Even though the termites continue to gnaw at the woodwork of this once great country – the Taliban Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania are pushing for a state constitutional provision that would restrict abortions and undermine free elections; the coup-abetters on the U.S. Supreme Court have agreed to hear a case that could undermine free elections – some news items are nevertheless cheery enough to make us smile.
Consider, for instance, the dire straits of Trump groupie Lindsey Graham.
Graham has been subpoenaed by the special grand jury that’s probing Trump’s 11th-hour bid to steal Joe Biden’s Georgia victory – Trump demanded that the state “find” him 11,000 votes; he committed that crime on a recorded phone call – because Georgia authorities believe that Graham “possesses unique knowledge” of his alpha dog’s coup machinations. Indeed, the district attorney in the Georgia case believes that Graham also made calls “to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome” for Trump.
Graham is predictably trying to defy the subpoena, claiming that it somehow violates “the constitutional balance of power” because it’s a state grand jury and he’s a U.S. senator with “congressional privilege.” Which is all quite hilarious, because, as a U.S. senator, he had no business calling state election officials, one month after the ’20 election, and asking whether batches of mail-in votes could be thrown out. State election officials have long said publicly that Graham suggested that scam.
But what most interests me is not whether Graham can stiff the grand jury (you and I, as commoners, would comply with a grand jury subpoena), but how his pathetic subservience to Trump have saddled him with these legal woes. Because Graham is Exhibit A of the old adage that if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
Remember the stuff that Graham used to say about Trump, back in 2016, when Graham, as wingman to John McCain, still had the semblance of a soul? A short list:
Trump is a “nutjob.”
Trump is a “complete idiot.”
Trump is a “jackass.”
Trump is “crazy.”
Trump is “a kook.”
Trump is “unfit for office.”
Trump is “a race-baiting xenophobic bigot.”
And this gem: “You know how to make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”
But as Trump (with his unerring instinct for human weakness) soon discovered, a weakling like Lindsey Graham will sacrifice everything – personal integrity, good character, you name it – in order to be in the room where it happens. Even if the room is overrun with criminals.
So when a reporter asked Graham, a few years ago, how it was possible for him to morph from Trump critic to simpering sycophant, he had a ready answer: “If you know anything about me, it’d be odd not to do this” – because his priority was “to try to be relevant.” And if that meant sucking up to the guy who was trashing Graham’s hero John McCain even in death, then hey, no problem. Everything was grist for sacrifice at the altar of Relevance.
Graham has been doing that for a long time. Hard as it may be to believe, he sucked up to Barack Obama back in the day. After Obama came to power, Graham praised the new president as “a good role model and “an American just as much as anyone else.” Graham’s big thing, back then, was to hang out in chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s office. He weathered attacks from the Republican right – he was nicknamed “Obama Lite” and “Flimsy Graham” – because relevance required it.
Obama, Trump…what’s the difference? He wanted to hang with whoever had the nuclear codes because it clearly filled a hole in his soul. He was so subservient to Trump – on the golf course, at Mar-a-Lago – that various Trump aides nicknamed him “Senator Freeloader.”
Now he’s in the soup. Three legal experts, including a former federal prosecutor, have a good take on what should happen next: “(Graham’s) subpoena poses a big question for our democracy. Will the rule of law prevail – or are there some people who are just too important to ask to cooperate with a lawful state investigation into whether outsiders tried to use illegal means to overturn the results in a presidential election?…Graham’s appearance before the grand jury is important not only to understanding the full extent of what happened in the alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. It also matters to a core tenet of our constitutional democracy. No one, including a senator or a president, is above the law.”
Poor Lindsey, infested with fleas. Where’s my violin?