On Monday, appearing on “Hannity,” Senator Lindsey Graham fired off a series of salvos at the Democratic party, asserting that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was not seeking the truth, but rather cynically using the impeachment process against President Trump to destroy executive privilege in an attempt to take back the Senate, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) prematurely “spiked the ball at halftime,” when she celebrated sending over the articles of impeachment, and that “2020 will be a blowout” because the American people “jealously guard the right to pick their own leaders,” adding, “I think they’re going to hold it against politicians who try to take that right away.”
Graham started by explaining what was to come next in the impeachment process:
Well, the House will be able to make their case for 24 hours; hopefully we do this in a couple of days. Then the defense team of the president will be able to make their case based on the record established in the House. Then they’ll be an effort to call witnesses, to ask for documents, and I hope that nobody will be called as a witness because every witness being requested by the Democrats were available to the House. They chose not to call them. Executive privilege applies to all these witnesses. So I’m hoping this can be done in about a week and I predict a bipartisan acquittal of President Trump.
Hannity asked, “Why would some of your colleagues in the Senate want to do the House’s job, constitutional job?”
Graham replied:
Well, I would tell my colleagues on the Republican side that Chuck Schumer is not seeking the truth. If you think Chuck Schumer is trying to find out what happened here, you’re missing a lot. Chuck Schumer is trying to take back the Senate. He’s trying to make the argument that if you don’t call a witness you’re trying to cover up for the president. The truth of the matter is that Chuck Schumer is willing to destroy executive privilege. I can only imagine what he would be saying if this were a Democratic president. Who is he asking for? The national security advisor to the president, his chief of staff, the Secretary of State, and the OMB director, four people essential to any presidency, and he could give a damn if Trump loses executive privilege.
Graham continued, “They just hate this guy so much, Sean, from the time he got elected to now; it’s been an unending effort to destroy his presidency. We lost five seats as Republicans when we impeached Clinton; people thought we went too far.”
He concluded:
I think 2020 is going to be a blowout. I think what Nancy Pelosi did, to spike the ball at halftime; the score at impeachment is one to nothing us; they lost one Democratic seat by impeaching the president. By the time the trial’s over and we have an election in November, there’s going to be a backlash and let me tell you why: most Americans jealously guard the right to pick their own leaders. I think they’re going to hold it against politicians who try to take that right away. We’re going to get the House back; we’re going to keep the Senate majority and President Trump’s gonna be reelected, and one of the reasons is the way they’ve conducted themselves.