Lindsey Graham’s Shamelessness

Lindsey Graham, a/k/a the Palmetto Queen - a study in hypocrisy.

One of the things that has been illuminating about Donald Trump and his candidacy and toxic and pathologically lying regime is just how morally bankrupt so many Republicans have proven to be.  For reasons I still cannot grasp - other than fear of the increasingly ugly GOP base - those who once pretended to have some basic understanding of both decency and constitutional and legal norms have shown themselves only too eager to prostitute themselves for Trump.  Among the worse is Senator Lindsey Graham who flatly stated the standard for removal of a president from office during the Clinton impeachment debacle.  Indeed, under Graham's own enunciated standard an indictable crime was not a prerequisite for use of impeachment to "cleanse the office" and "restore honor and integrity to the office [of the presidency]."  Now, faced with far more egregious conduct by Trump, Graham has thrown aside his own standard and is only too willing to look the other way and whine a far different song.  A column in the Washington Post looks at Graham's shameless hypocrisy.  Here are highlights: 

One difficulty about a career in politics is that the longer you’re in the business, the longer a track record of quotes and video your opponents can scour to undercut you. It’s something former vice president Joe Biden is contending with as he enters the Democratic primary, and it’s an obstacle his old Senate colleague Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) has run into in the wake of the Mueller report.

On CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Graham spoke to host Margaret Brennan; naturally, much of the interview focused on Attorney General William P. Barr’s planned testimony to Congress this week. As the new chair of the Judiciary Committee, Graham has shown enthusiasm for thoroughly investigating some scandals through to the end, such as the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server. He showed the same enthusiasm during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, when he was one of the House’s prosecutors during Clinton’s trial in the Senate.

But Graham’s doggedness has disappeared when it comes to a Republican White House, replaced by a deliberate ignorance. “From my point of view, I’ve heard all I need to really know,” he told Brennan. He reiterated the sentiment again and again, especially regarding Trump’s ordering then-White House counsel Donald McGahn to fire Mueller. “It doesn’t matter,” he told Brennan. “I don’t care what he said to Don McGahn. … I don’t care what happened between him and Don McGahn. … No, I’m — I’m done.”
 Asked what he wants the Barr hearings to focus on, Graham replied, “Does the report support his summary? Does the report actually indicate there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians?” Graham left out, of course, that Mueller made no finding regarding the nonlegal concept of “collusion,” only one regarding the higher standard of criminal conspiracy. And he left out that there was significant evidence that individuals associated with the Trump campaign conspired with WikiLeaks over the release of stolen Democratic emails.

Democrats are suggesting that a president who orders his staff to obstruct an independent investigation maybe shouldn’t be president — hardly a crazy standard.

Then Graham had to face his past, as Brennan played his words from the Clinton impeachment trial:

The point I am trying to make is you don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic, if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role. Thank God you did that, because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.

Graham tried to reconcile his hypocrisy. “What President Clinton did was interfere in a lawsuit against him by Paula Jones and others, hide the evidence, encourage people to lie. So, to me, he took the legal system and turned it upside down.”

Note the words “encourage people to lie.” Note that Graham didn’t say, “People lied with his encouragement.” That Clinton allegedly told people to lie was enough for Graham (then and now), regardless of whether the Democratic president’s entreaties were successful. But this president is a Republican, so Graham’s standard changes.

Graham is far from the first hypocritical politician. But the South Carolina senator particularly prides himself on being no-nonsense and on his legal experience. That he has opted for such an obvious double standard is especially shameless.

Mike Pence Is Intertwined in the Russia Scandal

Like the ever, in my view, despicable Jeff Sessions, Mike Pence acts sanctimonious and wears his right wing Christian faith on his sleeve.  Yet, like Sessions, Pence seemingly has a big problem when it comes to truth and veracity.  The only other explanation for Pence's constant back tracking on statements - or perhaps lies - is that he is an idiot and has been played like a gullible fool by Der Trumpenführer and his sycophants.   Over the last 20+ years that I have followed Christian "family values" groups, the one thing that is striking is the abandon with which the "godly folks" lie almost constantly.  This is precisely the background from which Pence derives his "Christian beliefs" - a background where lying to further theocratic goals is completely acceptable.  It's as if the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness doesn't exist.  It is in this context that a column in the Washington Post looks at Pence's incredible claims that he knew nothing of the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia.  Here are column highlights:

Vice President Pence is hip-deep in the Russia scandal, his best defense being that he was inattentive or an easily manipulated dunce. His home-state paper, the Indianapolis Star, reports:

Another of Vice President Pence’s past statements came back to bite him this week. This time it had to do with his denial last year that the Trump-Pence campaign had been in contact with WikiLeaks.

Donald Trump Jr. on Monday shared several messages he exchanged during the 2016 campaign with WikiLeaks around the time it was publishing leaked and secret material from Democrats. Those messages were exchanged in the fall, leading up to Trump’s eldest son tweeting out a link to WikiLeaks’ documents on Oct. 14, 2016, the same day Pence was asked by Fox News to respond to suggestions “that your campaign is in cahoots with WikiLeaks.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Pence responded. “Here you see the national media chasing after unsubstantial allegations, the allegations that Donald Trump has categorically denied.”

Pence has a trail of inaccurate statements concerning the Trump campaign and Russia, nearly as many as the memory-challenged attorney general.

Consider the hiring of former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn. . . . . Flynn also lied to the vice president about his contacts with Russian officials during the transition, a lie that set in motion Sally Yates’s conversation with the White House general counsel and ultimately resulted in Flynn’s resignation, the opening of the Russia probe and the firing of former FBI director James B. Comey.

When Trump wanted to lean on Comey to drop the investigation of Flynn, he ordered both Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions out of the Oval Office. Put that down as evidence that Pence was being kept in the dark.

However, Pence reportedly was present at the Oval Office meeting where Trump read the draft memo concerning his decision to fire Comey. That memo apparently was a screed about Comey’s handling of the Russia probe. Pence subsequently related to Congress and the press the phony cover story that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein had cooked up, namely that Comey had improperly handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Pence denied Comey was fired over the Russia investigation, a position Trump swiftly contradicted in his interview with NBC News’s Lester Holt.

[L]ike now-embattled Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Pence repeatedly denied that the campaign had any contacts with the Russians. Perhaps Pence knew and forgot, perhaps he knew and lied on behalf of the president, or perhaps he was kept in the dark.

At some point, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III almost certainly will want to interview Pence. (Pence’s lawyer reportedly met with Mueller over the summer.) At that point, Pence will need to explain how it was that he never learned in real time about Flynn’s legal problems as an unregistered foreign agent, never knew about campaign or transition contacts with Russians and/or WikiLeaks and didn’t know that Comey was being fired at least in part because of the Russia episode.

[O]ne wonders why he would want to continue serving in an administration that uses him to deceive Congress, the press and the public. At some point, if Pence is an innocent man wrapped up in a web of dishonesty and subterfuge, you’d think he’d get angry, refuse to carry the president’s water and even quit.

In any event, Pence’s political future is dim. If he’s complicit in a coverup, he’s in legal peril. If he’s not, he’s a fool and a pawn, someone far too naive to be entrusted with power.  

 Like Trump, Pence needs to be removed from office.