By Katherine Gregg Journal Political Writer Updated Feb 2, 2017 at 12:37 PM 

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina announced Thursday morning on CNN that he and Rhode Island’s U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat, will lead hearings into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Graham and Whitehouse are the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, respectively. The bipartisan hearing will take place in that subcommittee.

“I’m working with Democrats and Republicans to pass new sanctions,” Graham said during a morning interview. “I hope the president will embrace them, because Russia needs to be punished.”

Asked what would happen if new President Trump refused to sign a sanctions bill, Graham told CNN: “Then we’ll override his veto. … I believe that most Americans are offended by the fact that the Russians did hack into” the emails of the Democratic National Committee and a key player in Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

“It was an effort to compromise and put doubt in our election, and they’re doing it all over the world,” Graham said.

There was no immediate comment from Whitehouse, a former U.S. attorney in Rhode Island who also served as Rhode Island’s attorney general.

Graham told CNN that he intended to call an “oversight hearing,” along with Whitehouse, on the evidence uncovered by U.S. intelligence agencies in his role as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee. The stated goal: To learn from the FBI what Russia actually did “to see if we can validate the intel community’s findings and tell the FBI to go after all things Russian and try to figure out how to prevent this in the future.”

Asked if he envisioned any open hearings, he said: “Yes. What I want to do is try to get people to come forward and explain what Russia is doing all over the world, not just in our backyard.”

Of the potential for a collision with President Trump, he said: “I promise you this, I will not forgive and forget when it comes to what Russia did regarding our election. As a matter of fact, I’ve got a resolution I’m drafting up now to be offered soon, that says an attack on one party by a foreign entity is an attack on all parties in the United States … that we’re in this together, that when one party is compromised by a foreign entity, the whole process is compromised.

“So working with Senator Whitehouse, I want to find out what the Russians did in totality, go where the evidence takes us. … If Donald Trump, President Trump, forgives [Russian President Vladimir] Putin for what he tried to do in our election, then that will scream weakness and the world will get a lot more unstable.”

The FBI and the CIA have given lawmakers divergent accounts about the Kremlin’s motives for hacking Democratic Party emails during the 2016 race. The CIA told senators late last year that Russia clearly intended to help Trump defeat Clinton. The FBI has not been as certain that Russia had a particular aim in its interference, according to the Washington Post.