“You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role,” the politician said. “Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”
That man was South Carolina’s own Lindsey Graham, then a 43-year-old, third-term Republican Congressman. The president in question was Bill Clinton.
Twenty years later, those words are coming back to haunt Graham, now a 63-year-old Republican senator and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, from critics who contend isn’t applying this same standard to President Donald Trump — who, like Clinton, is now being scrutinized for behaviors that many observers, including Washington lawmakers, have said dishonors the presidency.