Posting selfies online and speaking remotely at the Utah GOP’s election night party, multiple top Beehive State Republicans skipped celebrations in crimson Utah to join now-President-elect Donald Trump at his Palm Beach resort last week, where they watched as more and more states across the country turned red.
Familiar faces in the crowd were Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, as well as Sen. Mike Lee, whose name came up repeatedly to head the Justice Department when Trump returns to the White House. But his isn’t the only name connected to Utah that has been floated to nab a cabinet position.
Trump’s announced chief of staff, Susie Wiles, co-chaired the Florida Advisory Council for Sen. Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. And during that same election cycle, she helped launch and briefly managed former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.’s presidential bid.
Between Trump’s tenures in the White House, longtime adviser Stephen Miller, whose appointment to deputy chief of staff for policy was recently announced, launched America First Legal Foundation — a self-described “right-wing nonprofit” that is going after Utah’s preeminent LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
With his face projected in front of Utah Republican partygoers, Lee told them from Florida, “It’s going to be a good night,” and added, “Four years of Biden-Harris made all of us poorer — made Americans less free.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Sen. Mike Lee calls into the GOP watch party in Draper from Mar-a-Lago Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Draper. “I’m with President Trump," Lee said. "We're in good spirits, It’s gonna be a good night for us.”
Sen. Mike Lee: Attorney general
A spokesperson for the senator’s office did not respond to a request for an interview about the possibility of Lee accepting the position as the country’s top attorney. Trump’s transition team announced Wednesday, one day after this story’s initial publication, that it would be Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to fill the position.
Lee, whose father Rex Lee once served as U.S. solicitor general, told the Deseret News before Gaetz’s appointment that, for now, he plans to stay in the U.S. Senate.
“I have the job I want,” Lee reportedly said. “And I look forward to working in the next Congress and with President Trump and his team to implement his agenda and the reform agenda that Republicans have offered and campaigned on, and it’s going to be an exciting time. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Once one of Trump’s most prominent critics, even as he made Trump’s shortlist of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees in 2016, Lee has come to be a vocal supporter of the president-elect.
The senator voted to acquit the former president on the multiple occasions he was impeached — whether for abuse of power, obstruction of Congress or incitement of insurrection.
When Trump lost his reelection bid in 2020, Lee sent texts to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows urging him to find ways to challenge those results, and asking how he could help.
Following a turbulent four years for Trump, during which current Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to continue criminal investigations into Trump’s activities during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and his handling of classified documents, the next attorney general could help the president-elect in pursuing sworn revenge against political foes, The New York Times reported.
(Photo courtesy of the White House) Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, posted this photo on Twitter on Nov. 5, 2019, saying he had recently met with President Donald Trump. He said they talked about the nation's "most pressing issues." He declined to elaborate when asked by The Tribune for more information.
Former Rep. Chris Stewart: Director of national intelligence
Multiple outlets reported Tuesday that another Utahn who voted to acquit Trump, former congressman Chris Stewart, could join Trump’s Cabinet as the director of national intelligence. His name has previously come in front of Trump to fill a vacancy for the post.
On Wednesday, however, Trump announced he would tap former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to oversee intelligence.
While in Congress, Stewart sat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Citing health problems his wife was experiencing, Stewart resigned from Congress last year, triggering a special election.
Stewart, who is also an Air Force veteran, now helms Skyline Capitol, a lobbying firm that in part focuses on foreign affairs and serves defense clients. He also chairs 47G — a Utah conglomerate of aerospace, defense and cyber companies.
The former congressman did not respond to an inquiry sent to his email address at Skyline Capitol.
In October, shortly after the anniversary of Stewart leaving Congress and the expiration of a prohibition on him lobbying members of Congress, he returned from a social media hiatus to express support for Israel following Iran’s retaliation for the assassination of a general in its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“Iran and its terror proxies are making the world less safe,” Stewart wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “History teaches us that peace can only be achieved through strength. The fastest way to peace is abundantly clear: Victory for our Israeli brothers and sisters, and the elimination of Iran’s terror proxies.”
Israeli leaders, as they continue a war against Hamas in which tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been killed, have reportedly been further emboldened by Trump’s victory to exert power over Palestinians, expressing interest in annexing parts of the West Bank, according to The Washington Post.
