Darline Graham says "How the hell was Lindsey going to tamper with evidence he didn't even have in his possession?"
U.S. senator from South Carolina and younger sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died in July 2026
“In May 2023, your office secured a subpoena for the phone records of my brother, Lindsey. ... Lindsey was kept in the dark, as were several senators you targeted. ... How the hell was Lindsey going to tamper with evidence he didn't even have in his possession?”
Source and context
Original video
About this source
Senate Judiciary Committee's archived video of the September 29, 2026 hearing. Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) said Smith's office had secured a subpoena for the phone records of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and questioned the nondisclosure order; Smith answered that Lindsey Graham was not a target of the investigation.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Reporting
About this source
CBS News report on Sen. Lindsey Graham's death on a Saturday evening in July 2026. It also identifies Darline as his younger sister.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who was presiding, called on Graham after saying he would soon have to leave. She said Smith's investigation had reached into the Senate through the subpoena for her brother's records.
After the quotation
Smith replied that her brother "was a patriotic public servant," was not a target of the investigation and likely would have been a witness in the case. Asked why the order said disclosure could lead to tampering with evidence, Smith said disclosure "could result in Donald Trump attempting to intimidate witnesses as he had before and after," and that his office had "an ample basis for that."
How this statement is classified
Case context: Were members of Congress's phone records and text messages properly obtained in the Arctic Frost and Jack Smith investigations?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
The case asks whether the collection of members' phone records and messages was proper. Graham criticized the subpoena for her brother's records and the nondisclosure order that kept him unaware of it, asking how he could have tampered with evidence held by Verizon. That rejects the collection as improper, so we labeled it Condemned.
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Were members of Congress's phone records and text messages properly obtained in the Arctic Frost and Jack Smith investigations?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
More from this case
Read the full case“for all of the outrage of my colleagues over your requesting toll records because Rudy Giuliani and other co-conspirators were calling some of the members of this body ... the Barr Justice Department sought toll records from members of Congress. Not a peep from my colleagues about that ... That apparently was okay. That apparently doesn't violate speech and debate. ... My colleagues talked about the stress on members of having their toll records requested as witnesses, not even targets.”Read statement
“It's been widely reported that you and your team issued some 44 subpoenas related to the tolling records of at least 20 Republican members of Congress, including at least eight U.S. senators, including at least four members of this committee ... it appears the actual reason for the NDOs was to avoid giving those members the opportunity to challenge the subpoenas pursuant to the protection that they enjoyed under the Constitution's speech and debate clause. ... Your team took actions to directly undermine the separation of powers at the heart of the Constitution.”Read statement
“the Department of Justice's own Public Integrity Section, it did give you explicit warnings that going after the phone records of members of the legislative branch carried what they referred to as litigation risks due to these constitutional privileges. ... you never actually told Chief Judge Boasberg that you were targeting 19 members of a coordinate branch of government, the legislative branch. ... There should be an articulated basis for secrecy when you're asking for a gag order. ... in a way that arguably makes what Richard Nixon did in Watergate look like a Sunday picnic.”Read statement