As Andy McCarthy wrote the other day, the Bolton book puts those who insisted there was “no quid pro quo” in the Ukraine affair in an awkward spot. One of those senators is South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham.
“From my point of view, to impeach any president over a phone call like this would be insane,” Graham told reporters in September. “What would’ve been wrong is if the president had suggested to the Ukrainian government that if you don’t do what I want you to do regarding the Bidens, we’re not going to give you the aid. That was the accusation; that did not remotely happen.”
Asked on Tuesday in the Capitol if he still thinks conditioning military aid to Ukraine on a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens would have been wrong, Graham told National Review: “Basically what they’ve proved to me: It would have been wrong for President Trump not to raise this issue. You have to be willfully blind and say that Democratic misconduct doesn’t matter to you, not to believe the president had good reason to ask the Ukraine to look into the Biden affair.”
While Graham now defends President Trump’s asking the government of Ukraine to look into Burisma and Hunter Biden, he would not, when asked a second time, directly address the question of whether a quid pro quo of military aid for investigations would have been right or wrong.