Whatever Donald Trump may think of Russia's involvement in his electoral win, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham says nearly every member of the senate chamber believes Russia interfered in the election, reports Mark Hensch.
“There are 100 United States senators. ... I would say that 99 percent of us believe that the Russians did this, and we’re going to do something about it,” Graham told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on “The Situation Room” on Tuesday.
Graham appeared alongside Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) from Estonia, a Baltic nation he said knows firsthand the danger Russia represents. [...]
"Along with Sen. McCain, after this trip is over, we’re going to have the hearings. We’re going to put sanctions together that hit [Russian President Vladimir] Putin as an individual and his inner circle for interfering in our election.”
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is joining Graham and McCain on their tour of European nations with firsthand experience of Russia meddling in their affairs.
While Graham and McCain have consistently voiced their concerns about Russia's influence in the election since Trump’s win, few other GOP senators have dared join them for fear of crossing Trump—who can't seem to handle the truth, much less comprehend it. Mitch McConnell has backed an investigation into Russian interference, but he's also stopped short of forming a select committee to conduct the inquiry, saying the Senate Intelligence Committee is "more than capable" of doing the job. But Graham and McCain have pressured McConnell to go further, penning a letter to him along with Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Jack Reed.
This could get interesting next year if Graham's assertion about nearly all of his senate colleagues is true. McConnell seems bent on damage control—hoping to keep the investigation as limited in scope as possible, while House Speaker Paul Ryan apparently wants it to go away altogether.
But McCain, who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Graham, who sits on it, are mounting what appears to be a full-scale effort to box in McConnell on the issue, regardless of what Trump thinks.
This growing tension just might provide one of the most public GOP disputes of 2017—assuming McCain and Graham aren't intimidated out of doing a serious, full-scale investigation into the matter.