Graham Spazzes On Reporters Who Call Out His Trump Obsession

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In the aftermath of Special Counsel Robert Mueller dropping his final report summarizing his Russia investigation, each side of the case is reassessing its position — including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who freaked out this Monday when a reporter suggested that he has a pro-Trump bias in the ordeal.

As a specific example, the reporter at a press conference Graham held brought up the Senator’s recent speech at a fundraiser for the Palm Beach County Republican Party at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where the president was in attendance. Although those remarks were behind closed doors, leaks suggest that Graham palled around with the president (and audience) during the event, as he’s done plenty in the public eye.

The journalist asked:

‘Is that kind of public closeness to the president appropriate? Does that not at least give the appearance of a conflict of interest given your role in chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee?’

With a harsh stare, Graham replied:

‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Did anyone ever ask during the Clinton impeachment if a Democrat was conflicted for speaking out on behalf of the president. I am an elected political official. I am a Republican. I am going all over the country to speak to the Republican Party. I want Trump to win. I’m chairman of the Judiciary Committee — I do my job very responsibly… There’s politics and there’s the rule of law, so to suggest that if you’re a Republican and that you want to Trump to win somehow you can’t do your job is absurd.’

The reporter didn’t go so far as to suggest that Graham can’t do his job — but keep talking, Lindsey, and maybe we’ll hear more of your guilt come out.

The Senator spent a considerable deal of time towards the beginning of Trump’s rise to the national spotlight in stark opposition to the eventual president. He derided Trump as a “jackass” who is “not fit to be president of the United States” — but now says he found common ground with the new commander-in-chief and stumps for him at about every opportunity.

During his Monday press conference, he took the pro-Trump side in the Mueller debate to dramatic extremes, calling for a new special counsel to essentially investigate the first one’s case, carrying on with the suggestion that authorities were in the wrong to ever be concerned in the first place.

In reality, there are clear mountains of evidence that warranted the suspicion about the Trump team, even if that suspicion resulted in the conclusion that no members of the team had coordinated or conspired with Russia. In spite of that, Graham wants an investigation of the investigators — and ironically in the very same Monday press conference derided Democrats for pursuing supposedly solely political investigative aims.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the Judiciary Committee’s Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) have all indicated plans to continue looking into aspects of the Russia scandal. Ironically, their work has converged with Graham’s on at least one point — both he and Nadler want Attorney General William Barr for questioning about the whole ordeal.

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