Scoop: White House directed Lindsey Graham to block Armenian genocide resolution

Authored by axios.com and submitted by DragonPup
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As we reported at the time, Erdogan pulled out his iPad and showed the Oval Office group a propaganda video depicting the leader of the primarily Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces as a terrorist.

The South Carolina Republican then chided him over the clip. "Well, do you want me to go get the Kurds to make one about what you've done?" he said.

What happened next, which has not been previously reported: As Graham was leaving the Oval Office, senior White House staff asked him to return to the Senate and block the Armenian genocide resolution — a measure that would have infuriated Erdoğan.

Graham confirmed this in a phone interview on Saturday.

"After the meeting, we kind of huddled up and talked about what happened," he said. A White House legislative affairs official told Graham that Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was going to bring up his Armenian genocide resolution and asked if Graham could "please object."

"I said sure," Graham said. "The only reason I did it is because he [Erdoğan] was still in town. ... That would've been poor timing. I'm trying to salvage the relationship if possible."

Asked whether he felt uncomfortable blocking the Armenian genocide resolution, Graham replied: "Yeah. Because I like Bob [Menendez]. He's been working on this for years, but I did think with the president of Turkey in town that was probably more than the market would bear."

"I'm not going to object next time," Graham added.

The "next time" happened last week. Menendez and his Republican Senate colleague Ted Cruz introduced the Armenian genocide resolution again. This time, the White House asked another Republican Senate ally, David Perdue, to block it.

"Senator Perdue objected due to concerns that passage of the resolution would jeopardize the sensitive negotiations going on in the region with Turkey and other allies," said a Perdue spokesperson.

The big picture: The Trump administration is pushing Turkey to give up its Russian-made S-400 air defense system. While they're negotiating, they're trying to block Congress from calling out Turkey’s human rights atrocities.

cinlach on November 25th, 2019 at 01:55 UTC »

Speaking as a South Carolinian, Lindsey Graham is a gigantic piece of shit.

strangerman22 on November 25th, 2019 at 00:35 UTC »

What is this with the executive branch “directing” members of the legislative branch(es)?!?!

KingRabbit_ on November 25th, 2019 at 00:28 UTC »

I wonder where Trump keeps Graham's balls. You think they're in a display case so he can casually admire them from time to time? Or maybe he just keeps them sitting out on the Oval Office desk so he can fondle them every time they have an unsecured phone call.