Within moments of the early Sunday morning announcement that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had died, there was much obvious commentary about his journey from Trump foe to Trump suck-up. During the 2016 GOP presidential primary, when Graham was competing with the onetime reality TV celebrity, he blasted Donald Trump as a “demagogue” and a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.” He urged voters to tell Trump to “go to hell.” He predicted his party would be “destroyed,” if it nominated Trump.

Yet after Trump won, Graham became a full-fledged Trump lackey. He played golf with his new buddy and relished the access to power he now possessed. After the 2020 election, he joined Trump’s effort to pressure Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to rework the state’s vote count so Trump would prevail. And when Graham won a hard-fought Senate primary last month, he lavished praise on Trump, exclaiming, “Mr. President, you’re not far behind God.”

One sign of Graham’s descent into the abyss of Trump toadyism is not likely to receive much attention: his acrobatic flip-flop on the Trump-Russia scandal.

After the 2016 election, during which Russia mounted a covert hack-and-leak attack and an extensive clandestine social media operation to cause chaos, hinder the Hillary Clinton campaign, and boost Trump, Graham was one of the Republican legislators who was boiling mad. He proclaimed, “I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want Putin personally to pay the price.” Graham even lobbied Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, then the majority leader, to lead the Senate’s investigation of the Russian assault. (McConnell opted to hand the probe to the Senate intelligence committee, where it would be less visible to the public.)

In this regard, Graham was at odds with Trump, who had falsely denied Putin had interfered in the 2016 election and who derided the scandal as a “hoax” and not worthy of an investigation, which he repeatedly called a “witch hunt.” Graham also joined with Sen. Marco Rubio to press the Trump administration to impose tough sanctions on Russia—which Trump was not keen on doing.