Any hope that Sen. Lindsey Graham's defense of Donald Trump on Sunday during an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" might provide a roadmap for the former president's legal team was dashed by MSNBC's Steve Benen on Monday morning.
While speaking with CNN's Dana Bash, the South Carolina Republican suggested paying off adult film star Stormy Daniels is not only not a criminal act, but the norm for celebrities attempting to protect their images.
With Bash prompting, "I just do want to ask you one specific question about what we heard this past week. And that is David Pecker, who ran the National Enquirer’s parent company, testified that he paid to ‘catch-and-kill’ about Trump—specifically to help his presidential campaign, you don’t have any concerns about that?” Graham tried to brush it off by replying "a lot of celebrities do this,” and then noted that golfer Tiger Woods and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger had engaged in similar conduct.
Unnoted by Graham was that neither of them was engaged is a presidential run at the time — a key point in Trump's 34-count felony trial in Manhattan.
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Trump's legal team has already attempted an "everybody does it" defense in his financial fraud trial when it came to over-valuing properties and that ended with the former president being saddled with a close to a half-billion dollar fine that is still on appeal.
In his column, Benen wrote, "To think such schemes are 'ordinary' in modern American life is obviously bonkers," and then went on to explain that "the principal problem with the defense was that it was ridiculous: The circumstances surrounding the Republican’s alleged felonies made his controversy unique."
"And yet, there was Graham — on the heels of Trump’s latest anti-Graham harangue — peddling the line on national television as if it were credible. It was not," he concluded.
Graham: There's no absolute immunity in the Constitution youtu.be
