'His Christmas joke sealed my Supreme Court confirmation!': Justice Kagan pays tribute to Graham

Justice Elena Kagan honored late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday, remembering the South Carolina Republican as a “vivid” personality who helped secure her confirmation to the Supreme Court. Graham died suddenly on Saturday night after a “brief and sudden” illness that was determined to be an aortic dissection. He was 71 years old. The senator was one of five Republicans who voted for Kagan, a liberal nominated by former President Obama, to join the high court in 2010. “I’ll just say that I didn’t get many Republican votes when I was confirmed to the Supreme Court, and that’s the usual state of things today,” Kagan said, after offering the court’s condolences to Graham’s family. “And one would not expect such a cross party, if you will, vote, certainly from somebody from a deep red or deep blue state, and yet Senator Graham voted for me,” she added. The justice, who is Jewish, recalled a “funny” moment during her confirmation hearing in which Graham asked her where she was on Christmas. “I think Al Franken said he was the funniest man in the Senate,” Kagan said. “But what I remember about that hearing was that somehow Senator Graham made me look funny, which is a harder thing entirely, by asking me what I had done on Christmas the following year.”