Lindsey Graham still fighting subpoena, still embarrassing South Carolina

Lindsey Graham just can’t quit embarrassing South Carolina, or at least my fellow South Carolinians who care about our democracy.

In his latest caper, our unmasked uncapped crusader has been admonished by a judge in Georgia. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney told Graham to mosey on over to our neighboring state and take a seat before a special grand jury. Why, pray tell, is a judge in Georgia making such a demand of the senior senator from South Carolina? Funny you should ask. It’s a long story. It’s short, actually: Graham’s love of power is his guiding light, and it finally got him into a little trouble.

Some will tell you it is because Graham said he’d defy a subpoena to testify in an ongoing probe into whether former President Donald Trump committed voter fraud in 2020. Trump tried to convince Georgia officials to “find” enough votes so he could be declared the winner of Georgia even though he had lost to Joe Biden. Others will say no man is above the law, not even a veteran U.S. senator. If Bill Clinton could be compelled to testify in a sexual harassment civil case while he was president, certainly Graham has no standing to turn up his nose to a subpoena in a more important case.

Judge McBurney told Graham to get his butt to court because Graham some time ago convinced himself he could do or say what the heck ever he wanted and get away with it. He could play the fool during the Kentanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court nomination hearings to stay in the good graces of the far right. He could play Sen. John McCain’s lapdog to absorb some of the celebrity light emanating from McCain’s orbit. He could call Trump a bigot and the Republican Party fools if they followed him when it wasn’t clear Trump would become president. He could buddy up to Trump and pretend he never said a mumbling word about Trump’s obvious unfitness to lead this country in order to have Trump’s White House on speed dial. He could declare that he was off the Trump train after the former president incited an insurrection attempt on our capital to dupe the gullible into believing he actually cared about this democracy. He could do an about face and jump right back on the Trump train after the political winds in the Republican Party didn’t shift as much after Jan. 6, 2021 as he anticipated.

That’s why Graham is caught up in a voter fraud case in Georgia. Be skeptical that he was only doing due diligence about voting procedures as part of his duties as a member of the Senate’s judiciary committee. It’s no coincidence he contacted states Trump lost in tight races against Biden. In addition to Georgia, he contacted election officials in Arizona and Nevada after the 2020 presidential election and before certification.

But it’s Georgia where we have the clearest evidence of Graham’s duplicity. Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, said Graham strongly hinted that Raffensperger should find a way to discard enough ballots to turn a loss into a victory for Trump. Raffensperger is no bleeding-heart liberal out to get Graham; he’s a fellow Republican in good standing.

Reportedly, prosecutors are looking primarily at Trump. But Graham’s involvement is an embarrassment nonetheless. Though he has appealed to a federal judge in South Carolina, at least Judge McBurney gave Graham a good rap on the knuckles. It’s far too little punishment for a man who has done so much to damage our democracy. But it’s a start.

Issac Bailey is a McClatchy Opinion writer based in Myrtle Beach.