Former President Trump pushed back on claims that Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) vetted Trump’s claims about the 2020 presidential election, saying he spent “virtually no time” with the senators.
Trump issued a statement through his Save America PAC on Wednesday amid reports from the book “Peril” by journalists Bod Woodward and Robert Costa that the GOP senators were unpersuaded by Trump’s claims of election fraud after undergoing separate efforts to investigate them.
“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.
“Lindsey and Mike should be ashamed of themselves for not putting up the fight necessary to win,” the former president continued
According to “Peril,” Graham reportedly asked for evidence from Trump’s legal team that allegedly raised questions about vote totals in several states.
Graham, who was then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent the evidence to the panel’s top legal counsel, Lee Holmes. Holmes would find that the evidence “added up to nothing.”
The book also claimed that that Lee oversaw a “parallel” effort to investigate Trump’s claims but was ultimately unpersuaded.
After the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, both men voted to uphold the 2020 election results.
In his statement, Trump pointed to “the facts” that are “coming out” of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all states that President Biden won in 2020.
“If this were Schumer and the Democrats, with the evidence we have of Election Fraud (especially newly revealed evidence), they would have never voted to approve 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.
Trump added that Graham and Lee are “letting the Democrats get away with the greatest Election Hoax in history.”
Following the election, both state and federal elections officials, as well as former Attorney General William Barr, said that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. However, Trump and his legal team mounted dozens of unsuccessful challenges to the results in battleground states.
Republicans launched an audit in Arizona that was delayed earlier this year due to coronavirus infections. A final report has yet to be released on the results. The audit is focused on Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state.
The president won the election in Arizona by more than 10,000 votes, marking the first time that a Democrat has won the state in more than 20 years.
The Hill has reached out to Graham and Lee for comment.