COLUMBIA, S.C._As early voting states began heading to the polls in 2016 to choose who would be the Republican Party's presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham made the rounds on TV news shows, criticizing then-Republican front-runner Donald Trump for his unconventional ideas and controversial language.
"I think he's a kook. I think he's crazy," the Palmetto State Republican said in February 2016, after having ended his own run for president in December. "I think he's unfit for office."
But just a year and a half later, Graham made a 180-degree turn in an interview with CNN.
"You know, what concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label this guy as some kind of kook, not fit to be president."
The reversal is just one of many documented in videos and shared on social media of Graham then, a sometimes more moderate Republican and once-bulldog of President Bill Clinton's impeachment, versus Graham now, an unwavering Trump defender and critic of Democratic efforts to impeach Trump.
Now, pre-2016 Graham has become a weapon for the senator's critics, fellow congressmen and political opponents. Their ammunition is an internet archive of video clips of Graham once attacking Trump and his policy decisions only later to defend him, and once pushing Democrats to accept Congress' right in the 1990s to explore impeachment, alongside clips of his latest statements attacking impeachment efforts against Trump.
Jaime Harrison, a well-funded and connected Democrat with designs on taking Graham's seat in 2020, has seized on the senator's apparent flip flops, highlighting them in campaign ads and during TV appearances.
Graham's campaign said use of the videos by political opponents is just politically motivated.
"The socialist ideas Democrats are peddling aren't selling, so the radical left is resorting to cheap tactics like cherry-picking out-of-context words from Senator Graham in an attempt to tear him down," campaign spokesman T.W. Arrighi said. "Unfortunately, it's par for the course, but the people of South Carolina will see right through it."
Whether Graham's shifting perspectives will hurt him remains to be seen. Some political observers suggest he's safe: Graham is wildly popular among South Carolina Republicans, who also give high marks to the president, according to polling.
And hitching his cart to Trump, come what may from his detractors, could be a good strategy, experts say.
"Those people are for Trump and those are the people that will mean he (Graham) doesn't have a primary opponent and will be in a good place to be reelected" in 2020, Chip Felkel, a Greenville political consultant, said.
In explaining Graham's change of heart toward Trump, Arrighi pointed to the bond of friendship the senator now has with Trump.
"Senator Graham doesn't agree with the president on everything, but true friends can speak frankly with each other when they disagree."
The list of Graham videos highlighted by critics as examples of his inconsistency goes on.
During last year's confirmation hearings for controversial Supreme Court Justice Bret Kavanaugh _ whose nomination Graham fiercely defended _ a 2016 video of Graham's comments about failed Obama-nominee Judge Merrick Garland made the rounds on social media, with users comparing the two disparate statements.
In the video, Graham called Garland "a fine man" but said he believed that Justice Antonin Scalia's vacant seat should not be filled until after that year's presidential election was decided and the next president had taken office.
Democrats at the time accused the GOP of stalling on Garland, widely seen as a moderate, in order to deny Obama, a political rival, the ability to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
The video of Graham praising Garland was shared on social media the same day that Graham, in a tweet, accused Democrats of seeking a similar "political outcome" by trying to stall on Kavanaugh's confirmation until the midterm elections had been decided, when Democrats hoped to pick up more seats and more influence to influence the confirmation process for court appointments.
Similar to Graham's habit of quickly defending the president's picks, the Republican has also spoken against officials that Trump has soured on.
In July 2017, Graham said there would be "holy hell to pay" if then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions was ousted by Trump.
"Any effort to go after (Special Counsel Robert) Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency, unless Mueller did something wrong," Graham said.
Sessions was under fire after recusing himself from the Mueller probe because of his role as adviser to the Trump campaign, a subject of Mueller's investigation alongside Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential elections. On multiple occasions, the president expressed displeasure with the move.
But after a Fox News host asked him about his threat of "holy hell" in support of Sessions, Graham said the president should have an attorney general who he has "confidence" in and expressed confidence in Matthew Whittaker, who as acting attorney general had been a vocal critic of the Mueller investigation.
"The bottom line is this is hysteria more than anything else," Graham said on Fox last year.
The clip of his 2017 statement then went viral.
In the most recent example of Graham going viral, a 2016 video of the senator calling former Vice President Joe Biden "as good of a man as God ever created," was splashed across Twitter.
The video resurfaced a day after Graham took a stand against Biden, launching an investigation into the former vice president and his son Hunter Biden. The senator asked the State Department for transcripts of Biden's phone calls with Ukrainian officials to look into allegations that Obama's second in command got a prosecutor fired who was investigating Burisma _ a company that Hunter Biden was a member of the board.
The move could simultaneously draw attention away from the ongoing Trump impeachment inquiry while turning eyes to the largely unfounded allegations against the Bidens.
By far, the most popular Graham videos involve comparing Graham's words during the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton to the stances Graham takes when it comes to his ally, Trump.
As Democrats and Trump opponents debated whether the president obstructed Mueller's investigation, the Democratic National Committee dug up a video of Graham as a young lawyer during the Clinton impeachment, saying the president doesn't "have to say, 'Let's obstruct justice,' for it to be crime."
Clinton was accused of obstruction of justice as House officials investigated whether the president carried on a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Critics have also alleged that Trump committed obstruction of justice during the Mueller probe, though he has never been charged in the case.
The 90s-era video of Graham circulated on social media as he defended Trump against the allegations.
Most recently, as the Trump impeachment hearings ramped up, Graham took a hard stand against the process, vowing not to watch the House proceedings and taking aim at House Democrats as they questioned witnesses in the probe. On Nov. 20, a video from late 1998 resurfaced and showed Graham taking a very different stance on the merits of impeachment proceedings when Clinton, a Democrat, was under fire.
"Members of the Senate have said, 'I understand everything there is about this case, and I won't vote to impeach the president.' Please allow the facts to do the talking," Graham implored lawmakers, in the 1998 video, which recently went viral. "People have made up their mind in a political fashion that will hurt this country long term."
In August 2018, shortly after former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted of financial crimes and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, Graham's critics began sharing a nearly 20-year-old video of Graham during the Clinton impeachment hearings.
In court documents filed in Cohen's case, prosecutors said the former Trump fixer allegedly coordinated with "individual 1." Later filings clarified that "individual 1" was Trump.
MSNBC pundit Lawrence O'Donnell tweeted the video of Graham from 1999, in which he says a president does not have to be convicted of a crime to be removed from office.
"You don't even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job (as president) in this constitutional republic if this body determines your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role," Graham said in the clip, referring to Clinton.
"Because impeachment is not about punishment," Graham continued. "Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office."
Throughout the Mueller investigation, Graham emphasized that Trump himself had not been implicated in any crimes.
Arrighi pointed to differences between the Trump and Clinton impeachment proceedings, saying Clinton's investigation drew bipartisan support, and both parties were able to call witnesses of their choosing.
In 1998, 31 Democrats supported the impeachment investigation into Clinton, and five Democrats ultimately voted to impeach. There were 12 Republicans in 1998 voted against impeachment.
Graham's campaign called the impeachment inquiry into ally Trump a "partisan sham."
"This has been a strictly partisan 'inquiry' from the beginning," Arrighi said in an email. "Whether you agree with President Trump or not, the process has been unfair to the president and sets a horrible precedent for future presidents."
In a video announcing his bid to oppose Graham, former S.C. Democratic Party Chairman Harrison hit hard at the senator for waffling as clips played of Graham calling Trump a "kook" and a "race baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot." Those clips are later contrasted with video of Graham saying very nearly the exact opposite.
"He's a guy who will say anything to stay in office," Harrison said of Graham in the video.
In an email to The State, Harrison said Graham regularly "flip-flops on key issues to build Washington influence."
"His most recent flip-flop is just another sad example of how South Carolinians can't even recognize who Lindsey Graham is anymore. These days, he's not fighting for the people of South Carolina. He's only interested in playing political games," Harrison said.
Graham's reelection campaign said criticism of then-candidate Trump was common among other Republicans. However, some of those same Republicans eventually came to work for the president.
Trump's other critics-turned-allies include former S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley, who Trump named U.S. ambassador, former U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney who is now Trump's chief of staff, Arrighi said.
"That happens all the time in campaigns. After Donald Trump won, Senator Graham wanted the president to be successful because that means America is successful," he said, adding Trump and Graham have struck up a genuine friendship.
"They enjoy each other's company, and the senator appreciates the opportunity to offer input on issues critical to the country," Arrighi said.
Opinions on whether the contrasting videos will put Graham's seat in jeopardy vary.
The senator's frequent TV appearances could have a negative effect on him during his 2020 reelection bid, according to College of Charleston political scientist Gibbs Knotts.
"If he were to go up against a well-funded candidate in a year that favored Democrats a little bit, that could spell trouble in the general election," Knotts said. "There is something about a certain group of South Carolina voters who are going to be turned off by the flip-flopping and loyalty to Trump."
Those voters, who tend to be more moderate in their politics, could lean toward a strong, cash-heavy Democrat, Knotts said.
In Harrison, Graham is facing one of his strongest Democratic opponents in years, with Harrison consistently raking in record amounts of cash for a Democrat running in a statewide election. Graham, though, has continued to outpace Harrison, maintaining a lead in the polls, varying from seven percentage points to 23 percentage points.
Retired Clemson University professor Dave Woodard, who worked on Graham's congressional campaigns in 1994 and 1996, said he expected opponents to use videos from the senator's past, which may not necessarily hurt Graham.
"Negative advertising cuts two ways," Woodard said. "It can strengthen the base of your opponent if you do it wrong and a lot of people do it wrong."
"An attack on him allows him to send out a fundraiser that says 'Well, I told you what was coming, they're trying to smear me and all this kind of stuff,'" Woodard added.
The Graham campaign has employed that tactic in emails to campaign supporters. After the 2016 video of Graham speaking highly of Biden went viral, the campaign sent out a fundraising email referencing the incident.
"I love Joe Biden as a person. While we may not agree on many of the issues, he is a decent man. He's had a lot of tragedy in his life, and he's bore those difficulties with strength and dignity," the campaign email said. "But I also have a duty to do my job as a U.S. Senator."
Graham's evolving stances have also ensured that he has shored up support and successfully fended off challengers within the Republican Party ranks, said Felkel, the Greenville political consultant.
"I think Graham finds himself in a situation in which he is highly unaccustomed, and that is that the majority of the Republican Party base in South Carolina are singing his praises," Felkel said. "That is something that is not part of his longer term history."
