Sen. Mike Lee refused to answer questions on Tuesday about recently published text messages that offer detail on his role at the center of a plot to overturn former President Donald Trump’s election loss.
Approached by a Salt Lake Tribune reporter at the Summit County Republican Party Convention in Kamas, Lee staffers blocked access to the senator.
The messages, first reported by CNN, show how Lee offered assistance to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s campaign team following Trump’s election loss. At first, Lee pressed Meadows to give lawyer Sidney Powell access to Trump, only to back off after her a news conference where she claimed a vast conspiracy perpetrated by a secret cabal including deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez stole the election from Trump.
Lee has not addressed the text messages publicly since they were published Friday. He did not mention them during an address to Republican delegates Monday night and did not take questions.
He is in Utah ahead of Saturday’s Utah Republican State Convention. He has scheduled a Thursday evening event for GOP delegates featuring Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst. It’s unclear whether Lee plans to take questions from the media before the Senate resumes business on Monday.
Lee has a scheduled appearance in Ogden for a local business at 11 am. Organizers informed The Tribune he would not be taking questions at the event.
The text messages also showed Lee pleading with Meadows for instructions on how to proceed.
“Please tell me what I should say,” Lee wrote.
In December 2020, Lee introduced lawyer John Eastman to the Trump team. Eastman was behind the bogus legal argument that former Vice President Mike Pence had the power to set aside results from battleground states Biden won and declare Trump the winner.
Lee first claimed he only learned of Eastman’s plan on Jan. 2, 2021, but found it unworkable after a thorough investigation. The text messages revealed that Lee was pushing state legislatures to appoint alternate slates of electors almost up to the last moment, a key element of Eastman’s plan.
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