When the insurrectionists breached the Capitol building, the outnumbered Capitol Police officers had to act fast.
Some officers were on the front lines, face to face with the largely unmasked rioters that violently broke doors and windows as they charged into the building.
Other officers were tasked with evacuation maneuvers. They whisked Senators, Representatives, and staffers into safer areas of the building, and sat ready to defend the lawmakers if the rioters approached.
But for all that selfless courage showed by the officers, apparently senior Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, wasn't a picture of composure in the midst of all the chaos.
In an interview with MSNBC's Ari Melber, Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, a colleague of Graham's, explained that he heard Graham didn't exactly keep his cool:
"I heard when the 75 senators were confined in a room with about 75 staff people, Lindsey Graham with his mask off started screaming at one of the officers — I think it was one of the captains — saying, 'How come you didn't protect us? It's doing your job.'"
"He was screaming at an officer. He had his mask off screaming at this officer from five feet away — I was maybe 10 feet on the other side — that the officer, the police, didn't do enough to protect us."
Brown later pointed out the irony of Graham's poor response to the Trump-led insurgency he had long encouraged.
"This is the same Lindsey Graham that for five years — or for four years, he didn't do it in the beginning — defended and argued for and encouraged and aided and abetted this president and all of his followers."Twitter users who heard Brown's comments had a field day with that panicked image of Graham.
Evidently Graham was impacted by his experience huddling with his colleagues while the mob overran the building.
When the rioters were finally removed from the Capitol, Graham voted to certify the results of the election and acknowledge Joe Biden's lawful victory.
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