Senate Judiciary chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pledged on Sunday to subpoena the two whistleblowers at the heart of the House’s impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump and force them to testify in public.
“If the whistleblower’s allegations are turned into an impeachment article, it’s imperative that the whistleblower be interviewed in public, under oath and cross-examined,” Graham told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo. “Nobody in America goes to jail or has anything done to them without confronting their accuser.”
The Republican senator, one of Trump’s most diehard loyalists in Congress, argued that the whistleblowers need to publicly testify “so the public can judge their credibility.”
“If that doesn’t happen in the House, I will make sure it happens in the Senate,” he said.
Graham confirmed he would use his subpoena power as Senate Judiciary chair to do so.
“Who are these people? Where did they come from? Are they tied to [ex-CIA director John Brennan] at all?” Graham asked. “These are questions I’d like to know.”
Graham’s comments echo Trump’s demands to “meet” the first whistleblower behind the complaint about his call with Ukraine, even though whistleblower law entitles him or her to anonymity to protect from retaliation.
“We’re trying to find out about a whistleblower,” Trump told reporters last week.
Mark Zaid, the lawyer representing both the first whistleblower and now a second (whom he says has “first-hand” information), confirmed on Sunday that the new whistleblower “made a protected disclosure under the law and cannot be retaliated against.”
Watch Graham below:
Sen. Graham says it's "imperative" that the whistleblower be interviewed "in public under oath." pic.twitter.com/277ZzTQ4Sk
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) October 6, 2019
