Lindsey Graham 'totally' wants to waste more time on Clinton emails

Trump ally and golfing buddy Sen. Lindsey Graham said if he became chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee he would feel fine abusing his position to investigate Hillary Clinton’s emails some more.

In a CNN interview, Graham was asked if he would reanimate the conservative conspiracy by looking at the past FBI investigations. “Totally,” he replied, adding, “The oversight function will be very much front and center.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is expected to step aside from heading the committee, which would make room for Graham.

Graham has morphed from being a top Trump critic during the presidential primaries into one of his closest allies on Capitol Hill.

He once said Trump did not have “the temperament and judgment to be commander in chief,” but a few rounds of golf at Trump’s side apparently changed his mind.

During the hearings into the credible sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, Graham took the lead in defending the indefensible.

Graham whined that if Kavanaugh’s nomination was unsuccessful it would “ruin” the wealthy lawyer’s life, and said that Trump should re-nominate the judge if he was rejected by the Senate.

In fact, he foreshadowed a possible partisan witch hunt that could be led in the Senate Judiciary Committee by arguing that Senate Democrats, not Kavanaugh, should be investigated for perjury.

Some believe that Graham’s posturing for Trump is part of a strategy to fend off a Republican challenger when he is up for re-election in 2020. The Atlantic noted that in South Carolina “there’s virtually no downside to hugging Trump but hell to pay for defying him.”

On the other hand, Alabama, where Trump won 62 percent of the vote, now has a Democrat in its Senate delegation — a direct result of Republicans allying themselves with Trump.

Losing the House has been a devastating blow to Trump and his fellow Republicans.

Graham’s move to revive the issue of Clinton’s emails shows that, rather than change course, Republican senators seem far more interested in aligning themselves even closer to an unpopular Trump.

Ignoring Trump’s corruption while pursuing harebrained anti-Democrat conspiracy theories helped Republicans lose the House.

Lindsey Graham’s friendship and alliance with Trump translating into a mockery of the Senate could eventually produce similarly destructive results for his party.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.