Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) in a new interview said his post-election text messages with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were meant as an attempt to determine the administration’s messaging.
The comments come after CNN last week published a number of text messages between Meadows and Lee sent between Nov. 7, 2020, and Jan. 4, 2021. The communications were obtained by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and reviewed by the network.
In the messages, Lee expressed his support for the president and offered advice regarding Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including information regarding lawyer Sidney Powell and conservative law professor John Eastman.
On Nov. 20, Lee wrote to Meadows, “Please give me something to work with. I just need to know what I should be saying,” and on Nov. 22 he wrote, “Please tell me what I should be saying.”
In separate messages on Nov. 22, Lee said, “There are a few of us in the Senate who want to be helpful (although I sense that number might be dwindling).”
Lee is now discussing the meaning of those texts, telling Deseret News in a 45-minute interview that he was trying to determine the administration’s message at the time. The senator stressed that Meadows “knew I was not there to do his bidding.”
“He knows that when I said things like ‘Tell me what we ought to be saying,’ what I was just trying to figure out was ‘What is your message?’” Lee said. “He knows me well enough to know that that doesn’t mean I will do your bidding, whatever it is.”
“Conversations I had with him at the time on the phone and in person, he knew that. He knew I was not there to do his bidding,” the senator added.
Despite at first supporting challenging the results of the election, Lee ultimately voted to certify the Electoral College vote in January.
He said he “spent an enormous amount of time” doing his job with the sole objective of figuring out what, if any, role Congress had once the electoral votes were cast.
“From the outset of this, I spent an enormous amount of time doing my job with only one objective in mind. Particularly once the electoral votes were cast, my objective was to figure out what, if any role, Congress had,” Lee told Deseret News.
The senator told the outlet that he believes the communications between him and Meadows are being utilized out of context for “political motives,” and asserted that they came to light during a significant part of his campaign for reelection. Lee has been gathering with delegates this week ahead of the Utah GOP’s nominating convention, set for Saturday.
His primary challengers have knocked him for the text messages with Meadows, according to Deseret News.