Text messages published by CNN show Sen. Mike Lee efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Photo: Utah Senator Mike Lee

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Sen. Mike Lee addressed his text messages with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in an interview with the Deseret News published Wednesday.

“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?’ He knows me well enough to know that that doesn’t mean I will do your bidding, whatever it is,” Lee told Deseret of Meadows.

When asked about the credibility of the election, Lee told the Deseret: “President Biden is the president of the United States… We know that he is the president of the United States because the Electoral College met on Dec. 14 and then cast electoral votes. Those electoral votes signaled the victory for President Biden.”

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Lee claimed in the interview that he didn’t know lawyer Sydney Powell and didn’t remember how he got in touch with her.

“From the outset of this, I spent an enormous amount of time doing my job with only one objective in mind,” Lee said of his efforts with the Trump campaign. “Particularly once the electoral votes were cast, my objective was to figure out what, if any role, Congress had.”

The senator concluded by saying that he doesn’t think the messages will affect his campaign.

Lee eventually voted to certify the election results in January.

Full interview

At his monthly news conference on Wednesday, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Sen. Lee called him around Jan. 1: “He called me and he just said, ‘Look, I’ve researched all of these claims, I’ve looked at everything, and I just don’t think there’s anything there.”

Deseret News is owned by the Deseret Management Corp., a holding company affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sen. Mitt Romney said today that he disagreed with the efforts to reverse the 2020 election results on behalf of Donald Trump.

He added it did not appear Sen. Mike Lee did anything illegal in aiding that effort #utpol pic.twitter.com/l0TZzn0H7P
— Bryan “Trying Mightily” Schott (@SchottHappens) April 20, 2022