Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas have a lot in common. They’re both Republican senators. They both have legal backgrounds. They both arrived in the chamber around the same time. They’re both up for re-election in the 2026 midterms.
But just as important, if not more so, is the fact that they’re both facing credible GOP primary challenges next year, which in turn has made them desperate to remain in Donald Trump’s good graces. Indeed, Cornyn and Graham have, in recent months, appeared eager to look for new and creative ways to impress the president, in the hopes of securing an endorsement.
It’s against this backdrop that the Republican duo pitched an idea on Thursday. NBC News reported:
Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, are calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint a special counsel at the Justice Department to investigate the former Obama administration over Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The pair of senators said in a statement today that they want a special counsel ‘to investigate the extent to which former President Obama, his staff and administration officials manipulated the U.S. national security apparatus for a political outcome.’
The longtime GOP lawmakers, pointing to discredited claims from National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, added that “the entire Russia collusion hoax was created by the Obama Administration to subvert the will of the American people.”
At this point, regular readers are probably thinking that I’m going to spend the next several paragraphs reviewing a series of obvious facts: The Russia scandal wasn’t a “hoax”; it wasn’t “created” by the Obama administration; no one tried to “subvert the will of the American people” (at least not until after Trump lost in 2020); no one “manipulated the U.S. national security apparatus” before or after the 2016 election; and there’s obviously no need for a special counsel to scrutinize “evidence” that’s already been shown to be ridiculous.
Cornyn and Graham, in other words, appear to have brazenly lied about details they really ought to understand.
But while we certainly could have that conversation, let’s instead go in a different direction — and note that the investigation that Cornyn and Graham want (or are at least pretending to want in order to score points with Trump) already happened.
Not only did the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee look for evidence of the Obama administration engaging in political manipulation — the panel, led by future Secretary of State Marco Rubio, found nothing — but the Trump administration, in the president’s first term, also appointed John Durham to serve as a special counsel to scrutinize the origins of the Russia scandal investigation.
And he didn’t find anything, either. All of which leaves us with a straightforward question: Why would two highly experienced U.S. senators with extensive legal backgrounds call for a special counsel investigation that’s already happened in the recent past? I won’t pretend to be able to read Graham’s and Cornyn’s minds, but it’s hardly outlandish to think these guys are really concerned about their 2026 primary races. As for whether there might be a spectacularly unnecessary special counsel investigation anyway, the Republican base probably shouldn’t get its hopes up: NBC News reported that the White House isn’t overly fond of the idea, fearing that such a probe would take control of the story away from Trump’s Justice Department.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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