In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina ripped into House Democrats for impeaching President Donald Trump , reports Mediaite .
Speaking with host Maria Bartiromo, the senator railed against Democratic leaders such as Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and attacked the media, defending the commander-in-chief.
Graham slammed Pelosi for refusing to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate, repeatedly insisting that Democrats are accusing Trump of obstruction of Congress only because he “chose to go to court,” instead of complying with congressional subpoenas for witnesses and documents.
“Instead of allowing the president to exercise his legal rights, they impeached him because he wanted to go to court,” Graham said.
“They impeached him for exercising his legal rights,” the South Carolina senator added, insisting that Democrats were deliberately putting “artificial” limits to speed up the process of impeachment.
Pelosi and Democratic leadership in the House need to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate, Graham suggested, in order to ensure that the whole process is over as quickly as possible.
Pelosi is indeed holding up the articles of impeachment , refusing to send them to the GOP-controlled upper chamber unless Majority Leader Mitch McConnell commits to holding a full trial, which the top Republican has still not done.
After criticizing Pelosi, Graham “busted out an unusual idiom,” as Mediaite put it, telling Democrats that “impeachment is a dead cat, stop playing with it.”
“Impeachment is a dead cat. Stop playing with it, bury it,” he repeated the line, accusing House Democrats of violating the Constitution.
Concluding his remarks, Graham said that both parties need to “get this behind us so we can talk about things people really care about.”
The White House has already hit back at House Democrats, arguing that their decision to hold the articles contradicts their earlier rhetoric.
In a new interview , Marc Short, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, suggested that Pelosi’s position is unjustifiable, claiming that Democrats actually want to impeach Trump because he is “winning,” building up the military and reviving the economy.
According to Democrats, Trump is guilty of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
The president, Democrats claim, committed multiple impeachable offenses when he allegedly pressured the Ukrainian government to launch investigations into his political opponents, threatening to permanently cut military aid unless his requests are fulfilled.
Trump and his Republican allies, including Graham, have denied any wrongdoing, strongly pushing back against Democratic accusations.
