Former Rep. Trey Gowdy said that the one Republican who has treated Supreme Court nominees “fairly” is Sen. Lindsey Graham and that his “reward” included donations to his Democratic challenger in his fight to hold his Senate seat.
“What is pure roll politics is the one Republican who is actually done what most of us want to see, which is treat Supreme Court justices fairly, is Lindsey Graham, who voted for Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, and the reward for that is a historic level of money pouring in trying to kick him out of the Senate,” Gowdy said on a panel with Fox News’s Chris Wallace during the first day of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s hearings.
“I agree. The whole system is messed up, and the politics is out of control. Having said that, it was Lindsey Graham who, in 2018 or 2019 at a forum, said, ‘Look, if there is a nomination in the final year after the primary start in 2020 for Donald Trump, I will not bring it up before my committee.’ And he even said, ‘Mark the tape, and hold me to account on that,’ so he has flipped entirely. Here’s, I guess, my point: It’s all politics,” Wallace said.
Graham is currently in the middle of a contentious battle to hold his Senate seat, with polls showing him tied with Democratic contender Jaime Harrison.
Harrison raised $57 million in the third quarter of this year, which shattered previous Senate candidate fundraising records.
In addition to campaigning for his fourth term in the Senate, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman launched the first day of Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearings.
