Lindsey Graham is dead, and President Donald Trump says the FBI is “wasting their time” by chasing the conspiracy theories that arose from it. “I wish he took better care of himself,” he said of his friend, a longtime South Carolina senator.
Four law enforcement sources told CNN that there is no indication that Graham died of anything unnatural, and that local police are conducting a follow-up review of any death. The FBI just volunteered its resources when needed.
That didn’t stop the theories, which popped up in a few different directions on the internet.
Big bang: Russia killed him. Graham was one of Putin’s sharpest critics in the Senate, had just returned from Kyiv pushing a new sanctions bill, and was on Russia’s most wanted list and designated a terrorist by Moscow. The post points to the FSB’s history of poisoning (Novichok, polonium) and said that something could have been used to simulate a heart attack. Far-right activist Laura Loomer marked the trip to Ukraine. GOP Sen. John Cornyn requested a toxicology report to “rule out any foul play.”
A second route has blamed other foreign actors, Israel, Iran, or a floating Ukraine as the aggressors based on Graham’s foreign policy record and recent travel. Less detailed, same shape.
A third said the timeline doesn’t work, that Graham couldn’t have left Ukraine and returned to DC in the window described, and that the circumstances of his death in Washington don’t add up.
A fourth read the FBI’s presence as telling. Director Kash Patel wrote to X that the office was “assisting local authorities and making all necessary resources available,” and agents were seen entering Graham’s DC home on Monday without explanation. Sources told CNN Patel’s post was meant to explain the normal process after a lawyer’s death, but online it was taken as confirmation of a cover-up.
Then the edge: the reaction of the Covid boosters, the Clintons, AI-generated images and clips, and the usual “murder” posts with no perpetrator.
People who spoke to Graham in his final hours described nothing negative. Sen. Katie Britt said she was “very happy to get the White House on board with the Russian sanctions bill.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who spoke with her on Friday and Saturday, said she “sounds very good. In fact, better than good.”
The DC medical examiner previously ruled that Graham died of “aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease,” a tear in the aorta tied to the blocked arteries that Trump said doctors tore through. “I first heard that the arteries were blocked because he had blocked arteries,” said Trump. “I wish he took better care of himself.”
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster appointed Graham’s younger sister, Darline Graham, to serve the rest of her term, which ends early next year. He is sworn in at the Capitol on Tuesday.
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