You might remember Mike Lee as one of the many lawmakers who ended up with COVID following Donald Trump’s infamous 2020 Rose Garden Super-Spreader Event. Or as the Republican who spent an entire night tweeting about how democracy is bad, but “prospefity” is not. He’s also one of the Republicans whose texts with former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows show him being quite happy to help push lies in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, though he’s now attempting to deny any of that happened.
Not surprisingly, Lee is also one of the many MAGA politicians facing the possibility of being unseated come November. But Evan McMullin, an independent candidate for Lee’s senate seat, was not about to let his opponent get away with not talking about his role in plotting to overturn the will of the American public. On Monday night, the two met on the debate stage and, as HuffPost reports, McMullin did NOT let up on Lee or his lies.
“You were there to stand up for our constitution, but when the barbarians were at the gate, you were happy to let them in.”
pic.twitter.com/3ETvm86UaC
— Reily
(@reilyseanconn) October 18, 2022
The former CIA agent told Lee that he thought about his many former colleagues who, on January 6, 2021, “left the warmth of their homes and the love of their families to risk their lives, not knowing if they would ever come home, in order to stop terrorists who were intent on destroying freedom in America… We trusted you. And with that trust — and with your knowledge of the Constitution, Senator Lee — you sought to find a weakness in our system. You advised the White House: Find an alternative slate of electors for Trump to overturn the will of the people.”
McMullin also took a dig at “legal quack Sidney Powell,” who Lee apparently pushed to have be a part of their failed attempt at election fraud. “It is a betrayal of the American republic,” McMullin told Lee. “You were there to stand up for our Constitution. But when the barbarians were at the gate, you were happy to let them in.”
When it was finally time for Lee, who sat smiling like a Republican robot throughout McMullin’s dressing-down, to speak, he stated that he disagreed “with everything my opponent just said, including the words ‘but,’ ‘and,’ and ‘the.’” (Which is a line you know he had been saving up for just the right occasion.) He went on to claim that “there is absolutely nothing to the idea that I would have ever supported — ever did support — a fake electors plot. Nothing. There’s not a scintilla of evidence suggesting that.”
Well, no evidence except for Lee’s texts to Meadows, which the senator attempted to explain away by claiming he was looking into “rumors” about alternate slates of electors. Which is awfully convenient.
Still, Lee insisted that “it’s not true” then told Lee: “You owe me an apology.”
McMullin: You are the only member of Utah’s congressional delegation not to be blacklisted by Putin. There is a reason why. In 2017 he was one of only two senators to vote against sanctioning Putin’s regime. In 2019, He went to Russia alone and discussed lifting sanctions. pic.twitter.com/FppIGXkyLL
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 18, 2022
McMullin, who was not about to apologize, also brought up the possibility of Lee having connections to Russia, noting that the incumbent is “remarkably the only member of Utah’s congressional delegation not to be blacklisted by Vladimir Putin,” wryly noting that it’s “an incredible distinction.”
A poll conducted earlier this month had Lee leading McMullin by approximately four percentage points.
(Via HuffPost)