Lindsey Graham Says He Won’t Read Any Witness Transcripts If They Incriminate Trump

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham openly admitted on Tuesday that he plans to bury his head in the sand and not read witness transcripts that incriminate Donald Trump.

Not only did Graham tell reporters that he won’t read the transcripts – specifically the damning ones from Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker – but he said he has “written off” the entire impeachment inquiry.

In other words, Graham is admitting that he doesn’t want to do his job because he knows that if he does, he’ll be forced to face the reality that there was, in fact, a quid pro quo and it was, in fact, directed by Trump himself.

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As Maya Wiley said on MSNBC on Tuesday, Graham can try to bury his head in the sand, but he doesn’t necessarily even need to read the explosive transcripts to know Trump was attempting to bribe a foreign power for political help.

“The reality is even if [Sen. Graham] hasn’t read the transcripts, like any American who hasn’t read the transcripts, we have heard in the news reporting … exactly what they tell us,” Wiley told Ari Melber.

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Graham continues to move the goalposts

Last month, the South Carolina senator told reporters that they’d be “very disappointed” if they were looking for an explicit quid pro quo with Ukraine.

“If you’re looking for a circumstance where the President of the United States was threatening the Ukraine with cutting off aid unless they investigated his political opponent, you’d be very disappointed,” Graham said. “That does not exist.”

Now that multiple credible witnesses from inside the Trump administration have confirmed that the quid pro quo does, in fact, exist, Graham is changing his tune.

Graham’s new strategy isn’t to deny that Trump committed any impeachable offenses; we now know that he has.  The new plan from the South Carolina senator is just to ignore any piece of evidence or testimony – and there is quite a bit – that incriminates the president.

It’s a shameful abdication of responsibility from a man that was once respected by John McCain.

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Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.