Donald Trump, the prince of grandiosity, and the builder and developer of casinos and resorts wherever they were least needed anywhere in the world, descended an escalator in his Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, with Melania, his third trophy wife, ahead of him, wearing a very unnecessarily expensive white dress, and promptly proclaimed his status as the leading xenophobe in the Republican Party.
One of the numerous men (there were a lot of them, including Sen. Ted Cruz (TP-Texas)) who opposed him in the GOP primary in 2016 was Lindsey Graham, the Palmetto State’s senior senator.
Graham, who grew up in something called Central, South Carolina (it’s not in the center of anything) abandoned his presidential campaign before the primaries started, partly because of Trump, but he made it clear that he would never, ever endorse Trump (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/06/07/lindsey_graham_takes_off-ramp_im_not_supporting_mr_trump.html).
That was after Trump went after federal judge Gonzalo Curiel, because Trump, the most litigious man ever to do anything in America, called Judge Curiel, who was born in Indiana, a “Mexican” and said that the judge’s Mexican heritage would make him automataically rule against him in whatever frivolous and groundless litigation that was pending before Judge Curiel.
When Trump said that, Graham said that what Trump said at that time represented an “off ramp” for Anti-Trump Republicans.
But now, Senator Graham is one of Trump’s closest allies.
Go figure.
Graham is the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Knowing full well that Trump is guilty of many high crimes and misdemeanors, but refusing to admit it, Graham has now proclaimed that he’s already made up his mind to acquit Trump when he sits as a juror when Articles of Impeachment land in the Senate for a trial next month, to be presided over by Chief Justice John Roberts, a Republican appointed to the Supreme Court by Bush Two (https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/14/politics/lindsey-graham-trump-impeachment-trial/index.html).
When Graham was in law school, he took a class called Jurisprudence, and for that class, he had to read philosophy professor John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, in which Rawls explained at great length that the basic concet of justice is Fairness.
But Graham almost flunked that class.
Associate solitary reporter Melissa Smith, who covers Congress for us, managed, somehow, to get past the entryway to the Russell Senate Office Building (named after longtime Georgia segregationist senator Richard Russell), where Graham holds forth whenever he’s not dissing the Party of the People.
There, ASR Smith confronted Graham and demanded to know why he’s already made up his mind that Trump is innocent of obstruction of Congress, abuse of power, perjury, perfidy, obstruction of justice, and High Sexism, as well as numerous felonies.
Although a Southerner, that doesn’t mean that Graham is polite, and he knows full well that Smith is one of DNC Chair Tom Perez’ numerous operatives who are frequently assigned to monitor Members of Congress who are affiliated with the Party of the Wealthy.
Graham didn’t have to call the Capitol Police, but he did make it very clear to her that she’s never welcome in his office.