The Lindsey Graham fumble

a brilliant read from Tribe, Aftergut, and Eisen

Fumble is putting it mildly. More like a strip sack.

“Graham, a lawyer himself, might or might not have been part of a criminal caper to mess with Georgia’s duly cast and fairly counted millions of ballots to help Trump steal the state’s 16 electoral votes. The Georgia judge approving the seven subpoenas issued on July 5 described the evidence as indicating “multi-state, coordinated efforts” to influence the November 2020 election results in Georgia and elsewhere.

Graham’s precise role remains unclear. We do know that in Trump’s call on Jan. 2, 2021, to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the then-president pressured Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” that did not exist — just enough to overturn the election. The hope was that flipping the outcome in Georgia would trigger similar actions in other battleground states and in sufficient numbers to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s electors four days later, on Jan. 6.

Graham telephoned Raffensperger on Nov. 13, 2020. The grand jury is entitled to hear sworn testimony about what was behind that call, what Graham sought by making it and who said what to which Georgia officials.

Raffensperger has said that in that call, Graham “questioned the validity of legally cast absentee ballots, in an effort to reverse President Trump’s narrow loss in the state,” as The Post reported. Raffensperger asserted that he understood the South Carolina senator to mean that the Georgia official should “‘[l]ook hard and see how many ballots you could throw out.'”

Kudos, Guys¹. Read the whole piece.

1. https://wapo.st/3NRMFWl