Lindsey Graham’s Resolution Condemning Trump Impeachment Immediately Falls Apart

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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced his resolution condemning Trump’s impeachment, but it was immediately ripped apart as soon as the words left his mouth.

Graham said:

They created a process in the Intel Committee that’s behind closed doors doesn’t provide access to the president’s accuser. Shuts Republicans out for all practical purposes. And is an unworthy substitute for the way you need to do it is at its core un-American…What’s going on is a runaround the impeachment process. Creating a secret proceeding behind closed doors that fundamentally, in my view, denies due process. And when you’re talking about removing the president of the United States, seems to me you’d want to have a process that is consistent with who we are as Americans and consistent with what Bill Clinton was allowed to do, Richard Nixon was allowed to do.”

Video of Graham:

The problem is that what Sen. Graham said was not true.

Rep. Anthony Brown (D-MD) immediately replied, “When he describes it that way, all he does is try to leave the impression that there’s something nefarious going on. Let’s keep in mind you have 25% of the Republican caucus in the U.S. House of representatives is in that room. That’s unprecedented….Let’s say, that a Democratic member has to ask questions and review documents, those exact privileges are available to Republican members and their why is this in closed session? Because much of the information is classified and a lot of it is and this is different from 1973 Nixon and 1998 Clinton because in those cases, they had a special prosecutor or an independent counsel who did what we’re doing now in closed session behind closed doors. So right now, Adam Schiff and the Intelligence Committee are doing what we did not — what we had done in ’73 and 1998 by special prosecutors and independent counsel.”

Video of Rep. Brown:

Graham misleadingly conflated two very different investigations. The House Intelligence Committee is dealing with classified information involving foreign relations. That wasn’t a problem in the Clinton or Nixon impeachments. The process isn’t secret. One-quarter of the House has full access and privileges. Sen. Graham attempted to delegitimize the impeachment probe.

Democrats were more than ready and immediately responded. Sen. Graham’s resolution is a joke that was designed to do nothing more than please Donald Trump.

House Democrats aren’t going to let Republicans smear investigation. The GOP can’t debate the facts, so they are trying to destroy the credibility of impeachment.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

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