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Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) is working hard to cancel the 2020 election and keep President Donald Trump in power before finally abandoning his efforts when there was no evidence of widespread fraud and his involvement in the states for alternative voters proved useless, according to texts.
Lee sent the texts to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who passed them on to a House committee investigating pro-Trump’s attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. CNN reviewed the texts of Lee and Representative Chip Roy (R-Tex .) sent Meadows and reported on them on Friday.
In texts to Meadows sent in November, Lee strongly supported Trump’s efforts to annul the election through legal challenges, offering on November 7, 2020, the day news organizations predicted Joe Biden the winner, his “unequivocal support for you, for to exhaust all legal and constitutional remedies at your disposal to restore Americans’ faith in our elections. “
“This should not be a binary choice between (1) an immediate discount and (2) a loss of confidence in the electoral process,” Lee wrote to Meadows that day.
Lee clarifies that he has worked hard to help Trump, saying in a text that he spends “14 hours a day” on the effort and contacts state lawmakers in search of something to give Congress a reason not to count the votes. in the Biden election on Jan. 6, 2021 and confirmed his victory.
“We need something from the state legislature to make this legitimate and have some hope of victory. “Even if they can’t get together, it may be enough if a majority of them want to sign a statement stating how they will vote,” Lee wrote in a text.
A spokesman for the commission on January 6 did not comment immediately.
Senator Lee’s spokesman Lee Lonsbury said in a statement Friday that the text messages “tell the same story that Senator Lee told from the Senate on the day he voted to certify the election results” on January 6, 2021.
“[The texts] “Tell the story of a U.S. senator fulfilling his duty to Utah and the American people by following the Constitution,” Lonsbury said.
However, Lee’s remarks in the Senate this day did not reflect what the texts showed: his frustration with Trump after the president criticized him at a rally on January 4 in Georgia for not doing enough to undo the results, his complaints about fellow Republican Sensori Ted Cruz (Texas) and Josh Hawley (Misito) and his recommendations to Meadows to seek the help of attorneys Sidney Powell and John Eastman.
“I’ve been doing 14 hours a day for the last week trying to figure this out for him. “Making him shoot me like that in such a public setting without even asking me about it is quite discouraging,” Lee wrote to Meadows.
Meadows apologized and said Trump would call.
In another text to Meadows, Lee expressed disappointment with Cruz and Hawley, saying they both supported Trump’s efforts only in their favor and to Trump’s detriment. Lee said that if the efforts do not create a competing constituency under state law, it will only harm Trump.
Hawley announced in December 2020 that he would object to the election count; Cruz and 10 other senators announced on January 2nd that they would object.
“I have serious concerns about the way my friend Ted is making this effort,” Lee told Meadows. “This will not benefit the president.”
“All I know is that it will end badly for the president unless we have our country’s constitution,” Lee added. “And unless those states submit new lists of Trump voters in accordance with state law, we don’t.”
Lee did not mention any of these concerns or disappointments during his January 6 speech.
Lee’s willingness to support Trump’s campaign to cancel the election is remarkable given his experience – he was an employee of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and was mentioned as a possible candidate for the Supreme Court when Trump ran for office. post in 2016
Lee will be re-elected this year and received Trump’s approval earlier this month. The former president praised Lee as he mocked one of his contenders, independent Conservative Evan McMullin, calling him “McMuffin.” Trump also made an indirect strike against Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah), a favorite target. Romney has twice voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges.
Months before the election, Romney did not support Lee.
One of Lee’s contenders for the Republican nomination, former Republican Republic of Utah Becky Edwards, said in a statement that the senator “should allow those who seek to stay in power, regardless of the consequences.”
“As soon as Lee realized the gravity of Trump’s attempts to undermine the 2020 election, he had to stop investigating the legitimacy of such actions and stop putting pressure on local lawmakers,” Edwards said.
McMullin, who is running for the White House in 2016, questioned Lee’s decisions on Twitter.
“Why did Senator Mike Lee advise a false legal effort to cancel the 2020 election?” McMullin asked. “And why did you hide these plans from both the public and the FBI in the days before January 6?”
Lee’s writings show that shortly after the election, it was Lee who encouraged Meadows to give Powell access to Trump, saying she would help him continue the legal challenge. He provided Meadows with Powell’s contact information and initially seemed confident that Powell could help develop the Trump case.
“Obviously she has a strategy to keep things alive and bring several states back into play. Can you help get her in? Lee sent an SMS.
Two days later, Lee again vouched for Powell, calling her a “strong shooter.”
While counting the election results in November, Powell made all sorts of false accusations of election fraud. She joined other members of Trump’s legal team – including Rudolf Giuliani and Jenna Ellis – at a press conference of the Republican National Committee on November 19, 2020, at which she falsely claimed that Trump “won with a convincing victory.”
“We’ll prove it,” Powell said.
Since then, Powell has not only failed to provide substantial evidence to support his allegations of electoral fraud, but has also faced a number of legal challenges, financial sanctions and possible dismissal.
Two hours after that press conference, Lee began to express his doubts about Powell.
In a statement to Meadows, the senator said he was “concerned about Powell’s press conference.”
“The potential responsibility for slandering the president is significant here,” Lee said. “For the campaign and for the president personally.” Unless Powell can’t support everything he said, which I doubt he can.
Meadows agreed, saying, “Very worried.”
By the end of November, Lee had withdrawn from Powell and instead encouraged Meadows to hire right-wing lawyer John Eastman. But confidence in Eastman also did not last long, given that by mid-December, Lee had begun to question Meadows’ plan to legally challenge the January 6 election certification.
“If you want senators to object, we need to hear from you about this, ideally to get some guidance on what arguments to raise,” Lee sent a message to Meadows on December 16, 2020. “I think we’ve crossed the line, in which we can expect someone to do it without any direction and a strong argument. “
By Jan. 3, Lee told Meadows that Trump’s efforts to get the United States to send alternative election lists to Congress were likely to fail.
“I don’t think the president understands the difference between what we can do and what he would like us to do,” he told Meadows the other day, warning that “everyone’s efforts could backfire.”
Hours after a mob stormed the Capitol, Lee voted to certify the election results and Biden’s victory.
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