South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has been criticized for claiming that President Donald Trump made a “mistake” his first week in office.
During an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press, Graham told host Kristen Welker that Trump’s pardon of the Jan. 6 defendants was a “mistake.”
“Even his own vice president said, ‘If you committed violence on that day, obviously, you shouldn’t be pardoned.’ Do you believe that President Trump was wrong to issue these blanket pardons to the January 6th defendants?” Welker asked.
Graham answered, “Number one, he had the legal authority to do it, but I fear you will get more violence. Pardoning the people who went into the Capitol and beat up a police officer violently, I think, was a mistake, because it seems to suggest that’s an OK thing to do.”
Several conservatives on social media didn’t take long to call out Graham.
“Another RINO that needs to go. Time for the next generation to step in. We need to vote them in,” one user wrote.
Another user called @chicagopatty1, described as a “First generation American,” wrote, “The mistake is that Lindsey Graham is still in office.”
User @facedschiff wrote, “That man is a snake. Wake up people of SC.”
User @JohnStrandUSA posted, “Lindsay Graham is pretending he doesn’t know that most allegations of violence by protesters were false or dishonest & manipulated, and predicated on government entrapment and violent (even DEADLY) police brutality and misconduct. He does know—and he’s a scoundrel. VOTE HIM OUT.”
“Who cares what Lindsey Graham likes. Most of us don’t like him,” posted “MAGA” Trump supporter @JackiBr16652825.
WATCH:
GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia revealed that House Speaker Mike Johnson promised him that his investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol will be “formalized as a new committee.”
This is part of a larger plan by Republicans to keep going with several investigations they started in the last Congress, now that they control both houses of Congress and the White House.
Loudermilk told CNN that the new committee’s details are still being worked out, but one option is to make it so that Johnson has more say over who is put on the panel (called a “select committee”) and how it works.
Making a new committee to highlight Loudermilk’s work, which included a report suggesting that former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney be charged by the FBI, keeps the Republican campaign to keep President Donald Trump from being held responsible for the violence on January 6 in the spotlight.
“It was so singularly focused that basically Trump created this entire problem,” Loudermilk said of the former January 6 select committee that Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney helped lead. “When in reality, it was a multitude of failures at different levels.”
Johnson has publicly stated that the new effort to investigate January 6 will be “fully funded” and move ahead in the new Congress.
“Continuing its investigation into the previous January 6 select committee – which featured Cheney as a vice chair and had another Republican member – and broader security response to the Capitol attack is not the only way Republicans plan to use their new majority to carry over their previous investigations that remain politically charged,” CNN reported last week.
“Republicans re-issued subpoenas related to special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents and two Justice Department tax investigators who worked on the Hunter Biden case on Monday, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Those subpoenas would renew pursuits by the previous Congress that have been fought over in court – and not resolved – for months,” the outlet added in its lengthy report.
