violence, than to pay the bail of the people who broke up the shops and beat up the cops. How’s that not inciting future violence? Be careful what you wish for my Democratic colleagues, be careful what you wish for,” Graham warned.
The Senate voted to acquit Trump of provoking the riot by a 57-43 vote, which fell far short of the 67 vote margin needed to convict. Sen. Graham talked about the acquittal and said that while the former president may have pushed his own narratives of the election, he is not singularly to blame. He also pointed blame at Democrats for sitting on the sidelines and watching the country be burned down for a year and a half.
“Most Republicans are tired of the hypocrisy,” he added.
