News/Commentary

Lindsey Graham says former president would have believed ‘aliens stole 2020 election ballots,’ juror claims

March 16, 2023 | | Print Article

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) reportedly testified to a Georgia special grand jury investigating former President Trump’s effort to overturn the election there in 2020 that if someone told him that aliens had stolen the election ballots, he would have believed them.

Proving that Graham is not much of an ally in reality to Trump, the senator appeared to turn on him while testifying.

“[Graham] said that during that time, if somebody had told Trump that aliens came down and stole Trump ballots, that Trump would’ve believed it,” an unnamed juror allegedly told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Five members of the 23-person grand jury — three men and two women — recently spoke to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the condition of anonymity, providing background of eight months of testimony. They did not divulge much on whether Trump would be found guilty or not. It was reported that the jury recommended indictments but did not say who they were for.

The Journal-Constitution remarked that Emily Kohrs, the jury foreperson who spoke to the media last month, was not among the jurors it spoke to.

Graham made the statement following a lengthy court fight over whether he should appear in front of the special grand jury because he reportedly made phone calls to Georgia election officials during the so-called overturn effort. Graham’s lawyers invoked the Constitution’s “Speech and Debate” clause to exclude him from testimony, but the Supreme Court kept in place a lower court’s subpoena, with limitations.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also claimed that two jurors said as many as 10 people invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during testimony and refused to answer questions concerning Trump.

Among those refusing to answer questions reportedly were former Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to a jury foreperson.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis started looking into Trump’s involvement in Georgia’s election in 2021. That followed a leak of Trump’s recorded call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger where the then-president allegedly asked him to “find” 11,780 votes.

“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said to the secretary of state during the call. “Because we won the state.”

Trump and many conservatives still claim there was massive voter fraud during the 2020 election. They point to insecure ballot boxes, movement of boxes inside voting centers, and insecure mail votes and drop boxes as evidence of voter fraud. The security of voting machines is also still being contested.

Graham infamously delivered a Senate floor speech on January 6 where he said that he and Trump had “a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way. Oh, my God, I hate it.”

He also stood against Trump’s calls for then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn votes certified by the electoral college.

“So, Mike, Mr. Vice President, just hang in there. They said we can count on Mike. All of us can count on the vice president. You are going to do the right thing. You are going to do the constitutional thing,” Graham said to Pence, according to the Daily Mail.

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