By the evening of Jan. 6, 2021, all of the rioters who had attacked the U.S. Capitol in Donald Trump’s name had been cleared from the building, and it was time for members of Congress to do their duty and certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Senate Republican leaders urged their members to do the right and responsible thing, but in the very first votes of the 117th Congress, held just hours after one of the most serious examples of political violence in American history, eight GOP senators — Texas’ Ted Cruz, Missouri’s Josh Hawley, Mississippi’s Cindy Hyde-Smith, Louisiana’s John Kennedy, Wyoming’s Cynthia Lummis, Kansas’ Roger Marshall, Florida’s Rick Scott and Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville — voted at least once not to certify the rightful winner of the national election held two months earlier.
Then-Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who briefly suggested he was done with Trump in the aftermath of the president’s defeat and the insurrectionist violence on Capitol Hill, was one of the 92 senators who voted to certify Joe Biden’s victory. That wouldn’t ordinarily be especially notable, were it not for the unusual circumstances unfolding in the Palmetto State.
Now that the late senator’s sister, Republican Sen. Darline Graham, is running to fill his seat for the next six years, would she have done the same thing as her brother the evening of Jan. 6?
MS NOW’s Mychael Schnell asked the appointed senator about this during a Monday press conference. She apparently didn’t want to talk about it.
“Senator, you just mentioned that you agree with your brother on everything except for one matter, that being illegal immigration, you’d go farther than him on that,” Schnell noted. “That being said, I’m curious, do you agree with him about the 2020 election, that Joe Biden was certified the winner of that election, was lawfully elected, and that you would’ve voted to certify the election, as your brother did?”
Graham replied, “I think our election system is broken,” pushing a line that was both outrageously false and irrelevant to the underlying question. She then quickly shifted to emphasizing her support for the voter suppression package the White House has spent much of the year pushing.
“You won’t commit to having certified the results of the 2020 election?” Schnell added in a follow-up question.
At that point, Graham refused to engage and moved on.
This was hardly a trick question — or, for that matter, a question about national security, which she said last week is “not my thing.” Either she would have voted to certify the results of a free and fair American election, or she would not have.
The fact that Graham didn’t want to answer directly suggests 1) she’s terrified of upsetting Trump, who’s championing her candidacy; 2) she’s reluctant to advertise her role as an election denier, which would put her at odds with her late brother’s legacy; 3) the 2020 election is another one of those issues that is not her “thing”; or 4) some combination therein.
South Carolina’s special Senate runoff election is one day away, and it’s far from clear whether the appointed incumbent will prevail over her intraparty rival, Rep. Ralph Norman. Watch this space.
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