Former President Donald Trump is tearing into GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham and Mike Lee, saying they should be “ashamed of themselves for not putting up the fight necessary to win” and prove claims of election fraud.
“I spent virtually no time with Senators Mike Lee of Utah, or Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, talking about the 2020 Presidential Election Scam or, as it is viewed by many, the ‘Crime of the Century,'” Trump said in a statementlate Wednesday night. “Look at the facts that are coming out in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and other States.”
His statement was released after a Washington Post article on Monday detailed a section in “Peril,” the new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa claiming Lee and Graham had both extensively vetted the claims of election fraud that were being made before the Electoral College votes were certified on Jan. 6 and had determined there was not enough to warrant the claims.
They both voted to certify the election’s results.
“If this were [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, with the evidence we have of Election Fraud (especially newly revealed evidence), they would have never voted to approve [Joe] Biden as President, and had they not, all of the mistakes that were made over the last month, which are destroying our Country, would not have happened,” Trump said in his statement.
He also said Lee, Graham, “and all of the other Republicans who were unwilling to fight for the Presidency of the United States, which would have included at least an additional four Republican Senators, two in Georgia, one in Michigan, one in Arizona. They are letting the Democrats get away with the greatest Election Hoax in history — a total con job!”
Lee and Graham both got briefed on the election fraud claims, and then called state officials and involved their senior staff members in vetting the matter, Woodwood and Costa write.
However, Graham privately assessed the arguments as being suitable for “third grade,” the book says, noting the senator had agreed to a Jan. 2 meeting with Trump’s then-attorney Rudy Giuliani and his legal team. The meeting was reportedly arranged by then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and held in his West Wing office.
Giuliani had a computer expert present a formula during the Saturday meeting that suggested Biden’s win in some states was unrealistic, but Graham, who at the time chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, demanded more hard evidence.
Giuliani promised him more details by that Monday, including proof that ballots were cast in the names of people younger than 18 and for dead people, the book says.