Nov 5, 2019 - Politics & Policy
Lindsey Graham says he won't read House deposition transcripts

- Zachary Basu, author ofAxios Sneak Peek

Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that he will not read any of the transcripts released Tuesday by the House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry, telling CBS News: '"I've written the whole process off. ... I think this is a bunch of B.S."
Why it matters: In a revision to his Oct. 17 testimony, U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland acknowledged that he told a Ukrainian official that the release of military aid to Ukraine would "likely not occur" unless President Volodymyr Zelensky announced an investigation into a gas company with ties to Joe Biden's son.
- Graham, a fierce Trump defender, told reporters on Sept. 25: "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. That does not exist."
- Graham was also pressed on what it would take to change his mind on impeachment in an interview with "Axios on HBO" last month. He told Axios' Jonathan Swan: "If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing."
Go deeper: Donald Trump's Senate red wall against impeachment