According to one Capitol police officer, Trump-loving South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham certainly didn’t show much southern charm or hospitality during a meeting with other Capitol officers about a commission proposal he Republicans ultimately rejected.
In fact, the officer said Graham was actually “very disrespectful.”
The revelation regarding Graham’s distasteful behavior came from Sandra Garza — the longtime partner of the late Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. Sicknick passed away on January 7th, just shortly after the infamous Capitol riot the day before. Ultimately, the officer suffered two strokes and his death was attributed to natural causes. However, the medical examiner did officially rule that the events that took place on January 6th, the day before Sicknick passed away, “played a role” in the officer’s untimely death.
Brian’s longtime partner, Garza, along with his mother Gladys, and two other Capitol officers who survived the violent siege eventually went on to lobby Congress to create an independent, bipartisan commission tasked with investigating the infamous Capitol riot that took place at the hands of Donald Trump’s supporters.
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
In May of 2021, Garza joined forces with former D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was left with severe, life-altering injuries as a direct result of the Capitol attack, as well as several other officers who were involved in the front line response to the siege, to attend a meeting with Republican senators.
The New York Times reports that the majority of the senators who were involved in that meeting were respectful to the officers they sat down with, telling the law enforcement officials how “tragic” they thought the attack was before going on to thank them for their service, maintaining eye contact with the officers who put their literal lives on the line throughout the meeting. However, Garza told the news outlet that Senator Graham’s behavior during the meeting was so upsetting and disturbing to her that she actually confronted him about it.
While Fanone was reliving the attack that he survived but left him severely injured, Garza said Senator Graham looked “bored and distracted.”
“I said, ‘I feel like you’re being very disrespectful, and you’re looking out the window and tapping your fingers on the desk,'” she recalled to the Times.
She goes on to tell the publication that another senator who was also present at the meeting tried to tell her that she was “misreading” Graham’s body language. Garza said this only served to infuriate her even more.
She wasn’t the only one who left that meeting angry and disappointed. Harry Dunn also attended the same meeting and said he was equally angry at the fact that Republican senators refused to do even the “minimum” to respond to the Capitol attack. Dunn recalled Graham, who made a “big show of how angry” over the Capitol siege ultimately opposed the commission the officers were there seeking. Dunn went on to tell the Times that Sen. Tim Scott told them during the meeting that while he and Graham both agreed that there needed to be “accountability” for the insurrection, they refused to put their support behind an independent commission.
Following the meeting, Graham would go on to claim that he had a “very productive” talk with Garza and her fellow officers, but claimed that he was still opposing their proposition of a commission because it would “turn into a partisan food fight.”
Garza would go on to slam Republican senators as “all talk and no action” following the less than productive meeting.
It’s worth noting here that Garza has not always been so vehemently anti-Republican. In fact, she admitted that both she and the late officer Sicknick actually voted for Donald Trump and even had their own doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 election at first. However, she told PBS NewsHour that her opinion of the now-ex-president quickly changed when she witnessed the Capitol riot firsthand, leading her to call Trump a “horrible person.”
“I hold Donald Trump 100 percent responsible for what happened on Jan. 6 and all of the people that have enabled him, enabled him that day, and continue to enable him now,” Garza, who was partners with Sicknick for 11 years stated.
“Personally, for me, I think he needs to be in prison,” she stated. “That is what I think.”
“I think, sadly, Brian did not live long enough to see the evidence that has come forth to show what kind of man Donald Trump really is,” Garza told PBS. “I think Brian would be horrified. I think he would have viewed Donald Trump in a very different light.”
Featured image via screen capture
