GROVEL MORE, LINDSEY:

[H]is top allies should come in to run interference. In particular, there is growing frustration that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has not yet called hearings into the issues that sparked Trump's interest in Ukraine: Joe Biden's alleged and unfounded attempts to aid a business whose board his son sat on as well as  a conspiracy theory that links Ukraine with 2016 election meddling. 

"Senate Republicans don't have to defend Trump on everything, they just have to do their jobs," said one senior Trump operative. "Part of that is holding hearings, calling witnesses, and forcing testimony on the misdeeds we already know about--Ukraine's interference in the 2016 election against Trump, the Clinton campaign paying foreign sources to fabricate a dossier against Trump, the politically driven Kavanaugh smear campaign, the son of the former vice president influence-trading overseas, Adam Schiff trying to obtain dirt on Trump from the Ukrainian embassy, and more. What good is controlling half of Congress if Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff get to run the whole show anyway?"

The complaints have come from the top down. One source who spoke to Trump in the past two weeks said that the president wondered aloud why Republican lawmakers couldn't be more like people such as Tom Fitton--the Judicial Watch president who Trump regularly watches on Fox and often excitedly tweets about--when defending him against the impeachment inquiry. And in public, Trump has increasingly let his dissatisfaction with Republican Senate leadership and others be known.

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