Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Saturday pledged to help impeachment “die quickly” in the Senate as it becomes increasingly likely that the House will vote to impeach President Trump, leading to a Senate trial.
“This thing will come to the Senate, and it will die quickly, and I will do everything I can to make it die quickly,” he told CNN while at the Doha Forum in Qatar.
“I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here,” Graham added. “What I see coming, happening today is just a partisan nonsense.”
Asked whether it was appropriate for the president to ask a foreign government for help, such as when President Trump asked Ukraine’s president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Graham said he believed so.
“Now, Joe Biden is a dear friend. I’ve traveled all over the world with Joe Biden. He’s running for president on the Democratic side. I think he’ll do very well,” Graham said. “The bottom line is his son was receiving $50,000 a month from a gas company run by the most corrupt guy in the Ukraine and about two months after they raided the gas company’s president’s home, they fired the prosecutor. Yeah, I think it’s OK to talk about this kind of stuff.”
His comments come after the House Judiciary Committee voted to advance articles of impeachment accusing Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, setting the stage for a full chamber vote next week.
If the House votes to impeach Trump, a vote in the Senate following a trial would determine whether he would be removed from office. Two-thirds of the Senate would need to vote to oust Trump in order for him to be removed.
The House launched an impeachment probe into Trump in September following revelations that he had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into the Bidens.