Trump's friends on Fox weren't the only ones doing their best to muddy the waters for the Mueller investigation this Sunday. Never mind that the more and more of the Steele dossier continues to be verified and confirmed, or that it doesn't matter who paid for it if what it alleges is true, or that the Steele dossier was originally funded by the conservative Washington Free Beacon, Sen. Lindsey Graham wants us to believe that the whole thing is nothing more than "a bunch of garbage" and no one should believe anything it alleges because it was just oppo research paid for by a bunch of partisan Democrats.
Sadly, this got little to no push back from Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan:
MARGARET BRENNAN: This morning the president is again accusing the Justice Department and the FBI of misleading courts and illegally surveilling his campaign. He's pointing to these documents that were just released about Carter Page who was a campaign associate and has admitted to having advised the Kremlin at one point. You sit on Senate Judiciary. Is the president wrong?
SEN. GRAHAM: No I think that the whole FISA award process needs to be looked at. The warrant on Carter Page was supported mostly by dossier that came from Michael Steele who is being paid by the Democratic Party to do opposition research and the dossier was collected I think from Russian intelligence services and if you ask the FBI today how much of the dossier on Trump has been verified. Almost none of it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you do say mostly. Not entirely. Therefore was the surveillance justified?
SEN. GRAHAM: No not at all in my view. If the dossier is the reason you issued the warrant it was a bunch of garbage. The dossier has proven to be a bunch of garbage.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So the president is correct?
SEN. GRAHAM: In my view that the warrant, the FISA warrant process needs to be looked at closely about Congress. The main reason they issued the warrant was the dossier prepared by Mr. Steele. They never told the court that he was a paid operative in the Democratic Party. The substance of the dossier to this day is a bunch of garbage.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm pressing you on this because you have expressed some concern about the president's skepticism about his own intelligence community and this--
SEN. GRAHAM: This is completely different--
MARGARET BRENNAN: specific criticism of the FBI and Justice Department
SEN. GRAHAM: then whether or not the Russians interfered in our election -they did. The Carter Page warrant is whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. I haven't seen any evidence of it but I think the president gets this confused. If you suggest that Russian-Russians meddled in 2016. He goes to the idea that well, I didn't collude with them. You didn't collude with the Russians or at least I haven't seen any evidence. But Mr. President they meddled in the elections.
They stole Podesta's emails. They hacked in the DNC. It could be us next, it could be some other power, not just Russia. Harden our electoral infrastructure for 2018. Mr. President, Dan Coats is right -- the red lights are blinking. Get your entire government, which is doing a lot of good work but nobody knows about it, sit down with Congress and the administration and you lead this nation to harden-hardening the 2018 election process before it's too late. Not just from Russia but from others.
Maybe we'd take him more seriously if his counterparts in the House didn't just vote to strip funding from election security.
