Lindsey Graham on defensive after tampering with a witness
Over the last few days, Lindsey Graham has been giving Donald “Fredo” Trump Jr. a whole lot of unsolicited advice. <em>USA Today</em>:
<blockquote>Sen. Lindsey Graham sparked an uproar this weekend by suggesting Donald Trump Jr. should ignore a subpoena issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
During an interview on <em>Fox News Sunday</em>, the South Carolina Republican, said he believed the subpoena from the GOP-led panel was based on testimony from Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, who is now serving a three-year sentence in federal prison for lying to Congress, among other charges.
“Anything based on what Michael Cohen said is worthless testimony. Michael Cohen is a worthless witness, and if I were Donald Trump Jr.’s lawyer I would tell him, ‘You don’t need to go back into this environment anymore, you’ve been there for hours and hours and hours. And nothing being alleged here changes the outcome of the Mueller investigation,'” Graham said. …
On Monday, Graham told reporters he meant that Trump Jr. should invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination rather than ignoring the subpoena altogether.
“You just show up and plead the Fifth and it’s over with,” Graham said, according to The Washington Post.</blockquote>
Junior did reach a deal to testify. CBS reports he will
<blockquote>…testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee sometime in mid-June, according to a source familiar with the matter. Trump Jr. was subpoenaed by the GOP-led committee last week to answer questions about his previous Russia-related testimony before the committee.
The source said Trump Jr. will testify before the committee for a limited amount of time — two to four hours — in mid-June. The New York Times first reported a deal had been reached for his testimony. As was the case in 2017, Trump Jr. will be questioned behind closed doors.</blockquote>
Because in The Don’s America, the truth must be controlled behind closed doors. <a href=”https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/05/14/lindseygrahamresign-goes-viral-after-senator-advises-don-jr-refuse-congressional”>This is not going over well with anyone paying attention on social media</a>:
<blockquote>Tens of thousands of social media users joined a call for Sen. Lindsey Graham’s resignation on Tuesday, after the South Carolina Republican publicly offered advice to Donald Trump Jr. about his recent congressional subpoena.
The Democratic Coalition, which started the call for Graham’s resignation, accused the senator of tampering with a witness and obstructing justice.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”>
<p dir=”ltr” lang=”en”>Lindsey Graham is a traitor. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/LindseyGrahamResign?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#LindseyGrahamResign</a> <a href=”https://t.co/CmpDISgqPB”>https://t.co/CmpDISgqPB</a></p>
— Democratic Coalition (@TheDemCoalition) <a href=”https://twitter.com/TheDemCoalition/status/1128122159988117504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>May 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
…
By Tuesday afternoon, according to the Democratic Coalition, more than 100,000 people had tweeted the hashtag #LindseyGrahamResign—pointing to a number of reasons that the senator is not fit to serve in the Senate.</blockquote>
Bill Palmer sums most of it up quite neatly:
<blockquote>But the real story at the moment is Lindsey Graham. He’s been spiraling completely out of control in recent months, to the point of using the F-word during live televised Senate hearings, contradicting himself, rambling incoherently, and saying things with zero legal basis. Now it sounds like someone in Graham’s circle has managed to convince him to back away from encouraging Trump Jr to violate the law. But Graham’s words are out there, and they’ll come back to bite him once the Trump nightmare is over.</blockquote>
In other words, witness tampering by a United States Senator should not be tolerated — but we will have to wait until voters pull the handle and flush the entire Trump taint down drainpipe before Lindsey gets the rigorous justice he deserves.
UPDATE: When Lindsey Graham has to go on Trumpistan State Television… ahem, Fox News Channel in a weak attempt to reset the narrative, you know that he realizes that he has backed himself into a corner.
<blockquote>Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News’ “Hannity” on Wednesday that he would be “reluctant” to have Donald Trump Jr. appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee after the panel subpoenaed President Trump’s eldest son.
“What you see happening is congressional committees are now beginning to take the place of prosecutors, and that’s dangerous for us all,” Graham told host Sean Hannity.</blockquote>
You know what else is dangerous for all, Lindsey? A “president” who is at the beck and call of Vladimir Putin because he is financially — and most probably personally — compromised. But, hey, that’s no big thingy to Trump’s Republican Party, who have largely abandoned the principles of representative democracy in favor of subverting the courts.
‘Nuff said.
