Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, chair of the Judiciary Committee, has now told several provable lies as his story rapidly changes about his push to illegally have ballots thrown out in the Georgia election.
Quick review: Graham called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and, according to Raffensperger's account, inquired about whether he could illegally invalidate all votes in counties where there was a higher prevalence of signature mismatches among vote-by-mail ballots (i.e. counties where more people voted by mail which would inevitably be pro-Democratic counties).
Graham quickly denied this account because it immediately prompted calls for his resignation and even criminal indictment. Seriously, why in the hell is anyone telling any secretary of state how to count votes, let alone a close Trump ally intervening in the affairs of another state?
Raffensperger—a Republican who has grown increasingly incensed over the pressure campaign from his GOP colleagues—reportedly had two calls with Graham and had originally thought he was calling to discuss the state's two Senate runoff races in January. But during the second call Graham homed in on the mismatched signatures and potentially throwing out legal ballots if they came from counties where more signature errors were recorded. The main problem for Graham and his now shifting account of the call is that some Raffensperger aides were on the call too (i.e. witnesses) and at least one has already corroborated Raffensperger's recollection. Oops.
"A staffer for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger said Tuesday that he participated in a controversial phone call with Sen. Lindsey Graham and said he heard Graham ask if state officials could throw out ballots," CNN confirmed Tuesday afternoon.
Earlier Tuesday, Graham suddenly began suggesting he had simply been calling around to multiple secretaries of state to chew the election fat. Only that was clearly a lie too.
After Graham told a group of reporters he had also called top election officials in Nevada and Arizona to discuss general election integrity, Arizona's Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs quickly tweeted, "This is false. I have not spoken with @LindseyGrahamSC." Nice touch that she tagged Graham's handle in the tweet.
Graham then amended his earlier claim (i.e. changed his story), saying he hadn't spoken with the Secretaries of State of Arizona and Nevada but rather Arizona GOP Gov. Doug Ducey. Oops—not two conversations with election officials from two separate states; just one call with the governor of... Arivada? Anyway, easy mistake.
Wherever this is heading for Graham isn't good. He's provably lying. There's witnesses who can attest to his calls with Raffensperger (one already has) and at least one witness who is willing to attest to Graham's non-call with her in Arizona.
Perhaps, Graham is now madly burning up the phone lines with other secretaries of state at this very moment to cover his behind. And what exactly happened between Graham's first call with Raffensperger and the second call in which he apparently began advocating for him to commit widespread election fraud—exactly the type of fraud Republicans have been railing against but haven't found anywhere.
It's all so positively Trumpian (i.e. criminal)—make baseless accusations about something and then, when they don't pan out, simply commit the fraud you baselessly alleged in order to benefit your own side. Sounds like Graham’s spent a little too much time drinking in Trump’s skulduggery on the links.
