When it comes to Sen. Mike Lee’s efforts to help overturn the 2020 presidential election, the Utah Republican has two problems, one of which is less obvious than the other.
The first, of course, is the GOP senator engaged in an indefensible plot against his own country’s democracy. Thanks to text messages exposed by a CNN report last week, we now know that Lee partnered with Donald Trump’s team to explore ways to reject American voters’ verdict: The Utahan invested time and energy into a fake-electors scheme; he touted the work of radical lawyer John Eastman; he personally tried to plot with state legislators; and he practically volunteered to be a puppet for the White House, pleading for a script from which to read.
What’s more, while Lee ultimately gave up on the plot when he couldn’t make it work, this was not a passing fancy for the Republican: The texts show the senator working on this secret scheme up until Jan. 5 — the day before Congress certified the results following an insurrectionist riot.
The second problem, however, is that Lee apparently wasn’t exactly honest about his efforts.
Indeed, as a Washington Post analysis put it, “A Republican senator … misled the country about his participation in a plot to overturn a presidential election.” Based on the available evidence, it’s difficult to miss the fact that what Lee said and what Lee did are in conflict.
None of this has escaped the attention of the editorial board of the Utahan’s hometown newspaper. The Salt Lake City Tribune published this striking piece yesterday:
Confession, it is said, is good for the soul. It should also be good politics. It is past time for Mike Lee to start fessing up to all he knows about the plot to set aside the results of an honest and fair election to keep Donald Trump in power. We know Utah’s senior senator had a much greater role in that plot than he has previously acknowledged, his constituents deserve a much more detailed accounting of what went on and the extent of Lee’s participation in it.
The Tribune’s editors added that the senator was not being truthful when he said he was only made aware of the fake electors scheme on Jan. 2, when we now know Lee was directly involved in helping coordinate the plot before then. The paper added, “It is time Mike Lee told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To his constituents. To the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 uprising. And to history.” Complicating matters, the senator also happens to be running for re-election this year. In fact, the Utah State Republican Convention is this weekend. As the Salt Lake City Tribune’s editorial board noted, the partisan gathering offers Lee an opportunity to “come clean.” That’s true, though I have a hunch the senator doesn’t intend to take advantage of the opportunity.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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