UPDATED: Lindsey Graham Would Be Shocked

I watched Senator Graham on with Sean Hannity last night, and he didn't actually look shocked when the two discussed all the trouble Team Mueller lawyers had with their government issued phones. Amused would be the word I would use to describe Graham's reaction, although he did point out the obvious: If these guys and gals couldn't manage their own phones, why would we trust them with a major investigation?

Then he added:

But stay tuned, Sean. You think you're mad about the phones being wiped? Stay tuned! We'll talk in about ten or twelve days and we'll see if there's something else you could get mad about. Just stay tuned.

That's a tease, but also, in my opinion, a promise. I've said many times that I'm sure that Graham has coordinated closely with AG Barr. Graham has taken a lot of flack for the slow pace of his committee's investigations, but I'm convinced that that has to do with the necessity of not compromising John Durham's investigation. Graham has played it close to the vest but, like others in DC, he knows more than he's letting on. Perhaps the slow drip of revelations about the Flynn case will produce that "something else"--days before the scheduled hearing in front of Sullivan. That would be unsurprising, now that Kevin Clinesmith's plea deal is cemented in place. The substance behind the plea deal had to do with the Carter Page FISA, but Clinesmith was heavily involved in Team Mueller ops, too. But that's a guess based on timing  and could be coincidental. We'll see, but I doubt that Graham is just blowing smoke at this point.

And that would fit in with this, from his introductory remarks, about what would shock him:

As to future prosecutions--I would be shocked if the only person prosecuted is Clinesmith.

UPDATE 1: By the way, if some wiseguy tries to sucker you into betting that the government will never be able to recover the data from those wiped phones, do not take him up on that. Jen Dyer has the tech details: Should we despair over phones wiped by Mueller team members? Maybe not; see the Strzok/Page text incident. The bottom line is that the phones were government property and were for (mostly) official business only--which means, they were for creating government data which the government is entitled to recover and retain. As Dyer explains, there may well be ways to do this. And it's possible that this revelation is intended to shake certain members of Team Mueller out of a false sense of security. We know that revelations coming from Barr's DoJ are almost always have some purpose.

UPDATE 2:

Paul Sperry
@paulsperry_

U.S. Attorney John Durham's #SpyGate investigation is one of the most important and consequential investigations in this nation's history. He has to get it right. No pressure.

3:11 PM · Sep 10, 2020·

Fortunately for Durham, we know he's not simply on his own. He's got help. Along with Barr, there's Bash, Jensen, maybe others.