FBI investigating after Lindsey Graham targeted by scam caller impersonating Chuck Schumer
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham revealed on Wednesday that his phone was in the possession of the FBI after a scam caller impersonating Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer contacted him.
Graham made the announcement at the Hill and Valley Summit, a gathering of lawmakers, defence contractors, venture capitalists and others connected to the national security sphere, where it was first reported by The Washington Times.
The gathering is a rare island of bipartisanship around a common value: defence and warmaking. This year’s gathering was attended by Republicans including Graham as well as Democrats including Schumer himself. Former President Donald Trump also spoke to attendees via phone.
A spokeswoman for Graham, Taylor Reidy, confirmed toThe Independent on Thursday that “the Sergeant at Arms is investigating a possible hack of Senator Graham’s phone”, but did not elaborate on whether the device had been taken by the FBI. The Independent has reached out to the FBI for comment.
Graham has known Schumer for many years and has been involved in many a negotiation with the Democratic Senate leader. During the Trump administration, Graham was somewhat of a go-between connecting the Republican president to Senate Democratic leadership, as he retained personal relationships across the aisle even as he and his party drifted further to the right.
Now, he plays a different role: his fealty to Donald Trump (even after January 6) has caused a widely-reported splintering of his relationship with Joe Biden and the Biden family. In 2015 the South Carolina Senator famously choked up describing the personal tragedies endured by then-Vice President Biden, calling him “as good a man as God ever created,” but he has since fallen out of favor with his former friends.
During the 2020 presidential race, Dr Jill Biden was asked by CNN’s John Berman about her family’s relationship with Graham. Her response conveyed a deep disappointment in the senator’s rightward turn and embrace of Trumpian political tactics.
“I don’t know what happened to Lindsey. And we used to be great friends [with him] and friends with John McCain,” she said in that interview. “I mean, we traveled together with the [Senate] Foreign Relations Committee. We’ve had dinner, you know. And now he’s changed.”
Despite this, the two found themselves on the same side in 2021 when the president worked with both Democrats and Republicans in the upper chamber to ink a deal on a bipartisan infrastructure package. Graham would go on to vote for the legislation while his fellow South Carolinean, Senator Tim Scott, voted against it.
