Lindsey Graham suggests entire Senate wants Russia investigation but Mitch McConnell
Even as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continues to try to prevent his colleagues from launching a full scale investigation into Russia’s role in rigging the election in favor of Donald Trump, the leading Senate voices within his own party are pushing for an investigation more loudly than ever – and they now appear to be trying to isolate McConnell specifically. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, while appearing with Senator John McCain, implied that everyone in the Senate is in agreement on the matter except McConnell.
Graham and McCain are currently on a diplomatic trip to Estonia, another nation whose democratic electoral process has been sabotaged by Vladimir Putin and Russia. Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar is also on the bipartisan trip with them. Graham spoke with CNN, with McCain at his side, and asserted that nearly the entire Senate is in agreement on the matter: “I would say that ninety-nine of us [out of 100] believe the Russians did this, and we’re going to do something about it.”
Senator Graham went on to explain that after they return from their Estonia trip, he and Senator McCain and the Democrats in the Senate will be holding hearings and applying sanctions which “hit Putin as an individual and his inner circle for interfering in our election.” Left unstated, but clearly implied, was that Senate Republicans don’t care how embarrassing or crippling such hearings and investigations might be to Donald Trump. And the “ninety-nine of us” remark seemed to be in direct pushback against Mitch McConnell’s single handed attempt at limiting the Russia investigation to a lesser committee. Watch Lindsey Graham and John McCain appear on CNN in the video below:
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report