Tag: Sen. Graham

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.

‘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.

Graham moves controversial asylum bill through panel; Democrats charge he’s broken the rules

The Hill logoThe Senate Judiciary Committee advanced a bill to overhaul U.S. asylum laws on Thursday, waiving committee rules to force the legislation through over objections from Democrats.
The Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 to send the bill, spearheaded by committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), to the full Senate, where it’s not expected to get the 60 votes needed to ultimately pass. 
The decision by Graham to force his bill through the committee sparked outrage from Democrats on the panel, who accused him of busting up the rules on how legislation gets taken up in order to push through a partisan bill.

View the complete August 1 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Morning Joe panel brutally dismantles Lindsey Graham for doubling down and backing Trump’s extreme racism

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough was left speechless by Sen. Lindsey Graham’s impassioned defense of President Donald Trump’s racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen.

The “Morning Joe” host sat in stunned silence after rolling video of the South Carolina Republican defending Trump’s tweets, and doubling down by hurling his own slurs against the first-year lawmakers.

“You call Americans in Congress communists?” Scarborough said, after gathering his thoughts, “and you say they hate America? And then your punch line to that is aim higher?”

View the complete July 16 article by Travis Gettys on the Raw Story website here.

9/11 first responders slam Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham for failing to renew compensation fund: ‘We’re just not going to take your crap’

Two 9/11 first responders lambasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina for failing to renew a compensation fund for 9/11 victims during a CNN appearance on Wednesday.

Interviewed by CNN’s John Berman for “New Day,” John Feal and Brian McGuire — both of whom were first responders at the World Trade Center in New York City following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — asserted that neither McConnell nor Graham is doing enough to help 9/11 first responders receive the health care they need.

Feal, founder of the FeelGood Foundation, praised comedian Jon Stewart for his efforts on behalf of 9/11 first responders. And Feal noted that he has attended countless funerals since 9/11, saying, “I’ve been to over 180 of these funerals. This is painful. This is sad. And I’m tired of listening to excuses.”

View the complete June 12 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Graham: Trump officials not adequately briefing on Iran threat

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says he and other lawmakers haven’t been adequately briefed by the Trump administration about the growing threat posed by Iran amid growing tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Graham, the chairman of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and a top ally of President Trump‘s, said senators have been largely kept in the dark as the U.S. sends an aircraft carrier strike group and bombers to the Middle East.

“No, I feel we haven’t been well informed and I’m writing a letter with Sen. Leahy today to try to get a briefing,” Graham said Wednesday afternoon, referring to Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee.

View the complete May 15 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Graham Urges Appointment Of Special Counsel To ‘Look At’ Clinton, Comey

South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s most vociferous defenders in the Senate, has declared that he will use his power as chair of the Judiciary Committee to pursue his greatest obsession: Hillary Clinton’s emails. But that’s not enough for the senator. He wants Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, to join in his obsession.

“I know Bill Barr pretty well, and he’s pretty upset about the way all this was handled,” Graham said in a Sunday interview on Fox News. “I don’t know if he’s going to have a special prosecutor to look at the probability of criminal misbehavior.”

Graham’s “evidence” of suspicious behavior is that “nobody in the Clinton investigation went to jail for lying about the process because there was no process.” That doesn’t suggest to Graham that Clinton and her campaign were innocent, as the exhaustive investigations of her concluded.

View the complete April 1 article by Kaili Joy Gray on the National Memo website here.