Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, listens during the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Monday, March 21, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) continues to defend his texts messages to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows after the 2020 election.
On Friday, April 22, 2022, Lee told Utah’s Morning News he was not working to overturn the election results. (The full interview is below.)
“It’s an absolute lie,” Lee said. “It’s not only not supported by evidence, it’s contrary to fact. “
Lee has faced harsh criticism for text messages released by a House Select Committee and then reviewed by CNN that show continued conversations with Meadows leading up to January 6, 2021. The conversations included a discussion of the possibility of states changing their electoral votes.
The Senator denies that he was working to have states change their electoral votes. Rather, he said he wanted states to investigate independently.
“And I had to start making phone calls personally ’cause I couldn’t get accurate answers on what was actually happening,” Lee said.
“That’s when I discovered that—as I had suspected all along—not a single state was going to do that.”
One of the people Lee is facing at the Utah GOP nominating convention Saturday said the text messages show Lee went too far.
“Sen. Mike Lee researched overturning a lawful, democratic election for partisan and political gain,” Becky Edwards said in the hours after the texts were made public.
“The moment Mike Lee realized the gravity of Trump’s attempts to undermine the 2020 election, he should have stopped researching the legality of such actions and stopped pressuring local legislators,” she said.
Sen. Lee will make his case to delegates this weekend at the Utah GOP’s nominating convention. He’s already qualified for the ballot by getting enough signatures.