Senator Mike Lee Should Resign
And He Should Withdraw His Reckless Effort to Repeal the FACE Act in the Wake of the Targeting of Pro-Abortion Lawmakers
Spreading Lies about a Horrific Tragedy
On Saturday morning, Americans woke up to news a gunman had tried to assassinate two state legislators in Minnesota, both Democrats, murdering Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and grievously wounding Rep. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. As Minnesota Governor Tim Walz concluded his remarks about the man suspected of these evil deeds, whose image was captured on a home-security camera posing as a police officer, U.S. Senator Mike Lee tweeted that photo captioned: “This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way.”
About a half hour later, at 11:15 AM, Lee tweeted the image of the masked murderer alongside a photo of Vance Boelter, with the heading “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” referring, of course, to Minnesota’s governor and VP Harris’s former running mate and implying that Gov. Walz had something to do with these hideous crimes.
For a sitting U.S. Senator to respond to the murder and attempted murder of legislators with such callous disinformation is shocking, even in the debased politics of Donald Trump’s reign. Notably, the initial statement released on behalf of Trump was one condemning the murders. Of course, Trump later reverted to form in defending his failure to call the governor by asserting, with a slur, that doing so would be a “waste of time.”
As Senator Lee was spewing false claims about the murderer and getting millions of views on X for those cold-blooded assertions, the public was learning that the killer had a set of state and federal Democratic lawmakers on his hit list. The notion that this was the act of a supposed “Marxist” was absurd on its face, and before Lee took down those posts days later, they had been “hearted” more than 17,000 times. Throughout the weekend, as the manhunt for Boelter continued, the public learned from his friends that he was a MAGA Republican, but Lee still did not remove those tweets or apologize.
That’s not all. By mid-day Sunday, even as his colleagues like Minnesota’s U.S. Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar condemned Lee’s false and cruel tweets, he doubled-down. Lee retweeted a post by the world’s richest man and renewed Trump ally, Elon Musk, who asserted “the far left is murderously violent,” sharing a post by a right-wing instigator claiming the Left “now kills a MN state rep and her husband and injures a Senator and his wife” and bloviating that “the left has become a full blown domestic terrorist organization.” Lee headlined his retweet of this garbage “Fact check: TRUE” with Trumpian all caps.
Senator Mike Lee Should Resign
Lee has disgraced himself and disgraced the U.S. Senate. In his depraved hatred for the members of a competing political party, he has acted with utter dishonor and failed to comport with the basic decency we have a right to expect from leaders. He has been elected to represent Utah, a state that considers itself to be one of moral rectitude and neighborliness. Lee should resign.
Lee certainly knows by now that Boelter was targeting legislators who support abortion rights, along with having abortion providers on his hit list. Yet, we also know that just last week, Lee was praising efforts in the House Judiciary Committee to repeal the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE), an effort he launched earlier this year with Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). Is Lee, who has the audacity to misdirect people against the left, afraid to speak ill of an anti-abortion assassin?
The FACE Act
Before the FACE act was adopted in 1993, there had been “at least 9 murders, 17 attempted murders, 406 death threats, 179 incidents of assault or battery, and 5 kidnappings committed against abortion providers [plus] 41 bombings, 175 arsons, 96 attempted bombings or arsons, 692 bomb threats, 1993 incidents of trespassing, 1400 incidents of vandalism,” and other violence.
Contrary to the misleading claims of Lee and Roy, the FACE Act does not bar protesters from exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech, like carrying signs or distributing literature.
Lee’s proposal to repeal the FACE Act came just as Trump was pardoning 23 criminals convicted of violence against abortion providers. His legislative plans also came as Trump loyalists at the U.S. Department of Justice ordered federal prosecutors to reduce their enforcement of FACE Act protections for clinics. And this all comes in the aftermath of the Roberts Court overturning Roe v. Wade and federal constitutional protections for access to abortion. The Minnesota assassin’s roommate was unequivocal in telling reporters about Boelter’s active hostility to abortion rights.
Lee’s machinations to get the FACE Act repealed are affirmatively reckless.
Father ≠ Son
As part of my research into my new book, Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights, I took a close look at Senator Lee’s father, Rex Lee. His dad had served as the first U.S. Solicitor General for Ronald Reagan. Rex Lee was a conservative lawyer who had the integrity not to follow every whim or dictate of the president or right-wing operatives. As I noted in my book, “As solicitor general, Lee was regarded by many as an honest advocate. Justice O’Connor recalled that when right-wing Reagan supporters blasted him for not adhering at all times to Reagan’s policies, Lee replied, “I’m the solicitor general, not the pamphleteer general.’”
On Father’s Day, the same day Senator Lee posted that the left is murderously violent, he also posted a photo of himself as a boy with his father, writing, “He was a good man.” That tweet got half the “hearts” and millions fewer views than Senator Lee’s hateful tweets trying to blame the assassination attempts on the left. I think it’s fair to say that Solicitor General Lee’s son is not behaving like a good man. I think the Senator is acting in ways that would make his father ashamed, quite frankly.
If Lee prefers to be a pamphleteer, a no-apologies propagandist of the right-wing attack machine, I hear there are some lucrative jobs open at FOX, which has lost some of its stars to the Trump cabinet. Or perhaps these mean-spirited tweets are just another part of Lee’s audition for getting Trump to name him to a coveted post on the U.S. Supreme Court. After all, Lee was on the shortlist that Leonard Leo created last time around for vacancies Trump could fill.
What I’m reading:
Carrie Baker’s book, Abortion Pills: US History and Politics
I interviewed Carrie last week for the MeidasTouch Network on the Legal AF channel, which I co-host, and I learned a lot about the history of medication abortion, which was first approved in France 45 years ago and which has become the most popular abortion method in the U.S. since the Roberts Court’s decision in Dobbs to overturn Roe v. Wade. Medication abortion is going to become even more important for abortion access if Senator Lee succeeds in getting the FACE Act repealed.
CNN’s ongoing coverage of the efforts to uncover Vance Boelter’s terroristic plot
CNN is providing new stories about the man charged with murdering the Hortmans and interviews with others he targeted for his malicious crimes.
Amy Goodman’s coverage of the inspiring No Kings Day protests from Saturday
And, the Declaration of Independence, the original No Kings protest document, which condemned King George III for violating unalienable rights, including by “refusing to assent to laws,” which sounds awfully familiar right now. The 250th anniversary of the Declaration is next year: let’s celebrate it by continuing to speak out against the would-be kings among us. You know who I am talking about.
Are you a mission-aligned company or organization?
COURIER would love to partner with you and amplify your work to our engaged audience of 190,000+ policy influencers and high-information active news consumers. Send a note to advertising@couriernewsroom.com for more.