Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham revealed Monday he was the person who told John McCain to give the infamous Golden Showers dossier to the FBI and complained that other people tried to use the 'piece of garbage' to hurt President Donald Trump.

Graham, who played golf with the president in West Palm Beach on Sunday, said he spoke to Trump in a 'very direct' way about his criticism of the late senator and said it wasn't McCain who leaked the dossier.

'I told the President it was not John McCain. I know because John McCain showed me the dossier. And I told him the only thing I knew to do with it, it could be a bunch of garbage, it could be true, who knows? Turn it over to somebody who's job it is to find these things out and John McCain acted appropriately,' Graham told CNN.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham revealed he was the person who told John McCain to give the infamous Golden Showers dossier to the FBI

Graham said John McCain showed him the dossier and he advised him to turn it in

McCain and Graham were close friends in the Senate

He said he put the dossier in 'a safe' the day he got it and turned it over to the FBI the next day.

'And I understand that, clearly people are in the McCain world that did some things inappropriate but it was not John McCain. John McCain did not give it to anybody in the press, he talked to me just as soon as he got it, and he turned it over to the FBI and that's exactly what he should have done,' Graham said.

Trump complained multiple times last week that the late senator should have come to him after he was first handed a copy of the infamous Golden Showers dossier.

'John McCain received the fake and phony dossier. Did you hear about the dossier? It was paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton, right?' Trump said at the event in Ohio.

'And John McCain got it. He got it. And what did he do? He didn't call me. He turned it over to the FBI hoping to put me in jeopardy. And that's not the nicest thing to do,' Trump said.

Trump also attacked the late senator multiple times on Twitter, focusing on McCain's ties to the dossier.

'So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) 'last in his class' (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!, the president wrote last Sunday.

McCain associate and former State Department official David Kramer testified in a court case that McCain gave the first pages of the dossier to former FBI Director James Comey on December 9, 2018.

The Steele dossier, which was written by former British spy Christopher Steele and paid for by Fusion GPS - a research firm that also did work for the Democratic National Committee, offered unverified allegations Trump was vulnerable to blackmail from Russia and had engaged with 'golden showers' with prostitutes during a 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant.

Graham vowed to find out how Steele was hired to do the research job and how much money he received from Democrats to do it.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said he's also like to bring Steele before his committee to testify.

'I'd like for him to come if he would,' Graham said at a press conference Monday at the U.S. Capitol.

President Donald Trump complained during a visit to a manufacturing plant in Ohio that McCain should have given the dossier to him

Lindsey Graham played golf with Trump in Florida on Sunday; he's seen here returning to the White House with acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney

Graham said he would like to talk to former British spy Christopher Steele

Graham also said he wants to talk to former FBI director James Comey about the dossier and how much federal agents relied on it to get a FISA court warrant on Trump campaign official Carter Page.

'What role did the dossier play? Was it the primary source of the information given to the court? Was it supplemental? Was it outcome determinative? I want to know the role that Comey played in the process,' Graham said.

Graham told CNN that he told the president McCain is 'one of his best friends in life.'

The South Carolina senator said Trump asked him: 'He really was your friend?'

'I said, 'yeah, he really was my friend,'' Graham said.

And as for his golf game with Trump, Graham said: 'I played terrible.'