Lindsey Graham slams Mitch McConnell for backing impeachment in bitter public split day after traveling with Donald Trump claiming trial will 'invite further violence'
Lindsey Graham slammed Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders in the Senate on Wednesday as the House began debate to impeach President Donald Trump a second time.
In a lengthy statement, delivered the day after Graham traveled to Texas with President Trump to visit a new section of the border wall, the senator argued: 'The last thing the country needs is an impeachment trial of a president who is leaving office in one week.'
Graham, a staunch Trump ally, warned another impeachment trial 'could invite further violence' and decried Democrats for wanting to do a 'do-over impeachment.'
'The House impeachment process seeks to legitimize a snap impeachment totally void of due process. No hearings. No witnesses. It is a rushed process that, over time, will become a threat to future presidents. As to Senate leadership, I fear they are making the problem worse, not better,' he said.
Senator Lindsey Graham slammed Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders in the Senate as the House debating impeaching President Trump
Senator Mitch McConnell's office said Wednesday that the Senate will not come back early to hold Trump's impeachment trial
Senator Lindsey Graham jumped back on the Trump plane - literally - on Tuesday as he accompanied the president on Air Force One to Texas
Graham jumped back on the Trump plane - literally - on Tuesday as he accompanied the president on Air Force One to Texas.
Senator Lindsey Graham Statement
'Supporting the impeachment of President Trump under these circumstances will do great damage to the institutions of government and could invite further violence at a time the President is calling for calm. If there was a time for America's political leaders to bend a knee and ask for God's counsel and guidance, it is now. The most important thing for leaders to do in times of crisis is to make things better, not worse.
'The process being used in the House to impeach President Trump is an affront to any concept of due process and will further divide the country. The President, who will be leaving office in less than a week, has committed to an orderly transfer of power, encouraging calm and rejecting violence.
'The House impeachment process seeks to legitimize a snap impeachment totally void of due process. No hearings. No witnesses. It is a rushed process that, over time, will become a threat to future presidents. As to Senate leadership, I fear they are making the problem worse, not better.
'The last thing the country needs is an impeachment trial of a president who is leaving office in one week.
'Democrats have already impeached the President once over a matter which was not worthy of that process. Now they seek to do it again, believing that this effort will wash for history the fact that the first impeachment was based on the thinnest of pretenses: a phone call with the leader of Ukraine. Impeachment should never be a 'do-over,' but that is what Democrats are seeking to do today.
'To my Republican colleagues who legitimize this process, you are doing great damage not only to the country, the future of the presidency, but also to the party. The millions who have supported President Trump and his agenda should not be demonized because of the despicable actions of a seditious mob. The individuals who participated in the storming of the Capitol should be met with the full force of the law. They should and will be held accountable.'
The trip comes after Graham broke with the president last Wednesday, refusing to join a Trump-backed effort to contest Electoral College counts in the hours after the MAGA riot.
'All I can say is count me out, enough is enough,' Graham told his Senate colleagues then. 'When it's over it is over.'
But his tune changed.
Graham on Wednesday called out Republicans who are voting for impeachment. Ten Republican House members supported impeaching Trump under the charge he violated his oath of office by inciting the mob of insurgents that attacked the Capitol on Wednesday.
'To my Republican colleagues who legitimize this process, you are doing great damage not only to the country, the future of the presidency, but also to the party,' Graham said.
The House approved the articles of impeachment against Trump on Wednesday afternoon, 232-197.
Republican leaders in the Senate were weighing whether to launch a trial on Friday to consider removing him from office, a source familiar with the deliberations told Reuters.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ruled it out.
'Given the rules, procedures, and Senate precedents that govern presidential impeachment trials, there is simply no chance that a fair or serious trial could conclude before President-elect Biden is sworn in next week. The Senate has held three presidential impeachment trials. They have lasted 83 days, 37 days, and 21 days respectively,' he said in a statement after the House vote.
'Even if the Senate process were to begin this week and move promptly, no final verdict would be reached until after President Trump had left office. This is not a decision I am making; it is a fact. The President-elect himself stated last week that his inauguration on January 20 is the 'quickest' path for any change in the occupant of the presidency,' he noted.
He said the trial would begin after Biden took the oath of office.
'In light of this reality, I believe it will best serve our nation if Congress and the executive branch spend the next seven days completely focused on facilitating a safe inauguration and an orderly transfer of power to the incoming Biden Administration,' McConnell said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had pressured McConnell to agree to bring the Senate back sooner under emergency circumstances - to no avail.
That means the first days of Biden's presidency will be taken up with impeaching his predecessor.
If impeached, Trump would not be able to run for president again. Several Republican senators are thought to be considering 2024 presidential bids.
To impeach Trump, a two-thirds majority is needed to convict him, meaning at least 17 Republicans would have to find him guilty.
And there's a better than 50-50 chance that McConnell will vote to convict President Trump, according to a new report.
McConnell appears to be more set on convicting Trump in an extraordinary turn against the president in the wake of last week's Capitol riot, which left five people dead and destruction in the Capitol.
A Tuesday night report from Axios cited a top Republican close to McConnell saying, 'The Senate institutional loyalists are fomenting a counterrevolution' to Trump.
McConnell has been signaling support for the House Democratic impeachment effort that includes an article charging the president with 'incitement of insurrection'.
The news comes on the heels of a New York Times report that McConnell told associates he believes Trump 'committed impeachable offenses' and he's 'pleased' by the move to impeach him.
McConnell worked successfully to scuttle the impeachment effort during a trial last year on different charges.
His current view follows reports that McConnell never wants to speak to Trump again after the Capitol riots that had Trump supporters invading the Capitol, trashing leadership offices, and endangering the lives of lawmakers.
McConnell backs the effort because it will make it easier to purge Trump from the party, the New York Times reports.
McConnell has made clear in private discussions that 'now is the moment to move on the weakened lame duck, whom he blames for Republicans losing the Senate,' according to the report.
Last Wednesday, on the day of the MAGA riot, Senator Graham explained that he would not be backing an effort to challenge Electoral College votes, which Trump was pushing as a way to prolong his election loss
Sen. Graham (third from right) with President Trump in Texas to visit a newly finished section of the border wall
His view emerged as Trump, rather than express contrition, called impeachment a 'hoax' and a 'witch hunt,' and defended his pre-riot comments that Democrats have already said was incitement.
Trump called his speech minutes before the siege 'totally appropriate.'
McConnell's wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, quit the Trump cabinet after the riots, which included an angry mob getting blocked steps from the door to the Senate chamber that McConnell uses when he normally strolls from his leadership office.
A source told CNN McConnell 'hates' Trump and is 'furious' with him after the Capitol riots.
Trump was also a factor in the two special Senate elections in Georgia - both of which were won by Democrats and lost Republicans their majority in the upper chamber, removing McConnell from power.