In texts to Meadows sent in November, Lee is highly supportive of Trump’s efforts to undo the election through legal challenges, offering on Nov. 7, 2020 — the day news organizations projected Joe Biden as the winner — his “unequivocal support for you to exhaust every legal and constitutional remedy at your disposal to restore Americans faith in our elections.”
“This doesn’t have to come down to a binary choice between (1) an immediate concession, and (2) a destruction of the credibility of the election process,” Lee wrote to Meadows that day.
Lee makes clear that he was working hard to assist Trump, saying in one text that he was spending “14 hours a day” on the effort and contacting state lawmakers seeking anything to give Congress a reason not to count the electoral votes for Biden on Jan. 6, 2021 and affirm his win.
“We need something from state legislatures to make this legitimate and to have any hope of winning. Even if they can’t convene, it might be enough if a majority of them are willing to sign a statement indicating how they would vote,” Lee wrote in one text.
A spokesman for the Jan. 6 committee had no immediate comment.
The senator’s spokesman, Lee Lonsberry, said in a statement Friday that the text messages “tell the same story Sen. Lee told from the floor of the Senate the day he voted to certify the election results” on Jan. 6, 2021.
“[The texts] tell the story of a US Senator fulfilling his duty to Utah and the American people by following the Constitution,” Lonsberry said.
Lee’s words on the Senate floor that day, however, did not reflect what the texts showed: his frustration with Trump after the president criticized him at a Jan. 4 rally in Georgia for not doing enough to overturn the results, his complaints about fellow Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) and his recommendations to Meadows to seek the help of lawyers Sidney Powell and John Eastman.
“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,” Lee wrote to Meadows.
Meadows apologized and said Trump would call.
In another text to Meadows, Lee expressed frustration with Cruz and Hawley, arguing that the two were supporting Trump’s efforts only to their benefit, and Trump’s detriment. Lee said that unless the effort produced a competing slate of electors under state law, it would only hurt Trump.
Hawley had announced in December 2020 that he would object to the electoral count; Cruz and 10 other senators announced Jan. 2 that they would object.
“I have grave concerns with the way my friend Ted is going about this effort,” Lee told Meadows. “This will not inure to the benefit of the president.”
“I only know that this will end badly for the President unless we have the Constitution on our side,” Lee added. “And unless these states submit new slates of Trump electors pursuant to state law, we do not.”
Lee mentioned none of these concerns or frustrations during his Jan. 6 floor speech.
Lee’s willingness to support Trump’s campaign to overturn the election is notable given his experience — he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and was mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee when Trump ran for office in…
