WASHINGTON _ Two White House aides applauded Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican delivered an angry diatribe against Democrats at the Senate hearing Thursday on one of the sexual assault complaints against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
"This is the most unethical sham since I've been in politics," Graham angrily and loudly railed, accusing Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee of trying to destroy Kavanaugh's reputation in an effort to keep him off the nation's highest court.
An administration official involved in the confirmation process called Graham's remarks "amazing." Separately, Marc Short, the former White House liaison to Congress, predicted that Kavanaugh's own impassioned, irate and often partisan testimony would help him win confirmation along party lines.
Graham was the first Republican lawmaker on the committee who used his allotted five minutes to speak himself rather than ceding the time to the Republicans' hired prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell. He emphatically told Kavanaugh he would be voting to confirm him and challenged his party colleagues to do the same.
The White House took to Twitter to express approval.
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, tweeted Graham's endorsement and his condemnation of "the outrageous and unfair treatment" of Kavanaugh. And Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote that Graham "has more decency and courage than every Democrat member of the committee combined. God bless him."
