Rep. Omar doubles down on Sen. Graham: 'He is somehow compromised'

Tuesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar said on Twitter that Sen. Lindsey Graham was “compromised” in some unspecified way. This was her way of explaining Graham’s shift from someone critical of then-candidate Trump, to someone now seen as a frequent Trump defender.

Rep. Omar wasn’t the only person making this sort of speculation this week. As Ed pointed out here, MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle dropped this same accusation Tuesday. “It could be that Donald Trump or somebody knows something pretty extreme about Lindsey Graham,” Ruhle said. What exactly did she have in mind? We don’t know, but as Ed pointed out, there are creatures deeper in the progressive swamp suggesting that Graham is hiding a kinky, gay sex life. In fact, the tweet about Graham that Rep. Omar used as her jumping off point had this as the most-liked response (and yes, it had been there 2 full days by the time she replied):

Today, Rep. Omar appeared on CNN where she was asked about her tweet. “I wonder if you’d explain what you were talking about there,” co-host Jim Sciutto asked.

“So over the last three years we have seen many times where Senator Lindsey Graham has told us how dangerous this president could be if he was given the opportunity to be in the White House,” Omar said. You may notice that this makes no sense. Trump has been in the White House for two years so it’s too late for warnings about him being there. But moving right along…

“And all of a sudden he’s made not only a 180 turn around but a 360 turn around,” Omar explained. Maybe someone can pull her aside to explain how circles work? Moving right along…

“And so I am pretty sure that there is something happening with him, whether it is, uh, something that has to do with his funding when it comes to running for office, whether it has something to do with the polling that they might have in his district, or whether it has to do with some sort of leadership within the Senate,” she said. Lindsey Graham is a U.S. Senator from South Carolina. He doesn’t have a district. But moving right along…

“He is somehow compromised to no longer stand up for the truth and to make sure he is fighting to protect the oath that he took in serving the American people,” she concluded without a shred of evidence.

CNN’s Jim Sciutto seemed pretty stunned by this wave of utter nonsense. “That’s quite a charge to make. You say you’re pretty sure but based on what evidence, what facts? That’s a remarkable comment to make about a sitting U.S. Senator,” he said.

“The evidence is really present to us. It’s being presented to us in the way that he’s behaving,” Omar replied.

“But that’s not evidence,” Poppy Harlow interjected. She continued, “That’s your opinion but now as a sitting member of Congress you have tweeted ‘They got him on this.’ Again, just based on what evidence, congresswoman?”

“My tweet was just an opinion based on what I believe to be visible to me and I’m pretty sure there are lots of Americans who agree on this,” Omar said.

The contest to fill Harry Reid’s shoes in the Democratic Party is now over I guess. Kudos to Sciutto and Harlow for attempting to pin her down on this. I wonder if she’ll be asked about these empty allegations again or if she’ll just be given a pass.

Finally, it’s not hard to understand what happened to Graham. If you watched the Kavanaugh confirmation you saw it happen in real time. Here’s the clip of Rep. Omar. Below that is Lindsey Graham’s 180 moment for those that missed it.

Update: And here’s Rep. Omar denying her innuendo had anything to do with sexuality:

Again, I’m not really buying it given that lots of other people seemed to take the comment she was responding to exactly that way. But even if you believe that she wasn’t using a dog whistle here, she’s still making unsubstantiated allegations about Graham being compromised. She’s not really in a position to be highly offended that people didn’t know which unsubstantiated claims she had in mind.