Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called President Joe Biden shortly after the 2020 election in a bid to mend relations, The New York Times (NYT) has cited unnamed sources as saying.
The sources claimed that during the call, Graham said he only launched attacks on the president's son Hunter Biden in order to try to appease Trump voters following the election, described by the 45th president as the "most corrupt" in US history.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., walks through the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 9, 2021
© AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite
The call came after Graham publicly called for an investigation into Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine in late 2019.
The Republican insisted that a special counsel should be named to investigate the issue, calling it a "good idea" to look into whether "any crimes were committed". Graham also said he loved Biden but that he didn't believe his son's business dealings "pass the smell test".
The Biden family was embroiled in a scandal in light of allegations that Joe Biden pressured the former Ukrainian administration into terminating a criminal probe into his son Hunter over the gas company Burisma's corruption schemes.
The scandal erupted as Joe Biden was trying to secure the Democratic nomination for the 2020 election. Biden denies any wrongdoing, insisting that he's never discussed Hunter's business dealings with his son.
The insiders told the NYT that Biden, who saw Graham's probe-related call as "an unforgivable attack on his family", responded by saying he would work with any Republican, but dismissed what he saw as Graham's attempts "to have it both ways".
Shortly after the alleged call, POTUS said in an interview that "Lindsey's been a personal disappointment because I [Joe Biden] was a personal friend of his".
Graham retaliated by saying: "It's not personal and it breaks my heart that this happened, but I'm hell-bent on making sure we live in a country where everybody gets looked at when there's a reason".
Before Biden ran for president, the two men were considered friends, with each expressing admiration for the other. In one interview, Graham once touted the US president as "good a man as God ever created".