(The Hill) – Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday blamed the media for circulating recent allegations that Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker paid a former girlfriend to get an abortion, comparing the claims to the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“If you’re waiting on the media to tell you about what’s going on in Georgia… you’re going wait a hell of a long time. Remember Kavanaugh? Remember how they played the game right at the end? They come up with some letter, take the guy, blindside, another allegation, another allegation trying to drive him out,” Graham said in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
The Daily Beast reported last week that Walker, in 2009, conceived a child with a woman he was dating and encouraged her to get an abortion — and later reported that the same woman is also the mother of one of Walker’s children.
The New York Times then reported that Walker urged for a second abortion, and a Washington Post article Tuesday reported that the woman said she had to repeatedly press Walker for the abortion funds. Walker has denied the allegations.
In 2018, Christine Blasey Ford testified that then-Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in 1982. The nominee was then faced with other sexual misconduct accusations, all of which he denied.
Graham’s comments dismissing the allegations against Walker come as Georgia’s Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock leads Walker in some recent polling.
“The road to the majority runs through Georgia. The Democrats know that. The media knows that,” Graham said Tuesday.
The South Carolina senator on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court in Georgia to quash a subpoena calling him to testify before a special grand jury, part of a probe by Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis (D) into alleged attempts by former President Trump and his allies to interfere in the state’s 2020 presidential election results. The senator has been attempting to skirt the summons for months after he was initially subpoenaed in early July.