{"id":1018,"date":"2026-07-12T20:08:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=1018"},"modified":"2026-07-12T20:08:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:08:03","slug":"how-lindsey-graham-eager-to-serve-trump-became-a-useful-idiot-for-putin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=1018","title":{"rendered":"How Lindsey Graham, Eager to Serve Trump, Became a Useful Idiot for Putin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Senator<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Within moments<\/span> 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 \u201cdemagogue\u201d and a \u201crace-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.\u201d He urged voters to tell Trump to \u201cgo to hell.\u201d He predicted his party would be \u201cdestroyed,\u201d if it nominated Trump.<\/p>

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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\u2019s effort to pressure Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger\u00a0to rework the state\u2019s vote count so Trump would prevail. And when Graham won a hard-fought Senate primary last month, he lavished praise on Trump, exclaiming, \u201cMr. President, you\u2019re not far behind God.\u201d<\/p>\n

One sign of Graham\u2019s descent into the abyss of Trump toadyism is not likely to receive much attention: his acrobatic flip-flop on the Trump-Russia scandal.<\/p>\n

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 Clinton campaign, and boost Trump, Graham was one of the Republican legislators who was boiling mad. He proclaimed, \u201cI think they did interfere with our elections, and I want Putin personally to pay the price.\u201d Graham even lobbied Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, then the majority leader, to lead the Senate\u2019s investigation of the Russian assault. (McConnell opted to hand the probe to the Senate intelligence committee, where it would be less visible to the public.)In this regard, Graham was at odds with Trump, who had falsely denied Putin had interfered in the 2016 election and who derided the scandal as a \u201choax\u201d and not worthy of an investigation, which he repeatedly called a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d Graham also joined with Sen. Marco Rubio to press the Trump administration to impose tough sanctions on Russia\u2014which Trump was not keen on doing.<\/p>\n

But eventually Graham got on board with Trump\u2019s Russia denialism. He mounted a side investigation that focused not on Putin\u2019s operation but on the FBI\u2019s investigation of the Russian operation and the Steele dossier, the series of memos produced by a former British intelligence official that contained uncorroborated allegations of Trump-Russia collusion. Attacking the FBI probe and the Steele dossier\u2014which was paid for by an opposition research firm retained by a lawyer working for the Clinton campaign\u2014became the Republican\u2019s main tactic to divert attention from Putin\u2019s assault on the 2016 campaign and from Trump\u2019s complicity (that is, his false insistence that there had been no Russian intervention).<\/p>\n

Shortly before the 2020 election, Graham urged John Ratcliffe, a Trump devotee who was then director of national intelligence, to declassify intelligence that suggested that the Clinton campaign in 2016 had concocted a scheme to \u201cstir up a scandal against US Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians\u2019 hacking of the Democratic National Committee,\u201d with the goal to \u201cdistract the public from her use of a private mail server.\u201d<\/p>

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What neither Graham nor Ratcliffe told the public was that this intel was based on Russian intelligence reports that had been pilfered by the Dutch intelligence service and that CIA analysts believed were not credible and perhaps even disinformation. Graham was deploying unverified Russian intelligence to back up Trump\u2019s phony claim that there had been no Russian assault on the 2016 election and that the whole thing was a Democratic hoax. He had pulled a complete 180.<\/p>\n

Graham, who once decried Putin\u2019s covert attack on the United States, now was an obsequious Trump foot soldier. He recklessly and irresponsibly called the suspicious Russian intelligence that Ratcliffe made public \u201cthe smoking gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he stuck to this line. Last year, when Kash Patel, Trump\u2019s nominee for FBI director, appeared before the Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing, Graham railed against the Trump-Russia investigation and called it \u201cone of the most disgusting episodes in FBI history\u2026led by corrupt people.\u201d He falsely stated that a Justice Department inspector general\u2019s investigation had declared the inquiry \u201cfraudulent.\u201d (The IG report concluded it was legitimately opened but identified several problems with the probe.) Graham had become a pit bull for Russia denialism.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s odd is that while Graham was helping Trump cover up Putin\u2019s attack on American democracy, he was also a fierce advocate for Ukraine. \u201cLindsey was a true defender of freedom and the values that make our world safer,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u00a0wrote\u00a0after learning of Graham\u2019s death, saying he was \u201cdeeply saddened.\u201d<\/p>\n

So when the issue was Ukraine versus Russia, Graham was fervently opposed to Putin\u2019s barbarous war and tried to nudge Trump into maintaining US support for Kyiv. But on the matter of Putin\u2019s attack on the United States, Graham fully caved in order to protect Trump\u2014and became a useful idiot for Putin. No matter which principles Graham held and which policies he cared about, ultimately what mattered most was the influence he gained by serving a demagogue.<\/p>

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It\u2019s an important piece of the late Republican senator\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Lindsey Graham, Eager to Serve Trump, Became a Useful Idiot for Putin - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=1018\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Lindsey Graham, Eager to Serve Trump, Became a Useful Idiot for Putin - Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s an important piece of the late Republican senator\u2019s legacy.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=1018\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-12T20:08:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/3249215856c7f8ebef5feaa55a5d219c.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1124\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=1018#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=1018\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6b7c79bcfd888d98f34c5413df7e81a2\"},\"headline\":\"How Lindsey Graham, Eager to Serve Trump, Became a Useful Idiot for Putin\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-12T20:08:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=1018\"},\"wordCount\":929,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=1018#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/0cfa2a16b25dbf39e2c8820492e46f91.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=1018#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=1018\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=1018\",\"name\":\"How Lindsey Graham, Eager to Serve Trump, Became a Useful Idiot for Putin - 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