If the state of Georgia wants to send former President Donald Trump to prison for, in part, telling his followers to watch a TV show, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff could be going to the slammer for a millennium.
Hyperbole, sure — but for those who remember the California Democrat’s relentless self-promotion as he pushed the Trump-Russia hoax, it throws the absolute ridiculousness of the Trump charges into sharp relief.
At issue is the fact that the indictment handed up this week didn’t just accuse Trump of a crime over claims he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough election fraud to close the narrow lead opponent Joe Biden enjoyed after the ballots were initially counted in November 2020.
Instead, the former president and 18 are charged on wider grounds of daring to challenge the results in the first place — and some of the conduct prosecutors claim is illegal borders on the absurd.
As The Washington Post noted, the prosecution is using Trump’s tweets as evidence that he’s guilty of racketeering.
“I spoke to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger yesterday about Fulton County and voter fraud in Georgia,” read one such tweet, written on Jan. 3, 2021. “He was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!”
In another supposedly damning tweet, Trump encouraged people to watch TV.
“Some of the tweets were less aggressive. The indictment pointed to a Dec. 3, 2020, tweet in which Trump wrote ‘Georgia hearings now on @OANN. Amazing!’ which was described as ‘an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy,'” the Post reported.
Georgia hearings now on @OANN. Amazing!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2020
Boy, that’s some conspiratorial behavior, all right.
Well, if that qualifies for inclusion in an indictment, Graham noted on Twitter, Schiff is in deep trouble.
“Remember the Russian hoax and the Mueller investigation?” the South Carolina Republican tweeted Wednesday.
“Donald Trump is being charged with a criminal act for telling people to watch a network show about the election,” Graham said. “If that becomes a crime Adam Schiff will be in jail for 1,000 years!”
“How many times did Schiff go on MSNBC and CNN and tell us Donald Trump was a Russian agent?” he added.
“This is very dangerous what they are doing to our country,” the senator said. “It’s a terrible double standard.”
Remember the Russian hoax and the Mueller investigation?
Donald Trump is being charged with a criminal act for telling people to watch a network show about the election. If that becomes a crime Adam Schiff will be in jail for 1,000 years
How many times did Schiff go on…
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) August 17, 2023
In a tweet shortly thereafter, he noted that the hypocrisy extended to another election “denier,” serial Georgia gubernatorial loser (albeit not in her mind) Stacey Abrams.
“President Trump is being prosecuted in a way to make challenging an election a crime. Democrat Stacey Abrams said it best – it’s hard to concede an election when you think you were cheated,” Graham tweeted.
“Well, here’s the current standard: If you are a Democrat and you claim you were cheated, nothing happens. If a Republican does it, they try to put you in jail!”
President Trump is being prosecuted in a way to make challenging an election a crime. Democrat Stacey Abrams said it best – it’s hard to concede an election when you think you were cheated.
Well, here’s the current standard: If you are a Democrat and you claim you were…
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) August 17, 2023
Well, at the very least, Schiff has been stripped of his House Intelligence Committee seat in the 118th Congress, albeit with much whining and another spate of TV appearances in which the establishment media gave him ample opportunity to grouse about the unfairness of it all.
Abrams, meanwhile, is facing scrutiny for how she spent funds intended for her get-out-the-vote efforts, including massive tax discrepancies at the organization she started.
However, neither is going to face charges for blatant lies that were platformed by multiple TV networks.
Schiff appeared anywhere that would have him to claim then-President Trump was a Kremlin stooge when he knew darn well Trump wasn’t.
Abrams, meanwhile, continued to peddle the fiction that she won the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election all the way up until she became the Democratic nominee for the 2022 Georgia gubernatorial election. (In that race, she lost so convincingly that she didn’t even bother trying to flog the notion she was the actual winner.)
Now, of course, neither of these individuals should be charged for their lies — which, pernicious and stupid though they may be, are protected speech under our criminal statutes.
However, when Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis attempts to tie a Donald Trump tweet telling viewers to watch the Georgia election integrity hearings to a racketeering conspiracy, it’s fair to speculate that every lie Adam Schiff has been hawking on the small screen since Trump got elected should earn him a thousand years in the clink.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
