Within moments of the early Sunday morning announcement that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had died, there was much obvious commentary about his journey from Trump foe to Trump suck-up. During the 2016 GOP presidential primary, when Graham was competing with the onetime reality TV celebrity, he blasted Donald Trump as a “demagogue” and a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.” He urged voters to tell Trump to “go to hell.” He predicted his party would be “destroyed,” if it nominated Trump.

Yet after Trump won, Graham became a full-fledged Trump lackey. He played golf with his new buddy and relished the access to power he now possessed. After the 2020 election, he joined Trump’s effort to pressure Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to rework the state’s vote count so Trump would prevail. And when Graham won a hard-fought Senate primary last month, he lavished praise on Trump, exclaiming, “Mr. President, you’re not far behind God.”

Graham lavished praise on Trump, exclaiming, “Mr. President, you’re not far behind God.”

One sign of Graham’s descent into the abyss of Trump toadyism is not likely to receive much attention: his acrobatic flip-flop on the Trump-Russia scandal.

After the 2016 election, during which Russia mounted a covert hack-and-leak attack and an extensive clandestine social media operation to cause chaos, hinder the Hillary........

© Mother Jones