WASHINGTON – President Trump’s top Congressional allies forcefully — and sometimes colorfully — defended the president on the Sunday shows this week.
“Salem witch trials had more due process than this,” remarked Sen. Lindsey Graham on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “How do you know she’s a witch? Somebody told me she’s a witch. How do you know she’s a witch? I read articles thinking she might be a witch,” the South Carolina Republican went on as host Margaret Brennan tried to cut in.
Graham was contrasting the newest allegations against Trump — that he called up the new president of Ukraine and asked him to cooperate with Rudy Giuliani to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden — with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation now completed.
“Mueller wasn’t a witch hunt,” Graham said. “But this is.”
Tussling with Brennan, Graham said the whole thing was a “sham” because the whistleblower hadn’t heard the call first-hand.
“I can’t believe we’re talking about impeaching the president based on an accusation based on hearsay,” Graham told Brennan. “Who is this whistleblower? What bias do they have? Why did they pick this whistleblower to tell a hearsay story? The transcript does not match the complaint.”
Graham, who spent Saturday golfing with the president, said he had “zero problems with this phone call.”
A transcript of the call showed that Trump brought up Biden and his son Hunter, who had business dealings in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the Democratic investigations of Trump would now fall under the umbrella of an impeachment inquiry.
Since then, the full whistleblower complaint has also been released publicly.
Over on CNN, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a high-profile member of the Freedom Caucus and a vocal member on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, got into a back-and-forth with Jake Tapper as he defended Trump, arguing he also didn’t have a problem with the president’s call.
“What I have a problem [with] is what the Democrats are doing,” Jordan said. “Understand what happened here, Jake. You had a bureaucrat who didn’t like the president.”
“This guy wasn’t on the call. Somebody else told him about the call,” Jordan continued, as Tapper tried to jump in.
Tapper took issue with how Jordan described the whistleblower, whose identity hasn’t been revealed publicly, but who the New York Times described as a CIA officer who was at one time detailed to the White House.
“You just described this individual, this whistleblower. And I’m really, actually, surprised because I have covered whistleblowers when you were on the committee during the Obama years. And there was a lot more reverence for whistleblowers during that period from Republicans than I’m hearing today,” Tapper commented.
Jordan also pushed the narrative that Biden did something corrupt when he pushed to have a Ukranian prosecutor fired.
Trump and his allies have tried to argue the ex-veep did so because Hunter Biden was doing something illegal in Ukraine.
Tapper explained to his guest that Biden was trying to oust the prosecutor because he wasn’t pursuing corruption.
“It’s amazing the gymnastics you guys will go through to defend what …” Jordan said, getting cut off.
“Sir, it’s not gymnastics. It’s facts,” Tapper said. “And I would think somebody who’s been accused of things in the last year or two would be more sensitive about throwing out wild accusations against people,” the newsman added.
Jordan was accused of being aware of an Ohio State University doctor’s sexual abuse of male athletes.
A report from earlier this year found that Jordan didn’t know about the assaults.