Lindsey Graham just had his Linda Tripp moment

| 3:01 pm EDT September 28, 2019
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In the clearest sign yet that Donald Trump’s presidency is over, his fiercest Republican allies are defending him in remarkably tepid fashion, for fear that they’ll go down with him if they’re standing too close to him when the end comes. Trump’s rabid attack dog Lindsey Graham just unwittingly spelled this out in a manner which left egg on his face.

Donald Trump has been caught trying to conspire against the United States with multiple foreign leaders. There’s no defending or spinning that. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham appears to understand this, so he’s now limiting his defense of Trump to the notion that because the whistleblower is only relaying what he heard from other Trump administration officials, it means it’s mere hearsay and that it doesn’t count.

Graham posted this tweet, and see if you can guess why it went wrong for him: “In America you can’t even get a parking ticket based on hearsay testimony. But you can impeach a president? I certainly hope not.” Twenty years ago, Graham loudly supported impeaching Bill Clinton, even though the primary witness against him – Linda Tripp – was also merely relaying what she’d been told by someone else. This blew up in Graham’s face so badly, the name “Linda Tripp” immediately began trending atop Twitter.

Lindsey Graham is swinging and missing on multiple fronts here. First, hearsay testimony is allowable under the law; it just has to meet a higher standard of credibility than first hand testimony. Second, Trump released a phone call summary which confirms much of what the whistleblower has asserted. Third, impeachment isn’t a court of law or a legal trial. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not required to convict and remove a president. Not only is Lindsey making a fool of himself, he’s revealing that there’s no way for Trump’s allies to defend him on this.