Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) appeared on CBS’ Face The Nation today and as expected, made a totally bogus defense of President Trump as regards the impeachment inquiry. Sen Graham’s argument was that because the whistleblower complaint is based on “hearsay” (second hand information), it is not credible and cannot be used in the ongoing impeachment inquiry.
Sen Graham said on Face The Nation, “We are not going to try the President of the United States based on hearsay. Every American has a right to confront their accuser…….” Sen Graham, a lawyer, knows full well that the purpose of the impeachment inquiry is to ascertain whether the allegations in the whistleblower complaint are true and if so to use them as a basis for impeaching Trump. Nobody is “Trying Trump” based on the allegations in the whistleblower complaint. You don’t have to take Yours Truly’s argument for it, just listen to what Republican Congressman Will Hurd, who appeared on Face The Nation right after Sen Graham said.
Congressman Hurd told host Margaret Brennan, “There are troubling issues within the whistleblower’s report, but they are allegations and I think that’s why we should explore these allegations through hearings….in order to get to the bottom of this. I will say this, I was never in a terrorist organization but I collected a lot of intelligence on terrorist organizations when I was an undercover officer in the CIA and so being able to get information second hand is not necessarily a bad thing. I can’t speak to the veracity of this whistleblower’s information but that’s why we bring people in and try to collect facts, understand what was said and be methodical about this…” There you have it forks, Rep Hurd lays out perfectly why there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the whistleblower complaint or the impeachment inquiry as Sen Graham alleges.
It is well known in the legal profession that a complaint does not have to be a first hand account to be credible. Very many meritorious complaints are often based on second-hand information. It is the job of the fact finder (a judge) or in this case Rep Adam Schiff and company, to hold hearings to ascertain whether the allegations in the whistleblower complaint are true. The impeachment inquiry is therefore a perfect vehicle for verifying the allegations made in the whistleblower complaint and it does not in any way violate Trump’s due process rights as Sen Graham, a lawyer, deliberately mischaracterizes it.
Bottom line folks, as Trump’s impeachment inquiry chugs along, expect Trump’s defenders like Sen Lindsey Graham to use every trick in the book to hinder or otherwise derail what is clearly a lawful and necessary impeachment inquiry. Their aim is to prevent the public from getting to the bottom of what happened in Ukraingate and to that end they will do everything to either totally cripple or undermine the integrity of the impeachment inquiry. It is sad that the once respectable Senator Lindsey Graham has stooped to this level and is putting the interests of his political party above our national security interests. If Trump used his office to get a foreign leader to interfere in our elections, the public deserves to know that and Sen Graham should not be working to cripple or malign the impeachment inquiry just to appease Trump. The allegations in the whistleblower complaint raise national security issues, something the old respectable Lindsey Graham might have been concerned about.
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