Graham encouraged McCain to turn Trump-Russia dossier over to FBI

Graham told CNN after a news conference that he told Trump in Florida this weekend that "Sen. McCain deserves better" than the way the President has been publicly disparaging the late senator and war hero in the last week. And Graham publicly acknowledged he had advanced knowledge of the dossier, the existence of which has enraged the President.

Graham defended McCain's role and said that he told Trump that his close friend's involvement was limited.

"I told the President that it was not John McCain (who spread rumors about Trump's ties to Russia). I know because John McCain showed me the dossier," Graham said. "I told him that the only thing I know to do with it -- could be a bunch of garbage, it could be true. Who knows? Turn it over to somebody whose job it is to find these things out. And John McCain acted appropriately."

Former McCain aide David Kramer approached the Arizona senator after the 2016 elections with former British spy Christopher Steele's dossier of Trump-Russia connections, and then McCain said he delivered the documents to the FBI, saying that was the extent of his involvement.

In November 2016, a former British ambassador to Russia who knew about what Steele had researched met McCain, his staffer Christopher Brose and Kramer, a former State Department official who worked alongside McCain, in Halifax.

At McCain's request, Kramer followed up with Steele, then received copies of the dossier from an owner of Fusion GPS.

Kramer then shared the dossier with McCain and the Senate staffer on November 30, 2016, and asked McCain to pass it to the FBI and CIA.

Graham said McCain is "one of his best friends in life" and Trump asked the South Carolina senator: "He really was your friend?"

CNN's Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.

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