Tipsheet

Lindsey Graham: If No One Investigates the Bidens, I Will

Cortney O'Brien
Cortney O'Brien  |  January 24, 2020 12:50 PM

Lindsey Graham 2.0 is back. Sure, he caught some flak from conservatives for congratulating the Democrats' lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff the other night following the first day of opening arguments. But he's not going soft. At a press conference on Friday, Graham demanded that the media stop the "double standard" and start holding the Bidens accountable.

"He allowed his son to be a member of the most corrupt company in Ukraine," Graham said of former Vice President and current presidential candidate Joe Biden. 

Biden led the anti-corruption campaign in Ukraine while serving under President Obama, yet years later it came to light that his son Hunter had sat on the board of the corrupt Ukrainian gas company, Burisma Holdings. President Trump asked new-Ukrainian President Zelensky last July to investigate the Bidens' ties to Burisma. Yet, it was that phone call that led to the impeachment inquiry against Trump, with prosecutors alleging he coerced a foreign power to help him politically.

"I think if a Republican had done this, there would be no debate that we need to look at how did this happen," Graham noted of the Bidens' Ukraine scandal. "If you didn't know your son was doing this, how closely were you looking at corruption."

"What Trump is frustrated with including me is nobody in your business spent 15 minutes telling us what Hunter Biden did and if it is good foreign policy," Graham sounded off. 

"The president believes there is a double standard," the senator went on. "I think the president believes he went through holy Hell and I believe the same thing. What he wants to do is get to the truth. Can you imagine if a Republican had done this? You need to ask yourself the question. The media as an institution, would you not have people on the ground wanting to know what his son did when he contacted the State Department?" 

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Graham continued to directly address the press.

"The president is frustrated and I am frustrated that we live in a country where only one side gets looked at," he said. "And I am telling you now that I am going to look at this if nobody else does. That doesn’t make me a Russian agent."

We don't need to call Joe and Hunter Biden to testify, Graham argued, because they've already "got enough from the public record" to know that there is a "there there." 

On Thursday, Sen. Graham emphasized that he "loved" Joe Biden, but he just wants to see the same standard.