Lindsey Graham Slams Mondaire Jones for Suggesting Supreme Court Pushed U.S. Toward Capitol Riot

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham criticized New York Democratic Representative Mondaire Jones on Thursday after Jones released a video suggesting that the Supreme Court pushed the U.S. toward the January 6 Capitol riot.

In the video, which was posted to Twitter by Jones, he can be heard saying, "Our Democracy is in crisis. The insurrection on January 6 made that clear. This crisis didn't arrive overnight, or by accident. The Supreme Court helped bring us here."

"In fact, the Court has been actively dismantling our Democracy for years," Jones added in the video. "It invited a torrent of dark money to flood our electoral process, and set the stage for billionaires and special interests to control our politics."

Shortly after the video was released, Graham appeared on Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum and discussed the comments Jones made in the video.

"What the gentleman said at the top here, was that the [Supreme] Court had some responsibility regarding January the sixth, was one the most offensive things I've every heard a member of Congress say about the Supreme Court," Graham said.

"What in the world did the justices of the Supreme Court, who embodied the rule of law, do to lead to an insurrection where people took the law in their own hands. That kind of rhetoric is really dangerous to the independence of the Judiciary."

The video released by Jones comes shortly after he and several other Democrats, including Representatives Jerry Nadler of New York, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Hank Johnson of Georgia, introduced a bill that would expand the Supreme Court from nine seats to 13.

During a press conference announcing the proposed bill, Jones said, "I wish we did not have to stand here together. I wish we didn't have a far-right Supreme Court majority that is hostile to democracy itself, but here we are."

Markey made similar comments during the press conference saying, "We are here today because the United States Supreme Court is broken, it is out of balance and it needs to be fixed. Too many Americans view our highest court in the land as a partisan, political institution, not our impartial judicial branch of government."

Prior to the introduction of the bill on Thursday, President Joe Biden signed an executive order creating a commission to investigate the possibility of creating more Supreme Court seats.

In addition to the criticism from Graham, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Thursday that she has "no plans" to bring the bill proposed by Jones and others to the House floor for a vote.

"No. I support the president's commission to study such a proposal," Pelosi said in response to a question on if she supports the proposed bill. "I don't know if that's a good idea or a bad idea. I think it's an idea that should be considered and I think the president's taking the right approach to have a commission to study such a thing. It's a big step."

"I have no plans to bring it to the floor," she added.

During his interview on Fox, Graham also spoke about Pelosi's comments, saying, "the only reason Nancy Pelosi is not bringing up the court-packing bill is that she knows that she can't get it through the Senate 'cause the filibuster still exists."

He continued: "If you want to destroy confidence in the rule of law, do what they're proposing."

Newsweek reached out to Graham and Jones for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.