When Sen. Lindsey Graham was a practicing lawyer, he prosecuted rapists and defended their victims. Now, the South Carolina Republican is tweeting support for Brett Kavanaugh, who has been accused by Christine Blasey Ford of attempted rape while in high school. Graham wants to be a compassionate attorney and a party loyalist, but it\u2019s hard to be both.<\/b>
\nWhen Sen. Lindsey Graham was a practicing lawyer, he prosecuted rapists and defended their victims.
\u201cI learned how much unexpected courage from a deep and hidden place it takes for a rape victim or sexually abused child to testify against their assailants,\u201d the South Carolina Republican wrote in his 2015 autobiography.
\u201cTrying to get a scared, confused, little kid or young woman who feels the best part of her life is over to recall a memory that their every psychological impulse is trying to suppress is not something you forget,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt has stayed with me ever since.\u201d
Decades later, Graham is taking to Twitter to assure constituents the Senate will confirm Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh \u2014 even before the Senate Judiciary Committee hears new testimony from him and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman accusing Kavanaugh of attempted rape when the two were in high school.
\u201cThe President is dead right about Judge Kavanaugh being highly qualified, the right person for the job, and also right about letting process play out,\u201d Graham tweeted late Thursday evening after President Donald Trump addressed the controversy at a rally in Nevada. \u201cKavanaugh nomination is still on track. Stay tuned!\u201d
The \u201ctwo Lindsey Grahams\u201d are clearly on display as the Kavanaugh drama unfolds.
There is the Graham who spent years as an attorney in the U. S. Air Force and then private practice, a thoughtful lawyer who touts the importance of fairness and puts a premium on hearing both sides of an issue before reaching any conclusions.
\u201cI\u2019ve been a prosecutor, a judge and a defense attorney,\u201d Graham said this week. \u201cI\u2019ve been literally doing this all my life.\u201d
But there\u2019s also the conservative senator who has served in Congress since 1995 \u2014 the senator in line to be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee next year if Republicans retain control of the chamber.
It\u2019s the Graham who could face a primary challenge from the far right in 2020, is fiercely loyal to his party and likely has already made up his mind about Kavanaugh.
\u201c(Graham) knows damn well there are some issues here that needs to be addressed,\u201d said Jim Manley, a former adviser to ex-Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts.
Manley observed Graham up close for years, watching him work with Democrats, including his old bosses, to find common ground. Graham was one of the architects of a 2005 compromise that broke a stalemate over confirming President George W. Bush administration judges. Fourteen senators, seven from each party, brokered the deal; only two, Graham and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, are still senators.
\u201cThis is someone who worked hard over the years to craft a mainstream centrist position as the go-to person for deal-making,\u201d Manley said of Graham. \u201cNow, he\u2019s part of the group that\u2019s pushing this nomination through, come hell or high water.\u201d
Early in the week, Graham was hinting he had doubts about how Ford\u2019s claims would hold up in a court of law.
\u201cThis case would never go to criminal trial because of the statute of limitations… (which) are designed to make sure that things that are too hard to reconstruct are not used to put somebody in jail,\u201d Graham explained. \u201cFrom a civil point of view, if you wanted to sue Judge Kavanaugh, I don\u2019t think you\u2019d find any lawyers to take this case because it\u2019s so unspecific about time, locations.\u201d
Still, in the immediate aftermath of Ford revealing her identity and publicizing her accusations against Kavanaugh, Graham indicated he was as sensitive to her as he was to his clients alleging abuse all those years ago.
Graham called Ford\u2019s situation \u201ctough\u201d and \u201cemotional.\u201d He said he hoped to hear her testimony, but added \u201cIt\u2019s not my goal to drag her out in front of the public… I don\u2019t want to belittle her.\u201d
\u201cHe was one of the first senators to say, \u2018She should be heard,\u2019\u201d said Andrew King, a former legislative director in Graham\u2019s Senate office who now works in a Washington consulting firm and manages Graham\u2019s political action committee.
Yet as the week went on, Graham grew less circumspect. He hinted that Democrats might have purposefully withheld Ford\u2019s allegations until the eleventh hour to delay Kavanaugh\u2019s confirmation.
\u201cIf I had something that I believed was serious and credible, that would disqualify a person from being a judge, I would talk to them about it,\u201d Graham said.
He suggested lawmakers couldn\u2019t be asked to weigh everything they already know about Kavanaugh against one woman\u2019s accusations from an event far into the past.
\u201cI can say that when you\u2019re talking about a party I didn\u2019t attend 36 years ago, how am I supposed to know exactly what happened? That\u2019s not the way it works,\u201d said Graham.
And under no circumstances should a confirmation vote on Kavanaugh be delayed past the midterms to accommodate an FBI investigation into Ford\u2019s claims or allow other witnesses to testify, he said.
\u201cWe run the committee,\u201d Graham said of Republicans, \u201cnot (Ford\u2019s) lawyer, not the Democrats.\u201d
By the time Graham tweeted Thursday evening, he was fully telegraphing his intent to vote for Kavanaugh even before he\u2019d had a chance to hear from Ford.
This isn\u2019t the first time Graham has put on his lawyer hat and walked into a deeply partisan arena. In 1999, as a member of the House, Graham was one of 13 House members who presented articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton.
If Graham is being political now, King suggested the senator wasn\u2019t to blame.
\u201cHere\u2019s a guy who feels he has put himself out there on behalf of the judiciary, keeping the judiciary sacrosanct, making sure these hearings are about qualifications and not about anything more, and he\u2019s been excoriated in South Carolina for (voting for Sonia) Sotomayor and (Elena) Kagan,\u201d said King of the two Supreme Court justices appointed by President Barack Obama.
Yet Graham looked around and saw Democrats determined to defeat Kavanaugh before he had even been nominated, King explained.
\u201cYou take a week of the protests and the shenanigans and to somehow be able to step back and pretend like all of that didn\u2019t happen… I don\u2019t think anyone can do that without having some sort of bias or some sort of political influence.\u201d
Graham agreed he felt wounded by the politicization of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, blaming Democrats for turning the proceedings into a \u201ccircus.\u201d<\/p>\n

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