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Slow roasting turkey: Lindsey Graham gets a few more days to decide which door to choose... [1]
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Date: 2022-11-20
Last Sunday, I wrote that Sen. Lindsey Graham was scheduled to finally appear on Thursday, November 17, before the Fulton County grand jury investigating Team Trump’s attempts to fabricate a Trump victory in the 2020 election. But as it turned out, Graham’s long-delayed visit to the grand jury room in Georgia was pushed to this Tuesday, November 22 — an appropriate week for roasting a turkey!
In that diary, I wrote:
As I see it, Graham’s choices now are to plead the Fifth or to face a contempt of court charge if he refuses to answer the sort of questions that Judge May has ruled are clearly permissible and then try to appeal that contempt charge all the way up to a Supreme Court which has time and again ruled unfavorably to Trump himself regarding the 2020 election. Or he could actually answer the questions, in some weaselly way.
Some commenters figured he’ll plead the Fifth while others predicted he’ll answer the questions weaselly. No one predicted he’ll pick Door #2 — continuing to argue that the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause shields him from the grand jury inquiry. Since both the 11th Circuit and the Supreme Court already have indicated they agree with the District Court’s opinion that Graham is not immune from being questioned about activities which are not clearly legislative duties, he may not wish to gamble provoking a contempt of court charge. After all, as far as we know, no one currently has their eye on charging Graham with any crime. Indeed, the very first sentence of his original motion to quash the subpoena declares that he is not a target of the investigation:
The Fulton County District Attorney has ensured South Carolina Senator Lindsey O. Graham that he is not a target or a subject of the Special Purpose Grand Jury investigating “possible attempts to disrupt the lawful administration of the 2020 elections in the State of Georgia.”
By contrast, many people have reportedly received letters that they are targets of the investigation, including Rudy Giuliani and 16 Republicans who signed a bogus certificate falsely claiming to be Georgia electors and that Trump won the election in their state.
“It’s serious,” Harwin told Law&Crime. “The DOJ manual describes an individual as a ‘target’ if the prosecutor or grand jury has ‘substantial evidence’ that the individual has committed a crime. They are considered a putative defendant.”
Assuming prosecutors do lack “substantial evidence” Graham has committed a crime, it seems unwise to risk a contempt of court charge, but it also seems unwise for Graham to have chosen to become and to remain to this day Donald Trump’s “closest ally in the Senate” or for his choosing to say things like “there will be riots in the streets” if his BFF faces prosecution for flouting the law, or for his choosing to phone up Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for some reason in the wake of Trump’s defeat. Like far too many others in his party, Graham wants to be a champion for Trump rather than for law and order.
So who knows what he'll do. He’s perhaps not the brightest turkey in the Republican gaggle.
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