Sens. Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham both indicated that voting to remove President Trump from the Oval Office is on the table for them should the House pass articles of impeachment.
In a Sunday interview with Axios HBO, Romney “made it clear that he’s open to voting to remove Trump.” The Utah Republican outlined the answers he’ll be looking for if the impeachment process reaches the Senate, including who was involved in Trump’s communications with Ukraine, the intentions behind the conversations, and if efforts were made to conceal the transcript of his July 25 phone call with the country.
Romney did say, however, that he’d have a high bar for voting to remove Trump from office, pointing to wrong or possibly illegal activities of other presidents that didn’t amount to being removed.
Graham, who has proven to be one of the president’s strongest allies in Congress, indicated on Axios HBO that he’s open to changing his mind on impeachment if a quid pro quo with Ukraine is confirmed.
“Sure. I mean … show me something that … is a crime,” he said. “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.”
He added, “I’ve read the transcript of the Ukrainian phone call. That’s not a quid pro quo to me.”
While Graham’s interview aired Sunday, it took place on Tuesday — before acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted that a quid pro quo was involved in Trump’s communications with Ukraine, which he later walked back. However, the South Carolina Republican’s spokesperson told the outlet that “Graham still has not heard or seen anything that he deems impeachable.”
House Democrats opened an impeachment inquiry into the president after a whistleblower complaint about his call with the Ukrainian leader, which alleged that he withheld military aid to the country in exchange for an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
