Confession time: there’s always been something about Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that I don’t trust. He has all the hallmarks of the stereotype of an oily politician, and a new book about his role in Fani Willis’ grand jury investigation might confirm my worst suspicions.
The new book is “Find Me the Votes: A Hard-Charging Georgia Prosecutor, a Rogue President, and the Plot to Steal an American Election” by Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, and it debuts next week. The publisher’s description of the book gives you a good idea of where the authors’ biases lie:
In Find Me the Votes, two years of immersive reporting by Isikoff and Klaidman has produced the most authoritative and dramatic account yet of a defeated president’s conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and how a local Georgia prosecutor—a daughter of the civil rights movement—decided to indict him and his allies for his desperate attempt to hold on to power. From the beginning, Fani Willis saw Donald Trump’s crimes as a voting rights case, and an attempt by the former president to deprive the citizens of Georgia of the franchise, a right for which her forebears had bled.
Isikoff and Klaidman take us deep inside both the nerve center of Trump’s effort to steal the election and the DA’s team of prosecutors as they build their case against the president. Their reporting reveals new information on the plot to criminally seize voting equipment in several states; Sidney Powell’s attempt to obtain preemptive pardons from Trump; and revelatory communications between the president and his co-conspirators. We see the prosecution take shape in Willis’s office in the face of heinous threats of violent retaliation from Trump’s supporters.
Regardless of your opinions about Trump’s efforts to question the 2020 election results, the narrative of Willis as the noble hero facing off against the mustache-twirling villain Trump comes across as laying it on a little too thick. But back to Graham.
Politico’s reporting on how the book portrays Graham doesn’t exactly make him look good. The outlet posted excerpts from the book as it specifically relates to Graham in its Playbook on Wednesday.
“After fighting a four-month legal battle all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to block his grand jury subpoena — and losing — South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham turned on a dime ‘and threw Trump under the bus,’ according to a source familiar with his testimony,” Politico reports.
So Graham fought kicking and screaming not to have to testify, but when he had to, he folded like a cheap suit. No wonder he comes across as oily.
Related: Whatchu Talkin’ ‘Bout, Willis? Fani Goes to Church to Grandstand.
“According to secret grand jury testimony in Fulton County confirmed by the authors, Graham testified that if you told Trump ‘That Martians came and stole the election, he’d probably believe you,’” Politico continues. To give credit where credit is due, Graham’s probably right on the money with that quip.
Graham also suggested that Trump cheated at golf, which merits a great big “so what?” But the final revelation from the book that Politico reveals is the worst one of all.
“After Graham was finished testifying, he bumped into Fani Willis in a hallway and thanked her for the opportunity to tell his story. ‘That was so cathartic,’ he told Willis. ‘I feel so much better.’”
If you were eating when you read that and lost your appetite, my apologies. Trust me, it gets worse.
“Then, to the astonishment of one source who witnessed the scene, South Carolina’s senior senator hugged the Fulton County DA who was aggressively pursuing Trump,” Politico notes. “Willis’s reaction: ‘She was like “whatever, dude,”’ according to one witness of the strange encounter.”
He hugged her? Could he have exhibited any dumber behavior?
Of course, knowing what we know now about Willis and her alleged sneaky link to a special prosecutor with benefits, we can surmise that she wasn’t thinking “whatever, dude.” She was probably thinking, “I only have eyes for Nathan.”
Believe what you want about Willis and her witch hunt of the former president. Believe what you want about the 2020 election. But I think we can all agree on one thing: Lindsey Graham is utterly ridiculous.
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