‘You’ve got guns,’ SC’s Graham told Capitol police on Jan. 6. ‘Use them’
South Carolina’s senior U.S. senator told Capitol police to open fire on rioters who breached the U.S. Senate during the Jan. 6 attack, new reporting details.
An hour-by-hour breakdown of the attack on the U.S. Capitol building that day detailed by the Washington Post includes the comments Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-Seneca, made as a mob of angry Donald Trump supporters forced their way into the building while members of Congress were meeting to certify President Joe Biden’s election victory.
“What are you doing?” Graham said to the Senate sergeant-at-arms as senators were being evacuated from the chamber. “Take back the Senate! You’ve got guns. Use them,” the Post reports, citing an unnamed Republican senator who recounted the exchange to a reporter.
“We give you guns for a reason,” the newspaper quotes Graham as saying. “Use them.”
Five people died in the violence at the Capitol, including a California woman who was shot and killed by a Capitol police officer as she and others attempted to break down the door onto the floor of the House of Representatives. Another police officer died from injuries after being attacked and beaten by rioters who pushed their way past barricades and broke through doors and windows into the halls of Congress, many believing the election had been stolen from Trump and that Congress should vote to reject the results of the Electoral College in favor of Biden.
Graham has been critical of how Capitol police handled the crowd that day, after the rioters took over both chambers of Congress for several hours as lawmakers, Vice President Mike Pence, and the ballots containing the electoral votes were evacuated to secure locations around the Capitol, delaying the final certification of the 2020 election.
The senator told reporters on Capitol Hill the next day he was “embarrassed” and “disgusted” by how quickly the legislative branch was overrun. “They could have blown the building up. They could have killed us all. They could’ve destroyed the government,” Graham told reporters, as recounted in The Hill. “Lethal force should have been used. ... We dodged a major bullet. If this is not a wake up call I don’t know what is.”
“How could that happen 20 years after 9/11. ... It is mind-boggling that such an event could occur,” Graham said at the time.
Graham also reportedly reached out to the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, to get her father to publicly call for the mob to leave the Capitol, the Post reports.
“You need to get these people out of here,” Graham reportedly said to Ivanka Trump over the phone. “This thing is going south. This is not good. You’re going to have to tell these people to stand down. Stand down.”
When Congress ultimately reconvened, Graham commiserated with Pence, who presided over the meeting. “You’re doing the right thing,” Graham said shortly before Pence formally certified that he and Trump had lost their bid for re-election. “I’m proud of you.” The two men then hugged, the Post reports.
Almost a week after the attack, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, recounted how Graham started “screaming” at one officer as several senators hid from the mob in a secured room.
“Lindsey Graham with his mask off started screaming at one of the officers... ‘How come you didn’t protect us? It’s doing your job,’” Brown told MSNBC. “He was screaming at this officer from five feet away ... that the police didn’t do enough to protect us.”
When contacted by The Hill about the latest reporting from the Washington Post, a Graham spokesperson said the information was “nothing new” compared to Graham’s previous comments about the attack.
On the day of the attack itself, Graham tweeted, “Those who made this attack on our government need to be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Their actions are repugnant to democracy.”
This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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