Republican Sen. Mike Lee was caught fleeing from media questions about his inflammatory posts on the senseless murder of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman.
Over the weekend, the Utah senator posted a photo of Boelter in a latex mask, adding the caption, “This is what happens... When Marxists don’t get their way.” The backlash was swift, with many pointing at the copious amount of evidence that suggests Boelter was a conservative.
Now, a journalist for NBC News has shared a video of Lee running from questions about his post, including whether or not he regrets the tweet. Instead of answering, Lee and his staffers quickly walk away from the cameras, with one staffer attempting to cover the camera with his iPad.
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The interaction comes after a senior staffer in Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith’s office shared their unvarnished thoughts about the impact Lee’s comments have had on Minnesotans.
In addition, the senator herself confronted Lee about his comments, telling a CNN journalist, “I told him that I thought it was brutal and cruel. He should think about the implications of what he’s saying and doing. It just further fuels this hatred and misinformation.”
The email sent by the staffer has been shared online and details “how much additional pain” Lee’s comments caused on an “unspeakably horrific weekend.”
The email reads, “I knew Melissa Hortman. Many people in this office did. She was a longtime friend of Senator Smith’s, who had seen her hours before she was murdered. So you’ll forgive my candor as I speak through enormous grief.“
”It is important for your office to know how much additional pain you’ve caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend. I am not sure what compelled you or your boss to say any of those things, which, in addition to being unconscionable, also may very well be untrue,” it continues.
”But that is not the point. Why would you use the awesome power of a United States Senate Office to compound people’s grief? Is this how your team measures success?” the staffer asks, before going on to recap the horrific actions carried out by Boelter during his spree, which included murdering Rep. Melissa Hortman, her husband, and their dog, having earlier attempted to murder Sen. John Hoffman and his wife. Armed with a hit list that included the names of prominent Minnesota democrats including Governor Tim Walz, Boelter also visited the homes of two other Democratic lawmakers during his spree.
The email, written by Ed Shelleby, goes on to appeal to Lee’s humanity, reading, “I pray to God that none of you ever go through anything like this. I pray that Senator Lee and your office begin to see the people you work with in this building as colleagues and human beings. And I pray that if God forbid, you ever find yourselves having to deal with anything similar, you find yourselves on the receiving end of the kind of grace and compassion that Senator Mike Lee could not muster.”
Shelleby ends his email with a reminder of what the focus should be: Hortman’s life and legacy. He writes, “Lastly I suggest you take a few minutes today to read about Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. They were remarkable people... She was a force. And a human being. And I beg of you to exercise some restraint on social media as we continue to grieve.”
