The Big Lie, Con't

Another hard reminder that Republicans besides Trump and his White House flunkies were actively working to overthrow the election, and that includes multiple sitting GOP members of Congress. That includes Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee and Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy, who actively plotted with Trump WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to declare Trump the winner fraudulently leading up to January 6th, 2021.

In the weeks between the 2020 election and the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, almost 100 text messages from two staunch GOP allies of then-President Donald Trump reveal an aggressive attempt to lobby, encourage and eventually warn the White House over its efforts to overturn the election, according to messages obtained by the House select committee and reviewed by CNN.

The texts, which have not been previously reported, were sent by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The text exchanges show that both members of Congress initially supported legal challenges to the election but ultimately came to sour on the effort and the tactics deployed by Trump and his team. 

"We're driving a stake in the heart of the federal republic," Roy texted Meadows on January 1. That text was first released in December by the House select committee and described as being written by a House Freedom Caucus member. Roy's authorship has not been previously reported. 

When situated in the overall timeline of events between the election and January 6, the series of texts from Lee and Roy provide new details about how two Trump allies went from fierce advocates of the former President's push to overturn Joe Biden's win to disheartened bystanders. By January 3, Lee was texting Meadows that the effort "could all backfire badly." 

But shortly after the election, both men were encouraging Trump to keep fighting.
In a series of texts to Meadows on November 7, Lee offered his "unequivocal support for you to exhaust every legal and constitutional remedy at your disposal to restore Americans faith in our elections." 

Lee went on: "This fight is about the fundamental fairness and integrity of our election system. The nation is depending upon your continued resolve. Stay strong and keep fighting Mr. President." 

Also on November 7, Roy wrote to Meadows, "We need ammo. We need fraud examples. We need it this weekend." 

In a statement to CNN, Lee's communications director, Lee Lonsberry, said, "I'd like to highlight that Senator Lee has been fully transparent," pointing to how Lee had called for an investigation into claims of fraud in the 2020 election but ultimately recognized Biden as president-elect and voted to certify the electoral results on January 6. 

 

The heart of the conspiracy here consisted of the pleas by Lee, Roy, and several other Republicans for Trump to get alternate slates of electors in order to make the election theft workable, and to use the chaos of January 6th as cover to initiate the plan to steal the White House.

 

The slates of electors didn't arrive in time, and when they were created, they were ludicrously illegitimate. 

The problem now is Trump has his own slate of GOP Secretaries of State who will steal the electoral votes for him in 2024. Lee, Roy, Trump, and the rest of the GOP were unable to steal the election in 2020 because states didn't play ball.

In 2024, they'll declare Trump the winner before the voting even happens.