Tag: Lindsey Graham

Lindsey Graham gives shameful — and revealing — answer when pressed on Trump’s wrongdoing

AlterNet logoSen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) drew sharp criticism at the Doha Forum on Saturday when he made clear that — despite the oath he’s expected to take at a forthcoming impeachment trial in the Senate — he doesn’t have any plans to keep an open mind or act as an “impartial” juror regarding the conduct of President Donald Trump.

But another section of his comments that didn’t gain as much attention is in some ways even more damning. The interviewer pressed him on the nature of Trump’s conduct in the Ukraine scandal, saying: “Is it OK… ever OK for an American president to ask a foreign leader to investigate a political rival?”

Graham, and everyone else, knows that this is exactly what Trump did. And had Trump not done it, there would be universal agreement that it was wrong. So when Graham answered, he shamefully phrased his response to avoid giving a direct answer, while trying to sound as if he was exonerating the president.

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Lindsey Graham invites Rudy Giuliani to Judiciary panel to discuss recent Ukraine visit

“Rudy, if you want to come and tell us what you found, I’ll be glad to talk to you,” Lindsey Graham says.

Sen. Lindsey Graham is inviting Rudy Giuliani to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his recent trip to Ukraine.

In an interview airing on “Face the Nation“ Sunday, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said that Giuliani, who is serving as the president’s personal attorney, could appear before his committee separately from the impending Senate impeachment trial.

“Rudy, if you want to come and tell us what you found, I’ll be glad to talk to you,” Graham said. “We can look at what Rudy’s got and Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and anything else you want to look at after impeachment. But if Rudy wants to come to the Judiciary Committee and testify about what he found, he’s welcome to do so.”

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NOTE:  We  assume that by “testify”, Sen. Graham will have Mr. Giuliani under oath.

Sen. Graham Compares Russia Probe To FBI Harassment Of Martin Luther King

On Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) compared the FBI’s Russia investigation to 1960s-era FBI surveillance of civilc rights icons like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“It was as if J. Edgar Hoover came back to life,” Graham said. “The old FBI. The FBI that had a chip on its shoulder and wanted to intimidate people, and find out what was going on in their lives, the law be damned. Martin Luther King and just fill in the names.”

Graham made the comments during a Senate hearing with Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz, who recently released a report stating there was an adequate basis for the FBI’s investigation into ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

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‘That’s a lie’: Lindsey Graham called out for falsely claiming FBI stopped Russia’s attacks on 2016 Clinton campaign

AlterNet logoSenate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham opened up Wednesday morning’s hearing with Inspector General Michael Horowitz by falsely claiming the FBI was able to stop Russia’s attacks against the Hillary Clinton campaign, and suggested it did so early on, well before the November 2016 election.

That’s blatantly false.

Chairman Graham also appeared to imply that the FBI did so merely by contacting the Clinton campaign to warn them of Russia’s actions – and he made that claim to support his false theory that the Bureau should have told the Trump campaign it and its officials were subjects or even targets of a counterintelligence investigation to determine if they were conspiring with Russia to win the election.

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The more love Always Trumpers show, the more dangerous Trump becomes

Washington Post logoYou’ve heard of the Never Trumpers. That’s the president’s catchall slur for anyone who criticizes him or at least accurately attests to something unsavory he’s done.

But let’s talk instead for a moment about the true risk to our democracy: the Always Trumpers. These are people such as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) and even the once-reasonable-sounding Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.), who excuse away any evidence of impeachment-worthy misdeeds no matter how damning.

The Always Trumpers represent a sprawling group of lackeys and co-conspirators, willing to aid, abet and (most importantly) adore President Trump no matter what he’s credibly accused of. Come hell or high crimes, Always Trumpers always truckle to Trump.

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Graham Justifies Biden Probe By Evoking 2008 Criticism Of McCain

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) justified investigating former Vice President Joe Biden based on a debunked right-wing conspiracy by invoking Biden’s past criticisms of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Last week, in his role as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Graham requested documents from the State Department, alleging Biden acted inappropriately “to end a [Ukrainian] investigation of the company employing his son,” Hunter Biden. The claims have previously been debunked.

Graham’s Senate-based investigation echoes the conspiracies that Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has been pursuing around the world, including the parallel track of foreign policy that led to a holdup of Ukrainian foreign aid that triggered the impeachment inquiry.

View the complete November 25 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

GOP hypocrisy and impeachment hearings: Lindsey Graham and Devin Nunes once sang different tunes

AlterNet logoA video showing Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., during the Clinton impeachment proceedings resurfaced this week, illustrating how the Judiciary Committee chairman has reversed his stance on impeachment now that that an inquiry has been activated into President Donald Trump.

Graham, an ardent ally of President Trump, sponsored a resolution that has been co-signed by all but three Senate Republicans decrying the House impeachment probe. He told Fox News host Sean Hannity in October that any articles of impeachment against Trump should be “dismissed in the Senate without a trial.” He also called the impeachment inquiry proceedings a “lynching in every sense.”

The video from 1998, when Graham was one of the Republican House members pushing to impeach President Bill Clinton, shows that Graham was once staunchly against members of Congress dismissing impeachment before seeing all of the facts.

View the complete November 22 article by Igor Derysh from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Lindsey Graham basks in the impeachment spotlight

The Hill logoSen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is a lawyer and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, but his favorite activity on Capitol Hill is holding court.

Every week, television cameras line up in the hallway outside Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in hopes of catching a quote from Graham that will dominate the day’s news shows — and he rarely disappoints.

Graham’s positions on President Trump widely vary. He defends Trump to the hilt on impeachment but has emerged as the harshest Republican critic on his decision to allow a Turkish attack on Kurdish allies in Syria. Graham’s criticism over Syria triggered a rebuke from the president, who said last month that Graham “would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years.”

View the complete November 12 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Republicans Seek To Expose Ukraine Whistleblower

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) believes there is nothing wrong in calling for anonymous whistleblowers to be outed, even if it imperils their safety.

The South Carolina lawmaker instead told reporters on Tuesday that outing that person’s identity would be “very responsible.”

“The whole idea that you would use an anonymous person to generate an impeachment inquiry is dangerous to the presidency itself,” Graham told reporters on Tuesday, according to NBC News.

View the complete November 5 by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

Graham Says Trump Was ‘Stupid’ To Urge China Probe Of Bidens

The relationship between Donald Trump and top Trump defender Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) continued to show fissures over the weekend, when Graham criticized Trump’s public call for China to investigate 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.

“As to asking China to look into Biden, that was stupid,” Graham told Axios’ Jonathan Swan in an interview that aired Sunday night on HBO. “Nobody believes that China would be fair to Biden, Trump, me or you, or anybody. Bad idea. That didn’t last very long.”

Graham was referencing Trump’s comment from the White House lawn, in which he openly called on Ukraine and China to investigate Biden. It was that very topic that sparked a whistleblower to come forward and report Trump’s behavior, and what prompted a House impeachment inquiry.

View the complete October 22 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.