Graham Lindsey

Democrat Jaime Harrison is challenging Graham for Senate in the 2020 election.

On May 14, 2019, Graham came under extreme scrutiny from many individuals, including United States Senator Joe Manchin (Democrat, West Virginia), after encouraging Donald Trump, Jr. to ignore a subpoena delivered by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee. This sparked the #LindseyGrahamResign hashtag to immediately begin trending on Twitter. Similarly, in July 2019, his overruling of standing Senate committee rules caused the #LeningradLindsey hashtag to begin trending on Twitter.

Graham was interviewed by Mark Leibovich for a February 2019 article in The New York Times Magazine. Leibovich asked Graham what happened - how did Graham become a Trump defender? Graham responded that he was attempting "to be relevant": "I've got an opportunity up here working with the president to get some really good outcomes for the country ... I have never been called this much by a president in my life ... He's asked me to do some things, and I’ve asked him to do some things in return." Graham stated that he had been gaining more and more influence with Trump, and was now attempting to enter Trump's inner circle, where he would reach a level of influence on par with Melania Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Graham also said that he had a "political marriage" with the late John McCain, but as for his relationship with Trump: "I personally like him. We play golf. He’s very nice to me." Additionally, according to Leibovich, Graham said that his positive relationship with Trump was also to ensure that Graham would be re-elected to Senate in 2020.

In July 2019, Graham said that he did not think Trump was a racist, and that he did not think that Trump's statements for Democratic congresswomen to "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came" were racist. Graham said: "I don't think a Somali refugee embracing Trump would be asked to go back. If you're racist, you want everybody to go back because they are black or Muslim." Earlier in August 2018, The Washington Post reported that Graham had stated: "I have never heard him make a single racist statement. Not even close."

On October 8, 2019, during an interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios, Graham condemned the Trump announcement of an intention to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria, stating that the president was putting the nation at risk along with that of his presidency and that it was without the support of key national security advisers. Media focused upon the reversals made by Graham and the apparent lack of appreciation for his advice by Trump.

In May 2019, Graham proposed instituting new immigration laws that would first only allow migrants to apply for asylum from their home country or Mexico, second smoothen the process to deport unaccompanied children to Central America, and third extend the period by which migrant children could be detained from 20 days to 100 days.

In July 2019, Graham visited a migrant detention centre in Texas. Graham reacted that it was not "a concentration camp", but "a facility overwhelmed." Regarding the migrants, Graham stated: "I don’t care if they have to stay in these facilities for 400 days. We're not going to let those men go that I saw. It would be dangerous."

On March 11, 2019, Graham said that he would encourage the Trump administration to recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel.

In May 2019, Graham called for a military invasion of Venezuela to overthrow Nicolas Maduro amid the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis.

In June 2019, Graham was one of seven Republicans to vote to block President Trump's Saudi arms deal providing weapons to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Jordan, and was one of five Republicans to vote against an additional 20 arms sales.

In October 2019, Graham stated he would "introduce bipartisan sanctions against Turkey if they invade Syria." He said he would also "call for their suspension from NATO if they attack Kurdish forces who assisted the US in the destruction of the ISIS Caliphate."

In November 2019, Graham blocked a Senate resolution to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide. In doing so, Graham justified himself by claiming that the Senate should not "try to rewrite [history]"

On March 14, 2019 Graham blocked a resolution calling for special counsel Robert Mueller's report to be made public after it passed the House unanimously.

After Robert Mueller's testimony to two congressional committees on July 24, 2019, Graham speculated that "the Mueller report is in name only. It clearly wasn't the Mueller report. It was just in name." On June 25, 2019 Graham claimed that "The president gave 1.4 million documents to Mueller. [Don] McGahn, his lawyer, testified for 30 hours. He made everybody available to Mueller that Mueller wanted to talk to, and he... answered questions in writing, so this president did nothing to stop Mueller from finding the truth."

In November 2018, Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that he would become chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and that Graham would take his place as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, pending his formal selection by colleagues.

In April 2018, Graham declared that he would support a re-election bid by Trump in 2020. Previously, before the 2016 presidential election, Graham had said: "If we nominate Trump we [the Republican Party] will get destroyed ... and we will deserve it." Later, in January 2019, Graham declared that Republicans must support Trump's policies: "If we undercut the president, that’s the end of his presidency and the end of our [Republican] party."

In January 2018, and in the first known congressional criminal referral in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Graham, along with Chuck Grassley, recommended charges against Christopher Steele, ex-MI6 officer, named as author of Trump–Russia dossier. Grassley and Graham said that they had reason to believe that Steele had lied to federal authorities. According to The New York Times, "It was not clear why, if a crime is apparent in the F.B.I. reports that were reviewed by the Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department had not moved to charge Mr. Steele already. The circumstances under which Mr. Steele is alleged to have lied were unclear, as much of the referral was classified."

In April 2018, following the FBI raid on the hotel room and offices of Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, Graham, together with Cory Booker, Chris Coons, and Thom Tillis, introduced new legislation to "limit President Trump's ability to fire special counsel Robert Mueller." Termed the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, the legislation would allow any special counsel, in this case Mueller, receive an "expedited judicial review" in the 10 days following being dismissed to determine if said dismissal was suitable. If negative, the special counsel would be reinstated. At the same time, according to The Hill, the bill would "codify regulations" that a special counsel could only be fired by a senior Justice Department, while having to provide reasons in writing.

In March 2017, Graham had a meeting with Trump. Graham said that the meeting went so well that Graham passed his new phone number to Trump, in a reference to their previous 2015 conflict. In October 2017, Graham and Trump played golf together on multiple occasions, with Graham praising the first outing. In November 2017, Graham criticized the media's reporting on Trump: "What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy some kind of kook not fit to be president." Previously in February 2016, Graham himself said of Trump: "I think he's a kook. I think he's crazy. I think he's unfit for office."

Graham opposes net neutrality and praised its 2017 repeal by the Federal Communications Commission. In May 2018, Graham voted against legislation that would have overturned the FCC's ruling and restore net neutrality.

In March 2017, Graham voted for the Broadband Consumer Privacy Proposal that removed the FCC's internet privacy rules and allowed internet service providers to sell customers' browsing history without their permission.

On January 5, 2017, Graham condemned President Obama for abstaining from UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem as a violation of international law.

In October 2017, in the wake of the Tongo Tongo ambush which killed four U.S. soldiers, Graham expressed surprise that there were a thousand U.S. troops in Niger: "I didn't know there was a thousand troops in Niger." A few days later, Graham called for an expanded role of the U.S. military in Niger: "You're going to see more actions in Africa, not less; you're going to see more aggression by the United States toward our enemies, not less; you're going to have decisions being made not in the White House but out in the field."

In April 2017, Graham flew to Houston, Texas to raise money from "superstar plaintiffs lawyer Mark Lanier" and "tort reform foes." The fundraiser was timed just as House Republicans began to advanced tort reform legislation such as class action lawsuit and the asbestos bankruptcy trust system. (Graham used to be a trial lawyer before he entered public office.) Because of the makeup of the number of Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, if Graham voted against the proposals along with Democrats, he could effectively stop them in their tracks.

In June 2016, after Donald Trump criticized a judge of Mexican heritage, implying he could be biased, Graham said to CNN: "I don't think [Trump is] racist but he's playing the race card ... I think it's very un-American ... If he continues this line of attack then I think people really need to reconsider the future of the [Republican] party." Graham told The New York Times that this incident "is probably it" for anyone looking to withdraw their support of Trump: "There'll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary" Clinton, then the rival presidential candidate to Trump.

In the presidential election of November 2016, Graham did not vote for Trump: "I couldn’t go where Donald Trump wanted to take the USA & GOP." Graham instead voted for independent candidate Evan McMullin.

In 2016, several news stories reported that Graham was the only Republican to receive political contributions from the Boston-based trial lawyer firm, Thornton Law Firm. The Thornton Law Firm is nationally known for its expertise in asbestos-related litigation. Over a ten-year period, Graham receives $62,800 in campaign contributions from the firm's partners. In 2006, the firm was opposed to a congressional bill that would have shifted asbestos cases from courts to a trust fund-based system. According to The Boston Globe, Graham "helped peel away enough GOP support in the Senate to ensure the trust funds bill's death on Valentine's Day 2006."

Graham has never been married and has no children. He helped to raise his sister, Darline Graham Nordone, after the deaths of his mother and father, which occurred within fifteen months of each other, leaving the two without parents when Graham was 22 and she was 13. Experiencing the early deaths of his parents, Graham says, made him mature more quickly, and Nordone, who introduced her brother at his formal announcement of his candidacy for the 2016 presidential race, said she hoped to be with him on the campaign trail frequently to show voters his softer side. "He's kind of like a brother, a father and a mother rolled into one," she said. "I've always looked up to Lindsey."

Graham ran his first and only presidential campaign between June and December 2015, dropping out before the 2016 Republican primaries began. He was an outspoken critic of fellow Republican Donald Trump's 2016 candidacy and repeatedly declared he did not support Trump; in particular, he took issue with Trump's comments on Graham's close friend, Senator John McCain. Since March 2017, Graham has reversed his stance on Trump and has become a staunch ally of the president, often issuing public statements in his defense. His reversal caught both parties by surprise and sparked much media attention.

In July 2015, when Graham was still a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Graham called Donald Trump, a fellow Republican presidential candidate, a "jackass", in relation to Trump saying that Graham's friend, Senator John McCain, was "not a war hero." Trump then reacted by calling Graham an "idiot" and revealing Graham's personal cellphone number at a campaign rally, asking people to call Graham.

In December 2015, Trump, the leading presidential candidate, called for a ban preventing Muslims from entering the United States. Graham, who had very little support as a presidential candidate, responded: "He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot ... He doesn't represent my [Republican] party ... I don't think he has a clue about anything ... He is empowering radical Islam ... You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell." Graham additionally said: "I'd rather lose without Donald Trump than try to win with him."

In 2015, Graham sponsored the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to the Senate, which bans abortion after 20 weeks of gestation on a national basis, with some exceptions (to save the life of the mother, or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest). In 2018, Graham is anti-abortion, but has said that Roe v. Wade is precedent that should not be overturned without good reason. In 2020, he was one of 13 GOP Senators who declined to sign an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn Roe.

Graham supported the NATO-led military intervention in Libya. In March 2015, he supported the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. Graham said: "We want to have a relationship with Saudi Arabia. They're a strategic partner. They're a mortal enemy of the Iranians."

In May 2015, Senator Graham said: "If I am President of the United States and you are thinking about joining al-Qaeda or ISIS, I am not going to call a judge. I am going to call a drone and we will kill you."

Following a multiple shooting incident at an historic African American church in Charleston on June 17, 2015, Graham canceled all campaign events to return to South Carolina. In response to questions from the press regarding the calls from some, following the incident, to remove the Confederate flag at a war memorial on the South Carolina State Capitol grounds, Graham said: "Well, at the end of the day it's time for people in South Carolina to revisit that decision. [That] would be fine with me, but this is part of who we are." He continued, "The flag represents to some people a civil war, and that was the symbol of one side. To others it's a racist symbol, and it's been used by people – it's been used in a racist way." Regarding the shooter responsible for the incident, Graham said, "We're not going to give this a guy an excuse about a book he might have read, or a movie he watched, or a song he listened to, or a symbol out anywhere. It's him ... not the flag."

During his Senate re-election race in October 2014, while discussing immigration and foreign policy issues with a reporter from The Weekly Standard, Graham said: "If I get through my general election, if nobody steps up in the presidential mix, if nobody's out there talking ... I may just jump in to get to make these arguments." And on March 7, 2015, at a "Politics and Pies" forum, Graham advocated the reversal of defense spending cuts and quipped: "If I were President of the United States, I wouldn't let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to."

On April 19, 2015, Graham told Chris Wallace, on the Fox News Sunday show, that he was "91% sure" he would run for president. "If I can raise the money, I'll do it," he said. On May 18, 2015, Graham informally announced that he would run for president on CBS This Morning, saying he was running because he thinks "the world is falling apart."

He made an official announcement of his candidacy for President on June 1, 2015.

In July 2015, Graham called Republican candidate and frontrunner Donald Trump a "jackass" during an interview on CNN. In response, Trump criticized Graham for asking him for help to get on Fox & Friends and gave out Graham's mobile phone number.

On December 21, 2015, Graham suspended his presidential campaign, due to lack of support and polling poorly, and, on January 15, 2016, endorsed former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. After it appeared certain that Donald Trump would become the Republican candidate for President in May 2016, Graham announced that he would not vote for either Trump or Hillary Clinton, commenting: "I think Donald Trump is going to places where very few people have gone and I'm not going with him." On November 8, 2016, Graham announced that he had voted for Evan McMullin.

In 2014, Graham received a Bronze Star medal for meritorious service as a senior legal adviser to the Air Force in Iraq and Afghanistan, spanning from August 2009 to July 2014, that oversaw the detention of military prisoners. In 2015, Graham retired from the Air Force with over 33 total years of service, after reaching the statutory retirement age of 60 for his rank.

Of all the Republican Senators up for re-election in the 2014 cycle, Graham was considered one of the most vulnerable to a primary challenge, largely due to his low approval ratings and reputation for working with and compromising with Democrats. He expected a primary challenge from conservative activists, including the Tea Party movement, and Chris Chocola, President of the Club for Growth, indicated that his organization would support a primary challenge if an acceptable standard-bearer emerged.

In the run-up to the Republican primary, Graham's approval rating improved. According to a Winthrop poll from February 2013, he held a 59% positive rating among Republican likely voters. In the primary, held on June 10, 2014, Graham won with 178,833 votes (56.42%). His nearest challenger, State Senator Lee Bright, received 48,904 votes (15.4%).

The Boston Globe ran a multi-part investigative report on contributions made from the firm's partners. The report found that the firm, in almost every case, would reimburse partners' political contributions—in the exact amount—within 10 days of the contributions being made. Between 2010 and 2014, the firm's partners and one of their wives contributed $1.6 million to politicians; $1.4 million was given back to the partners from the firm. The firm told reporters that according to outside consultants the practice was not unlawful because the checks are not bonuses, instead coming out of the partners' firm equity accounts.

In response to the 2013 disclosures about the United States National Security Agency and its international partners' global surveillance of foreign nationals and U.S. citizens, Graham said that he was "glad" the NSA was collecting phone records. He said: "I'm a Verizon customer. I don't mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States. I don't think you're talking to the terrorists. I know you're not. I know I'm not. So we don't have anything to worry about."

On July 25, 2013, the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations unanimously adopted an amendment by Senator Graham to the "Fiscal Year 2014 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill" that would seek sanctions against any country that offers asylum to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

In November 2012, Graham and Schumer re-opened their talks on comprehensive immigration reform. On January 28, 2013, Graham was a member of a bi-partisan group of eight Senators which announced principles for comprehensive immigration reform. On June 23, 2013, Graham said that the Senate was close to obtaining 70 votes to pass the reform package.

Graham opposes extending background checks, saying that "universal background checks are going to require universal [gun] registration." He has, however, called current gun laws "broken", citing an example of a woman who pleaded guilty by reason of insanity to attempting to kill President George W. Bush, but who was later able to pass a background check and buy a gun. To this end, in March 2013, he joined with Senators Jeff Flake, Mark Begich and Mark Pryor in introducing a bill that would close a loophole by flagging individuals who attempt to buy guns who have used an insanity defense, were ruled dangerous by a court or had been committed by a court to mental health treatment. It did not address the gun show loophole.

On January 29, 2013, in an interview with Fox News, he claimed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "got away with murder", following her testimony about the 2012 Benghazi attack. But the next year he would concede that the House Intelligence Committee report on Benghazi was, as he put it, "full of crap", and that the Administration had been cleared of many of the charges therein.

On February 28, 2013, Graham criticized President Obama and both political parties on the Senate floor for allowing the budget reduction to occur with "two-thirds of the budget" exempt from reductions and said the impact on the Department of Defense would create a "hollow military" that "invites aggression."

On July 16, 2013, Graham suggested the United States should consider boycotting the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, because of "what the Russian government is doing throughout the world." Graham also said the U.S. should aim to "drive the Russian economy into the ground."

Although Graham had earlier signed Grover Norquist's Taxpayer Protection Pledge, in June 2012, he went on record supporting the closure of tax loopholes without compensating decreases in other tax revenue, saying "We're so far in debt, that if you don't give up some ideological ground, the country sinks." As U.S. Representative from South Carolina, Graham received grades of B in 1995, B+ in 1996, A in 1997 and 1998, B+ in 1999, A in 2000, B in 2001, and C+ in 2002, and as U.S. Senator from South Carolina, Graham has received grades of A in 2003, B+ in 2004 and 2005, A in 2006 and 2007, C in 2008, A in 2009 and 2010, B- in 2011, B+ in 2012, and C+ in 2013 from the National Taxpayers Union, a conservative taxpayers advocacy organization. The Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies identifies Graham, during his U.S. House and U.S. Senate tenure, as having a mostly protectionist and pro-subsidies voting record.

In 2012, Graham's endorsement was highly sought, but he declined to endorse one of the Republican candidates ahead of the January 2012 South Carolina Republican primary. After Rick Santorum withdrew from the race in April 2012, leaving Mitt Romney as the presumptive nominee, Graham endorsed Romney.

Much of the Tea Party criticism focuses on his willingness to be bipartisan and work with Democrats on issues like climate change, tax reform and immigration reform and his belief that judicial nominees should not be opposed solely on their philosophical positions. He voted to confirm both of President Obama's Supreme Court nominees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. For his part, Graham has criticized and confronted the Tea Party, arguing for a more inclusive Republican Party. In the first session of the 115th United States Congress, Graham was ranked the sixth most bipartisan Senator by the Lugar Center and Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy.

During an appearance on Face the Nation on April 3, 2011, Graham "suggested that Congress take unspecified though formal action against the Koran-burning by Florida preacher Terry Jones," in light of an attack on United Nations personnel triggered by Jones' actions. In asserting that "Congress might need to explore the need to limit some forms of freedom of speech," Graham argued that "Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war," and claimed that "during World War II, we had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy."

In August 2011, Graham co-sponsored with Senator Jeanne Shaheen Senate Resolution 175, wherewith he contended that "Russia's invasion of Georgian land in 2008 was an act of aggression, not only to Georgia but to all new democracies."

In early 2010, Graham began working with Democratic New York Senator Chuck Schumer on immigration reform. The talks broke down later in the year.

In July 2010, Graham suggested that U.S. citizenship as an automatic birthright guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution should be amended, and that any children born of illegal immigrants inside the borders of the United States should be considered illegal immigrants. Graham alleged that "Half the children born in hospitals on our borders are the children of illegal immigrants." Responding to the Graham claim, The New York Times cited a Pew Foundation study estimating that illegal immigrants account for only 8 percent of births in the United States and that 80 percent of the mothers had been in the U.S. for more than one year.

Graham told reporters in June 2010 that "The science about global warming has changed. I think they've oversold this stuff, quite frankly. I think they've been alarmist and the science is in question. The whole movement has taken a giant step backward." He also stated that he planned to vote against the climate bill that he had originally co-sponsored, citing further restriction of offshore drilling added to the bill and the bill's impact on transportation. In 2015, Graham said he "completely understand[s] and accept[s]" that climate change is real, but said "I don't know" as to the role that human activity played.

On November 6, 2010, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Graham called for a pre-emptive military strike to weaken the Iranian regime. He has also argued that "the U.S. needs to keep at least 10,000 troops in Iraq into 2012," saying that "If we're not smart enough to work with the Iraqis to have 10,000 to 15,000 American troops in Iraq in 2012, Iraq could go to hell."

In December 2010, Graham was one of twenty-six senators who voted against the ratification of New Start, a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russian Federation obliging both countries to have no more than 1,550 strategic warheads as well as 700 launchers deployed during the next seven years along with providing a continuation of on-site inspections that halted when START I expired the previous year. It was the first arms treaty with Russia in eight years.

In a May 2009 CNN interview, Graham referred to the domestic internment of German and Japanese prisoners of war and U.S. Citizens as a model for domestic detention of Guantanamo detainees by saying, "We had 450,000 Japanese and German prisoners housed in the United States during World War II. As a nation, we can deal with this."

Graham opposed President Barack Obama's health reform legislation; he voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in December 2009, and he voted against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

On December 10, 2009, Graham co-sponsored a letter to President Barack Obama along with then Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman announcing their commitment to passing a climate change bill and outlining its framework. Graham was identified as a potential Republican supporter of passing a climate change bill and was thought to be a likely sponsor for the final bill. However, he pulled his support for the climate change bill, saying that he disapproved of Senate Democrats moving forward with legislation to deal with immigration issues, a reaction to Arizona's passage of an illegal immigration law, Graham's withdrawal of support left passage of the climate change bill in doubt.

When Graham ran for a second term in 2008, he was challenged in the Republican primary by National Executive Committeeman of the South Carolina Republican Party Buddy Witherspoon. Graham defeated him by 186,398 votes (66.82%) to 92,547 (33.18%), winning all but one of South Carolina's 46 counties. Graham then defeated Democratic pilot and engineer Bob Conley in the general election by 1,076,534 votes (57.53%) to 790,621 (42.25%), having out-spent Conley by $6.6 million to $15,000.

In 2007, Graham served in Iraq as a reservist on active duty for a short period in April and for two weeks in August, where he worked on detainee and rule-of-law issues. He also served in Afghanistan during the August 2009 Senate recess. He was then assigned as a senior instructor at the Judge Advocate General's School, though he never went.

During the Judiciary Committee's January 2006 confirmation hearings for the nomination of Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court, a question arose concerning Alito's membership in a Princeton University organization which some said was sexist and racist. In response, Alito stated that he "deplored" certain racist comments that had been made by the organization's founder. While Graham allowed that Alito might just be saying this because he wanted the nomination, Graham concluded that he had no reason to believe that because "you seem to be a decent, honorable man." Alito's wife and sister characterized Graham's statements as supportive.

In February 2006, Graham joined Senator Jon Kyl in filing an amicus brief in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case that argued "Congress was aware" that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 would strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear "pending cases, including this case" brought by the Guantanamo detainees.

On May 23, 2005, Graham was one of the so-called Gang of 14 senators to forge a compromise that brought a halt to the continued blockage of an up-or-down vote on judicial nominees. This compromise negated both the Democrats' use of a filibuster and the Republican "nuclear option" as described in the media. Under the agreement, the Democrats would retain the power to filibuster a Bush judicial nominee only in an "extraordinary circumstance", and subsequently, three conservative Bush appellate court nominees (Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and William H. Pryor Jr.) received a vote by the full Senate.

In July 2005, Graham secured the declassification and release of memoranda outlining concerns made by senior military lawyers as early as 2003 about the legality of the interrogations of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

Regarding U.S. Citizens accused of supporting terrorism, Graham has stated before the senate "When they say, 'I want my lawyer,' you tell them: 'Shut up. You don't get a lawyer. You are an enemy combatant, and we are going to talk to you about why you joined Al Qaeda.'" In response to this and a June 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing detainees to file habeas corpus petitions to challenge their detentions, Graham authored an amendment to a Department of Defense Authorization Act attempting to clarify the authority of American courts. The amendment passed in November 2005 by a vote of 49–42 in the Senate despite opposition from human rights groups and legal scholars who contended that it limited the rights of detainees.

In the National Journal' s ideological rankings of Senators, Graham was named 41st most-conservative in 2003, 38th most-conservative in 2004, 43rd most-conservative in 2005, 33rd most-conservative in 2006, 24th most-conservative in 2007, 15th most-conservative in 2008, 26th most-conservative in 2009, 24th most-conservative in 2010, 42nd most-conservative in 2011, 33rd most-conservative in 2012 and 40th most-conservative in 2013.

In 2002, long-time Republican U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond decided to retire. Graham ran to succeed him and won the Republican primary unopposed. In the general election, he defeated Democrat Alex Sanders, the former President of the College of Charleston and former Chief Judge of the South Carolina Court of Appeals, by 600,010 votes (54%) to 487,359 (44%). Graham thus became South Carolina's first new U.S. Senator since 1965. He served as the state's Junior Senator for only two years, serving alongside Democrat Ernest Hollings until he retired in 2005.

Graham supports an interventionist foreign policy. In 2002, Graham voted for the Iraq Resolution, which authoritzes military action against Iraq. He also supported the invasion of Iraq. Graham and his fellow Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman, who were frequently dubbed "the three amigos", travelled widely, pushing for American military intervention, particularly after the September 11 attacks. Their influence reached its zenith in 2007 as President Bush advocated for his surge strategy in Iraq, declining shortly before Lieberman retired from the Senate in 2013. Kelly Ayotte, who joined the Senate in 2011, has been considered Lieberman's replacement in the group.

Graham supported John McCain's presidential bid in 2000 and served as national co-chairman of McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.

In 1998, Graham was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In 2004, he received his promotion to colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve at a White House ceremony officiated by President George W. Bush. That year, a lower court determined that Graham's service as a military judge while a sitting member of the Senate was acceptable. In 2006, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces set aside the lower court's ruling after concluding it was improper for Graham to serve as a military judge.

He was a member of the Judiciary Committee during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998. He was the only Republican on the Committee to vote against any of the articles of impeachment (the second count of perjury in the Paula Jones case, although he voted in favor of the other three Articles), famously asking: "Is this Watergate or Peyton Place?"

In December 2019, as two articles of impeachment against Trump moved to a vote before the full House and referral to the Senate for trial, Graham stated, "I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I'm not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here," adding "this thing will come to the Senate, and it will die quickly, and I will do everything I can to make it die quickly." Graham also announced: "I have disdain for the accusations and the process. So I don't need any witnesses" for the Senate trial. Years earlier, Graham was previously a member of the House of Representatives during the impeachment process against president Bill Clinton; at that time he told Senators who preemptively declared that they would not convict the president: "I have a duty far greater than just getting to the next election ... Please allow the facts to do the talking ... Don't decide the case before the case's end." Other comments made by Graham were used by Democrats as proof of the need to impeach Trump, as Graham in 1998 cited the example of president Richard Nixon that a president who ignored a subpoena should be impeached for taking "the power from Congress over the impeachment process away from Congress" and becoming "judge and jury" himself. Some of these statements are documented in the video (above at Tenure), recorded at the House of Representatives on December 18, 1998.

In 1997, he took part in a leadership challenge against House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

In 1996, he was challenged by Debbie Dorn, the niece of Butler Derrick and daughter of Derrick's predecessor, 13-term Democratic Congressman William Jennings Bryan Dorn. Graham was re-elected to a second term, defeating Dorn 60% to 40%. In 1998, he won re-election to a third term unopposed. In 2000, he was re-elected to a fourth term against Democrat George Brightharp by 68% to 30%.

In 1996, Graham voted for the Defense of Marriage Act.

In 1994, 20-year incumbent Democratic U.S. Congressman Butler Derrick of South Carolina's northwestern-based 3rd congressional district decided to retire. Graham ran to succeed him and, with Republican U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond campaigning on his behalf, he won the Republican primary with 52% of the vote, defeating Bob Cantrell (33%) and Ed Allgood (15%). In the general election, Graham defeated Democratic State Senator James Bryan Jr. by 60% to 40%. As a part of that year's Republican Revolution, Graham became the first Republican to represent this district since 1877.

Graham worked as a lawyer in private practice before serving one term in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1993 to 1995. His congressional career began when he was elected to the first of four terms to the United States House of Representatives, representing South Carolina's 3rd congressional district from 1995 to 2003. In 2002, Graham won the U.S. Senate election in South Carolina after eight-term Republican incumbent Strom Thurmond announced his retirement. He won a second term in 2008 and a third term in 2014.

In 1992, Graham was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives from the 2nd district, located in Oconee County. He defeated Democratic incumbent Lowell W. Ross by 60% to 40% and served one term, from 1993 to 1995.

During the 1990–91 Gulf War, Graham was recalled to active duty, serving as a judge advocate at McEntire Air National Guard Station in Eastover, South Carolina, where he helped brief departing pilots on the laws of war. In 1998, the Capitol Hill daily newspaper The Hill contended that Graham was describing himself on his website as an Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm veteran. Graham responded: "I have not told anybody I'm a combatant. I'm not a war hero, and never said I was. ... If I have lied about my military record, I'm not fit to serve in Congress", further noting that he "never deployed."

Following his departure from the Air Force, he joined the South Carolina Air National Guard in 1989, where he served until 1995, then joining the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

Upon graduating from the University of South Carolina School of Law, Graham was commissioned as an officer in the Judge Advocate General's Corps in the United States Air Force in 1982 and began active duty that year. His duty began with a stint as an Air Force defense attorney, then was transferred to Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, Germany, where from 1984 to 1988 he was the Air Force's chief prosecutor in Europe. In 1984, as he was defending an Air Force pilot accused of using marijuana, he was featured in an episode of 60 Minutes that exposed the Air Force's defective drug-testing procedures. After his service in Europe, he returned to South Carolina, leaving active duty in 1989. He subsequently entered private practice as a lawyer.

A native of Central, South Carolina, Graham received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1981. Most of his active duty within his span of military service happened from 1982 to 1988 when he served with the Judge Advocate General's Corps in the United States Air Force, as a defense attorney and then with the Air Force's chief prosecutor in Europe based in West Germany. Later his entire service in the Air Force Reserve ran concurrently with his congressional career. He was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service in 2014.

He graduated from the University of South Carolina with a B.A. in psychology in 1977, and from the University of South Carolina School of Law with a J.D. in 1981.

Lindsey Olin Graham (born July 9, 1955) is an American politician, who serves as the senior United States Senator from South Carolina, a seat he has held since 2003. Since 2019, he has been the Chair of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. A member of the Republican Party, Senator Graham has earned an 80.31% Lifetime Score from the American Conservative Union.