US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is engaging in an attempt to defend President Donald Trump amid the Ukraine scandal.
The South Carolina senator, who played golf with Trump at the president’s club in Sterling, Virginia, on Saturday morning, rejected allegations that Trump acted against national security interests by pushing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate political rival Joe Biden before enjoying the US military aid.
If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 3, 2016
“In America you can’t even get a parking ticket based on hearsay testimony,” tweeted Graham, once a Trump critic. “But you can impeach a president? I certainly hope not.”
The Republican was reportedly heard on a JetBlue flight from Washington, DC, to Charleston, South Carolina, apparently coordinating his defense initiative with Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.
“His phone rang and he answered, ‘Hey, Jared!’ He was . . . saying he’s going to be on ‘Face the Nation’ on Sunday. He said, ‘Listen — this is what I’m going to lay out,’ ” according to the report. “He was like, ‘We need to know why Hunter [Biden] was receiving $50K’ ” for being on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma. “He then said, ‘You can’t impeach someone on hearsay.’ He was laying out his story for Sunday.”
A senator representative, however, questioned the idea that he was talking to Jared: “Why do you think he was talking to Jared? I was talking to him as well . . . Sounds quite familiar.”
Graham and some of other Trump allies prepare to fight back while other Republicans are being seen turning out against Trump or even towards Democrats.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, a Republican, and former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, appeared together at the University of New England in Biddeford on Friday.
“President Clinton and my dad set the example,” said Bush, “of how you can have a different view on things but be good friends. Public leaders can create aspiration.”
This is while Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry into the sitting president’s abuse of power.
According to Vanity Fair, some Republicans “worry impeachment proceedings will destroy his ego and derail his agenda.