Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan fondly recalled Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), including the infamous moment during her 2010 confirmation hearing when he asked the Jewish Kagan where she had spent Christmas Day.
Kagan appeared with fellow justice Amy Coney Barrett on Capitol Hill Tuesday to testify about the need for increased security funding for the Supreme Court.
But the liberal justice first offered her condolences on the sudden death of Graham, who died unexpectedly late Saturday at age 71 of what officials have said was an aortic dissection.
Kagan made a point of remembering her confirmation hearing, during which Graham asked, “Where were you at on Christmas Day?” while discussing the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253 in 2009 by terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
“You know like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant,” Kagan quipped with a straight face.
“Great answer,” Graham replied as the room burst into laughter.
Speaking Tuesday, Kagan offered “the entire court’s condolences” to Graham’s “family, his many friends and colleagues in the House, in the Senate and elsewhere” before continuing:
It is not very often — well, I will 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, not many Republicans vote for the nominees of somebody selected by a Democratic president and not many Democrats do the same for someone selected by a Republican president.
And one would not expect such a cross party, if you will, vote, certainly from somebody from a deep red or a deep blue state.
And yet Senator Graham voted for me. And I vividly remember because he was a vivid person. The conversation that we had I his office prior to my hearing where he got to know me.
It was a long conversation. He took the opportunity to get to know me. He questioned me with great seriousness and great knowledge about my record as solicitor general including particularly the various terrorism issues that that office had dealt with over the time I was solicitor general.
And I still more vividly remember the conversations that we had at my hearing itself. In the last day or so, many people have talked about how funny Senator Graham was. I think Al Franken said he was the funniest man in the Senate.
But — what I remember about that hearing was 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.
I will skip the back and forth but many people said to me afterwards that that exchange with Senator graham was the moment my confirmation was sealed.
So I want to express my gratitude towards him, not only for his support but for approaching the confirmation process with the kind of seriousness that he did and the kind of respect that he did.
And I never got to know Senator Graham very well but I can see why so many people would deeply miss him and I just wanted to convey that on behalf of me and again express the condolences of the entire court to his family and friends.
Watch above via Fox.
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