Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., isn’t impressed with Sen. Claire McCaskill’s, D-Mo., revisionist history. And no senator has a right to be more angry than the South Carolina Republican.

When former President Barack Obama nominated Justice Sonia Sotomayor and then Justice Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, Graham did the bipartisan thing. He supported both nominees. When President Trump nominated Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Graham’s Democratic colleagues did the opposite. They ate the nominee alive and tried to ruin his life.

This changed something inside the senator. A switch flipped, rage swelled, and Graham was transformed from a RINO in the eyes of the Republican base to something of an OG. Hence his upcoming Missouri rally Monday morning with Republican senatorial hopeful, state Attorney General Josh Hawley. He is expected to breathe fire about Kavanaugh.

Unlike Graham, McCaskill has twisted her story on Kavanaugh. Maybe that’s why, the Missourian reports, the senator said she hopes confirmation should be out of voters’ minds before Election Day. But that is a tough ask when Hawley keeps hammering the issue and when McCaskill keeps standing by contradictory statements.

It is true that McCaskill didn’t make an issue out of allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh. It is not true, like McCaskill said during the last debate however, that she “as [Hawley] knows I made my decision on Kavanaugh before the allegations surfaced.”

McCaskill kept the country waiting announcing her decision to vote against the nominee one week after the Intercept first reported the existence of a letter from an anonymous #MeToo survivor. Her decision would come three full days after the Washington Post published an interview with the first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.



LEBANON, Mo. — Regarding allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, Sen. Claire McCaskill says she will “set them aside” when she decides how to vote on the judge’s nomination. Says to expect her decision “shortly, very shortly in fact.” #mosen — Will Schmitt (@wsreports) September 19, 2018

The senator broke with her colleagues announcing she would “set aside” the allegations when making her decision. She later joined with them voting against the nominee.

But setting aside allegations is a very different thing from making a decision before allegations surface. It is also very different from the official reason McCaskill gave for saying no. She wouldn’t support Kavanaugh, she explained in a press release, because of his position on “the avalanche of dark, anonymous money that is crushing our democracy.”

But it turns out McCaskill only has a problem with dark money when she isn’t up for election. The senator certainly hasn’t done anything to hold back the avalanche thundering down on Missouri right now. For instance, McCaskill isn’t asking Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to stop his outside spending.

Per FEC filings the Schumer-aligned dark-money group, Majority Forward, has spent nearly $3.4 million in support of McCaskill. Meanwhile his larger Senate Majority PAC, which does disclose its donors, has spent $17.4 million on the race.

That cash, coupled with the shifting Kavanaugh timeline, make McCaskill vulnerable. The past bipartisanship of Graham, who split with his party in the past, makes him an ideal champion for Hawley.