Sen. Lindsey Graham Admonished in Rare Move by Senate Ethics Panel

The Senate Ethics Committee publicly reprimanded Sen. Lindsey Graham( R-S. C. ) on March 23 for allegedly soliciting campaign donations in a federal building in 2022.

In their letter( pdf ) to the Republican lawmaker, the committee stated that they had examined a claim that Graham” violated Senate Rules and related standards of conduct” by soliciting donations for his campaign outside of the federal building and discovered that his actions were” contrary to Senate Standards of Conduct.”

The commission claims that during a Fox News interview on November 30, 2022, Graham allegedly solicited campaign donations for Georgia Republican senator Herschel Walker” five separate years.”

In the runoff against Walker, Sen. Raphael Warnock( D-Ga. ) ultimately prevailed in reelection on December 6.

According to the committee, Graham’s meeting lasted just over nine minutes, and four of those minutes were spent talking about the Georgia congressional run-off election in 2022.

The committee noted that Graham had formerly” engaged in an unplanned media interview in the Dirksen Senate Office Building” on October 14, 2020, during which he supposedly” right solicited campaign contributions” for his campaign committee.” Your deeds on November 30, 2022, represented a duplicate violation of Senate standards of conduct ,” the council said.

” Hanger to the Public Trust”

In accordance with the Committee’s Rules of Procedure, they determined that your conduct was” inadvertent, technical, or otherwise of a de minimis nature ,” even though they concluded that it violated Senate standards of conduct. The matter was then dismissed in March 2021.

The Committee’s conclusions and course of action were then communicated to Graham in a private letter in March by Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Chris Coons( D-Del ). In a letter to Graham dated March 23, Vice Chairman James Lankford ( R-Okla. ) also stated.

The Committee stated that it has” a accountability both broader than and distinct from legal law” to uphold the U.S. Senate’s social norms.

They wrote,” Applying this standards to your run, the Committee finds that you did request national campaign contributions and otherwise unduly conducted campaign activity in a national building.” Additionally, despite the Committee’s detailed instructions following your infraction in October 2020, you made these campaign requests. The Committee does recognize that you self-reported your actions to the Chairman and Vice Chairman.

Coons and Lankford concluded that” the government may be certain that Members use public resources only for legal actions in the best interests of the United States, neither for political political activity.” The public’s trust and confidence in the US Senate were damaged as a result of your things failing to uphold that standards. You are therefore warned.

Graham claims that it was a” fault.”

Graham provided information to the council during its investigation, Coons and Lankford acknowledged.

According to the Senate ethics regular, no person, official, or employee may solicit or accept donations in a federal building in accordance with federal law, 18 U.S. C. Section 607.

Graham’s actions may result in legal but, but that much is unclear.

Graham stated in a speech on Thursday that it was an error. I accept accountability. I’ll make an effort to improve in the future.

Graham is not the first legislator to receive a warning, so the committee’s action is different. The committee claimed that Sen. Bob Menendez( D-N ) in 2018 ( J. ) had broken parliamentary regulations by” deliberately and constantly” accepting gifts of” substantial importance” from Dr. Salomon Melgen, a Florida eye doctor who had been found guilty of Medicare scams earlier that years, over the course of six years.

Menendez had been charged by the Department of Justice in 2015 with accepting illegal presents, but his trial ended with a hanging judge, and prosecutors later asked the determine to drop the charges.

Menendez was required to return the presents at their fair market value after the council later determined that he had broken Senate regulations.

Prior to that, former Sen. Tom Coburn( R – Okla.) was reprimanded in 2012( pdf ) for” improper conduct” as a result of his communications with an aide to the then-Sen. John Ensign’s office during the one-year” cooling off period” after he left the Senate, during which former Senate staffers are forbidden from lobbying their former employer.

This report was written by Reuters.