Why do all these seditionists keep texting me their coup plans?

Mike Lee is arguably the smarmiest bastard in the world’s worst deliberative body, so it’s good to see that his attempt to overthrow the government is starting to get at least a little bit of attention:

In interviews with Bob Woodward and Robert Costa for their book Peril, which came out in September 2021, Lee depicted himself as someone who, through December 2020, “never wavered” from the view that Congress had no role in messing with Electoral College votes.

The story goes that someone “directed” him to speak with John Eastman around Christmastime.  . .

Then, on January 2, in Woodward and Costa’s account, Lee was “shocked” to receive a memo from Eastman. The memo—the short, two-page version, not the six-page version Eastman later developed—outlined a scenario where “7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors to the President of the Senate.”

It’s conceivable Lee was shocked that Eastman wanted the president of the Senate, Mike Pence, to play such a prominent role on Jan. 6th. But the idea of alternate electors is one that Lee knew plenty about—because he and his friends had been talking about it quite a bit.

Some relevant texts to keep in mind:Lee writing to Meadows on November 9, 2020: “​​We had steering executive meeting at CPI tonight, with Sidney Powell as our guest speaker. My purpose in having the meeting was to socialize with Republican senators the fact that POTUS needs to pursue his legal remedies. You have in us a group of ready and loyal advocates who will go to bat for him, but I fear this could prove short-lived unless you hire the right legal team and set them loose immediately.”

On November 23, Lee told Meadows that Eastman has “really interesting research,” indicating that he was familiar with Eastman and respected his analysis. (By this point, Eastman was apparently just starting to work with Trump’s political-legal team. He had not yet written his infamous memos or represented Trump in a rejected Supreme Court motion, but had sent out plenty of tweets insinuating that Democrats had by various means stolen the 2020 election from Trump.)

On December 8, Lee texted Meadows: “If a very small handful of states were to have their legislatures appoint alternative slates of delegates, there could be a path.”

Lee was on board with Kraken lady, coup memo man, and an alternate elector plot. Check, check, check.

Lee, like a lot of prominent Republicans, was all in on trying to “legally” [sic] steal the 2020 presidential election, then tried to slither out of his role in the attempted autogolpe by the tried and true method of lying his ass off to America’s Official Courtier to the Ruling Class, Bob Woodward, who dutifully performed his stenographic role.

Whether he and the rest of them are going to get away with it remains to be seen, but the fact that the DOJ has not seen fit, 16 months [!] later, to indict anyone of any importance for participating in the most nefarious political conspiracy in the nation’s history can’t be a great sign.