In theory, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has a responsibility to take the Mueller report and its findings seriously. Lately, however, the Republican senator and Donald Trump ally has gone to almost comical lengths to say he doesn’t care.
In fact, Graham has abandoned all subtlety on the matter, repeatedly saying, “I don’t care” during a recent interview when asked about evidence of Donald Trump possibly having committed obstruction of justice. He soon after chaired a hearing with Attorney General Bill Barr, at which the GOP senator “played pretty fast and loose with the facts.”
Graham also recently concluded, “I’m all good, I’m done with the Mueller report” — referring to a document he admitted to not having read.
To hear Graham tell it, there are no more questions to ask. There are no new facts to learn. There are no more witnesses worth hearing from. Everything that responsible officials need to know is now known.
Yesterday, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent him a letter, pointing to 60 questions that still deserve answers — which Special Counsel Robert Mueller is in a unique position to provide.
The questions span Russia’s election interference, WikiLeaks’s publication of hacked Democratic National Committee emails, communication between Trump campaign officials and Russians, obstruction of justice, business ties to Russia, President Trump’s degree of cooperation with Mueller’s investigation and Trump’s interactions with former White House counsel Don McGahn.
Democrats want to know — absent the Justice Department’s longstanding Office of Legal Counsel opinion that a sitting president can’t be indicted — if Mueller would have reached a decision on obstruction of justice, and if or how the OLC opinion guided the Russia probe.
The Democrats’ letter to Graham is online here. As Rachel noted on the show last might, it’s an impressive list of questions, which in theory should spur the Judiciary Committee chairman to invite Mueller to provide testimony.
But that’s unlikely, because as Graham keeps telling us, he doesn’t care.
The South Carolina Republican’s apathy and indifference are amazing. We are, after all, talking about one of the most important scandals in American history, involving a foreign adversary attacking American elections, and a lengthy special counsel report pointing to a sitting president meeting the statutory threshold for obstruction of justice.
Graham, from his powerful perch, held one hearing with one person to discuss the report that he hadn’t bothered to read in advance. Immediately thereafter, the chairman declared himself satisfied.
The best case scenario — the one Lindsey Graham has effectively asked everyone to believe — is that he’s one of the political world’s most incurious people.
The worst case scenario is that the Judiciary Committee chairman wants to assist in covering up the truth.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."