Senator Lindsey Graham’s death sparked fresh questions on Monday after FBI agents were seen outside his Washington, D.C., home for a second consecutive day.
Despite authorities insisting there is no evidence of foul play, video and photographs showed multiple federal agents at the MAGA Republican’s Capitol Hill row house, where the FBI has been spotted since the Trump ally was taken to hospital on Saturday night. He was announced dead soon after.
Preliminary findings from the D.C. medical examiner concluded the 71-year-old South Carolina Senator died from an aortic dissection linked to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, although the official death certificate remains pending further testing.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the FBI about the continuing federal presence, which has done little to negate baseless conspiracy theories within MAGA world.
“This looks more like a cleanup than an investigation,” one self-described “election denier” wrote on X, tagging far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
The developments came as Graham’s younger sister, Darline Graham Nordone, was appointed to serve the remainder of her older brother’s Senate term through January as the GOP rushes to protect its fragile majority.
The appointment, which Trump pre-empted on Monday morning, makes the 62-year-old the first woman to represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate.
Graham, a long-serving Senator and one of Trump’s closest golfing buddies, never married or had a family of his own.
However, he was extremely close to his sister, becoming her legal guardian after their parents died in quick succession: their mother from Hodgkin lymphoma, followed soon after by their father from a heart attack.
Darline was just 13 years old at the time, while Graham was barely 22.
“It is such an honor,” Nordone said on Monday. “Lindsey has always been there for me. And now, I will be there for him.”
The appointment was announced at a press conference on Monday afternoon.
South Carolina governor Henry McMaster described Graham as “irresistible,” saying the longtime senator possessed an uncommon ability to win people over regardless of political differences.
Trump also devoted significant time to Graham during an appearance on Fox & Friends on Monday morning, praising his longtime ally while launching into a broader political rant.
The 80-year-old president rated Graham “99.9 out of 100,” joking that he lost only a fraction of a point for briefly criticizing him after the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Graham died after what his office described as a “brief and sudden illness.”
Emergency personnel responded to a report of cardiac arrest at his Washington, D.C., home Saturday evening, just hours after he’d returned from a trip to Ukraine and experienced chest pains.
Tributes immediately poured in from across the Republican Party, with Trump himself taking the lead.
“Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known, is dead!” Trump said.
But MAGA figures were quick to question the timing of Graham’s death, so soon after his visit to Ukraine to publicize his drive to step up sanctions on Russian oil and gas sales.
Almost instantly, wild theories began surfacing across the internet, fueled a few hours later by a post by FBI director Kash Patel declaring that “the FBI is assisting local authorities and has made every necessary resource available.”
“Yesterday, Lindsey Graham was in Ukraine... and called for more sanctions against Russia and pledged more US support for Ukraine,” she wrote on X.
“One day later, Lindsey Graham is dead. There needs to be an investigation!”
