Sen. Lindsey Graham warns of 'riots in streets' over Trump investigation

AUSTIN, Texas - South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham made an appearance on FOX's Sunday Night in America. When he was asked about the investigation of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, Graham had this to say.

"I'll say this, if there's a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle, which you presided over and did a hell of a good job, there'll be riots in the streets," said Graham.

Ed Espinoza, president of Progress Texas, and Matt McCorvey, chair of the Travis County Republican Party, joined FOX 7 Austin's Mike Warren to discuss.

MIKE WARREN: Matt Mackowiak, what do you make of Senator Graham statement there?

MATT MACKOWIAK: Well, you know, it's hard to even imagine what the future looks like if there is an indictment or if there is a prosecution. You certainly have some concern about the potential for a civil war breaking out and riots. And so that that is a scary thing. I think that obviously law enforcement needs to prepare for. You know, he raises, I think, a fair point, which is I think there's a perception among tens of millions of people that there may be two standards of justice. You have Sandy Berger, former Clinton national security adviser, took care of material out of a skiff in D.C. and was allowed to play that down to a misdemeanor. You have Jim Comey, who kept his own notes, which were classified. A number of the papers, was never it was never prosecuted. In this case, you have the unprecedented step of a former president of states having a raid on his personal residence when it's clear that the lawyers and the archives were working together. Again, there's more that we need to learn here. But what I think all Americans should want to see is an equal system of justice, which is equally applied to everyone. And I think that's what we need to look for going forward.

MIKE WARREN: Ed Espinoza, After the events of Jan. 6, do Gramm's comments come off as more of a warning or a call to arms? What do you think?

ED ESPINOZA: Well, first, I don't think anybody listens to Lindsey Graham and to pretend that he has the same response, that he can muster, the same response from the Republican base as Donald Trump, I think is a reach at many levels. But I agree with Matt and that I do think there should be an equal system of justice applied to all entities here. The problem is, is that what we're seeing happening with former President Trump right now isn't like what happened before. None of these, while other officials may have had infractions or things they've done, none have taken boxes of classified material, top secret materials and levels of secrecy that I didn't even know existed beyond top secret. And in addition to taking those boxes, he not only took them home, he traveled with them to other places. These are serious infractions that need to be investigated. And whether people will still be seated behind him at that point, I guess we'll have to see.

MIKE WARREN: Matt Mackowiak, can you compare for us the infractions and allegations against President Trump and the infractions and allegations allegedly committed by Hillary Clinton with her emails in her home.

MATT MACKOWIAK: Yeah. In some ways. You know, there are specific details here that I think make both of them bad in different ways. In former Secretary Clinton's method, where she was basically keeping her own private server, had classified material on her own private server in her home in New York. We know that foreign intelligence services were able to penetrate that. So we don't know at this point, based on what's publicly known, that former President Trump in any way was leaving open to foreign intelligence services to access signals intelligence, to access other highly, highly classified types of material. So as relates to Hillary, that's a specific there. Look, as it relates to former president, there are allegations related to Espionage Act. We need to understand what those are. Obviously, if this really is as serious as the feds claim for it to be, that is something for all of us to consider. I think what we haven't seen yet is just basic questions answered. Why was this judge able to approve this warrant when he recused himself in another Trump matter? I think that's an important question to ask. Why was a raid necessary? These are important questions that we need answered.

MIKE WARREN: Okay. And finally, Espinosa, is it a case of Hillary Clinton is clean, and Donald Trump is dirty?

ED ESPINOZA: I think it's a better case of Republicans wanted a full investigation of Hillary Clinton, and they got it. And now there's a case of getting a full and case investigation of Donald Trump, and they're against it. He asked Republicans asked for the affidavit, the warrant to be released. The DOJ did it. Now they're asking why it was done. They know that Donald Trump has had boxes at home. He has been asked to testify. In other cases, he has not testified. Clinton did testify what she was called to do the same. Why won't Donald Trump do that? The cases are not identical, but I think that we should look at history here, realize that there are inconsistencies in what how people are reacting and what they're calling for.

MIKE WARREN: All right. Well, there's going to be much more to come. We got to wrap it up for now. Ed, Matt, thank you both very much.

MATT/ ED: Thanks. Thanks.