Senate Ethics Committee hits Lindsey Graham with rare public admonishment

The Senate Ethics Committee on Thursday publicly admonished Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., after he appeared on a nine-minute Fox News segment last year during which he solicited campaign contributions for former Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker on Capitol grounds.

Ethics Committee Chairman Christopher Coons, D-Del., and vice chairman, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., sent a letter to Graham explaining that he violated Senate rules and conduct by soliciting campaign contributions in a federal building.

While the committee issued a public admonition, there have been no sanctions in response to Graham's actions. 

In the interview conducted on Nov. 30, Graham spoke with Fox News in the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building and spent four out of nine minutes talking about Walker's campaign, the committee's investigation found. 

The Senate committee concluded that the South Carolina Republican "directly solicited campaign contributions on behalf of Mr. Walker's campaign committee, www.teamherschel.com, five separate times."

Graham self-reported his actions to Coons and Lankford, the letter states. 

"It was a mistake. I take responsibility. I will try to do better in the future," Graham said in a statement on Friday.

However, the committee said that this is not the first time Graham violated Senate rules regarding fundraising on federal property.

On Oct. 14, 2020, the letter obtained by the Washington Post states, right after a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Graham was part of an "unplanned media interview" in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, during which he "directly solicited campaign contributions" to his reelection campaign committee after a reporter asked about his fundraising efforts.

The Judiciary Committee at the time was in the midst of confirming now-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Graham was the chair of that committee, and when asked if the Coney Barrett hearings would affect his standing in an upcoming Senate race, Graham simply made a fundraising appeal.

"I don't know how much it affected fundraising today, but if you want to help me close the gap — LindseyGraham.com — a little bit goes a long way," Graham said. "I feel really good about my campaign."

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Instead of taking action on this issue, Coons and Lankford said they dismissed the 2020 complaint and issued a private warning to Graham because his violation was the result of "inadvertent, technical, or otherwise of a de minimis nature."

The Ethics Committee rarely takes public action. The last public letter of admonition came in April 2018, when Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., was reprimanded after a months-long bribery case against him. 

However, Coons and Lankford said in their Thursday letter that after already receiving a private warning about his 2020 violation, Graham broke another senate rule on fundraising in 2022. 

"The public must feel confident that Members use public resources only for official actions in the best interests of the United States, not for partisan political activity," Coons and Lankford wrote. "Your actions failed to uphold that standard, resulting in harm to the public trust and confidence in the United States Senate."

"You are hereby admonished," they wrote.