Senator Mike Lee speaking with supporters of President of the United States Donald Trump at a "Make America Great Again" campaign rally in 2020. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
Leaked texts between former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee suggest that Lee was in on the plan to keep former President Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
One of the focuses of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot is the attempt to appoint alternate Trump electors in states carried by Biden in 2020, and that's where Lee comes in, due to the fact that his text messages with Meadows show him repeatedly referencing the alternate electors in the run-up to Jan. 6.
Lee claims he was investigating rumors that states were considering appointing the Trump electors.
“There were rumors following the 2020 presidential election that there were multiple states thinking about correcting alleged errors in their own state’s electoral count. It was causing them to consider withdrawing their electoral votes and submitting new ones. I made calls to investigate the accuracy of these claims,” Lee said during a GOP-sponsored U.S. Senate primary debate.
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Recently filed court papers from the Jan. 6 committee contain an email from Trump ally John Eastman that calls into question Lee's explanation.
On December 8, 2020, Lee texted Meadows, “If a very small handful of states were to have their legislatures appoint alternative slates of delegates, there could be a path.”
Then on December 19, an email from Eastman shows him saying that any alternate electors must be certified by state legislatures.
“Unless those electors get a certification from their State Legislators, they will be dead on arrival in Congress,” Eastman wrote in response to a suggestion that Trump could declare martial law and force a re-vote.
“No to martial law. I will not be associated with any such effort,” Eastman wrote.
Read the full report over at The Salt Lake Tribune.