Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said emails released Tuesday by Donald Trump Jr about a meeting he had with a Russian source were “disturbing.”
“Okay, so any time you’re in a campaign and you get a offer from a foreign government to help your campaign, the answer is no,” Graham said. “So, I don’t know what Mr. Trump Jr.’s version of the facts are. Definitely he has to testify. That email is disturbing.”
“But what is equally odd is that the person they met with knew absolutely nothing,” Graham added. “So I don’t know why they would pick somebody for him to meet with who didn’t have information about the Clinton campaign, but on its face, this is very problematic.”
Trump Jr. tweeted out the email threads mid-Tuesday morning, about half a day after the New York Times had reported the existence of the communications which show Trump Jr. arranging a meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised to deliver damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
Graham is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, other members of which have already said they now will be prioritizing some kind of interview or testimony with Trump Jr.
“It’s very frustrating for every couple of weeks to find out about a new meeting,” Graham said in an interview with both MSNBC and CNN.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said that the media and Washington were obsessed with Russia.
“[Russia] is the Democratic talking point du jour,” Cruz said. “But when I go back to Texas, nobody asks about Russia. You know, I held town halls all over the state of Texas. You know how many questions I got on Russia? Zero. Outside of Washington, people are focused on, they’re focused on Obamacare, they are focused on tax reform and want to see a simple flat tax and abolishing the IRS and regulatory reform.”
