Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham unloaded Tuesday on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, mocking his claims that he wanted the Senate’s impeachment trial to be “fair.”
Graham, who spoke with Fox News host Martha MacCallum about President Donald Trump’s ongoing trial in the Senate, explained what he expected in the coming days. (RELATED: Lindsey Graham Unloads On Pelosi: She ‘May Pray Privately, But She’s Orchestrated The Trial Of Holy Hell’)
WATCH:
“You think the vote on Friday is going to be a vote to acquit the president?” MacCallum cut to the chase in her final question to Graham.
Graham said that he hoped for an acquittal vote before the State of the Union, but he also said that if others in the Senate pushed for even one witness, he would force a vote on Hunter Biden. “You are not going to get just John Bolton. I am going to ask if there is one witness here, I am going to ask for Hunter Biden. I want to prove to the country that there was ample reason to believe that Hunter Biden was corrupt, and what he did in the Ukraine was against America’s interest,” Graham said.
Graham also voiced an interest in calling former Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State John Kerry’s chief of staff, among others. “To my colleagues, if you think you are going to call one witness, you are crazy,” he added.
“It opens up a whole can of worms,” MacCallum agreed, asking, “Is that part of the plan to sort of make it so difficult for both sides that everybody throws up their hands?”
“When Chuck Schumer says, ‘I just want to be fair, I just want to get to the truth,’ that is such baloney,” Graham continued. “He is the same guy that wanted to be ‘fair’ to Brett Kavanaugh. This is trying to accuse Republicans of being ‘unfair,’ what are you accusing them of? They are ‘unfair’ if they don’t call a witness the house chose not to call?”
Graham’s overall assessment was that none of the dynamics of the trial were really going to change, and that the Democrats’ goal just appeared to be to put a lot of Republican Senators in difficult positions.
“In that conference today I heard Republicans who were in a tough spot politically say ‘I love this country, I am not going to throw the country into chaos, I am going to stand by the idea that I have been more than fair, I am not going to let the House create a sham process and expect me to fix it in the Senate.’ We don’t want to reward Houses in the future to refuse to call witnesses, come to the Senate, and ask us to do their work,” Graham concluded.