Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called on President-elect Donald Trump to support repercussions for Russian attempts to interfere with the presidential election Sunday.
In the wake of a report suggesting Russia tried to tip the scales in Trump’s favor released by the intelligence community Friday, Graham and McCain plan to take action.
“What I’m going to do with Sen. McCain, we will introduce sanctions that are bipartisan that go beyond the sanctions today against Russia that will hit them in the financial sector and the energy sector where they’re the weakest and we’re going to give President Trump an opportunity to make Russia pay a price for interfering in our elections so it will deter others in the future,” Graham said during an appearance in “Meet the Press.” “I hope you (Trump) will take advantage of it.”
While Trump has been reluctant to say whether he believes Russia played a role working against former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, McCain said he is confident in what intelligence officials have told lawmakers about the hackings. “What they’re saying is there is a long history of Russian attempts to affect the outcome of our election,” he said.
Graham said he thinks Trump’s hesitance may stem from a fear it will detract from the legitimacy of his presidency, adding he doesn’t believe Putin is responsible for his victory.
“He’s going to be the defender of the free world here pretty soon,” he said. “In a couple of weeks Donald trump will be the defender of the free world and democracy, you should let everybody know in America, Republicans and Democrats that you’re going to make Russia pay a price for trying to interfere — even though it didn’t affect the outcome.”
Graham dismissed Trump’s suggestion it was some other entity that hacked the Democratic National Committee and top Clinton adviser John Podesta’s emails, saying the evidence is clear.
“No doubt in my mind that Russians interfered, that John Podesta’s emails were hacked by the Russians and not some 14-year-old kid or 300-pound guy, and that the DNC was compromised by the Russians, and it seems pretty clear that Wikileaks got it from the Russians” he said.
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