House impeachment managers were forced to withdraw part of their case against former President Donald Trump after Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, said it was false.
Impeachment managers in a presentation in Trump’s impeachment trial Wednesday relayed that on the night of the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol, Trump called Lee in the Capitol, thinking he was reaching freshman Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama and a close ally.
“He dialed Sen. Lee by accident, and Sen. Lee describes it that he had just ended a prayer in the Senate chamber,” said impeachment manager David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat.
Cicilline implied that Lee “stood by” during the call and that Trump asked Tuberville to make “further objections” to the certification of the election results, which lawmakers were poised to complete that day.
Lee stood up in the Senate chamber at the end of the impeachment managers’ presentation and called on Democrats to withdraw the presentation that included references to him.
“Statements attributed to me moments ago by the impeachment managers, statements relating to the contents of the conversations between phone calls involving Trump and Sen. Tuberville, were not made by me, were not accurate,” Lee said.
Democrats attempted to vote down Lee’s motion to strike the presentation about Lee’s alleged call from Trump but abandoned it.
Democrats said the information about the call to Lee and Tuberville came from “a newspaper account” and agreed to withdraw it, with the possibility of “relitigating” the matter Thursday, when the Senate convenes for the third day of Trump’s impeachment trial.
Utah’s Deseret News printed a story Jan. 7 that quoted Lee saying Trump misdialed him trying to reach Tuberville while the Capitol was under attack. The story does not include any information or quotes from Lee about Trump allegedly asking Tuberville to object further to the election certification.
