Lindsey Graham Responds To Impeachment Trial Like A Scoundrel

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On Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) responded to ongoing impeachment trial proceedings against ex-President Donald Trump over a charge of incitement of insurrection with a bizarre rant in which he insisted that the presentation from House impeachment case managers was “offensive and absurd.” In a rambling appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show in which he elaborated on his thoughts, Graham complained about House managers’ attempt to tie Trump’s own actions to the violence at the Capitol on January 6, but pretending like the rioters weren’t acting under their impression of Trump’s own rhetoric is incoherent and laughable.

Graham angrily ranted as follows:

‘The “Not Guilty” vote is growing after today. I think most Republicans found the presentation by the House managers offensive and absurd. We all know what happened at the Capitol was terrible. I hope everybody involved that broke into the Capitol goes to jail, but I don’t remember any of these House managers saying a damn thing when they were trying to break into my house and going after Susan Collins and spitting on all of us. If this is a problem, for a politician to give the speech that President Trump did, well then Kamala Harris has a real problem, because she actively engaged in bailing out rioters.’

It’s notable that Graham singled out Harris, who is Black, no matter the fact that numerous prominent individuals backed raising bail money for people who were jailed during protests last year.

Many people who were taken into custody were themselves victims of police overreach, as evidenced by the fact that 29 percent of 170 people who arrested in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area between May 26 and June 2, 2020, in connection to local protests did not even face charges. Harris did not single out violent rioters for support, and pretending otherwise is ridiculous — she shared a message asking for donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, an organization supporting bail needs for people around Minnesota, including anti-police brutality demonstration participants. Harris shared her message of support on June 1. Broadly, cash bail unfairly subjects poorer individuals to pre-trial detention. Supporting criminal justice reform doesn’t equal supporting criminals.

Overall, top Democrats have repeatedly and unequivocally condemned all violence, excluding it from their support for all of the actual peaceful protests that some Republicans often seem interested in pretending were some kind of illusion.

Idiotically, Graham subsequently said in reference to Capitol rioting that “if there was pre-planning, there was no incitement,” but House managers have vocally established the fact that Trump’s incitement of the rioters went well beyond his speech on January 6. For months, he spread the deranged lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged for Biden, and the rioters at the Capitol used this exact lie as a pretense for their actions. These concepts are not remotely complicated!

Graham also insinuated that Trump had no idea that violence was getting planned for January 6, but his supporters who intended to harm members of Congress weren’t secretive about their intentions! Even if Trump didn’t personally read Parler posts containing plans for violence, pretending like the violence at the Capitol was a big surprise that Trump’s circle didn’t see coming is ridiculous.

Ignorantly, Graham characterized House managers’ supposed argument as the idea that Trump was personally “monitoring the Proud Boys and other crazy websites” and “knew” that rioters would be coming to D.C., which Graham insisted didn’t actually happen — but Trump himself publicly asked his supporters to come to D.C. on January 6 for a protest that he said would be “wild”! Feigning ignorance on Trump’s part is laughably unhinged. Watch Graham’s ridiculous comments below: