Lindsey Graham, the forever sidekick to strongmen and straddler of political alliances, shocked few when he was spotted back in Air Force One just days after declaring “count me out” and “enough is enough” of President Trump’s increasingly vile antics. Although the South Carolina senator did concede to Trump’s demand that he lobby his colleagues not to convict him in his impeachment trial, Graham does seem to be playing a longer game than whatever sycophancy it seems on the surface.
For starters, Graham is reportedly the one who convinced Trump to film the slightly less egregious video nominally condemning violence the Thursday night after the storming of the Capitol. Tellingly, Graham allegedly issued the veiled threat of a growing number of Republicans supporting not just Trump’s impeachment but also his removal and disbarment from federal office. Maybe Graham is really just looking out for Trump’s reputation, but his plea on Sunday Morning Futures told a different tale.
After Graham uttered all the necessary praise to fluff the president’s ego, Graham got to what seemed like his main point: Trump must not pardon the rioters.
“I don’t care if you went there and spread flowers on the floor, you breached the security of the Capitol, you interrupted a joint session of Congress, you tried to intimidate us all, you should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Graham said. “And to seek a pardon of these people would be wrong. I think it would destroy President Trump, and I hope we don’t go down that road.”
Of course, Graham frames this through the lens of Trump’s own interests. But when he’s set to issue at least a hundred new pardons and commutations on Tuesday, the situation is urgent enough that even as optically gross as Graham’s sycophancy felt, it might just be necessary.
Consider, Trump has already pardoned Roger Stone and Charles Kushner as blatant favors to his allies. The reported candidates for new pardons range from Steve Bannon and Ivanka Trump to the constitutional nightmare of Trump himself. But the only thing truly grosser would be Trump gifting enemies of the state, traitors who attempted to terrorize Congress into overriding the democratically decided election results, the ultimate executive favor.
It’s easy to grovel that Graham can be a fair-weather conservative, but given the stakes involved here, he may be sacrificing his own political stature for a greater good.
