South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s decision to stand by his call for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be assassinated is being met with pushback from his Republican colleagues, with critics arguing that the rhetoric could have negative repercussions.
Graham told reporters that he hopes Putin will be taken out of power via assassination or a trial for war crimes over his decision to launch an unprovoked military attack against Ukraine, at times deliberately targeting civilian sites.
GRAHAM STANDS BY CALL FOR PUTIN ASSASSINATION OR REMOVAL: ‘SOONER THE BETTER’
“I think the world is better off without Putin,” Graham said at a press conference shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to Congress. “The sooner the better. And I don’t care how we do it.”
“I wish somebody had taken Hitler out in the ’30s,” Graham said, adding that Putin is “not a legitimate leader,” he added.
While Republican lawmakers said they agree with the sentiment, some said voicing the sentiment publicly could escalate the war in Ukraine.
“It’s dangerous. Sure, a lot of people think it, and I’ve had those thoughts too, but you don’t articulate that,” one senior lawmaker who requested anonymity told the Washington Examiner.
Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican and Air Force veteran who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said he would have used different rhetoric but hopes the Russian people can oust Putin in a similar fashion to Nikita Khrushchev’s removal in 1964.
“I’d probably say it a little more carefully,” Bacon said. “I hope the Russians get rid of him — I wouldn’t kill him. Do what they did with Khrushchev, [and] kick them out of power. They didn’t kill Khrushchev, but I hope that cooler heads prevail at the Kremlin and they get rid of him.”
Multiple GOP lawmakers noted that an assassination of Putin would be a violation of the Lieber Code, which states, “The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such intentional outlawry; on the contrary, it abhors such outrage.”
“While we all want it to happen, it was foolish to say it, period,” one Republican member said. “It’s against the law for us to kill a head of state or target a head of state. Remember [Chilean President Augusto] Pinochet?”
“I liked the idea other than the fact that it would be a violation of U.S. and international law,” one senior lawmaker added.
While Graham has faced backlash for his stance, he said he stands by his comments and feels that late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain would have taken a similar position.
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“I don’t care how they take him out. I don’t care if we send him to The Hague and try him. I just want him to go. Yes, I’m on record,” Graham said Wednesday morning. “And if John McCain were here, he’d be saying the same thing, I think.”
