U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham will keep a hold on a budget deal unless the Senate promises debate on two issues.
“I am willing to lift my hold. I’m willing to vote,” Graham said in a speech on the Senate floor. “I actually like the products. I’m asking for two simple things. Give me a chance to express myself on what the solution to our problems on immigration are. I’m not asking for an outcome.”
South Carolina’s senior Senator said he wants to see a vote on stopping states from adopting sanctuary policies limiting enforcement of immigration laws. He also wants another on the right for officials to sue Special Counsel Jack Smith for subpoenaing private records without notifying them.
Graham said he supported holding independent investigations of the recent death of protester Alex Pretti at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minnesota, though he said Democrats were disingenuous to suggest protesters were not agitating the situation.
“The people pushing this are nuts. They’re not normal. The man who got shot investigate, but do not tell me that he didn’t have an agenda. Look what happened 10 days before,” Graham said, referencing footage of Pretti spitting at ICE agents and kicking a vehicle’s tire.
That was more than a week before Pretti’s death, when the nurse was shot multiple times after agents took his holstered weapon. The shooting death spurred anger on the left and among Second Amendment advocates on the right.
Graham said the situation warrants an independent investigation. But he expressed confidence Republicans were correct on the broader immigration debate. He said Democrats have ignored the consequences of a porous border during President Joe Biden’s four years in office.
“Why are we dealing with this? During the four years of Joe Biden, you obliterated our borders,” he said. “You let anybody and everybody that could get here, get here. You created chaos, and a lot of Americans have been destroyed by your illegal immigration policy. And all you want to talk about over there are the cops.”
He said the fact 12 states have sanctuary policies in place flies in the face of decades-old immigration laws, and officials in the way of enforcing the law should go to jail. He suggested the same goes for then-Alabama Gov. George Wallace when he refused to integrate public schools in 1963, and it applies to Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis when she refused to issue same-sex marriage certificates in 2015.
Graham also defended controversial language the House has objected to in the Homeland Security budget that allowed several senators, including himself, to sue for $500,000 in damages for Smith to subpoena their phone records. Smith investigated the lead-up to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and brought charges in federal court against President Donald Trump for his role, but the investigation was dropped when Trump won re-election.
While Graham labeled the entire investigation as “lawfare” coordinated to end Trump’s presidential ambitions, he stressed he never believed the 2020 election was stolen, the pretense that spurred the riot in 2021.
“What did I do wrong? I’m the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I’m asking questions. When it came to January the sixth, I think I was more the solution than the problem,” Graham said.
“I took this floor and say, ‘Enough.’ I don’t think the election was stolen. There may have been some abuses, but I’m done. And what happens? I find out during all this time, they’re looking at me for being involved in a plot to steal the election.”
Graham said he was never accused of violating the law, and that he should have been notified that prosecutors were seeking his records.
Notably, he was compelled by courts to testify in the investigation about a phone call he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger and asked if enough absentee ballots could be disallowed to swing the election from Biden to Trump. But Graham maintains that as the sitting chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he had a responsibility to ask questions.
While Graham said he understood the desire to remove the $500,000 set for damages from legislation, officials still need a right to pursue action in court against Smith. He expressed anger the House forced the issue out when the budget was sent to the Senate for final approval.
“You could have called me about the $500,000. I’d be glad to work with you. You jammed me,” he said. “Speaker (Mike) Johnson, I won’t forget this. I got a lot of good friends in the House. If you think I’m going to give up on this, you really don’t know me.”
