Type Username Here
Not a new member
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Thursday he would vote for CIA director nominee John Brennan because Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) filibustered his appointment over questions about President Barack Obama's drone program.
"I was going to vote against him until the filibuster, so he picked up one vote," Graham said, laughing to reporters in the Capitol.
"I thought Brennan was arrogant, a bit shifty," he said, adding that he was going to vote for Brennan because the vote had become a "referendum on the drone program."
"Where were all these people during the Bush administration? I never remember anybody accusing President [George W.] Bush of 'We're going to kill someone in a cafe,'" Graham said. (Paul, of course, was not in office during the Bush administration.)
Graham's reversal is notable since the South Carolina senator had threatened to delay the nomination over the administration's account of the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi. On Thursday, Graham said he had gotten what he wanted.
Graham qualified that he had "no problem" with Paul trying to get answers on whether the president has the authority to kill an American citizen inside the United States.
Paul held an old-fashioned filibuster, which lasted almost 13 hours, from the Senate floor over Brennan's nomination. He objected to a letter he received from Attorney General Eric Holder in which the administration refused to rule out the option of killing an American citizen on U.S. soil.
Lindsey Graham: John Brennan Has His Vote For CIA Director Because Of Rand Paul Filibuster
One of the Senate's leading hawks, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), took to the Senate floor Thursday to fire back at Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), saying the Kentuckian's rant against extrajudicial drone killings was "simply false."
Quoting extensively from a Wall Street Journal editorial that mocked Paul, McCain also argued that Paul had belittled the growing use of drones to kill terrorism suspects by invoking the name of Jane Fonda and suggesting a drone could have killed her when she was a Vietnam War protester.
Paul took to the floor Wednesday for nearly 13 hours, hoping to pressure the White House to declare whether or not it might use a drone to strike an American citizen in the United States.
McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, was not impressed.
"I watched some of that, quote, debate, unquote, yesterday," McCain said. "I saw colleagues who know better come to the floor and voice some of this same concern, which is totally unfounded.
"I must say that the use of Jane Fonda's name does evoke certain memories with me, and I must say that she is not my favorite American. But I also believe that, as odious as it was, Ms. Fonda acted within her constitutional rights, and to somehow say that someone who disagrees with American policy -- and even may demonstrate against it -- is somehow a member of an organization which makes that individual an enemy combatant is simply false," McCain said, hitting his lectern for emphasis. "It is simply false."
The Wall Street Journal editorial he quoted was even more scathing, declaring, "Give Rand Paul credit for theatrical timing, as a snow storm descended on Washington. The filibuster filled the attention void on Twitter and cable TV. If only his reasoning matched the showmanship."
The editorial also complained that Paul should not be shocked that the United States might kill a citizen by drone strike within its own borders, arguing that the Obama administration is well within its rights to kill enemies of the country, wherever they may be.
Paul has vigorously opposed the growing use of drones by the administration, saying the strikes violate due process guaranteed under the Constitution and permit the president to act as judge, jury and executioner.
Rand Paul's Filibuster Belittled By John McCain As 'Simply False'
