They also asked the panel to investigate whether Graham “threatened someone with a Senate investigation into the vote count in Georgia”.
The Senate panel analyzes complaints “from virtually any source” according to its guidelines, but it is not known whether it will probe Graham. The panel, which is divided equally between three Democrats and three Republicans, acts in secret and often offers little more than a slap on the hand to warn of a senator’s misconduct.
Graham told CNN “no, not at all” on Wednesday when asked if he is concerned about facing any ethical investigation.
“I am accused of everything, I will remain me,” Graham said on Capitol Hill. “I called the Secretary of State to find out how you check a subscription and which database you use, because I think it’s important that if we’re going to vote by mail, we get it right.”
Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and an important ally of Trump, does not oversee electoral issues, which are under the jurisdiction of the Senate Rules Committee, and has faced a barrage of criticism for his interventions in the democratic process.
Graham did not look at the states that Trump won. When asked why not, Graham said Wednesday “because they are not in question. I mean, we are looking at states where there is a contest. I am not looking at states that he lost. I am looking at states where there is a challenge.”
Graham’s spokesman Kevin Bishop also dismissed the ethics claim, noting that Painter and Shaub are “longtime, frequent and vocal critics of Senator Graham.”
In the letter, the three ethics experts and Trump critics wrote that if the allegations are true, Graham’s conduct is “an abuse of office” and “inappropriate for a senator”, and claimed that the ethics committee led by the Republican senator of Oklahoma James Lankford and Democratic Senator of Delaware, Chris Coons, must “seek appropriate sanction or any other appropriate remedy”.
“The fact that the President of the Senate Judiciary Committee suggests to a Secretary of State to refrain from counting legitimate votes threatens the electoral process and undermines representative democracy,” they wrote.
Raffensperger said on CNN’s “The Situation Room” on Monday that Graham had suggested he should try to discard some notes in Georgia.
“It was just an implication of ‘Look and see how many banknotes you can throw away,'” said Raffensperger.
Georgia election implementation manager Gabriel Sterling, who works for Raffensperger, said on Tuesday that he participated in the call with Graham on Friday. Sterling said he heard the senator ask if state officials could throw away all absentee ballots where a “percentage” of signatures did not “truly” match.
Graham’s comments “may have gone a step further” than people consider acceptable, said Sterling. But he added that he understood why Raffensperger and Graham interpreted the conversation differently.
“The president will continue to fight; his supporters continue to fight,” said Sterling. “Our job is to continue to comply with the law and we are answering questions in the process.”
CNN’s Sarah Fortinsky and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.