Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said that his “bullshit meter got pegged” Thursday and led to his impassioned defense of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during the hearing involving the judge and Christine Blasey Ford.
Graham told reporters after the meeting that he wasn’t sure earlier in the day if he planned on handing over his five minutes to question Kavanaugh to Rachel Mitchell, the outside counsel brought in to question Ford and Kavanaugh. Mitchell started off the questioning of the Supreme Court nominee before Graham took over and hit Democrats for putting the judge through the “most unethical sham” he’s seen in his his political lifetime.
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“My bullshit meter got pegged by all the process stuff,” Graham said while exiting a Senate GOP conference meeting. “I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I had it up to here with talking about his yearbook and trying to imply that ‘why won’t you ask for an FBI investigation’ like he’s the problem. … He has stepped up. He has never shied away. Those folks on the other side created the problems.”
Republicans announced an expected vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Kavanaugh’s nomination Friday following their 9:30 a.m. meeting, with procedural votes on Saturday and Monday before a final vote expected on Tuesday.
Republicans believe that Graham’s comments, during which he decried what he viewed as a Democratic-led takedown of Kavanaugh and said that Republicans would be “legitimizing the most despicable thing” he’s seen in politics if they vote against him, were the turning point in the hearing. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted out a laudatory message for the South Carolina Republican, and Republicans believe it was time for him to wrest control from Mitchell, who they believe was “methodical,” but not yielding answers as they had hoped.
“We asked her as an expert in this type of case to get as many of the facts out as she could,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “But frankly, I think there was some frustration among senators that they thought were arguments that needed to be made that she, frankly, was not equipped to make.”
Republicans also made some gains within their conference toward Kavanaugh’s nomination. Shortly after the meeting, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who previously had been a key holdout, announced his support for Kavanaugh.
The key remains a trio of senators: Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., the only one of the three who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Flake’s vote during Friday’s committee vote could alter everything as 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats sit on the panel.
