The Democrats’ Utah Senate candidate, Evan McMullin, went on Fox News’s “Special Report with Bret Baier” on Tuesday night to draw distance between his campaign and the Democratic Party.
McMullin, who was endorsed by the Democratic Party in April to run against GOP incumbent Sen. Mike Lee, denied using the party’s fundraising platform ActBlue to solicit donations.
“These are lies,” McMullin said, touting contributions from individuals across the political spectrum.
According to a schedule of itemized receipts from the Federal Election Commission, however, McMullin raised more than $350,000 from the Democratic fundraising machine. The website for the self-proclaimed independent candidate expressly links to ActBlue, and his campaign has paid out $1.6 million to Democrat consultants to run it. McMullin’s donor list also includes top Democratic fundraisers such as Rob Stein and Reid Hoffman. Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn, also bankrolled the legal defense of Fusion GPS.
The latest major poll in the race, published on Monday from Emerson College, shows Lee with a 10-point lead less than two weeks before Election Day.
While McMullin claims to run as an independent, his Democrat-funded campaign has adopted all the left-wing talking points of a liberal candidate operating a partisan operation. McMullin railed against the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade and slandered the Republican incumbent with lies about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
On the October debate stage at Utah Valley University, McMullin charged Lee with conspiring with the White House to hijack the Electoral College and turn the 2020 election for President Donald Trump.
“I think you knew how important it was when you sought to urge the White House that had lost an election to find fake electors to overturn the will of the people,” McMullin said. “Sen. Lee, that was the most egregious betrayal of our nation’s Constitution in its history by a U.S. senator, I believe, and it will be your legacy.”
An honest examination of events, however, shows that is just not true.
According to book reporting by Robert Costa and Bob Woodward, two favorites of the Washington establishment, Lee’s knowledge of a campaign seeking alternate electors extended merely to “a social media campaign — an amateur push with no legal standing,” not a real plot by the White House.
“In the days leading up to Jan. 6, when the votes were going to be open and counted, I had a job to do,” Lee responded to McMullin.
There were rumors circulating suggesting that some states were considering switching up their slates of electors. If that were true, I would need to know about that. I did research on that. I made phone calls to figure out whether the rumors were true. The rumors were false. On that basis, I voted to certify the results of the elections.
[READ: Blockbuster J6 Committee Expose: Mike Lee And Chip Roy Love The Constitution]
While Lee fights for a third term in the upper chamber, his same-state and same-party colleague Mitt Romney remains the sole Republican senator who has not endorsed his re-election bid.
“I don’t get involved in primaries and I don’t endorse,” Romney told Politico, saying he has “two friends” in the race. But days later, Romney attended a fundraiser for Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who vice-chairs the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 and overwhelmingly lost her August primary.
Lee challenged Romney to get behind the campaign on Fox News in mid-October.
“I don’t think Mitt Romney wants Chuck Schumer to continue to be the Senate majority leader,” Lee said. “If I’m right on that, then he needs to get on board, because that’s exactly what he will be producing.”
With just seven days to go until Election Day, Romney has offered no endorsement.
