Sen. Lindsey Graham, 71, dies of ‘sudden illness’ — and conspiracy theorists are already blaming Iran and Russia

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who spent 23 years in the Senate and became one of Donald Trump’s closest allies, died this Saturday night at the age of 71. His office confirmed the death in a statement on Sunday, attributing it to a “brief and sudden illness” and not elaborating any further.

Emergency personnel responded to a call for cardiac arrest at Graham’s Capitol Hill home on Saturday evening, according to police scanner audio obtained by NBC News. Photographs reviewed by the outlet showed paramedics carrying a person on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance. There were police cars and fire trucks on the scene. A senior staffer said there had been no indication Graham was unwell beforehand.

No official cause of death has been released so far. The Washington Post, citing dispatch audio, reported that the initial 8:30 p.m. call concerned a man suffering chest pains. They also added that CPR was underway roughly 25 minutes later.

Suspicions rooted in timing alone

The picture is clear enough to not warrant a second look, but concerning Graham’s whereabouts over the past week, some folks on the internet are jumping on the conspiracy bandwagon. Graham met Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, touring drone facilities in Kyiv, per the office of the President of Ukraine.

He was dead within 36 hours of the photo-op with the Ukrainian president, and that was only a few days after he reposted a photo of himself at the funeral processions for Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran, where placard holders had put a red crosshairs on his head, alongside pictures of Trump and other influencers like Ben Shapiro and Laura Loomer.

“At least they used a good photo of me,” he wrote. “Judge me by my enemies.”

Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who had spent months questioning Graham’s loyalty to Trump, accused Iran of assassinating the senator. “5 days ago, the IRGC publicly called for Senator Lindsey Graham to be assassinated,” she wrote. “He’s been home for less than one day, and tonight, his staff said he passed away from a ‘brief and sudden illness.’”

Other users chimed in with the same line of reasoning, accusing Iran or Russia of orchestrating his death.

There is no evidence to support any of it, of course. Emergency services responded to what dispatchers described as cardiac arrest, and law enforcement has yet to indicate his death is being treated as suspicious. Graham had no health problems prior to this incident, per The Guardian.