Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham says that he will vote against a motion by Republicans to subpoena Hunter Biden in the impeachment trial.
Many Republicans have been demanding that if the Democrats get to call additional witnesses against the president, they should get to call witnesses as well.
According to a report from The Hill, Graham said that if his Republican colleagues introduce a motion to subpoena Joe Biden’s son, he said “I vote against it.”
The Hill report adds, “Graham’s opposition essentially kills the threat that Republicans have wielded in recent weeks that if Democrats win a motion to hear from additional witnesses such as former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, they will retaliate by subpoenaing the Bidens.”
Graham claims that the impeachment trial, which centers around a call about the Bidens, is not the appropriate venue to look into their corruption.
“I don’t want to call Hunter Biden. I don’t want to call Joe Biden. I want someone to look at this when this is done,” he said Friday. “To my Republican friends, you may be upset about what happened in the Ukraine with the Bidens but this is not the venue to litigate that.”
Sen. Rand Paul has been leading the charge to allow President Donald Trump to call witnesses so that the trial isn’t one-sided.
Speaking to The Gateway Pundit earlier this month, Paul warned that his Republican colleagues may be in trouble when they go up for re-election if they allow Democrats to run amok, like they did in the House.
“What I keep trying to convince my colleagues, particularly the ones that might vote to allow the witnesses that the Democrats want to call, is that if they do that and they don’t vote to allow the president to bring his witnesses in, I think the Republican base and Trump supporters are going to be very very unhappy with them. I think it will have electoral consequences — which is sort of my way of saying that maybe they should reconsider having any witnesses at all,” Sen. Paul said. “My hope is some will reconsider and we will just be done with one vote.”
When asked if he had any other specific witnesses in mind that he was looking to hear, besides Hunter Biden and the whistleblower, Sen. Paul said that “if they end up approving witnesses like Bolton, who I think are harmful, I will insist on a motion that says the president should get to call all witnesses that he or his team deem to be necessary to his defense.”
“I don’t want to limit it, I’m not his lawyer, I don’t want to tell him who he has to call — I’m just going to say anyone. ‘Anyone’ includes people he has mentioned, like Hunter Biden and Joe Biden,” Sen. Paul said.
The Kentucky senator explained that evidence of Biden’s corruption should be viewed as part of the process.
“The evidence should be presented for their corruption. I think the evidence is pretty damning. The mainstream media just passes over that and says ‘oh well, it’s already been decided there’s no corruption and nothing to see here’, but in reality, most Americans hear that some politician’s son was being paid $50,000 a month and they smell corruption from a mile away.”
“I also think the whistleblower should come in, and the main reason for that is he worked for President Obama, he worked for Joe Biden, he was there when Hunter Biden was receiving this money. My understanding is some of Biden’s aides told him at the time that it was a conflict of interest and he shouldn’t be letting his son do this. The whistleblower ought to be asked ‘what was your opinion then?’”
“This is a big deal, I don’t usually lecture my colleagues, but they need to understand that they cannot win an election if they become estranged from the Trump base or Republican base of the party,” he said.
Graham recently raised eyebrows when he was caught on camera congratulating Rep. Adam Schiff.
Sen Graham walking out of the Capitol encounters Schiff, shakes his hand and says, “Good job, you’re very well spoken.” pic.twitter.com/Ne1f8TB7Qz
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) January 23, 2020
