There was a time not so long ago when Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was one of the harshest critics of Donald Trump. When others were only too happy to carry water for the Trump administration, Graham called out the president, especially on the issue of Russia. As recently as July, right after Trump’s summit in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Graham tweeted out:
Missed opportunity by President Trump to firmly hold Russia accountable for 2016 meddling and deliver a strong warning regarding future elections.
This answer by President Trump will be seen by Russia as a sign of weakness and create far more problems than it solves. (1/3)
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) July 16, 2018
But during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Graham told Fox News this regarding the investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller:
“These [FBI] investigations against Trump were corrupt to the core. They gave Clinton a pass, and we need a special counsel to look at all things at the Department of Justice and FBI when it came to the Trump investigation, particularly the counterintelligence investigation.”
What happened in such a short period of time? According to an expert on authoritarian regimes such as the one Putin runs in Russia, Graham may have changed his tune because he’s being blackmailed by the Kremlin.
Sarah Kendzior was a guest on MSNBC, and she posited this theory:
“There are a few things we should remember. The RNC was hacked; no one knows what happened to those emails. Lindsey Graham personally was hacked and nobody knows who has those emails. The RNC is complicit financially and politically and broadly in what the Trump campaign has done in terms of illicit interactions with Russia.”
Kendzior also noted that it all comes back to money:
“We have tracked all of those financial ties and there’s pretty good chance that either voluntarily or involuntarily Senator Graham has gotten mixed up in the situation and cannot be an objective observer. I find that sad because in the past he has asked for a nonpartisan look at what Trump has done. He stood up against corruption and he should go back to that.”
This could also explain why so many Republicans have been eager to defend Trump no matter what he does. They have financial ties to Russian entities or oligarchs that they have to try to protect for their own economic self-interest. Also, if they’ve taken laundered money from Russia, they would also be guilty of being an accessory to that crime, too.
It’s beginning to look like the vast majority of the Republican Party is in the pocket of the Russians. And that’s a very serious threat to this country’s national security.