On 31 December 2016, the liberal clickbait web site RealTimePolitics announced with a headline that Lindsey Graham, a Republican U.S. senator from South Carolina, has vowed to "bring down" President-elect Donald Trump. Though Graham has been a vocal critic of Trump throughout the 2016 election cycle, he has not vowed to "bring him down." (Because the original article appears to be hosting malware, we do not link to it here.)
The article referenced an effort by Graham and other lawmakers to counter Trump's friendly overtures toward Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, even as Trump has posted messages aimed at the U.S. intelligence community to his Twitter account, raising doubts about the veracity of their reports that Russian hackers targeted Democrats during the 2016 presidential election:
The "Intelligence" briefing on so-called "Russian hacking" was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Julian Assange said "a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta" - why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Although Graham has hardly vowed to "bring down" Trump, he did decisively lay out his points of contention to the incoming president's dismissive take on intelligence reports about Russian hacking. During a 5 January 2017 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Graham pointedly questioned both the director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, and the director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, aiming to demonstrate the threat posed by ignoring intelligence reports:
As we go forward and try to deter this behavior, we're going to need your [the intelligence community's] support now and in the future. So I want to let the president-elect know that it's OK to challenge the intel. You're absolutely right to want to do so. But what I don't want you to do is to undermine those who are serving our nation in this arena until you're absolutely sure they need to be undermined, and I think they need to be uplifted, not undermined.
Graham's stance mirrors that of Sen. John McCain of Arizona, also a Republican. The two senators traveled to the Baltic in December 2016 in an effort to soothe anxiety in countries bordering Russia that a Trump presidency might provoke Russian aggression:
On a three-day visit to the Baltics with fellow Republican senator Lindsey Graham, McCain said he did not expect the U.S. to remove sanctions against Russia, imposed after its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
"That is certainly not the case today as I know it", he said.
He also said that the United States, regardless of who was its president, would have "a strong and significant response" as long as Putin continued "to occupy Crimea and has invaded eastern Ukraine and continues to threaten other nations in the region."
After President Barack Obama announced punitive sanctions against Russia over hacking allegations, Trump responded with a statement saying it was time for "our country to move on to bigger and better things." The statement fell out of step with Republican leadership, including Graham, who termed even President Obama's affirmative measures as being too little, too late.