Lindsey GrahamVerified account

First, I believe that it should be practice for all public officials who are contacted by a foreign government with an offer of assistance to their campaign – either directly or indirectly – to inform the FBI and reject the offer.

But this has not been recent practice and we saw that come to a head during the 2016 presidential campaign. During that race, we had a major American political party hire a foreign national, Christopher Steele, to dig up dirt on an American presidential candidate.

As if that was not bad enough, the foreign national compiled an unverified dossier that was then used by the FBI to obtain a warrant against an American citizen and surveil an American presidential campaign.

It has also come to light that the foreign national had a well-known political bias, was doing everything in his power to harm an American candidate’s electoral chances, and sought to directly influence who the American people elected as their next president.

American electoral campaigns should be run by, for, and decided by the American people. Foreign influence in our electoral process is and has been a problem.