Graham: There’s a ‘bureaucratic coup’ taking place against Trump

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday that there is a “bureaucratic coup” against President Trump. 

The South Carolina senator made the comments while speaking on “Fox News Sunday” after host Chris Wallace asked if Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should be fired for allegedly trying to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from the White House.

“He shouldn’t fire Rosenstein unless you believe Rosenstein’s lying; he said he didn’t do the things alleged,” Graham said. Rosenstein strongly denied the recent New York Times report.{mosads}

“But there’s a bureaucratic coup against President Trump being discovered here,” Graham added, saying people in the FBI tried to “taint the [2016 presidential] election” and tip it in Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s favor. 

Asked whether President Trump should fire Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, @LindseyGrahamSC says: “He shouldn’t fire Rosenstein unless you believe Rosenstein’s lying, he said he did do the things alleged. But there’s a bureaucratic coup against President Trump being discovered here.” pic.twitter.com/DDqCuJp2yv

— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) September 23, 2018

“I don’t know what Rosenstein did, but I know what [Andrew McCabe] or [Peter Strzok] and [Lisa Page] did,” Graham said, alluding to former FBI officials.

Many conservatives have zeroed in on text messages exchanged between Page and Strzok during the 2016 election as evidence of bias against Trump inside the agency. 

“They tried to destroy this president,” Graham said. 

An inspector general report found that the FBI was not affected by bias in its current investigation of Trump and past investigation of Clinton.

“If Rosenstein’s involved, he should be fired. If he’s not involved, leave him alone,” Graham continued. “But he can’t make that decision. We need a special counsel to look at this. Rosenstein is doing the country a great disservice by not appointing a special counsel to look at all of this.”

On Friday, The New York Times reported that Rosenstein proposed secretly recording conversations with the president and discussed the possibility of administration officials invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

Rosenstein has issued multiple statements disputing the reporting of the Times’s story.