WASHINGTON — Video footage shows GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham being surrounded by an angry mob of Trump supporters as he tried to fly out of Washington, DC, on Friday following his floor speech and vote in favor of affirming the Electoral College results after the deadly US Capitol siege.
Dozens of people mobbed the powerful chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and accused him of being “a traitor” for refusing to back President Trump’s plot to overturn the election as a security detail escorted him through Reagan National Airport.
“You traitor! You traitor! You’re a traitor! Lindsey Graham, you are a traitor to the country,” screamed conservative activist Mindy Robinson, who shared the video on Twitter.
Graham (R-SC) had been catching a flight at the same time as dozens of Trump supporters who were in town to hear the president speak at a rally outside the White House before many of them split off and stormed the Capitol.
“You knew it was rigged! You knew it was rigged. You know it was rigged, you garbage human being,” she added, echoing the president’s claims that the election was stolen from him.
“It’s going to be like this forever wherever you go for the rest of your life!” she threatened, before repeatedly screaming, “Audit the vote!”
Graham, who has been one of the president’s closest allies, made a stunning break with Trump during a vote in Congress to confirm Joe Biden’s electoral victory that was violently interrupted by the president’s supporters.
Speaking after shellshocked lawmakers returned to the chamber following the deadly siege, Graham declared, “Enough is enough.”
“Trump and I, we had a hell of a journey,” Graham said on the Senate floor after the violent uprising.
“I hate it being this way. Oh my God, I hate it. But today, all I can say is count me out. Enough is enough. I tried to be helpful,” he said.
Graham initially supported Trump’s claim that he was the victim of widespread voter fraud and even encouraged the president not to concede to Biden.
But after the Capitol siege that killed five people including a police officer, the veteran GOP lawmaker said it was time to cement Biden’s win.
At a press conference the morning after the riot, Graham said the president’s claims of voting irregularities were “overblown” and rebuked Trump for holding a rally before the riot, egging on his supporters and encouraging them to march on the Capitol.
“I supported President Trump. I’ve become close to the president personally. I think this president has been consequential from a conservative point of view,” he said, listing Trump’s achievements, including tax cuts and Middle East peace agreements.
“[That was] tarnished by yesterday. When it comes to accountability, the president needs to understand that his actions were the problem, not the solution, that the rally yesterday was unseemly, it got out of hand,” he said.
Trump’s staff and cabinet members have begun deserting him as the fallout from the siege continues, resigning their posts in protest of the president’s handling of the crisis.