Overview
- CNN aired never-before-seen footage on Tuesday that filmmaker Alex Holder recorded for a planned documentary and that shows Senator Lindsey Graham speaking to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in October 2024.
- Only Graham’s side of the call is audible in the clip, in which he tells Netanyahu how to assemble bipartisan opposition and says he could get Senators Richard Blumenthal and Ben Cardin to press allegations about ICC prosecutor Karim Khan.
- The Graham call predates a November 2024 bipartisan letter from Blumenthal and Cardin seeking a probe of Khan and the ICC’s November 2024 arrest warrant for Netanyahu, a sequence reporters note links the private advice to later public actions.
- The footage surfaced after Graham’s sudden July 11 death and after the ICC oversight body removed Karim Khan on July 24, and the clips are intensifying questions about Graham’s behind-the-scenes foreign-policy role and ties to Israeli leaders.
- Holder and CNN authenticated the material, and the release could drive further political and institutional scrutiny, including new scrutiny of lawmakers named in the clip and of how outside pressure shaped the ICC’s work.