Lindsey Graham ‘screamed at Capitol Police officer for not doing enough’ as white supremacists ran riot
Lindsey Graham speaking at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh (Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty)
Life came at Lindsey Graham fast when the US Capitol was breached, as he reportedly screamed at a police officer for “not doing enough” to protect him.
The anti-LGBT+ Republican and one of Trump’s top congressional allies was among 75 senators huddled together in a room with their staffers amid the attack on 6 January.
According to Democratic senator Sherrod Brown, who was standing 10 feet away, a panicked Graham angrily lashed out at one of the police officers.
“I heard when the 75 senators were confined in a room with about 75 staff people, Lindsey Graham with his mask off started screaming at one of the officers — I think it was one of the captains — saying, ‘How come you didn’t protect us? It’s doing your job,'” he revealed to MSNBC‘s Ari Melber on Monday (11 January).
“He was screaming at an officer,” Brown added. “He had his mask off screaming at this officer from five feet away — I was maybe 10 feet on the other side — that the officer, the police, didn’t do enough to protect us.”
WATCH: @SenSherrodBrown reports publicly for the first time that during the attack on the Capitol he saw a maskless Sen. Graham scream at a Capitol police officer for not “doing enough” to protect the Senators pic.twitter.com/LKkfIkmfiH
— The Beat with Ari Melber on MSNBC ? (@TheBeatWithAri) January 12, 2021
A spokesperson for Graham’s office told The Hill that he was familiar with Graham “letting the sergeant-at-arms know his thoughts” but wasn’t aware of other comments.
Brown said he found Graham’s remarks ironic, given that he had personally “aided and abetted” Trump and his followers for the past four years.
“This is the same Lindsey Graham that for five years — or for four years, he didn’t do it in the beginning — defended and argued for and encouraged and aided and abetted this president and all of his followers,” the Democratic senator said.
Graham quickly changed his tune after the Capitol siege and moved to distance himself from Trump, whose favour he’d desperately courted since 2017.
“When it comes to accountability the president needs to understand that his actions were the problem not the solution,” Graham said in a press conference on 7 January.
“Trump and I, we’ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are lawfully elected and will become the president and the vice president of the United States on January 20.”
