The extent of Sen. Mike Lee's involvement in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election results came to light last week with the release of hundreds of text messages, most with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. They show that Lee and Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy were frantically trying to prevent the Jan.6 electoral vote certification right up until the last minute.
Lee's actions, which his defenders claim demonstrate Republican honor, actually demonstrate nothing more than sycophantic obedience to the cause of Donald Trump, according to The Bulwark columnist Amanda Carpenter.
"In interviews with Bob Woodward and Robert Costa for their book 'Peril,' which came out in September 2021, Lee depicted himself as someone who, through December 2020, 'never wavered' from the view that Congress had no role in messing with Electoral College votes," writes Carpenter, who is a former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz.
That doesn't appear to be the truth. The texts released last week show that Lee was deeply involved in trying to find a way for Republican states to manufacture alternate slates of electors who would ignore voters' wishes and cast their ballots for Trump. They also show that he was instrumental in bringing in right-wing lawyer Sidney Powell into the process but then, as Carpenter notes, turned on her after a disastrous news conference with campaign attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis.
"I'm worried about the Powell press conference," Lee texted Meadows shortly after the Nov. 19, 2020, event. "The potential defamation liability for the president is significant here ... For the campaign and for the president personally ... Unless Powell can back up everything she said, which I kind of doubt she can."
Two days before the Jan. 6 certification vote, Lee was wounded by a remark Trump made at a Georgia "Stop the Steal" rally in which the former president said, “Mike Lee is here, too. But I’m a little angry at him today. . . . I just want Mike Lee to listen to this, what I’m talking [about], because you know what, we need his vote.”
Lee texted Meadows: “I’ve been spending 14 hours a day for the last week trying to unravel this for him. To have him take a shot at me like that in such a public setting without even asking me about it is pretty discouraging.” Ultimately Lee voted to certify Joe Biden's election win.
"In short: Lee outlined paths for Trump nuts to reverse the election," Carpenter writes. "But, after giving these clowns all his attention, time, and effort, he didn’t, in the end, like how the Trump nuts tried to reverse the election. His disagreement was about tactics, not the mission. But his error was accepting the mission at all."
"Mike Lee may want to pretend he had no role in this process, but the stone-cold truth is that he, and many other conservatives, breathed life into Trump’s schemes and made the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol possible," she adds.
