Last week, The Deseret News published an opinion piece wherein the author proclaimed that the response to the text messages between Sen. Mike Lee and then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is “a tempest in a teapot” and that “one need look no further than the words of Lee himself on Jan. 6, 2021, to prove he has integrity and acted ethically.”
This is an interesting argument, especially given that the author arrived at his conclusion (that Lee has integrity and acted ethically) through a fallacy of defective induction. In other words, he made a conclusion that is not justified by sufficient evidence.
In truth, one must look at a broad sampling of the words and actions of an individual to determine if that person has integrity. Basing such a determination on only one statement is akin to concluding that a person is fluent in French because on such and such a date, he said “Je parle français.” How ridiculous would it be to say, “One need look no further,” for proof?
Of course we need to look further. The over 100 text messages exchanged between Lee and Meadows between November 2020 and January 2021 is an excellent place to start.
The very definition of integrity is that a person is whole, undivided and consistent in word, action and belief. And so, far from being a “tempest in a teapot,” Lee’s many texts to Meadows constitute a critical body of evidence for determining Lee’s integrity, especially when we compare them to other statements made by Lee.
On February 4, reporter Samuel Benson did an extended interview with Lee which was published here. After the release of Lee’s texts two weeks ago, Benson wrote a piece for The Deseret News that compared what Lee had told him in that Feb. 2021 interview with what was revealed by the released texts. There were multiple clear and disturbing discrepancies.
As Benson writes: “Was he [Lee] trying to ensure Trump remained on his side by placating his requests and aiding his efforts — while secretly objecting to them — or was he genuinely trying to help Trump overturn the election until the very last days leading up to Jan. 6 and then publicly telling a different story?”
Either way, it is impossible to arrive at a verdict of “integrity” for Lee.
In these texts, Lee proclaims his loyalty to Trump and his support of Trump’s attempts to remain in office. All of this only highlights the hypocrisy of the man who once strongly condemned then-candidate Trump and called upon him to “step down” and “step aside.” But partisan politics and personal ambition apparently led Lee to make a quick about-face after Trump was elected and he soon became one of Trump’s most loyal sycophants.
This is clearly seen in a text Lee sent to Meadows a few weeks after the election in November 2020 wherein Lee pleads: “Give me something to work with. I need to know what I should be saying.”
He needs to know what he should be saying. Is that not something an elected senator who has sworn to defend and uphold the Constitution should be able to answer for himself? Instead, by his own admission, he spends hours and hours over the next weeks pursuing possible avenues to keep Trump in power.
“I’ve been spending 14 hours a day for the last week trying to unravel this for him,” he wrote in one text. (And all of this, of course, was time spent not doing what he was elected to do.)
Two days before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Lee was still pursuing dubious means of overturning the election results. He wrote to Meadows on Jan. 4: “I’ve been calling state legislators for hours today and am going to spend hours doing the same tomorrow.” These calls were attempts to pressure state legislatures to submit an alternate slate of electors to overturn the results (i.e., the will of the people)—something that not a single state was willing to do since no evidence of widespread voting fraud was ever discovered.
In choosing to act as he did, Lee not only betrayed the public trust, but also our most cherished democratic institutions, including the Constitution he claims to love and defend. And tragically, however unintentional, his misguided efforts helped fuel the Jan. 6 attack on our nation’s Capitol — an attack that left five people dead.
The honorable thing for Sen. Lee to do at this point would be to step down. Because we know he will not do this, it is our responsibility as his constituents and as loyal Americans to make sure he is not re-elected.
Sharlee Mullins Glenn
Sharlee Mullins Glenn, Pleasant Grove, is an author, a community organizer and an engaged citizen.