If you’ve followed my writings on Lindsey Graham, you know my views on him are complicated. I don’t have a vendetta against the senator or visceral dislike of him personally. He’s got a good sense of humor and is generally conservative, though his immigration views have made him a pariah on parts of the right.
But when it comes to Graham and the investigation into all things Russia-gate related, including the Mueller investigation, he’s been sorely lacking. For years, he’s promised to hold a serious investigation into all that happened, including the blatant abuse of power that took place toward the Trump campaign. Only recently, as we are getting down to just days left on the Senate calendar, has Graham interviewed a few, mostly unimportant subjects.
One of the people he hasn’t called to answer questions is Robert Mueller, who’s previous testimony was an abject disaster for the Mueller investigation. Graham is now saying that’s going to change after Mueller wrote a critical op-ed of the Roger Stone commutation a few days ago.
Graham, citing Mueller’s willingness to write an op-ed defending his investigation, says he will now call the former special counsel to his committee to testify.
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) July 12, 2020
To be frank, I’m highly skeptical. We’ve seen these empty pronunciations before. Remember when Graham said he’d call Eric Ciaramella (the “whistle-blower”) to testify? Yeah, that never happened. Remember when he was gonna subpoena all the major Obama official players in the Trump spying operation? That hasn’t happened either and we are almost to the election at this point.
I am confident of one thing though. Graham, after raining praise on the former FBI Director for years, is not going to subject him to another public hearing. Any hearing will be private and the Democrats will leak things to make Mueller seem like a super-hero of justice. The right time to call Mueller was a year ago when he had just made a fool of himself. That opportunity was blown.
In the end, I suspect Graham will back down or do a quiet, closed door testimony session. Nothing will come of it except everyone’s narratives being reinforced.
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