South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham says it would be "easy" to figure out whether Obama administration National Security Adviser Susan Rice requested unmasking of then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign team members for political purposes.
"Might be hard to have consequences, but it would to be easy to figure out," the Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor."
Former CIA Director John Brennan and and former National Intelligence Director James Clapper should be called to Congress and asked whether Rice ever made a request to their agencies or the NSA to have unmasking of any Trump transition figures that were surveilled, Graham said.
"Then you go and ask her the O'Reilly question: 'What say you, Susan Rice?' if she did."
Host Bill O'Reilly argued Rice would likely plead her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
"I'd be surprised," Graham said. "She said she did nothing wrong. . . . The people in charge of the collection need to be asked if Susan Rice ever asked for any of the material you collected to be unmasked, and if she did, what did she do with it? And if she takes the Fifth, that would be stunning. That would be a big deal."
"She's not taking an interest in the Trump people for any other reason than politics," O'Reilly said. "There is no other reason on the planet."
That would be one logical conclusion, Graham agreed.
"My job is to find out what happened all things Russia, and if part of this 'all things Russia' is that the national security adviser to President Obama was actually unmasking Trump transition figures for political purposes before the election, Trump campaign people, I want to know that," Graham said.
People who have no political agenda want to get to the bottom of it, too, O'Reilly said, but added Democrats and members of the left-leaning media do not want the story told.
"Too bad," Graham said. "You don't always get what you want. That's what the Rolling Stones say."
On the issue of Syria, Graham said he would advise Trump to take out President Bashar Assad's air power and create a safe zone for refugees in the country.
"By destroying it, we would have to bomb their airfield, correct?" O'Reilly asked, adding, "There are Russian planes there."
"They should move them," Graham said.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.