Graham: GOP vote to weaken ethics watchdog ‘the dumbest fricking thing’

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says the House Republicans’ vote Monday night to weaken the chamber’s ethics watchdog was “the dumbest fricking thing I’ve ever heard.”

Graham’s comment came in a radio interview Tuesday morning before the House GOP abruptly withdrew its proposal to strip the Office of Congressional Ethics of its independence after facing backlash.

“It’s the dumbest fricking thing I’ve ever heard,” Graham said on Fox News Radio’s “Kilmeade & Friends.”

“The first thing you do after getting a mandate from the American people is introduce detaining the ethics committee. That is not the message the House needs to send to the American people,” he said.

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President-elect Donald Trump criticized the timing of the move in a tweet before the House GOP called an emergency meeting to reverse the proposal. Graham said Trump “was right to call them out.”

“It was a dumb move by the House,” Graham said, indicating support for changing the proposal. “President-elect Trump was right to call them out.”

The new Congress hadn’t formally begun when House Republicans gathered for the emergency conference Tuesday.

The Office of Congressional Ethics, established under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in 2008, was created in response to several lobbying scandals.

The proposal, announced Monday night, also sparked backlash from Democrats and watchdog advocates.