Donald Trump has been floating the idea that Ukraine is to blame for the 2016 election interference. That idea has also been pushed by multiple Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Ron Johnson, John Kennedy and other GOP leaders.
But surprisingly, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has been a prominent defender of Trump, told reporters on Tuesday that Trump’s conspiracy is preposterous.
Graham said “It was the Russians. I’m 1,000 percent confident that the hack of the DNC was by Russian operatives, no one else.”
“The Ukraine — they had zero to do with the hacking of the DNC and the stealing of the emails,” Graham continued, refuting a key talking point of President Donald Trump. “Whether or not people from the Ukraine met with DNC operatives, I don’t know. All I’ve seen is press reports and nobody’s validated those reports. I have no knowledge that the Ukraine did anything to interfere with our elections other than press reports and to suggest that we know that I think would be a stretch because I don’t think anybody knows that.”
“I’ve got no doubt that it was the Russians who stole the DNC emails,” Graham told CNN after a follow-up question. “It wasn’t Ukraine. Russia was behind the stolen DNC emails and [John] Podesta and all that good stuff.”
