Graham: Trump should be ‘as transparent as possible’ about Ukraine call

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Monday urged President Trump to release as much information as possible about what he said to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky regarding Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Graham, a staunch Trump ally, says the president would help himself by being as transparent as possible about whether he urged the Ukrainian leader to investigate the business ties Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, had with Ukrainian gas company, Burisma Holdings.

{mosads}Trump’s conversation came to public attention last week after an unnamed whistleblower alerted the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, that Trump made a promise to a foreign leader in a phone call.

“I would urge him to continue to be as transparent as possible and tell us as much as he can without compromising executive privilege so that we can understand what happened,” Graham said in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday.

“I would just urge the president — you know, he’s talking openly about the conversation — to release as much as possible,” he added.

Graham predicted that more transparency would only put pressure on Biden to explain his son’s role as a paid board member of Burisma and whether Ukrainian officials or businessmen used him to gain influence in the Obama administration.

“And here’s what I think: I think you’re going to find more about that phone call in the coming days. You’re going to be surprised about the level of transparency regarding that phone call. And in turn, that should put pressure on the system to find more about what Joe Biden was talking about,” Graham told Hewitt.

Trump on Sunday acknowledged to reporters that he discussed Biden with Zelensky, explaining, “We don’t want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine.”

Graham has also called for a broader Department of Justice investigation into attempts by Ukraine to influence the 2016 election in favor of then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“Now it’s time for all things Ukraine to be looked at,” Graham said.

“There’s all kind of allegations about the Ukraine dumping information into the legal system and political system in 2016 about Manafort,” Graham added, referring to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was sentenced to prison for bank and tax fraud.

Trump defender and lawyer Rudy Guliani has raised questions about whether Ukraine revealed information about Manafort’s business dealings in a bid to help Clinton defeat Trump.

Serhiy Leshchenko, a Ukrainian journalist and member of Ukraine’s Parliament who revealed payments between former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Trump, denied the charge in an op-ed published by The Washington Post Saturday. 

“My desire to expose Manafort’s doings was motivated by the desire for justice,” he wrote. “Neither Hillary Clinton, nor Joe Biden, nor John Podesta, nor George Soros asked me to publish the information from the black ledger.”

Other Republican senators, however, have raised concerns about reports that Trump may have pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden.

“If the president asked or pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme. Critical for the facts to come out,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) tweeted.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) on Sunday said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that it is “not appropriate” for a candidate to ask a foreign leader for assistance.