Lindsey Graham

Lindsey Graham (2015)

Lindsey Olin Graham (* 9. July 1955 in Central , Pickens County , South Carolina ) is an American politician of the Republican Party . Since 2003 he has been a member of the United States Senate for the state of South Carolina, which he previously represented in the US House of Representatives. He ran unsuccessfully in the primary election for the US presidency in 2015 .

Family, education and work

Lindsey Graham is the son of Millie and Florence James Graham, who ran a restaurant, pool, bar and beverage store in Central, where he grew up. Graham, who is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention and the first family member to graduate from college , graduated from the University of South Carolina , graduating with a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1977 and a Juris Doctor in 1981 . While studying, his parents died 15 months apart, so Graham took care of his sister, who was nine years younger.

After graduating, he served as a lawyer in the United States Air Force after serving in their Reserve Officer Training Corps in college . From 1984 to 1988 he was stationed at the Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany. In 1988, he settled in South Carolina as a lawyer and worked for Oconee County as assistant prosecutor from 1988 to 1992 and as a city attorney for the city of Central from 1990 to 1994 .

After Graham's retirement from active military service in 1988 until his entry into the US House of Representatives in 1995, Graham served with the South Carolina Air National Guard . During the Second Gulf War , he was called up to serve in the Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG Corps) to instruct pilots in international martial law , prepare legal documents for the deployment of the troops, and provide legal services to members of the National Guard's family. Graham served as a reservist from 1995 to 2015. He began serving as Reserve Judge of the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals in 2003 and ended in September 2006 after a soldier complained that Graham had convicted him of cocaine use - and was found to be with the separation of powers is incompatible when a defendant is convicted by a member of Congress. He was deployed in Iraq in April and August 2007 and in Afghanistan in December 2008 . Graham was most recently a Colonel instructor at the Air Force JAG School.

Political career

House of Representatives

Graham began his political career from 1992 to 1994 as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives . In the 1994 election to the United States House of Representatives , he won the seat of the 3rd Congressional electoral district of South Carolina as the first Republican since the Reconstruction . In this election, the Republicans won a majority in Congress for the first time in decades. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from January 3, 1995 to January 3, 2003 and, as one of the many new members of his party, supported the new speaker Newt Gingrich on his conservative agenda, but tried to vote Gingrich out in 1997 with a group of Conservative MPs allow. As a member of the Judiciary Committee in 1998, he was a prosecutor in initiating impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton for perjury in the Lewinsky affair . He also advocated budget discipline and tax cuts and supported John McCain in the Republican presidential primary election in 2000 against the party leadership candidate George W. Bush .

senate

After Graham was able to prevail in the Senate election in 2002 against his Democratic rival Alex Sanders, he has represented South Carolina in the United States Senate since January 3, 2003 and succeeded his party friend Strom Thurmond , who was no longer running.

He was re-elected relatively clearly in 2008 and 2014 with 58 and 54 percent of the vote, but had a poor result in the 2014 Republican primary with 56 percent of the vote against six inner-party challengers for a long-standing mandate holder in a strongly Republican state. The competitors were clearly to the right of Graham and called for a more conservative orientation in the spirit of the tea party movement .

In the Senate, Graham was an advocate for the Bush administration , for example with its tax cuts and the authorization of the Iraq war , but did not remain uncritical, for example with the question of the treatment of Iraqi prisoners of war ( Abu Ghuraib torture scandal ). In 2004 he worked with Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton to draft a bill to improve the financial health of soldiers in the National Guard . As of January 2019, Graham will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee , which oversees the Robert Mueller special investigation and the Justice Department and is responsible for filling federal judicial posts .

Presidential candidacy

Graham announced on 1 June 2015 in the area code ( Primary ) Republican for the office of President of the United States in the election in 2016 to apply. In this election campaign, he relied on his experience and expertise in security policy and announced a tough foreign policy course, but never got beyond the low single-digit percentage range in opinion polls and therefore did not take part in the main debates of the candidates. On December 21, 2015, he announced his departure from the race. Graham Jeb then supported Bush in his candidacy. After Bush withdrew from the running for the presidency, Graham spoke out in favor of Ted Cruz .

Relationship with Donald Trump

Even after Donald Trump's victory in the Republican presidential election in May 2016, Graham remained a sharp critic of Trump, whom he described as ineligible and who he denied suitability for the presidency. Back in the summer of 2015, Trump attracted attention in his election campaign when he presented Graham's cell phone number to the public while ridiculing his competitor as an "idiot" and "lightweight". Trump's supporters then collapsed Graham's cell phone, whereupon he bought a new cell phone. Previously, Graham destroyed his old phone with media coverage.

Graham initially remained skeptical to critical of the president during Donald Trump's presidency , but turned into one of the most loyal supporters of the president in Congress in the course of 2018. In particular, Graham's aggressive role in the Senate confirmation of Trump's Supreme Court candidates Brett Kavanaugh in October 2018 made sure that Graham became a "rock star" of the Conservatives as the New York Times called it, and the campaign for mid-term election of Trump's office against centrist Senators of the Democrats appeared and polarized who had previously been regarded as important allies of Graham in his attempts to find non-partisan compromises. After Trump announced the abolition of the birthplace principle of citizenship in the United States in the election campaign, Graham declared himself ready to introduce a corresponding bill in the Senate.

After Graham declared in 2017 that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions were fired, "holy hell to pay" would be "holy hell to pay," he said after Sessions' resignation at Trump's behest immediately after the November 2018 mid-term election , he was in favor if a bill were voted in the Senate plenum that would protect Robert Mueller's special investigation , which is also directed against the President himself. Sessions' interim successor Matthew Whitaker had repeatedly criticized the special investigation. The decision to put the law to the vote rests with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell , who sees no need for the law.

Political positions

Graham speaking in October 2015

Domestic politics

Graham, who in the 1990s was still referred to as “arch-conservative” and characterized himself as conservative in the sense of Ronald Reagan , earned a reputation in Congress as a moderate Republican. Even if Graham voted with the party line in the majority of cases, for example against the Obamacare health care reform , Graham showed a will to non-partisan cooperation and compromise. Robert Draper saw Graham 2010 as a Republican who could take on the role of mediator between the increasingly polarized parties. In July 2010, he voted as the only Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to appoint Solicitor General Elena Kagan as a Supreme Court Justice . “She will serve this nation with honor. I would not have made that choice, but the person who did it, President Obama, made a wise decision, I believe, ”said Graham, declaring his vote against the Republican party line.

Graham showed a willingness to compromise, particularly when it came to immigration policy . For example, after the 2012 election in the United States, which was lost for the Republicans, he campaigned for an expansion of legal immigration and an opportunity for illegal immigrants to obtain citizenship . He wanted to win the large and growing community of Latinos , who are predominantly conservative about social values, as voters for his party, but threatened to be alienated by the Republicans because of immigration policy.

At the beginning of 2017, in connection with the alleged Russian cyber attacks on the Democratic Party, he stated that with a compromised party, all parties in a democracy were compromised. Nothing good can be expected from Russian President Vladimir Putin .

Foreign policy

In terms of foreign policy, Graham, like his former Senate colleague and friend John McCain, is an advocate of an interventionist foreign policy with comprehensively financed military operations. After the New York Times reported that Iran was capable of building an atomic bomb, Graham demanded that the US Congress allow President Barack Obama "to be tough and put words into action." During the Syrian Civil War , Graham urged a security zone and armament for the Syrian opposition. He also supported Obama's planned military intervention in Syria . Graham sharply criticizes the 2013 coup in Egypt . He called for the release of the now deceased Mohammed Morsis and declared: "The current transitional government is not elected, while the elected government is behind bars."

Graham is a staunch supporter of US drone strikes in the Middle East . In February 2013 he said: “We killed 4,700. Sometimes we meet innocents, and I hate that, but we are at war and we managed to take out some high-ranking al-Qaeda members. ” Commenting on Anwar al-Awlaki's death by a US drone, he commented:“ Good! I didn't want him to be tried because we are not fighting crime, we are waging a war. ”He added that he felt it was necessary to use drones to monitor US borders in order to get a grip on illegal immigration .

At the end of 2018, Graham called on US President Trump to reconsider the withdrawal of around 2,000 US soldiers from Syria. Trump had decided this shortly before against the advice of his Defense Minister Mattis and high-ranking US military.

Web links

Commons : Lindsey Graham  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Lindsey Graham in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Web presence at the Congress (English)
• Campaign Page (English)
• Gregory Lewis McNamee: Lindsey Graham. In: Encyclopedia Britannica , June 3, 2015 (English)
• Lyn Riddle: Graham, Lindsey Olin. In: South Carolina Encyclopedia (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Gregory Lewis McNamee: Lindsey Graham. In: Encyclopedia Britannica , June 3, 2015; Lyn Riddle: Graham, Lindsey Olin. In: South Carolina Encyclopedia.
2. ↑ US Sen. Lindsey Graham Sworn in as Air Force Judge. In: Free Republic , November 5, 2003.
3. ↑ Also on Graham's career as a reservist in general, Craig Whitlock: For Lindsey Graham, Years of Light Duty as a Lawmaker in the Air Reserve. In: The Charlotte Observer , August 2, 2015.
4. ^ After Tour of Duty in Iraq, Graham Backs 'Surge'. In: The Washington Post , August 28, 2007.
5. ↑ Graham, Lindsey. In: Our Campaigns.
6. ↑ David Jackson: SC's Lindsey Graham tries to outflank six GOP rivals. In: USA Today , May 11, 2014; Sean Sullivan: Lindsey Graham wins Republican primary. In: The Washington Post , June 10, 2014.
7. ↑ Lyn Riddle: Graham, Lindsey Olin. In: South Carolina Encyclopedia.
8. ↑ Kevin Freking: Graham poised to lead Judiciary panel after Grassley switch. In: Associated Press , November 16, 2018.
9. ^ Lindsey Graham Enters White House Race With Emphasis on National Security. In: The New York Times , June 1, 2015.
10. ^ Katie Glueck: Lindsey Graham Drops Out of Presidential Race.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Politico , December 21, 2015 (English).  
11. ↑ Lindsey Graham endorses Jeb Bush. In: CNN.com , January 15, 2016.
12. ↑ Lindsey Graham endorsing Ted Cruz for president. In: Post and Courier , March 17, 2016.
13. ↑ US election campaigning is when cell phones are shredded. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 24, 2015.
14. ↑ Lisa Miller: The “Little Jerk” Once defined by his loathing for Trump, Lindsey Graham is now all-in for the president. Why? In: New York , September 16, 2018; Sheryl Gay Stolberg: What Happened to Lindsey Graham? He's Become a Conservative 'Rock Star'. In: The New York Times , November 2, 2018.
15. ↑ David Morgan, Amanda Becker, Sonya Hepinstall: US Senator Graham says supports Mueller bill, urges vote. In: Reuters , November 14, 2018.
16. ^ Peter B. Levy: Encyclopedia of the Clinton Presidency. Greewood Press, Westport, CT, London 2002, entry House Impeachment Managers , pp. 184-186, here p. 186 ; Gregory Lewis McNamee: Lindsey Graham. In: Encyclopedia Britannica , June 3, 2015.
17. ^ Robert Draper: Lindsey Graham, This Year's Maverick. In: The New York Times , June 28, 2010.
18. ^ Paul Kane: Kagan Nomination Approved by Senate Judiciary Panel. In: The Washington Post , July 20, 2010.
19. ^ Sebastian Fischer: Republicans are threatened with fratricidal struggle over immigration reform. In: Spiegel Online , June 28, 2013; John Kenneth White: Catholics and Politics. In: Mark J. Rozell, Ted G. Jelen (Eds.): American Political Culture: An Encyclopedia. Volume 1: A-E. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara, CA, Denver 2015, pp. 125-131, here p. 130 .
20. ↑ Lindsey Graham calls for throwing 'rocks,' not 'pebbles,' at Russia for cyber attacks. In: Post and Courier , January 5, 2015.
21. ^ Katie Glueck: Graham gives detailed blueprint for ground troops in the Middle East. In: Politico , July 8, 2015; Jordain Carney: McCain, Graham push Trump for 'greater military action' in Syria. In: The Hill , April 11, 2017.
22. ↑ US senators want to force Iran on an anti-nuclear course. In: Spiegel Online , October 5, 2009.
23. ↑ Civil war: US senators want to deliver weapons to Syrian rebels. In: Zeit Online , September 8, 2012.
24. ↑ Ansgar Graw: Influential Republicans want to attack Assad. In: Welt Online , September 3, 2013.
25. ↑ US Republicans show solidarity with the Muslim Brotherhood. In: Spiegel Online , August 6, 2013.
26. ↑ US Senator Says Drones Death Toll Is 4700. In: The Daily Telegraph , February 21, 2013.
27. ^ Sen. Graham: I Support Drone Strikes. In: Patch.com , February 21, 2013.
28. ↑ spiegel.de December 30, 2018: Trump confidante calls for reconsideration of withdrawal from Syria