Senate Ethics Committee admonishes Lindsey Graham over campaign solicitations

The Senate Ethics Committee is admonishing Sen. Lindsey Graham for soliciting campaign contributions inside a federal building after a Fox News interview in November in which he asked viewers to donate to a GOP candidate.

Graham (R-S.C.) violated Senate rules and standards of conduct when he made the request during the interview from a Senate office building, the bipartisan leaders of the ethics panel said in a rare public letter released Thursday.

“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,” Ethics Committee Chair Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Vice Chair James Lankford (R-Okla.) told Graham in the letter. “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.”

Coons and Lankford wrote that Graham had solicited contributions for Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s campaign “five separate times” during the Nov. 30 interview on Fox News. They noted that Graham reported himself to the committee after the interview.

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In a statement Thursday, Graham said: “It was a mistake. I take responsibility. I will try to do better in the future.”

It is unclear whether he could face criminal penalties for his actions. Coons and Lankford said this was his second violation, after he similarly solicited contributions for his own campaign during an unplanned hallway interview in 2020.

The Ethics Committee dismissed that complaint, notifying Graham in a private letter, Coons and Lankford said. The panel did not publicly reveal that violation until now, having determined at the time that his conduct in that case was “inadvertent, technical, or otherwise of a de minimis nature,” the letter said.

The prohibitions on campaign solicitation in federal buildings and the use of federal resources for campaign activity “have been consistent and clear throughout your years of Senate service,” Coons and Lankford wrote, adding that Graham had sought contributions in the Fox News interview “despite the Committee’s specific guidance following [his] violation in October 2020.”