In a fiery exchange on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) defended President Donald Trump and pushed back against claims that his recent comments about Barack Obama amount to baseless conspiracy theories—accusing the mainstream media of ignoring disturbing new details about intelligence manipulation during the 2016 election.

NBC host Kristen Welker repeatedly pressed Graham about Trump’s assertion that former President Obama may have committed treason. But the senator dismissed the characterization, instead zeroing in on what he called a “deeply troubling” narrative shift inside the intelligence community that occurred during the heat of the 2016 election.

“I’m not alleging [Obama] committed treason,” Graham clarified. “But I am saying it bothers me. It’s disturbing that this is new information, and we deserve to know who changed the narrative and why.”

Graham’s comments referred to newly declassified documents that suggest U.S. intelligence officials, under the Obama administration, may have deliberately altered or downplayed earlier assessments that found no evidence of Russian attempts to alter the election outcome—only to later reverse course and launch a full-scale investigation into the Trump campaign.

Welker attempted to redirect the conversation, citing the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report—led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio—that confirmed Russian interference in the 2016 election. But Graham fired back, pointing to what he called a major media failure to update the public in light of revelations from the Durham report and other newly disclosed findings.

“At the time, I didn’t know any of that,” Graham said, referencing his own prior statements about Russian interference. “I didn’t know the FBI was using fabricated information to obtain FISA warrants. I didn’t know the Clinton campaign had funded the Steele dossier. I didn’t know the investigation was biased from the start.”

The Durham Report, released after a years-long investigation into the origins of the Russia probe, concluded that federal officials exhibited a clear confirmation bias and failed to vet politically motivated intelligence from the Clinton campaign. While it did not explicitly recommend prosecutions, the report outlined a pattern of improper conduct and manipulation that Graham argued “would never have been tolerated if the target had been Hillary Clinton.”

The tension escalated when Welker accused Graham of raising the Obama matter to distract from recent developments in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

“Are you trying to rewrite history to distract from the Epstein matter, Senator?” she asked.

“No!” Graham shot back. “I’m trying to let you and the media know that we found something we didn’t know before. This isn’t about distraction—this is about truth.”

Welker downplayed the relevance of the new information, noting that much of it dates back to 2020. Graham responded that the findings were “new to me” and emphasized that the American public has been misled for years about the true origins and motivations behind the Russia probe.

“You’re trying to sweep this stuff under the rug,” he said. “And that’s not right.”

“For years people had their lives turned upside down chasing the Mueller narrative,” he said. “The only real collusion was between the Clinton campaign and foreign operatives like Christopher Steele to fabricate a dossier full of lies—and the FBI used it anyway.”

While Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge Trump with conspiracy, the media—and much of the political establishment—relentlessly pushed the collusion theory for over two years. Graham noted that even after Mueller’s findings and Durham’s report, few in the media have acknowledged the damage caused by the baseless allegations.

As Welker attempted to pivot to the Israel-Gaza conflict, she delivered a parting rebuke: “Senator, you know that at the time, you said you did believe the assessments and the multiple investigations.”

Graham, visibly frustrated, muttered, “Whatever,” under his breath.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)