Tag: Lindsey Graham

GOP cautions Graham against hauling Biden before Senate

The Hill logoSenate Republicans are cautioning Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) against the prospect of bringing former Vice President Joe Biden before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about Ukrainian corruption, saying such a move could backfire.

Graham initially ruled out the possibility of having Biden or his son Hunter testify before the Judiciary panel about their actions related to Ukraine, but he is now open to the idea, which is being pushed by President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate GOP leader, on Wednesday said it’s ultimately up to Graham whether to request the Bidens answer questions about whether they played any role in shielding a Ukrainian gas company from a corruption investigation.

View the complete October 17 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Jake Tapper Exposes Pompeo, Graham and Giuliani’s ‘Stunning’ Hypocrisy

The CNN anchor said that anyone who remembers Benghazi “may find it stunning” to see Republican members of Congress “trash-talking the oversight responsibilities of the House.”

It’s easy to forget just how different some of President Trump’s most loyal servants felt about oversight and impeachment when there were Democrats in the White House. On Sunday morning, CNN anchor Jake Tapper made sure his viewers remembered.

In the final moments of his State of the Union broadcast this week, Tapper said that the White House’s outright refusal to “participate” in the House impeachment inquiry means that the president is “seemingly thumbing his nose at the very notion that the U.S. government was designed with three co-equal branches, specifically to offer checks and balances on each other.”

“When President Obama was in the White House, the Republican-led House of Representatives conducted lots of oversight,” Tapper continued, “on the Fast and Furious scandal, on the Benghazi tragedy and more.” He said that anyone who covered or followed the Benghazi saga “may find it stunning to see Republican members of Congress trash-talking whistleblowers and inspectors general and trash-talking the oversight responsibilities of the House.”

View the complete October 13 article by Matt Wilstein on the Daily Beast website here.

Graham-Trump rollercoaster hits dizzying speed

The Hill logoSen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has become one of President Trump’s most vociferous critics on the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, even as he defends the White House just as loudly over the House Democratic impeachment inquiry.

Graham has flipped from Trump critic to friend throughout the president’s rise to power and time in office, but never at a more dizzying pace than in the last few days.

This week he has loudly denounced Trump for abandoning Syria’s Kurds to oncoming Turkish forces while doing everything possible to defend the president from a rising impeachment crisis.

View the complete October 11 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Justice Department hasn’t interviewed key Russia probe witnesses

The DOJ’s investigation into the origins of the Russia probe seems to be focusing on the intelligence community’s links with foreign sources.

For months, President Donald Trump’s allies have been raising expectations for prosecutor John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia probe, predicting that he will uncover a deep state plot to stage a “coup” against the president.

Durham “is looking at putting people in jail,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News host Sean Hannity in July. Republican Rep. Jim Jordan said Durham is about to unleash “a pile of evidence” that will “debunk” everything House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff has proclaimed for “the last two years.”

“Stuff is going to hit the fan” when Durham is done “investigating the investigators,” said Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera. “If indictments are warranted, U.S. Attorney John Durham will be bringing them,” wrote conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt.

But in the five months since Attorney General Bill Barr tapped Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia probe, and whether any inappropriate “spying” occurred on members of the Trump campaign, he has not requested interviews with any of the FBI or DOJ employees who were directly involved in, or knew about, the opening of the Russia investigation in 2016, according to people familiar with the matter.

View the complete October 5 article by Natasha Bertrand on the Politico website here.

Graham urges foreign leaders to assist Barr with investigation into 2016 election

“He is simply doing his job,” the Senate Judiciary chairman wrote to the Australian, Italian and British prime ministers.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham on Wednesday asked several foreign leaders to continue to assist Attorney General William Barr with his investigation into the 2016 election.

In a letter to the prime ministers of Australia, Italy and Britain, the South Carolina Republican requested their “continued cooperation with Attorney General Barr as the Department of Justice continues to investigate the origins and extent of foreign influence in the 2016 election.”

At President Donald Trump’s urging, Barr is examining how the FBI investigation into connections between Russia and the Trump campaign began.

View the complete October 2 article by Marianne Levine on the Politico website here.

George Conway posts epic tweetstorm obliterating Lindsey Graham’s ‘pure garbage’ defense of Trump

AlterNet logoJoining with other lawyers and prosecutors who jumped all over Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for his claim that “hearsay” evidence could not be used against Donald Trump in an impeachment trial, conservative lawyer George Conway harshly brought the Trump defender up to speed on case law.

Then he called Graham’s claim “pure garbage.”

After Graham used Twitter to attempt to dismiss a whistleblower’s complaint against the president since he didn’t hear Trump’s overture to the president of Ukraine for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden firsthand, prosecutors weighed in by invoking former President Bill Clintons’ impeachment where hearsay testimony was a central feature.

View the complete September 29 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Lindsey Graham and far-right leader Geert Wilders were photographed smiling together

Washington Post logoSen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) appeared in a photo with Geert Wilders, a controversial Dutch parliamentary leader with anti-Islam and anti-immigrant views, while both attended a European security conference in Italy.

Graham and Wilders, leader of the Party of Freedom in the Netherlands, were seen smiling together Saturday night at the Ambrosetti Forum on Italy’s Lake Como.

Wilders posted the picture to his Twitter account, writing, “Great to meet with US Senator @LindseyGrahamSC.” The post was deleted shortly after it was published.

View the complete September 8 article by Paul Kane on The Washington Post website here.

‘Accept the pain’: Lindsey Graham defends Trump’s escalating trade war with China

Washington Post logoAs markets have reacted with turmoil to President Trump’s escalating threats against China, one of the president’s staunchest allies in Congress had a stark message for American businesses and consumers: “Accept the pain” that comes with a trade war.

“We’ve just got to accept the pain that comes with standing up to China,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in a Sunday appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “How do you get China to change without creating some pain on them and us? I don’t know.”

Trump caused strife in trading rooms on Friday when he promised a 5-percentage-point increase on all existing and planned Chinese tariffs and then “ordered” U.S. firms to stop doing business in China. Those threats came at an already volatile moment, with American indicators suggesting a potential recession and Trump questioning on Twitter whether Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell is an “enemy” of the United States.

View the complete August 26 article by Tim Elfrink on The Washington Post website here.

DOJ will not prosecute Comey for leaking memos after IG referral as Lindsey Graham says failing to do so would be ‘stunning’

AlterNet logoThe U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided that former FBI Director James Comey will not be prosecuted for allegedly leaking classified information, Fox News has reported. This comes after South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s assertion that it would be “stunning” if Attorney General William Barr did not proceed with a prosecution of Comey.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz had referred Comey for a potential prosecution, but an official described by Fox News as “familiar with the deliberations” told the right-wing cable news outlet that “everyone at the DOJ involved in the decision said it wasn’t a close call.” That source, according to Fox News, said “they all thought this could not be prosecuted.”

During an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Graham said, “If Bill Barr decided not to prosecute on disclosing the memos, I accept his judgment. I’ve known him for 20 years.” Graham also asserted that if Barr “does bring a charge against Comey,” he would “hate to be Comey.”

View the complete August 1 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

‘Outrageous’: Lindsey Graham breaks rules of his own Senate committee to advance sweeping anti-asylum bill

AlterNet logoSenate Democrats and progressive advocacy groups accused Sen. Lindsey Graham of breaking Judiciary Committee rules Thursday after the South Carolina Republican forced a vote to advance his “dangerous and immoral” anti-asylum legislation.

The bill, titled the Secure and Protect Act of 2019 (S.1494), is condemned by human rights organizations as a sweeping attack on asylum seekers and an effort to expand President Donald Trump’s xenophobic deportation force.

Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, waived the panel’s rules to force a vote on S.1494 before Democrats were permitted to speak on the legislation.

View the complete August 1 article by Jake Johnson from Common Dreams on the AlterNet website here.