Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox News on Sunday that the Ukraine whistleblower will be called before the Senate Intelligence Committee after the impeachment trial because “I want to find out how all this crap started.”
Graham is also threatening to go after former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter when the trial is over, even though Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team failed to demonstrate a single ethics violation or crime by either man.
As for the whistleblower, who is protected from retaliation by federal law, Graham told Fox host Maria Bartiromo: “The Senate Intel Committee under [Sen.] Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has told us that we will call the whistleblower. Why is it important? I want to find out how all this crap started.”
Graham, a vociferous apologist for Trump, added: “The day of reckoning is coming.”
Graham said he wants to know “if the whistleblower is a former employee [or] associate of Joe Biden,” or “was working with people” on Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) staff. Republicans have presented no information that either case is true.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of all of this to make sure this never happens again,” Graham said.
The whistleblower did not testify at the House impeachment hearing (the Senate called no witnesses) because information the whistleblower provided was confirmed by other documents or witnesses under oath.
Corroboration included Trump’s own rough transcript of his phone call last year with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he pressured Zelensky to launch an investigation into unfounded accusations against Joe Biden — while Trump was withholding military aid from the nation.
Federal law protecting a whistleblower’s identity is designed to encourage government employees with information of wrongdoing to come forward. Some Republicans and Trump supporters have revealed the identity of someone they claim is the whistleblower, which the whistleblower’s attorney has argued puts his client’s life at risk.
At the Senate impeachment trial last week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) submitted a question to Chief Justice John Roberts reportedly naming the whistleblower in order to deliberately expose the person’s identity. Roberts refused to read Paul’s question.
Republicans claim that Biden, who was pressuring Ukraine to crack down on corruption in the nation while he was vice president, was attempting to block investigations into Ukraine energy company Burisma while his son was on the company board. But the vice president was pushing Ukraine to oust a prosecutor widely viewed by U.S. and European allies as corrupt. A Ukrainian investigation into Burisma was closed before Biden came on the scene, according to reports.
Check out Graham’s interview in the video above. He talks about the whistleblower at 7:26.
